vietcong2005 wrote:
There is a reason I use light and medium tanks.Spite_Is_Right wrote:
Going to have to disagree with you completely about armored cars. It's nowhere near as cut and dry as you say, and in fact I think you're wrong on some key points.First of all, comparing the two units 1:1 really doesn't make sense in the first place because they have completely different resource costs and come from different structures, MI take 2000+ food at level 4 while AC take 0. That being said, armored cars still compare favorably in many key performance metrics that you implied they underperformed MI.BMfox wrote:
The higher you research the AC and Mot Inf the bigger the difference gets. Even after the recent AC buff the Mot Inf is still better in many ways. It's faster and has better overal battle stats.
Second, while both units are highly mobile, motorized infantry prefer offense yet armored cars are better on the defensive. Armored cars actually do 19 infantry damage on the defensive compared to motorized 14 on the attack, they do more damage to light armor in the same situation 7.9 versus 7.5 and only do slightly less to heavy armor. These values are for Pan-Asian which have a bonus to infantry damage, but I think they're pretty competitive with other doctrines as well. For Axis, motorized will have an edge in raw damage.
Third, perhaps we're playing different games but armored cars are actually faster at level 4 versus level 4 (which is max level for AC without blueprints).
Fourth, armored cars have 59 hit points and are light armor while motorized have only 36 and are squishy infantry. This makes a huge difference if you actually play out some real combat scenarios. One-on-one is not even a comparison, if a motorized infantry attacks one of these AC they will die in three rounds and do less than 20 damage to the car (anywhere but plains, on plains the car takes a bit more but the battle ends in two).
Fifth, armored cars are much better against tactical bombers. They do 87.5% more air damage, they take much less damage, they have almost twice the hit points. I think someone said motorized were better against tactical bombers above, that's just plain wrong and you don't understand the mechanics.
Additionally Pan-Asian has access to AC4 on day 10.
I use them to ruthless effect. I still use motorized as well they're particularly useful to exploit breakthroughs and attack cities where armored cars will struggle. Armored cars are great for take and hold tactics and just generally running around and being a nuisance. They're more resistant to air attacks than both light tanks and motorized infantry and in most 1-on-1 match ups fair better (avoid light and medium tanks).
I started using armored cars recently and have come to appreciate them. I don't use them to attack, just scout and capture unoccupied terrain. My main rationale for armored cars are that you start with two of them and you need to research it in order to proceed with researching other tanks. Whereas mot infantry is just extra research.
I'm still learning aspects of the game so am not convinced about them. My preferred doctrine is ComIntern, so I'm not really use to doctrine buffs that Pan-Asian or Axis would provide.