DLC List prioritizing easiest / easier

[Cmdr_Ripster]

I read recently that the Stalingrad DLC is very challenging. I can attest to this as this was my first DLC and helped to turn me away from this otherwise stellar game. I installed a "make easy even easier" mod which helped, but I don't like to mess with the designers intentions. I understand there is a learning curve to understanding units and their strengths and weaknesses (which is why I like historical games to acquire deeper knowledge of a topic). With all of this said and showing my intent, could someone produce a list of DLCs or recommended path to help me graduate to full five star general? Are there any outside resources that could help me better understand the nuances of force combat abilities? (yes, I've played the tutorial several times).
Thanks

[Piwo Tyskie]

The best for begginers is of course base campagin, with alt path in Italy (without going deeper into Austria) and both western front pathes respectivly. In terms of DLC's the easiest one is Desert Rats. Because its very simmiliar to base game and you have strong enough units, you can relay more on tactic rather than luck. It's also good practise for logistic and HQ abbilities. I find the alternative track to be much more easier than historical one. Then its desert fox wich is very simmiliar to desert rats but you need to be very fast and well exploit eneamy weaknesses. The easiet path is again alternative one where you go to iraq and ethiopia ( i didnt play it tough but i watched a gameplay and many people reccomend it).Then there is second alternative path and finnaly historical path. Next we have Blitzkreig with historical track being the easiest one. Then its Barbarossa and next: Stalingrad. In terms of Stalingrad, both tracks are challanging. The hardest is Moscow 41.

[EgoVermin]

Well, to rank the DLC campaigns I feel we have to compare them to the base game 'Victory in the West' campaign. I would personally rank 'VitW' as a 4/10 on the difficulty scale overall, even accounting for some of the tougher alt-history scenarios (Roads from Rimini, Battle for Bavaria, etc). Here's how I would personally rank the DLCs on that scale:

1. 'Blitzkrieg' is a 5/10. While there are a handful of tough scenarios (The Polish Plain, Sickle Stroke, Faul Braun) your own forces are usually equal if not better in strength to the majority of enemies you face. The one thing to watch out for is that most of your units start at 'regular' experience and so will be more likely to take casualties until you level them up.
   
2. 'Desert Rats' is a 5/10. Overall I would say that Desert Rats has the easier scenarios compared to Blitzkrieg but you need to be somewhat learned in how supply works; many scenarios will see you have poor supply or unique missions where you "supply hop" between sources, which might catch those who only care about the combat off-guard. Your units are also the smallest you can play with in any campaign (usually only 5 steps) which is both good and bad: good, because if you lose any persistent units they come back with over half their strength (3 steps), and bad because losing single steps and specialists hurts more here than normal.
   
3. 'Desert Fox' is a 6/10. Quite similar to Desert Rats in terms of supply situations, just don't get caught off-guard by the early 'Siege of Tobruk' scenario. I honestly think the historical campaign is easier than Desert Rats, but the main alt-historical campaign is much more difficult, thus the bumping up a point.
   
4. 'Barbarossa' is a 7/10. A long campaign with long scenarios, Barbarossa is more a marathon than a sprint. Your own forces are unstoppable but you have some tight objectives, expensive reinforcements and long, vulnerable supply lines. While maybe on the same level as Desert Fox in terms of scenario difficulty, these scenarios are more complex due to much larger moving parts and far more HQs, with all of them being important (in comparison to some of the joke HQs you get in Desert Fox and Stalingrad).
   
5. 'Moscow 41' is a 7/10 if you merely want to "win" the campaign, and a 9/10 if you want to claim many of the alt-history objectives. The first campaign where your own forces are weaker than the opponents, so you cannot fight fair: the "Artillery Preparation" card can turn the tables in an instant and cutting off enemy supply is more important than ever. However if you merely want to "win" the campaign, then you only need to watch out for the 'Left Wing' and 'Right Wing Offensive' scenarios, as the final six scenarios are extremely easy to finish. But if you want to capture many of the important bonus objectives in those scenarios you're in for a tough time. God help you if you're a perfectionist.
   
6. 'Stalingrad' is a 9/10. Tough scenarios, with many of them long, and the Soviet armoured forces are now equal/better than your own. Although the historical campaign gets easier down the stretch during the 'Disaster' scenarios, 'Edelweiss' is, for my money, the toughest scenario in the game. Definitely not the first DLC you should be trying, as I'm sure you can attest.

As for general advice, "Night Phoenix" is a Youtuber with live commentary campaign playthroughs, where he perfects each scenario on Classic difficulty - my game improved a lot while watching him back in the day. Also, make sure to check out the unique "view" tooltips they added with Desert Rats: when in a scenario, click on the different views next to the 'End Turn' button and hover over "Legends" that now replace the objectives list. You will get some exceptionally helpful tooltips, especially on the 'Terrain Legend' which tells you exactly what each piece of terrain does and how it affects combat without you ever having to consult the manual.

Finally, how you spend Prestige is one of the most important parts of successfully winning a campaign - here's a guide I recently wrote on the subject, if you're interested: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2919209164

[La_Bataille]

Everything EgoVermin said is top tier and absolutely correct (Edelweiss was such a pain). I would only add that Moscow 41' is extra strange because it is actually just such a different game than every other campaign. Part of the difficulty shock when it came out was that all the usual rules and tricks just don't apply and success requires a completely different mindset.

The base Victory in the West campaign is extra nice to start with not just because it is generally less demanding, but it does a good job of gradually adding complexity in the first few scenarios as you build up your forces.

For combat, there are more video guides than written guides (maybe I should try my hand at a written combat guide?), but the short version is that the key to success is positive combat shifts. Raw power can give you a few, but to really steamroll you need artillery shifts, veterancy, armor shifts (which only work into clear terrain!), engineers to negate entrenchment and river negative shifts. Also, Set Piece Attack and Feint Attack are your best friends.

[Cmdr_Ripster]

Thank you very much. I am impressed with the high level of assistance and community passion for this game. Great information that should be pinned IMHO.

[rabmac2021]

I am equally impressed by the level of support that the Community offers, but...
I find it hard to reconcile the order in which the Game and it's DLCs were released..why?
Well, all well and good starting as the Allies, then the base game is for you perhaps, but historically speaking it is way out of line. Historically, Blitzkrieg should obviously come first, Including Poland, and to an extent Norway. Now, I admit to being a Newbie, but surely it is reasonable that the Publishers might have made allowances for their DLC, insofar as, for example, German units with Experience, persisting (if they could) into later years of the war.
The one thing I have trouble understanding in the 'Grand Design' is why any unit should have a 'lifetime'. One, Two, Three + really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, except in the mind of a scenario designer. Otherwise, a Magnificent Game, I apologise in advance for being a 'pain'. :-)

[ECLIPSE]

Originally posted by rabmac111:

I am equally impressed by the level of support that the Community offers, but...
I find it hard to reconcile the order in which the Game and it's DLCs were released..why?
Well, all well and good starting as the Allies, then the base game is for you perhaps, but historically speaking it is way out of line. Historically, Blitzkrieg should obviously come first, Including Poland, and to an extent Norway. Now, I admit to being a Newbie, but surely it is reasonable that the Publishers might have made allowances for their DLC, insofar as, for example, German units with Experience, persisting (if they could) into later years of the war.
The one thing I have trouble understanding in the 'Grand Design' is why any unit should have a 'lifetime'. One, Two, Three + really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, except in the mind of a scenario designer. Otherwise, a Magnificent Game, I apologise in advance for being a 'pain'. :-)

The answer is quite simple. In UoC1 each mission was played with new units, so in UoC 2 the specialist steps, HQ abilities and units that continue to exist in campaign were added. At first there was no indicators of lifetime, but the developers gave in to the complains of the players. On the one hand they wanted to avoid experience farming but because of the limitations of the game engine you are unable to choose and reconstitute units between missions. Sometimes you even cannot reinforce units before the battle, so when you wanted to play on harder difficulties you had to go forward, write down the unit names, and after that go back and make sure that the units are up to strength. (looking at you monte casino) So the lifetime of a unit is not really a design choice, but rather a quality of life indicator to the player which units should be reinforced at the end of the battle. If you want to think about it in role-play terms you can think about it as HQ informing you which units should be merged/striped of useful equipment as they would be disbanded/sent to the rear.