optimal strat?

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    • Resource imbalance, too expensive on goods and zero use of the others. Considering goods is one of the more expensive resources and that also you use them for rec centers too, you're gonna run out of gas very quickly.

      Poor vision and no invis detection. You'd easily be outmaneuvered if your enemy has scouts. You're essentially fighting blind against someone allseeing.
      Cheap stealth ambushes with militias and ATs counters the whole build.

      AA capability is nothing more than an easily avoidable passive deterrent, you can't really take the initiative with that.
      Strats would be a real problem.
      If opponent has planes, he would have free reign over the skies, unopposed sky scouting. You'd be forced to consolidate everything into big stacks to avoid getting picked off. Small scale reinforcements, sorties, car raids, etc. would become impossible.
    • Z. Sakki wrote:

      Resource imbalance, too expensive on goods and zero use of the others. Considering goods is one of the more expensive resources and that also you use them for rec centers too, you're gonna run out of gas very quickly.

      Poor vision and no invis detection. You'd easily be outmaneuvered if your enemy has scouts. You're essentially fighting blind against someone allseeing.
      Cheap stealth ambushes with militias and ATs counters the whole build.

      AA capability is nothing more than an easily avoidable passive deterrent, you can't really take the initiative with that.
      Strats would be a real problem.
      If opponent has planes, he would have free reign over the skies, unopposed sky scouting. You'd be forced to consolidate everything into big stacks to avoid getting picked off. Small scale reinforcements, sorties, car raids, etc. would become impossible.

      Resource imbalance: This was my biggest concern, but since you can build all of these on different branches, for example SP vs regular, you can mitigate some of the imbalance. Still this is something that would need to be tested in a real game.

      Poor vision: somewhat of a problem, but you are marching with a god stack in front of artillery. I don't see the need to see.

      AA: everything is defense except artillery. AA is a very good unit when you take into account time and res cost. Plus you kill planes.

      Planes: that's the point of AA. It's going to be one of your main units. Planes will shit themselves.
    • I don't think there's any single optimal strategy but the basic one you described (relying on stacks of artillery + rocket artillery, combined with several anti-air units and anti-tank units for defense) is very difficult to defeat. You avoid melee combat whenever possible to maintain your ranged effectiveness and have enough defensive units to make folks have to think twice about rushing you or aerial attacking.
    • An artillery-focused build is going to be very effective most of the time, and you won't even need AA until you run into skilled air force users. But as jubjub says, every build has a counter. RRG's and BB's will out range your artillery. Militia and AT guns will ambush your stacks in rough terrain and in cities. Air forces will hit you despite AA support, until you invest half your resources into AA, which takes away your punch and makes you waste manpower on units that are mostly passive.

      Resource balancing is a concern. If you play with 3-4 friends and you agree ahead of time which resources to trade, it's possible to play with a resource imbalance. If not, the market is not efficient, and you will be frustrated by the cost of goods once the remaining players in the game are building tons of planes and conscription centers, as well as artillery.

      I always try to play every country in a different way, taking account of the terrain, doctrine bonuses, and resource balancing. This makes my builds effective as well as fun, because I'm figuring out something new each time :)
    • Yes, a TB attacking an AA gun is going to have a rough time. Looking at my current game where I'm playing as Axis:

      TB does 5.2 damage to unarmored, AA does 7.2 damage to air.

      However, the TB has 23 HP while the AA has 17.

      Still not a target I would pick.

      But this is not that happens in a game. The attacker has a stack of TB. The defender has *some* number of AA defending other units. And it's never enough, it tends to be 1-2 guns and 8-9 other units. Often soft targets like artillery.

      And if the target goes all in, building stacks that are 50% or more AA, then the air force can ignore them and handle them in close combat or with artillery.

      And oh yeah, good luck breaking off single units to take land, that AA stack has to stay together or it's dead

      It's possible to play this way, but it's really hard against skilled opponents when you sacrifice all of your mobility and lock so much of your manpower into passive units.
    • This is kind of lab warfare that doesn’t work on an actual battlefield. It isn’t too hard to build an “invincible” stack, but it gets outflanked all the time. As you march three hours to your next destination, single AC’s will take the land behind you, and just leave your target empty, taking three provs for every one you take. When you split up and make several stacks like that, mobile enemies will concentrate and pick them off one by one. You’re basically slow and predictable, and every good opponent will love that. Sure mobility has a price in not being optimal firepower-wise, but the freedom to determine under what circumstances the next battle will be fought (or NOT be fought) is worth more than some lab solution of optimal firepower. You basically lose your flexibility when you fight like that, and whenever you split off small units they will die quickly. You’re taking the first step to doom stacks here, and they just don’t work very well. Sure your stack has a place in an army, but you will always need to mix it with small screen stacks - and when you do, you’ll find that it doesn’t need to be optimal, it just needs to be good enough.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • I don't think losing provs matters too much. It just about winning the attrition war. arty and planes are op already, but i think heavy aa stacks will win this attrition war vs planes. If you are constantly progressing, mobility isn't so important. running an ac around is a good strat, but it only slows the inevitable.
    • It may depend on the map.

      If you're taking Britain, sure.

      If you're trying to take the world, and you need to take control of Asia, it's a different story. If you're only using large, slow mega stacks, you'll need a lot of them. Maybe more than you can afford in manpower. Remember you still need an air force and/or navy to protect your holdings on other continents. If those are also defended by large, slow stacks, the enemy can take land faster than you can recover it.

      Air force is essential, without it you can't be everywhere at once, and there isn't enough manpower in the game to cover the world with land forces.
    • DxC wrote:

      I don't think losing provs matters too much. It just about winning the attrition war. arty and planes are op already, but i think heavy aa stacks will win this attrition war vs planes. If you are constantly progressing, mobility isn't so important. running an ac around is a good strat, but it only slows the inevitable.
      AA wins the war against planes, absolutely. It is just that AA is very one-sided; if the enemy does NOT use planes (and many AI's and noobs don't, as well as some very advanced players) it is completely useless.

      I agree that killing units is more important than taking territory; my point is that (as an opponent of your stack) it is very easy to evade battle altogether. It is how we have all learned to fight doom stacks: just let them roam and take back the territory behind them. In that case territory DOES become the deciding factor, because in the end you will hit the production base, which is the ultimate form of attrition.
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.
    • I would say it is a defensive stack, well placed in a fortification or bunker on a choke point. Make sure to have other fast moving stuff that can rush in for provinces once a breach has been established, In any case if the attacker is deterred they will do the math and send in one maybe two plane stacks, what you need against that is interceptor stacks that can kill/decimate the attacking plane stacks easily. A patrol over the defensive stack will do, and can be followed by a direct attack on the attacking planes too to give a decisive blow if needed.

      In any case that will be too little diversity, But too much diversity distracts from a focus on specific units so quality is affected. Like rocket artillery is overrated, and costs a lot of resources and time, to research and to build. I avoid the secret branch quite a bit If I can see a solution, which may be suboptimal, in another branch of which the unit I was already going to use or has more purpose..
    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      my point is that (as an opponent of your stack) it is very easy to evade battle altogether. It is how we have all learned to fight doom stacks: just let them roam and take back the territory behind them.
      Yeah, including air and ACs is probably more optimal. However, it would be interesting to try a game with the aa/art/at constraint. I would include RRGs as artillery.
    • DxC wrote:

      K.Rokossovski wrote:

      my point is that (as an opponent of your stack) it is very easy to evade battle altogether. It is how we have all learned to fight doom stacks: just let them roam and take back the territory behind them.
      Yeah, including air and ACs is probably more optimal. However, it would be interesting to try a game with the aa/art/at constraint. I would include RRGs as artillery.
      Challenge accepted! So you play without any sort of bomber or mobile troops, right? Which constraints should I use? No arty?

      Heh, and writing that, I realize these constraints are absolutely in your favor... but OK, you haven't played 1.5 much yet, so maybe it evens out?
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.