Best General Traits?

[Aurite]

Can people let me know what traits you think are great and what to avoid?
I belive + prestige for taking cities and also the initiative and recon are good perks to pick. I took the negative perk to only have 3 elite replacements per battle - but I did not know we dont get free replacements between missions! So this one is a no-no! Any negative perks that are not too bad? Suggestion for devs - discounted elite replacements between missions please?

TL:DR
Positive perks you suggest and why?
Negative perks you suggest and why?

Thanks :)

[Path]

Liberator (because prestige matters on higher difficulty settings), killer team (if you're lucky or willing to save scum your start to get at least two top heroes) or Panzer General (because armour will eventually make up a significant portion of your army, and high-tier ones cost a lot of slots). The rest feel situational, too dependent on having the right heroes or just downright bad.

Trench slogger (?) is an easy pick for me as I mainly use pioneers anyway, so I largely ignore entrenchment when I assault.

[=7Cav=Burgundy]

Infantry/Panzer General, the core cost savings mean you can have more Infantry/Tanks or more support equipment, strong, flexible, always useful as those two units will always have a significant footprint in your core.

[Aurite]

I like liberator a lot as i figured it would help. Armoured movement and slots is good too. What do you pick for a negative?

[Green Knight]

There are many good traits, and some fun ones. Depends on what you're after.

Most of the negative traits are pretty harsh, but can be worked around.

https://youtu.be/6VbKoUyuzgE

[Warriordude]

Don't forget the killer team, I think that's what it's called you get heroes at start.

[Carebaer]

I know its best traits but I figured info on which not to pick will be looked for in this post as well

delayed reinforcements are just too hard to do, no reinforcements for the complete map, I could do with maybe just 3x reinforcements but 0 ?

As soon as casualties mount on one unit you have to decide:
kill the unit off to buy a new one because I need a full unit to reach this or that goal
or play with that unit away from the front line

Might work with one, maybe two but if you say good bye to the third unit and but them in off front duty to save them you more or less are screwed.

Wouldnt pick it again before it being reworked.



I like expert scouting, with a clear scouting of the map goals airborne assaults are way better to plan and since I extensively use scouts the bonus accuracy doesnt hurt either.

My fav negs are:
no overstrength
+ its 2 pts
+ I rarely used that anyway
+ it saves a lot of prestige not using it (this way I wont even be tempted)
- overstrength units can really pack a punch

inexperienced troops
+ its 3! pts
+ historically much more accurate
+ saves lots of prestige
- good luck trying to get those 5* units you know love and want to have for the achievement


In addition
I try to gain some points with "workarounds" like:

- no aircraft (-3) with expert AA (+2)
- the 6mth late equipment (-2) with ties to industry (+1)

[Lamp Cord 훏훠]

I'm thinking of the following combo for my next campaign:

Positive: Panzer General / Liberator / Killer Team
Negative: No Overstrength / Trench Slogger

One interesting combo I heard Edmon mention in his vid is combining Panzer General with Poor logistics.

So you get +25% tank slots but -10% all slots without using up any commander trait points.

That works out to a net gain of slots as long as you use > 30% of your slots for tanks.

So say you have 80 slots, 30% would mean 24 slots for tanks.

If the tanks are normally 4 slots you would normally get 6 but because they are 25% off, they are now 3 and you could get 8. That's 2 extra tanks or + 8 slots.

You would also lose 10% of 80 or 8 points so that would be a push.

But if you use more than 30% of your slots for tanks than you are getting free slots at no cost in commander trait points.

[eskuche]

I think liberator is overrated. Granted I haven’t seen late game maps but on generalissimus I have 6k starting Dunkirk with trophies of war, flexible command, and perimeter control. For example early game maps have like ten flags (~300-400 prestige extra with liberator for two points). I get 200-300 prestige PER surrendered unit. This money making increases more later game when units are worth more. Almost a no-brainer for me.

I have also taken green army and delayed reinforcements. These are rough to swallow but the best way to counteract this is by taking meat shields with auxiliary army. A repeatedly split storch can draw out 4-6 enemy fighters for 50 prestige per one map. Similarly a panzerjaeger or normal infantry auxiliary can eat up most of your losses.

Note that overstrength does NOT cost you more prestige like in PC1. It’s slot heavy but completely reversible for free during deployment. Replacements for overstrengthened points also cost just the normal amount.

[Qeng Ho]

My favorite is Expert Ant-Air. It's so satisfying to clear the skies without losses. The enemy will always have more planes than you do, and they are often better than yours, so relying on fighters might be very hard later on, while 88mm AA guns kill almost anyone in 2 shots without taking any damage. I guess, using cheesy strategies like splitting Storch to bait enemy fighters works too, but I don't like to use these.
I also love Deep Recon. It's very comforting to see what exactly awaits you near your objectives, and it also makes your recon units a bit more useful (and it's only 1 point!).
Anything that saves you slots (Panzer/Infantry General) is very good too. Slots are precious, at least in the first half of the campaign.

I'm in doubt about the Killer Team. Never took it, because it doesn't seem that useful: heroes are not essential in the first missions, when your units are too weak to be killing machines even if you give them perfect trio of heroes, and you get heroes for each mission anyway.
I agree that Liberator is overrated (or, rather, it's only really useful on higher difficulties, where you get no prestige per turn and have to grab any prestige you can).

The negative traits... They are interesting, because for most of them you can't guess how exactly they will affect your campaign. Fear of the Unknown looks OK (and even useful, because it means you will never run into an ambush), but in fact is a terrible choice, because it cripples your aircraft (if there is a fog of war around your airfield, which happens very often when ground units move forward, your planes are completely stuck there!). Chaotic Fire is OK because you don't usually need to worry about supplies, BUT it means no chain overruns - a couple and that's it, your tank is out of ammo for this turn. Bad Supply - in the beta version it was absolutely crippling, because it only replenished 1 fuel and 1 ammo per turn, so all tanks and trucks ran out of fuel in the middle of any large map, moving only 1 hex per turn. It's patched now - it's 2 ammo and 4 fuel, but I avoid it. The one where you can't get more than 3 upgrades per mission is very good before about 1943 - most of the time you don't even use all 3 upgrades per misson before that - but after it really bites you in the ass, because you need to upgrade all your infantry, and you get a shower of new and much better tank and plane models (between 1940-1943 most of the upgrades are not essential, variants of Pz3 and Pz4, a bit better fighters and bombers, but after... oh boy). I guess Trench Slog is good, but I didn't use it. The one where you get equipment 6 months later is manageable, I think, but hardly enjoyable.

[eskuche]

Good points. I agree that splitting bait is slightly gamey but on high difficulties you do what you need to within game bounds. I probably would draw the line before envelope + overpower however.

I thought I’d be able to handle randomly lack of move or attack but in fact it’s hugely disruptive, especially when it hits one of your power units.

Trench slog is almost ignorable by splitting Morser 18 cms for example. Regret not taking it.

Fear of unknown is basically negligible with splitting one or two storches.

[Edmon]

I have a very detailed video on this subject, which was mentioned above and you can find it here:

https://youtu.be/R1bdngs91YQ?list=PLrGILJcqTblXXWcsSl2iY6PSqlUMLnFWX

There is a lot of devil in the details with traits, but you can't go wrong with liberator or killer team.

[Concerned West Virginia Resident]

If you're playing on generalissimus, you will have a far easier time either using liberator or going for surrenders with Plunder. If you choose neither, you will have a much harder time finding prestige. It's not impossible(there are two playthroughs on the Slitherine forums showing off how), but one of the two approaches is necessary to have an easy time with prestige on Generalissimus.

[TheShark]

I use many of both positive and negative traits. I've watched and thought about Edmon's stuff, but I don't think he accounts for synergy between the various traits. What I'm currently using gives you a massive ground army that moves well and doesn't get stuck on rivers or choke points. Currently using:

Infantry General
Panzer General
Operational Initiative (it's +1 init all game for all units)
Master of Blitzkrieg (the ignoring minor rivers for tanks is really, really good)
Perimeter Control (allows you to infiltrate and destroy supporting weapons positions really easily. saves multiple turns in each battle)
Anti-Air Veteran (FlaK 88s are so hot right now)

Denied Air Force (really good. allows you to buy alot more ground units. also allows you to make a large part of your enemy's forces [fighters and AA guns] useless)
No Overstrength
Inefficient supply (this seems like a free point. haven't noticed any supply issues.)
Fear of Unknown

[Green Knight]

Originally posted by TheShark:

I use many of both positive and negative traits. I've watched and thought about Edmon's stuff, but I don't think he accounts for synergy between the various traits. What I'm currently using gives you a massive ground army that moves well and doesn't get stuck on rivers or choke points. Currently using:

Infantry General
Panzer General
Operational Initiative (it's +1 init all game for all units)
Master of Blitzkrieg (the ignoring minor rivers for tanks is really, really good)
Perimeter Control (allows you to infiltrate and destroy supporting weapons positions really easily. saves multiple turns in each battle)
Anti-Air Veteran (FlaK 88s are so hot right now)

Denied Air Force (really good. allows you to buy alot more ground units. also allows you to make a large part of your enemy's forces [fighters and AA guns] useless)
No Overstrength
Inefficient supply (this seems like a free point. haven't noticed any supply issues.)
Fear of Unknown

This is a good combo!

With enough AA, which you will have without pts spent on air, enemy air units are almost irrelevant.

The only drawback is I like to play with a few air units :D

[Brother Pedro]

Trophy of war is like printing prestige after the first few mission. By the end of France I easily have over twice the prestige I had with liberator. You can also snag some nice tanks like B1 and S35 that's better than most allied tank for many missions in Africa and better than what you have access to in Russia. Then you start stealing KV2 and KV1 in Russia...

Flexible command offers tons of utility and aids in capturing enemy, cover more with the same amount of units, draw enemy out of position by appearing weaker, etc.

Master of Blitzkrieg, faster tank and now I can forget about bridging in most mission.