Tips for beginners

Basic tips and technics for beginners

Defense

Every units roll 1 die for damage for each strength point it has. So if you reduce the losses you suffer, your own units will be at max strength for longer, and the more damage you'll deal during your attack. There is an important snowball effect here. The worst you'll perform early in a scenario the harder the end of the scenario will be.


1a/ Terrain

The first thing to do to preserve your units is to use them in proper terrains. Infantry should strive to end their move in close terrain like forests or cities. On the opposite vehicles are vulnerable in difficult terrains and should stay in clear terrain.
In clear terrain your unit will use its Ground Defense value, but in close terrain the Close Defense value is used instead. And for the better tanks there is a huge difference between Ground Defense and Close Defense.

Furthermore infantry in close terrain will immediately benefit from a better entrenchment value.

During an attack the terrain of the defending unit is taken into account not he terrain of the attacking unit.


1b/ Initiative

Additionally In close terrain there is a cap to the Initiative value, press ”F1” and click the “Terrain” tab to get the detailed list. Initiative represent the ability for a unit to engage the enemy unit before the opponent could return fire, hence the enemy suffer some casualties and rolls less dice in return. it can represent better training but in this game this also simulates the ability of a unit to engage the enemy at longer ranges. For example your tank with a long barreled gun can engage an enemy unit 1000m away across open field, but if your tank is attacked in a forest the enemy will be able to use the forest to move at close range unharmed.
So keep your unit with high Initiative in clear terrains.
Note that infantry units Initiative is not capped in close terrain, as their Initiative reflect their training rather than the range of their weapons.

There are a few exceptions. Suppose you have a weak vehicle, if you think you might be attacked by a much stronger vehicle you may prefer to put your weak vehicle in close terrain to reduce the stronger vehicle initiative and Ground Defense.


1c/ Reaction Fire

Artillery, fighters aircraft, and Anti Air units, are the only units in the game capable of Reaction Fire, that is firing during the enemy turn. It is not easy to use this benefits for aircrafts as it is difficult to predict where the enemy aircrafts will strike because of their large movement allowance.
However protecting your frontline ground units with artillery is a CRITICAL way to improve your performances. So try as much as you can to keep artillery units just one hex behind your fronltine units. If the enemy attacks one of your units protected by artillery, your artillery will fire first thereby suppressing some enemy units and maybe inflicting a few casualties too. In the end the enemy will roll less attack dice.
There is no hard rules, but I suggest having 1 artillery for 3 or 4 of your frontline ground units.
And if possible some mobile artillery to follow your armored spearheads.
Note that heroes that gives, non self propelled artillery, a 1pt movement bonus are really precious.

If you can try to keep at least some fighters unmoved, until the end of your turns, and once all your ground units are moved try to place your fighters to cover your ground forces efficiently.

Something important to keep in mind, is that if the AI think that its own attack would cause him more damage than it does, it will cancel its attack altogether. I'm not sure of the threshold, but it is clear that the AI don't make poor odds attacks, (although it should IMHO, especially Soviets when they have a large quantity of troops advantage)


1d/ keep a frontline

All units, except aircrafts exert a Zone of Control (ZoC), it means that enemy units must stop their movement if they enter any hex adjacent to your units. Consider a line of hexes, if you have a unit every 3 hexes, that is with 2 empty hexes between each of your units the enemy won't be able to move through your line. Whether you are on defense or on offense it is important to protect your rear area, to deny the enemy the possibilities to attack your weaker support units or worse too infiltrate and recapture some objectives that you had previously captured, this could really ruin your scenario.

Leaving only one unit every 3 hexes is not so good in practice, because the enemy can destroy one of your units or force a retreat to easily open your line. A typical strong line should be made by patches of 2 or 3 units in proper terrain backed up by artillery, and maybe one or two hexes gap in between each patch.

Offense

The more efficient you are when attacking the faster you'll be able to move forward to the next objective, and the faster you destroy enemy units the less opportuities they'll have to fight back.

2a/ Use your units in their specific role
Some knowledge of historical tactics will certainly help. There is a very large array of units to choose from when building your core. As in real life each equipment is designed for a specific purpose. And as in WWII efficient used of combined arms tactics will give the best results.

- Tanks are the best weapons in clear terrains, this is the weapon of choice to engage enemy tanks, however some tanks are designed to fight infantry, check the Soft Attack and Hard Attack value of your tanks if you don't know how they were used historically. The initiative value is also important in tank vs tank combat.
- Infantry is at its best in close terrains. And most scenarios objectives involve capturing close terrain hexs, cities in particular. On the contrary attacking tanks in clear terrain with infantry is generally a poor idea.
- Artillery provide support both on defense and on offense, but don't count too much on it for inflicting casualties.
- Aircrafts first goal it to gain air superiority denying enemy raids, and clearing the sky as soon as enemy aircrafts appears. Then they can provide some ground support, a bit like flying artillery.

Those are the main, and most versatile, unit types, other types are more specialized.


2b/ Know how retreat works

A unit in defense will retreat if both of the following apply:
- its entrenchment value is 1 or less, if BEFORE the attack is entrenchment value is 2 or more the unit won't retreat. You can check a unit entrenchment value by hovering your cursor over this unit, the entrenchment value appears in the right part of the side bar unit's description.


- After deducting the casualties from the attack, the suppressed steps total is equal to its remaining strength points. i.e. the remaining strength point are fully suppressed. Here for suppression you must take into account previous lasting suppression from artillery plus the instant suppression caused by the attack. If you check the combat detailed log by pressing 'L' after combat you will see that each die roll has a chance to make either a hit, a suppression, or no effect.

All retreats are only of one hex in this game. Aircrafts and boats never retreat.

If you know that the unit will retreat, you can also know exactly where it will retreat, this is extremely important. On the picture below, the enemy unit will retreat to the first ELIGIBLE hex (empty and where it can legally move) starting with hex 1, then checking until hex 5.


Why is this so important? Because if you know how retreats work you can attack in a direction to force the enemy in an unfavorable terrain and then easily finish it off there. The best terrain to force an enemy unit into is usually river hexes. River is a very bad terrain for every units, as not only it reduces defense values but it also reduces attack values. Then depending on the enemy unit type you should try to force infantry to retreat in the open and tank to retreat in close terrain.

Another equally important tactic related to retreat is to force surrender. If an enemy unit is forced to retreat after an attack but there is no empty hex to retreat to, or the unit cannot legally move to those empty hexes, it will surrender. There is no such thing as forcing a strong enemy tank to surrender, especially some of the super hard boss units. Moreover with rules 1.20 you get a fraction of the surrendering unit value in prestige points.



2c/ Finish off your targets.

There's nothing more frustrating than nearly destroying a unit, and to see it retreat out of range of your units with only a few strength points left, and then to refit at full strength during the AI turn. Because you'll have to attack it all over again on the following turn. Sometimes you can't avoid enemy escape but try to keep it at a minimum, otherwise your attack might stall.

Focus your attacks to destroy completely the units you engage during a turn. Here, it pays to knows the retreat mechanisms to anticipate the follow up attacks you'll need to finish your target.
Note that aircraft are very good to finish units with one or 2 strength points left. Armored cars are also good for this with their good movement allowance and their ability to split their move to move into ZoC.

If you cannot finish the enemy try to keep as many units adjacent to the reduced enemy, because the more adjacent units you have the lower the replacements the enemy can add to his damaged units. If you have 3 units adjacent, it cannot add any replacements, nor supply. 2 units adjacent is still very good for you, but if there is no friendly unit adjacent the enemy will be able to rebuild at full strength, if he has enough prestige.
Planes also limit enemy repair or resuply under their position.

If you can neither finish the enemy nor keep contact with him if he retreat you might rather, reduce him a little with artillery or aircraft and postpone your attack until next turn.

There are a few case when you would rather not finish the enemy, especially in situation where your forces face a much stronger enemy. For example late in the war the Germans will often be faced by hordes of strong Soviets tanks, in that case, it is a very good idea to let a week unit in front of your line as it will not attack you, rather than clearing the hex for an elite JS-2 to wreck your line.

2d/ Preparing your attacks

The best way to attack a unit is to suppress each of its strength point before the attack. That way whatever the result of your offense, you are guaranteed to suffer no loss at all.
Units that can suppress the opponents are primarily you artillery, STRATEGIC bombers, and the cruisers and battleships. However in practice you usually don't enjoy the luxury to fully suppress every single opponent.

Entrenchment value give a strong boost too units in defense. As previously said, units will only retreat if their entrenchment value is 1 or less.

Entrenchment works as follow, depending on the terrain (F1 > Terrain) your unit will immediately start with a base entrenchment value, zero for open terrain and 3 for city terrain for example. Then depending on the type of the unit it will accrue more entrenchment points if it stays in the same hex for several turn to a max of 9.

Note that, EVERY attack vs a unit will reduce that unit entrenchment value by 1, even if this attack makes no casualty. For example even an aircraft attack in bad weather predicted as 0-0 could still reduce the target entrenchment by one.

Usually the best order for attack is as follow:
- If the enemy is not AA capable, aircraft first to reduce entrenchment, then as many artillery as you can to suppress the target enough, then your real ground attack.
- If the enemy is AA capable, you should first use artillery to suppress its AA fire, then send an aircraft, then conclude with the real ground attack.

Be careful, that you can pile up as many air, or artillery (ground or naval) as you want but the first ground attack (or naval attack with a destroyer or small boat) you make reset the suppressed step to zero. So, if you cannot destroy the target with your main ground attack, you might want to keep some artillery to suppress the remaining step before a subsequent attack.

If your target is supported by an artillery unit, you'll notice than even if you suppress the target the combat prediction might still be unfavorable. In that case you should also suppress the supporting artillery. Range 3 artillery are very helpful here. You can use CTRL + left click to have more infos on the future attack.

Preparing for battle

3a/ Choosing your units

You can have as much units as you want in your core, however consider this as a reserve pool. For each scenario there is a hard limit on how much units you can field. Note that the extra SE units you get from time to time are a part of your core permanently but they don't count for the scenario limit. In effect you can deploy the number of unit listed by the scenario plus as many SE units you own. You can distinguish between regular core units and SE units, by their name, additionally SE units have a camo pattern, though it is hard to see on SE Gebirgsjäger.

You are not required to deploy all allowed units on setup, you can leave some empty slot, and deploy units from your pool as the battle progress, however it is usually better to start as strong as you can, but if some of your unit get destroyed you can bring in new one. In standalone scenario there usually is an extra units number allowed to be purchased after the battle start, check the purchase screen to see if you can buy extra units during the battle.

In some scenarios you will also receive additional units called AUXILLIARY units. Those are lent to you by the high command just for the duration of one scenario. They have a silver border around their strength point (or around their picture in the right side bar), whereas your core unit have a gold border. During the course of some scenario you may capture extra units, be careful as they can have either a silver or a gold border, and you'll only keep the gold border one at the end of the scenario.

Read the mission briefing carefully as it might gives some hints on the enemy forces or special events that may affect the scenario.

Then study the map carefully, and check the main objectives. Note that in most scenarios you are only asked to captured the main objectives they have a gold border on the strategic map. The smaller secondary objectives are just a bonus, capture as much as you can to earn some extra prestige. However, be warned that a few secondary objectives are almost impossible to capture (in GC 1941, Leningrad hexes are extremely hard to capture for example). This usually represent an area where the enemy is massing troops for the next scenario.

Depending on the terrain select forces that you think appropriate. If there are plenty of close terrains you'll probably want more infantry, and conversely if the map is mostly clear terrain tanks will dominate. Anyway you should choose troops able to face different situations and keep some flexibility. If you see lots of trench or city hexes, Pionieer or Flamtanks are very useful.

Early in the war there are some scenario where the enemy has no aircrafts at all, in that case you can take only bombers and no fighters. In scenario with naval enemy units you'll appreciate to have at least a strategic bomber, as they are particularly efficient vs ships.

If there are important rivers to cross consider taking a bridging units (Brückenpioniere in German). Most units can cross small rivers but no units can cross major rivers except through bridging unit. A single bridging unit can allow an attack across a weakly defended area, instead of where the enemy is waiting.

Early in a campaign, you often only have enough unit to build one battlegroup, however as the war move on, you might have 40 or more units. In that case it is a good idea to organize your force in 2 or 3 groups capable of independent operations. In general I recommend a recon vehicle per groups when you are on offense. On defense recon is less important but one armored car is always useful, as their split move ability allows for otherwise impossible tactics.

Playing the Germans, when facing the western allies you usually want more fighters than vs the Soviets, during late war, you might forego you bombers completely, as the allied fighters are much stronger.

Paratrooper can deploy automatically airborne with free planes, or as ground troop, use the 'TAB' key during setup to switch from one mode to the other. However if you have purchased trucks or half tracks for your paratrooper they cannot deploy in airborne mode.


3b/ Define your timetable

Before starting the scenario, it pays to have a clear idea of your timetable. You should assign yourself intermediate objectives, like capture this area in x turns then proceed to the next objectives and so on. Ideally your time schedule should leaves you a few extra turns for unexpected events or strong opposition. It is important to note that by the end of the scenario, defending units might have reached the max entrenchment value, so you might need several turns to capture a single objective hex.

In most scenarios the turns count is fairly large. The last turn is fully played, get used to the fact that if the scenario limit is 18 turns and you start turn 16 you actually have 3 complete turns to play, 16, 17, 18.

When attacking, on the scenario first turn your force is at full strength and full of supply. It is really important to attack very strong immediately, to set a good tempo for your scenario. You should strive to capture most objectives, primary or secondary, that are close to your setup area. It could be a good idea to setup your slow moving field artillery in range, that way they could fire first then move maybe by truck a longer distance.

Also note that many scenarios, allows you to use train, naval, or air transport. This could give you a good strategic movement boost to relocate your troops on larger maps. Hover your mouse over the transport icon with the ship symbol, in the bottom left of the 9 icons on the side bar.

Conducting the Battle

4a/ conducting the battle

Your attack should proceed methodically, clearing one area after the other. In particular be very careful to capture every objectives hexes that you pass across, otherwise the AI can use city hexes with it's flag to respawn units in your back. Recon units with their split move are very useful to take control of objectives hexes, however be careful to deselect your recon vehicles, by right clicking in an empty hex, before moving along, otherwise the game won't put your flag on the hex. At any rate, it is wise to check the strategic map from time to time to make sure that hexes in your back are friendly controlled.
Note That artillery and AA units cannot take control of a hex, however AT guns can. In particular the German Flak 18, though an AA gun by design can switch to AT role ('Switch' button or 'W' key), in AT mode it can control a hex.

After a few turns of contact with the enemy, even the best organized battlegroups tend to loose cohesion. In that case it is usually good to make a pause and regroup before resolutely attacking the next objective. Usually major objectives have stronger defense, and need a concerted offensive. Be wary of map areas with many trenches.

You should also manage your ammos and fuel. Try not to have many units without ammo at once, especially for artillery. If you haven't a juicy target it could be better to resupply. Most of the time it is better to resupply when you still have 1 ammo left, as the AI is prone to attack units with no ammo. However there are cases, where you should keep your units with low ammo and instead move it to a better location. Try to attack main objectives with good supply, as it really hurt to be low on supply if the enemy counterattack.

Reconing the battlefield is critical, for efficient offense. The best tools are recon vehicles and aircrafts. However aircraft should be cautious, as enemy airfields or cities often have AA guns nearby.

If you don't expect enemy contact, you should move as fast forward as you can, or at least as far as you can keep mobile artillery support. In contrast if you suspect a strong enemy position, it is usually good to stay out of the enemy detection range, move some units on the flanks out of detection too and attack at once from several direction. Many times you'll notice that even enemy units with 5 or 6 movement points won't attack your units 3 hexes away, either they have defense only order or they didn't detect you.


4b/ Auxiliary units are your best friends

As a reminder auxiliary units are those with silver border that you cannot keep for the ongoing campaign, so they last only for the scenario duration. Basically they are expendable, however you should not sacrifice them aimlessly, instead make the best use of them.

First use them for they intended role, however when facing a difficult situation you can easily use them as decoy. Auxiliary unit often have a very specific role, like AA units or bridging units. By the end of the scenario this role might be meaningless anyway.

For example after moving forward, you reveal enemy artillery units, so you might be shelled during the AI turn, you can move an auxiliary unit in a tempting position for the AI, as the AI usually attack the unit it can damage the most. If you have auxiliary units with trucks moving them in their trucks makes for a very tempting target. The AI artillery seems to prefer artillery first (here armored artillery are good to attract AI fire), then it seems very fond of auxiliary units.

Simply putting an auxiliary unit in your front line backed up by artillery will help soften enemy attacks.

I'd like to finish a scenario with very few losses for my core units, and with 90% of the auxiliary units destroyed.


4c/ manage AI respawning

The AI start scenarios with a number of prestige points (pp) and usually earns some extra pp each turn. It uses those pp to refit its damaged units during the scenario. So far so good, the player can do the same thing.
However something that might catch beginners by surprise is that, usually in the last third of a scenario, the AI will start respawning, i.e. buying fresh new units, around AI controlled city hexes or major objectives (not airports). Sometimes those units are fairly strong, usually it is a mix of AA guns artillery and antitank units, but sometimes it could be tanks. Fresh units never move nor attack on their turn of deployment.
At first you might be shocked to see a seemingly empty hex, or poorly defended hex, turning in a single turn in a hex defended all around by 7 units.

The trick to prevent AI respawning is to have a friendly unit adjacent. Sometime it is better to have one unit suffer some damage, rather to face respawn that blows out of control.


4d/ play until the last turn

It is fairly easy to finish most scenarios before the last turn. However you should consider refraining from capturing the last major objective, and click 'End Turn' to play to the very last turn, and then don't forget to capture all objectives. The reason is that every turn you earn some little prestige points.

Another tricks that you can use depending on your style. If you are ahead of schedule, put your forces around the last major objective, intentionally one hex away, that way the AI will respawn until it has spent all of its pp. Here the reason is too make some extra kills to gather extra experience and maybe some heroes in the process. If you find it sleeze don't do it.

[Delta 66]

I don't play PzC 2, it doesn't bring any of the improvements I wished. And I'm not alone in this case. Even in 2025 fourteen years after PzC release I'd rather play the older one.

[The Happy Void]

would a lot of this be useful for PC2?

[Delta 66]

SE units do not count toward the cap limit.

[DogSoldier]

Regarding the SE units do you deploy them last as they seem to be counting towards the cap limit ?

[Delta 66]

You can certainly build your core and play how you prefer.

Take into account how many turns your SP-AA just wait doing nothing. Either because there is no enemy plane at all or because they are out of range. I do have some AA units in my core but I only use them on specific occasions. Then obviously it is campaign dependant. Versus the US you'll probably want some dedicated AA units for 43-45.

Also note that many scenarios provide some auxiliary AA units. I have played most campaigns in Manstein difficulty and I still always choose fighters over AA units. Then if the scenario seems too harsh for my fighters I do consider fielding some AA units. My fighters don't take many losses in general and I play conservatively enough so I don't feel prestige is an issue.

Additionally there are many tricks to fool the enemy air forces, as they usually hunt for the target they'll damage the most. In many cases weak auxiliary units are good baits.

[RobOda]

Nice guide, but I think it overstates the value of fighters.

They're 90% of the time better off as hunters/escorts. Self-propelled AA is the way forward, because they will demolish enemy air units, for very little damage, can fire multiple times, and positioned correctly, can cover many hexes.

I would always get a SPAA unit up and running in every battlegroup the moment AI Air becomes active. As a bonus, they will be covering Artillery or more fragile tanks, both of which have poor air defence scores depending on the nation.

The other bonus? It saves on your prestige. Repairing fighters is a massive resource drain, particularly in the GC43-45 when the tide turns, or in Soviet Corps where you have crap planes until 44 and then inexperienced pilots until '45. But an AA? Cheap and cheerful.

[LOOK]

worth a reward :)

[renecyberdoc]

very precious instructions indeed.Thank you very much.

[EyeGod]

@dwh9992001 I've noticed this but check if it's not because of rainy weather? The game doesn't make it's obvious it's raining visually, you have to look at the forecast, and that affects bombers and fighters adversely.

[Happy Hoofer]

has anyone else noticed this? Occasionally bombers fully stocked with fuel and ordnance will attack a target once then not on subsequent turns(s) then suddenly they will again- a bug (?) or am I missing something?