your 10 most useful units

Cause using interceptors also requires a high level of activity. Interceptors can easily be killed by an enemy if you are not online.

Yup, additional infantry while 70% of your starting army is infantry = unneeded.

Depends. If you know your enemy to be heavy on the subs, using naval bombers and destroyers can be a better choice. Means you do not waste resources while your enemy usues quite some metal.

That is VERY true. Lot of players do not get that. There is an exeption though. If your core provinces are on the seashore. Battleships can ruin your cities. Very little you can do about battleships if you do not have your own navy.

If you have enough subs it doesn't matter the ship will sink. If not you just move your troops out of the range and you repair your buildings. The battleships would have to bombard forever. The battleships will cover the landing of disembarking troops but naval or tactical bombers can perfectly take care of that.

Nono, I mean without any landing troops. Just batleships and appropriate support to bash your buildings.
_{Subs can only do so much. And they are not very effective if your opponent is smart enough to bring destroyers along. Means that your subs get destroyed at range without anything to show for it.}
I mean a full effective navy group. 3 BB, 5 CR, 7DD and sub support. A very sad day for your buildings. Not a thing a few subs can fix with ease. It will hamper you greatly.

3 BB, 5 CR, 7DD and sub support sounds like a good naval mix ... (-:

To be able to make such a naval force that takes a while, this means we are further in the game. By this points i have multiple countries with a lot of IC. If one is destroyed by BB i couldn't care less, it wouldn't be my only destroyed IC and you'll have 15 ships destroying a city that means little to me. As long as you don't get troops in to invade i'm happy as i still have the points of that city. You will have lost a lot of time to research and build ships that aren't able to conquer anything. In the meantime i'll have a superior land and airforce in both knowledge and size and if you try to set a foot on land i'll deal with you swiftly. In the meantime i'll be invading other contries as well where you will have a small land force, be slower in expansion and have a high oil upkeep form all your ships. "SHIPS DON'T CONQUER PROVINCES" remember that.

But you won't know if I come around with a land invasion force now do you. So I doubt you will be onwards conquering lands everywhere without doing anything about those ships. If you are Italy and I start bombing Rome, you will act. Like I said, it matters whether you are attacking someones core or not. In the case that ships are attacking your core. You wont let them. If I manage to demolish 3 of your core cities it will matter very little that you have plenty if IC around. The ones in your core can probably still build a greater variety of equipment and remain valuable to create troops and resources throughout the game.

<sub>Besides its not like I will give up vital resources to bomb your cities with ships. So I will take oil use, research and what not into account. In the situation you describe it is as if my only priority is to bomb your cities using ships while I give you all the room you need to do whatever. That is ludacris, I will of course take other measures to ensure your defeat.

My point is that even though naval vessels can not conquer provinces, they most certainly do have a purpose in fighting wars. Especially if they will do bombing of core coastal cities.</sub> Your few subs wont be able to stop my navy and my naval bombings will mean that you completely wasted resources on researching and building a few subs. Given enough time your economy will suffer more than mine.

Build a few subs and be fine can be a sure way to set yourself up for defeat.

Fair point, for sure that i evaluate my tactic according to that of my enemy. I usually have a large air force so those can patrol the area where your BB's are, no problem. In case i'm playing with Italy i'll have a stronger navy because your cores are only at one side of the four landlocked and i'll probably have closed the street of Gibraltar at that time. In any case i'll never leave my cores exposed to a BB attack. In general I avoid building a big navy unless the game dictates otherwise. If I have a navy i prefer subs and destroyers. I lock your ships in battle when you are offline and then move in with the destroyers to bombard your ships without being counter attacked. If you are online i'll not risk it.

Who does not have a chance to use a unit they wanted in a game? That is what i felt sometimes in a game.

I usually manage to find time by just not upgrading certain units anymore. Infantry for example is something I never upgrade beyond level 3. They just do not get a lot of additional power compared other unit upgrades. Light tanks I also no longer tend to upgrade once medium tanks are available. On the other side there are some units that I ALWAYS upgrade, like interceptors. Reason is that interceptors mainly fight other interceptors and get 1.5 power on every upgrade. Which is more than most other units. They also have a high chance of running into enemy units first being airborne and fast. A lot of their work is done in front of the front line. I tend to upgrade units that have a bigger power gain on a level up first. Or units that I have a lot of. So that the overall power output of my army improves most. Some ubits I never upgrade for a lack of use of higher levels compared to their starting level. Mechanized infantry for example is almost just as usable on level 1 as they are on higher levels. Cruisers also sometimes do not need to many upgrades depending on the enemy or/and my own army build. If I use cruisers instead of battleships I upgrade them, if I also have BB then I probably hardly will.

My opinion:

units most useful in a normal game

1: Infantry, for they Don't seem to have a weakness, they are very well rounded and can normally defend from everything from aircraft to heavy tanks

2: Medium Tanks, look I know they do cost a lot but I think their most useful for being support and can be either offensive or defensive

3: Tactical Bombers, just stack them and you can kill almost everything

4: Light Tanks, their cheap and quick and I get that but They become useless when attacked by a stack

5: Battleships they can shell land and when stacked can't be defeated unless attacked by insane Airpower or a battleship of its quality

6: Interceptors, the best scout and can defend from Aircraft better than AA

7: Submarines they can practically defend any ocean from anything

8: Anti tanks best defense

9: Artillery, any kind even Railroad guns

10: Paratroopers, can hold a position long enough for reinforcement to arrive

11: Motorised Infantry just buffed infantry

12: Cruisers/ Destroyers cheap, useful, defense

Units to not-bother-with
Heavy tanks,
Nuclear Bombers,
Tank destroyers,
Armored Cars,

tbh tank destroyers are not that bad especially with allies they are very good

(This list isnt in order, I just did what I could think of)
#1 Motorized Infnatry: Very fast, Cheap, With Axis they can destroy any infantry
#2: SP artillery: Very fast, and does a lot of damage
#3: All the planes are good at what they are SuPPOSES to do.
#4: Meduim Tanks: They are kind of fast, they cost a bit more than I would like but it’s ok, they can plow through practically anything
#5: Mechanized Infantry: ONLY USE IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF SPARE RESOURCES, bUt when u do get it it’s worth it since it can destroy any ground units
6#: Nuclear Rocket, Can destroy anything but usually the rounds end before you can get to it...
#7: Battle Ships, are expensive but worth the money
#8: Subs, I’ve sunk a whole lot of ships and convoys with these...a whole lot
#9: Armored Cars (For Pan-Asian): Pretty good at killing infantry
#10: Tank Destroyers : Can destroy any tanks, and are better than anti-tanks

1. Tac bombers: Deal a ton of damage and can maneuver between fronts easily.
2. SP artillery: Powerful ranged unit, can destroy units from a distance when in numbers yet also move fast and have a ton of HP
3. Med tanks: I use med tanks not for the damage which they deal but for the fact that they form an effective meat-shield for my artillery
4. Subs: At low levels, they can be spammed to destroy unescorted battleships. It's hilarious to sneak around enemy front lines and destroy their ships.
5. Mot infantry: Fast and powerful scout unit, useful in mechanized stacks.


Honestly those five are the main units which I use. Of course my stacks also include mech infantry, SPAA, and interceptors but those units are "common" and don't really make my strategy mine.

Okay, I use:
1) arty behind other units, the slow moving meat grinder
2) armored cars to scout and for demoralizing quick land grabs
3) light and medium tanks to stack with other units
4) infantry to hold cities and attack cities while arty bombards
5) tacs or attack bomber stacks to soften the enemy for an attack
6) cruisers and battleships to prep for a beach landing

and that is about it
7) mech inf for fun and militia for an alternative to hold cities
subs to subversively spy on my next attack

But most importantly is to choose who you work with wisely. I never ever join a coalition in the first 5 days. I gotta see who is active and who is smart.

Let's start with a short distinction.

Early game /short games and late-game have totally different units which are useful.
Depending if you want to be strong in the early or in the late game, you will build different things.

----

For early game / short games (first 5-7 days) main army composition:

1. Rocket artillery - Pretty much all starting troops have no armor or light armor. And you cannot even research-heavy armor (medium tanks) till day 2/3 (and medium tanks are slow to produce).
Now, it also sets Comintern as the single strongest starting doctrine due to early and cheap access to those.
But it also means you need to be VERY aggressive early, as when tanks become accessible and people start producing those, you will start lagging behind.
So conquer all you can before that happens.

They are so strong in the early game that in tournament matches you can see players producing 30 of those in the first 3 days and pretty much nothing else.

2. Medium tanks - Lots of early units are BAD against heavy armor.
And medium tanks are a great combination of heavy armor and attacking stats.
Get those.
They also counter best early strat of using rocket artillery, especially useful if you play in a tournament match against an active player.

Cons? Available day 2/3 depending on doctrine, long research, and long production.
But on the good side - They tend to scale well enough into late-game.

Doctrinewise?
Bonuses in Axis and Comitern - Axis ones are great when playing against active players due to speed bonuses.
Comintern are cheaper and faster to build, which makes them a good choice to stack into a lot of those when going against more passive players.

3. Tactical bombers - Hello Allies doctrine.
Only thing they bring to the table in the early game.
And a very strong thing.

Ally is a doctrine that is about having a wider array of units to your disposition, and hence possibly being able to better counter enemy. (Faster unit production also helps in this).
But that's not necessarily needed in the early game.

Tactical bombers, however, do work great early due to being able to both deal solid damage to non armored unit, as well as doing relatively well as a scout, due to solid range.

=====

Early support units:

4. A/A guns - Air control/defense is something you need.
It comes down to this or fighters.
And with fighters having penalties and having terrible scaling on Comitern, A/A guns are gonna be used way more often for early game rushers.
Mostly to defend artillery against tacticals.

5. Tank destroyers - This is very optional and worth it only if you have someone rushing medium tanks.
They are a valid cover unit for the early game.

On one hand, they are heavily armored, making the strongest early unit deal pretty much no damage.
On other hand, they are also countering medium tanks.

But again, those are mostly counters for people who try to rush early game.
Not much of a gain in themselves.

6. Armored cars - They discover stealth units.
That's it.
And you start with those too, which might be enough. Just upgrade them if the enemy has LVL 2 stealth.

-------------

Now let's move to the endgame.

Balance of power moves HEAVILY.
Rocket artillery is nearly useless, as pretty much everyone has tanks and they scale terribly in damage.
Comintern itself also becomes one of the weakest doctrines, while Axis takes a lead.
Allies are still okayish in the late game due to the possibility of having access to more units types and easier adjustment to the situation.
But that requires a bit more knowledge of what you will be facing.

1. Fighters / Rocket fighters - Air control. Planes are still deadly.
Even more, than they were in early.

Late game people can have up to 80-100 planes easily.
Especially if you are playing against very high-rank players who know their values.

2. Tactical bombers / Offensive bombers
Airforce defines the late game.
It's fast, able to be redeployed on whichever flank you need.
And VERY strong, especially if your enemy is investing less than you into it.

Also allows you to scout into enemy territory.

3. Nuclear bomber - Ever heard of that 30 tanks stack your enemy has?
Oh, he forgot to add anti-air guns?
Just bomb it.

He did add anti-air guns?
Just bomb a province right next to him.
Unless he is in a center of the province, then too bad.

Well, that's the case, the pure existence of this thing can make the experienced player sit in the center of the province to not be bombed indirectly.
And yes, you can shoot a nuclear bomber down with anti-air if you are bombed directly.

Those things can stall the whole frontline from moving pretty much.

========

Yeah, pretty much most of the endgame is about planes.
You can remove whole armies If you have air advantage.

So let me give you some ideas of what a good land army looks like:

1. 10 SP artillery / SP rocket artillery
7 armored cars
3 SP anti-air

Enough A/A attack to shoot down nuclear bombers.
Long range attack.
And speed to run away if you are around when the enemy tries catching you.
Plus you can catch stealth units.

And if you didn't know, up to 10 units can attack at once, so if you shoot, 10 artillery will shoot at once.
If you defend, your armored cars and anti-air will be defending.
Very good composition if you have no better ideas of what you will be facing.

Cons? Bit of low hp side.

2. 10 Medium tanks + 5 Sp Anti-air -
This is something for direct combat.
You can decide to detach A/A from the unit before you attack if your enemy has no planes nearby.

Fast, huge hp, heavy armored.

=====

Now those 2 compositions could be used in battles against high-ranked players mostly because they allows some transition from early units to the late ones.

On the other hand units like mechanized infantry could also be used, just require a bit more steps to achieve if you are transitioning from early units into the late game.

But to be realistic - in the late game, you mostly want to find a way to counter your enemy to the best of your ability.
So if you think mechanized will do better than medium tanks, just swap it for them.
You will even need fewer anti-airs since they have solid ones themselves.

Oh, and add some ships to fill the list up to 10.

That's it.

Sorry for the long post.

1. rocket artillery // sp rocket artillery (early game vs. mid game)
2. tac bombers
3. medium tanks
4. motorized infantry
5. sp artillery
6. sp anti air
7. interceptor
8. attack bomber
9. battleship
10. submarine

Ok most useful units

stacks of
(1) inf/militia (depending game and/or surrounding)
(2) anti tank guns
(3) anti air guns

Advantage, all soft targets they share damage therefor, cheap and require 2 buildings (protects agains anything except artillerie bombardments by artillery or boats, you need boats or artillery yourself)

Naval
stacks of
(4) subs (anything without torpedobat protection dies (eventually hide them under your regular naval stack (protection only), but for best results, realease them from the stack of course

and stacks of
(5) torpedoboats
(6) cruisers (or carriers with planes, interceptors/navalbombers)
(7) Battleships

For land rushes
(8) high level armored cars (have relatively high air defense compared to other land units so stacks are very dangerous to bomberstacks)

for air defense
(9) interceptors (high level interceptors fly very far so can support attacking unprotected units)

for breaching:
(10) stacks of arillerie (with (3) a number of anti air units)

More you dont really need.

I have to admit that strategic bombers/rockets are worth mentioning, why? simply because if you want to destroy an airstrip nearby these are the babies to do it, I think I would prefer strategic bombers over rockets, but this is not carved in stone for me. In any case you have interceptors and anti air units.

The speed is in the armored cars, the strength in the soft and slow units, I dont use expensive self propelled units nor tanks. Bombers may be an alternative, yet if high air defense excist you are screwed.

Naval bombers and lack of navy is an alternative, didnt try, for long routses use carriers/navalbombers/interceptors.

Pro's: minimizes research, really strong defensive
con's: goods/food, need really strong economy, fortifications/bunkers are sometimes very handy

1. Motorized and Mechanized Infantry - they are stronger than normal infantry and they have a speed advantage as well

2. Medium Tanks - they are a cross between heavy and light tanks, which means they are strong and moderately fast

3. Tactical Bombers - players use many unarmored units, so they are a very useful unit

4. Railroad Guns - they can be described in one word, broken. they can vaporize any unit and they have insane range

5. Cruisers - they have very long view range and they protect your precious battleships from air attacks

6. Rockets - in my opinion rockets are very useful for two reasons: they are very cheap to make and you don’t have to wait a long time to research them. also they pack a punch

7. Strategic Bombers - by mass producing these, you can singlehandedly break your enemies production line, but they do need interceptors to work properly

8. Paratroopers - they can get you behind enemy lines which allows you to surround and trap the enemy units. i personally love to use this strategy

9. Commandos - they are very good against light armor and a lot of players i face use light tanks and mechanized infantry

10. Submarines - i use them a lot and they can or very good or very bad depending on the situation. If you encounter a destroyer, retreat immediately and range attack it with a cruiser or a battleship. If its any other ship, feel free to attack it

My friend, this thread is a year old lol. Most of the time it’s better to reply to newer threads.

I like this, but sadly my need to use strategic bombers has gone, in the old game (1.0), they were hugely necessary, but while still top their unit, wouldn't be the absolute need that they were, unless your fighting against experienced players.