Combat width is one of the most important factors with regards to warfare and battles in Hearts Of Iron 4 – understanding it is crucial to win more battles, and to overall have more fun within Hoi4. Combat width has ramifications upon division designing, industrial might, geography and more. So in this Console Bandit game guide – we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about combat width in Hoi4 – so that we can eventually answer the question, what is the best combat width Hoi4?
To Begin – What Is Combat Width?
Combat width is essentially the amount of space a single division takes up within a battle. Each battle has a maximum number of divisions that can be actively engaged at one time – known as the “available width” – which we’ll get into later.
The width of your division is decided by the number of battalions within the division, and can be modified by some select bonuses from the “Mass Mobilization” army doctrine. Each batallion’s combat width size, along with the modifiers from the Mass Mobilization doctrine can be found below:
Battalion Combat Width Sizes:
- All forms of anti-tank and anti-air battalions: 1
- All forms of artillery: 3
- All other battalions: 2
Mass Assault Doctrine Combat Width Modifiers:
- Vast Offences: infantry combat width -0.3 (meaning infantry would have a width of 1.7)
- Human wave offensive: infantry combat width -0.4 (meaning infantry would have a width of 1.7)
“Available Width” Explained
Now that we know what determines the combat width of our divisions directly, we can delve into how that number interacts with battles themselves, and cover what available width means.
So, available width is the total width of a particular battle, which determines how many units of a particular width could fit into that battle. The available width of a particular battle is determined by a number of factors, which we’ll cover in detail below:
What determines the available width?:
The first and probably most important factor with regards to the available width is the geography of where you are fighting. Each terrain type has a different combat width it can support, ranging from a cap of 80, down to a cap of 50. The full list of terrain types and their combat widths can be found below:
- Urban: 80
- Desert: 70
- Hills: 70
- Plains: 70
- Forest: 60
- Jungle: 60
- Marsh: 50
- Mountain: 50
Another group of important factors to discuss with regards to available width are reserves, reinforcements and directions. Starting with reserves. Reserves are simply the divisions that cannot fit into the battle due to combat width, they do not gain nor lose organisation, do not attack or defend – but do contribute their anti air stats. In order for a reserve to reinforce a battle – there must be room in the battle for them to do so – the maximum combat width of a battle is the base terrain width + a 32.5% penalty – this essentially means that you can go over the available width – at the expense of a combat penalty which caps as 32.5%.
Finally – attacking from multiple directions also plays a role in the combat width – as each additional direction added contributes half of the defending tile’s available width. For example, if the defending tile was urban – and you were attacking from two tiles, you would be adding an additional 40 combat width to the battle.
So – What Is The Best Combat Width Hoi4?
Now that we know what goes into the combat and available widths in Hearts of Iron 4, we can break down what the best combat widths are in Hoi4. A few years ago – the obvious answer was 20 width divisions – but with a few exceptions – this is no longer the strongest combat width to go with.
Thanks to a great video by Pydgin, we know what the best combat width is mathematically. From his data, Pydgin concluded that the combat widths of 10, 15 and 35 fit the best into the majority of tiles.
The 35 width template specifically is only really meant for plains, deserts and hills. Despite this date – with how the numbers work out now – there isn’t really one sole width to go for anymore, instead specialising your templates for different war theatres is going to be really important – so consider larger templates for Western Europe, North Africa, and North America, and smaller templates for Eastern Europe, Africa, a good amount of China and East Asia, and South America!
Conclusion
So, with that said, we hope that you enjoyed this Console Bandit game guide and you found it helpful – be sure to check out our other Hoi4 guides, which you can find here, and have a great day!
