Well, extra 5 army XP cost is the same, both in infantry and artillery one-battalion divisions. But in the long run, lots of divisions training in the field after deployment will give a lot more than 5 XP, so it will pay off quickly. So while this is useful in normal gameplay or in multiplayer, it's less useful in speedruns.
Artillery instead of guns can be ignored if artillery reserve divisions are fielded while being under-equipped (they will re-stock with new gear after template change). Besides, if your army uses artillery in their proper templates (support or normal), then your divisions are going to use artillery anyway (and if you are planning to use artillery in divisions, you are going to produce enough of it for whole army anyway), so artillery given to reserve divisions will be then used by real divisions after template change. You can also give reserve divisions low priority, so they won't "steal" equipment from real divisions (though that may result in proper divisions being fielded while wielding some outdated junk, if you do have outdated junk at storage).
If i took it wrong, do division need some minimal amount of equipment to be fielded (so can you field them bare-handed to instantly change template)?
Increased speed on which divisions can be trained and fielded are not only benefits of reserve divisions. For example, amount of special forces divisions and amount of volunteer divisions depend on number of divisions without regard of what templates of those divisions; fielding lots of reserve divisions can increase these parameters. The same thing goes to amount of divisions on border with country what has non-aggression pact, what would allow to prolong it (though this variant has risk of reserve divisions being dragged into fight). And such high number of divisions would confuse opponents. Not many of these are used in speedruns, but it's great in normal gameplay and in multiplayer, to the point when one-battalion divisions are banned on some multiplayer servers.
Generally, while reserve divisions in general are good in play, but less useful in speedruns specifically, what do you think is better in comparison to each other in reserve role - one artillery battalion divisions or one battalion infantry divisions?
I found one flaw in that strategy: production costs. Infantry battalion needs 100 infantry equipment while Artillery battalion needs artillery. That means what even battalion with T3 small arms (69 production) costs more than battalion of T1 cannons (126).
But remember: reserve divisions don't and shouldn't go into battle, so they could be fielded in the rear bare-handed, and then their template changed to something useful and what has needed equipment in storage (after that they will re-stock).
Any other flaws?
... And yet you are not only current WR, but also faster than current WR of "Glitched" Category.
It seems like no one cares? Unlike the "combat worthy 1-battalion divisions" (what is arguably nonsense), the 1-battalion artillery divisions look useful in practice - on paper, Artillery Reserve Divisions are better than Infantry Reserve Divisions, and Penal Battalion Reserve Division is even better. Did you find any flaws in that strategy?
Everyone knows about that tactic with 1-battalion divisions. Rather than training divisions normally, you could recruit 1-battalion divisions, instantly deploy them, then swap template to actually needed one, and then send those proper, but inexperienced divisions to training - that combination is faster than normal training, and also gives you Army Experience.
But, i come up with new idea. Instead of 1 battalion of infantry, you should use 1 battalion of towed heavy weapons: artillery, AT guns, AA guns, rocket artillery. Towed field artillery is the cheapest and earliest from them all, so let's go with it.
The reason for this is because fielding artillery 1-battalion divs is fater than 1-battalion infantry. Yes, single artillery battalion is somewhat slower to train (120 training artillery, 90 infantry), but artillery have 500 manpower, while infantry has 1000. That means what you can train 2 artillery reserve divisions in place of 1 infantry reserve, therefore effectively being able to train them faster.
For "spherical cow in vacuum", but mathematically correct example: let's say we want to train 100 divs, and we can train 10000 manpower simultaneously. For that, Artillery one battalion divisions need 5 "shipments" (with 20 divs in each), while Infantry needs 10 "shipments" (10 divs in each). Put in division training time and you can see, what to complete this task, Artillery Reserve Divisions need 600 time units total, while Infantry Reserve Divisions will need 900. In practice, Artillery will recruit even faster, as limit of simultaneously trained manpower is increased by increasing numbers of actually fielded troops.
There is one thing even faster than this: Penal Battalion. They need 850 manpower and 50 training, so they can do the same "10000 limit, 100 divisions" task in 425 time units (11,76471 divisions in each "shipment", 8.5 total shipments). The problem is, they can only be Unlocked via the Soviet Union’s Penal Battalions national focus; if you haven't done it yet, or you are not Soviet Union, you will stick with artillery.
Also, what about new category - Game B Co-Op and Game B - Phases 1-25.
Just like in Game A Co-Op and Game A - Phases 1-40; Game B Co-Op and Game B - Phases 1-25 would be played by multiple players and one player respectively (without animal's or ROB).
Rules:
- Timing starts when you press start on Game B (Both categories)
- Timing ends when the end of level music starts after completing Phase 25. (Both categories)
- Everdirve or PowerPak may be used. (Both categories)
- In "Co-Op", One player controls the professor while the other player controls the pipes.
- In "Phases 1-25", One player must use both controllers
I think that category would have some activity, due to it being very easy to play (and therefore not that hard to get on top of leaderboard). What do you think about it?
Electronical AI's don't qualify, but what about living ones? These AI networks use living neurons for computing and learning; neurons usually taken from brains of domestic animals, like lab rats (but you could use neurons of other species - dog's for example). So, these things are alive in some way, technically cyborgs. So those kinds of AI's qualify as "domestic animals?
What about monkeys? Also i heard what crows of all birds are very smart.
Also, what about AI's, especially self-learning neural AI networks? Some of them are about as smart as animals, and they are also not sapient (as they can't complete Turing Test - and that is just start of tests needed to qualify AI as sentient), so they qualify. Some even use live neurons in them.
Maybe even broader: can any non-sapient animal be used with dog assistance category, or only dog counts?
Not glitch, but whatever; you should request lend-lease from as much countries as possible; that not only includes most major nations and your war allies, but also countries of same ideology (even if it's tiny minor on other side of map), and probably unaligned ones. Due to AI shenanigans you, sometimes, can befriend the unlikeliest allies, so why not to try?
This is especially important if you're playing as minor nation, as in that case it's native weaponry will likely be out-numbered and out-performed by outdated trash from entire world - and therefore, your army performance directly correlates with how many countries you begged.
In speedrun, it's too time consuming (so it's better used in in-game time runs), and it's less crucial for major, but it's useful anyway.
I have a idea, what seems nonsensical at first, but it could be good in practice. Normall 1-battalion divisions are cheesy reserves - you make them to convert them into something useful, or use them in situations what don't require actually fighting someone - like charging deep into territory or executing Order 66. But there is an idea of actually combat-worthy tiny divisions:
You would take 1 battalion and as much support companies as possible (at maximum of 5), basically making divisions composed mostly of supports; this is because you can't make divisions made entirely of support companies (if i am wrong in that instance, you can try that too). Because support companies don't take front width, that translates into more bonuses per width; of course these tiny divisions must group into "piles", with each pile being same width as a sane man's division (for example, if we want our pile of microdivisions to have width 40, and each of them have combat width of 2, like Infantry, microdivisions must group in swarm of 20 - and that is equivalent of 1 division, now if country would normall have 100 divisions, it would translate into 2000 microdivisions).
Obvious minuses is what they won't fit into any commander's limits, and it would be extra hard to control them, both macro and micro (you must make sure they don't separate when that is not needed and don't overcrowd, and also disperse and concentrate them in right moments). But most "meta" ideas from HoI4 would look like nonsense when taken out of context and put IRL - so, this 1 battalion + support divisions should be analyzed (as no one has tried that idea before).
How would they fare against "normal" divisions, given if we take both of them of same combat width, or of the same cost, or training time?
Also, would divisions made just of 1 battalion work in battle (for example, 10 divisions with 1 infantry battalion in each versus 1 normal 20 width infantry division)? I don't think so, if they are taken individually they loose, but what if each group of tiny divisions will go in pack, results could be diffrent?
The logic behind it what divisions gets debuffs if it is overly large, so if we extrapolate that to other end of scale, group of small divisions is stronger (?) than a normal-sized division of same composition. Also they would fit pretty much into any terrain's width with no problems, and also increase the technical amount of used divisions, what could affect things like other country getting scared by sheer number of them, or amount of volunteers what can be sent to you.
Also, is it a good idea to go in opposite direction - make huge divisions of 25 battalions and 5 supports (at cost of having less divisions overall)? They would have combat width issues though, is it's also probably bad.
Both "big divisions" and "tiny divisions" actual combat strength better be seen in normal gameplay or multiplayer; in speedrun the 1 battalion only division's role is clearly capturing unoccupied lands, not getting into actual combat. Meanwhile the "25+5" and "1+5" divs are made for actually fighting enemy. 1 battalion division and "1+5" division are different things for different purposes.
Или успешно победить Вову Виста (или всех вояк той самой группы, где в том видео заспавнился Вова Вист), или просто пробежать до конца карты, защищенного Вовой.
I think, for best strategies, you should check Tvtopes.https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/HeartsOfIron Especially "Game-Breaker" page https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/GameBreaker/HeartsOfIron - they have pretty high standards of writing (for me it's looking comparable or only a little bit lower than Wikipedia's standards), so if they officially consider something "Game-Breaker" instead of merely good - it's incredibly good to use. Simply use as much "game-breaking" stuff of various types as possible, the more the better - whoever is bigger munchkin wins.
One province puppets (IDK how it's called in Paradox games slang, a pretty good variant would be "asterixing" or "gaulofication" as reference to Asterix and Obelix last Gaul village - but it's too long for a slang name, so using "OPP" is arguably better). Basically, leave 1 most useless territory to conquered nation, make it puppet, while taking other territories.
OPP basically combines 99% of pluses of total annexing with some of puppet state. For example, nation only gives half of it's weapon and fuel stockpile - puppeting it will allow to order it to give you the other half of stock. Another plus is what OPP may do something useful with it's nation focuses. Also, technical existence of nation could be needed for nation focuses of some countries, so it could allow some focuses and screw up others - so that needs some planning to make sure what it allows your focuses and screws up something dangerous (some focuses need country to not be a puppet, and some require it to simply exist). Also, OPP can research technologies different from yours, what you can then take with technological exchange - what will allow to tech faster. Technically this is not glitch, but a cheese tactic nonetheless - i can't remember any cases when something like that was done in real history.
Another variant would be, when puppeting a country, satellite as much of it's pieces of that country and make all of them puppets, basically dividing a country into vassal swarm - like in Europa Universalis pre-unification Holy Roman Empire. Vassal (puppet/satellite technically) swarm is to normal puppeting as OPP is to normal capture.
That in-game would be better than 1 big puppet is because it would be more easy to increase level of control in them, and each of them would have independent national focus tree and tech research, and it would be more hard for them to do something independently of you or rebel (especially if that was multiplayer, and that country was one of a player). Also, it could be a requirement for some focuses and mess with others, and enemy would need to manually justify on every single one of them.
What do you think is better - total annexation or One Province Puppet? And what you think is better - one big puppet or a ton of small ones? Also what about comparing One Province Puppet, the normal Puppet and Puppet Swarm to each other, what is better? Of course speedrun requires you to capture countries, not puppet them, but otherwise what is better, for example in normal game or in multiplayer?
Also, what about releasing puppet nations while retaining states with cores - basically, this is because from game mechanics perspective, these new nations would use these given territories as cores, therefore getting better use of them (so you would get more benefits even despite the fact what puppet keeps part of it for themselves). Then you would command them to give and do what you originally wanted to do with that province. Retaining states with cores is needed to not accidentally throw away something useful.
Making puppets is counterproductive rules, as the point is "unite the world into single nation", not "make the world more balkanized than it is today"; unless you think what extra goodies taken from puppets will outset time needed to annex/conquer them back, that will be a waste of time. On the other hand, in "All Majors" you can leave minors and releasable countries, so you wont need to re-capture them - so it may be viable in that case.
Also it's worth noting what some formables can be released as puppets by different countries on start - for example, Somali Sultanate can be formed without giving away cores by Italy, France and United Kingdom; Morocco can be formed by France and Spain; Mariana Federation can be formed by Japan and USA; proper use of releasable nations could allow to try and get cores needed by these new puppet releasables, allowing to get into fighting faster and in more stylish/justified way. If you're doing that in multiplayer, you should release puppet while retaining cores before your opponent does that.
Also you should check on states needed to create formable nations - check the Formable and Releasable nations list on Wiki:
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Formable_nations
Actually it's slower and is in leaderboard. Sorry.
I found a run what is faster than current WR, but is not in leaderboard. Is it legit?
I have some ideas for "Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby" new categories. First is beating other opponents as fast as possible (Eyore, Lumpy, Piglet, Kanga & Roo, Rabbit, Owl); second is maxing all Pooh's stats ASAP; both would go into miscelaneous category. Segmented runs of various characters also could be made as separate categories, what would require to beat only one character and not those before him (that would be more convenient for some runners). Also, there was official clone of this game called "Cosmic Slugger" https://www.disney--games.com/cosmic_slugger_253.html https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Cosmic_Slugger#Trivia.2FGoofs , it's different enough to be worth of separate categories, but too similar to be considered a separate game, so it would go to WTPHRD category extensions (rules would be category for beating each opponent, plus category for maxing out "contact" stat; if all those misc categories are too much, then it would have categories for beating second-last and last opponents, what means Clyde and Yin).
Well, the only restrictions are:
- Worlds must be newly generated with no settings modified (unless otherwise stated).
- Respawning anywhere in additional drop pods is not allowed.
That means what, to submit multi-player run, you must create server, call your friends for it, and all of your friends must spawn in the pod you use.
That means what survival kit must be set to "everyone", or they must be in same fraction with you; on spawn, they could spawn in space suit, join faction, and then respawn on your pod.
It is 6.73 actually. On moment of picking up last item is was that time. You can see this on 10 second of video on 1/4 speed. The 6.96 is result of delay between the moment of game completion and pressing button to stop timer.
Turn on bases, ships (and maybe drones) on in world generation. When starting game, first, quickly convert drop pod into aircraft (optionally, also add interior turret and some armor), and then fly it to nearest pirate base. Then capture pirate base without blowing it up and without drop pod being ruined (that is, it's survival kit and battery must not be destroyed by drones - you probably may need multiple respawns to do all this, though it was known to capture it in a single go, though it required huge amounts of ammo and hydrogen tanks ). Then, use recourses found in base, materials of which base is made, and wrecks of drones, to make a functioning ship and take off. When besieging the pirate base, it is advised to turn the pod into small underground base - that way, drones won't destroy your survival kit. This strategy would allow to make a run in roughly sub 30-minutes, as long as you don't make too many mistakes, and would be much more action-packed than normal "Race to Mars". What are your opinion on this strategy?
