A few beginner questions

[Shau]

So I've played some games, checked the achievements and decided to try the hardest difficulty i.e. almost no prestige and + accuracy for ennemies. I've turned the turn limit off, as it used to be too short on some maps for me. There are some things I don't really understand.

When playing without heros:

How do you counter air? Usually, planes attack my unprotected units. I tried placing them around an anti air gun -> they attacked my planes and the ani air gun didn't shot. If I overextend, they shot unprotected targets, preferably artillery.

How do you kill units in forrests or settlements? Losing 6 units makes the prestige worthless, as replenishing the 6 units will cost more.

I've picked the perks double encirclement penalty and double surrender bonus. However, the units keep retraiting when I attack them until they die, What's the trick of forcing a surrender?

How do you apply all of this in the tight time limit? Playing without felt a little boring in the end, as Iít was more or less downgrinding them. I'm missing a setting of something like +2 turns extra.I think the easiest difficulty has this, but as it's bundled with extra prestige. I've ended up having more than I could spent when playing default + liberator.

Sometimes, I do face thanks where nothing of my roster can really damage it. What's the trick?

Some tanks have a "shots 1.5 times" trait.
Lets assume tank A has that trait and 12 vs. soft and hard, while tank B does't have that trait, but 14 vs. soft and hard. And a little more defense. Which tank would be better? And is there any benefit of buying a cheper unit that has all around worse stats? E. g. there are two types of scouts: one for 120 and one for 140, while the one for 140 has better stats everywhere (polish campaign). Is there a reason for buying the one for 120? Except you have exactly 120 credits and desperately need that tank Which is situational?!.

Lets assume you buy infantry for 170 + 100 for mount. 50% of your units die. How much do you play for replenishing? 85 or 135?

[Grondel the 10/10]

Originally posted by Shau:

So I've played some games, checked the achievements and decided to try the hardest difficulty i.e. almost no prestige and + accuracy for ennemies. I've turned the turn limit off, as it used to be too short on some maps for me. There are some things I don't really understand.

When playing without heros:

How do you counter air? Usually, planes attack my unprotected units. I tried placing them around an anti air gun -> they attacked my planes and the ani air gun didn't shot. If I overextend, they shot unprotected targets, preferably artillery.

AAguns shoot at planes attacking ground units. Fighters attack planes that attack neighboring planes.
When playing on high diff settings always protect ur bombers with fighters and don´t go anywhere without AA cover as long as the enemy has planes left.

Originally posted by Shau:

How do you kill units in forrests or settlements? Losing 6 units makes the prestige worthless, as replenishing the 6 units will cost more.

Infantry is the king of close quarter combat. if u attack an infantry unit in a forest/city/hill etc with a tank the infantry unit will attack the close combat def rating of the tank which is usually 0. only some special tanks have close combat above 0, when u don´t have mods active.
In general when u attack units in close terrain do it with infantry urself and always prepair with artillerie/strategic bombers to reduce the entrenchment and suppress the enemy.

Originally posted by Shau:

I've picked the perks double encirclement penalty and double surrender bonus. However, the units keep retraiting when I attack them until they die, What's the trick of forcing a surrender?

u need to either reduce their movepoints or completely encircle them. they will only surrender if they have nowhere to go.

Originally posted by Shau:

How do you apply all of this in the tight time limit? Playing without felt a little boring in the end, as Iít was more or less downgrinding them. I'm missing a setting of something like +2 turns extra.I think the easiest difficulty has this, but as it's bundled with extra prestige. I've ended up having more than I could spent when playing default + liberator.

Finetuning the diff setting is sadly something the game does not do well. Best thing to do when u want to learn how to play better is open the advanced diff settings(bottom of the screen when starting a campaign)and set undos to unlimited and all. Then u can test how to solve situations best and do it over and over until u know what to do.

Originally posted by Shau:

Sometimes, I do face thanks where nothing of my roster can really damage it. What's the trick?

Check the stats of the enemy tank. they all have a weakness. my guess is ur talking about char b1 and matildas here. try using tac bombers like the JU87.

Originally posted by Shau:

Some tanks have a "shots 1.5 times" trait.
Lets assume tank A has that trait and 12 vs. soft and hard, while tank B does't have that trait, but 14 vs. soft and hard. And a little more defense. Which tank would be better? And is there any benefit of buying a cheper unit that has all around worse stats? E. g. there are two types of scouts: one for 120 and one for 140, while the one for 140 has better stats everywhere (polish campaign). Is there a reason for buying the one for 120? Except you have exactly 120 credits and desperately need that tank Which is situational?!.

In general the more expensive unit is the better one and if u can afford to buy it do so. Another aspect are the core slots. more expensive units tend to cost more core slots.
The machine gun trait is very good early war. usually a panzer IIC with it is better against inafntry than a panzer III who does not have it. once the Panzer IV with the long barrel show up this is no longer the case.

Originally posted by Shau:

Lets assume you buy infantry for 170 + 100 for mount. 50% of your units die. How much do you play for replenishing? 85 or 135?

If the infantry has a transport attached u replace that as well. Only use transports on maps/units where u need it. normal infantry can usually do pretty well without.

hope this helps.

sers,
Thomas

[Shau]

Thanks for the hints. They do help a little bit. Sadly, I keep overextending and getting rushed down by unscouted tanks having huge movement ranges or planes. Or cavalery that is rushing from nowhere to kill my anti air gun. And if I move slow, I will probably hit the time limit again.

What would be a good army composition to finish the first south polish mission with minimal casulties? They have anti tank guns, fortresses, 2-3 bombers, tanks. So you need probably everything?! I tried rushing the designated city without much success. How do you protect yourself from the 2-3 bombers? 3 fighters, overstrenghting 2 fighters (how much is needed), or do you buy anti air guns? As 2 deal only 9/ 10 damage, they will get a couple of expensive extra attacks.

[Nitro]

Don't forget you can change your AA to Anti-tank mode. It's not that powerful, but usually does more to vehicles/infantry than in AA mode. I use it to finish off those pesky 1 point left units if there is no enemy aircraft around.

[Boredflak]

Originally posted by Nitro:

Don't forget you can change your AA to Anti-tank mode. It's not that powerful, but usually does more to vehicles/infantry than in AA mode. I use it to finish off those pesky 1 point left units if there is no enemy aircraft around.

Depends on the AA. The 88 is a beast and the best AT gun for the 1st half of the war.

[Nitro]

Originally posted by Boredflak:

Depends on the AA. The 88 is a beast and the best AT gun for the 1st half of the war.

True, I mainly get the mobile half track AA. The 88's are better against vehicles than they are aircraft, at least early on until they get more experience.

[NobodyAtAll]

Originally posted by Shau:

How do you counter air? Usually, planes attack my unprotected units. I tried placing them around an anti air gun -> they attacked my planes and the ani air gun didn't shot. If I overextend, they shot unprotected targets, preferably artillery.

Use mobile AA when they come available. On your turn, hit the enemy fighters with your AA to add some suppression, then take them out with your fighters. Also, especially early on, use Overstrength on your fighters.

How do you kill units in forrests or settlements? Losing 6 units makes the prestige worthless, as replenishing the 6 units will cost more.

Artillery hit + strat bomber raid + infantry attack. Note that strat bombers don't take as much damage from AA as tac bombers.

How do you apply all of this in the tight time limit?

Once infantry + artillery have settled in to take an objective, your tanks and other mobile units should be moving on to the next one. You typically only need 3 units to take a city. 1 infantry + artillery behind it + armor on the other side to keep the hex surrounded & suppressed.

Sometimes, I do face thanks where nothing of my roster can really damage it. What's the trick?

Stukas and Flak 88s can kill anything you run into. The trick is just to not out run your AA. You may have to suppress an AA gun with artillery fire so your Stukas can safely dive bomb stronger tanks. The larger artillery (18 cm & 21 cm) are very good for this. If you hit an AA gun with artillery + strat bomber, it is basically useless for a round and your Stukas can go to town.

Some tanks have a "shots 1.5 times" trait.

This is basically a way of making a unit crap against heavily entrenched targets.

Is there a reason for buying the one for 120?

The prestige accounting is basically broken. After the first couple missions, you'll have all the prestige you ever need to always have the most expensive (i.e. best) unit for a given slot count.

[Shau]

Well, I've lost my run at mission 5-6 i think. Can't elite-replenish my squads anymore and there are open slots.

Do you guys buy scout planes? Usually, scouting is the most important thing in war, but as they take slots, need fighter protection (do they?) and deal 0 damage, they seem to be hard to justify. I though I could run through everything without problems when starting with 10 extra ability points, but i'm still losing very much units-.- maybe i can use the scouts as bait though... I guess i'll restart and find out.

[drzom]

I buy scout planes, at least one. If the map is big, two. They are cheap and supply vital info, IMO. No protection; they are disposable.

[SPAMBO]

You should try the auxiliary forces general trait. Buy a bunch of recon cars and send them as far forward as possible each turn. As they have phased movement they can move and heal. If they take damage use green replacements for the auxiliary forces. You should be able to quickly encircle, suppress and then capture most enemy forces if you take the deadly grasp general trait.

Take General Traits: Trophies of War + Perimeter Control + Deadly Grasp + Flexible Command + Auxiliary Forces.

Note: Meticulous Planning will allow you to both move units and repair them in the same turn (usually actionable only with phased movement units). It's nice as well.

[Shau]

I restarted, used a negative trait (max 3 upgrades) to pick liberator instead of double capturing reward (this one didn't pay for me), both unit discount traits, +1 initiative +1def and a few other traits. I bought 2 scout planes and even got a hero which negates prestige cost of 1 unit, thus effectively granting them for free. Now, I'm at sedan and swimming in prestige. Just ike I forgot to crank up the difficulty (will check tomorrow). I'm still not sure if heros are a god thing or a bad thing.

However I got a first aid hero which doesn't seem to work. Text says: "used on infantry, if you don't attack during turn, recover 1 strength". I wasn't attacking, but nothing happened. What am I doing wrong with this hero? I equiped an engineer with that hero,

[SPAMBO]

You are limited to base movement only. If you use your organic transport for more than your base movement (which for an engineer is 2) the First Aid hero will not trigger.

[drzom]

Originally posted by SPAMBO:

You are limited to base movement only. If you use your organic transport for more than your base movement (which for an engineer is 2) the First Aid hero will not trigger.

That is interesting. So many little quirks in this game.

[Valks]

Originally posted by Shau:

I restarted, used a negative trait (max 3 upgrades) to pick liberator instead of double capturing reward (this one didn't pay for me), both unit discount traits, +1 initiative +1def and a few other traits. I bought 2 scout planes and even got a hero which negates prestige cost of 1 unit, thus effectively granting them for free. Now, I'm at sedan and swimming in prestige. Just ike I forgot to crank up the difficulty (will check tomorrow). I'm still not sure if heros are a god thing or a bad thing.

However I got a first aid hero which doesn't seem to work. Text says: "used on infantry, if you don't attack during turn, recover 1 strength". I wasn't attacking, but nothing happened. What am I doing wrong with this hero? I equiped an engineer with that hero,

It's subjective but I for one always felt the AA in PC2 to be somewhat underwhelming and some of the later vanilla campaign and even more so AO DLC give enemies staggering amounts of air units. To this end I mostly upped my starting points for strenghts/weaknesses to get AA Veteran as base.

One thing that perhaps went unmentioned here is that there are two types of AA one effective against low flying targets (low altitude attack) and one against both high and low. So your 88's will wreck fighters and strategic bombers while Skdfz 7/1 with rapid fire will tear through fighters and tacs but won't scratch the strats. Generally speaking even with AA Vet make sure to keep all your ground troops under the AA umbrella or fighter cover. I understood you are playing the vanilla campaign there I stuck mostly to Skdfz's until Africa/USSR as 88's double as potent AT against superior tanks and you won't be able to match them until you get long barreled Pz3/Pz4

This goes for your bombers too as on later missions they can get so swarmed that even your FW's or ME262's run out of ammo covering them and they take enough damage to both drain your prestige or get outright shot down which is a pain when losing a veteran tac bomber 75% into the campaign. To this end when facing scenarios with superior enemy air it is useful to keep yours in the back for a few turns - or even send them to the opposite edge of the map if enemy is relatively close to spawn and can reach your airfield with heavy fighters for example - I think Dunkirk has this issue and one USSR map in particular.

Beyond the obvious need to encircle and capture enemy units in regards to prestige another potent combo is a scout unit (low slot / cheap / mobile) paired with (RNG) liberator hero (extra prestige for capturing). Keep it in the rear of your units and mop up flags as you push forward for extra prestige boost.

Another tip is the entrechment killer heroes, they are invaluable when it comes to CQ combat in forrests or cities such as Leningrad or Stalingrad (or London). You can supercharge your existing arty or strat bombers in this regard but you can also put them on heavy/base fighters. They can stafe without retaliation, do not spend attack of any directly invovled units and x3/x4 entrechment killer fighter basically halfs a fully entrenched unit in one go.

[Shau]

Originally posted by Valks:

It's subjective but I for one always felt the AA in PC2 to be somewhat underwhelming and some of the later vanilla campaign and even more so AO DLC give enemies staggering amounts of air units. To this end I mostly upped my starting points for strenghts/weaknesses to get AA Veteran as base.

One thing that perhaps went unmentioned here is that there are two types of AA one effective against low flying targets (low altitude attack) and one against both high and low. So your 88's will wreck fighters and strategic bombers while Skdfz 7/1 with rapid fire will tear through fighters and tacs but won't scratch the strats. Generally speaking even with AA Vet make sure to keep all your ground troops under the AA umbrella or fighter cover. I understood you are playing the vanilla campaign there I stuck mostly to Skdfz's until Africa/USSR as 88's double as potent AT against superior tanks and you won't be able to match them until you get long barreled Pz3/Pz4

Until now (first sowject mission - capturing Tallin and Riga), I defended everything with 3-4 fighters and didn't use a single AA unit. The trick for me was actually not getting a second tactical bomber until late. This way, I could always cover my 2 artilleries, and both bombers with 1 fighter. PLus, 4 fighters are quite good when fighting air. However, last mission, I've come to a point, where the fighters were mostly useless after turn 7-8. Speaking of.. is it possible to retreat them mid game and get e. g. more strategic bombers from the reserves?

[Grondel the 10/10]

Originally posted by Shau:

Originally posted by Valks:

It's subjective but I for one always felt the AA in PC2 to be somewhat underwhelming and some of the later vanilla campaign and even more so AO DLC give enemies staggering amounts of air units. To this end I mostly upped my starting points for strenghts/weaknesses to get AA Veteran as base.

One thing that perhaps went unmentioned here is that there are two types of AA one effective against low flying targets (low altitude attack) and one against both high and low. So your 88's will wreck fighters and strategic bombers while Skdfz 7/1 with rapid fire will tear through fighters and tacs but won't scratch the strats. Generally speaking even with AA Vet make sure to keep all your ground troops under the AA umbrella or fighter cover. I understood you are playing the vanilla campaign there I stuck mostly to Skdfz's until Africa/USSR as 88's double as potent AT against superior tanks and you won't be able to match them until you get long barreled Pz3/Pz4

Until now (first sowject mission - capturing Tallin and Riga), I defended everything with 3-4 fighters and didn't use a single AA unit. The trick for me was actually not getting a second tactical bomber until late. This way, I could always cover my 2 artilleries, and both bombers with 1 fighter. PLus, 4 fighters are quite good when fighting air. However, last mission, I've come to a point, where the fighters were mostly useless after turn 7-8. Speaking of.. is it possible to retreat them mid game and get e. g. more strategic bombers from the reserves?

not in vanilla, only in mods.

sers,
Thomas