We are going to settle this right now: SPEED OR ARMOR? Which is better??

Background cat!

"engineers = defending" now that really triggers me every time, engineers gives an attack bonus on amphibious, forts and urban. Stacking attack bonuses is key for big divisions, passing them just to save 125 IC is ridiculous

At one point, while playng italy, britain had an unimaginably large amount of tanks. 18 tank divisions with 12 tank slots completely overwhelming my troops because I had no anti tank. So I slapped two anti tank units in a division and waited for the enemy tanks to delete themselves on that division. Honestly, I feel like the AI is watching Feedback's videos.

3:36 "this division is defensive" the division name: "attack infantry" lmao xD

I build Battlecruisers that have a speed of 41, 3 rank one heavy turrets, scout plane and AA and they NEVR die. These are a late game design. 2 of these BCs with 2 CLs (AA and scout planes) and 6 DDs (antisubs and torps), make sure they can all go 40+ and they kill everything no matter how big the enemy fleet is. Just 10 ships in the group. Try it, it is amazing. No need for CVs, BBs or CAs. And go down trade interdiction.

I like the way he gushes over hardness and even strokes the hardness bar with the cursor

3:40 this is pretty close to my go to infantry division these days, except I switch one of those artilleries to AA to make it 25w, also the supports I use are Sup arty and AA and logistics and signal companies. It shreds any AI army, especially with green air which is easily obtainable given its relatively low cost for such pushing power

Armored recon adds +10% movement to forest, jungle, river, marsh, hills, mountains, plains and desert. Using them isn't always about the armor. Engineers can add up to 25/20 movement to rivers and marsh as well as some attack bonuses for a few terrains. Adding both engineers and armored recon to tank divisions can significantly reduce the movement and attack penalties you get from the tanks. If you then add flame tanks to the mix you can actually get movement and attack bonuses for crossing rivers. You can also get a +65% bonus vs. forts at the same time. Imagine that. Of course, we never have to cross rivers or break forts or move/attack through forests and marshes, so I guess they are useless after all.

I didn't hear a word Dave said, too busy looking at the cat

I'm nearing my 100 hour mark in this game and the divisions have me at a learning roadblock. So many specific attributes and stats to worry about, and on top of all of it planning well enough to be able to replace old equipment with newly researched ones in an efficient manner, being able to manage potentially hundreds of divisions, tenfold generals to manage individually their strengths and weaknesses, I don't think I understand a single thing about naval yet and I still have barely been able to get into the actual tactical strategy part of the game. And I thought Stellaris was difficult!

In theory, the more expansive division you use, the more important the air is, if you gonna use big division, at least you need to add one battalion of AA. For example, the template of 6:43, because CAS don't care your armor, if CAS come and kill your 20% strength, basically you gonna say goodbye to 200 light tanks. However computer is stupied, so even without air, this template still do massacre.

13:19 I think signals make a lot of sense for marines cause if your unit doesn't reinforce quick enough your potentially week long invasion plan got thwarted

Marines are definitely not only for naval invasions! One of my favorite nations to play as is Brazil, and in the Amazon basin there are a ton of rivers to cross into difficult terrain, which marines do much better. Can really be the difference between a stalemate and an easy breakthrough. They also have higher organization than regular infantry, so I tend to use them as general elite forces. 14 marines, 4 artillery, 2 light or later medium tanks for some armor and breakthrough, and 1 AA for a total of 45 width and over 50 ORG. Also, engineers really work well in the Amazon on the attack, as they increase movement across rivers by 25% which can otherwise be so slow that even of you win a battle, the enemy has time to move troops into the province before you cross that river and you have to fight again.

You can make flame tank for 2.1 IC, so it's arguably the cheapest support company, the expensive part is the daily consumption of fuel if you field a gazillion division.

14:36 The Free American Marines was actually design so that i could reduce the penalty when doing an naval invasion against japan.(it worked tho ig) 15:25 For the M75 Triumph, well i made it a bit cheaper and assign about 100 mils to it P.S Yes I made those goofy templates. thx for the pointers

9:30 with superior fire power doctrine focus on suport company's. That temp late is awesome.

On AA : from experience, having an AA support company and maybe a battalion is more than enough, mostly because, and this is just me, I do want the enemy to put their planes out. Even if you can't achieve green air, a few planes on Intercept and AA means the enemy will do minimal strength damage from CAS and they'll start losing planes over time. I've been able to grind entire air forces down this way when I didn't have one of my own, it's fun to watch and it's a drain on the enemy. Also, on org, I used to love having stupid amounts of org until I noticed High Organization for some reason is a big debuff for recovery. What gives, and what's the org limit before that happens ?

I fundamentally disagree with the anti signal company debate because I think they are misunderstanding the situation you might actually want signal companies. Signal companies are not useful when dealing with small armies, since you will get alot better results from micromanaging. When dealing with much larger fronts however, this becomes impractical (and besides the micromanage argument has never been good anyway since you can achieve pretty much anything with micromanaging in Hoi4 so focusing on that one on one battle situation which you can influence is pointless because you will always get the results you want). Signal companies become much more useful when you are dealing with very large armies on both sides, and you're actually going to regularly face and have large amounts of battlefield reserves (a battle of the allies and axis in France for instance is a good example of when this situation might arise). These battles can go for very long times and might even cycle through multiple rounds of units (who enter, fight, leave, reorganize, and reenter the battle multiple times) without moving simply due to the sheer amount of enemy units. Furthermore, if you have very large armies, or if you have alot of allies, most of those units that are fighting probably aren't even the most ideal unit to be fighting anyway. Why would you want for instance a defensively oriented infantry unit to be taking up valuable combat width? Of course you can micromanage this on a individual basis, but if you are trying to push through the enemy (and not play ww1 simulator) you're gonna have to break with your best offensive units. That's where signal companies come in, because you can use them to make sure that no matter which battle they enter they always end up in the battle almost immediately. It makes a huge difference in their tactical (as opposed to their individual combat) performance, and makes it actually possible to launch real offensives with your offensive units rather than just relying on monitoring the whole line. By no means should all your units have signal companies (that would kinda defeat the point), but at least your elite divisions such as Tanks and maybe special forces (depending on how you use them) should. It is true that there is also a defensive theory around them too (since they can be used to help keep reinforcing fronts and continue perpetual battles, I think most players are anti defeneive games anyway so probably havent experimented with these tactics. I think too many players are hung up on this idea that if you can achieve it by other means its not worth it rather than the more obvious are those other means reliable? Hoi4 is a game where you're meant to divide your attention alot, not micromanage every detail and signal companies are the ultimate "give this to your divisions so you can check on them less" tool in the game. Multi-player players know this alot because the biggest difference is that you, can't slow down the game and pause for everything and have to contend with multi front wars. If single players were faced with these kinda situations, I think they would gain a good understanding of why utilizing some of these abilities actually makes alot of sense, even if they are not perfect solutions.

The only point I'd make about antisub destroyers is that you can make a really cheap destroyer escort that will chase subs away from convoys. This can be really useful for patrolling areas where you don't have access to air support (where the navs can concentrate).

2:55 yes, if you replace last 6 infantry battalions to have artillery only it would be perfect :D

It's good to have infantry with 1 super armor medium for armor ( having more than one doesnt incrase average armor by too much) and go heavy on artillery for the soft attack and a anti tank support

Maintenance is required when builsing tank divisions. Max lvl maintenance company adds 20% reliability.

Hey, would you consider making a guide to navies (particularly naval invasions)? I might be missing something, but I don't see a video you've done on it since Man the Guns came out. I (like most people) usually just don't even bother building a strong navy, put divisions on my coastline. If I have to do a naval invasion, I will typically just gather all my ships to escort the units across the sea and ram through the supply area while the largest enemy fleets are repairing. But I'd be interested in learning to build an actual navy and using it to *prevent* naval invasions rather than just garrison coastlines.

I put engineers and motorized recon in all offensive divisions because they provide up to 20% movement speed in most terrain types letting you take the most advantage of breakthroughs

so when the new update came out, i wanted to try and make a small division with lots of support companies that could work as an all around for fighting the ai. what i came up with was 6 infantry, support arty, support anti air, support anti tank, engineers, and support rocket arty, while stacking as much entrenchment as i could, so grand battleplan, static warfare, and the entrenchment army spirit. any thoughts on it?

I love when the blatant troll suggestions come through and Feedback carries on reviewing them like they were serious

When you mention marines you are forgetting two very important battlegrounds. Marshes and rivers, which are a huge part of the eastern front.

I have used the 3x3 infantry 1x3 artillery, but support I use engineering, AT, and AA and field hospitals. Use it to hold my front lines. Been using it since day one of the game.

14:16 so i did some playtesting and i found that tacs are better than navs when it comes to killing subs. i think this is because navs use torpedos and tacs regular bombs, good luck hitting a sub with a torpedo

Everyone:discussing war plans Me:cat in background is so cute whats the cat name

Light tank recon is cheaper and more effective than early AT company if you have the fuel for it.

Whenever I got extra motorized laying around, I just start swapping all my infantry into motorized, makes them faster to respond.

Mountaineers are for attacking through hills and mountains. They are specialized breakthrough divisions. Try playing democratic Raj.

What I'd love to know, among many other things with this game, is can you make a pure AA division, then sit it 1 space back from your front lines to take care of the CAS. Also does it impact the bombers flying over the territory to hit the capital in another province? Second question is can I make drag racing tanks that are all engine and no armour that out pace trucks? Also, if I want to steal the enemy weapons does every unit need Maintenance company, or does only one unit in the stack fighting on the tile need it?

Responding to that painful Artillery-heavy Mountaineer Division: I found a fun setup that works great while being easy to field; 9 Mountaineers, 2 Artillery, Engineer Company, and Artillery Company. 25-CW makes them stack perfectly in 3s on Mountains and they both attack and defend really well. In an Italy game I was able to get a 200k encirclement on the French-Italian border by using these guys to shockingly quickly encircle over the vast range of Mountains faster than anything I've ever done in the area. Just gotta make sure to always field em in sets of 3 to fully deploy on a Mountain, other wise they don't seem to work nearly as well

Very good video. I'm just learning how to properly play and after seeing this vid I think my subs are over engineered and thus expensive. Playing as Australia and will likely be going after Japan.

I now that u are doing a template review but my eyes are drawn towards the cute sleeping cat on the bed

That "standard issue cat" behind FB sure sleeps consistently.

Speed doesn't win battles, but it does allow you to spider like old HOI4 and push for those rail lines, supply hubs and get encirclements before they can redeploy. It's not an end all, be all, but it will give you and advantage if you are able to make a breakthrough. Most notably this probably works where you are more evenly matched and can only win on one or 2 squares but with some speedy light tanks or motorized, you can overextend them and win quicker than you probably would have. It's niche but it does work.

I once made a 40 width Division with 2 anti air, 2 anti tank, 2 artillery and the rest infantry as the Soviet Union on Deep Battle Doctrine, incredibly fun to use but overall ineffective, you get away with it against the AI though

At 1:13 i saw the cat stretching in the back. From that point on i dont know what the video was all about 🤣🤣

Could you do a breakdown of all of the stats of a division in the division designer menu? It would be helpful for newer players (and maybe some veterans) such as myself. I always get confused when your talk about org, piercing, armor, etc.

Can it be effective If you make a fast Tank for your Armor Divisions and a slow Tank (on the Same chassis) for infantry?

Feedback is living up to his name.

I'm no expert at this game and i have no idea about the mechanics in the back ground. When i build a division, i always put things in i would want it to have in reality. Ca 10000 men for inf. division with ca.20 combat width. And i always put a normal artillery, a normal AT company and a AA company in it. The same with my tank divisions. Ca. 12000 men, around 20 combat width, 3 medium tanks, 5 armored infantry, 1 mobile artillery, 1 mobile AT, 1 mobile AA and of course full support. Maybe horrible for game play, but good for my RP.

Signal company helps to leader to choose more effective tactics to battle imo

Dave, question for you. Was doing some modding the other day and came across some textures in the la resistance dlc folder. They are skins/textures for some vehicles like the armoured cars. It's got the normal ones you'd expect like base texture, desert and winter but it also has one called elite which I have never seen in game. I even tried making a veteran division using the armoured car as the 3d model but still didn't show the texture. Any ideas what these are, cut feature maybe?

This game really needs corps level command.Then we could create proper breakthrough, frontline divisions under one command and fast mobile under another one in tge army.

Hey Feedback, will you ever go into the Road to 56 templates? All the extra stuff in the mod allows for really specialized divisions for almost any situation, and it makes multiplayer really interesting. I love my Jagers and deser infantry.

Cat : Best division is pure infantry

3:36 "we have engineer which is good for this division because its defensive" litterally called attack infantry

3:20 not only dat guy managed 1000+ soft atak, but the width is 69 lol

When you have high hardness, breakthrough is redundant. AI just don't have enough hard attacks to use that many breakthrough points. Extra soft attack is always nice. On another hand attrition on 12 unit artillery can be harsh.

Does the current research level of equiptment change the stats in the division designer screen or is that added later?

This guy looks so much like stylosa from Overwatch :)

Are you sure that going over 100% reliability on tanks is a waste? After all division reliability is averaged out and motorized/mechanized have 80% reliability so if you go over 100% with your tanks you can get the average reliability to 100% or close to it when using a lot of motorized/mechanized to boost up organization. Unless the 100% reliability is a hard cap which means it isn't transferred over to the average calculations, in which case 100% wasteful.

Any plans to do a guide on the basics of designing templates?

Am I the only one who adds amtracs and amphibious tanks to marine divisions? I used them in China once and it was so effective Japan couldn’t stop me. I would position them on rivers or jump canals with them and they couldn’t stop it. They capitulated by 1940

im fairly new i dont understand why he keeps saying if you have breakthrough you dont need soft attack? i thought breakthrough keeps you attacking longer but dont you also need to do damage in that time you are attacking?

There are only two ship designs. Bathtubs and sub 3

I usually make medium tanks that are super cheap for early game

Where I can check your list of templates? Thanks a lot for your time

To be fair, division templates barely matter as long as you're not using 2w or 50w divs

Sitting patiently waiting for an estonia video

Call me stupid but i ususally just put an artillery batalion than the artillery support battery(in infantry battery is company)

Question,how to add 9 armor and 9 speed while HAVING 107 FRICKING RELIABILITY

Hey feedback I have a question. What does the text labeled "Combat" on the right collumn of the division designer mean? I tried researching but most of it were not even related.

Useful information. Cute cat also. It seems the formulas used in the game are just not common sense, just random setup?

I know it's wrong, but I just love to fill all the holes.

I've heard this in many videos I've watched from you: You say that reliability on tanks should be really high, but pretty much always tell to get rid off maintenance companies. Why is that? Isn't it more cost effective to have tanks with 90% reliability + a lvl 2 maintenance company (hence 100% reliability)? Or do I understand something wrong with how said companies work?

How can you build such massive divisions early in the game? Most of my stuff is what the game starts with. I usually start modifying them, but I mean.. I don't think I've ever gone beyond 24 width because it doesn't seem feasible to build them in numbers and have enough of everything. Do you build small numbers of those units, and many more 20 width and lower?

16:52 “look how hard this is”

i have question how on a adlc no step back have alliance with germany as poland ?

Should you use 24 armor divisions in an army? Or should you mix armor and mobile infantry divisions?

"This division is so hard

While mine small Greek divisions with 20 width got 40-60 organisation

i had to watch 17 minutes of this video to see that there is a cat sleeping behind him

Alright... Something got me confused... When did 26, 28 and 44 got effective? Wasn't 27, 42 and 45?

I need a good cavalry division for KX Mongolia

Does it matter if the AA/arty is in the main part or the support column?

I see a kitty! Sleeping

I apparently aim for org numbers way above the meta lol

The tanks I've been using have Sloped armour, Skirts & Dozers. If your making flamers than just the dozers. Recon tanks again with Dozers. For infantry I've been trying 9 Infantry, 3 Artillery & 3 AA.

I'm here wishing for templates for smal nations with not many resources/manpower.

7:34 HOW DARE YOU

Does equipment with reliability over 100% still increase the division reliability at its nominal value? Because then it makes sense to have over 100% reliability to offset the 90% reliability of infantry equipment and 80% reliability of trucks and mechanized.

I was Germany and got cut in half by the Netherlands

Logi marines are good for central africa caus lack of supply + muh river crossing bonus

Rines with out Engi? What is this madness?

well why not make an another comment. Waiting the day when we can customize Divisions to the degree that we can do tanks. loving the fact that doctrines were removed from research tree.

7:33 flipping us off again dave?

One thing is there really an actual combat width meta atm or is it just whatever?

I dont understand. Someone needs to explain to me why bigger divisions are better. Its been shown, i have no idea how many freaking times that smaller divisions are vastly superior. Why are people still using giant 40 widths?

I'll never know how to play this game...

So why the hate on field hospitals? Unless I'm missing something I'd say they're essential especially if you're playing a smaller nation like Australia or Czechoslovakia

so good, i watched it twice

When playing against ai or with friends against ai we do RP against Meta. Lol

İf you go superior firepower your support companies will give you org

I fully don’t understand army templates and just use base and get demolished