Playthrough: Heavy Tank Spam

Day 6

As the day starts, I've just about finished off West Mexico. I decide to leave a province in the north to limit my borders with AI New Mexico and active player Arizona, and one in the northwest to serve as a buffer between me and active player S Cali. S Cali has other ideas, though, and starts attacking West Mexico. In this start-of-day screenshot you can see an S Cali unit in the Gulf of California, headed north to attack that West Mexico province. Interesting.

No luck with my spies, again, so no new intel on Cuba or Colombia's units or movements.

Diplomacy: no new inactives today. I'm first with 210 points, Colombia second with 110, Cuba with 90, and a few with 70, including S Cali. I get my first sign of planes in the newspaper: Oregon surprise attacked N Cali with tacs! Oregon hasn't joined any coalitions yet, so it's interesting that they decide to attack a full coalition by themselves. Oregon doesn't appear to be very good but I decide to make interceptors my next research investment. S Cali decides to reveal themselves to be a clown in reaction to this attack, giving me more confidence that they'll be an easy opponent.

Being Day 6, we also get new economic rankings in the newspaper, and I'm first by a wide margin: my 102k well ahead of Colombia's 74k.

Research: big research day for me. I start Tac L3 and AA L3 first so I can start to produce those ASAP. My TPs are tied up with HTs so I knock out my L3 AC research once the previous two are finished. I also start interceptor L2 research late in the day in case they're needed for an eventual fight vs Oregon. I'll probably take it all the way to L4 while my factory is churning out Tacs.

Production: still churning out heavies and moving them to the northwest. Once AA and Tac researches finish I start producing some.

Construction: not sure if mentioned yet, but I've upgraded both my aircraft factory and my ordnance factory to L3 so that I can produce AAs and Tacs at their minimum production time. I upgrade my Steel city industry to L4. All my core cities are at L3 or L4 by day end, plus some Local Industry in Oil and Steel provinces. I'm still a little behind where I normally prefer to be economy-wise but that's OK. I determine that my economy is strong enough to sustain three TPs producing heavy tanks, so I have to decide where to build this one. I could go for something southern like Acapulco, preparing for Colombia, or something northwest like Hermosillo, closer to the coalition. I decide on Hermosillo, which gives me production capability on the far side of the mountain range, and start building TPs until I get to L3. To fund this I need some extra Steel. I'm able to sell off some of my Food surplus and buy Steel at basically a 1:1 swap.

Moves: I start my day by consolidating my armies in the northwest. They've taken a ton of damage and I want to rest for a day or two to get some healing (and to fortify with the heavies that are rolling off the line).

This plan means ignoring a supply drop that just spawned in an awkward location in New Mexico--I don't think it's worth starting that fight at this time, which would make for awkwardly large borders with both humans and AI. Given S Cali's movements, I put all 9 of my mediums + an AC in the plains province right next to that leftover West Mexico province that S Cali is attacking. S Cali takes the West Mexico province a few hours into the day, hilariously losing some units in the process because they sent their units in one at a time.

I wake up in the middle of the night to turn over my research and... what the hell? There's no way that's S Cali attempting the worst sneak attack ever, right?? Indeed, it is.

I'm not even sure what to say to this so I just send an "lol." My mediums with plains bonus should be just fine against his random attacks so I leave them in place. I get my heavies moving to that area, though they're about 10 hours out still. I also send my naval bombers over towards that coast in case he attacks from the sea, and then go back to sleep. Come morning, he's lost a couple dozen units and my mediums are barely scratched, and my naval bombers knock out some single convoys before they can disembark down my coast.

His attacks continued throughout the day, mostly single units headed to their deaths.

I start to prepare in case Arizona attacks me as well. By day end, Arizona has moved at least two medium tanks to the border--could it be heavy tank time soon?? I go to add milsab spies to Arizona and realize they've built at least one building in literally every single one of their provinces, which I find hilarious. I move my milsab spies back to Cuba and Colombia.

Stats at the end of Day 6: 174/5 k/d, 81/0 provinces

Panzerace: still 117... for now

I have 1 question: As of 6, did you fight anyone who actually TRIED to fight back, or did they just move a unit or two, then realize their dead and go inactive.

At this point not really--my first two opponents were inactive humans that hadn't been taken over by AI yet, and my second two opponents were AI (one intended to be AI, one an inactive human). West Mexico fought back a bit in the way that AI fight back. South California is the first opponent who has actually fought me, though obviously they aren't doing it in a very effective way.

Day 7

I've made it on the Most Advanced list, coming in at... 23rd. With only 8 active players. That's OK, my research is right where I want it to be.

Here's the situation right after day change:

I've struck out with spies once again, going 0 for 3 with my spies in Cuba and Colombia. I'm now 0 for 7 with milsab spies so far this game, annoying.

Diplomacy: I ask Arizona whether he plans to attack me like his teammate did. He promises that he will not, but it doesn't matter--I'm going to take him out anyways. Despite my size and wars so far, I'm 3rd in the most dreaded list and have a global popularity of 46%. S Cali attacking me probably helped with that. As of the start of the day I hadn't been embargoed by any AIs yet--rare for me at this point in a game. That means less concern about my flanks and better deals in the market. Not for long--my first embargoes show up around the end of the day: Central America and Massachusetts. By the end of the day, Colombia has crossed the Panama Canal. I've seen some bombardment marks and have seen references to artillery in the newspaper so I know they've got some.

Research: I continue interceptor research, planning to hit L4 (which can be researched at Day 8 ) before producing any. I also prepare for L2 HT research, which also comes available tomorrow. It feels strangely soon, as if I've only just started producing L1 HTs. There aren't many other researches that I anticipate this game after those two--maybe upgrading my naval bombers if there's evidence of ships.

Construction: I do the math on the cost to research L2 heavies AND upgrade three TPs to L4 and conclude that I don't have any spare resources for construction today. The total Steel requirement for all that is 16,600--about 22 hours worth at my current generation rates. Thankfully I stumble upon huge offers of very cheap Steel and Oil in the market, at 6.5 and 4.7 respectively. I sell of a bunch of Food at 11.9 to stockpile Steel and Oil, acquiring enough to fund my upcoming construction AND continue some unit production today.

Production: I start the day with around 10 HTs produced. I produce until I have 12 total and then quit, saving up for L2 research and upgrades. I continue producing AAs and Tacs, and produce a few L3 ACs once I've stopped HT production. I'm actually a little concerned with my speed of production--I think my land army is lacking and I'm more vulnerable than ever to sneak attack from the Caribbean. I'm sitting on 38k manpower, an embarassingly high supply for someone playing as Axis! I'm sure that will drop once I upgrade my HTs and start producing L2, but it's still a sign that I may have postponed production too much. Thankfully, none of my opponents have taken advantage of this.

Moves: S Cali finally figures out the situation and starts to retreat. I don't love the idea of advancing up the west coast, opening up a lot of borders with AIs. The influx of heavies has really helped the strength of my western army, which is hurting even after a couple days of healing. Just another drawback of using melee units. My western army at the start of the day:

My L1 ACs are hurt enough that I'll probably skip upgrading them to L3. Maybe if they survive a few more days and recover enough health, but for now my resources are better used elsewhere.

Once my army is positioned I advance on Arizona, wanting to knock out their units before they can reinforce their border further. Check out this sexy stack:

It's so kind of Arizona to park his units on plains to wait for me. Check out this damage with the terrain boost:

Arizona sends units in to try to reinforce but it's a bloodbath. I stay active enough to micro my stacks and choose terrain carefully, like moving away from Urban and attacking this stack on nearby hills, leaving my AA and ACs behind so they don't take damage:

After one round:

I take out what I assume to be the majority of Arizona's army. Meanwhile, the newspaper brings some humor in the war between Oregon and N Cali. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...?

With Oregon attacking N Cali and me knocking out most of S Cali and Arizona's units, the coalition has collapsed pretty quickly. Never trust Day 1 Coalitioners. Tomorrow I'll split my stacks up and start taking territory.

I up my spies to two each in Cuba and Colombia. I really need some intel on their units and movements.

Tomorrow we get an update to the Biggest Armies list--wonder where I'll be?

End of Day 7: 209/5 k/d, 89/0 provinces

Panzerace: 134

And here's the newspaper map after 7

Nice, Panzerace goes up. Btw, do all units types in a stack get credit for a kill or is it distributed fractionally?

I'm not actually sure and haven't been able to figure it out. I don't think it's fractional--I think one unit type gets "credit" for the kill when it comes to achievements. I noticed that when I had a stack of 9 mediums + 1 HT and took out a single unit my Panzerace achievement didn't go up, so I assume the mediums got credit for it (or there is a lag in the achievement registering, and I just missed it). I've just kinda assumed that it's whichever unit type is the most dominant in that particular stack, the same way all stacks get a name of some sort.

This reminds me of something! On Day 7, when I started rolling out with my heavy tanks, I assumed I'd be giving away intel to anyone reading the newspaper that I'm using heavy tanks. Imagine my surprise when the newspaper reported this:

That's right, all my heavy tank stacks were reported in the newspaper as anti-air stacks

why would you waste a research on ac if youre not even really using them other than the ones available at the start of the game. also why do you even need the ac at level 2 if you plan to go full HT most of the way? wont it just consume extra metal?

Rachellreist wrote:

why would you waste a research on ac if youre not even really using them other than the ones available at the start of the game. also why do you even need the ac at level 2 if you plan to go full HT most of the way? wont it just consume extra metal?

Every army needs scout units to find the enemy's stealth units: commandos, militia, AT guns, tank destroyers.

As the game goes on, you might run into leveled up stealth units, so you need to upgrade your scout units.

It's true that different units can help in different ways and needs change depending on the specific situation, but I think for this kind of "experiment" it would be more satisfying to explicitly lay out every unit constraint ahead of time. unitX maxLevelUnitX maxCountUnitX, ... That way, it's like "ok this is what I have to work with and I have to make the most of what I got".

That would have required a level of planning and calculation beyond what I was willing to put into this game, at least the max unit count side of things. For the levels, I'd be pretty comfortable setting limits on that ahead of time which would have looked something like this:

- ACs, max L4

- AA, max L5

- LT, max L1

- Medium, max L1

- Heavies, max L3

- Ints, max L5

- Tacs, max L5

- Navs, max L5

Oh and of course militia! Max L1 is probably enough

What have Colombia and Cuba been up to in the meantime while you were burning that coalition to the ground? It seems they are just attacking Central America and consolidating the Caribbean, judging by the newspaper map.

Pretty much. Colombia has been advancing slowly northward while Cuba just seems to be sitting there.

Perhaps the plan be to consolidate in the north without overextending, then moving down to put down Colombia, using NBs and INTs to hold off any attempt by Cuba, then rounding up and taking them out. Guess it depends on what they have, considering the fact that these damned spies don’t work!

Ok but think about it, you give an infantry unit like a few hundred dollars each DAY, for judging by manpower over a thousand men, and they survive. Meanwhile these fat cat spies that fail literally half the time get 10k, 500 for sitting and doing nothing, and more than the salary and Maintenance of small cities worth of men for failing half the time? Like it costs more than the daily base 100% morale money production of a core city to hire one of them, not to mention the 1-4k to actually use them! And then they abandon you when they don’t get their ridiculous pay for like a day or two they just bail on you, and even sometimes commit TREASON against their own home! Just because they didn’t get to add more to their giant useless pile of money… damn these spies!

Day 8

Big day! My spies FINALLY get the job done and get me one of the reveals I'm hoping for, on Colombia, and it is great news.

As far as the three big threats to my strategy--planes, artillery, and railroad guns--they've barely got one of the three, just a handful of artillery. Tons of useless infantry and light armor for my heavies to feast on. They also have some anti-tanks up to Level 2, but I'm sure we can solve that problem if it comes up. Overall they show a complete lack of research discipline, fielding an army with tons of different units but most of them L1. Unfortunately, one of my spies was captured and reported in the newspaper. It was without attribution, but I'm sure Colombia can guess that it was mine.

Despite my production concerns, I'm #1 in biggest armies by a decent amount. S Cali and Arizona aren't even on the list, so my plan to push ahead should be easy.

Diplomacy: some newspaper snooping shows that Oregon continues to use Tacs and is even using Ints of their own, confirming that my plan to get to L4 Ints is worthwhile. No new inactives, but a couple players rejoined, so we sit at 10 active players. Still no sign of action from Cuba--they haven't appeared in the newspaper since Day 6, so maybe they're going to go inactive... or maybe they're preparing to invade me?

Research: I immediately start L2 HT research, which will take all day + 2 hours. I also knock out L4 Int research.

Construction: I upgrade three tank plants to L4, which takes a full day to complete, timing it so that they're ready right when my L2 HT research ends. I upgrade my aircraft factory to L4 as well so that I can produce Ints once that research completes. I fund some of this construction by continuing to sell off Food and buy cheap Oil and Steel. Food is effectively a wild card resource for me right now, as long as I'm able to sell it at 12+ and buy other resources for <10.

Production: while I wait for L2 HT research to complete I produce a few more L3 ACs out of my TPs. I don't want to waste time waiting while I'm still feeling vulnerable to attack.

Moves: I split my stacks and immediately start advancing into Arizona and S Cali. I'm going to go straight for Arizona's capital and try to save S Cali's for just before day change.

As I advance into S Cali they continue to throw units at me, mostly tank destroyers. These die easily, especially when I can force the fight to be on Plains. As I capture San Diego, I'm faced with one of the most difficult decisions I've faced all game... whether to stick to my "no ranged units" restriction, or whether to let production finish on this L2 Allied SP Arty. I cancel production and cry a little inside. At least I got, like... 100 Steel and Oil from it

I also capture a partial L3 TP in Cali and upgrade it, planning to use it as a front line production facility. This is the only capture of note--both opponents did a poor job of building out their core cities.

Arizona, meanwhile, has consolidated their units and is pulling them back as I push through. I'm able to use my mediums to chase down a retreating stack of 9 units before it can get away. A few hours before day change I become really glad that I did, because I see that Arizona has stacked 22 units within a single city--a rough situation for my artillery-less army. They've even got 5 AAs in the stack, preventing me from softening it with my Tacs. I've got 10 heavies nearby and decide to wait until after I can upgrade them before pushing forward into that city, so that battle must wait until after day change.

While advancing through Arizona I decide to leave a buffer of provinces between myself and New Mexico to reduce the chance that AI declares on me. This will help manage my flank as I overextend myself northward.

On the southern end, somehow Central America made it all the way up through the center of S Mexico and took the province containing my supply drop. I think this is actually better than S Mexico holding it, because I don't share as many borders with Central America, so I take the supply drop (Goods, Steel, and Rares--not bad). S Mexico actually recaptures some territory, leaving me separated from Central America--a great result, now I can leave them alone while Colombia still has to fight through them.

Now that I've gotten a reveal on Colombia, and given Cuba's inactivity that I assume will lead to going AI, I decide to move my three spies to Oregon, which will the biggest threat as I head northward. I'm still a couple days behind where I want to be right now, but that's alright. Status at end of Day 8:

Stats at end of Day 8: 228/5 k/d, 138/0 provinces

Panzerace: 139

Are you updating these in real time? I guess the chances are slim one of your opponents are reading, but the chance isn't zero.

6thDragon wrote:

Are you updating these in real time? I guess the chances are slim one of your opponents are reading, but the chance isn't zero.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you already have won by now… lol.

I haven't, not yet. I don't think this has been as exciting of a game as I'd hoped but there will be more action coming soon.

On that note, I'm about to come up on Day 14 and am debating whether to research L3 heavies. I don't think I need to to win, but I think I want to do it for science.

Counter argument is that it takes 1d 14hr to complete and min production time is 12+ hours so it'll be well into Day 16 before I actually get any produced.