Quick Questions/ Quick Answers - HoI4

[Harin]

Is there a Garrison order that will make my troops defend for example mainland Europe from invasion by the Allies and take care of it completely If I give them enough troops? I'm trying to concentrate on another front.

This is just personal experience in single player, but when I make a garrison army to hold France, or some other tidy space, I select all the outer coastal areas and chose to defend ports only. I typically supply enough divisions to put two divisions per port if I suspect an invasion is coming. You may want to make it more if you want the garrison army to repel the invasion all by itself. I have noticed that with this many divisions, the garrison army will repel most AI invasions, before I can send any help. The garrison army will focus on holding the ports, taking them back, taking any land you have painted with your garrison command, to include redeploying and launching careless attacks at first, but eventually more coordinated as more divisions arrive. I am ok with this since the point is to pin down the enemy and let him run out of supplies. This has worked for me in China, France, India, and the Balkans. The AI does a decent job if it has enough troops.

 

[bitmode]

Bitmode, you are so helpful!

Thank you

Could you tell me how you make those Spoiler parts of your posts?

It is an option in the forth from last button in the editing toolbar. Alternatively you can directly type

[SPOILER="some name"]content[/SPOILER]

 

[Harin]

It is an option in the forth from last button in the editing toolbar. Alternatively you can directly type

Good grief, if it were a snake it would have bit me. Thanks again!

 

[koerake1]

OmG, this naval system is driving me nuts- i hate it and will do till the end!
I want to provide naval invasion support, but guess what, out of range! So, would somebody explain me this naval range system. From where does it start counting the range? Can't i extend my naval range by visiting ports that i have access to(granted access, puppets, allies etc.) or isn't it so easy to 'fool' the game? I have fuel(atleast enough for that i think), no other missions assigned... as much as i could find help from earlier topics.
Thank you for your time, sir!

 

[Question]

As the nordic league, i went heavy fighters because that region is really large and fighters cant cover the whole place. Russia is fielding fighters vs my heavy fighters, but even though he has very low (50% or less) mission efficiency, while I have 100% air detection and 90%+ efficiency, my 1940 heavy fighters are struggling to kill his 1940 fighters. I was fielding close to 1.5k heavy fighters + about 700 allied fighters and 90% efficiency vs about 2.3k fighters with 50% efficiency...shouldnt I be winning easily? With such a large numbers advantage?

 

[Mister Analyst]

OmG, this naval system is driving me nuts- i hate it and will do till the end!
I want to provide naval invasion support, but guess what, out of range! So, would somebody explain me this naval range system. From where does it start counting the range? Can't i extend my naval range by visiting ports that i have access to(granted access, puppets, allies etc.) or isn't it so easy to 'fool' the game? I have fuel(atleast enough for that i think), no other missions assigned... as much as i could find help from earlier topics.
Thank you for your time, sir!

@koerake1
I believe that the problem is 0% Naval Superiority and not the range. According to the HOI4 wiki https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Battle_plan#Naval_supremacy -

• In order to be allowed to execute the invasion, a country requires more than 50% Naval Supremacy (also called Naval Superiority in some tooltips) in all naval regions the divisions will need to cross in order to make a beachhead. Invading army will decline to embark on the mission with less naval protection.

 

[Harin]

As the nordic league, i went heavy fighters because that region is really large and fighters cant cover the whole place. Russia is fielding fighters vs my heavy fighters, but even though he has very low (50% or less) mission efficiency, while I have 100% air detection and 90%+ efficiency, my 1940 heavy fighters are struggling to kill his 1940 fighters. I was fielding close to 1.5k heavy fighters + about 700 allied fighters and 90% efficiency vs about 2.3k fighters with 50% efficiency...shouldnt I be winning easily? With such a large numbers advantage?

According the the Wiki, speed and agility are important components to air combat.

Spoiler: Air Combat

The planes of each sortieing wing are allocated against enemy wings proportional to their visibility (against all wings for damage and only against ground missions for disruption). The following components contribute to the final damage value:

• the attackers' air attack
• the defenders' air defense
• stats multiplier: the difference in speed divided by 1500 km/h plus the difference in agility divided by 100. This modifier is capped between -100% and +100% and then multiplied by 30%. For example a 1936 fighter against a 1936 tactical bomber gets a
  
  bonus.
• carrier factor: 0.1 for normal and 5 for carrier combat (if both the attacker and defender are carrier wings)
• agility disadvantage: if the defender has more agility, a penalty of up to -67.5% is applied. The maximum penalty is reached at an agility ratio of 1:2.5.

I suspect the 1940 fighters have a stat bonus applied due to being faster and more agile. Also, your heavy fighters probably have a serious agility penalty when determining damage. It can go up to 67.5% and you may be close to 58% to 60%. In other words, your heavy fighters are finding it hard to do damage, even though you have excellent detection and efficiency.

 

[bitmode]

I want to provide naval invasion support, but guess what, out of range! So, would somebody explain me this naval range system. From where does it start counting the range? Can't i extend my naval range by visiting ports that i have access to(granted access, puppets, allies etc.) or isn't it so easy to 'fool' the game? I have fuel(atleast enough for that i think), no other missions assigned... as much as i could find help from earlier topics.
Thank you for your time, sir!

Yep, the range is calculated from all friendly ports. Your task force seems to consist of DD1's mostly which have pretty awful range (and the TF range is the average of the ships). As the enemy doesn't seem to have any ships in the area anyway (according to the tooltip), I would just throw a few of the DDs out of the TF until the range is good enough.

I believe that the problem is 0% Naval Superiority and not the range.

Well, without range they can't get naval supremacy I presume the invasion target is the northern coast of Australia.

 

[Question]

According the the Wiki, speed and agility are important components to air combat.

Spoiler: Air Combat

The planes of each sortieing wing are allocated against enemy wings proportional to their visibility (against all wings for damage and only against ground missions for disruption). The following components contribute to the final damage value:

• the attackers' air attack
• the defenders' air defense
• stats multiplier: the difference in speed divided by 1500 km/h plus the difference in agility divided by 100. This modifier is capped between -100% and +100% and then multiplied by 30%. For example a 1936 fighter against a 1936 tactical bomber gets a
  
  bonus.
• carrier factor: 0.1 for normal and 5 for carrier combat (if both the attacker and defender are carrier wings)
• agility disadvantage: if the defender has more agility, a penalty of up to -67.5% is applied. The maximum penalty is reached at an agility ratio of 1:2.5.

I suspect the 1940 fighters have a stat bonus applied due to being faster and more agile. Also, your heavy fighters probably have a serious agility penalty when determining damage. It can go up to 67.5% and you may be close to 58% to 60%. In other words, your heavy fighters are finding it hard to do damage, even though you have excellent detection and efficiency.

I found some forum threads saying that 1940 fighters vs 1940 heavy fighters is not a bad matchup, the fighters will win but not by much with no stat upgrades.

I mean, whole point of heavy fighters is for the range right? If only 50% or less of the enemy fighters can fight due to the range penalty, and nearly all my heavy fighters can fight, I should be winning easily. Im talking about a 2-1 number advantage here.

 

[bitmode]

If only 50% or less of the enemy fighters

50% is still a pretty respectable mission efficiency. If it was 20% or 10%, they might have a problem. If you simply plug in the numbers in the damage formula:
200 1940 heavy fighter vs 100 1940 light fighter: damage = 0.01 * 200 * 46 / 27 * (1 + (-100/1500 - 35/100) * 0.3) * 0.1 * (1 - (65/30-1)*0.45) = 0.142
100 1940 light fighter vs 200 1940 heavy fighter: damage = 0.01 * 100 * 27 / 15 * (1 + (100/1500 + 35/100) * 0.3) * 0.1 = 0.203

So half as many light fighter kill more heavy fighters than vice versa and that's ignoring the heavies being more expensive and having worse potential design companies. Heavy fighters are really only viable if normal fighters have very little or no coverage.

 

[Riekopo]

Why does Japan start a war with the Philippines before the US? This is goofy. This is on historical focus ai.

Why is the naval UI showing me that my Strike Force Task Force has the range to operate in a zone. But then when I click the zone to assign it, it shows a little red exclamation mark and says my ships are too far away to operate in it? Doesn't make any sense.

 

[bitmode]

Why is the naval UI showing me that my Strike Force Task Force has the range to operate in a zone. But then when I click the zone to assign it, it shows a little red exclamation mark and says my ships are too far away to operate in it?

The TF can operate there but as the tooltip says, it is too far away to provide naval supremacy. This is to avoid exploits of strike forces projecting supremacy all over the place (potentially the whole earth) when practically they couldn't reach the area fast enough to interdict a naval invasion for example. I don't know the exact requirements though. You could try basing the strike force in a closer port.

Why does Japan start a war with the Philippines before the US? This is goofy. This is on historical focus ai.

It is goofy but working as designed. There's no special setup for Pearl Harbor anymore (and it never really worked for the AI) and instead Japan does Secure the Philippines in August '41.

 

[Riekopo]

The TF can operate there but as the tooltip says, it is too far away to provide naval supremacy. This is to avoid exploits of strike forces projecting supremacy all over the place (potentially the whole earth) when practically they couldn't reach the area fast enough to interdict a naval invasion for example. I don't know the exact requirements though. You could try basing the strike force in a closer port.

I don't understand what that means. I didn't think Strike Forces had anything to do with supremacy.

It is goofy but working as designed. There's no special setup for Pearl Harbor anymore (and it never really worked for the AI) and instead Japan does Secure the Philippines in August '41.

What do you mean it never really worked? I'd rather have what we had before then this completely ahistorical Philippines stuff. On historical AI the American Pacific fleet should be based in Hawaii. Maybe with a certain percentage of capital ships and Carriers. So you have a chance of catching the Americans Carriers in port. So that the Japanese player or historical AI can do a surprise attack with the new surprise attack mechanic in the new DLC.

Currently it's impossible to do an attack like that because of how the dumb mission efficiency works and because of how the naval combat works. I tried many times to do a Pearl Harbor attack and it just doesn't work at all. The best I could do is sink or damage like one ship per sortie lol.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

What do you mean it never really worked? I'd rather have what we had before then this completely ahistorical Philippines stuff. On historical AI the American Pacific fleet should be based in Hawaii. Maybe with a certain percentage of capital ships and Carriers. So you have a chance of catching the Americans Carriers in port. So that the Japanese player or historical AI can do a surprise attack with the new surprise attack mechanic in the new DLC.

The problem with that (or any other thing which goes in the same direction) is this: The player knows about it. So any single event that happened historically - especially those small scale* events like Pearl Harbor - had to be enforced to the player, not only the AI. While it may be no problem to tell the AI to do something at a specific moment it is another story to tell the human player to do so. "As US why can't I move my fleet from Pearl Harbor lol?" would be the question you'd ask instead.
The next problem would be to define this exact moment. And how would you again enforce the (Japanese) player to hold his side of the bargain? What if he doesn't move his fleet to Hawaii at all. How long should the US fleet be trapped in Pearl Harbor before it's free to move?
The big problem with such scripted behaviour (HoI 3 had many such things) is this: If the player deviates too much from history he can break the game. I once stopped WW2 cold in HoI 3 by denying the Wehrmacht Copenhagen. The result? No Barbarossa, no Fall Gelb.
The idea of HoI4 is not to recreate any specific event of WW2 but to allow the player to do his own version of WW2. Due to hindsight many pivotal events in "our" WW2 are not possible in the game. You know about Pearl Harbor even as a US player so it's hardly a "surprise attack".
The siege of Sevastopol (and even bigger Leningrad) was a big thing in OTL. Both cities are quiet easiyl takne by the Wehrmacht in the game. These are just a few examples.

All this (and some more) are the reasons why "it never really worked".

*Of course it was a big story back then, and even today. But on a strategical scale it was ultimately not a big deal.

Currently it's impossible to do an attack like that because of how the dumb mission efficiency works and because of how the naval combat works. I tried many times to do a Pearl Harbor attack and it just doesn't work at all. The best I could do is sink or damage like one ship per sortie lol.

That is another thing entirely and has nothing to do with the existance or not of pre-scripted events.

 

[Riekopo]

I think there's something wrong with Paratroopers. I have a few Paratroop Divisions in Crete and am trying to send them to Egypt. I set the mission and press go and nothing happens. I have no idea why. I have more than enough Transport planes 110. Seems like a bug.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

I think there's something wrong with Paratroopers. I have a few Paratroop Divisions in Crete and am trying to send them to Egypt. I set the mission and press go and nothing happens. I have no idea why. I have more than enough Transport planes 110. Seems like a bug.

This is antoher problkem with range calculations. Your transport planes need to have the range to reach the center of the target air zone, not province. So you might call it indeed a bug. Whch was already reported a long time ago.

Honestly, I don't know if this is actually the issue here. But it's the most likely cause for your problem.

 

[bitmode]

This is antoher problkem with range calculations. Your transport planes need to have the range to reach the center of the target air zone, not province. So you might call it indeed a bug. Whch was already reported a long time ago.

You probably mean this bug: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tween-paradrop-targeting-and-mission.1207462/
But a transport wing from Crete easily has coverage over Egypt.

I set the mission and press go and nothing happens.

Is the arrow animating when you activate the mission? Do you have air superiority? Assigned divisions are parachutable? Enough fuel? You and the country controlling Crete are at war with the one controlling the drop destination? Transport planes still stationed in Crete?

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

You probably mean this bug: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tween-paradrop-targeting-and-mission.1207462/
But a transport wing from Crete easily has coverage over Egypt.

Yes, thanks.

 

[GSP Jr]

You probably mean this bug: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tween-paradrop-targeting-and-mission.1207462/
But a transport wing from Crete easily has coverage over Egypt.

Is the arrow animating when you activate the mission? Do you have air superiority? Assigned divisions are parachutable? Enough fuel? You and the country controlling Crete are at war with the one controlling the drop destination? Transport planes still stationed in Crete?

I do paradrops all the time, usually it works fine, but sometimes all appears well but they juct never "go". I always thought it was because of weather, but this bug may be the reason.
Thanks bitmode

 

[Riekopo]

You probably mean this bug: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tween-paradrop-targeting-and-mission.1207462/
But a transport wing from Crete easily has coverage over Egypt.

Is the arrow animating when you activate the mission? Do you have air superiority? Assigned divisions are parachutable? Enough fuel? You and the country controlling Crete are at war with the one controlling the drop destination? Transport planes still stationed in Crete?

Yes to all those questions.