Support companies play a very significant role in the designing of effective divisions in Hearts of Iron 4. They impact a whole array of stats for your divisions – and can be a highly valuable tool to gain the edge over your adversary.
There are currently 11 support companies in Hoi4 that can be unlocked via the support company and artillery research branches. Each has a different speciality, and some are certainly stronger than others. So in this Hoi4 support companies guide – we’ll go through each of the support companies Hoi4 has to offer, and determine which you should actually be using, and which can be left back at base.
To Begin, What Are The Available Support Companies In Hoi4 – And How Are They Used?
(Some of these companies are DLC exclusive!)
With many support companies to choose from – it can be tricky to know the difference between some of them, so in this section, we’ll first go through how you are able to use support companies in Hoi4, and the companies that are available.
To use the Hoi4 support companies, you must firstly navigate to the division designer – which can be found within the “Recruit & Deploy” tab towards the top left of the screen, and upon opening this tab you’ll see the division designer on the right side of this window.
Once you’ve opened that or chosen to edit one of your existing divisions – you will now be able to monitor and use your existing support companies. These can be found on the left of the division designer – and you are limited to a max of 5 per division.
Now that we know how to add our support companies – what are the available support companies in Hearts of Iron 4, and what do they do?
Support Company #1 – Support Artillery
Support artillery (just like in real life) is one of the main support companies in Hoi4, along with one of the first ones you’ll get. To unlock this company – you must simply have researched artillery. With regards to what this company can do – take a look below:
As you can see from above – artillery crushes in one way – soft attack. But what is soft attack? Soft attack influences the amount of damage you’ll do to unarmoured targets – such as infantry and cavalry. Each support company has a different composition of positive and negative modifiers, but in general, the most important modifiers in no particular order are as follows:
- Defence: Influences the division’s strength whilst defending
- Breakthrough: Influences the division’s strength while trying to pierce enemy lines
- Soft attack: As said above – influences the division’s damage against unarmoured targets
- Hard attack: Influences the division’s damage against armoured targets
- Supply Use: Increases or decreases the amount of supply the division uses
- Organisation: Changes the division’s organisation – which impacts how long they can stay engaged in a battle for before retreating
- Piercing: Determines how effectively your divisions can pierce enemy armour
- Armour: Increases or decreases your armour
One final thing to look out for is the actual equipment and production cost increases associated with each company. Support companies will still require manpower and equipment to be added to your divisions.
So with that said – artillery’s main strength is its soft attack bonuses – which are substantial, but this is counteracted by the -5 organisation penalty to divisions equipped with this company – which can be a substantial loss in certain situations.
Support Company #2 – Support Anti-Air
Speaking of which – anti tank is the next company on this list – unlocked via the anti tank sub-path (in the artillery research branch) – this company specialises in the targeting of tanks and armoured units more generally.
As expected – the primary stat here is of course air attack. But interestingly – anti air can also provide a not insignificant amount of piercing and hard attack, which can help you to take down lightly armoured opponents like space marines, light tanks and motorised. This extra bonus can be highly valuable to nations without the factories or resources to build dedicated anti tank equipment.
To balance this – the company docks a massive 10 organisation, which means that having this company on units like tanks can be tricky.
Support Company #3 – Support Anti-Tank
Speaking of which – anti tank is the next company on this list – unlocked via the anti tank sub-path (in the artillery research branch) – this company specialises in the targeting of tanks and armoured units more generally.
As you can see – this company clearly greatly improves the hard attack and piercing of your divisions, making it a particularly great pick for dealing with enemy tanks, and the organisation loss isn’t too severe in most cases.
Support Company #4 – Engineer Company
Moving on from the dedicated combat divisions, we have engineer companies. These companies specialise in boosting the defence and entrenchment of the division that it’s attached to. In addition – these companies also grant increased defence and movement speed in forest, jungle, hills, marsh and river provinces.
While not very useful on the offence – defensively engineers can be highly effective, especially if you’re defending forests, rivers, forts or marshlands. So part of the consideration when it comes to this company will be the terrain of your nation, and where you’ll be fighting.
Support Company #5 – Recon Companies
Next are the recon companies, which we have combined into one section – as they are essentially just upgrades of each other. These can be researched within the support companies and tank paths.
As you can see – these companies can give a wide array of bonuses at their max output, and depending on which company you use. Armoured car recon companies are the best for pure reconnaissance, while light tank recon companies have the best overall suite of offensive bonuses. So use cases will depend on industry and what you actually want from these companies.
Support Company #6 – Military Police
The next support company prioritises defending what you’ve taken. It does this by buffing your units’ defence and suppression ability – making these a great choice to have on your garrison and port guard units.
With regards to downsides – there’s only really the slight organisation hit that you receive – but considering the primary focus of this company is suppression, that’s not really the end of the world.
Support Company #7 – Maintenance Company
We then have maintenance companies – these are predominantly useful for smaller nations who make tanks – like Hungary or South Africa. These companies increase the reliability and reduce the equipment losses from training and fighting with divisions with this equipment.
In addition – having this company equipped will increase your equipment capture ratio – which can be useful provided you are going on the offensive and annexing countries – so this could work for countries like Germany and Italy.
The company does have a slight organisation, piercing and supply malus – but these are honestly fairly mild.
Support Company #8 – Field Hospital
Field Hospitals reduce the experience loss from taking casualties, and grant a trickle back of manpower to your pool. This is a percentage of lost manpower returned back to you.
With regards to other modifiers – the company has a slight supply use increase, along with an organisation and piercing loss – but otherwise the negatives are pretty light. This company can be really useful for those nations without large manpower reserves – or for those with long front lines like Germany.
Support Company #9 – Logistics Company
The logistics company can be highly useful when fighting in areas where supply is hard to come by – such as in South America, Africa or East Asia. It can even be useful in Europe, even where supply is typically better – due to the quantity of divisions on the front lines there.
More specifically – this company increases your breakthrough, reduces supply usage as a percentage and again as a flat modifier – with a slight buff to HP.
Once again – the negatives are pretty mild here – just a slight organisation and piercing reduction – but for what you’re getting here, that may well be worth it depending on the front you’re fighting on.
Support Company #10 – Signal Company
The final company to discuss here is the signal company. This company focuses in on the initiative stat – which will speed up planning, and increasing the probability to reinforce units under siege in a battle.
With regards to the negatives – the organisation loss is pretty mild – with the only negative here of note probably being the increased supply use.
So, What Are The Best Hoi4 Support Companies – When Should You Use Them?
Support companies are very interesting in Hoi4 – in that basically every single one has its uses in one scenario or another. Despite this comparably equal playing field, there are definitely still some which strive above others.
The first of these star choices is no other than the trusty support artillery. While a bit boring – the usefulness of extra soft attack and defence cannot be understated – especially when facing up against the AI – who typically use fewer tanks than their player counterparts, meaning you’ll get far more benefit from the additional soft attack that support artillery provides.
Next, we have anti-tank and anti-air. I’ve grouped these into one because while they are good – they have a more specific use case than that of artillery. This use case is if you are a small nation who cannot afford to produce either planes or tanks (or have chosen to forgo one of these branches), but you need to deal with a larger nation with a superior air force or with tanks. In this case, anti-tank and anti-air can be a highly effective option to level the playing field.
My next general recommendation would be the logistics company – this company is good in all but the most well supplied regions, and can reduce the upkeep of your divisions, saving you time and resources. The extra breakthrough is also nice.
Just Before We Finish – What Are Some Additional Things to Consider When It Comes To Hoi4 Support Companies?
First off – we have neglected to mention one highly important thing to consider when determining which, and how many support companies you should be using – army doctrines.
Certain doctrines have a major impact upon support companies. Most crucially of all is the “Superior Firepower Doctrine” – which grants an additional organisation and soft attack bonus to your support battalions. This can significantly negate the main negative side effect of support companies (organisation loss), and makes companies like support artillery an absolutely essential no-brainer.
And finally – and possibly most importantly, make sure to consider which division you are putting these companies on. Tanks for example, will probably not have high enough organisation for most of the game to be able to incorporate more than one or two support battalions – whereas infantry will probably be able to take far more. It is not always advantageous to fill up all of your support company slots. Keep infantry organisation to at least 45, and tank/motorised organisation to at least 30 – this should stop them from immediately losing organisation as soon as they engage – which can be highly frustrating.
Conclusion
With all that said, we hope that you enjoyed this Hoi4 support companies guide. Support companies can provide substantial buffs to your units in a cost effective manner – and should not be ignored. If you did enjoy this guide – you’ll be sure to love our other Hoi4 guides which you can find here! Have a great day, we’ll see you next time.
