this navy guide is like a crash course on how to build a proper surface fleet navy, a lot of things will be left ignored but if you follow this guide you should beat anyone thats not following it.

Introduction

This guide is based on the naval meta of hoi4 multiplayer. there is a lot of info left out for the sake of time. this guide focuses mainly on the hoi4 surface fleet. we will not be talking about anti submarine warfare in this guide.

if you haven’t check out this – [steamcommunity.com] guide by Ems Telegram – [steamcommunity.com] , he actually explains what the stats do.

TL:DR

Just build the things from build 1 : the light attack spam, and you will beat anyone that doesnt know the meta.

Converting and why.

one of the frequently asked question i get when telling people the naval meta is “why not just build new better ships”, well converting old bad boats is just way cheaper.

example:

as you can see converting halves the time it takes to aquire a good boat. this means that if your opponent chooses to build new ones insted of converting even if he has, lets say %50 percent more dockyards then you, you still win by converting.

“but building new ships lets you also keep the old one!” i hear you(i am inside your walls). well, those light cruiser lying around isn’t going to do much with 8 light attack are they?

converting ships is so great, dockyard counts contribute less then you might think. if a country starts out with a old and weak fleet, but can convert those into good enough ships they are already ahead of countries that start out with close to no fleet. like germany vs uk for example:

germany might have the capacity to build more dockyards but their starting fleet is not even half as good as the uk. that’s why german players ignore the navy and do subs, they have no hope of fighting the uk fleet head on, so they choose to conserve their resources and annoy the living crap out of the allies.

The 3 builds and rock paper scissors.

there are 3 major builds that can counter each other, and a verity of other not so optimized ones.

here is the chart.

• light attack spam : the best build because it beats the other non meta builds and the starting fleets of the largest naval player with ease.
• heavy attack spam : to counter the best build you need the best anti-build. heavy attack spam is that, it beats the light attack spam, but not much else.
• do a little trolling : theoretically, to counter the counter build, you need to be off the board, be insane, do a little trolling. that is what destroyer and light cruiser spam does best.

 

Build no.1 : light attack spam

this build relies on these 4 facts :

• 1. when screen dies screening efficiency drops.
• 2. soft attack murders destroyers and light cruisers , which are screening ships.
• 3. heavy cruisers are not screens.
• 4. heavy cruisers can mount light guns , which give light attack.

what this build needs

we will try to have as meany heavy cruisers that are filled with light attack as possible. than produce as meany screening vessel as possible to stop our own screening efficiency from dropping. if you have more heavy cruisers it takes less time for you to kill the enemy screens, and more screens makes your enemy take longer to drop your screening efficiency.

Light attack heavy cruisers

These heavy cruisers are the back bone of our plan, we need each of them to have the highest soft attack possible, while taking as little time to acquire as possible (convert them dummy)

here is the template:

here are the modules that you should worry about.

• 1. light cruiser battery : this is what the main course of the plan, have as much as you can fit, more soft attack is better, don’t even bother with anything else.

  

• 2. heavy cruiser battery : any level will do, this sets the class of the ship to not screens. note that for converting from light cruiser to heavy cruiser, changing it to heavy gun1 and heavy gun2 cost the same. so if you are upgrading light cruiser, just use heavy gun 2.

  

• 3. Fire control : they boost attack by a factor. nice to have

  

• 4. secondaries : your heavy cruisers are even better at soft attack. they can also fire at 2 ships at once, however useful you think that may be.

  

 

Spam destroyers

these are sometimes called tubs in the community, they are made cheap and made to die. mostly its these are just made to increase screening efficiency, not to do damage. they will disappear when anything with light guns look in their general on vicinity.

there is 3 important modules to a good spam destroyer design.

• 1. light battery 1 its cheap, destroyer guns does almost no damage anyways.

  

• 2. light engine 1 :its cheap, and since there is no other modules the speed is fine.

  

• 3. destroyer1 : its cheap. and since we will not fit anything else but gun and engine the extra slots do nothing
   

  

• note : the production cost is 580 that’s less than some submarines.

remember, i am not advocating converting already existing destroyers to this template. I am suggesting you build new tubs with this template.

Aa battle ships

so you decided to go with the meta light attack spam build, but you have tons of battle ships and battle cruisers laying around that cant mount light attack gun, what do you do? well convert them into aa battle ships. its main job is to provide protection from naval bombers and tactical bombers alike, we need to make its aa stat as high as possible

• 1. aa mounts : just slap them in every where you can.

  

• 2. fire control : it helps boost anti air stat as well.

  

 

Build no.2 : anti-light attack spam

the anti light attack spam is exclusively made to defeat light attack spam it takes advantage of these facts:

• 1. heavy attack works really well on heavy cruisers and battle ships.
• 2. the power of the build 1 comes from light attack heavy cruisers.
• 3. the screening ships of the build 1 are usually not well armed and cant do anything on their own.

it however will probably lose to a lot of other un-meta builds like carriers or light cruisers, so the soft attack heavy cruisers are probably better over all.

this build means

we need to have heavy attack in our ships, so something like heavy cruisers with heavy guns will do. and we have to use our screens to delay the enemy light attack cruisers from hurting our heavy attack ships and give the heavy attack ships time to kill the light attack ships.

note this build requires a lot more steel then light attack, take that into consideration.

Destroyer

use the same one in the light attack build, seen in the spam destroyer section.

Heavy attack heavy cruiser

This heavy cruiser is the back bone of our counter play. we need to maximize its hard attack.

here is the most important modules of the heavy attack cruiser.

• 1. heavy cruiser gun : we obviously needed the most amount of heavy attack possible.

  

• 2. Fire control : they boost attack by a factor. nice to have

  

• 3. secondaries : your heavy cruisers are even better at hard attack + a little soft attack. they can also fire at 2 ships at once, however useful you think that may be.

  

 

Build no.3 : we do a little trolling

you know that your opponent is trying to counter you using heavy attack spam this is going to counter him, by taking advantage of the 1 very important fact.

• heavy attack does jack crap to screens.

so this build is based on producing hard hitting screens that cant get hit by the heavy guns of heavy cruisers. this however will be a death sentence if the enemy ends up going with the original plan. light attack will kill this build.

the build

theoretically consist of mostly good light cruisers and destroyer. but since this build is very very very situational i think you can come up with your own designs, not because i never have to use this build before and have no experience. but because its more fun to build your own ships right?

How to convert properly

to convert properly you need to make specific templates for each designs of ships you are converting from. for example.

you can see the difference it makes, because the emerald has a different engine and armor than the adventure, it cost a lot more to change the engine or armor.

following the guide in converting is easy follow 3 easy steps

• step 1. modules with hard outline : replace whatever on the slot with the latest version of that shown module
• step 2. modules with dotted outline : if its already occupied with the same type of modules don’t change it. but if its different/not there, change it to the max level possible.
• step 3. do not change anything else

practical example 1

practical example 2

Admirals

a better admiral can turn a battle. this is how i like my admirals. its based on a dodge build. naval speed and visibility increases the dodge chance of your ships and thus making them less likely to get sunk, the more dodge chance, the more of an advantage.

you cant really grind admiral traits, there are usually 1 good admiral for each nation. here is a theoretical best admiral, you will never get this, settle for something your country has.

• 1. THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE, concealment expert : concealment actually helps you avoid shots, thus making your ships more survivable.
• 2. any of these any traits : you need any one of these 3 traits to get concealment expert.
• 3. iron side, big guns expert, marksman : this is pretty low in the priority list, but its one of the better traits to have. it actually contributes something to the battle.
• 4. the 2nd most important, bold : this increases fleet movement speed, thus making them have more dodge.

 

Doctrine

there is one doctrine for NAVAL combat : trade interdiction, its the only doctrine to provide dodge bonus, through -x% to detection.

• 1. Raider patrols : the most important doctrine buy, it give heavy cruisers -10%.
• 2. capital ships raiders : gives -20% visibility to battle ships.

 

 

I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Hearts of Iron IV – Naval Meta All Guns Template; if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!