The Russian Tsar is having a bad day - HoI4 Disaster Save

In this HoI4 Disaster Save as the Russian Empire, we find ourselves at the receiving end of Barbarossa. And it seems the player gave up for some reason.
If you enjoy these saves games and want to submit your own, do so here:
forms.gle/ak9vyFekfEAxvYJo9
Try this yourself:
Want to buy some DLC or games and support the channel? www.nexus.gg/bitt3rsteel
❤❤ ☑ Viewed? ☐ Liked? ☐ Subscribed?
The lovely countryballs are courtesy of our community member Zatwinki (Zatwinki#2839) over on our Discord! Check out their work here: www.deviantart.com/zatwinki
I upload new video's frequently, so subscribe for more regular content!
Twitter: @Bitt3rSteel
Outro Music: Wild Pogo
I do not own any of the games, all rights are reserved by their respective companies. Paradox games: Copyright © 2016-2022 Paradox Interactive AB. www.paradoxplaza.com

[@Bitt3rSteel]

@Erik Sauer and all doubters: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZOrZa19iq6WhpI RAW FOOTAGE of this segment. Did I cheat? No. Is the AI competent? Also no

[@aprender1952]

Hoi4 ai and competent ai are polar opposites.

[@sniperdude6286]

The reason why was that the divisions were on a garrison order and moved automatically to the next province along.

[@livefire5239]

Hey just wanted to let you know the company you promoted a few weeks ago "Established Titles" is actually a scam. There is a KZbin video by Scott Shafer that goes into detail.

[@Roketsune]

His About page shows several other accounts. You should try telling him on Twitter and Discord as well to maximize the chance he finds out.

[@tricot6468]

@@aprender1952 chess ai vs hoi4 ai

[@ClemDiamond]

"I'm just roleplaying NATO please" is a sentence said at almost every hoi4 game.

[@lordbonney9779]

You could say he was *Royally* screwed

[@BA_Leafy]

LMAO

[@thespectre5403]

Bruh

[@SupBruhYT]

No just no

[@kermit8804]

Can u explain i feel i am missing a vrry funny joke

[@personexists4520]

@@kermit8804 the tsar is royalty and royally screwed means you are very screwed

[@NEINNEINNEINNEIN1]

I like how he has more factories than ai soviet before barbarossa

[@BlackHammer3]

because 60% of his civs are from trade, probably lots of them from Japan

[@logannoble6707]

its 1944 at the start

[@NEINNEINNEINNEIN1]

@@logannoble6707 but soviet ai's number of factories does not change from 1941-1944

[@tombomb47]

@@NEINNEINNEINNEIN1 source?

[@fazi354]

@@tombomb47 i made this whole shit up 🗿🗿

[@kekw2552]

Wait, so this guy won tsar civil war and still had more factories compared to when I was playing against AI as Stalin. Just WOW

[@Litterbugtaylor]

Yes, yes i did

[@Diamond_Arrow_the_Lizard]

Well, you can stack high the consumer goods factories decreases with tsarist Russia (War economy, ministers && some focuses). I was destroying the Axis in 1940 without any industry focuses picked, fair Civil War && no army reorg, my economy was quite great and kept up with the expenses.

[@personexists4520]

This started at 1944 that’s why

[@Lich_V.]

If you play the stalin route you can have around 400 factories at the start of barbarossa (bit luck dependent if the ai buys your resources, but 370-80 should be doable every time, regardless of luck).

[@user-fi2fk2ei7o]

probably trade factories because commie has difficult time getting non commie ai trade with them

[@letsplaypetrus4802]

At 14:00 there is a river crossing, but its hard to see. You see that the river is running parallel to you on your left side just before Astrakhan and than it splits around Astrakhan, making it into an island. You can see that the river flows left and right around Astrakhan if you look closly. But it is something I wouldn't have seen myself if I was playing at that moment.

[@shadowdweller8776]

I thought I was going crazy. Like THERE IS A RIVER

[@kitfisto5132]

yeah its the rivers delta

[@notyourname1]

Anytime that happens i figure the devs did more research than me in this, and i double check and usually learn something new!

[@apoivre]

That's the Volga delta. There are hundreds of islands actually

[@OverlordMalarkey]

This has got to be the best disaster save Ive seen, the guy clearly pre-planned everything before everything went wrong. I love it!

[@isometimesmapstuff]

thanks man

[@mironkrylov]

well actually a Astrakhan is in delta of Volga river, it's really surrounded with little rivers, greater rivers, swamps and deserts

[@asherwoodrow7471]

so, hell?

[@Lwowski-Polak]

@@asherwoodrow7471 da

[@jeremyglass4283]

Bittersteel one min into the video: “what I like about this save is not so much that it is terribly set up” Bittersteel literally 20 sec later: “I hate the way your army is set up!”

[@mr-balls]

3:16 was such a coin-drop moment

[@Ryuko-T72]

A small tip i have for tank pushes is to leave a couple behind incase enemies try and cut you off. Usually leaving lowest org

[@chrisbeamond8826]

It's a bit hard to see but there actually is a river to the east of Astrakhan as well as the west, so the city must be inside a river fork. So it makes sense that this is a river crossing

[@insignificantgnat9334]

Those end of the war German casualties were brutal, I don't think that would leave a whole lot of fighting age men at the end of the war.

[@idontlikerome2744]

Greeks killed more than the french

[@Litterbugtaylor]

Oh hey its mine, also i didn't do third rome because i was trying to get romanovs last laught which third rome invalidates, also the caucasus was lacking oil because german factories win civil wars but going to war with Germany doesn't give you therights back. Wait now i remember why i chose st petersburg, i was at war with Ukraine and Belarus and Kazakhstan when the soviets fell and they controlled Moscow and tsaritsyn when the decision came up so st petersburg was my only option.

[@dobi2236]

You can win the civil war pretty easily without doing the shit AI support decisions

[@Litterbugtaylor]

@@dobi2236 without waiting for stalin to bleed troops in dessertions and surrender capacity to random events

[@dobi2236]

@@Litterbugtaylor ? Not really? Unless you're speedrunning, 1938 is usually when i end off but that's because I dont rush and tackle romania + turkey early game

[@Litterbugtaylor]

@@dobi2236 you cannot push if you do not have supply, you are literally pushing them towards supply, although it is easy to change all thier mills into civs then change all the units to 2 width heavy tanks because the ai cannot swap divison templates

[@dobi2236]

@@Litterbugtaylor push along railways, Building supply hubs is something ive done maybe 4 times, ever

[@ahmedrashad3556]

Always fun to watch your disaster saves …thanks Bitt3r keep it up 🔥👍🏻

[@gabelol9987]

I literally only bought this game because I saw that there was a sale on it. I knew nothing else about it but I bought it because I had nothing else to play. So far it has consumed about 1500 hours of my life. Best and worst purchase of my life

[@jes3d]

poggiewoggies

[@complex3297]

poggiewoggies

[@REALnotsus]

poggiewoggies

[@DepressedBearsFan]

Notpoggiewoggies

[@getimpaled3460]

Nobody: Bitt3rsteel on his way to pronounce Kutuzov as Kututsov

[@somewhereelse1235]

Some people just can't pronounce Z properly, ts is close enough for those people.

[@SnakyZHD]

3:16 I hope nothing's broken lol

[@finmin2k]

great video, really love your enthusiasm about encirclements haha, makes it very fun to watch. i would love more content like this

[@thefella302]

Huge move

[@glauberglousger6643]

Love the weird number of factories (So many for post Tsar Russia)

[@samcrea]

Can you make a video on what the best tank templates are? I can never really figure them out

[@ironstream3955]

Great video as always. Take care and getting better soon.

[@LichsuhoathinhDrabattle]

Great video, looking forward to your next videos❣❣

[@Bitt3rSteel]

Yay! Thank you!

[@isometimesmapstuff]

thanks for doing my save , i only noticed now!

[@joaocabral3541]

Thankyou for showing the war casualties now and then

[@What-thaW]

This counter-attack was… really, really historically accurate Edit: territorially at least*

[@tunganhnguyen909]

Your tanks move slowly because they are constantly out if fuel dude. NSB has been making it way harder (and more fun) to do tank encirclements. You gotta plan your offensive around supply hubs. That's also why infantry is the queen of the battlefield

[@tagus100]

And he's out of supply + using tanks in terrain that they're not suited + during winter.

[@noutwf]

Love the thumbnail keep up the good work

[@purpleburglaralarm9712]

20:20 that voice crack💀💀💀💀💀

[@R4lf84-Productions]

Waiiiiii-- Mr. bittersteel said “we dont need that many airplanes!” Like in almost every Desaster save he complains not having enough and here he finally has enough ;)

[@Litterbugtaylor]

I did say in the submission i had a beefy airforce and economy, still have the save too

[@johndancu1228]

Great Video man !

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

These videos are back. As always, the only person to actually explain what they're doing

[@igameidoresearchtoo6511]

So if you are ready for it, it's more of a challenge than a disaster save (mainly because erm..it's slightly edited in the favor of the enemy to make it harder for you so that we can finally watch a failed disaster save saving) If you want a slightly tampered save that is so ridiculously difficult I would consider it a lost cause before I even see the armies.. Then go ahead, I'll submit it later this week when I'm on my computer.

[@ianhogben3472]

Learned so much from this

[@sonic_speed_up]

Боже, Царя храни!

[@border4851]

Сильный, державный!

[@maitiv261]

Good video

[@Thatsc00ldude..]

I try to play this game and then I watch yt and see how miserably bad I do. I just send troops into the land and pray I win. This is on a whole other level of good 😨

[@kamalindsey]

Solution is almost always Supply -> Equipment -> Amount of divisions -> Lack of armor. Then -> Stabilize front until defense and deploy armor to make encirclements.

[@JagerEinheit]

idk if @bitt3rsteel knows the martians meeting the phone skit from sesame street , but that yep yep yep was on point!

[@chrisbeamond8826]

Great work as usual! I think that we can agree though that the usual "stabilize, build a small amount of tanks, push them somewhere and encircle" is getting a bit old. I'd love to see you take on some disaster saves where you are not allowed to use this tactic, because the AI clearly can't handle it. It's starting to get a bit boring since you do the same thing literally every game. Also, the tanks moving at 1km/hr because they don't have the supplies for the fuel shows the danger of using this tactic.

[@xavierthepaladin5966]

I actually choose St. Petersburg on my russian empire saves, easier to defend bc of the river

[@Litterbugtaylor]

i chose st petersburg, i was at war with Ukraine and Belarus and Kazakhstan when the soviets fell and they controlled Moscow and tsaritsyn when the decision came up so st petersburg was my only option.

[@Roketsune]

There actually is a river between Astrakan and the tile you were attacking from. The river is hard to see, but in 14:20 it's clearly visible.

[@fullydark9633]

The river around Astrakhan forks but it was hard to see with the battle plan :p

[@pimentaze2886]

This video was uploaded 8 hours ago I can't believe it 🤩

[@fem530]

Jeesus the amount of encirclements 😄

[@tristanthebaut2073]

Nice to see these Soviet style offensives. Trapping the German in the Caucasus. Worked in the past and still up to date

[@chicks-bj6jo]

I am a chinese player and I saw a trick that almost every chinese streamer/uploaders use but almost never saw any uploaders here in youtube using it. That is: including a medium AA tank battalion in your infantry divisions. The reason you should use this is that it gives you a 50% damage reduction(might be 60/70/85 depending on armor/piercing ratios) to both org. damage and equipment/manpower loss(that is, unless you are completely encircled) while providing defense, breakthrough and attack bonuses. The AI usually have low piercing early and mid-game, so 30-40 armor usually works and gives you the full 50% damage reduction(You get full reduction if the enemy piercing is less than 50% of your armor). You shouldn't use this in multiplayer since the other player would see that you are using medium AAs to get damage reduction and would just stack piercing to destroy them. Stacking piercing is a lot easier than stacking amor. You should choose medium AA instead of medium tank for these reasons: 1. Medium AA is a lot cheaper per unit compared to the average medium tank. Since we are only using armor, every other value does not matter(except maybe speed and reliability, speed should be the same as your division speed). 2. Medium AAs only require 36 instead of 50 per battalion for every other type of medium tanks. 3. AAs would also deal damage to enemy planes(obviously), which is especially important if your airforce is sht and is facing countries with a strong airforce. It is way easier to do this instead of building up an airforce for yourself and defeat the enemy airforce in battle. 4. Choose medium tanks since light tanks are too weak to give you the 50% DR unless you stack armor very hard, and heavy/SH tanks are way too expensive to be used(You will need 1 battalion at least per shock division) Using this may give you a large advantage in all situations(as long as the enemy does not have ATs/lots of tanks) for reducing your org damage, saving manpower and equipment and increasing your attack. It's not expensive at all and you could try including it instead of an extra artillery battalion.

[@greaterbelgiummapping1266]

Almost at 120k!

[@just1it1moko]

I've always been unsure if you were Walloon or Flemish but hearing you say Rostov I can pretty safely say you're Flemish.

[@Arnie58]

A Encirclement Compilation of this video would almost just be a reupload

[@swampyjester7724]

woah 2 mins, gotta get in fast

[@thefreakingc8557]

it looks so easy when you do it

[@AryanJJ]

missed Carpathian Ruthenia and memel but it was good enough

[@Anton-oy7zh]

@Bitt3rSteel, could you pls place somewhere a link for downloading this save ? Try it yourself at the description is empty =(

[@DandyDNA]

7:58 majestic

[@Gungho73]

How much can you build supply lines or railway systems? Is there only dedicated spots or.

[@how_to_be_a_Old_legionary44]

i just love. how the guy who made this disaster. have more factory that me when i played with the ussr. XDDDDd

[@mirabasta2714]

Hi, can i ask you, why i shouldn't use cavalry recon for infantry? And for what unit is cavalry recon?

[@luco-3po878]

Cavalry recon doesn't give a lot of bonuses so it's just a waste of equipment

[@sahilhossain8204]

Hmm yes lore of momentum of Hoi4 Russia but historically accurate somewhat

[@TankBoii]

oh yes, the great nation of Barbarossa! (referring to the thumbnail)

[@osloqt]

good job

[@RELFIR]

15:24 almost thought you were gonna call him Sinterklaas

[@VanBourner]

I am sick (as in too sick to play in bed) and this has the effect of chicken soup on me.

[@sammmsational]

I love how this is still the Italian war on Ethiopia

[@marshaldivad]

I just love how something falls in the background at 3:18.

[@Error_code_1001]

I thought something fell in my room lol

[@marshaldivad]

Fr just the same.@@Error_code_1001

[@fallanor3]

How can you make the group of armies frontline united? I mean not divided on army 1, army 2 at each sector, but mixed?

[@cometdoggo]

shift click the front line order

[@tagus100]

Click on the Field Marshal, then Shift+Click when you make the frontline.

[@vladokalaba2640]

Killing blow!!? You use Tau empire (Dawn of war game) as weapon masters?

[@__geoul1s__618]

Yo , if i buy by blood alone i'll have every pack or i need to get every pack alone ?

[@pedro2m939]

That was saurkraut for the Thrid Rome

[@Draconatus24]

I love it

[@user-ju4wz1yj6x]

good vid

[@nelcraftlp9512]

How can you activate only one offensive of the army group. When I try to do it the whole army group starts attacking?

[@NotDmitry]

We all know how the russian czar saved the empire in 1944 by appointing that belgian guy as his commander in chief. If only he wouldn't backstab the monarch and gave the crown to Santa Claus, our history books would look a lot different 😞

[@NoNonsenseNendou]

Any way to pull a Vichy with ol Benny or Dino or Italo guide?

[@guest1470]

THIS DUDES PRONOUNCIATION

[@REALNMG]

it is not letting me get the HOI4 file save lol

[@viclorenzo5016]

Bitt3rSteel to the rescue!

[@revenanlone8974]

Check max speed on thet tank desine. I thing they have 4km max speed.

[@nomfvideoesonmeisthatokfor6539]

It 11.9 km/h btw. Supply + terrain modifiers just slow tanks down so much.

[@kleinerprinz99]

@@nomfvideoesonmeisthatokfor6539 1 km/h might also be a hard limit , right? they cannot go slower than that, or?

[@Yes-pd3cb]

"Axis minors are starting to fall" *includes Italy in that statement*

[@Drazja]

Bitter you're the best

[@kristofevarsson6903]

15:55 22:09 Ah, the Duality of Man.

[@dakotastrain338]

Bitersteel OnlyFans release when?

[@enric1478]

I wanna see bittersteel play against other people

[@eli-mi3mh]

Hey do you expect mod saves like road to 56 or no

[@NewGuy478]

14:55 The Great Trial

[@domschra]

Tsar gaming

[@Prostitepj]

Please help me, I'm already desperate. I recently downloaded this game, but when I went on the map there were no multi-colored countries and borders, there was a large geographical map. How do I turn on a political map so that countries have borders and colors? Thank you very much for taking a little time to read this.

[@Robbe-xf2pc]

On the right side you can see the map modes and click on them. Alternatively you can use the keys, so for the standart army map it is f1

[@leilaelhachmi353]

I think you forgot to attach the link for us to try it. Could you upload it? :)

[@Kicek02]

Can you give the link for this save to downland?

[@BesnikHawk]

My PC would have exploded 😂

[@LeroiAlbertpremierdunom]

I love disaster saves and tsarist russia, so this video was awesome. I'm wondering though, is there anyway I can send my own disaster saves? I don't have access to the discord as I was banned a few months back.

[@johngalt5166]

Don’t get banned 💀

[@LeroiAlbertpremierdunom]

@@johngalt5166 lol it's hard when the mods are tyrants.

[@johngalt5166]

@@LeroiAlbertpremierdunom this… is very valid lol

[@Azaqa]

You couldve continued trading with US and just set convoys to not use any Atlantic sea tiles

[@cargbohadredmhagn3141]

Man i was waiting for a Russian disaster save

[@lexi1031]

18:57 is it going to show up in a British museum later?

[@NiDe500]

Tsaritsyn? Vital to your strategy? Even in an alternate timeline, bogging the Germans down in Stalingrad is effective.

[@rimtas04]

Lithuanian medium armor at 20:56? How? I'd understand the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth having armor but this is historical non-aligned Lithuania. Very historical as it seems.

[@samwill7259]

Quick, find a crazy magic homeless man! He'll save us!

[@gengarzilla1685]

I wouldn't exactly call the Metropolitan a homeless man.

[@prayingpat6254]

17:17 oh no.