since blood alone came out this guide is no longer accurate.

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 guide by Ems Telegram, he explains what the stats do.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
  

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. We need to make them fast and durable, so they can dodge shots and tank some hits so the screening efficiency doesn't go down. they arent meant to do damage.
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 2 :Its fast, so there is more dodge chance so the ship survives longer
  
  
  
  
  
• 3. destroyer2 : the point is that they can tank more shots form a light attack cruiser.
  DD1 has 25 hp, a good light attack CA will 1 shot it.
  DD2 has 40 hp, a good light attack CA will take 2 shots.
  so DD2 are double effective!
  
  
  
  
  remember, i am not advocating converting already existing destroyers to this template. I am suggesting you build new tubs with this template.

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.
  

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.
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.

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

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.
  

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.
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?

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

"THE DODGE BUILD" as i like calling because Payday2 reference is the basic back bone of helping your navy edge victory from the jaws of defeat.

basically If you have less visibility and more speed, the in game calculations makes shots fired against you miss sometimes. you would think that this is small, but it is very big!

this is why heavy battery 1 is better than the newer guns. even though newer guns does more damage, it slows down the ship more. thus having less dodge chance than using the older battery. and in the end loosing the battle.
read more over here :
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/heavy-gun-upgrades-make-your-battleship-worse.1510804/

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.

here are the most important traits, you need to have these on your admiral to be competitive.

1. concealment expert : gives you -20% concealment for more dodge chance
   
2. bold : gives you +10% speed for even more dodge chance
   
3. any 1 of these 3 traits to have access to concealment expert, ranking from worse to best
   
   1. superior tactician : positioning is good, best one by far
      
   2. spotter : not very useful, big fleet battle happens even without spotting.
      
   3. blockade runner : this trait doesn't help you win, it helps minimize losses.

here is the best admiral for each surface fleet nation in hoi4 + France.

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.

In no step back they added a spirits system, this is the best spirits for surface navy.

• Night fighting : the only combat oriented spirit. it gives 5% visibility to increase dodge chance.
  
  
• Naval refit yards : since the meta is based on refitting ships, naval refit yard helps you do it 25% faster
  
• Convoy warfare : don't spent xp on this unless your nation doesn't start with a usable admiral. this spirit gives a chance to, when recruiting new admiral, gain the blockade runner trait. you can then upgrade that to visibility expert and get a crappy, but better admiral.
  (you need to unlock the first doctrine of trade interdiction)
  

the navy also has a high command and a chief of navy. these are the best traits to pick. from best to worse
Cheif of navy

1. naval maneuver : more speed = more dodge chance. so more speed better !
   
   
2. decisive battle : more damage i guess, only pick this if you navy doesnt have anyone assignable with a naval maneuver in the officer corps role screen.
   
   
3. the rest are ok i guess, they do what they tell you they do
   
4. naval aviation : does absolutely nothing besides give xp. the plane stats are a lie.
   

Naval high command
in my opinion, you should just use this for land advisors, but if you have a free slot sure

• you could use capital ships guy i guess
  

we are done, thanks for reading and leave suggestions or questions in the comment below, so i can implement them into the guide, and make it the best it can be.

Go read my reuploaded tank guide too : https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2768015050