Hearts of Iron IV Guide | Division Templates

Divisions in Hearts of Iron IV are a complicated affair, and as with everything, you get near-infinite choices to customize your divisions to your exact specifications. You can also just larp as historical divisions and play with those constraints.

In general, the division designer is split into two sections: the support tree and the combat tree. The support tree can have a max of five battalions, while the combat tree can have a max of twenty battalions. You can get more for the combat tree, but it's highly unlikely you will need to.

Most combat widths work now, but 30 combat widths are the best for the best effect. Any more than that, especially at 40, and it starts to get very unreliable. 

Infantry

The baseline units are the units that you produce first. They also usually tend to be the most efficient because of their comparatively low cost. Most Infantry tend to be fillers; they are there just to fill up slots.

Defensive Infantry

Defensive Infantry is meant to hold and protect provinces, preventing naval invasions and paradrops and filling up gaps in your frontlines. These defensive Infantry come in a few forms.

Cheap Infantry

• 6x Infantry Battalions
• 1x Support Engineering Company

These are likely the first divisions you start pumping out as a minor nation or a nation with a small industry. This has barely any upkeep and only really requires you to focus on small arms production. This should be enough to hold your own against most enemies you might encounter. Later on, during 1939 or 1940, if naval invasions were a threat, you should add support artillery or support anti-tank. Similarly, if you're dealing with an enemy with a strong air force, you should get them to support anti-air.

Standard Defensive Infantry

• 9x Infantry Battalions
• 1x Support Artillery Company
• 1x Support Engineering Company

These are full units totaling a combat width of 18. If you're feeling cheeky, you can add a single battalion of artillery. This just minorly buffs them up. Once your industry picks up pace and you can sustain at least 10 factories for artillery production, you can make it into two artillery battalions. You can also follow the previous guideline and add support artillery or support anti-tank for naval invasion protection or to fight against armor and anti-air to fight against paradrops or CAS.

Offensive Infantry

Offensive Infantry is basically the unit you will fight with. They still lack breakthrough and optimal structure and stats, but they can get the job done most of the time, especially if they have air support.

Offensive Infantry

• 9x Infantry Battalions
• 4x Artillery Battalion
• 1x Support Artillery Company

These are your super offensive Infantry. They are dirt cheap and probably will fall apart easily, but they have relatively high soft attacks. With a combat width of 30, you can get these units up and running by 1939. They are also not as reliant on the air force for their lethality. If you have a bad industry, you will probably rely on them for most of your game.

Garrison Infantry

Garrison Infantry is self-explanatory. They aren't even meant to hold but rather keep suppression up and be the off-map units. As such, you want to spend as few resources on them as possible.

Garrison Division

• 4x Infantry Battalion

Garrison Infantry usually has an engineer company. These are the base game garrisons, and they mostly get the job done. However, as you will see, there are alternatives.

Small Cavalry

• 1x Cavalry Battalion

That's it. That's all there is to it. A single cavalry battalion can tie down, filling the role of a garrison most effectively. 

Large Cavalry

• 4x Cavalry Battalion
• 1x Military Police Company

These are generally more expensive than the generic infantry garrisons, but they offer more suppression, especially when paired with the military police companies. If you are facing a lot of resistance, they are the way to go.

Mobile Infantry

Mobile Infantry is there to be fast and hit hard. They are generally adept at moving around, repositioning along the frontline, and committing to pincer attacks and encirclements. They usually work in conjunction with tanks.

Light Mobile Infantry

• 6x Motorised Battalion
• 1x Motorised Artillery Battalion
• 1x Support Recon
• 1x Support Engineer

These guys are light enough not to absolutely drain your fuel reserves and still get the job done. They work best when you have limited resources and factories. Later on, you should transition into a better counterpart.

Heavy Mobile Infantry

• 12x Motorised Battalion
• 3x Motor Anti-Tank Battalion
• 1x Motor Support Battalion
• 1x Support Recon
• 1x Support Engineer
• 1x Support Anti Tank
• 1x Support Anti-Air

These are the supercharged versions of the Mobile Infantry that you'll have. They are also adept at dealing with enemy tanks. If you are facing enemy tanks, keep it like this, but if you're not facing too many enemy tanks, you can change things to 3 motor support artillery and 1 motor anti-tank. If things are too expensive, you can remove one line of motorized battalions to keep 9 of them.

Tank Divisions

Tank Divisions are for you when you have a very strong industry, almost all your other roles are fulfilled, and you still have enough industry to sustain one to two tank types and everything that goes along with that. Tank Divisions can be incredibly varied, especially if you have No Step Back. For the purposes of this guide, we'll assume you don't have the DLC, though.

The main and only tank division template you should really be concerned with is the Motor Inf.-Tank Hybrid build. This consists of:

• 8x Medium Tanks
• 2x Motor Artillery/SPGs
• 6x Motor Infantry
• 1x Support Recon
• 1x Support Artillery
• 1x Support Anti-Tank
• 1x Engineer

This gets the job done in most situations, and you can run a cheaper version with 6 tanks and 3 motor infantry battalions. You can also have a lot of specialization with things like a Tank Destroyer or Self-Propelled Guns. You can also make a heavier version of this. You can

Heavy Tank Division

• 4x Heavy Tanks
• 1x Tank Destroyers
• 8x Motor Infantry
• 1x Support Recon
• 1x Support Artillery
• 1x Support Anti-Tank
• 1x Engineer

The heavy tank division basically follows the old rule of 1 heavy tank for each Infantry. For both designs, you can replace the motor recon with a light tank recon or add a maintenance company. The latter is extremely useful as it significantly reduces supply consumption and equipment reliability. You also lose less equipment this way. 

Special Forces

The special forces in the game are generally not as good as tanks but are specialized enough to fill niche roles. For example, marines will always be better at naval invasions, and paratroopers are the only units that can paradrop. So you should build them as they come along. Most of the time, having 4x Battalions with some support companies is enough. In the case of marines, this can get a little complex, coming to one of the game's infamous division types. These are called Space Marines, and they combine foot infantry with tanks. This is usually banned in most multiplayer matches, so we'll not go over them.

That's pretty much everything in terms of division templates. You can make many niche ones. Like with the latest DLC, you can create militia infantry units with heavy artillery. Many of the desert nations can use camelry to great effect as well. These cases vary and just depend on the situation.

Check out our Hearts of Iron IV: Götterdämmerung DLC review and other guides below:

• Hearts of Iron IV Divisions Guide