Why do I keep losing battles.

[Fatma]

I have about 80hr in hoi4 that means that I’m new to the game but I understand basic beginner things. I play as Germany single player because I’ve heard that Germany is the easiest country. I play on regular difficulty since I don’t want to play with buffs. The problem is I don’t understand what wins wars. I try my best to produce CAS, Fighters and tactical bombers(tactical bombers not so much) I lack air superiority and believe that’s a big part I’m losing. But I’m getting there. Now the big problem comes up. Templates.

Since I play Germany I go blitzkrieg so tanks and infantry. What I understand the infantry is not supposed to do damage. It’s supposed to hold the line. The tanks are supposed to pierce the enemy frontline and progress that way. Problem is my tanks get absolutely stomped by even countries like Poland or Czech and of course France. I noticed these countries have a lot of infantry. And soft attack is best against infantry. So I thought I would build a template with high soft attack but my org or defense gets affected really badly. Should I max defense and out sustains them? what template should i use? Right now I use 40w pure infantry(infantry) and 13/8 medium tanks(tanks). What am I doing wrong? Supply is pretty good. Air superiority okay but I still get stomped as hell. Is it the templates? The thing is I don’t know what the “meta” is. I also want to add that the green bar under my generals are always low(not org) why am I always inferior? Pls help me :)

Edit:
It has been some time since i posted this and i have come so far. Right now i have experimented with many things and right now i have a german playthrough where im trying to play somewhat historically. I stomped the french around the maginot. I stomped polish and i stomped the uk. Im right now trying to take soviet but i might fail as i wasn't able to take it fast enough and my infatry equipment is running low. I used only infarty 21 width 9 inf 1 art. This worked really well for me. I also try to outnumber my enemy by microing my units. I also want to ad to new players that this will take time. I spent literally hours just trying things out and ezperimenting with templates. My biggest tips that helped me: U need fuel, U need supply. Try my template (9inf 1 art. sup eng, art and AA). have green air and outnumber your enemy. It´s hard to explain what actually helped me and what actually made me win battles. Either way I want to thank all the people commenting and helping me. Just keep playing and trying and u will get there. Thanks.

[GossamerQuill]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9PTOTp1jOg&t=1517s
This video will help you.

[mk11]

There is no meta.

Large divisions are a trap for inexperienced players. They need much more care in their use than smaller divisions.

Take Germany attacking Poland as an example. Poland has very little attack ability so you only need one division in each state to hold the line. If you use a 20w division for that it frees up another 20w for offensive operations. Similarly with tanks you have the flexibility to spread out and then concentrate on weak points.

If you are going to operate without green air then it is worth having AA in your divisions. Support AA if you are contesting the air or line AA if you are conceding it.

Two critical things that are seen often in players that have unexplained problems are running out of fuel or not having 100% equipment in divisions.

[Drax]

Originally posted by mk11:

There is no meta.

Large divisions are a trap for inexperienced players. They need much more care in their use than smaller divisions.

Take Germany attacking Poland as an example. Poland has very little attack ability so you only need one division in each state to hold the line. If you use a 20w division for that it frees up another 20w for offensive operations. Similarly with tanks you have the flexibility to spread out and then concentrate on weak points.

If you are going to operate without green air then it is worth having AA in your divisions. Support AA if you are contesting the air or line AA if you are conceding it.

Two critical things that are seen often in players that have unexplained problems are running out of fuel or not having 100% equipment in divisions.

There is 100% meta. You just don't need to be meta to win against the AI.

20w is a bad and out of date template width. 15 or 18 width is much better for smaller widths. Large widths aren't traps at all. I don't understand what you mean about freeing up units for offensive operations... For Germany, you really don't even need to do that. They have the production and manpower to field a full front against Poland and steamroll them. It's actually inefficient to not use larger widths on every tile against them because you want to push them on every title possible. Against harder nations like Russia, it's preferred to have 18w divisions on a defensive line and an elite offensive unit for encirclements. But it's not to free up width, it's because smaller defensive units are more flexible in their deployment and can respond to changes in the front better. For Germany, you want your elite units to be tanks and motorized. There's no need to free up width because you won't be using them to attack in the first place.

Agree with you on AA and the last point though. Germany doesn't need to be played optimally at all really. Not having proper division templates, not having equipment, not having fuel, and not having supply are always the issues new players face. I would say though that he shouldn't be using tanks against Poland and Czechslovakia. Too early game to be concerned about those. Inf with artillery is all he needs and to push on a larger front. Actually, inf and artillery is all he needs for the entire game. Not even experienced players know how to use tanks well half the time, so learning the game with a single force of offensive infantry is fine. But even if he wants to stick with tanks, there's no way you can get enough out early enough to expand nicely. Either he's declaring without having built enough tanks, he's compromising everything else to build those tanks, or he's waiting so long that Poland can build a competent military.

[Fatma]

Originally posted by Drax:

Originally posted by mk11:

There is no meta.

Large divisions are a trap for inexperienced players. They need much more care in their use than smaller divisions.

Take Germany attacking Poland as an example. Poland has very little attack ability so you only need one division in each state to hold the line. If you use a 20w division for that it frees up another 20w for offensive operations. Similarly with tanks you have the flexibility to spread out and then concentrate on weak points.

If you are going to operate without green air then it is worth having AA in your divisions. Support AA if you are contesting the air or line AA if you are conceding it.

Two critical things that are seen often in players that have unexplained problems are running out of fuel or not having 100% equipment in divisions.

There is 100% meta. You just don't need to be meta to win against the AI.

20w is a bad and out of date template width. 15 or 18 width is much better for smaller widths. Large widths aren't traps at all. I don't understand what you mean about freeing up units for offensive operations... For Germany, you really don't even need to do that. They have the production and manpower to field a full front against Poland and steamroll them. It's actually inefficient to not use larger widths on every tile against them because you want to push them on every title possible. Against harder nations like Russia, it's preferred to have 18w divisions on a defensive line and an elite offensive unit for encirclements. But it's not to free up width, it's because smaller defensive units are more flexible in their deployment and can respond to changes in the front better. For Germany, you want your elite units to be tanks and motorized. There's no need to free up width because you won't be using them to attack in the first place.

Agree with you on AA and the last point though. Germany doesn't need to be played optimally at all really. Not having proper division templates, not having equipment, not having fuel, and not having supply are always the issues new players face. I would say though that he shouldn't be using tanks against Poland and Czechslovakia. Too early game to be concerned about those. Inf with artillery is all he needs and to push on a larger front. Actually, inf and artillery is all he needs for the entire game. Not even experienced players know how to use tanks well half the time, so learning the game with a single force of offensive infantry is fine. But even if he wants to stick with tanks, there's no way you can get enough out early enough to expand nicely. Either he's declaring without having built enough tanks, he's compromising everything else to build those tanks, or he's waiting so long that Poland can build a competent military.

Thank you for the info. I do have good supply and fuel tho. But if we talk infatry. Should I use a 7/2 or 14/7 typ of template? Isn’t that nerfed and really bad?

[drewbstar]

Take screenshots of your battles so we can see the numbers you're doing/taking.

[mk11]

Originally posted by Drax:

Originally posted by mk11:

...

There is 100% meta. You just don't need to be meta to win against the AI.

Depends what you mean by meta. To me meta means a very small number of options that are always best, like 20w and 40w with occasional 10w was before. Now it seems there are variations by country, date, and location so there is no single meta.

20w is a bad and out of date template width. 15 or 18 width is much better for smaller widths.

I wasn't intending to suggest 20w was a good width just working from the openers premise of 40w to suggest why 20w might work better for them.

Large widths aren't traps at all. I don't understand what you mean about freeing up units for offensive operations... For Germany, you really don't even need to do that. They have the production and manpower to field a full front against Poland and steamroll them. It's actually inefficient to not use larger widths on every tile against them because you want to push them on every title possible.

Totally true for an experienced player not so good for someone who still has problems managing their attacks. Also, they won't get to practice encirclements etc. that they will need later as you mention just afterwards.

Against harder nations like Russia, it's preferred to have 18w divisions on a defensive line and an elite offensive unit for encirclements. But it's not to free up width, it's because smaller defensive units are more flexible in their deployment and can respond to changes in the front better. For Germany, you want your elite units to be tanks and motorized. There's no need to free up width because you won't be using them to attack in the first place.

...

[casual]

Originally posted by Silver:

I thought I would build a template with high soft attack but my org or defense gets affected really badly. Should I max defense and out sustains them?

It might help to understand why you win or lose if you zoom in on 1 battle and watch it unfold hour by hour. And if you understand the basics of combat simulation (on wiki).

If you attack into infantry, you want your combined soft attack >> enemy defense, and your breakthrough at least equal to enemy attack. This way you lower damage you get and increase damage you inflict. If your tanks have enough armor (shield icon), you both halve incoming damage and increase your org damage.

Now, the more equipment such as tanks and artillery you add to a division, the lower your org will be. You can compensate that with more (mechanized) infantry, or doctrine choice, or by just concentrating enough firepower to push through before you run out of org.

Check the modifiers, do you have experience +25%? Do you have attack plan preparation +40%? Are you attacking into dug-in engineers in a swamp fort? Are you out of supply? Are you attacking from multiple sides to fit more combat width?

Good luck and have fun!

[trooperrob]

The Polish campaign is one where light and med tanks can push, because the enemy doesn't have good anti-tank weapons. Later in the game, med and heavy are needed for the same task.
Use the offensive battle plan if you don't already.

Driving tanks into a good defensive position is suicide. Look at Russian armour in Ukraine.

woods and especially rivers give massive debuffs. Dont attack those with armour units.
The Poles don't have enough to man all of the front line. Fix with the infantry, attack where the enemy is weak.
Always attack from more than one province at a time, you get massive buffs.
make sure you have good arty as well.

The key, is that once you have a gap, send everything you can through it.
Don't fixate on your original plan, you only need to breakthrough in a few areas.
Once the enemy are retreating, keep the sides fixed by attack, send your armour / cav/mot through the gap.
The aim is to penetrate and surround. The moment his troops have to retreat they have lost their entrenchment bonus.

You can absolutely do damage with infantry, but damage is done with artillery.
The problem with unhardened inf is that you take losses, less with more armour support.

fast moving units loses all their org, so you must let them rest.

With the latest version, tanks and mot inf lose all their effectiveness when short of fuel.
If you run out of supplies, you need to get the inf in to hold, withdraw the armour to resupply. I think the unit goes into battle with 30 days of supply. in a low supply area fuel users will use up their stocks and then are useless.

Plan short ops with your armour, or better, take the supply points and their rail lines quickly. you then rotate them out, or rest them in a good supply area.

Ensure you use the 3 truck supply setting on either the supply point or generals.

You can try using cavalry along with your motorised. They move fast but don't fall apart with no fuel.

regarding templates.
Tanks have very low org and defence. add mot inf for staying power. If you make the attack with armour, the unit will use some of its supplies and org in the battle, so has little left for the breakout.
adding to much armour or arty without inf will lower org too much.
Doctrines can raise org, so you should research those asap.

[velvetcrabman]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

The Polish campaign is one where light and med tanks can push, because the enemy doesn't have good anti-tank weapons. Later in the game, med and heavy are needed for the same task.
Use the offensive battle plan if you don't already.

Driving tanks into a good defensive position is suicide. Look at Russian armour in Ukraine.

woods and especially rivers give massive debuffs. Dont attack those with armour units.
The Poles don't have enough to man all of the front line. Fix with the infantry, attack where the enemy is weak.
Always attack from more than one province at a time, you get massive buffs.
make sure you have good arty as well.

The key, is that once you have a gap, send everything you can through it.
Don't fixate on your original plan, you only need to breakthrough in a few areas.
Once the enemy are retreating, keep the sides fixed by attack, send your armour / cav/mot through the gap.
The aim is to penetrate and surround. The moment his troops have to retreat they have lost their entrenchment bonus.

You can absolutely do damage with infantry, but damage is done with artillery.
The problem with unhardened inf is that you take losses, less with more armour support.

fast moving units loses all their org, so you must let them rest.

With the latest version, tanks and mot inf lose all their effectiveness when short of fuel.
If you run out of supplies, you need to get the inf in to hold, withdraw the armour to resupply. I think the unit goes into battle with 30 days of supply. in a low supply area fuel users will use up their stocks and then are useless.

Plan short ops with your armour, or better, take the supply points and their rail lines quickly. you then rotate them out, or rest them in a good supply area.

Ensure you use the 3 truck supply setting on either the supply point or generals.

You can try using cavalry along with your motorised. They move fast but don't fall apart with no fuel.

regarding templates.
Tanks have very low org and defence. add mot inf for staying power. If you make the attack with armour, the unit will use some of its supplies and org in the battle, so has little left for the breakout.
adding to much armour or arty without inf will lower org too much.
Doctrines can raise org, so you should research those asap.

Now that's a guy who speaks sense, only one thing to add, concentrate your armour, it's a needle not scythe, once you've made the break then motor/mech/cav can spread behind the lines, run the armour parallel for a space then turn back and breakthrough from behind to create a pocket. (Two small armour forces can act as pincers and do this way more efficiently than a single large one)

[hannibal_pjv]

Most likely it is the economy. You need a lot of civs to build your mils that will build your army.
Also having a lot of troops in the beginnig helps when you can send volunteers to the Spain and China - Japan war to build XP that you can use for many things....

[Daonar]

There doesn't seem to be a clear explanation of the case.

I had armies that are 100% supplied, 100% equipped, having balanced composition with infantry, tanks and lots of artillery, at maximum plan preparation bonus etc etc. And complete air dominance. Still losing ground combat to similar or even weaker (according to the tooltips) opponent.

No luck getting informative advice either. At best they point over yonder (e.g. "go watch some videos").

[hannibal_pjv]

What doctrines you have. Who are your generals and field marshals?
What level of tech you are in infantry and artillery?
There are so many things that could go wrong.

[Daonar]

Originally posted by hannibal_pjv:

What doctrines you have. Who are your generals and field marshals?
What level of tech you are in infantry and artillery?
There are so many things that could go wrong.

Are you saying that +1 skill from generals/marshals makes THAT MUCH of a difference? And same for doctrines?

All troop techs are current, as in *actually supplied* inventory is no more than 1 year behind in terms of tech. Sometimes it's as good as 100% current (no "upgrade" requisitions on logistics screen).

[Drax]

Originally posted by Daonar:

Originally posted by hannibal_pjv:

What doctrines you have. Who are your generals and field marshals?
What level of tech you are in infantry and artillery?
There are so many things that could go wrong.

Are you saying that +1 skill from generals/marshals makes THAT MUCH of a difference? And same for doctrines?

Generals and doctrines give nice benefits but you really don't need either to stomp the AI. Easiest way for us to help if there isn't a clear example is to share your save on google drive or something and share it here. That way we can get in and poke around.

[Ta110n]

The very basics is that encircling and destroying divisions is what you should aim for. Pushing divisions back just means they get reinforced and you have to face them again at full strength. Its more important to destroy divisions than take territory.

Find areas that are conducive to encirclement and entice the enemy into them even if you have to retreat and give up some land to get them there, then use your best divisions to encircle and destroy divisions.

Only when you have encircled and destroyed enough divisions can you go on a full offensive with a good chance of succeeding.

Infantry for defence
armour for attack breakthrough and encirclement