Playthrough: Heavy Tank Spam

Example battle durations, from dxcalc.

Comintern Arty bombarding Allied Infantry defending a core city: 14 turns

Comintern RArty bombarding Allied Infantry defending a core city: 6 turns

Comintern Arty bombarding Allied AC defending core plains: 14 turns

Comintern RArty bombarding Allied AC defending core plains: 12 turns

RRarty is more effective at destroying light armor, and much more effective at destroying infantry.

Considering most of the early game is about clearing enemy infantry, RRarty is clearly more effective.

You can do the same amount of conquering with less than half of the bombardment units.

That can shave days from your game duration.

I understand the benefits of RA. My only question was why you picked ART for axis vs RA for comi.

I'm not very savvy with this forum software. Is there a way to post in-line images rather than attaching them at the bottom of the post? Would that require hosting the images somewhere?

When you upload them you have an option to use a thumbnail or full image:

DxC wrote:

I understand the benefits of RA. My only question was why you picked ART for axis vs RA for comi.

Axis has to wait an extra day, and the rrarty they wait for are less OP.

In my mind Comintern rrarty are a no brainier. Axis rrarty are a brainer. I have to think resource bonuses, neighbor danger, other factors.

DxC wrote:

I understand the benefits of RA in general, but I don't see why he said ART with axis and then RA with comi. The only reason could be that he is putting higher value on research availity than on production cost. I was wondering about the reasoning.

... I find a squadren of attack bombers built early and lvl'd up as the game progresses takes care of HT and Railroad guns rather easily. Yes you can launch a stack of HT and get a good nights sleep, but 1 armoured car can re-take all those empty provinces as quickly as they're taken. Just came off a round like that. Took everything his HT stack took. frustrated him till he quit.

I'll post Days 3 and 4 in a bit. I haven't forgotten, just tied up with some IRL and work stuff the past couple days.

Day 3

Start of the day:

Day 3 doesn't bring much of a change. I'm first with 120, Colombia and four others tied for 2nd at 70. No change to coalitions; the top one has 260 points across their four members but hasn't done much in the past day.

Research: I don't research anything on Day 3. L2 AA is available but, surrounded by inactive neighbors, I don't need AA right now and I decide to postpone mass production until I research L3 to save on resources. Likewise with ACs--I know I'm going at least to L3, so no need to research AC L2 if I'm not going to produce any. Day 6 is looking like a big research day for me: L3 AA, L3 AC, and L3 tacs all hitting on the same day. With the level of inactivity, I'm starting to think I might be able to stretch it until then and only start mass production of each unit when I hit L3.

Diplomacy: There was a report in the newspaper of an unspecified spy caught in Oregon, so at least one player is using them. I don't think I need counterespionage spies yet but will add one in the next couple days. Colombia is progressing slowly but surely, finishing off Venezuela (likely inactive) pretty efficiently with 48/1 k/d (that doctrine advantage is huge). Three of Colombia's core cities already have 4 buildings each, and they've built a total of 5 buildings across the four cities they captured from Venezuela, so they are certainly wasting resources and aren't building efficiently. Good for me. They gain a new member of their coalition, Cuba, who has been progressing through the Caribbean islands, picking off Jamaica, Haiti, and Dominican Republic. There are some bombardment marks, probably from cruisers. Cuba also has 4+ buildings in their core cities, so they're not playing very efficiently. They only have 10 coalition wins in 71 games and a PVP k/d of 1.6, but with only 611 PVP kills in 71 games I'm not very concerned. Towards the end of the day I click around the map and guesstimate that at least 30 players are about to go inactive at day change, which is absurd.

Construction: One small downside of starting with inactive neighbors is not having any buildings in the cities I capture, but that's alright. Oil is still my limiting resource so I pick some up after day change while it's cheap, at 11.7. My economy is already strong enough to sustain HT production out of two TPs and I still have 24 hours until I can start HT research, so I'm in great shape there. I continue some Industry investments here and there. As I approach day change I start to plan out my Oil consumption, which is still my limiting resource. I need 4150 to start HT research at day change and need another 4400 to upgrade my TPs to L3. My current stockpile and generation rate of 500/hr + the Oil I'll get for capturing East Texas's capital will give me more than enough so I decide to go for another Oil Industry upgrade.

Production: I start the day with 2 MTs and two more on the way, and continue to produce them all day, topping out at 9 (I could have built a 10th but choose Oil Industry instead). I haven't produced any Tacs and Ints yet, so may have researched them soon, but that's alright. It's harder to make use of those in ones and twos, whereas I can immediately add even a single MT to any ground stack to make it stronger. I'd need four L1 Tacs just to one-shot an infantry, so I won't be using them until I've got a good number.

Moves: Despite spreading my units around, three provinces revolt overnight. I send some AA around to clean up the mess and re-consolidate my main units to continue conquering. One of my over-stacked stacks loses another infantry, and I suspect I actually put too many infantry in it, increasing the amount of damage proportioned to unarmored units and increasing the likelihood that I lose a unit, I think. Annoying, I hate losing units. Towards the end of the day, I'm facing that MT stack in the East Texas capital and trying to figure out how to tackle it. I added two medium tanks to my nearest stack and break out the trusty calculator, courtesy of DxC. The situation:

My stack isn't great, but it's what I've got nearby and I really want this capital before day change: I want the morale boost and revolt prevention before day change, and if the AI takes over at day change I'll also get less cash reward when I capture it. The calculator tells me that attacking with the stack as-is will result in 5 infantry losses--that's not happening. I know I need to reduce the number of infantry in the stack, otherwise they will take too much damage, but I need some for their damage output with the urban terrain bonus. It looks like three infantry is the magic number to minimize unit losses (calc says I'll lose two of them), but there's another issue--at this point, there are only 3 hours until day change, and the calculator is telling me it'll take 3.5 hours to finish the battle. I decide to start the battle with the main stack, leaving three infantry in it, while holding the other 11 infantry nearby to attack once the defending infantry have been whittled down a bit. My hope is that this approach will get me the capital before day change while still losing less than the 5 infantry I'd lose if I plowed ahead with the full stack. It turns out I was right--I'm able to save the 11-inf stack until a few rounds have been fought, after the enemy's unarmored defense has been depleted, then bring them in to finish things off. I capture the capital about 30 minutes before day change, only losing two infantry with my approach--pretty much a best case scenario.

Stats at the end of Day 3: 91/5 k/d (ugh, that 5 hurts), 56/0 provinces

Calc results and my split-stack approach

The newspaper summary for the end of Day 3, where you can see the amount of inactivity.

Day 4

A whopping 37 players go inactive a day change. THIRTY SEVEN! When added to the three players that have been eliminated so far (two by me, one by Colombia), we're down to 10 active players already. This is pretty disappointing. I'm in first with 150, Colombia 100, Cuba 80, then some others.

Here's my situation at day start:

Here's how the full map is looking a few hours in. Look at all those inactives!

Research: it's Day 4, which means it's turbo time heavy tank time. I start that research immediately, and plan to start production as soon as the 20-hour research completes. Later in the day, as I'm contemplating my plan to attack West Mexico while avoiding being sandwiched, I decide to knock out Naval Bomber research, just in case Cuba shows up on my shores while my main units are across the mountains to the west. As noted previously, I also know I'm about to have a bunch of research hitting in the next couple days, and want to get this out of the way while things are quiet--it would be a terrible situation to get surprised by a naval invasion and have to cancel some ongoing research to get naval bombers going.

Diplomacy: Nothing of note other than the outrageous number of inactives. Towards the end of the day Colombia invites me to their coalition, still just them and Cuba. I leave the offer open in case I want to take the easy way out later, but I think it's most likely I'll just plow through this game solo.

Construction: Even after the supply drop (mentioned in Moves below), I decide to buy some more Steel and Oil (price: ~12) from the market to continue my Industry builds. I set aside some resources for my Tank Plant upgrades, which need to start ~12 hours before HT research completes, and invest the rest: L3 Local in my Oil province, L1 Local in a Steel, L2 Industry in my Food city, which I don't need for units but need for RCs and is often valuable to sell to the market. Speaking of RCs, I'm building a decent supply of manpower but am still a bit behind on my target numbers, generating only 663/hr, so I start building rural RCs to complement my (mostly) maxed urban RCs. My Oil city's RC is still just L1 since I've been building that industry. When the 12-hour mark comes around I have to cancel an RC, which is fine--TP is my priority for now, and I can finish the RC later.

Production: HT research finishes with a few hours left in the day and I start producing them ASAP. 8hr45 is such a long time to wait though...

Moves: I take out my AI neighbor pretty quickly, getting me the supply drop just before it disappears (Steel, Oil, and Rares--perfect!) and a capital boost. (Side note: this supply drop gained me ~4k resources each, while the first supply drop I captured gained me ~8k resources each. Is there a difference between drops in human-controlled vs AI-controlled territory? I've never actually paid attention...) My next supply drop spawns in West Mexico, an inactive neighbor that just went AI. My plan to move south to confront Colombia may have to wait. I also wanted to keep West Mexico as a buffer between me and the N Cali / S Cali / Arizona / Wyoming coalition, to avoid being sandwiched, but decide the supply drop is more important, and capture it pretty quickly (I didn't see which resources this one provided, didn't seem to include Oil or Steel). Near day change I drop one milsab spy in each of Colombia and Cuba--never too early to gather intel, especially if there's a chance they surprise me.

End of day newspaper map:

Stats at the end of Day 4: 107/5 k/d, 62/0 provinces

Now that I'm finally producing heavies, I think it's worth noting my Panzerace achievement currently sits at 117 units killed with HTs. Let's see how that does over the course of the game.

jubjub bird wrote:

Oil is still my limiting resource so I pick some up after day change while it's cheap

I've noticed that there are normally a few times a day when the AI update their market offers. Day change is usually one of those times, so if I've bought up the cheapest tranche of a resource on one day I'll try to wait until day change to buy the cheapest tranche again. This seems to be the case when there are three tranches with prices around 12 - 15 - 19 or so.

There also seems to be a time during the day when cheap resources hit the market, priced around 5-9 or so depending on the resource. This seems to happen at a similar time for all resources.

I haven't gotten this down to an exact science and there's a lot of variability; sometimes I wait for cheaper resources after day change and instead the prices all go up. However in general, and in this game specifically, I've had some success waiting for day change to bring a new cheapest tranche of resources for the ones I'm targeting. Hope that makes sense.

Day 5

Three more players go inactive. Apparently one player rejoined yesterday, so we start the day with 8 active players. No luck with my milsab spies.

Right after day change:

Research: I knock out Tac L2, AA L2, and AC L2, preparing for the three L3s that come available on Day 6.

Diplomacy: Two of the new inactives, S California and Wyoming, are members of the 4-player coalition, leaving just N California and Arizona as active members of that coalition. I suppose it's possible the remaining two combined with Colombia and Cuba to sandwich me. Not to worry, though--later in the day, S California comes back online. Colombia and Cuba have continued slowly capturing their neighbors, with Colombia taking out Amazonas and Cuba finishing off Caribbean. I notice some bombardment marks in Amazonas, so Colombia has either been using artillery or planes. Nothing in the newspaper yet to tell me which it is.

Construction: I upgrade my aircraft factory to L2, planning to go to L3 in time for Tac L3 production. Industry-wise, I've got one L4 and four L3s completed or in progress, along with a handful of Local Industry. I also continue building up my RCs.

Production: I continue producing heavies as fast as I can. I decide to put my empty aircraft factory to work and produce a handful of naval bombers as coastal defense. I've stockpiled a ton of Goods and Rares since I haven't been producing planes, and I want to get a few of those now so I can concentrate on Tac production in a couple days. I'm a little sad that I haven't needed interceptors yet. I also produce a few militia to serve as coast guards/scouts.

Moves: I continue marching through West Mexico, knocking out their cities and saving their capital for last. I consider leaving some West Mexico provinces as buffers between me and Arizona or AI New Mexico.

End of day newspaper map:

Stats at the end of Day 5: 136/5 k/d, 81/0 provinces

Panzerace: still 117

amazing!

DxC wrote:

jubjub bird wrote:

Oil is still my limiting resource so I pick some up after day change while it's cheap

Are you suggesting prices are better after day change in general? Why would that be?

Yea market prices have been amazing this game, probably due to the number of inactives. I've also managed to maintain great popularity, at least compared to what I'm used to. It's probably because of how slowly I've been expanding It's Day 11 right now and I only have 5 AI that have even embargoed me.

Damn this is very interesting. Heavy tanks being possibly the most hated unit in the game are something I usually don’t use, last time I can remember was a game as HWW Turkey. I won that one, not sure if coalition or solo since it was so long ago. The Mexican states are some of the best ones in the home front map from what I have seen for some reason, and your high amounts of oil, rare, and steel you get with East Mexico are obviously very useful. But to be honest I never thought I’d see the game scientifically dissected like this. With you using you naval bombers to spot any invasion from Cuba and Colombia you should be able to make this and easy solo, unless someone here is like a crazy Rokossovski-level veteran that somehow lost their old account, made a new one and joined this map or something. Though seeing as no one has expanded even close to your level that is unlikely. Maybe this will finally show a half decent heavy tank strategy… though heavy tanks are still kinda lame

Medium tanks for the win!

spy on colombia