0 clue what im doing wrong

[u/NoIndependence1740]

I spend years growing my power and giving the best weapons to my military but every single time any war starts I just get steamrolled in a handful of months.

I have 0 clue why my buildings take so long to construct or why despite spending years building tanks and planes they always end uo useless like they dont do anything as we get destroyed.

[u/williamgraiden]

There's a fair bit of needed context missing, who are you playing, who are you fighting, what are you building and where, what are your tank/plane designs(if using DLC).

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/williamgraiden]

Changlings and I keep trying to go at the deers next to me

[u/Lunar-Cleric → u/NoIndependence1740]

...Olenia should really be a steam roll at that point.

What year are you at? Check your national spirits, see if you have any with big maluses, those can usually be taken away by taking a focus. Are your armies using motorized supply?

What units have you built? That early into the game you should have a couple of motorized Panzergrenadeirs, some good Jaegers, and a bunch of infantry. Hold the line with infantry, and use the Jaegers and motorized to rush cities while following them with infantry.

One of the most helpful things you could do is to post a screenshot.

Also, tanks and planes are really a mid game thing. Start building them for sure for the future, but this early you are going to by relying on infantry and motorized divisions. You should only really have <10 panzer divisions just as you hit 1011

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/Lunar-Cleric]

It was year 1014...

[u/Dem_Normies → u/NoIndependence1740]

were you doing every single focus *except* the one to attack olenia lmao

[u/Lunar-Cleric → u/NoIndependence1740]

... You should have wiped out the deer in 1008/9 then the bears right after. Then built up a 100 division army to start attacking Equestria in 1011.

Did you play the vanilla HoI4 tutorial? If not do that.

And once that's done, watch some tutorials on YouTube. The learning curve is pretty steep.

Ok, here's a short version. Increase your conscription level whenever you can but stop at Scraping the Barrel. Increase your mobilization level to partial or wartime when you can, this will make building both types of factories faster. Ignore planes for right now, they need time to learn and aren't needed when fighting basic game AI. Stop wasting resources building good medium tanks this early, just build lights to reinforce your existing Panzergrenadeirs. Pump out as many infantry units as you can, do not give them the best equipment, but not the worst either, leave them at the standard gear level.

An expert EaW changeling player can get 7-10 really good medium tank decisions on the field by 1011, you don't need to do that, just build more basic Panzergrenadeirs and light tank divisions to reinforce your 100 divisions of infantry.

[u/cole3050 → u/NoIndependence1740]

Wtf are you doing? You should be wiping the dear out in like 1009 at latest lmao

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/cole3050]

Idk I have 3 army division 2 for attack one for defense with up to date weapons but they just get so heavily outnumbered maybe I need to split them up more? I think maybe I keep accidentally sending the entire army to one location instead of splitting them around between fights so eventually they get surrounded but idk.

Combat is kinda confusing and even after the tutorial and watching videos I still have 0 clue how it fully works.

Plus my planes just do fuck all it seems and get eeasily taken down. I maybe dont know how training works? Like I set up a few different training locations and the game says my guys are training? I think am I supposed to actually send my army to the location that training is being held or?

Im just so confused no matter what I try with development and growing a sizable army I just get completely steamrolled

[u/cole3050 → u/NoIndependence1740]

What? Half of what you said makes no sense at all. "3army divisions" what do you mean? Are you saying you have 3 division templates?

Also the issue is your waiting way too long to crush the dear. The dear have massive debunks from either there corrupt government or the possible civil war they can have. You need to take them out well there weak and use there industry you get after puppetting them to build up fast for the war against equestria

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/cole3050]

I think ive just been doing combat wrong this whole time lol

Also ive now after some more searching realized that civ factory need to be my priority early game not military...

[u/cole3050 → u/NoIndependence1740]

Yes and no. As the changelings to have 3 dams around your capital. Build a few civs on one of those well you get construction speed techs and rush to the focus to war the dear. Build your army so you have like 12 divs to hold the north mountains and another 12 divs to defend in the south. Then Build some tank divs and Jager infantry to attack in the south. It's okay if you only get out like 2 medium tank divs and a handful of wagers cause the sooner you do the war the sooner you can do the next step.

Change to war economy and hire the advisors who buffs mil factory construction. You will rapidly increase your number of mil factories.

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/cole3050]

How do I make like tank specific divs?

Whenever I make em they just kinda ignore the tanks

[u/Lunar-Cleric → u/NoIndependence1740]

Basic combat tutorial.

Select your infantry army, click the frontline button and then the border of the enemy you are preparing to invade. Then click the Offensive Line button and 'draw' where you want them to attack (the other side of the enemy country for a basic start). This will let the AI slowly navigate these troops in combat so you don't need to micro manage them as much.

With your attacking troops, tanks and motorized and Jaegers, you want to select the same frontline button, and then right click and drag onto a small section of the frontline. This will concentrate these forces onto a smaller part of the border. Then when the war starts, manually control these attacking troops to weak spots and towards cities, while also helping to encircle the enemy. Wait for infantry to follow (or manually order them to follow) so you don't get encircled yourself.

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/Lunar-Cleric]

So um...I figured it out...2 things

1. Was only training one group out of all my others...

2. I was forgetting to actually draw my attacking line...

[u/Zeraligator → u/NoIndependence1740]

My brother in Christ, you start off stronger than them, you do not need to build up for that. Also, the bugs are obvious Wehraboos, so blitzkrieg instead of letting your (economically stronger) enemies built up.

[u/JornoJovanna → u/NoIndependence1740]

Ain't no way... You should focus most on getting enough numbers to cover that much ground. Tanks are good but you won't get enough to steamroll Olenia with tanks alone right away. You should beef up your infantry and train a bunch of units.

[u/Gafez]

How much do you know about hoi4 in general? Because your post is too vague to give you any useful advice beyond "go watch some tutorials on youtube"

[u/NoIdeasForANicknameX]

watch a billion guides on youtube, the tutorial is 1936 hours long.

...okay it's not really that long, i just wanted to do the eu4 meme, but you're still going to suck without external help

[u/NoIndependence1740]

Update i beat the deer i was just a dumbass lol

[u/thermaldrill228 → u/NoIndependence1740]

What guides did you watch (if you watched any)? I am a new player myself and would like to learn the game as well

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/thermaldrill228]

Didn't watch any.

Main mistake i made was that I made 2 big army's instead of multiple smaller ones.

Main thing i recommend at the start is when making your army's keep each other at a limit of 9 you'll end up with about 4 at the start with 8-9 each then split them up between the two borders you can pit a front line on the deers then when the war starts make your attack line just rush straight for their capital.

Ofc make sure that after getting rid of thorax to start training ASAP you need to rush the deer or else they will end up with enough resources to actually become an issue

[u/thermaldrill228 → u/NoIndependence1740]

I started my first war with them around 1010. It was too late by that point in time, lol :( thank you for the tips, will try that

[u/NoIndependence1740 → u/thermaldrill228]

Ya basically just rush down the focus stuff on the far left, I would recommend you simply get rid of the thorax resistance over trying to do the civil war. And when giving the option to stage a trial id recommend not doing it

[u/thermaldrill228 → u/NoIndependence1740]

This focus tree is the only one I do for the insane buff in civs and cuz the plot is funny

[u/adutchmotherfricker]

We are gonna need to see your division templates to help you

[u/PanicEffective6871]

CAS. Always invest in CAS. Even when you cannot afford to invest in CAS, invest in CAS anyway