Heavy tanks are generally regarded as terrible units, and for good reason: they take a long time to research and produce, they require a lot of resources, and once produced they're incredibly slow-moving. Perhaps most important, though, and what differentiates them from another slow-moving resource-hogging unit, the railroad gun, heavy tanks require melee combat, meaning they take return damage every time they deliver damage and are vulnerable to ranged attacks.
Naturally, I decided to test out just how unwieldy they are by dedicating an entire round to heavy tank spam.
Unfortunately (spoiler alert), it is looking like this round isn't going to be nearly as active as I had hoped, so I don't think there's going to be much PVP heavy tank action. Regardless, I've been jotting down notes for a few days and I don't want that to go to waste, so I'll still post it as a playthrough and go over my thought process at different points in this game. I don't think anything in here is going to be new to players that have played for a while, but maybe it'll at least be entertaining.
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Claudio when are oyu making your own playthrough
I've made a couple of them in the past. For the next one, it depends on the date the game ends.
ok nice
Damn that was crazy. Especially the amount of gold you have. I’m trying to build up my amount, so I’m one day I can blow it all on some minor in ACAI one day lol. We’ll see I guess. Anyhow I take more casualties in CoN maps so the fact that this is a bad result makes me want to hide in a box…
In the end I think this proves that against anything but MAYBE arty, this heavy tank strategy can actually be pretty strong, IF and this is a BIG IF you can actually reach the snow ball point of having enough of those stacks at a high enough level running around. But of course long term there are better strategies that work out for the best in the end. Very nice.
I'm a bit of a gold hoarder, trying to build up as much as I can. In theory it's for some day when I run into a heavy golder in a WaW game but idk, I think I'd have a hard time actually spending it.
RE: your casualties, try to make it through some games with zero casualties. You'll learn a lot about when to push advantages and when to back off, and the value of ranged attack. That's been my approach to all my games lately, which is why 19 might seem fine but it's actually a pretty poor result compared to what I'm used to--I'm usually in the single digits (excluding WaW where the PVP fights are much more challenging).
I'm certain that the skill difference between good players and bad players is enough to make basically any strategy feasible on maps like this, and there's a reason I chose to try it on this map rather than jumping straight to a WaW game. Despite the losses I think it went pretty well, well enough that I'd be tempted to try it on a WaW at some point.
This could be genuinely fun, with support from a coalition that allows everyone to specialize a bit.
All you need is an arty/rrarty/AA builder to wear down the fortified cities.
Maybe an air specialist to take care of runners.
It would be very hard to take a continent, much less an entire WaW map, without fire support 
Idk I think a coalition of 5 players spamming out as many heavy tanks as they can would be pretty fun haha, no ranged units required
I seem to run into these coalitions often enough. Many new players are obsessed with tanks.jubjub bird wrote:
Idk I think a coalition of 5 players spamming out as many heavy tanks as they can would be pretty fun haha, no ranged units required
jubjub bird wrote:
Idk I think a coalition of 5 players spamming out as many heavy tanks as they can would be pretty fun haha, no ranged units required
This would be hilarious. All together on the same continent? Once word gets out, everyone around them spams arty and AT guns. A coalition of 5 protecting 1 heavy tank builder would be hard enough 
It would be challenging to restrict yourself to only building certain units.z00mz00m wrote:
This would be hilarious. All together on the same continent? Once word gets out, everyone around them spams arty and AT guns. A coalition of 5 protecting 1 heavy tank builder would be hard enoughjubjub bird wrote:
Idk I think a coalition of 5 players spamming out as many heavy tanks as they can would be pretty fun haha, no ranged units required
I've tried the "No Ordnance" challenge on a Homefront map, and I got great results. Although there were only like 3 other active players.
I do the vile act of not using ordinance too often… it works most of the time actually
To really evaluate heavy tank spam vs "some other troop" spam, without using artillery, you'd need to test a bunch of different troops to get a feel for where heavies fall. They don't get much respect, but that's largely because they don't fit well with artillery because of their speed. It doesn't seem like heavies are a terrible option though, if you aren't using artillery.
Yea I'd actually say that if you are in a situation where you can't use any ranged units (an unlikely hypothetical unless you like weird challenges), heavy tank spam is probably the best strategy available to you.
Intresting…
jubjub bird wrote:
Yea I'd actually say that if you are in a situation where you can't use any ranged units (an unlikely hypothetical unless you like weird challenges), heavy tank spam is probably the best strategy available to you.
If you were to pick just 1 more unit to use with heavy tanks, and it couldn't be a bombardment unit (no arty, no bombers, no battleships) what would it be?
I would probably pick infantry. They cover mountains and cities, especially cities, especially cities stacked with AT guns. While using resources the tanks don't need.
Nah, I'd 100% choose regular AA. Infantry doesn't add that much in damage output against unarmored, I'd rather spend those resources on better anti air protection.
That was kinda why I went through that analysis at the beginning, trying to figure out how'd I'd be tackling this challenge.
I guess it depends what you're preparing for. I'm assuming a close combat strategy is only viable on low intensity maps where you spend most of your time cleaning up AI and noobs. On those maps, air power is not an issue. On maps where air power is a serious issue... AA won't matter, skilled players who see the limitations of your build will exploit those limitations. Adding infantry would speed up your win on winnable maps.
Eh maybe, but in that case I'd choose mot inf over inf. If I'm spending resources on unarmored damage it better have a large marginal improvement over the heavy tanks it'll be paired with
I'm thinking regular infantry because:
But regular infantry trail heavy tanks in offensive damage against unarmored at comparable research dates. Even with the 20% boost in forest and mountains you're barely exceeding damage of heavy tanks, so you're basically just adding them for urban terrain. I don't think there's enough marginal benefit there to justify the investment of resources
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