Can I ask you guys for thoughts and opinions on the air force?

jubjub bird wrote:

To be fair I think going plane-less can be a reasonable approach, especially when playing as comintern, but having no defense against opponent planes is suicidal against any decent player.

Comintern's nerf to interceptors makes it harder to maintain air superiority, so I think there are some cases where you can just skip planes entirely to save those research resources, investing instead into a ground army (like taking the rares you're saving by not using planes and using them for SPRA instead).

1) Anti-air is not enough against a determined enemy air force. Players with 70 tactical bombers aren't an uncommon sight. They can bring 7 stacks of 10 to outnumber the 10 anti-air in my ground stack, and there's little I can do about it. You need interceptor support.

2) To rely solely on anti-air is to throw away any semblance of speed. SP anti-air is also delayed in research for the Comintern and actually deals less damage than regular anti-air until very late in the game, plus the speed gain is very minimal. During offensives it's important to be able to allow the faster units to move ahead under interceptors escorts.

Comintern interceptors aren't as bad as people make them out to be but you do need lots of them. The difference is if you don't bother building bombers then you have an advantage over those that do and you can spam more interceptors than they can.

In addition, if you feel outgunned in the air you can always patrol over an anti-air stack to make your interceptors a lot more formidable.

Fox-Company wrote:

Kinda hard to prove a fact

Klusey wrote:

Anti-air is not enough against a determined enemy air force. Players with 70 tactical bombers aren't an uncommon sight. They can bring 7 stacks of 10 to outnumber the 10 anti-air in my ground stack, and there's little I can do about it. You need interceptor support.

This doesn't compute. When 7 stacks of 10 bombers patrol an army stack with 10 AA, then all 10 AA fire back against each stack of bombers. The fact that there are 7 stacks of bombers is irrelevant. Each combat is 10 bombers versus 10 AA, plus whatever HP comes from the units stacked with the AA.

Klusey wrote:

To rely solely on anti-air is to throw away any semblance of speed. SP anti-air is also delayed in research for the Comintern and actually deals less damage than regular anti-air until very late in the game, plus the speed gain is very minimal. During offensives it's important to be able to allow the faster units to move ahead under interceptors escorts.

Players who want to cover motorized stacks use SPAA, which is designed for this purpose. Or use army units that have solid AA defense, like Armored Cars or Mechanized Infantry.

Klusey wrote:

Comintern interceptors aren't as bad as people make them out to be but you do need lots of them. The difference is if you don't bother building bombers then you have an advantage over those that do and you can spam more interceptors than they can.

This doesn't work against skilled opponents. They will have more powerful, faster, longer range interceptors. Those will shoot down your Comintern interceptors. Then you're back under AA for cover, minus all the resources and research slots wasted on the destroyed planes.

The more you build, the worse the outcome, as you're fighting from a position of weakness into the enemy's position of strength. It would be throwing Allied Medium Tanks against Axis Medium Tanks, or Pan Asian Cruisers against Comintern Cruisers. These are losing battles. Best to avoid them.

When the opponent is really good, and they have Allied or Pan Asian interceptors, the best thing to do as a Comintern player is not to build any planes. Use the resource savings on other units, and plan your strategy accordingly.

Doctrine is the least important in air battles. When you have inferior fighters, but you STILL manage to get that fatal blow in against refuelers or unprotected bombers, you can win the air battle even when you're technically at a disadvantage. Hiding your forces helps a lot; when your enemy doesn't expect you to have anything and then takes the full blow of an appearing fighter force, you can turn the tables drastically in one or two air battles. That's unlike land battles, where you need to be much more consistent to win. Air battles are all about that one blow, where your enemy least expects it, going in with all that you have.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Doctrine is the least important in air battles. When you have inferior fighters, but you STILL manage to get that fatal blow in against refuelers or unprotected bombers, you can win the air battle even when you're technically at a disadvantage. Hiding your forces helps a lot; when your enemy doesn't expect you to have anything and then takes the full blow of an appearing fighter force, you can turn the tables drastically in one or two air battles. That's unlike land battles, where you need to be much more consistent to win. Air battles are all about that one blow, where your enemy least expects it, going in with all that you have.

i was at war against him, he was leading in term of casualties (190k of his vs 160k of mine)

very active tactical bomber player with decent stat and track record.

passe leading casualties position to me. (it was 2x speed supremacy, i hate fighting highly active players due to lack of playing time myself lol, away from game for minutes and found your 30 Strategic bombers, 20 Naval bombers and 10 interceptor dying)

my territory (Pakistan) stretched from Saudi Arabia in the west to Japan in the east as well as island of Madagascar as a strategic bomber base and wall to block his navy from reaching Indian ocean (this wall soon fall apart) controlling 4 base

he (South Africa) control all of Africa and island of Iceland, controlling 4 base as well.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Doctrine is the least important in air battles. When you have inferior fighters, but you STILL manage to get that fatal blow in against refuelers or unprotected bombers, you can win the air battle even when you're technically at a disadvantage. Hiding your forces helps a lot; when your enemy doesn't expect you to have anything and then takes the full blow of an appearing fighter force, you can turn the tables drastically in one or two air battles. That's unlike land battles, where you need to be much more consistent to win. Air battles are all about that one blow, where your enemy least expects it, going in with all that you have.

Anybody here is winning WaW solo?

Claudio NVKP wrote:

Anybody here is winning WaW solo?

I used to, now I think the end game is too tedious.

I've never tried it, only coalition wins on WaW so far. I need to play more WaWs, need to find the time for actual competitive games

It's the most challenging way to play CoW, that's for sure.

But the end game requires extraordinary patience.

It can probably be done if you get super lucky, most people go inactive, and you quickly kill those who don’t. But late game solo against a full and active coalition is near impossible if the coalition is half decent.

Oh, I've won against coalitions. Just have to expand quickly, but fly under the radar. Let the coalitions go after each other. Stay neutral. Let them all think you might join them later. When a winning coalition starts to emerge, crush their lead player.

What you can't do is announce your intention to solo the map. Once people understand your coming for them, all of them, it gets very difficult.

Claudio NVKP wrote:

Anybody here is winning WaW solo?

i had high hopes of winning my current WaW but my coalition didn't fight hard enough, they got defeated and then now everyone will target me i guess. That's why i left.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Doctrine is the least important in air battles. When you have inferior fighters, but you STILL manage to get that fatal blow in against refuelers or unprotected bombers, you can win the air battle even when you're technically at a disadvantage. Hiding your forces helps a lot; when your enemy doesn't expect you to have anything and then takes the full blow of an appearing fighter force, you can turn the tables drastically in one or two air battles. That's unlike land battles, where you need to be much more consistent to win. Air battles are all about that one blow, where your enemy least expects it, going in with all that you have.

Stop

Why stop? There's a lot more to add to this discussion.

Rachellreist wrote:

Stop

How bout like Jub said, let’s stop feeding the troll.