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Jan 23, 2014 Good starter division, but is completely outclassed by 40 width divisions in almost every situation. Still good in low supply areas like Africa or Asia. 40 width 14/4 divisions are 14 infantry and 4 artillery battalions. This is preferable to the above division, especially if you're fighting in Europe. Sep 08, 2016 The marine division above have a High Breaktrough and still keep 35% bonus. (So it will take a 15% penalty). Light tanks give less penalty and a good punch while making any coast defense without AT to regret not bringing a AA or AT themselves. Need an actual template since bad template will bleed all the tanks. Need to pick proper attacking locations and micro correctly. Requires a lot of game mechanic knowledge. (fuel, supply, equipment levels, Air, understanding of unit stats) 7/2. Make a frontline, make a battle plan, click execute, watch.

Best Division Templates Hoi4 2020

You just started playing and keep losing in singleplayer ? This guide will teach you how to easily win with the following nations: Germany, France, Romania, China, Brasil, Italy, Spain. If you learn to win with those nations you can win with almost any other nation. Each section has both specific advice as well as general advice.

Intro

This guide assumes you have finished the in-game tutorial with Italy.

Unlike other Paradox games where the larger army usually means victory, Hearts of Iron IV is much more complex. Although it can be successfully played by massing infantry, at least in singleplayer, a few tricks will make your singleplayer experience easier and also teach you some basics of the game.
Since you've finished the tutorial you already know how to move and produce units and how factories work, but the game has a lot more mechanics than that, I will not even scratch the surface here, I will only teach you what you need to know for an easy singleplayer victory.
The game is easy to learn and hard to master, once you get to know how divisions work in-depth, how supply lines work, and how air and sea combat works as well, you will discover a whole new game that's especially fun in multiplayer. That being said, let's learn how to beat the singelplayer.
The AI plays poorly and doesn't do most of the things I will mention below, giving you a huge advantage over him.

One Division Exploit

Reduce your army to one division and then train it to farm army experience.

This may sound like a joke but it isn't. Unless you're playing Germany, Italy or Spain. As soon as the game starts, select your whole army and delete everything except for one infantry division. If you play with nations that have colonies such as France or UK check for troops in colonies too. Once you are left with only one division, assign it to a general and start training it.
To quickly do this, select your whole army then hold SHIFT and click on the unit you don't want to disband. Keep the infantry division that has as much battalions as possible, if you don't know what a battalion is you'll find out in the Division Designer section.
This gives you army experience. You will need army experience to costumize your divisions. You gain army experience based on how much of your army is currently training, if you only have 1 division that is training basically 100% of your army is currently training so you get a lot of army experience.
You don't lose manpower or equipment, when you disband your divisions their manpower returns to the manpower pool and their equipment to the equipment section.
You don't need to do this with Germany because you need troops in the field for focus trees, with Italy you can gain army experience from the war with Ethiopia and with Spain from the civil war.
Technically it's not an exploit because the devs know about this and they allow it, but it's called an exploit because it makes no sense in real life.

Generic Focus Tree Picks

Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, France, US, Russia and Poland have their own focus trees. If you have Together for Victory DLC: Canada, South Africa, British Raj, Australia and New Zeeland will also have their own focus trees. If you have Death of Dishonor DLC: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania will also have their own focus trees.
But every other nation has a generic focus tree. This is what to pick in a generic focus tree:

• The red ones are the picks if you want to go Democratic or stay Neutral.
• The brown ones are the extra picks if you want to go Fascist or Communist.

Start with the Political Effort focus for early Political Power. If you want to go Fascist/Commie go to Nationalism / Internationalism focus so you can get an early Fascist / Communist influence. If you don't, follow the industrial path right away until you unlock another Research Slot. The research that other one that gives you 2 extra civillian factories. Then complete the military factories focus trees. Then if you're fascist or communist follow the politica focus trees until Ideological Fanaticism. If now, start with the military focus tree right away, the equipment ones reduce the time you need to research infantry equipment and the land doctrine ones reduce the research time for land doctrines.

• Militarism and Military Youth are overpowered since they increase you military manpower by +5.00% and then by +2.00%, that's huge, but you can only get them if you are fascist.
• If your country isn't landlocked take a Naval Effort focus too as it gives you 3 Dockyards.
• Almost all focus unlocks take 70 days. Civilian factories are more important early on because they help you build other factories faster.

Research Picks

Research is basically buffs for your nation. Different nations start with different techs already unlocked but the difference is so small you won't even notice.

• Start researching from 1 to 8.
• The red ones are single picks.
• The brown ones are different picks of equal importance, the pick order is optional.(It has nothing to do with democractic/fascism as in the previous red/brown combo)
• After you start researching a Land Doctrine (number 5), always keep researching another one after you finish the previous one, they aren't limited by years and grant very powerful buffs to your army. You'll want to have as many Land Doctrines researched as possible before the war beings.
• This plans assumes you start with a nation with 3 research slots, in case you start with a nation with 4 research slots or one that has any of the first 3 reseraches already unlocked, research a Land Doctrine right away and then proceed as usual.

General guidelines after you finish the plan above:

• Always be up to date in Electronics and Industrial researches.
• Concentrated Industry is almost always better.
• Try to not research ahead of time, especially more than 6 months ahead of time.
• 50% research bonus may make ahead of time research worth it, especially for important equipment models such as weapons, planes, ships or tanks.
• Having a better decryption than another country's encryption allows you to see the composition of their troops and their current focus tree. They are more useful in multiplayer and kind of useless in singleplayer.
• I didn't mention anything about Naval, Air and Tank research because they are not needed for the purpose of this guide, you can beat the AI with infantry alone, but they are very important in multiplayer.
• Most researches take over 100 days.

Land Doctrines:
Mobile Warfare

• Focus on speed and maneuver to cut off and disorganize enemy forces.
• This is a great focus is you want to use many vehicles.
• Your army will have a lot of speed and organization.
• Organization is useful so your divisions will keep fighting.
• When you reach the end of this tree you get a +2.00% then +3.00% recruitable manpower. (OP)

Superior Firepower

• Focus on doing damage, hard attack and soft attack.
• One of the most used focuses in multiplayer.
• Best used with artilery in your division template.

Grand Battleplan

• Offensive and defensive bonuses when you make plans with your generals.
• You get some organization, some breakthrough, some soft attack, some defense.
• Unique increased max entrenchment, useful when defending and have an entrenchment company in your division. (For example with the 1936 equpment and this focus you get 39% defensive bonus, with the 1939 equipemnt you get 50% defensive bonus).
• Unique up to +60% max planing. This means that after you make a plan with your army, if you wait a couple of days, as soon as you activate the plan your army will have an offensive bonus for a short time. Normally this is only +50%, but with this focus you can make it +110%.
• If you don't make plans with your generals a lot or tend to play flexible don't use this focus.

Mass Assault

• Bonuses for out of supply or attirition situations. (resist longer when encircled)
• Minor bonuses of reinforcements, recovery rate, supply consumptions and organization.
• An OP +5.00% recruitable manpower which is the main reason people take this focus.
• Larger combat width so you can make larger divisions.
• A very short focus, which is not a good thing because you get to the end of it fast.

Mobile Warfare is when you want to outmanuver the enemy and also has that juicy +2.00% then +3.00% at the end. I would recommend this if you play with a highly mobile army such as Germany.
Superior firepower is the most useful focus in 90% of the situations. But it doesn't give you that +5.00 manpower like Mobile Warfare or Mass Assault.
Grand Battleplan is intereting and powerful if done right but rather rigid and if you don't use generals well you have basically little to nothing. I don't like this one because even if you use the generals right I'm still sure that the Superior firepower one is more useful. I would recommend this if you know what you're doing and have everything prepared so you won't have a new surprise front. The strength of this focus is on preparation.
Mass Assault is basically the Soviet Union in World War II, lots of troops that are despendable and don't need much care, don't need that much supplies and can survive longer without them, and you get that +5.00% really fast but the military focus also ends really fast. I would only recommend this if you play with a minor nation with small manpower and you desperately need manpower.

Laws and Government Picks

Mobilization -> Silent Workhouse -> Backroom -> Military Theorists -> Industrial Conceren -> Army

Once you reach 150 Political Power you can hire a minister. Each country has different types of ministers to pick from. If you don't find the mentioned minister for the country you picked skip the step.
The best way to start is to hire the Silent Workhouse since he gives you +0.30 more political power if you have any. And then the Backroom Backstaber since he gives you +0.10 more political power. Be careful with the Backroom Backstaber though as he gives you Ideology Drift Defense which is not good if you want to change your ideology. If you want to change your ideology hire the Backroom Backstaber only after you've changed your ideology.
You can also check if your country has Old Guards in Navy and Aviation. They give you +0.20 more political power. However, they are rare. I only know of Czechoslovakia who has an Air Old Guard and Poland who has a Navy Old Guard. If you have both an Old Guard and a Backroom Backstaber, hire the Old Guard first.
After you got all extra Political Power politicians you should now hire politicians that influence facist / communist / democratic ideology if you want to change ideology.
Hire a Military Theorist now. He gives you more army experience. Every contry has a military theorist.
Now Industrial Concerns. This allows you to research industry faster.

Best Division Templates Hoi4 Japan

Now start with the army, first the Chief of Army then Military High Command. After that at least for the purpose of the singleplayer it becomes less important, you can pick the Infantry Equipment research reduction then the tanks, navy and air.
I left this one for the ending because it's the most important yet the most ignored law by new players. It is even more important than Silent Workhouse - Economy Law. It makes wonders for your industry. It increases your construction speed by +20% (a lot) and descreases the consumer goods, the less consumer goods you have the more Civillian Factories will work in building new factories. By far the most important law. You will want to reach War Economy as soon as possible.
However, there's a catch. Unless you're communist or facist you will need: 5% World Tention for Early Mobilizaiton, 15% World Tension for Partial Mobilization and being at war for War Mobilization. In some singleplayer games, if you're lucky the world tension will reach 6% after a few 70 days or so, keep your political power so you can pick Early Mobilization as soon as possible. Unless you're playing Japan, at the end of 1937, Japan will declare war on China which will increase World Tension over 15% allowing you to pick Partial Mobilization.
Also, whenever you're out of manpower you can increase the Consciption Law (top left) for more manpower. The quality of your units doesn't change based on the conscription law.

Useful Information about War

• The more world tension there is, the less wargoal justification time required.
• Democracies can’t justify war against countries that didn't increased world tension.
• Territorial claims make justifications faster.
• There are 2 type of regional control: core territories where you get to enjoy the manpower from the population and 100% of factories slots, and colonies where you don't get more manpower from the population and have only 50% of the normal factory slots for that region. Click on a territory and hover over the flag to see whether it's a core or a colony territory.
• Justify war for a single state as it takes less time, you can still take the whole country in the peace treaty anyway.
• The amount of volunteers you can send depends on the number of divisions you have.
• Guaranteeing independence costs more for every active guarantee and each guarantee lowers World Tension by 1,7%
• If a nation is in a faction it will surrender only its core regions, it will keep the colonies and there will be resistance on its lands.
• If a nation surrenders without being in a faction it doesn’t produce resistance and the peace treaty will begin.
• A faction surrenders when all its major members surrender. Hover over surrender bar in the war screen for details.
• Faction members that haven't been invaded cannot be annexed or affected by the peace treaty. They will end up out of faction, at peace and with a peace treaty with the victor.

Factories, Buildings, Production

Your Civillian Factories build other factores. The more civillian factories you have the faster you build. I usually build until I have 8 - 11 Civillian Factories then I start building the Military Factories. With the extra Civilian Factories from focus tree and economic laws I will end up with over 15 Civillian Factories. When I play with small nations with limited factories slots I usually make less Civillian Factories before I start making Military Factories.
When it comes to production I usually start with a few Weapons and a bit less Infantry Equipment then a lot of Artilery. If I notice I don't have enough weapons or not as much as I need to train the troops I want I will add more Weapons / Infantry Equipment factories. It's all about having a nice balance.
Notice the White/Red line in Production picture, that's Production Efficency. When you make a new producation line the production efficency starts at 10% and gardually increases over time. The more Production Efficency you have for an item the more it is produced for the same number of factories.
When you switch to a different level of the same equipment, such as Infantry Weapons I to Infantry Weapons II, your efficiency is cut in half.
If you are missing some resources needed for production the item will still be produced but slower.
This shows how much equipment you have for each item. Everything that happens in production goes here. When you train new troops part of what is here goes in the hand of those new troops.
What items and how much a division needs is mentioned in the Division Design.

Division Designer

If everything so far only gave you an advantage over the AI, this will make you wipe the floor with the AI because it's one of the most important mechanics of the game yet one the AI doesn't care about. Almost as if the devs wanted this to be a game simple in singleplayer yet complex in multiplayer.
Here is where you spend all that army experience you've been farming so far.
A Division (1 unit on the map) is made of regiments (columns) that are made of battalions. Regiments don't affect the game mechanics at all, but it's nice to know what a regiment is.
You can rename, duplicate and change equipment options of a division for free.

Good Tank Division Templates Hoi4

You can mark divisions as Reserve, Regular or Elite - it affects the order they get their equipment.
Adding a battalion costs 5 army experience. Adding a support brigade costs 10 army experience.
A new type of unit in a division costs 25 army experience, the next ones cost 5 army experience.
Support brigades have no effect on width or speed. Tanks need infantry to counter low organization.
Recon and Engineer are worth it for almost every division. Anti-air is useless in both support and front.
The organization of the division is an average of the organization of all its battalions.
The speed of your division is the speed of the slowest battalion.
Your division should always have a Combat Width of 20, 10 or 40. (remember the magic numbers)
If your Field Marshal has 'Offensive Doctrine' ability then you can have a Combat Width of 22 or 11.
You can experiment with Division Designer and learn from the internet a lot, but for the purpose of winning World War II in singleplayer you only need to know 2 infantry divisions: A 7 - 2 offensive one.

Good Division Templates Hoi4

And a 10 defensive one for France and China in the early stages of the war.
With these divisions your units will be superior to the AI's units.
After you make your new divisions (the division you change should be the same division type as that only unit in the field you used to farm army experience, so that that division will change too) stop the training and start recruiting units of this division. Make sure you don't do this within a few months before the war starts because you won't be able to train as many divisions as you want right away.

How to Win with Various Nations

Germany:

• (1) Conquer Switzerland.
• (2) Get Austria and Czechoslovakia as soon as possible (take all Czechoslovakia)
• (3) Puppet Broken Yugoslavia by focus tree (Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia)
• (4) Make Bulgaria Join You. (by focus tree)
• (5) Puppet Greece. (by focus tree)
• (7) Send a few troops to defend the Italian fronts in Africa.
• (8) Attack Poland.
• (9) Attack France. (If you want to take their territory after you win don't create Vichy France)
• (10) Invade UK in Cornwall. (You need naval superiority, spam submarines)
• (11) As soon as you land manually rush some troops through Wales then Scotland.
• (12) Try to occupy their ports.
• (13) After the Allies are defeated go for Russia.
• (14) Congratulation, you won!
• (15) You can annex USA then just for the sake of it.

Additionally, if you want more allies before attacking Poland you can go for 'Plan Z' focus tree and influence Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
France:

• (1) Start with the factories focus in Algeria.
• (2) Continue with the Poltical focus to 'Strengthen the state'.
• (3) Followed by the Military focus to get rid of that 'Victors of the Great War' spirit.
• (4) Extend Magriot line. (focus tree)
• (5) Build forts on the western borders.
• (6) Make fallback lines on the Magriot line.
• (7) Have some troops in Africa to defend against the italians.
• (8) When the war begins if you did everything right your troops should hold Germany and Italiy.
• (9) Build forts on the border with Spain as well.
• (10) Make new troops and place them on Spian's border to defend.
• (11) Start creating offensive troops. (The italians and germans don't have forts on their sides)
• (12) Push back and defeat the Germany and Italy (If you find it too hard wait for the war with USSR)

Romania:

• (1) First make the Silent Powerhouse politician followed by the facist politician.
• (2) Go fascist as soon as possible.
• (3) Annex Bulgaria
• (4) Join the Axis before 'Second Vienna Award'.
• (5) Mass troops on USSR's border.
• (6) When they demand Bessarabia, refuse it.
• (7) Invade them and win.

China:

• (1) Go for a truce with Communis China.
• (2) Remove all your troops but one and train that one. (You should do this with every nation except the facist ones but with China is a must)
• (3) When you get 30 experience go to divisions and add infantry troops until you have 20 width. (The position on the table is purely esthetic)
• (4) Start making new divisions at the start of 1937.
• (5) After the divisions are out in the field train them until they get level 3.
• (6) Send 10 divisions to the fortified ports and the rest of your divisions to the border with Japan.
• (7) When the war starts even if you lost some territory if you reach a stalemate you should be fine.
• (8) When China unites don't send the new divisions yet, convert them to the 20 width divisions then train them level 3 then send them.
• (9) Start making offensive troops (7 infantry and 2 artilery).
• (10) Use the offensive troops to push Japan out of the continent.
• (11) Naval invade Japan and win the war.
• (12) Declare war to USSR and expand your territory.

Brasil/Argentina:

• (1) Conquer all of South America. (USA's guarantee is only against non-south american nations)
• (2) Use the new territory and factories to conquer the world.

Italy:

• (1) Puppet Ethiopia. (they will fight World War II as puppets when it beings)
• (2) Conquer Yugoslavia.
• (3) Place divisions in Africa, Sardegna and the border with France.
• (4) Invade France as soon as the war starts.
• (5) Do the same you did with Germany but with Italy this time.

Spain:

• (1) Win the civil war with whatever side you like.
• (2) Annex Portugal.
• (3) Attack France.

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Hearts of Iron 4 can be unapologetic ally brutal to new wargamers with the sheer amount of systems involved, and especially after several DLCs and patches. Whether it’s figuring out how to structure your forces or what plan of action to take as an Allied state facing imminent doom in 1936, it can be quite a challenge.

Luckily for you, that's where we come in! Now you have a handy guide to aid you in navigating the choppy waters of the second war to end all wars. Make sure you're up to speed with all the latest changes as of the 1.9.3. Patch.

Before we talk about the grand strategies that will fuel your world dominating/liberating campaign, it’s important to talk about the cogs in your war-machine. The level of control you have over the makeup of individual divisions and ships can be daunting, but as long as you follow the rules laid out to you, you will be conquering away in no time.

The Army

Arguably the most important part of an HOI4 military, most of the game’s combat mechanics revolve around divisions slugging it out with their evil counterparts on the opposing side. The most distinguishing feature between any two divisions is their makeup in the Division Designer. Here, you can add and subtract different types of battalions from a division, altering its combat stats and overall performance.

One of the most important considerations to take into account when designing a division is combat width. Each division will take up an amount of space on the battlefield, and having more divisions on a side in a fight will lead to reduced effectiveness, or will block reinforcements from joining the fight altogether. Most battlefields will have “combat width” of 80, meaning that optimal division sizes should be either 20 or 40, if you’re looking to min-max as much as possible (Note: if a province is attacked from multiple directions simultaneously, each new province will add 40 to the total allowed combat width, which means more units will be able to fight at once). Generally, frontline battalions will have a width of 2, the most common exceptions being dedicated anti-air and anti-tank battalions. These both cost 1 width as they’re not considered 'frontline' fighters. Artillery is the other main outlier, costing a heavy 3 width. If you’re approaching your comfortable limit, consider adding a support artillery company rather than an artillery battalion. These 'support' companies don’t bring as much firepower as their larger counterparts, but they add nothing to the total combat width of a division.

On the subject of support companies, two that are almost necessary to include are the engineer company and the recon company. The engineer company increases the amount a division can entrench itself, meaning that given enough time, a single division with an engineering team can become a major problem for an attacking force. Through research, the engineering team will also increase the general attack and defense of the division, particularly in rough terrain, i.e. urban environments, across rivers, forts, etc. The recon company provides simpler benefits: speed and reconnaissance. A division with a recon team will move 10% faster across every terrain type, meaning they can reach the fight faster. This is incredibly important for any division that can expect to fight, but particularly so for divisions that use vehicles. When your division does get into a fight, reconnaissance determines which tactic a side will pick in battle. The higher the reconnaissance value one side has in the fight, the higher the chance their general will pick a favorable or countering pick to the opposing force’s choice.

There are other considerations to take into account when forming a division, such as what your enemies’ divisions look like, and where you will be fighting them. For example, a division meant to fight tanks in European plains is going to suffer heavily if fighting infantry in African jungles. As such, here are some general tips to keep in mind when building divisions:

• The more battalions a division has, the more supplies it will need, so “heavier” divisions will frequently suffer attrition in bad terrain. Try using smaller divisions, or adding logistics companies to reduce the negative effects of the environment.
• All divisions that use trucks, half-tracks, or tanks should invest in a maintenance company. These companies will increase the reliability of the vehicles, meaning less are lost to attrition, and they will also capture a percentage of enemy equipment for you to use.
• Anti-air companies/ battalions increase your air superiority in a province, but they will only target close air support aircraft, not aircraft with strategic bombing missions (presumably, they fly too high for the anti-air guns to shoot them down).
• Standard “leg infantry” divisions are the most reliable and cost effective divisions you could hope for. You can build an infantry division to 20 width, add the necessary support companies, and then copy the template so you can alter it to fit your specific needs. Most of your divisions should be infantry divisions.
• Motorized divisions are faster than mechanized divisions until the third halftrack becomes available, keep this in mind when looking for speed.
• A division only travels as fast as its slowest part, so it may be wise to pair up a single super heavy tank battalion with an infantry division, as they move at the same speed.
• A single anti-tank company with the most up-to-date guns can allow most divisions to pierce enemy armor.
• Infantry has naturally higher organization than tank battalions and support gun battalions. As such, for campaigns that see units being in repeated battles, divisions with a higher ratio of infantry will be able to stay in the front lines longer.

For more information on divisions, I recommend checking out the Hearts of Iron 4 wiki page on the Division Designer & land combat stats.

Editor's Note:Grand (Strategy) Master T.J. Hafer also wrote a Division build guide for us that you can check out, although it's a tad outdated at the moment - part of the reason we decided to launch a new, more comprehensive tips guide for the game.

The Navy

The naval mechanics had a major overhaul thanks to the Man the Guns expansion, so don’t feel alone if you haven't played in a while and are confused about what’s new. Ships used to have a similar improvement structure to armored land vehicles and aircraft (which we’ll cover after this section) where a specific ship would be researched, then could be improved by spending experience points. Now hull types rather than whole ships can be researched, as well as the individual modules for ships. Every ship has an amount of slots that can be filled by these modules, but the catch is that ships will take longer to be built with advanced modules and higher amounts of modules overall. There are also restrictions on what ship types can equip certain modules. It doesn’t make much sense to put an aircraft hangar on a submarine, even though you really want to!

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Good Tank Division Template Hoi4

There are 5 main types of ship hulls: destroyer, cruiser, heavy, carrier, and submarine. There is a 6^th hull type, the super heavy hull, but that only exists as an alteration of the 1936 heavy ship. These ships can vary widely in their roles based on what modules are placed on them, so we’ll go into a breakdown of the general capabilities of specific hull types.

Destroyers are light and fast ships that are some of the quickest to produce. They can be outfitted with some modest main guns, but the 2 main uses of destroyers are as torpedo boats and submarine hunters. Due to their speed, a large amount of destroyers can swarm enemy heavy ships and deal heavy damage with torpedoes. These fleets are relatively easy to build due to the short build time of destroyers, and everything but torpedoes can be stripped off the ship to make the build time even quicker, though this will render them ineffective in any other situation. Destroyers can also be outfitted with sonar and depth charges, which is the one way surface vessels can attack submarines. Curiously, due to naval battle AI, submarines will flee almost any battle with depth charge-equipped destroyers, being that the destroyers can actually hurt them. This means that as of the current patch (1.6.2), destroyers may actually function better as convoy raiders than submarines, because destroyers will not automatically flee the second a small enemy force appears (Note: thanks to Rimmy for pointing this out in his HOI4 video!). This will hopefully not be true forever, but keep this in mind for the near future.

Cruisers are the most versatile of the hull types, with the ability to fill almost any role needed. Cruisers can be outfitted with heavy guns and armor, classifying them as heavy cruisers that can perform reasonably well as capital ships. Alternatively, they can have lighter guns mounted with a stronger engine, and they can pursue marauding destroyer packs, or they can have several anti-air batteries bolted to the deck as a means of creating a floating “no-fly zone.” But even though cruisers can cover many different bases, they don’t excel as much as the ship types that are meant to perform in those roles. Cruisers take longer to build than destroyers and aren’t quite as fast, and the heaviest cruiser will most likely lose a prolonged engagement with an enemy battleship. Even so, they can be a multi-tool for any situation, and can be refitted to change their role in the seas.

Heavy ships are the undisputed kings of the sea in the first several years of the game. They have access to the thickest armor and the largest guns out of all ship types, but they are generally slower than other ships, and take longer to build as well. The big guns on battleships are excellent at killing cruisers and other capital ships, but they are less accurate against destroyers. Battleships can trade some of their extra module space for smaller guns specifically meant to target lesser ships, but this lessens the effectiveness of the battleship in its primary role, which is to fight the enemy’s capital ships. Battleships also take a very long time to build compared to smaller ships, meaning that ships you begin construction on will likely be equipped with subpar tech by the time they launch. However, an old battleship is still a battleship, and can be very useful when working with a capable fleet.

Carriers are very straightforward as far as ships go: their sole purpose is to launch aircraft that will assist in combat. Aircraft are very effective against enemy fleets in large numbers, but a fleet with solid anti-air cover can severely inhibit a carrier’s ability to do its job. Outside of fighting specific anti-carrier fleets, carriers are arguably the strongest ship type in the game for the ability to project air power not only in battle, but in the sea region the carrier is operating in, or even the neighboring land province.

Much like battleships, carriers do take a long time to build, but battleships and some cruisers can make up for this time by performing carrier conversions that slap a flight deck onto these ships after removing the guns. They do not have the same aircraft capacity full carriers do, but they can be sufficient as support carriers. Carriers are vitally important to fleets in HOI4: if you don’t want to build any of your own, you should still plan to specifically target and kill enemy carriers. As of the most recent patch, fleets with the Carrier Air advantage impose positioning penalties on the opposing fleet as well

Speaking of killing enemy carriers, Submarines excel at hunting down enemy capital ships and shipping. They are also very, very cheap compared to other ships, so a fleet of submarines can quickly be assembled to threaten unprotected enemy ships.

General tips on building up a navy:

• Submarines, destroyers, light cruisers, and eventually bombers can lay mines in naval regions if they have minelaying modules. It may be beneficial to build cheap ships that just have minelaying / minesweeping capabilities so you can quickly build up defenses or clear them out as the need arises.
• Don’t be afraid to launch a ship then immediately send it to be refit with newer technology, the benefit of the newer tech can be worth the wait.
• Air superiority will impact the effectiveness of naval missions, so provide air cover for your fleets when possible.
• Build your fleet to counter the enemy fleet. If the enemy is focusing on building mainly capital ships, invest in torpedo technology. If the enemy likes swarms of smaller ships, build ships with many light guns that are more effective against those ships.
• Research engines early, being faster than the enemy fleet will give your ships a huge advantage.
• The bigger the ship, the more fuel it consumes. Ships with more advanced engines will use more fuel, so keep that in mind when your fuel is running dry.

The Air Force

Luna shadows wiki. The air power part of the combat trifecta is undoubtedly the most abstract, and has less moving parts than either of the other two dimensions. However, it is airpower that can be the determining factor in land or sea battles, so it is important to detail. Aircraft are split into 2 main trees, which I’ll refer to as the “light” and “heavy” trees.

The “light” tree has close air supports (CAS), fighters, and naval bombers. These aircraft are generally more agile and faster than the aircraft in the other tree, but have less heavy armaments and have shorter ranges than the heavy aircraft. These aircraft also have carrier variants that are generally slightly slower than their land-based counterparts, along with further reduced range. Light aircraft are meant to be deployed at the tactical level, or attached to an army so they follow them along the front as support.

The “heavy” aircraft consist of the heavy fighter, the tactical bomber, and the strategic bomber. These aircrafts have longer range and stronger armaments than the “light” aircraft, but consume more manpower, and are not as good at targeting specific units. “Heavy” aircraft, due to their range and their intended targets are generally better at the strategic level.

All aircraft can have variants that be upgraded in 4 categories: reliability, range, attack, and engine. Generally when creating a variant of an aircraft, it is beneficial to upgrade the category that the aircraft already is dominant in, in order to increase their strengths. For example, a fighter’s strength comes from its high agility, which both helps them to attempt attacks on enemy aircraft and avoid attacks from the enemy. Upgrading the agility of fighters would give them even more of an advantage over the enemy. However, the other categories do not need to be neglected for the “preferred” category, but every point sunk into an upgrade makes the next one more costly in experience points, so spend carefully!

General air composition tips:

• Heavy fighters perform better in larger provinces due to their increased range, while regular fighters perform better in smaller regions.
• Upgrading reliability on aircraft is always a smart move as this will decrease the amount of aircraft lost to accidents.
• The strategic bomber is relatively expensive compared to the tactical bomber. It may be wise to build more of the less effective tactical bombers for strategic bombing in order to have enough aircraft bombing the enemy’s factories.
• Heavy fighters are more expensive than regular fighters, but heavy fighters count more towards air supremacy for your side. Consider investing in a more agile heavy fighter to make more use of this effect.
• If you have multiple air bases in an air region, investing in longer-ranged aircraft is less important so you can rebase the aircraft to where you need them.

What other guidance would you like to see? Let us know your top Hearts of Iron 4 tips in the comments!

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