I'm trying to get into HoI4 - is the battle plan a feature that all players "play around" instead of using? Is there a nice guide to using it?

[Ellye]

This is the main point that I'm struggling to grasp with the game. I'm reading up the game mechanics on wiki and then some forum comments, and a constant I see is stuff like:

"You just assign all your troops to a marshal on a frontline, but remove them from the battle plan just to get planning bonus while they are on the front line"

"Assign your troops to a garrison order in the Sahara so they get the bonus but don't move"

etc etc

But this also suffers from the fact that a lot of information I find is from like 2018 and I don't know how much changed or didn't change.

Is it possible to play the game on the way that is "intended" to? Like using the Battle Plans arrows, execute, etc? Can you do targeted pushes like that?

TL;DR: Does anyone can point me to a guide on how to actually use the battle planner instead of working around it?

 

[GSP Jr]

I use it, but keep an eye on it.
It does some things ok, but the AI does not have the capacity to anticipate or think strategically.
It does some things poorly, for example army cohesion and matching units to terrain.
You just need to be like Monty, and stop every once and a while to 'tidy up' a bit.

 

[stormsand9]

I use it all the time, sometimes I let it run freely, sometimes I just watch and make micro adjustments when needed, sometimes I only draw the frontline and attack order for planning, and do all the attacks manually myself. Here are some examples.

Germany vs Poland: 99% I just let the battleplan run on my inf armies and tank divisions. The only micro I do is to move a division into Danzig (the battleplan AI doesn't attack there because its a demilitarized zone)

Italy vs Ethiopia: 70% of all my divisions I just let the battleplan run, but I micro my troops when nessecary to enter empty tiles before an Ethiopian division can reach it, or to make sure my troops are attacking the important areas like supply hubs, or ganging up on Addis Ababa before the Ethiopians stack 6 divisions in there and make it impervious to assault from 2-3 directions.

Soviets vs Germany: I don't attack with infantry, only with tanks, and for 85% of the war I just let my tanks battleplan and grind the germans out. I only start microing once their lines start to collapse either around big pockets like cutting off Prussia, or when I have so many tank divisions (like 24 of them) they are running amok and overunning everything, I just help them quick capture empty tiles.

Italy vs U.K in North Africa: basically 10% Battleplan, 90% micro from me. I need to watch carefully to try to encircle the british troops before El alemein, then make attacks either only at full strength and supply with coastal bombardment, or make attacks while undersupplied but against very weak british divisions before they can reinforce Alexandria.

Japan vs China: 95% Battleplanning. I just let my 9/1's overwhelm China, only microing my divisions to stop them from attacking the mountains in Northern China, then re-drawing the front lines to southern China. The final micro is just making sure my troops capture Changde (east of Chongqing, you don't need to capture Chonqing with collab governments, just around Changde)

Germany vs Soviets: 90% of the time I just let my inf armies and tank divisions battleplan and overwhelm the Soviets, only microing my tank divisions to make encirclements and then advance in Crimea because the frontline gets cutoff there and left empty.

 

[Emoneh]

The things you are reading about are exploits for people who are already very good at micro who want to get planning bonuses while not functionally using plans at all. This is basically irrelevant if you are new to the game. You should set up front lines and offensive lines using the planner, and activate the plan when you want a general offensive. You should use micro for smaller, probing attacks, and also during offensives at key points to get encirclements, capture supply nodes, etc. You may also wish to have your tanks in a separate army, put it on a front line where you want your key offensive, but never activate the plan, but micro it a lot. The idea of the battle plan system is that you can micro as much or as little as you want, depending on the situation. Don't worry about the exploits until you are good enough with the normal system for it to matter.

 

[Demonthese]

A lot of that is people optimizing for MP, absolutely not needed in SP. You can do stuff like phased attacks. The frontline mechanic is meant for, well, holding a frontline and for larger movements. For smaller stuff you will generally still want to micro. There can be some weirdness but by and large it does what it needs to and removes a lot of busy work from the player (the people who manually micro Soviet infantry frontlines are insane lol).

 

[quicklyrainbow]

This is the main point that I'm struggling to grasp with the game. I'm reading up the game mechanics on wiki and then some forum comments, and a constant I see is stuff like:

"You just assign all your troops to a marshal on a frontline, but remove them from the battle plan just to get planning bonus while they are on the front line"

"Assign your troops to a garrison order in the Sahara so they get the bonus but don't move"

etc etc

But this also suffers from the fact that a lot of information I find is from like 2018 and I don't know how much changed or didn't change.

Is it possible to play the game on the way that is "intended" to? Like using the Battle Plans arrows, execute, etc? Can you do targeted pushes like that?

TL;DR: Does anyone can point me to a guide on how to actually use the battle planner instead of working around it?

Generally, for single-player play I'd go with this: use the battle plans as general attack orders, but micro which units you want attacking which places. Does that make sense? Set up your armored army, give them a Spearhead or an offensive frontal attack, let it accumulate planning and click execute -- but as it's running watch the enemy and manually assign targets as things develop. The AI loves attacking backwards, even on spearhead orders, and it'll miss opportunities for breakthroughs if you don't watch it. It also won't concentrate enough forces, so if there's a strong point you have to go through, it'll bog down unless you issue manual orders.

Basically, you could think of it a little bit as, like, you're playing as Roosevelt and as Eisenhower. And the AI battle plan is acting like, I dunno, Patton. You have to be 4th Armored CO Hugh Gaffey, too. That analogy probably confuses more than it clarifies. What I mean is that the AI battle plan is acting a bit like middle management, and sometimes, as with any middle management, creative misinterpretation on the part of the people executing its plans is necessary. That analogy also probably confuses more than it clarifies.

Use battle plans, but tweak the movements as necessary to accomplish your goals. When your goals are accomplished or you're fighting more against the AI's interpretation of the plan than against the enemy, cancel the plan and start a new one.

 

[Bailing_Out]

This is the main point that I'm struggling to grasp with the game. I'm reading up the game mechanics on wiki and then some forum comments, and a constant I see is stuff like:

"You just assign all your troops to a marshal on a frontline, but remove them from the battle plan just to get planning bonus while they are on the front line"

"Assign your troops to a garrison order in the Sahara so they get the bonus but don't move"

etc etc

But this also suffers from the fact that a lot of information I find is from like 2018 and I don't know how much changed or didn't change.

Is it possible to play the game on the way that is "intended" to? Like using the Battle Plans arrows, execute, etc? Can you do targeted pushes like that?

TL;DR: Does anyone can point me to a guide on how to actually use the battle planner instead of working around it?

I suggest you start drinking heavily as I am right now. That should help alot

 

[BurningEGO]

I suggest you start drinking heavily as I am right now. That should help alot

So you think the devs "intended" us to be drunk while playing?

Could be, at least we wouldn't notice some of the ugly things of the game... But the next day in the morning, you have a terrible headache and the truth is still out there!

 

[Bigvanvader]

I will set a garrison order in some unreachable land if I'm messing around with volunteers or I'm a minor with a handful of divs, or theres some action in a very tightly focused area, otherwise front line, click the button, maybe a few bits of micro here and there

 

[JakeSpeed]

Let me start with 'Congratulations' on reaching out for some guidance and hopefully you find HOI4 as much fun as many other players.

• The point of battle planning is combat bonuses....THE END.
• Understanding when it is worth chasing is more important in my mind
• Understanding the methods to manage troop orders is foundational

Here is a quick overview of how HOI4 manages ground combat

Grouping Military Units in HOI4

• Multi-Army groups - normally headed by a Field Marshall
• Single Army Groups - normally headed by a General
• Division - a group of fighting units made up of one or more battalion types (infantry, motorized Infantry, light tank, med tank, artillery, etc...) that are assigned to an army
  • Each country has its own divisions templates
  • Not all countries use the same division templates for the same function
  • Research can enable specific battalion types that add....
    • additional division templates
    • additional battalion types
  • At some point you will want to design your own division templates to improve your combat win/loss ratios
• Battalion - a fighting unit with a specific type of function (infantry, motorized Infantry, light tank, med tank, artillery, etc...) that is assigned to a division

Army Leadership

• Field Marshall - individual that overseas multiple armies and can provide bonuses to combat (by default the max is 5 armies per Field Marshall)
• General - individual that oversees multiple divisions and can provide bonuses to those divisions in combat (by default the max is 24 divisions per General)

The automated combat system is not as intuitive as one might hope. For this reason, I babysit it to avoid things going sideways. In order to automate ground combat, I normally use the following orders...

3 Introductory types of orders assigned to military groups

• Front Line - places your army on the border of a single country (if not at war) or all the countries you are currently fighting that share the same contiguous border
• Offensive Line - A directive (and direction) for your troops to fight towards when at war. (Requires an existing Front Line)
• Fallback Line - A directive to assign troops to a specific location that is under your country's control, or that of a faction member, or a country that has grated your country military access

Order Are Assigned to...

• an army (with or without a general assigned to said army)
  • If the selected army does not have any orders currently active/assigned, then the order is immediately assigned to all divisions in the army
  • Else, manually assigning 1 or more divisions from the army is required
• a group of armies (with or without a Field Marshall assigned to said multi army group)
  • This applies to all armies under the field Marshall unless one or more armies are already assigned to a previous order (front line, offensive line, etc...)
  • Having 2 or more frontline orders for a Fields Marshall can lead to chaos as the lines moves. Making 2 or more front lines for a Field Marshall can be done intentionally by the players or naturally as combat proceeds. Not paying attention can lead to total collapse
    • portions of or entire armies can relocate to another portion of the frontline mid battle or to the 'other' frontline
    • the spacing of the armies across the front line can stretch and shrink in unexpected ways
    • Trying to correct this can lead to more chaos as you attempt to reassign an army back to its original front line as well

I hope this information is helpful. Once you get your armies sorted you will need to manage supply. I have a video online that explains supply at its basics

GL and have fun

 

[hannibal_pjv]

I use battle plans as an balansing factor! I know that I would get better results by doing micro… but if you roleplay, battle plans are what they are.. sometimes troops do what I expect and sometimes they don`t but when opponent AI use also same battle plans… it makes the game more balanced… same as using ”premade” historical airoplanes and tanks… they can be bad… but so are the planes AI use against me also sometimes bad, so it does keep balance somewhat checked… I justhope tha there would be option to use just ”historical” armies. It would also make the game harder and more balanced…

If you go to multiplayer competiton… you have to micro, or you are so losing! But against AI… battle plans are just a good thing!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

battleplan is good for planning bonus. activating it offensively is *much* worse than good player micro unless your plans are so hyperspecific that they're glorified right clicks.

if you feel you don't mind somewhere between 5x and 10x as many casualties as micromanaging with same units, battleplanner is fine to save irl time. just know that's the trade you make in using it.

front lines have some issues on defense as well, but they are not nearly as punishing. you get some good qol/click saving by using plans to move and position troops. it's just offensives that are really bad.

 

[Ellye]

I use battle plans as an balansing factor! I know that I would get better results by doing micro… but if you roleplay, battle plans are what they are.. sometimes troops do what I expect and sometimes they don`t but when opponent AI use also same battle plans… it makes the game more balanced… same as using ”premade” historical airoplanes and tanks… they can be bad… but so are the planes AI use against me also sometimes bad, so it does keep balance somewhat checked… I justhope tha there would be option to use just ”historical” armies. It would also make the game harder and more balanced…

If you go to multiplayer competiton… you have to micro, or you are so losing! But against AI… battle plans are just a good thing!

This is generally my mindset in this kind of game as well, and the reason why I use automated armies in Imperator and the auto-resolve of AOW4 (since it actually plays out the battle, AI vs AI, instead of being just a math-based autoresolve like TW).

And thanks to everyone on this thread! All the feedback was very appreciated and helpful, managed to fight a few successful wars and to understand well how stuff work.

Now the new struggle is with maintaining naval superiority for naval invasions but I already got some pointers for that one.

 

[Findell_HOI]

The only way to really use the battle plane feature it so make a Field Marshal Front Line with an offensive arrow.

Then when thats setup use smaller general specific front lines for specific smaller manuvers. You generally never want to press the attack arrow for the field marshal line.

The Defensive Field Marshal line works okay.

But the biggest problem with using any of the orders is the amount of shuffling around, runing entrechment, orginsiation etc. they do constantly.

 

[quicklyrainbow]

A smaller but still annoying problem is how the front line tools handle borders and impassible terrain.