Suggestions requested regarding Experience, Prestige & salary cap.

[Stubbs]

Hello everyone. Hope you are well. I struggled playing a year ago but seem to be doing much better now. All I play is the vanilla folder, Grand Campaign. I just wrapped up Grand Campaign 1939 and went 10-1 Decisive. All my units are either 11 or 12. This is what concerns me. I have a long way to go. A year ago, the Russians destroyed me. I play at Colonel level. I used to get prestige most of the time between battles. None now. I got a message this morning from German High Command that states for the new campaign SE unit for this campaign is 153. What is a SE unit?
Experience Cap set to 325. Is that good?
Prestige 175
Prestige per turn-0
Soft Cap-0
So there you have it. I'm steam rolling but it doesn't feel right. Please. Questions or comments always welcome. Thank you.

[Glavnok]

Ok let's see if I understand your situation correctly:
- You have finished the GC39 with 10 Decisive Victories and 1 Loss against the Soviets in the Bonus Mission.
- All your troops have overstrength of atleast 1 point.
- You have started the GC40 (325 exp cap suggests that you are at Eben-Emael)
- Your SE unit cap is 3 (I assume 153 was a misstype of you)
- You have 175 prestige left (Would be interesting to know if this is before or after deployment phase)
- Your troops have no problems against the belgians and dutch

Now to my opinon about your situation:
- Good work for finishing GC39. I remember the Bonus Mission of GC39. Lost to the Ivan's at my first try too. KV-2 slayed all of my infantry
- I think it's ok to have all of the 39 troops with atleast 1 overstrenght. But you should be well aware that having too much overstrength will become very expensive over time. Only refill it in deployment phase, where it costs 50% less, or when a green refill would drop your units exp below the last hundred point mark.
- I'm a bit surpised that you don't know what SE units are. With 10 DV's in GC39 you should have gotten atleast one in GC39. The SE cap in GC39 is 2. There is a chance to get one after you won a mission with DV. To answer your question: SE units are "Special Elite" units with slightly higher stats than the normal units. You can identify them at their brown color. The best thing about SE units is that they don't count towards your maximum of deployable core units. They are like Aux units but will carry over to next mission.
- Having only 175 prestige left is a bit of a problem but at this point it can still be fixed. I assume you have used elite replacement for your units every time they suffered losses. Don't do that in early war. GC39 and 40 can all be won by using green reinforcements in battle. The exp cap is very low and the exp growth high enough to gain the lost exp back in no time. By using this method I have about 2500 - 3500 prestige at the end of GC39 and 5000 - 7500 after GC40

After all I can say this is an ok'ish result for an inexpirenced player. Only your prestige management could be a bit better. Try to minimize your losses by attacking with arty and tac.bombers before your infantry or tanks. Avoid enemy flak and gain air supremacy as fast as possible.

Hope I could help. Feel free to ask more

[Stubbs]

Hello Glavnok. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. Your timely response is just in time. I won decisively at Eban-Email and now I'm off to Albert Canal. Is Rudel an SE Unit? I have gotten some free elite units at the start of some battles. They are nice to have! And if I win decisive battles it increases the odds of getting one? Starting now, my replacements will be green. Until I drop below level 12. I'll try your ideas out. Thanks again.

[Glavnok]

Glad I could help. No Rudel is not an SE unit. But in my opinion he is the most valuable unit in the game. His bonus stats may be bad but you should deploy and protect him in every battle (Maybe you notced the message about Rudel at the start of Albert Canal).
Your "free elite units" are the SE units (Their unitname has the "SE" in it like "SE Infantry"). I'm not sure if you increase your odds by winning DV's but what I know is that you will only get SE units after DV's.

[76561198372808462]

SE units are random, DVs don't matter.

The number of total SE units is capped per year. So . . .
In GC40 infantry SE units should be disbanded.
Keep only Tank SE units, by '43 SE Tanks will be much more useful than SE infantry.

You only need to play ReconRudel in '41 where he is turned into UberRudel.
This occurs in a specific USSR scenario.

[sorenthewild]

Originally posted by dalfrede:

SE units are random, DVs don't matter.

The number of total SE units is capped per year. So . . .
In GC40 infantry SE units should be disbanded.
Keep only Tank SE units, by '43 SE Tanks will be much more useful than SE infantry.

You only need to play ReconRudel in '41 where he is turned into UberRudel.
This occurs in a specific USSR scenario.

The Minsk scenario. :)

[Heritec]

Originally posted by dalfrede:

SE units are random, DVs don't matter.

The number of total SE units is capped per year. So . . .
In GC40 infantry SE units should be disbanded.
Keep only Tank SE units, by '43 SE Tanks will be much more useful than SE infantry.

I would disagree with that statement, as a strong core of infantry is needed (or very helpfull) for DV at Stalingrad/Moscow and Berlin, as putting tanks in a city hex (even with arty support) is generally a bad idea and infantry is much more cost effectiv at killing enemy tanks in close quartes.
That said, I understand that many players favour heavie tank corps and neglect the combined arms aspect somewhat.

[Kakita Shimazu]

Agreed with last post. I keep at least 2-3 (usually first ones) Infantry SA units and the rest are tanks. You'll need them to protect your cities later in the game.

[76561198372808462]

Originally posted by Heritec:

I would disagree with that statement, . . .
infantry is much more cost effective at killing enemy tanks in close quarters.

You misunderstand the point.
SE units do not effect the soft cap, and are 'Free'.
Infantry is cheap and tanks are expensive.
Buy cheap infantry, use SE for expensive tanks.
This is Prestige Management 101.

[Heritec]

Originally posted by dalfrede:

Originally posted by Heritec:

I would disagree with that statement, . . .
infantry is much more cost effective at killing enemy tanks in close quarters.

You misunderstand the point.
SE units do not effect the soft cap, and are 'Free'.
Infantry is cheap and tanks are expensive.
Buy cheap infantry, use SE for expensive tanks.
This is Prestige Management 101.

Ok, never thought of that, but at the same time I never have prestige problems anyway as its very hard to lose 50-60k prestige.
Most of the time I play with Deducter's changes to unit stats anyway, and he made german equipment way more realistic (read as: expensive in this case) so you hit the soft cap regardless of what you do.

[Stubbs]

Originally posted by Glavnok:

Hope I could help. Feel free to ask more

Good morning and good news. I have read everyone's advice here and have made some changes. Even though I don't get prestige each move, I have built up my total prestige after my battles. You have good vision. The SE units are brown. I use them correctly now. One thing haunts me though. I wasn't aware of it before. By chance, I moved the cursor over a unit's stars. There is a number there. I think it's the unit's prestige. My artillery are 13 and so are many of my tanks. I blast the Russians each battle, yet my artillery are all at 375. The number won't increase. I think my tanks are the same way. Any ideas? Questions and comments are always welcome. Thank you.

[Glavnok]

The GC41 has a soft cap for experience of max. 375. This can be read at the first missions briefing text.