How to survive as Soviet Union?

[Stolen Rutters]

I disabled all DLC to open up your file… I see way too many untrained units and bad supply across the front, that’s a one two gut punch right there.

Spoiler

Green units get a -25% combat penalty, regular units get a +25% bonus to stats, so training is huge (regular is the highest you can train without combat I think?) Either way, if you compare -25% to +25% (0.75/1.25=0.60), you see the clover unit basically loses 40% of its combat ability compared to the regular training level. (Instead of using K to train units, I like to use shift-K on the entire selection, so training automatically stops for individual units when that unit reaches regular status… so I don’t need to spend time to track down and stop training for each army when the units reach regular level).

Poor supply reduces fighting ability too, railroads connected from the depot stations back to the capital can reduce supply penalty, assuming you have enough trains (and surplus trucks, of course).

Units are missing equipment, thankfully infantry equipment level looks fine, so you are mostly good there. I’m usually running into gun shortages in my games. But the support equipment shortage will reduce the effectiveness of logistic and field hospital Support brigades, for example. You are adding these support brigades to your templates, at the cost of organization. If you don’t have the support equipment, adding a support company to a template means you are functionally giving up Org for nothing, or at least for much less than your think you are benefiting from adding support companies…

Even so, Division Org seems low to me, and I don’t see a lot of doctrines selected on the list but that could be more a function of no dlc maybe?

I’m not used to no-DLC, the screens look really different so I’ll stop there. I could mislead, because I use all the dlc. There are doctrines in the Officer Corps tab that can add Organization to specific unit types, I didn’t look to see if you had the same doctrine options with a no-DLC game. Training would give you extra army points to spend on doctrines, circling back to those low trained units.

Edit:
Tldr: Training, supply, and missing equipment are the 3 obvious things I see in your save that could help (you have plenty of guns so equipment shortage is probably the least bad of the three). Lots of trucks and trains and railroads help supply, shift-k as your units deploy helps with training, and rebalancing your production some more helps with the equipment deficits.

 

[him_15]

Logistics is your best friend. Don't go head to head with Germany at their border initially, retreat to favourable defensive line such as river and supply hub. Make them suffer from attrition and continue attack, they would become weaker and weaker over time while you build up your army. Then strike them hard at the right moment.

 

[The Colonel]

Each division has 36 organizaiton is that good enough

As Marcelo said, this is a pretty low org (especially for infantry divisions). How much land doctrine did you complete (and which one)?

 

[Myoon]

As Marcelo said, this is a pretty low org (especially for infantry divisions). How much land doctrine did you complete (and which one)?

I had 2 doctrine of mass assault researched

 

[marcelo r. r.]

I had 2 doctrine of mass assault researched

Mass assault gives lots of recovery.

Try use 10INF, no line artillery, just support artillery(on brigades), it will improve your ORG, also less burden on industry(line arty requires more).

Mass Assault give LOTS of recovery rate, you should build a medium tank template for emergency, once they arriving, they should be used to defend the more weak spots, then move, the mass assault bonuses are good for tanks on that role.

if you are weak on Air, use support AA brigades, it's have some at capabilities, so AA its a multirole cheap anti tank/anti air.

 

[Myoon]

What's so good about recovery rate? Superior Firepower gives lots of organization to infantry isn't that better?

 

[marcelo r. r.]

What's so good about recovery rate? Superior Firepower gives lots of organization to infantry isn't that better?

when recovery rate org bonus surpasses the decay penalty when moving , you arrive with full org at new spot, so tanks combo recovery and speed for that role, move fast, recover fast, its a "mobile wall" tatic.

 

[Kanitatlan]

How many civ factories do I need to maximize mil factory production by 1941? I did the math myself and found I need to build 4 but I'm thinking that's wrong.

The actual cross over is about time rather than numbers. The general rule of thumb answer is something like build CIVs until 1938 and don't allow any new CIVs to be started in 1938. HOWEVER, I typically target later than the invasion as my production target and build CIVs well into 1938. This gives less equipment at the point when the Germans attack but a higher rate of current production at that time. There is a secondary trade off there but it is very dependent on knowing what is going to happen and your level of skill in dealing with it.

The key with your defensive divisions is the total org you have deployed in each province. For pure defence infantry divisions you want cheapness, decent org and numbers. The way org works in HOI4 is weird and you need to understand that weirdness. The org of a division determines how long it can stand against attack and doesn't increase with size. This means basic divisions based on your starting infantry plus support AA will hold a province for several times longer than your division design before being pushed back and take significantly less equipment losses in the process.

 

[Eisscrat]

@Myoon

Are you serious?

I gave you a huge list what you are doing wrong and you ask about orgnumbers civ counts and recovery rate.

Have you fixed the fundamentals already?

Get your production, unit composition, unittraining, and supply in order and after that you can try to squeeze some % more out of your units.

​

 

[Stolen Rutters]

What's so good about recovery rate? Superior Firepower gives lots of organization to infantry isn't that better?

No. You need to think about the bigger picture. When you pursue a certain direction with template and defensive setup, different numbers pop out as “better”. It’s more “a balancing act” than any specific number being “always better”.

Tldr, Just because the template is claiming a value doesn’t mean that’s the value you see in combat. There are modifiers. They can have a massive effect.

Spoiler

There is a +5 org in the 3rd doctrine you are getting close to. This modifier is small compared to other factors right now, since that only applies to leg infantry companies… but once you fix the other penalties, that +5 org is nice buff. Recovery could still be better (because it applies to the entire division and not just the leg infantry companies), but it makes no sense to switch doctrine tree this far in.

Your setup isn’t terrible. Fixing supply, training units, and addressing specific equipment shortages are all quite doable, fairly cheap, actions. (I mean, maybe not in the few months left you have to prepare for the war, but those are things you could have slipped into your game over the years without radically changing your present situation.) I especially love how you have no shortage of infantry equipment. That’s a huge plus.

Edit -

Spoiler

The org of a division determines how long it can stand against attack and doesn't increase with size. This means basic divisions based on your starting infantry plus support AA will hold a province for several times longer than your division design before being pushed back and take significantly less equipment losses in the process.

Yeah, one way to quickly address the serious deficit in supply equipment and artillery pieces is to convert some (but not all) frontline infantry units with missing support equipment to leg infantry divisions with no support company except anti air support. That will free up the supply equipment from those units to be transferred to other units that still have a shortage… and you get some units with around double the organization as a trade off!

Edit2 - A little point I noticed. You have MP support companies on more than one template. That is only ever necessary on the special garrison template (usually a cavalry setup). That’s a waste of support equipment outside of the garrison division, and it lowers division organization for essentially no gain in combat values.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

No. You need to think about the bigger picture. When you pursue a certain direction with template and defensive setup, different numbers pop out as “better”. It’s more “a balancing act” than any specific number being “always better”.

Tldr, Just because the template is claiming a value doesn’t mean that’s the value you see in combat. There are modifiers. They can have a massive effect.

Spoiler

There is a +5 org in the 3rd doctrine you are getting close to. This modifier is small compared to other factors right now, since that only applies to leg infantry companies… but once you fix the other penalties, that +5 org is nice buff. Recovery could still be better (because it applies to the entire division and not just the leg infantry companies), but it makes no sense to switch doctrine tree this far in.

Your setup isn’t terrible. Fixing supply, training units, and addressing specific equipment shortages are all quite doable, fairly cheap, actions. (I mean, maybe not in the few months left you have to prepare for the war, but those are things you could have slipped into your game over the years without radically changing your present situation.) I especially love how you have no shortage of infantry equipment. That’s a huge plus.

Edit -

Spoiler

Yeah, one way to quickly address the serious deficit in supply equipment and artillery pieces is to convert some (but not all) frontline infantry units with missing support equipment to leg infantry divisions with no support company except anti air support. That will free up the supply equipment from those units to be transferred to other units that still have a shortage… and you get some units with around double the organization as a trade off!

Edit2 - A little point I noticed. You have MP support companies on more than one template. That is only ever necessary on the special garrison template (usually a cavalry setup). That’s a waste of support equipment outside of the garrison division, and it lowers division organization for essentially no gain in combat values.

good points,
also lets remind the game is balanced around to allow germany have upper hand in first years, then Mobile Warfare-Left give them early high ORG, while the doctrines focused on firepower like SP/GPB/Mass assault will take time to pile up effects(more reliant on equipment or generals levels).

 

[BurningEGO]

Gorbachev

Haha dude. I am sure Putin would aprove of this.

You're not doing anything wrong. You just need to watch the battles and modify your game. I can stop the German Army at the border, but I can also stop the German and Russian armies at the border while playing as Poland. After 7000+ hrs of playing HOI4 I have this skill, but my wife just doesn't care. I started a list of how I do it and currently up to 12 things I always do (one critical) but it seems like I would be telling you how the movie ends before you see it and it would be a shallow victory for you. The three happiest days of my life were stopping the German Army at the border, birth of my child and getting married (may not be in that order) and I don't want to take that away from you. Now back to gaming...playing the latest DLC as Iran and currently #1 in total score...sweet update with a lot of bugs. I know...I'm a dork.

Damn. I thought you were about to say you could stop the German Army, and the Soviets, but not your wife.

i was playing HoI IV, 1936 start as the Soviet Union. I thought I was really well prepared; I had level 5 land forts on every province on the front line, a radar in every state, air superiority, and anti-air, but my lines almost immediately crumbled. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: I'm playing without any DLC

There are multiple ways one can achieve survive as USSR. As stated, if your divisions are like those in the picture, they are very weak. Definetely increase base infantry battalions. USSR is all about infantry (-generally-). And you can even go crazier with infantry numbers after getting Human Wave Offensive / Vast Offensives (land doctrines), because these doctrines decrease width per infantry, allowing you to increase infantry battalions per division and remain at the same width. Don't neglect logistics if the amount of men you are pouring at the fronts is too big, but don't be a fool and build railroads in a way that will help the Germans when they invade you either.

The Soviet Union doesn't need very powerful armies, but they do need numbers. Org will be an issue, so you can do 2 things: You either do like Marcelo said and/or you make a ton of divisions and spread multiple lines fallback lines right behind the front. Like this:

Steam Community :: Screenshot :: Strategic Bombing the Reich's Arse!

Steam Community: Hearts of Iron IV. Strategic Bombing the Reich's Arse!

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Screenshot :: Decided to try something else... Defense in Depth... Pretty good so far. Backed up by strategic bombers by the way, lol. (AI is boosted btw)

Steam Community: Hearts of Iron IV. Decided to try something else... Defense in Depth... Pretty good so far. Backed up by strategic bombers by the way, lol. (AI is boosted btw)

steamcommunity.com

The point of these fallback lines is to keep entrenchment up and org as well, so that the retreating lines can recover from defeat. To prevent encirclement and to deplete the enemy specially in terms of supply / equipment. And after some serious and stubborn resistance, even if you lose the tiles next to the front, the enemy won't be able to advance due to the walls of men you have placed behind (specially useful if you increased fort levels on certain choke points / important cities / good defensive tiles / supply hubs / airports). And as the front retreats, you re-do fallback lines behind the current front/active fallback lines). But this is probably too advanced for you. First you need to learn the basics of the game, then you can play something like USSR and expect to beat the Axis on a man-to-man fight in 1941. In some scenarios you can even think about pushing right from the start of the war instead of being on the defensive.

----------------------

How many civ factories do I need to maximize mil factory production by 1941?

Generally I am always building civ factories and only stop building civ factories when I have about 1 year to prepare for war. From all the great powers in the game, USSR is one of the few that can afford this and that actually has time to build them. Building so many civs will allow you to skyrocket to 300-400 factories easily. Of course, as main Stalin branch on historical (I use all DLCs, sorry). If I go ahistorical, things will be much different, and in many cases you barely go over 200-250 by the war's start. I also build a couple of naval factories right at the start, those do not suffer from handicaps anyhow and you could use some more boats, but this is more because of playstyle than anything else. You shouldn't bother with them (dockyards).

But since you are using no DLCs, well, I can only give generic advises:

1º build max infrastructure on provinces with a lot of slots (Moscow/Leningrad/Stalingrad for example) and then proceed to build civs on them
2º go for free trade / war economy asap and take decisions that help you decrease consumer goods, if able
3º prioritize stabilty if you can, via advisors (Mikhail Kalinin) or from some decisions, like "improved worker conditions"
4º Hire a Captain of Industry (+infra, +civ construction speed) advisor, if able
5º prioritize industrial techs like construction / concentrated industry and remember that each level of concentrated industry / dispersed industry will increase slots in each state, allowing you to build even more factories on the provinces you already maxed infrastuture on
6º switch to war production by early-mid 1940 or late 1939 (its hard for me to give a proper date or even answer your question directly by giving a civ factory number in your case since I use all DLCs so I don't know exactly what your civ number will be as you progress - No Step Back DLC adds a lot of specific things for USSR that help USSR industrializing/preparing for war, like less consumer goods from agitprop and extra modifiers from gosproyeststroy and these will modify any game by a good margin).

 

[Myoon]

Haha dude. I am sure Putin would aprove of this.



Damn. I thought you were about to say you could stop the German Army, and the Soviets, but not your wife.






There are multiple ways one can achieve survive as USSR. As stated, if your divisions are like those in the picture, they are very weak. Definetely increase base infantry battalions. USSR is all about infantry (-generally-). And you can even go crazier with infantry numbers after getting Human Wave Offensive / Vast Offensives (land doctrines), because these doctrines decrease width per infantry, allowing you to increase infantry battalions per division and remain at the same width. Don't neglect logistics if the amount of men you are pouring at the fronts is too big, but don't be a fool and build railroads in a way that will help the Germans when they invade you either.

The Soviet Union doesn't need very powerful armies, but they do need numbers. Org will be an issue, so you can do 2 things: You either do like Marcelo said and/or you make a ton of divisions and spread multiple lines fallback lines right behind the front. Like this:

Steam Community :: Screenshot :: Strategic Bombing the Reich's Arse!

Steam Community: Hearts of Iron IV. Strategic Bombing the Reich's Arse!

steamcommunity.com

Steam Community :: Screenshot :: Decided to try something else... Defense in Depth... Pretty good so far. Backed up by strategic bombers by the way, lol. (AI is boosted btw)

Steam Community: Hearts of Iron IV. Decided to try something else... Defense in Depth... Pretty good so far. Backed up by strategic bombers by the way, lol. (AI is boosted btw)

steamcommunity.com

The point of these fallback lines is to keep entrenchment up and org as well, so that the retreating lines can recover from defeat. To prevent encirclement and to deplete the enemy specially in terms of supply / equipment. And after some serious and stubborn resistance, even if you lose the tiles next to the front, the enemy won't be able to advance due to the walls of men you have placed behind (specially useful if you increased fort levels on certain choke points / important cities / good defensive tiles / supply hubs / airports). And as the front retreats, you re-do fallback lines behind the current front/active fallback lines). But this is probably too advanced for you. First you need to learn the basics of the game, then you can play something like USSR and expect to beat the Axis on a man-to-man fight in 1941. In some scenarios you can even think about pushing right from the start of the war instead of being on the defensive.

----------------------



Generally I am always building civ factories and only stop building civ factories when I have about 1 year to prepare for war. From all the great powers in the game, USSR is one of the few that can afford this and that actually has time to build them. Building so many civs will allow you to skyrocket to 300-400 factories easily. Of course, as main Stalin branch on historical (I use all DLCs, sorry). If I go ahistorical, things will be much different, and in many cases you barely go over 200-250 by the war's start. I also build a couple of naval factories right at the start, those do not suffer from handicaps anyhow and you could use some more boats, but this is more because of playstyle than anything else. You shouldn't bother with them (dockyards).

But since you are using no DLCs, well, I can only give generic advises:

1º build max infrastructure on provinces with a lot of slots (Moscow/Leningrad/Stalingrad for example) and then proceed to build civs on them
2º go for free trade / war economy asap and take decisions that help you decrease consumer goods, if able
3º prioritize stabilty if you can, via advisors (Mikhail Kalinin) or from some decisions, like "improved worker conditions"
4º Hire a Captain of Industry (+infra, +civ construction speed) advisor, if able
5º prioritize industrial techs like construction / concentrated industry and remember that each level of concentrated industry / dispersed industry will increase slots in each state, allowing you to build even more factories on the provinces you already maxed infrastuture on
6º switch to war production by early-mid 1940 or late 1939 (its hard for me to give a proper date or even answer your question directly by giving a civ factory number in your case since I use all DLCs so I don't know exactly what your civ number will be as you progress - No Step Back DLC adds a lot of specific things for USSR that help USSR industrializing/preparing for war, like less consumer goods from agitprop and extra modifiers from gosproyeststroy and these will modify any game by a good margin).

How to increase supply? I can't seem to upgrade my supply hubs in Byelorussia

 

[Kanitatlan]

How to increase supply? I can't seem to upgrade my supply hubs in Byelorussia

You have 3 basic methods for improving supply

• Increasing the level of the rail link back to your capital. This effects the base total available at each hub
• Enable truck supply either on the hub or on your armies (best done on your armies). This improves transport volume and range from a hub. This aspect is also affected by local infrastructure, terrain and weather conditions - winter supply in Russia can be very badly affected
• Things that reduce the supply use of your divisions - logistics companies, doctrines, leader capability - these can stack to a very significant reduction

Beyond these you need to understand why your supply is poor. If it is at the local province level then spreading your units out to avoid overloading a province will help. If it is the hubs being overloaded then you can get some benefit from trucks (supply gets drawn more widely so hubs further back get called on) but mostly you need better hub capacity or reduce the forces you have deployed in that overall area.

 

[BurningEGO]

How to increase supply? I can't seem to upgrade my supply hubs in Byelorussia

Kanitatlan said everything pratically. I would only like to add:

1º Keep train stockpile positive, to make supplies reach the frontline
2º If using trucks for supplies, keep truck stockpile positive, for the same reason as 1º
3º If you got transports (airplanes) you can also deliver extra supplies to certain air zones, but this is barely relevant since the amount of supplies delivered is tiny for a large army
4º Reliability. If logistics turn to be a problem, increasing reliability or even using a maintenance company can be a good way to compensate somehow. Generally I dont like wasting a support company slot for that, but it has its uses.
5º Some military high command advisors help combating attrition as well. Some countries start the game with those, others can get them as the game progresses, but I always find them bad as they take a slot that can be better used. I am merely pointing it out because it is also a way to mitigate attrition.

As for how you increase supply (directly) them in-game, you have 3 ways I believe:

1º You can go into construction mode and select that you want to construct supply hubs / railroads (in order to change view into supply) and then SHIFT + LEFT MOUSE click on top of the supply hub in question like this:

2º You can go directly into supply mode on the bottom right of the screen and then select the type of motorization you desire by clicking each hub and by cycling through motorization level:

3º Or you can change the type of supply for each army independently:

 

[Myoon]

I made sure all my units were in good supply at the start of the war but Germany totally wrecked my armies again what am I doing wrong

 

[BurningEGO]

I made sure all my units were in good supply at the start of the war but Germany totally wrecked my armies again what am I doing wrong

Supply in itself does not provides victory.

Losing land as USSR against Germany isn't all that bad. A lot of states are very poor anyway and barely provide industrial capability of some sort, and letting the enemy advance is a good way to make them deplete their own arsenal / stockpile due to poor supply. As far as you don't lose many men in the process, and you retain some power in order to stop their advance, its all good. In one of the screenshots I showed I had lost a good deal of Ukraine, my men were up to Zhitomir as you can see.

Have you tried to play as other nations? If so, were you sucessful with them? This is probably more of an unit template issue than anything else. If this is the case you need to learn how things work. And in this case I will be forced to agree with Eisscrat and his tips. Do you have a new save we can peek at?

 

[marcelo r. r.]

I made sure all my units were in good supply at the start of the war but Germany totally wrecked my armies again what am I doing wrong

you can lose land, then you just keep retreating focusing avoid be encircled, at some point German AI it will face itself on bad terrain/supply, and AI is very bad at managing that.

 

[Myoon]

Supply in itself does not provides victory.

Losing land as USSR against Germany isn't all that bad. A lot of states are very poor anyway and barely provide industrial capability of some sort, and letting the enemy advance is a good way to make them deplete their own arsenal / stockpile due to poor supply. As far as you don't lose many men in the process, and you retain some power in order to stop their advance, its all good. In one of the screenshots I showed I had lost a good deal of Ukraine, my men were up to Zhitomir as you can see.

Have you tried to play as other nations? If so, were you sucessful with them? This is probably more of an unit template issue than anything else. If this is the case you need to learn how things work. And in this case I will be forced to agree with Eisscrat and his tips. Do you have a new save we can peek at?

Here's the save for my new game!

 

[pro.gamer.69]

I don't know why you're at war with the Allies but assume it's because of one of your Balkan invasions... that totally nerfs you, the handful of factories you get from the Balkans are not worth offensive war penalties and being unable to trade with the Allies/get trade from the Allies. The exception is Romania, it's pretty OP to kill them as it denies the Axis most of their fuel, but you can time that so you don't deal with Allied guarantees I believe.

Anyway, here's your supply issue. Your rails are high enough level, you just need to motorize your supply hubs. You can set a field marshal to automatically do it, see the attached screenshot - in your save it was a horse icon (no motorization), click it once to go to partial motorization or twice to go to full mobilization, as it's at in the screenshot. When I did so everything received full supply, except for the divisions in Bosnia, where there were no nearby hubs.

Finally, you should switch everything but your tanks to use your infantry template, and stop deploying divisions when your existing ones are missing guns!