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Developer Corner | Support Companies

Greetings all!

Today we’ll be taking a dive into one of the fundamental building blocks of HOI4: division design, and some changes we’re making to it. This dev corner might be a little less grand than previous dev corners, but division design remains extremely important to the HOI experience, and is a part of the game that’s remained more or less untouched since release.

Those of you with exceedingly long memories may remember in my early roadmap for Hearts of Iron that I mentioned a desire to have doctrines better affect how the player is incentivized to design their divisions. The first step of making this possible is by adding another dimension of choice to support companies.

Support Company Changes
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Here’s a look at one of Germany’s starting templates. Ordinarily, engineers would grant a bonus of 5 entrenchment at their most basic level: here, we’re getting 2 (Ed: 2.25 actually… we’ll fix that in post).
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And here, in a little more detail - is the breakdown of why. Here, Engineers no longer begin by applying a flat bonus of 5 entrenchment - instead, their initial stats will grant a bonus of 0.25 entrenchment per Leg Infantry battalion in their division.
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As you can see, this bonus is not applied to the cavalry battalions I have so wisely placed in my infantry division. We’ll go into the rationale behind this specific change later, but suffice it to say the following:

Support companies can now confer multiplicative or additive bonuses to line battalions of specific categories within their own division.

While it may seem like a small change, this allows us to better represent the effects of certain doctrinal advancements or technologies, and adds a completely new dimension to consider when choosing support companies.

Changes to Existing Support Companies [very subject to change]

Engineers

As you can see above, Engineers will be changing a bit. They’ll retain the flat entrenchment they gain from tech, but by moving entrenchment more towards a per-battalion balancing value, we’re able to flatten the efficacy of entrenchment and devalue it slightly for org-wall playstyles. Entrenchment itself is a multiplicative stat of course, so we take care to ensure that the upper end does not move too far ahead of what was previously achievable.

Recon
The neglected child of the support company family is finally getting some new tools. Recon has always been an underperforming support company, and these changes aim to augment the value of tactical reconnaissance on the battlefield. By default, mounted recon, motorized recon, and armored car recon companies will now confer a [10%] soft attack bonus to all battalions matching the Artillery category.

Note: we’re making the choice to stress the benefits of recon on artillery rather than general infantry here for game balance reasons.

Light Tank recon will confer a [10%] Hard Attack bonus to all Armored battalions.

Recon also gets some other new toys, some of which we’ll cover in doctrines, and others in a later diary on some New Cool Stuff (™).

Field Hospital
A slightly left-field modifier here, Field Hospitals now increase the strength (HP) of all infantry battalions within their division by [10%]. This results in proportionally less manpower (& equipment) loss per damage received.

Flame Tanks
These now increase the breakthrough of all infantry battalions by [5%].

Military Police
A support company with low usage outside of specific garrison templates, we wanted to give these slightly more utility within line divisions. These will now increase the base org recovery rate of all infantry battalions by 20%.

Doctrine Changes

We’re still working on exactly how these will look, but here’s a sample of what we have planned:
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Dispersed Support: Signal companies grant 10% defense to all Artillery battalions in division
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Airland Battle: Standard recon grants 10% air attack to anti-air battalions in division
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Mechanized Wave: Armored Car recon grants 1 max organization to all Leg Infantry battalions in division.
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Central Planning: Logistics Company adds 5% defense to all infantry battalions in division

As mentioned above we have more planned for these, but this should serve as an indicative sample of what is coming. These changes are intended to add an extra dimension to consider when building division templates, accentuating the value of interdisciplinary coordination. They also give us an opportunity to equalize the value of some underperforming support companies in a slightly more realistic way than flat stats.

Of course, the production value of your bonus-granting support companies will be weighted more favorably towards larger divisions - this is something we’re keeping an eye on, but broadly speaking we’re happy with this direction.

As well as being a significant balance change (and modding tool) these changes were necessary for a new small feature we’ll show off in a future diary. I’ll leave you guessing until then ;)

Speaking of dev diaries, we will call you to arms next week for something special… stay tuned, and save the date!

/Arheo
 
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Dev responses;
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Arheo responded to a few questions here
Shadddo said:
Will the additive and multiplicative modifiers are also available to use on line battalions (something like diminishing returns for adding more artillery)?

Not planned, that would add a lot more to compute when we don't intend to use it.

Shadddo said:
Will it be possible to also add extra equipment needs from support companies (logistics for example adding 10 trucks to every line battalion)?

It's something I'm considering - but not currently possible.

Shadddo said:
While it is unlikely I also still wish that it was possible for the actual equipment count to affect stats of a battalion instead of just its presence.

It does

ClydeFrosch said:
So generally a doctrine overhaul is coming? Or just those with support companies?

Who can say

ClydeFrosch said:
And may you change or add some army spirits to use/enhance the changes to support companies?

Right now only technologies (and doctrines) can affect these. It's possible to make spirits indirectly do it, but a little awkward.


Tehrozer said:
I love that support companies and doctrines are getting these kind of changes. Older core mechanics really could do with a in-depth revision especially stuff like resources, manpower and army/division organisation seem to have a lot of room for improvement and its great that we are getting some of that here. Though I must write down some of my observations about the particular changes proposed here:

I don't think entrenchment should be limited to leg infantry. Cavalry and motorised units in this period were used as mobile infantry and when on the defensive they built entrenched positions like any other unit. Cavalry divisions had engineer detachments like any other unit and employed them for both defensive and offensive purposes. It was their mobility that made it harder for such divisions to entrench but this is already represented in the game as one looses entrenchment if the division is moved. Therefore it would be much better if all infantry/cavalry battalions were counted for this entrenchment bonus.

The engineer company ultimately provides a bit of the scaling infantry buff, and a bit of flat buff to everything. We're aware that mounted infantry are not Uhlans charging into battle with lances, but we have to make some changes based on balance, and some on historicity - I think these achieve a bit of both.

Tehrozer said:
I know the devs want to fix no one using ACs but this won't do it. It also introduces a rather ridiculous situation where recon cars with armour (appropriate) will give you a org bonus but if someone used the tank designer to make a tank on wheels (inappropriate) it won't count (Hello Human Resources?!). I restate my comment I made in a exchange with one of the devs about the future of armoured cars; it would be for the best to simply make them part of the tank designer, its already possible to design a armoured car in the tank designer making the whole AC tech tree completely redundant. By ditching separate AC tech tree and buffing wheeled tank suspension ACs would no longer require separate research and the flexibility of the tank designer would allow the player to make something that is actually useful. This way ACs would be a economic choice as a actual cheap alternative for tanks instead of a strictly worse vehicle, that doesn't even get all doctrine/national spirit buffs of tanks and also takes up extra research time.

I've already stated a few times that ACs belong in the tank designer. We won't be making that change this time, but I don't think that should stop us making changes related to it.

Texas Nerd 007 said:
These are all great and interesting changes! Will it be possible to use these changes to give units a modifier for defense/attack against a specific unit type (like light tanks?) This would be a fantastic change for most of the HOI4 modders I know, myself included.

I'm afraid not - that's a very different kettle of fish.

Danieri said:
I really like the concept of support companies giving bonuses only to a specific type of division. However, have you considered altering doctrines so that support companies could also buff other types? Like, maybe mass conscription could alter recon so it buffs infantry too, or something like that.

I believe the latter screenshots indicate this :)
 
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This looks proper exciting! Finally some changes to something so fundamental to the game that hasn't seen any in a long time!
 
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And here, in a little more detail - is the breakdown of why. Here, Engineers no longer begin by applying a flat bonus of 5 entrenchment - instead, their initial stats will grant a bonus of 0.25 entrenchment per Leg Infantry battalion in their division.
As you can see, this bonus is not applied to the cavalry battalions I have so wisely placed in my infantry division. We’ll go into the rationale behind this specific change later, but suffice it to say the following
They also give us an opportunity to equalize the value of some underperforming support companies in a slightly more realistic way than flat stats.
Nice change overall. I mean, building trenches for cavalaries? Gimme a break lol
Speaking of dev diaries, we will call you to arms next week for something special… stay tuned, and save the date!

/Arheo
Can't wait.
 
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When are y’all gonna fix Diego Hidalgo y Duran and put him on the republican side, as well as putting Patton on the fascist side of the American civil war and Maurice rose on the Roosevelt democratic side as well? And why is the default fascist leader for France generic? At least make Marcel Bucard the starting Fascist leader considering he was the leader of the Franciste mouvement
 
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Field Hospital
A slightly left-field modifier here, Field Hospitals now increase the strength (HP) of all infantry battalions within their division by [10%]. This results in proportionally less manpower (& equipment) loss per damage received.
On top of its current effects?
 
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Will the additive and multiplicative modifiers are also available to use on line battalions (something like diminishing returns for adding more artillery)?

Will it be possible to also add extra equipment needs from support companies (logistics for example adding 10 trucks to every line battalion)?

While it is unlikely I also still wish that it was possible for the actual equipment count to affect stats of a battalion instead of just its presence.
 
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I expect a major update of my gameplay, but in the end I'm looking forward to it. Anything that makes templates/doctrines/spirits better integrated/consistent will be very nice.
 
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Great changes! I love them. Just some remarks if you don't mind me.
Field Hospitals, I believe they are working as intended, adding HP to a division? does not seem right tbh.
Military Police, Makes sense if you are Communist or Fascist. Perhaps if you implement a "desertion attrition" mechanic for low war support could help to counter that I guess. Could be a step in a cool direction.
 
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Will the additive and multiplicative modifiers are also available to use on line battalions (something like diminishing returns for adding more artillery)?

Not planned, that would add a lot more to compute when we don't intend to use it.

Will it be possible to also add extra equipment needs from support companies (logistics for example adding 10 trucks to every line battalion)?

It's something I'm considering - but not currently possible.

While it is unlikely I also still wish that it was possible for the actual equipment count to affect stats of a battalion instead of just its presence.

It does
 
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So generally a doctrine overhaul is coming? Or just those with support companies? And may you change or add some army spirits to use/enhance the changes to support companies?
 
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So generally a doctrine overhaul is coming? Or just those with support companies?

Who can say

And may you change or add some army spirits to use/enhance the changes to support companies?

Right now only technologies (and doctrines) can affect these. It's possible to make spirits indirectly do it, but a little awkward.
 
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I still think support companies that don't do direct damage (eng, fh, signal, maint etc.) should have a 'NULL' organisation instead of the 10-20 organisation they're currently given in the data files.

A support company with NULL organisation does not affect the division's total organisation, i.e. does not drag it downwards. Or upwards, for that matter.

You see, in database-speak, when you send a sequence of numbers to the average() function, the function disregards any NULLs when calculating the average.

Furthermore, Superior Firepower's +20 support company organisation should not affect these support companies, but only the damage-dealing companies (artillery and its ilk.) Because NULL + 20 = NULL. Don't you love three-valued logic?

This should make these support companies slightly more desirable for small divisions.
 
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I was probably a bit unclear there but what I mean is that currently while modding when defining a new battalion the actual number of the equipment it uses does not matter for the resulting stats, so a tank battalion that expects 30 tanks in total will have the same stats as a battalion with 60 tanks. This is only really relevant for dynamic battalion sizes and multi equipment battalions. It wouldnt be used in vanilla so I dont expect but its something that would be nice for any realism mods or just for additional flavor in certain units.
(This would also be solved it you could modify how only one of multiple equipments affects a units stats)
 
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Looks interesting. Please ensure that recovery rate buffs don't get too out of hand - 20% recovery rate on top of the existing ludicrous buffs from Mass Mobilisation would be pretty broken if that doctrine path is going unchanged
 
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postnord has delayed the delivery for a whole day, I would say that that would be unacceptable!!! but they are forgiven because this dev corner seems to be fire :oops:
 
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I do like that support companies are beeing changed as an idea. Right now in the game the only way to buff your cav is from support companies. But please dont just nerf cav outright like this. I just watched a long talk about how the use of cav was in ww2 and that the myth of the cav charge against tanks was mostly propaganda. I fear with these changes cav will be even weaker for no real reason. Please do not forget cav with all these boni. Cavalary was used in many forms and had some real advantages in eastern europe still. Even Patton told the us military that he suggest to keep the steel sabre and use of cav in general. Cant claim that man was a bad attacking general. He knew what we was talking about im pretty sure. Cav was not used to charge , but it was mobile infantry basically that needed more supply and much more freedom of movement. They where only used to charge enemies at absolute best case scenarios if at all. But the possibility to raid enemy supply lines and the extra movement, ability to protect retreating infantry kind of made them releveant. They also carried alot of heavy wapeons, like machine guns that they could deploy fast in any battle.
 
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Great Idea. Looking forward to seeing this in action. When looking at template, can you be more explicit as to what is causing modifiers. Instead of just seeing "Battalion Modifier", I would like to see Doctrine X Battalion Modifier, or Technology X modifier or National Focus X Modifier or National spirit X Modifier. Sometimes its not clear why I'm getting a plus or negative. If I can see that my org is lower due to a National spirit I would have more insights on what I need to do to fix it. Same for Navy. Also, in the template designer, If I scroll over a certain characteristic like HP, I would like to see the calculation. There are so many variables that sometimes its hard to understand what impacts what. for example, it would say HP = 6 Inf Battalion HP + 2 Artillery HP - National focus X, etc...
 
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This seems like a really fun and interesting change, definitely looking forward to seeing how it shakes up division-templates between playthroughs.

But even more fun than actual HOI4 is ofc the guessing game! A small feature involving counting the number of battalions and/or applying modifiers through support companies you say?

Did any country likely to be featured in this update do something interesting with their support equipment? Skis?

Otherwise, knowing general HoI4 design-philosophy, I guess the safe bet would be that some country gets to start with a locked support company that debuffs their units.
 
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