1776

Should you have subs in your main surface task force? Or does that slow them way down?

1777

Well, thanks to jpinard I decided to re-install and do my first run as the Soviets. I went with Historical decisions and Veteran difficulty. I hadn’t played since the initial release, and overall the game seems in a much better place. The performance is better in the later game, I like the fuel system, and the AI isn’t quite as brain dead.

Highlights include:

  • Science, not purges. I skipped the Stalinist purges and decided to put the main national focus on science and development instead.

  • Military Factory Factories - I invested in civilian factories up until the ~100 mark. Your initial civilian production is completely pathetic, so even though I wanted to make more military factories and units I felt like I had to drone up or I would be at a stand still in the later game. You don’t have much military production at the start, and most of it went to just shoring up the existing regiments with more artillery, anti-tank, anti-air, and support brigades.

  • Anti-fascist tankplomacy. I sent as many volunteer tank regiments to Spain and China as I could. In Spain the Republicans won, and in China the Japanese were kept to a few small incursions on the coast. I tried to especially assist the Communist Chinese, but all I did in the end was help them advance into some worthless desert provinces, where they would precede to suffer terrible attrition for the next 5 years.

  • Trotsky returns, resulting in a minor civil war centered around the Caucasus. The Stalinist Faction was quickly put down; the main difficulty was just the time it took to Trotsky the loyal troops to the front line and then march them to the rebelling city centers.

  • Invasion of Iran - I wanted to control as much “neutral” oil as possible, with the thought that this way the Fascists would be starved out of oil once the real war began. So I fomented a war with Iran. It was Ok. The Persians put up a noble defense at the mountain ranges, but eventually some light tanks slipped around them and proceeded to gobble up all their victory points. I’m not sure this had any lasting effect in the war, as the German tanks always seemed to have fuel whenever I moused over them. Possibly due to the German refineries. In any case it was nice to have the Persian factories, and I regret not taking over more countries sooner simply as a way to jump start the anemic Soviet industrial base.

  • In the West, history followed its more or less typical course. I tried not stabbing Poland in the back, but Germany still steam rolled Poland in short order, and then did the same to Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Norway, etc. And then after that the Nazis were at my border, and it was a just a few more months before they had declared war on the USSR.

  • But wait! I had a secret weapon, Republican Spain. They joined us in the war, and distracted the main body of the Nazis for a good 3, 4 months before they were completely crushed. We sent Spain our thoughts and prayers but otherwise could not help much. On the Polish front, our troops and the Nazis eyed each other across the border in a long sitz-krieg. In the sky our planes dueled; our fighters were outnumbered by 2-1 or 5-1, but they fought bravely and managed to kill 0.5 to 1.0 Nazi planes for each of our own that we lost. One positive factor is that while Germany took over Europe in approximately the historical timeline, they lost way more troops than in real life, with the total fascist casualties being like 2 million? 3 million? soldiers.

  • The invasion begins. I had the border stacked with infantry, as well as forts at level 3-4. These were able to absolutely brutalize the Nazis. The line starts to bend a bit in places, but it mostly holds firm against the advance. The provinces we did lose were because the Nazis would just push forward a block of 20 divisions, accept terrible losses, and eventually wear out and push back the defenders. This was starting to get worrisome, but then winter arrives and puts a halt to their campaign. One thing that went really well during this fight were my girthy, 40 width infantry divisions; they each had an anti-armor and anti-air brigade and this was always enough to pierce the armor of the German divisions. So the German tanks weren’t a real threat, and the main worry was just masses of German infantry. In this first push the Nazi’s lose about 2 million soldiers and the Soviets lose like 50k?

  • New Year, new fighting. One surprise difficulty was that the infrastructure of the border provinces was completely wrecked by the fighting, leading to supply problems and attrition. That would be something to consider for future games, investing in border infrastructure so that you can feed the vast numbers of troops that you will want on the front lines. The new year is marked by smaller German offensives which go absolutely no where. In the sky, my fighters continue to contest for air-superiority, and continue to reach for the elusive 1-1 casualty ratio. I try some minor counter attacks, using the light tank divisions that I had been building (I thought that the medium tanks would prove too expensive and too late to be used in the war, so I focused entirely on light tanks). The light tanks are completely ineffective against the German lines, and using them was like driving a clown car into a brick wall. The one time that the light tanks did manage to penetrate 2-3 provinces deep, they were cut off and 7 full divisions of light tanks were encircled and destroyed. For the most part I end up keeping the tanks back as a mobile reserve to reinforce any hot spots. I do manage to take back a few provinces, but there’s no major movement on the front lines. If anything, the problem is that the front line is too short, which meant my steadily increasing flood of infantry units had no where useful to deploy to.

  • The allies start making minor landings, most of which go nowhere. Still, it’s a nice thought.

  • Third year of the war! In an effort to increase the front line, I convince Romania to enter the war on the Soviet side. Yay, a new front! I send 48 full divisions to this new front to shore up the Romanian line, but the Germans and Italians still have enough forces to guard the new front and make advancing difficult. I’m taking provinces in 1’s and 2’s, but no major gains. The terrain is also terrible down in Romania, it’s all mountains and rivers. This doesn’t stop the Romanians though, who fight a continual series of brutal battles across these lines.

  • More sea invasions! We’re now seeing larger and larger incursions, with the US taking Rome(!) briefly before being kicked further down the boot of Italy. But they definitely have a beach head there, and aren’t going to be knocked back into the sea like the previous 12 invasions. For my part, I decide we need yet more frontline, and declare war on Bulgaria. This is the straw that breaks the AI’s back. Deciding that it needs to re-inforce the already strong Bulgarian lines, the German AI takes all the armies from the northern half of the Polish front and marches them down into Bulgaria. This leaves half of the main front completely unguarded and the Soviet troops pour through. In 2-3 months, our troops advance through Poland and Germany and into Berlin, brushing aside whatever scratch opposition they find. There are Normandy landings that explode into France, Germany collapses, Italy collapses, the Axis collapses. In terms of casualties this is one of the worst parts of the war; we lose half a million Soviets in an effort to take as much of Germany and Bulgaria and their resources as possible before the war ends.

  • Total losses: 1 million Soviets, 1.5 millions Comintern, 14 million fascists, 10 million imperialists.

  • Peace conference time; we take everything we can get our grubby Communist hands on. This means the Baltics, Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark, almost all of Germany, and some parts of Italy.

  • After this I feel somewhat adrift. It is 1943, The USSR seems to be in a dominating position, and I guess we could try to paint the entire map red? In the East, Japan is gradually conquering China, and America is I assume attacking Japan. I kind of want to start a new game, perhaps as Japan? If anyone has any Soviet motivation feel free to give it to me.

1778

I haven’t had much experience (playing or watching), but I think you might want to do light CLs, that is, if you can pump a lot more of them by stripping guns while keeping AA.

No, air coverage is just a multiplier of the naval strength.

1779

@jpinard I don’t put subs in surface task forces. As you say, that can slow them down. Also, my subs tend to have a different mission anyway – convoy raiding. I am no expert, but I think subs operated in their own task forces, separate from surface TFs, historically.

1780

So if I’m in a closed economy and not trading with anyone, how can I get raw materials back to Communist Spain who needs my help?

1781

That is an awesome AAR! You are much more effective in your campaign than I am! Though… one reason is the 40 width infantry. I’ve been reading their forums a lot and that’s basically a cheat vs. the AI as those divisions are monstrous and the AI can’t pick them apart.

I’m surprised China held firm vs. Japan! I have 8 tanks to Nationalist China and Alpine troops to every other Asian coop to try and stop the Japanese. We got crushed. Every single island in the Pacific and Indian Oceans (including Australia) are owned by Japan, and they’re now pushing into Africa AND the Middle East. EEK!

If you want to continue playing as Russia, go for America! That’s what I’m doing to try to do. But I still have to take out Great Britain and then decide if I want to hurt Japan first or not too.

1782

There are no diminishing returns on naval construction. If 1 dock builds a ship in two years, two will build a ship in one year, 8 will build a ship in three months. The reduction in build time is smaller for each additional dock but the increase in output is linear.

1783

You can’t, and it’s dumb. Well, you can indirectly, you can lend-lease them equipment, which is usually inefficient, but I don’t even know how to know.what they need, even though the AI always knows what to offer.

1784

So I can’t seem to take Istanbul from Bulgaria. What is the best type of troop to try and take something like that?

Never mind! I did a special heavy tank group and they got the job done!

1785

I’m going down this rabbit hole in the forums now, and you’re right, it looks like the 40 width has a ton of benefits so long as you have the supply and industry to support them. I was initially doing large division since it seemed cheaper (same cost for support brigades regardless of the division size) , but they are also much more effective in combat. Which might also have been part of why my light tank divisions were so useless; I never invested the Army Points to increase the size of the tanker’s template.

I got lucky on this front; I guaranteed Communist China, and so they were never attacked by Big China, and so when the Japanese attacked all the Chinas formed a United Front against the Japanese. The Chinas were still losing steadily, but they had held onto ~half of their provinces by the end of 1943.

1786

What is the point of having destroyers do patrols? I loaded up the Japanese to see what they were doing and they have all these Destroyer groups (12 per group) patrolling all over. I guess since I’ve been “navy blind” this whole game I’m not sure what spotting enemy fleets does for you? Or is patrolling how Destroyers find subs to sink? If so, why not assign Destroyers to the strike command instead?

Also the AI is doing something I didn’t think you could do. He has one patrol in each sea region, but they’re all part of the same task force. How did the AI separate individual sea zones within one task force? Or maybe it’s just coincidental that they are separated an in separate zones?

Also, I see he has a massive fleet in the Mediterranean but I never spotted them. Equally confusing has been times when I have ships in the same sea zone where the enemy is off-loading troops to attack me, but my ships don’t seem to see them. Is there a way to manually engage? Or tell a group of my ships to go to this zone and sink stuff ASAP?

I’m glad I loaded this up to see what is happening as I can learn a lot. This also shocked me. I’ve been waiting forever to destroy the British airfields, but when I was looking at them, they never seemed to go down a level. Now when I load them up to check their status it would appear the airfields, ports, etc can’t be bombed down to a lower number, but they can be damaged to multiple levels which lowers their effectiveness. So what shocked me is when I checked Britain out they had almost no fighters and not a single ship! I have thousands of naval bombers and apparently I’d wiped them all out. And here I was, going to wait for another year or two before invading them!

Speaking of invasions. How do you do an invasion and not get screwed by quickly running out of supply? I tried to take Sardinia from the lowly Italians as that’s the only thing they have left, but my tanks ran out of supply and got squashed.

Thanks. Sorry for so many more questions. What a fun night!

1787

From what I understand:

You patrol to spot an enemy fleet and then your “intercept” (forget the exact name) fleet comes out of port to get them instead of just having all your fleets at sea all the time.

1788

Yep, @ShivaX has it. You leave your Strike Force in port as those capital ships guzzle fuel. The patrol task forces look for an enemy fleet and once they find the fleet, the strike force sets sail and engages them.

1789

Yeah I view it as basically a bug in the combat model. Small divisions have way more ORG than they should, and large divisions take way less damage than they should. It wouldn’t be terribly hard to fix, but I suspect they just don’t want to touch that code.

You patrol so you can spot enemy fleets and attack them. Ships on strike will just sit in port until an enemy is spotted, so you need some ships out there to find them. Having air superiority and radar is also very helpful with spotting, but ships on patrol is a pretty key ingredient I think.

You probably want to take a look at these two dev diaries:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-naval-changes-1-overview.1124240/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi-4-dev-diary-naval-rework-1.1130312/

1790

Naval invasions are supplied from ports. So you have to capture a port and the level of the port determines how much supply you have in the naval invasion supply zone. Of course, if your supply ships going to the port keep getting sunk, then supply will be disrupted. Also, you can try to supply by air using transport planes.

You want to figure out roughly how much supply you can push through the port and don’t send units with very high supply requirements (like tanks) if supply is going to be tight. Also damage to the port will limit how much you can push through.

If you get control of the state you are invading, you can do construction projects to upgrade the port. Though I guess in Sardinia it’s just one state. You probably want low-supply units backed up with a lot of air power.

Edit: Looking at the wiki, it looks like a port provides 3x it’s level in supplies (assuming ships are getting through and the port isn’t damaged). So if you have a level 3 port, say, you don’t want to send more than 9 infantry divisions (assuming each is 1 supply) until you can upgrade the port. Well, maybe 10 or 11 since you probably get a little local supply.

1791

Thanks for all the answers! Wow what eye openers this is. Gonna check out those dev diaries too.

So, if Japan has all those patrols and has to send a strike force out - seems like they navy he wants to intercept would be long gone by the time a strike force shows up?

Also, would it make sense to have destroyer groups go sub hunting like that too? Not sure how one goes about sub hunting, if they do destroyer only, or do the destroyer patrol, then have a capital strike force hunt them down like normal ships?

1792

There two types of roles you want to fill when countering subs. One is convoy escort. That means having enough cheap destroyers on convoy escort to cover your convoys in every sea zone. If there are enough escorts, some will be there every time subs attack, and subs tend to retreat from convoy battles if they see even a few destroyers. The goal is chasing the subs away to minimise the number of convoys sunk even if the escorts don’t sink many subs.

The other role is sub-hunting. For going against subs, the problem isn’t so much having enough firepower, it’s having enough detection to find them. So people often do destroyers with enough depth charges to kill a sub in one hit and good sonar. To further boost sub detection, they often include light cruisers with a lot of float planes (and sonar). The detection level of a task force is the average of the ships in it, and you want that high for sub-spotting. I think having radar and aircraft in the zone also helps.

You don’t want your capital ship strike force to hunt subs because they have poor sub detection and capital ships don’t mount depth charges anyway.

Edit: All this is theoretical on my part - my forum-reading time is less restricted than my game-playing time!

1793

Sometimes, but usually not unless it’s some insane distance to the nearest port. Typically a task force at sea is doing something and whatever that is generally takes time.

1794

Do all task forces work that way? Do air wings work that way too? If so, mixing untrained and trained unit, or upgraded fighters and un-upgraded fighters might hurt?

1795

Is this automatic? If I have a bunch of BBs and CVs hanging out at Pearl Harbor, and my destroyers spot an enemy fleet near Wake, will my AI automatically send out my BBs and CVs to the Wake region to engage? Is there a button in the Task Force manager that I should be looking for? So far I’ve only been using the new training button in that window.