Tips for Beginners

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

    • Tips for Beginners

      I've been playing CoW for a while now, however, I have some questions as to how other (better) players produce units, manage their economy and engage in combat.

      Apologies in advance if this is really long-winded

      1. Unit Production
      I've figured out that when I play lvl 100+ players, they are able to have stacks of every unit (artillery, fighters, tactical + strat bombers, tanks, infantry, subs etc.). How do you manage unit production on day 1 (what buildings to build and research)?

      Do you do one of a kind or build more based on the type of country (i.e. more naval bases in countries like Japan)

      How do you produce troops later on (I know branches vary by doctrine)?

      How do you make huge stacks when production of high-level units takes AAAAGES?

      2. Economy
      I've tried starting games (WaW 4x) by producing artillery, but I immediately run out of goods and manpower early on. I've also tried making fighters and bombers early on, but I run out of RM super quickly. How do I build industry in the most effective way so that I don't run out of resources (i.e. when I build industry early on I have no oil/RM left for unit production)

      :wallbash

      3. Combat
      How do you group troops in stacks that can protect against all branches? I've seen high-level ACs rush towards me and I have struggled countering it. How do you tailor production to weaknesses of enemy troops? How do you take advantage of terrain bonuses (especially in Pan-Asian)?

      Thank you for your time.
      CHHHHHAAAARRGGGEEE!

    • Ok, first, you must level up your troop production buildings so the troops production time is really cut down.

      For example

      Producing a level 3 armored car in a level 1 tank plant takes 21 hours

      But building it in a level 3 tank plant takes 5 hours 15 minutes

      leave 4* speed maps alone until you master the game, I am decent and they are very hard.

      Always build only 1 type of PRODUCTION building per city, to save resources.

      Don't research everything, only what you intend to mass produce
      Glory to the Union!

      Glory to the Red Army!

      Glory to the Revolution!

      Marshal of the Forum High Command

    • Rural industry is also rather cost effective, giving more time and resources to focus on said units. Comintern may be your doctrine if you want more units as well, though it seems to be seen as a weak one (though I disagree). You may want to get manpower later on, first from cities and then from resource-less rurals.

      CarKing the 6th of the Abrahamic Caliphate

    • What I've been doing (in evenly balanced rounds) is building 1 barracks, 1 ordnance factory, 1 tank plant, 1 airbase, and 1 naval base first thing. (If landlocked country just dont build anything in the last city ig) When those finish, I build level 1 industry in each, if I have enough oil. I'm usually able to do all that and research most of the available day 1 units by the time Day 2 starts. For the first few days, other than maybe level my inf up to L2, I usually don't research higher levels of units yet, just the first level. That's okay because your usually just fighting bots and inactives atp. This helps because level 1 units are the cheapest and quickest to produce, and you can always level them up later or use skip upgrading. By day 5, which is when I usually have my first human confrontation, I will level up most of my L1 units (depending on resources) and use skip upgrading for inf. Also by this time, I usually have at least L3 industry and L1 rec stations in my core cities. I wouldn't level your tanks and planes from L1 to L2, just wait another day or two and skip upgrade. (availability varies by doctrine) You save a LOT of resource that way. In the next week you can start churning out L3 and L4 units, your production facilities would be leveled up and by this time you should have a lot of income so resources aren't a problem. This is where things can go different depending on doctrine and current ingame situation, but the above is usually what I've been doing in the first 10 days of a game.

      Stay Sweet!

    • It depends on the units you want to mass produce and how is the resource production distribution of the country. For example, in CON game, if you decide not to build a large Air Force and have 2 rural provinces producing rares, building industries in them or the rural city is just a waste of precise steel and oil?

    • These are only my personal preferences
      Axis: med. tank, mot. inf., subs, attack bombers, AA, RRG(if it's HWW or WAW)
      Axis artillery/ r arty does not receive bonuses, so it's up to you, but only SP ones can catch up with med. tanks and mot. inf., unless the terrain is mostly forest and hills
      Allied: mech. inf., tac bombers, TD, SParty, destroyers, interceptors
      Comintern: arty/ r arty, med. tanks, attack bombers, cruisers
      Their anti-air units are the worst, and you may want militia or inf. also
      Pan-Asian: inf. arty, LT, interceptors, naval bombers
      battleships and carriers have bonuses but you need destroyers at least to protect them
      I have only played 3 times as Axis and 1 time as Allied before, and I played badly in them, so I'm not sure about what resources are needed, but I think all except Pan-Asian needs a lot of steel and oil, and Pan-Asian needs a lot of goods

    • Carking the 6th wrote:

      Rural industry is also rather cost effective, giving more time and resources to focus on said units. Comintern may be your doctrine if you want more units as well, though it seems to be seen as a weak one (though I disagree). You may want to get manpower later on, first from cities and then from resource-less rurals.
      I agree Communist is underrated. The 10% research cost helps, although if you get hit by axis day 1, it can be risky. Especially when sometimes the offensive damage on axis infantry is higher than the defense on communist infantry.

      But for HWW USSR is overpowered. Production starts of at 800/hr., but after the morale buffs, by day 2, some resources like oil/metal can be over 1000. Imagine the units you can make while Britain cries over his production.

    • When you want to be a major player in the mid/late game, you have to invest in your economy early on. In the early game, I try to keep my cities busy building industry and recruiting centers ALL THE TIME (and yes that is hard), at the expense of unit production. You must conquer and take the loot to do that as well; this means you must learn how to conquer using (mostly) your initial army. That's a subject for another thread though.

      When you ask about production time, there's a trick called skip-levelling. What you basically do is research L1 of some unit, and build a full stack (or several full stacks) of them at low cost and production time. Then you stop, but you don't use these units, you keep them in reserve in your core. You spend a few days reseaching L2->L3->L4, and when you got that, you upgrade them all to the new, high level... and bam, you have a fully functional stack of high-level units without needing many production facilities. This usually doesn't work in the VERY early game because resources are too tight and you need every unit you produce to fight, but starting it around day 4-6 is absolutely viable.
      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.

    • A word on the 'build only one production facility in each city' thing (a warning: I'm an Okay player at best so you might want to rethink taking my advice above that provided by pretty much everyone else in this thread):

      I actually disagree with this, because in the early game I don't immediately have research for every branch of tech anyway, so I see no point wasting my immediate funds on a naval base, for example, if I can only produce artillery and militia. (This doesn't apply in HWW, where one starts off with some research already completed, but on maps where this doesn't happen it absolutely does.) I prefer to first make sure I have an acceptable-sized army of whatever it is I can get, so I put either barracks or an ordnance foundry in each city to start, and only bother with tank plants and air bases and so on when I actually have the tech I can build in those facilities.

      I don't know how relevant this is in Axis, where units are expensive enough that one can't necessarily build something in every city simultaneously for the first few days, but in Comintern and Pan-Asian you can fairly easily, and I've done it in Allied before.
      Can you build something in every city simultaneously for the first few days in Axis? Never played it so I don't know, but I assume not unless it's one of the really powerful ones in HWW.
      Her Ladyship Aragosta
      A.K.A. "The Backstab Person"

      Pan-Asian is a better doctrine than Axis when played correctly and you cannot change my mind.

      You just lost The Game.

      Join the Madness here:
      CoW Forum Players! Unite!

    • We don't say you should build production buildings for a type you're not using yet, we're saying you shouldn't build more than one of the same time. When you build barracks or ordnance in "all your cities" like you say, you'll find that after a quick starting burst those barracks are mostly idle, because you simply don't have the resources and MP to keep them running. What I usually do myself is build ONE barracks, ordnance and tank plant each and TRY to have have them producing all the time (and that is indeed already very hard). You don't need five production buildings on day 1 (*).

      (*) - May not apply to some countries in HWW
      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.

    • Echoing my friend Rokossovski, the game is about making choices, especially the early game. Minimize your research and structures to the bare essentials.

      Are you starting in New Zealand? You're going to need cruisers as mobile gun platforms. They are fast, resistant to air attack, and deal ok damage to all units. You don't need tanks and motorized units because you'll be transporting units in transports. Your starting infantry is enough to take cities that your cruisers clear our from the shore. You'll need naval bombers and interceptors in a few days, so start building and preparing to skip level to 3 or 4 as explained above. Once you've conquered most of the island nations around you, then you can decide what kind of land army you'll need for the next phase of the game. Early on, you only need 1 port, 1 air factory, and a ton of industry and recruiting centers.

      Starting as Tibet? You're going to need artillery and rocket artillery to take advantage of those hills and mountains all around you. It will be days before you need any kind of armor or navy. 1 ordnance, 1 secret plant is enough to take all the countries around your core.

      It's about what you don't build. You only invest in 1-2 units at the start, and 1-2 factories. Whatever you have should be working all the time. And the units you build should be exactly what you need for your position, and your available resources. Every country plays differently.

    • z00mz00m wrote:

      Echoing my friend Rokossovski, the game is about making choices, especially the early game. Minimize your research and structures to the bare essentials.

      Are you starting in New Zealand? You're going to need cruisers as mobile gun platforms. They are fast, resistant to air attack, and deal ok damage to all units. You don't need tanks and motorized units because you'll be transporting units in transports. Your starting infantry is enough to take cities that your cruisers clear our from the shore. You'll need naval bombers and interceptors in a few days, so start building and preparing to skip level to 3 or 4 as explained above. Once you've conquered most of the island nations around you, then you can decide what kind of land army you'll need for the next phase of the game. Early on, you only need 1 port, 1 air factory, and a ton of industry and recruiting centers.

      Starting as Tibet? You're going to need artillery and rocket artillery to take advantage of those hills and mountains all around you. It will be days before you need any kind of armor or navy. 1 ordnance, 1 secret plant is enough to take all the countries around your core.

      It's about what you don't build. You only invest in 1-2 units at the start, and 1-2 factories. Whatever you have should be working all the time. And the units you build should be exactly what you need for your position, and your available resources. Every country plays differently.
      I agree especially with the cruiser part. If you are early game (non pan-Asian) in either the Pacific map or world map, go for cruisers immediately. They are quite underestimated but are very useful. Cruisers help to weaken up enemy defenses before a landing. They also have double the health of a submarine, so can have a decent fight, although a destroyer will be needed still.

    • The main thing is to ask yourself: Is this unit/structure/research absolutely necessary, right now?

      If not, skip it. You can win the game only producing 4-5 different units start to finish. The trick is to use the right units at the right time and in the right way. Having fewer unit types, at higher levels, is better than having lots of unit types at level 1.

      It's common for experienced players to skip entire branches of the research tree, and not building a single barracks or tank factory all game long. In fact, I would encourage you to think that way from the start. If there's a branch of the military you can ignore, what would it be? Can you ignore two branches? Do you really need air power, or are you better off with leveled-up artillery and AA guns?