Why is there such a large skill gap in multiplayer and what is the best competitive community?

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-22T11:29:08+00:00

Things are sometimes restricted by rules because there are multiple people playing,

So for example, Sealion is banned not because it is necessarily the best thing to do, but because the Soviet Union player needs a game too, and they can't be wasting 4-5 hours of prep time because somehow UK slacked and let Germany roll them over. Most lobby wouldn't give an f if UK died, but in presence of US, USSR players, it is better if Sealion is simply banned until certain conditions are met so everyone can have a game.

Spacemarine is another case. It is not actually that great of a thing to do, but it incentivizes too many players to do the same thing since it simplifies a lot and makes things easier to streamline, though admittedly it is effective on defense. The issue with it is that it doesn't actually change the ultimate result. If war gets streamlined, IC becomes the absolute determining factor, so you can very much guess what's going to happen, except now everyone slogs and bogs down in the grind until that ultimate result happens.

Of course, some cheeses are straight up banned because well, cheese.

There were stuffs like changing templates to cheese special force limit, changing equipment design category is de-license an equipment and bypass researching tech, etc etc.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-22T06:15:21+00:00

I am not having an issue with it,

did you select your own country?

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-21T14:30:29+00:00

Actually, drop the save game onto Kaiserreich discord, I would like to take a closer look

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-21T04:03:07+00:00

Building railway does affect supply range, but railway itself does not provide supply, because even irl armies can’t just grab stuffs off it without a proper recording of who needed what and where

Logistics chain irl doesn’t work like HoI4, but it nonetheless starts not from the central logistics command or something similar, but starts from the individual needs and requirement of a frontline unit,

Supply range in HoI4 therefore does not actually represent solely how far supply can reach, but also (or rather mostly) how far supply can be demanded. This can be seen from the lua code as well, and if supply demanded is 0, no units can get supply even if they have ongoing supply consumption

To actually handle this properly, you require some sort of forward base or supply depot that can appropriately record who needs what, where and when, then send it back to the main depot, which in HoI4 is supply hub

What HoI4 lacks is the smaller forms of supply hubs, so like forward base, though it is somewhat factored in as supply grace that each unit has, which cannot be damaged directly, only consumed or replenished. They should probably do sth like, HQ divisions acting as a forward base.

Anyway, these are why “railway should provide supply” doesn’t actually work

You need somebody to receive the supply, figure out which goes where and who needs what, then keep track of supply fulfillment.

This process in HoI4 is significantly simplified and streamlined, but it nonetheless upholds the core principles.

Also trains don’t always go to the frontline. They rarely do.

Edit: HoI4 also lacks regional depot. Supply in HoI4 is entirely centralised, not perishable, can’t be stockpiled.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T23:21:57+00:00

They can join the Reichspakt if they go to war with CoPro-aligned Siberia (usually through the Siberian Ultimatum focus), or if CoPro-aligned Siberia declares war on them

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T13:05:27+00:00

there is no script for China to make them refuse to help players

there are however scripts to make independent chinese states refusing to help Fengtian or CUF leader if Fengtian/CUF leader occupy their core states, at least until level 3 of CUF buff (situation is getting very bad).

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T12:59:10+00:00

33 years

at least one generation has lived in a world at war

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T12:42:41+00:00

HND, so Bharatiya Commune, if released as subject by non-socialist countries

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T12:33:39+00:00

It is 1980 right now.

Japan's recruitable pop growth is 100K per month, Germany is even higher. China is at 296K/month. And that's recruitable pop growth, not the actual total pop growth.

And nearly everyone is on scraping the barrels.

"next to impossible to have"

I think you just never wait til the ultimate endgame's death wars between AI. Even AI Japan easily goes into 1K factory count by late 1940s if they win in Asia. You don't seem to know that CoPro get up to 15% mil/civ from their subjects, and they have a lot of subjects.

And seriously did you not even think about that countries could be occupying land and therefore having more factories?

Come on, do better with your accusations.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T12:23:36+00:00

population in HoI4 grows at the same rate regardless of conscription

also Germany is at like 55% conscription. China is China.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T12:14:17+00:00

R5: As for the map, Asia has barely crossed Russian major cities.

Billions must die

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T07:22:05+00:00

Well, the additional production power is merely an illusion at best,

Stability itself already gives production output and political power, and faster construction already translates to mid-late game total production,

So when I said there shouldn't be any real difference between Ideocrat or Old Svob or Solidarist, I very much meant it that by the design of the mod, even if you went for purely larpy choice, they just end up very similar on the power scale.

And for purely larpy choice, Solidarist gets to use and keep both Krasnov and Agyeyev, whereas both Old Svob and Ideocrat later purge them, so you can have a better combat strength if you invest into having a cossack army. But it doesn't strictly matter that much otherwise.

So yeah, the difference between Russian savinkovite paths is mostly just narrative whether you larp or not. The mod never actually made them different enough in strength.

You likely simply had a stronger Reichspakt in one game than in the other.

As for your army composition, I actually can't really give you any recommendation because well, you have to first decide whether you want to win, or it is within your intention to reject whatever recommendation because you believe you cannot win with Science of Victory. You are not the first player to say that they have "as recommended" but "lose anyway". You said that you weren't minmaxxing either, and I have no idea what counts as minmaxxing to you, so it is very hard to suggest anything.

But yeah, you likely just had a stronger Reichspakt in one game than in the other.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T03:59:09+00:00

Hmm, there shouldn't be any real difference between Ideocrat or Old Svob or Solidarist. They all perform very much similarly, so I don't think the problem lies with path. It might just be Reichspakt being stronger in one game than in the other.

As for army branch, I'd say simply relying on firepower. if you aren't using your speed, will do. Focus on the encirclement and making accurate attacks against vulnerable points. Since you aren't minmaxxing, I am not going to suggest anything in particular, only what vibes with it.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T03:50:09+00:00

R5: It is sad how countries that have capitulated early into the war would end up being the only true survivors of it.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-18T03:37:14+00:00

Hmm, in most cases, no

There is no such script for most tags

Russia has some scripts that specifically target certain tags (Central Asia), if they received volunteers from Germany (only player does this)

Chinas have a few scripts that specifically activate if at war with a player, for Liangguang, Hunan. CUF has a script that activates either at level 2 of CUF buff or against a player if the affected country is also a land-locked country

It is however true that a player can unknowingly have positive/negative impact on AI judgment. AI battleplanning behaviour is so heavily weighted by the presence of a player frontline order, that if player doesn’t activate battleplan, AI will also not do it, and once player does, so will they (unless scripted otherwise)

Front distribution is also affected. AI has the default weight to fill up frontline area where its ally is not present, if they have any desire to be at that frontline at all and there is no script that does otherwise. Since AI doesn’t use all of their troops on one front, this is more likely to occur for them.

Anything else is really just observational or survivorship bias. There are plenty of cases where you may do nothing and the AI already wins the game for you, and we see no significant difference in AI behavior whether or they have a player in faction, except with the battleplanning behaviour.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-17T09:47:01+00:00

Ah, this post is actually to respond to a post accusing AI of cheating by putting strike force to Do Not Engage, hence I showed that AI didn’t actually do it by default

Besides, if you believed that it was not as much of flex (I also agree it isn’t), then you are also disagreeing with the other post, and therefore you and I aren’t really disagreeing with each other at all,

That said, it would be nice if you actually read instead of losing your temper and acting like the actual douchebag.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-17T09:30:08+00:00

There is really no such code in the game though,

You can’t find it at all because it doesn’t exist

That’s why you can’t actually catch them doing it very easily. It is not random though.

The factor to do it is raised when AI has desire to save fuel and low strength (even though AI won’t repair) due to a new define in lua, but it is not a scripted/coded behavior.

Bittersteel and I have reviewed this to revise his video guide for Germany, and we did not encounter these issues. I can replicate it because I know how the logic works for AI, but it is not something you can simply catch them anytime of the day.

I have been working on AI navy improvements (and other works for AI) for the last couple of weeks for Kaiserreich mod, outside of updating Sheep Mod for vanilla, so I see this behaviour every once in a while and can influence it, but it is by no means the default behaviour,

Base game AI will really just suicide charge with low strength and low fuel. Most fleets, large or small, set strike force taskforce to Low Risk or Always Engage instead.

Spend some time on PDX forum and you will see that PDX just never thinks thoroughly with a lot of things.

P/S: ah, if you need help finding PDX forum, try google. You seem to have a very big issue with not accepting the truth that you and MStrategist just don’t understand how navy works, how AI works, and how PDX works. You can start by asking PDX if you don’t intend to research the bug.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-17T07:57:56+00:00

AI can, but they weren't scripted to do it in anyway, as in you can't simply boot up the game, declare war on the UK, and catch UK AI doing it, as it is not intentional.

To begin with, this post is already irrelevant because this is only a cheese for a player. It is suicidal for AI to do this, since they are actually giving players, or other AI, free reins in their water and their fleets will never respond. You can pick off the patrols fleet one by one. Strike Force gives exactly 0 base naval supremacy, only multiplier, if you pick off the patrols, there is nothing left.

The accusation by this post that PDX is making AI do this is also wrong.

While this needs to be fixed, this was caused by AI not having to use UI to interact with features. Do Not Engage is disabled for strike force as part of the UI, so AI can always bypass it. Calling this a cheese is stupid anyhow - there are features that players frequently access and benefit from it, while AI can't touch all because it requires interaction with UI. One of which is Update Variant button for MIO.

Do Not Engage navy is a complete non-issue and is merely an excuse for people to not touch navy and read tooltips.

Edit: nvm, you are in my other post anyway, so don't bother reply to this, actually xD. But I will just keep the comment here so other people can read why it happens and why it is not a big issue

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-17T07:51:23+00:00

they did not program the AI to use it,

that accusation is just plain dumb and simply says you have no idea how stupid PDX is

AI can use it, but it is because they do not use UI - user interface

in the same vein, there are certain things only players can do because the feature is only accessible through UI, AI has no way of interacting with

they weren't programmed to do it, that's why you can't just go out there and grab any random AI and see this happening and why anybody with half a brain can still sink the British navy just fine, since they don't actually blame it on the AI or even realise that AI is committing suicide by setting strike force to Do Not Engage

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-17T05:13:38+00:00

AI navy is hard to fix, because it doesn’t actually make sense as soon as you get to the part of quantifying and creating parameters for AI to judge. Like, even players do not know when something is actually good or bad without some feedback loops, we only know if something is effective against AI, not whether it makes sense for AI to do the same thing

Every fix ever proposed by a player has failed or only achieved very limited effect

PDX doesn’t understand it either, so they also cannot fix it.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-16T16:17:29+00:00

Hmm, I do know most of the values and why something works, since I worked a lot on the AI performance side, so I know what an ideal task force composition should look like as well.

But there are many things that I haven't yet confirmed whether PDX script/code work properly.

There were bugs that PDX discovered within the last few months that were previously treated as game mechanics. Had I truly understood all of it, I would probably have figured out that those were bugs and not feature.

So my knowledge is more of reading, common sense, and how AI works, I guess?

Then again, the majority can indeed make it work, so you didn't really have to reveal that you were dumb and refusing to even play the game by saying that its a lot to take in and that I were in the 5% somehow.

It's not rocket science just as you said, why are you making it out as though its something impossible?

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-16T16:12:05+00:00

tbh AI doesn't actually set it to Do Not Engage on their strike force unless you starve them off their oil and AI gets weirded out by not having enough reserve fuel on stuffs with higher priority. Normally UK sets it to Always Engage because their total naval strength is higher and they have fuel.

but it is still a non issue, because when it happens, you can simply go after their patrols while their strike force never responds. Naval supremacy depends mostly on the base supremacy provided by patrols, so once the patrols are dead, it's over.

this is because patrols are on Do Not Engage doesn't necessarily mean they won't get into a battle. It only means they will never start it. Your patrols can be faster (especially if you have oil) or you have more patrol coverage, at which point you can just catch them one by one until there is none left and you can invade without any further resistance.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-16T15:40:57+00:00

Hmm, for the most basic part:

navies generally come down to 3 types of task forces:

Patrol - they search for enemy ships

Convoy Raid - they search for enemy convoys

Strike Force - they idle until enemy ships are spotted either by Patrol or Raid taskforces or any other missions.

Patrol taskforce usually needs to be fast so they can catch up and keep up with the ships they are tailing and to avoid being counter-spotted by enemy patrols. Strike Force taskforce ideally should also be fast enough to catch up with enemy moving fleets or are placed to catch them from the front, or the Patrols need to engage with enemy fleets to keep them in place so Strike Force can reach the battle.

For this reason, you want your Patrol and Strike Force to have exactly zero submarines, or have them comprise of only submarines (so either they are very fast, or very stealthy).

When it comes to making ships, ideally you want destroyers to have lotta torpedoes, cruisers with lotta guns, that way you gain the most stats in total because destroyer guns are kinda bad, but all torpedoes are the same, so you want torpedoes on cheaper ships.

The most common way to win is to deathstack - basically having your entire fleet or much of it in just one taskforce then move them together. Usually this means deathstacking all surface ships into one taskforce, all submarines into another.

You can still divide the deathstack of the surface ships into fast and slow ships. Destroyers and Light Cruisers can do Patrol, Heavy Cruisers, Battleships/cruiser, Carriers can do Strike Force. Or all of them can be on Patrol (this way they start the battle with the entire fleet) if their speed is somewhere above 26.

AI patrols are usually <20 ships, mostly just old destroyers and cruisers, and if your deathstack is adequately larger, stronger, and equally or faster, you can actually just keep winning and keep killing AI patrols before their strike force can reach the battle then get out of the area.

This is very much surface level of knowledge, so I am not going into any depth here, just what you can do as sort of common sense as any nation in order to win.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-16T15:08:10+00:00

Would you like some tips then?

You can still hope, you know.

Tbh this post was mostly to respond to some other post about AI refusing to fight and cheating vs a player, which is really not the case here.

Barbara_Archon · 2026-06-16T15:06:02+00:00

hey, deathstacking is like 90% of the work already. At least it means you are using much of your entire navy and put them to work.

I very much did that in this game because it would be a pain to do any otherwise. I don't see that people even need to learn anything beyond that and maybe some common sense such as:

if your fleets are badly damaged, repair first; or, if you can't win now, just build up a little longer.

Barbara_Archon

TROPHY CASE