Hearts of Iron 4 announced

I definitely would not keep 24 tank divisions in one province for a couple reasons. For starters, you’ll want to attack from multiple directions at once, just for combat width reasons alone. 24 divisions won’t be able to fight all at once, but if you attack from multiple provinces you’ll increase your combat width so more tanks can bring their guns to bear.

The second is I would worry about supply consumption. Tanks tend to be pretty supply heavy so I would worry my logistics wouldn’t be able to keep up with that many tanks in one spot. A lot of that depends on what exactly your tank division is comprised of, though. From your screenshot it doesn’t look like they’re running into supply issues right now (although you have a critical supply shortage up in Scandinavia somewhere!).

I have critical supply shortage in Scandinavia? How can you tell? I must be ignoring some kind of warning?

Also thanks for telling me about tank attacks. I would have never figured out that I should not do what I’m doing. No wonder they’ve been TOTALLY useless!!!

You can see major alerts here (click the image if the forum crops it):

A backpack looking icon would you let you know you have a supply shortage. A backpack on fire like in that screenshot means the supply situation is pretty critical up there! Clicking on it should zoom you to the problem spot and you can look at the Supply map mode to see where the bottlenecks are.

In terms of attacking, always try to attack from as many angles as possible rather than attack head on. Reading through this wiki article on land combat can be helpful (even if you just skim):

https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare

In particular, with having 24 divisions in one province you want to be aware of this:

Tanks are you attackers/exploiter. Infantry are your defenders. Unless you were planning an offensive, tanks should have been in the rear to cut off any penetrations.

They started that way then I got impatient and started trying to plow them into some of the German wedges. Didn’t work lol.

As the Soviet Union should I have to build synthetic refineries? It feels like I’m missing some way of drilling for oil and moving that into fuel production. I’m not sure how much oil I’m even harvesting?

I don’t know that scenario yet. But you seem fine, with plenty on storage and currently stockpiling the rest (for 61 days to reach the maximum, though it’ll vary).
Hover over the fuel storage and it’ll tell you a lot of numbers about extraction and usage.
It’s nearly 42 and they’re barely into Russia, soon the allies should start regular invasions in France and Italy to alleviate some pressure, even with the current buffed up Axis AI.

What is the difference to divisions being on the top vs. bottom line?

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That view says the same thing as the view on the bottom (but always visible), it shows the army groups they’re in (or none). Try to have them always in an army group with a field marshal, even if they’re doing different things - it’s still a few more bonuses, and their location doesn’t matter (except when creating an army group front, but you can always modify it).

Wow that’s a big revelation. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll fix that.

If I don’t set a garrison option for infantry, will they still get entrenchment if they sit there long enough?

Yes, they’ll entrench whenever they’re not moving.

I have to say, @jpinard, it’s pretty impressive what you’re doing with the Soviets in your first stab at the game. The USSR is huge and a lot to manage, plus you have the Germans knocking on your door to deal with.

You definitely jumped into the deep end of the pool!

Thank you! I’m having fun :)

As Russia I don’t have any good Field Marshals because of the purge. Would it be worth it to me to promote one of my top Generals (Ivan Konev) so I get more bonus? I need lots of defense cause of Germany, so in the grand scheme, I’m not sure if he’s better as General or Field Marshal.

Are you supposed to activate your “plan” when you’re guarding a front?

No need to execute a plan while on defense.

Does building up infrastructure give you more resources? Watching a Youtube vid right now and he made that comment. In other news I lost my game again lol. I do not have good grasp on how I should be defending against the Axis.

Increasing the level of infrastructure in a province usually increases the amount of resources available. You’ll see the amount provided by infrastructure indicated by a ‘+ #’ value after the resource score while in the ‘build infrastructure’ mode. Provinces that provide very little of a resource won’t see a benefit from infrastructure. tip: building infrastructure can also unlock additional factory slots in the state.

Yes, it sure does. It can be worth it to build up infrastructure in resource-rich provinces (especially if you’re short on that resource).

Playing the USSR is not an easy game for a new player. Having to manage a massive front, the purge, and a ticking German time bomb can be rough when you’re trying to learn the fundamentals! On the plus side, you have oodles of resources and industry to play around with a bunch of stuff, which is great.

Really? I thought that was a separate mechanic.

Is there a way I can send my volunteers home and get a fresh batch of units. My current group is sapped.