Stalemate EVERY SINGLE TIME

[bebopdrums2424]

Ok, im about to throw my damn computer out the window. I have seriously NEVER played a more frustrating, angering, game that im obsessed with in my life!!!!!! Ive watched hundreds of tutorials, play throughs, everything.....and THE SAME ♥♥♥♥ HAPPENS EVERY TIME I go against a super power. STALEMATE. I CANNOT, no matter what break the line. especiialy once i push it to a mountain range. Once there, its pointless. I can through 100 units against it and it wont matter. I try, all the sneaky tactics, find a plains, cut through, ive got my divisions well designed, at least from the tutorials i watch. IM PLAYING ON FKNG EASY!!!!!! WTF!!!!! 10 year long entrenched battle with nothing to show for it?>??? What the fkg point??? I have air superiority....EVERYTHING....i cant break a line with a hundred ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ units????? THen what? what i do just watch the numbers slowly trickle down from green 95 to nothing???? WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???

[Thefallen501st]

what units are you using? Infantry or tanks? what combat width are they? Are you just using fighters and not cas or are you using both and if so how much?

[mk11]

It is not a tactical game it is a strategy game.

If you can't break through a static front adopt a new strategy. Invade to open a new front, use strategic bombing, use nukes to blow a hole in the line, retreat to lure the enemy out of their bastion and counter-attack and exploit onwards, etc.

[Ikazuchi]

That sounds like having watched the wrong tutorials and play throughs...

To be more accurate i would suggest posting screenshots of your division templates, maybe worldmap and researched techs.

It IS possible you get to a point which is "impossible" to break through, but in that case you need to find a work around. Busting through maginot for example is a bad idea.

Or if playing germany and going against the soviets you must keep supply up.
Means you might either have to pull units from the front or build up infrastructure to the front to keep going.

There are many reasonst to why you stop going forward.
Especially on easy you should steamroll across the world, not doing so indicates that you are making some kind of mistake.

[bebopdrums2424]

OK; so.....i do strategic bombing but doesnt ever seem to do anything obvious, but ill take it that it does something. i Choose to specifically bomb forts in this case. Im using a 20w infantry squad witha heavy tank attached, support artilery, engiineer and recon. THats my base unit for infantry, I have some motorized as well with light tank attached. fighters, not CAS, and strategic bombers. Its 1943 at this point and ive been at war with Japan for now 2 years and its been an excrutiatingly slow grind. Im playing USSR in this play through, and i have HUNDREDS of units on the encroached Japanese border which i have pushed back to a mountain range that runs the entire southern border of USSR. At this point it is a total stalemate. Ive got bazillions of factories pumping out equipment and for some reason im constantly low supplied. I dont know if this is due to lack of infrastructure or reinforcement, in that i built too many squads maybe, but it is a russian border, i have to have tons of units to secure this. I would make more intense tank squads, but in the case with mountain ranges they seem to be totally useless. Ive heard of this drawing them out, but on a border as big as USSR south, and hundreds of units, micro managing that gets rather tricky and cumbersome, and im not sure how to actually do that. My main tactic is to encircle and cut off, but sometimes even that doesnt really do much for me. If it does work, i can use that tactic until i inevitably reach a mountain range and then its just brick wall stalemate. To be clear, im not complaining, but MASSIVELY frustrated. I feel like ive learned everything i can learn from watching tutorials and understanding the UI etc etc, making the game work for me. At this point i just feel stupid and angry.

[Thefallen501st]

Originally posted by bebopdrums2424:

OK; so.....i do strategic bombing but doesnt ever seem to do anything obvious, but ill take it that it does something. i Choose to specifically bomb forts in this case. Im using a 20w infantry squad witha heavy tank attached, support artilery, engiineer and recon. THats my base unit for infantry, I have some motorized as well with light tank attached. fighters, not CAS, and strategic bombers. Its 1943 at this point and ive been at war with Japan for now 2 years and its been an excrutiatingly slow grind. Im playing USSR in this play through, and i have HUNDREDS of units on the encroached Japanese border which i have pushed back to a mountain range that runs the entire southern border of USSR. At this point it is a total stalemate. Ive got bazillions of factories pumping out equipment and for some reason im constantly low supplied. I dont know if this is due to lack of infrastructure or reinforcement, in that i built too many squads maybe, but it is a russian border, i have to have tons of units to secure this. I would make more intense tank squads, but in the case with mountain ranges they seem to be totally useless. Ive heard of this drawing them out, but on a border as big as USSR south, and hundreds of units, micro managing that gets rather tricky and cumbersome, and im not sure how to actually do that. My main tactic is to encircle and cut off, but sometimes even that doesnt really do much for me. If it does work, i can use that tactic until i inevitably reach a mountain range and then its just brick wall stalemate. To be clear, im not complaining, but MASSIVELY frustrated. I feel like ive learned everything i can learn from watching tutorials and understanding the UI etc etc, making the game work for me. At this point i just feel stupid and angry.

this is probably because you have no supply if you have a heavy tank attached to the division. Bad supply applies a 33% attack debuff at its highest rank

[Ikazuchi]

Originally posted by bebopdrums2424:

OK; so.....i do strategic bombing but doesnt ever seem to do anything obvious, but ill take it that it does something. i Choose to specifically bomb forts in this case. Im using a 20w infantry squad witha heavy tank attached, support artilery, engiineer and recon. THats my base unit for infantry, I have some motorized as well with light tank attached. fighters, not CAS, and strategic bombers. Its 1943 at this point and ive been at war with Japan for now 2 years and its been an excrutiatingly slow grind. Im playing USSR in this play through, and i have HUNDREDS of units on the encroached Japanese border which i have pushed back to a mountain range that runs the entire southern border of USSR. At this point it is a total stalemate. Ive got bazillions of factories pumping out equipment and for some reason im constantly low supplied. I dont know if this is due to lack of infrastructure or reinforcement, in that i built too many squads maybe, but it is a russian border, i have to have tons of units to secure this. I would make more intense tank squads, but in the case with mountain ranges they seem to be totally useless. Ive heard of this drawing them out, but on a border as big as USSR south, and hundreds of units, micro managing that gets rather tricky and cumbersome, and im not sure how to actually do that. My main tactic is to encircle and cut off, but sometimes even that doesnt really do much for me. If it does work, i can use that tactic until i inevitably reach a mountain range and then its just brick wall stalemate. To be clear, im not complaining, but MASSIVELY frustrated. I feel like ive learned everything i can learn from watching tutorials and understanding the UI etc etc, making the game work for me. At this point i just feel stupid and angry.

Please post screenshots, it is REALLY hard to evaluate something just by descriptions.

1)
Check supply in the supply map

2)
pause the game and click on one of the combat bubbles, hover over your attack defense etc. values and check which modifiers are applied.

3)
your template is just bad, sorry.
20 width infantry with heavy tank makes almost no sense.
It could be useful for a purely defensive infantry, but even there it lacks soft attack.
And the heavy tanks are kind of a waste there.

4)
strategic bombers: bombing forts only affects provinces which have forts.
Check if you really need that.
The usual use for strat bombers is to bomb infrastructrure in the enemies capital.
Fort bombing is only a "last straw" solution when trying to break through a heavy fortified area.

Seriously, if those are the "advice" you got from the videos you watched, never watch their videos again.
To me it seems like you got the worst advice possible.

[mk11]

Sounds like you are trying to push into SInkiang. Don't, there are far too many mountains there.

Instead, use your tanks to attack into Manchuria and Korea. Then push into Eastern China. To support this you will need to improve the infrastructure all the way from Moscow (i.e. build the trans-siberian railway).

However, can't really tell without screenshots.

[D3st]

Originally posted by bebopdrums2424:

Ok, im about to throw my damn computer out the window. I have seriously NEVER played a more frustrating, angering, game that im obsessed with in my life!!!!!! Ive watched hundreds of tutorials, play throughs, everything.....and THE SAME ♥♥♥♥ HAPPENS EVERY TIME I go against a super power. STALEMATE. I CANNOT, no matter what break the line. especiialy once i push it to a mountain range. Once there, its pointless. I can through 100 units against it and it wont matter. I try, all the sneaky tactics, find a plains, cut through, ive got my divisions well designed, at least from the tutorials i watch. IM PLAYING ON ♥♥♥♥ EASY!!!!!! WTF!!!!! 10 year long entrenched battle with nothing to show for it?>??? What the fkg point??? I have air superiority....EVERYTHING....i cant break a line with a hundred ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ units????? THen what? what i do just watch the numbers slowly trickle down from green 95 to nothing???? WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???

The problem i see is that you have no idea how combat work.I mean by this the bubble popping over unit when they engage.Otherwise you would know what you are doing wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBjywJmcEM


Watch this link and understand it.Its explain how battle work and mean the number on your screen when you click on the bubble.Once you understand it,you will make your division better and you will advoid attacking certain area or advoid attacking with certain debuff on your unit.

Note:you might have air but if you do not have enought cas bomber nor bad cas bomber,your plane won't do much dmg to thier organisation or equipement.

[bebopdrums2424]

Thanks for the replies everyone, im not a wargaming expert (obviously) by any means, but a huge WW2 fan.
Firstly, i do understand clicking the little circle gives you all combat info. As i mentioned, the issue is that im attacking entrenched units in mountain ranges, (but the entire front is a mountain range). The green button shows that im suffering massive debuff from terrain and then extremely low ORG, im guessing its due to low supply. This also happened to me AGAINST Soviet Union, and in this case, Germany had capitulated and i had taken some states, but the states on the Soviet border were France, and i could not build infrastructure there, so when you're deep in enemy lines and you lose supply, what do you do?
Im not attacking Sinkiang per say, simply trying to push Japan back off the mainland. I guess when you push a nations army back to mountains it becomes a stalemate and thats where things become frustrating.
Another issue im having with russia is keeping track of SO many armies...I generally want ONE army to punch a hole and another force to fill in the spaces behind me so i dont get cut off, the rest of the armies hold the line. What happens though is that once that big chunk of units punches through it starts to get spread out again and lose its punch.
As per the tank in the unit, i see your point, i suppose i was thinking the added DEF buff and keeping high ORG while still being able to field tanks seemed like a good idea. But maybe i will save that template as a def only unit and try it as a static DEF unit. The videos ive watched are the ones that immediately come up on youtube when you type "HOI 4 Tutorials": Its always the same posters....Quilld, Tauror, Dustini or whatever (SP).
AS per tank units, it seemed in my previous games, that tank units had a difficult time punching through because of terrain debuffs in hills swamps mountain etc, so it seemed that perhaps Infantry units where better suited to Push through a line since they dont suffer so much from terrain.
Finally, two more questions: As per attacking mountains, IF YOU MUST, is it wise to ADD special forces, like mountaineers to a standard infantry template, mix them in so to speak? Or just have templates of ONLY mountaineers?
Re; Supply: How do i know if my low supply is due to Infrastructure, or productivity?

THANKS ALL.

[mk11]

Pushing through mountains where the enemy can fully man the combat width is almost impossible and is guaranteed to be expensive.

If you absolutely must try it then use pure mountaineer divisions (add some rocket artillery if available) and support with lots of good CAS. Make sure you only attack with full planning bonus.

However, I can't think of many places where you can't go round.

There are fuel, supply and equipment. Production has nothing to do with fuel and supply only equipment. Equipment shortages if due to lack of production will show in the logistics tab if due to infrastructure will show as local shortages in divisions. Supply infrastructure issues can be seen in the supply display.

[El MaldingNoob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gBCJXDlJyI

Click on the gas container button on the bottom left and hover around. You can increase supply by building infrastructure that is on a direct route to your capital, or increasing infrastructure and port level if there is no direct land route. Also putting logistics in your divisions reduces the amount of supply they use up, and certain land doctrine techs reduce supply issues as well

[loner2018]

Originally posted by bebopdrums2424:

Ok, im about to throw my damn computer out the window. I have seriously NEVER played a more frustrating, angering, game that im obsessed with in my life!!!!!! Ive watched hundreds of tutorials, play throughs, everything.....and THE SAME ♥♥♥♥ HAPPENS EVERY TIME I go against a super power. STALEMATE. I CANNOT, no matter what break the line. especiialy once i push it to a mountain range. Once there, its pointless. I can through 100 units against it and it wont matter. I try, all the sneaky tactics, find a plains, cut through, ive got my divisions well designed, at least from the tutorials i watch. IM PLAYING ON ♥♥♥♥ EASY!!!!!! WTF!!!!! 10 year long entrenched battle with nothing to show for it?>??? What the fkg point??? I have air superiority....EVERYTHING....i cant break a line with a hundred ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ units????? THen what? what i do just watch the numbers slowly trickle down from green 95 to nothing???? WHAT AM I DOING WRONG???

Why don't you use tanks to quickly surround the enemy in plain terrain?Pay attention to your own supply lines. If you don't want to build too many tank divisions, you can quickly occupy the enemy's rear and surround the enemy with a large number of battalion cavalry divisions after the enemy's line of defense is penetrated

[loner2018]

A cavalry division composed of battalions doesn't have to worry about loss or being surrounded. If your tank troops are cut off from the supply line after penetrating the enemy's rear, you will suffer a great psychological attack and feel collapsed

[loner2018]

Originally posted by bebopdrums2424:

Thanks for the replies everyone, im not a wargaming expert (obviously) by any means, but a huge WW2 fan.
Firstly, i do understand clicking the little circle gives you all combat info. As i mentioned, the issue is that im attacking entrenched units in mountain ranges, (but the entire front is a mountain range). The green button shows that im suffering massive debuff from terrain and then extremely low ORG, im guessing its due to low supply. This also happened to me AGAINST Soviet Union, and in this case, Germany had capitulated and i had taken some states, but the states on the Soviet border were France, and i could not build infrastructure there, so when you're deep in enemy lines and you lose supply, what do you do?
Im not attacking Sinkiang per say, simply trying to push Japan back off the mainland. I guess when you push a nations army back to mountains it becomes a stalemate and thats where things become frustrating.
Another issue im having with russia is keeping track of SO many armies...I generally want ONE army to punch a hole and another force to fill in the spaces behind me so i dont get cut off, the rest of the armies hold the line. What happens though is that once that big chunk of units punches through it starts to get spread out again and lose its punch.
As per the tank in the unit, i see your point, i suppose i was thinking the added DEF buff and keeping high ORG while still being able to field tanks seemed like a good idea. But maybe i will save that template as a def only unit and try it as a static DEF unit. The videos ive watched are the ones that immediately come up on youtube when you type "HOI 4 Tutorials": Its always the same posters....Quilld, Tauror, Dustini or whatever (SP).
AS per tank units, it seemed in my previous games, that tank units had a difficult time punching through because of terrain debuffs in hills swamps mountain etc, so it seemed that perhaps Infantry units where better suited to Push through a line since they dont suffer so much from terrain.
Finally, two more questions: As per attacking mountains, IF YOU MUST, is it wise to ADD special forces, like mountaineers to a standard infantry template, mix them in so to speak? Or just have templates of ONLY mountaineers?
Re; Supply: How do i know if my low supply is due to Infrastructure, or productivity?

THANKS ALL.

Use tanks to break through the enemy's line of defense. Use cavalry to fill the front behind tanks. If you are rich enough, you can use mechanized troops, but if you are short of supplies, don't attack. In complex terrain, always use infantry to advance, but if the other party has too many troops and you can't advance, try to make some troops retreat, make a trap, select a favorable location, cut off the enemy's supply line, and eat a large number of enemy troops.

[Ryan]

You should not be using heavy tanks or strategic bombers against Japan. These units have no strategic value in a desolate land.

Step 1: Build your Infrastructure to level 7-10 from your capital to your eastern front. This will fix your supply problem.
Step 2: Create a 40-width Mountaineer division. No tanks! Just mountaineers and Support Companies. You should be able to field an army of 15 of these bad boys. This army will utterly destroy the enemy in the mountains. Support this army with tactical bombers from a distant but well supplied airport, and it's even easier. The game provides everything you need to win. You have to use the right tool for the job.
Step 3: Put Logistics Support Companies in your divisions. These will greatly lesson the amount of Supply they require.
Step 4: Use your 20-width light tanks (after you have upgraded infrastructure) to sweep across the north east into Beijing. Sweep down the Chinese coast and cut off the Japanese army. Park infantry divisions on every city and port you take.

LEARN HOW TO USE THE SUPPLY MAP MODE. This is your problem right here. You'll see why putting 100 units in a small area is a bad idea. I bet you are making 10 other completely obvious errors in your gameplay because you are playing on easy. Post some screenshots, and the forum will be happy to show you the error of your ways.