Rest in Peace COW (and Bytro in general)

It is not an problem to me

Hmm interesting comments.

I started playing when it was the old or older CoW just before lockdown. It took me a while to find my feet but I disagree with many of the things on here.

1. The number of golders has slowly increased over the last 4 years or so. It is now the thing totally ruining the game. Am not completely sure how you recognise them but total game win percentages is my yardstick. If it is high ie above 30% I start to get suspicious.

2. War bonds. Hmm I dont mind them and I dont think they have added to the gold issue because to buy gold you really have to pay real money. What somewhat pisses me off is that US players get their gold for a noticeable lower difference than others do. Where I think some find WB irritating is the healing but that COULD be fixed if it was only allowed back at base/friendly port/airfield and a certain percentage in the combat zone. What is a complete mess is Bytro's refusal to ever contemplate 'healing'. Hospitals are a joke idea but the concept of going back to a friendly 'base' does the same thing. It is just that the game designers dont want to be bothered with it. Coupled with the inability to retreat this makes WBs have a bit of a negative effect. I tended to use WBs to prevent uprisings. The old fashioned method was dragging a scout car/militia behind to 'hold the fort' which nicely links me in to...

3. Rebellions. A total farce. I can just about see the logic of a province reverting back to its previous or original occupier but not some random other country which makes it utterly stupid. I think the level of rebellions is correlated to gold/wb use as who likes to constantly conquer the same territory. It is a mechanism to get you to spend to prevent it happening. If you are racing an opponent for territory and you conquer a province of somebody difficult rebellions can then lead this opponent acquiring territory they have never occupied.

The number of players golding now has got farcical. It is approaching about a third Id say in bigger games. WaW100 seems the largest culprit and it is this that is driving me away. It is also potentially highly addictive with severe financial costs in the real world.

Carking the 6th wrote:

HenrikSchreiber wrote:

The developers want to feed their children. Mana... erm, I mean war bonds, are their way of hiding people who spend money on the game, so they can still claim they're "great strategists" or something. the fact that it changes the game into some sort of "WW2 game with wizards" doesn't matter to them; this is their earning model and we have to live with it or leave.

Getting closer and closer to the latter.

Not the developers, but the shareholders. They’d 100% be better off right now if they were allowed to focus on making a good game without worrying about shareholders and the like. At this rate, the game’s gonna die, just like all the other mobile cash grabs that no one gets anymore. I guess it boils down to the system in which making money is ultimately more important than entertaining people and fulfilling your dreams. Fuck man freeze me and wake me up in 200 years where we are a post scarcity society

BladeFisher wrote:

You wrote:

Ad 1. "... total game win percentages is my yardstick. If it is high ie above 30% I start to get suspicious."

=> 30% is suspicious? For someone playing a few years you should be well over that, if you get strategy and game mechanics.

You also have difficulty recognizing golding? It is more difficult now, but you can still make out the really bad guys. Statistics and articles in the newspaper help a lot, as well as player stats.

My win rate is >70% and I do not spend other than Premium and maybe some 200 bucks/year extra, when there is a special occasion or good offer. That amounts to an insignificant number with 1,5 maps per month played.

Every active player can have a gold stash from winnings. My gold stash is purely for striking at golders and backstabbers. Don't need it in a regular game ... and still winning 70%.

Real golders (not people spending their winnings or phone-shop gifts) I meet in about 20% of the games.

NO MORE THAN THAT! Any claim to the opposite is complete bogus and born from incompetence.

So, in 80% of games there are no heavy golders and apparently I lose (or at least did not win) in those to a ratio of 1 in 8 ... simply because the player was better than me!

Accept that you are simply not yet up to par with the real players (I ranked 155 before quitting a while) instead of blaming gold.

Ad 2. "War bonds. Hmm I dont mind them and I dont think they have added to the gold issue because to buy gold you really have to pay real money."

=> If you do not recoginze Warbonds brought the gold-menace into every game, then you are one of those who like the WBs to compensate for mistakes and/or lack of skill.

Today I used up my WBs in a game, when in HWW the Soviets found the weak spot in my Eastern Front, pierced through and outflanked my 2 main army groups.

WBs helped me spam 9 Militia level 2 and 2 extra Tacs, which just gave me the upper hand and I held the front w/o losing Warsaw and Krakau.

But ... I am not happy with that win, bc the Soviets caught me on a mistake (my arrogance, underestimating the enemy!) and I fixed it with bloody MAGIC from WBs... That is simply not right! This is supposed to be a strategy game!

And NO, how you spent WBs is NOT strategy!

Ad 3. "Rebellions. .... I think the level of rebellions is correlated to gold/wb use as who likes to constantly conquer the same territory. It is a mechanism to get you to spend to prevent it happening. ... "

=> What a bunch of nonsense. L2P, as in: Learn To Plan!

Rebellions are NOT bound to gold/WBs. It is bound to your popularity and that of others around you. But I suspect you never even looked at that. Nor do I expect you to make an effort to befriend AI countries.

Ad 4. "The number of players golding now has got farcical. It is approaching about a third Id say in bigger games. WaW100 seems the largest culprit and it is this that is driving me away. It is also potentially highly addictive with severe financial costs in the real world."

=> Again a total crockalony statement. Yes WaW is worse than other maps, especially on big servers (like English or German server) bc it has MORE players, but there are plenty of other maps to play.

Blitz or HWW has maybe 1 golder in 20 maps (in HWW I love crushing GER with Yugo by day 3 or to play GER and own Benelux, Czech & Poland on day 1 and France and Denmark by day 2 latest... no gold involved, but get accused of that by lesser players bc they can't fathom how it is done )

Equally I love Road to War and Clash of Nations.

And ofc the bigger maps like WaW attract more players and thus you have a bigger chance of meeting a heavy golder. Hence, I only step into a WaW when my gold-stash is at least over 100k, knowing I can do with 100k what the regular golder can't even achieve with 1 Million....simply bc golders normally lack skill.

All in all I must conclude that you may love the game as I do, but that you are not yet a good player and are looking for excuses for your failures. Hone your skills instead! A 30% win rate is simply bad....

Anyways, liking WBs disqualifies anyone claiming to love strategy. WBs have NOTHING to do with strategy whatsoever...

What a load of baloney. Ive played with the same guys for nearly all that time and we have similar stats. Your drivel over rebellions is just that total crap. I hardly ever lose provinces to rebellions because I plan how to overcome them.

I also deplore your arrogance. I dont consider whether or not I am a good player, not over bothered really, but I know what I am not - a big head like you.

BladeFisher wrote:

What a load of baloney. Ive played with the same guys for nearly all that time and we have similar stats. Your drivel over rebellions is just that total crap. I hardly ever lose provinces to rebellions because I plan how to overcome them.

I also deplore your arrogance. I dont consider whether or not I am a good player, not over bothered really, but I know what I am not - a big head like you.

My skills are ok. Perhaps you would like to impart some of your knowledge Napoleon?

What I like about WB is they can help prevent rebellions which was a whoosh for you right over your head.

So you take a province and it is 25% morale. What do you do crack on steamrolling your way through like an IDF tank crew?

I used to put something in the taken 25% moral province to STOP a rebellion, but WB can help mitigate it by increasing the morale above the 30% limit.

A 70% win rate is a golder. So Mr Golder how big is your balance?? Only once have I seen a win % as large as that and it was a 100% mind he'd only played about 8 games.

If you play the game properly there are bound to be times you experiment or you get jumped early and that's it, you lose. So I dont believe you or you go in with your golding mates.

As I say if we had some gold free games which can be achieved through restriction it would help.

BladeFisher wrote:

Ad2. "What I like about WB is they can help prevent rebellions" => rebellions have always been and have always been managed. There is absolute no need for WBs, ... except for dumbing down the game.

Ad3. "A 70% win rate is a golder." => You just declared yourseld a fool again and proved again that your skill is just not up to par

A good WR to you means NOT that the player is better than you, but, converesely, that the other guy must be using gold...

Big ego much and frustrated? Maybe you are simply not as good as you think?

Note that tthere are far more important things that make you win games than gold.

Just hone your skills.

(Btw, that you play a while with the same people does not mean that you are not all making the same mistakes....)

Ad4. "...bound to be times you experiment or you get jumped early and that's it, you lose."

=> having played strategy games since the '80s, having been an international champion at A&A (the board game), and having played CoW since 2015, I do still need to experiment with updates, but that won't kill me for the simple reason that I am not entirely stupid...

But, yes, getting jumped can be fatal. I got jumped by 3 players some 5 games ago and ofc lost. Now I am in a game I will likely not win, because I forgot to check check if the map had free country choice and ended up in bloody Canada, so by the time I can jump the Atlantic, every European player with some skill will be 10x stronger. So, yeah, won't win that one

But it is OK to lose those. That would make 2 lost out of the last 7. Just need to win one more and I will be back at >70%. That game (nr. 7 in that row) I am already playing as GER in a Blitz map and I owned BeNeLux, Czech & Poland on day 1 and by day 2 I owned Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Lithuania and 95% of France (just not taking the south mountain border to prevent an easy invasion by Spain, which is now inactive and will go AI soon,....but...you wouldn't understand that at your skill level)

No gold needed, bc GER can't lose, except when I play Yugo (and then GER doesn't stand a chance and will be crushed by day 3-4 ... but that is probably above your level too).

Ad5. "As I say if we had some gold free games which can be achieved through restriction it would help." => there are (or rather 'were'; not really so since WBs though)

Far more important than gold is (soon 'was') skill, as in game mechanics, knowledge of military, economic & diplo strategy, tactics incl. terrain and unit characteristics et cetera andsoforth. And ofc dedication (which equals ...?).

Unfortunately, with again updates that dumb down the game, P2W becomes more and more prevalent under pressure of Stillfront's shareholders, who want to see more profit. When that is well cemented into the game I will simply quit COW. Just hoping to get my old ranking at 155 back before I quit again.

Besides, players moaning about gold are only those who have none. The only reason, though, that they have none, is that they almost always lose and/or never finish their maps.

Honestly, any dedicated player should have a gold stash and any smart player will not use that gold stash unless in an emergency (facing a golder or a backstabber or something like that).

About WR can simply be said: on every map the number of winners is always smaller than the number of losers. You are simply in the larger group. Deal with it and hone your skills.

Why cant you stop the arrogance? You ooze it through what you say. Read what I said instead of thinking what I said. I didnt say I was particularly good or bad but the constant use of gold makes it impossible to play many games without being overwhelmed.

As for your 'experience' I was playing war games in 1974 can you match that? No didnt think so, but my interest was and remains naval wargaming. A great book was P Dunn's on naval wargaming. Those days we gamed with 1:1200 scale ships though subs a tad difficult. With this I have named in CoW stuff but keeping up with it all is too difficult. It is an ok game but never really accurate enough and it is getting worse.

So on a positive note Mr Napoleon perhaps you'd care to give us the benefit of your experience then?

1. How to defeat a stack of top level militia say 20. I will pose another later. I await the General's response with bated breadth.

PS. I am not the remotest interested in what you did in Belgium with your 8* armoured car brigade and how you defeated the combined might of Stalin's and the allied armies by your tactical genius. But an answer to specific scenarios would be more constructive.

HenrikSchreiber wrote:

The developers want to feed their children. Mana... erm, I mean war bonds, are their way of hiding people who spend money on the game, so they can still claim they're "great strategists" or something. the fact that it changes the game into some sort of "WW2 game with wizards" doesn't matter to them; this is their earning model and we have to live with it or leave.

Getting closer and closer to the latter.

Komrade Khrushchev wrote:

HenrikSchreiber wrote:

The developers want to feed their children. Mana... erm, I mean war bonds, are their way of hiding people who spend money on the game, so they can still claim they're "great strategists" or something. the fact that it changes the game into some sort of "WW2 game with wizards" doesn't matter to them; this is their earning model and we have to live with it or leave.

Getting closer and closer to the latter.

Bytro should just make a Harry Potter strategy game and put all their magic features in there.

EDIT: They haven't done anything to the rest of their games, so F2P players like myself could flock there

i came to check here one last time...

Goodbye friends

the bystro business model has always been

"pay to cheat"

the game was tolerable when very few players had access to their Mommy's credit cards,

and sensible players could recognize that behavior pattern and duck into other games.

The war bonds offer an easy solution to the ridiculous revolt mechanic. Gut unfortunately can

be miss used for insidious purposes.

the recent downgrades to the espionage mechanic actually reduce the number of pay to cheat options.

A good thing, but far too late in the downward spiral to really matter much.

I doubt that capitalistic economics have any thing to do with bystro's performance, on the contrary,

"removal of the unfit" is about to bring the hammer down on their heads.

BladeFisher wrote:

Why cant you stop the arrogance? You ooze it through what you say. Read what I said instead of thinking what I said. I didnt say I was particularly good or bad but the constant use of gold makes it impossible to play many games without being overwhelmed.

As for your 'experience' I was playing war games in 1974 can you match that? No didnt think so, but my interest was and remains naval wargaming. A great book was P Dunn's on naval wargaming. Those days we gamed with 1:1200 scale ships though subs a tad difficult. With this I have named in CoW stuff but keeping up with it all is too difficult. It is an ok game but never really accurate enough and it is getting worse.

So on a positive note Mr Napoleon perhaps you'd care to give us the benefit of your experience then?

1. How to defeat a stack of top level militia say 20. I will pose another later. I await the General's response with bated breadth.

PS. I am not the remotest interested in what you did in Belgium with your 8* armoured car brigade and how you defeated the combined might of Stalin's and the allied armies by your tactical genius. But an answer to specific scenarios would be more constructive.

Ad1. Stop talking nonsense about heavy gold use, PLEASE!

There is NO constant use of gold by massive golders in all your maps. 1 out of 4 or 5 maps. No more than that. Period.

There are only few massive golders.

If there were massive golders constantly spending real money on all my maps, then my scores would simply not be what they are!

The fact that they are what they are means (by applying plain logic) that there are not that many heavy golders!

Or maybe they specifically have it in for you and only appear in your maps?

Ad2. 1974? Good for you and indeed, I was probably playing with toy soldiers and tanks in '74; not strategy games. I only started with Risk when I was like 10 and A&A another few years later.

Ad3. How to deafeat a stack Elite Militia? Of 20? Well, first off, the 20 fight like 10 (in COW v1.0 the SBD thing was much more complicated and interesting, now it is simply 10 of whatever), though the other 10 would be sharing damage.

Ultimately, 20 means only that your damage is half as effective on the fighting 10, bc 50% goes to the 'sharing 10'. Still, 10 Elite Militia I would not attack like to attack with aircraft. You could ofc, but you would need a large stack to share damage around and you would get badly hurt. (I just love Elite Militia...)

The best way to deal with such a stack

(a) if you are attacking use ranged weapons, preferably RA, but ART will do too. Anyways, when attacking, who would still bring only non-ranged troops? I don't go anywhere without a strong ranged group. Always LMFAO about people placing their trust in MT/HT... What a waste of rss. I love to see them melt away.

Just place a block between your Art and the enemy and decimate the enemy stack before you move in any troops to finish them off.

(b) if you are defending, fight a retreating defensive battle with .... indeed .... ranged weapons. Withdrawing to avoid involving your ranged in melee, for which you have 30 minutes between salvos. Maintain a block of defenders between your ranged group and the attacking stack just in case. Even when you were outnumbered when the enemy stack first appeared, a few hours later you will have worn them down significantly. Note: choose your withdrawal route wisely, as to be able to leave the province fast enough when the centre falls and the prov becomes enemy territory, reducing your speed, while increasing the enemy's.

Further, as soon as the AA-capacity of the stack would be reduced to below my air force's Att, I would also bring in the air force. I never bring in the airforce when their att-values are not at least matching the AA def-values.

So, no magic involved in killing off any stack of 20 non-ranged, as long as you left home prepared.

c. If you can't fight them, don't. You choose your fights after all. Only fight battles you already won before they started. Fight on your terms; not the enemy's. In most cases the Militia stack will be slower than you (unless you are in the dogged Allied Doctrine, facing Pan-Asian)

Considering your lovely PS: you are missing the point...again.

As long as you maintain you lose because of gold, I see no possibility how any of my answers could help you. Simply, because my answers would be based on being prepared. You can only be prepared if you planned ahead. For the right planning ahead of events, one would need to understand a bit of the game mechanics, strategy, tactics, diplo, economy, your doctrine and the country specifics you start with etc ... as mentioned before.

Let me ask you instead: what is your nr 1 priority in literally every map? (mind you, that is not the same as your 1st action, though it can be)

Back to what you started with, stating':

- that you lose because of gold: that still doesn't hold up. You will lose 1 out of 4-5 games to gold max. Another you might lose bc of getting jumped early. The rest you lost bc the other players were better. Hence your low winrate of below 30%.

- a winrate of 30% is not suspicious ... unless you meant it is suspiciously bad? I have a (F2P-ing; no Premium or gold) 12 yr old kid in my alliance and even he has a score of well over 50%.

Gold ... never was a problem to which one would lose the majority of games. Lack of skill and dedication, however ... always have been and are!

The WBs ... are simply introducing (a part of) the gold-magic into every game and thus reduce the strategy aspect and thus are bad thing we now have to deal with. It is good of Bytro that they nerfed the WBs significantly; if not, I would have quit already...

And now the resource simplification which is coming soon ... dumbs down the game further; thát is also a very very bad update. Complain about thát; not gold.

All these updates (since v1.5) are done for the worst reasons, trying to get more players to spent, but it ultimately will only attract short term players, soon hopping to the next game, because now matter how much you dumb this game down, it will still be too complicated and especially too slow for those dimwits with a low attention span, playing on their phones during school breaks...

In the meanwhile Bytro will lose more and more dedicated and/or long term players, who are fed up with the dumbing down and increasing P2W.

How many updates did Chess, Go or even Stratego get? They will still be around in 10 years. COW however....?

PS: According to the Cambridge dictionary, arrogance is the quality of being unpleasantly proud and behaving as if you are more important than, or know more than, other people.

So, the word arrogance does not apply, because:

a. I am not proud; I am just dismissive of the fake arguments and excuses brought to the table for lost matches.

b. Importance is irrelevant here.

c. I don't behave 'as if I know more' than you; I clearly do, bc I win more. (note also that there are lots of non-golding players who are significantly better than me...bc they know more than me)

Well thanks for being more constructive.

I have little or no experience of the other games you referred to. All my experience before CoW was naval games and they tended to be 'on the bridge' shoot/torpedo types. I cant remember the names now. A number of submarine games but there was sadly little strategy ones I knew about.

The reason we disagree over gold is because I often have come across in end games massive stacks the largest in points value was 2700. There is no way you can accumulate scores of stacks without buying it with gold because the resources required would be huge. If you did nothing but upgrade you wouldnt move so you have to get the money from somewhere, so we will agree to disagree.

It would help in your post if you used less acronyms as I dont always know what you are referring to LMFAO?

No 1 priority. ultimately winning I suppose, but I break it down in stages. The first priority is survival and to do that (there is an element of choice of country) knowing who is around you. That is where I can find it difficult because everyone wants to attack, rather than talking to those adjacent. Players drop out at a high rate so I dont consider coalitions permanent from day one, unless a special coalition i.e. pre arranged mates going into a game. I also put a fair amount into the economy and morale.

BladeFisher wrote:

=> Depends on the map and size of empire. On a big map, when I have my fav army groups ready, each stack has a mix of 10 SPG/SPRA + 10 SPAA + a bunch of AC (5 at level 3 probably; maps rarely last long enough to get to level 4).

I would operate the stacks synchronized in pairs.

If playing Axis and all SP-units at 1st level and 2x5 AC at level 3, that would make 828 HP per group of 25 units and 2 groups synchronized on 1 point thus 1650 over 50 units, while still optimized for SBD.

At least 2 of these stacks (preferably 2 or even 3 pairs if map is really going well) will work synchronized and will obliterate any enemy army and airforce of any regular player they meet (I always wonder why, but most bring MT/HT, which pose no threat whatsoever).

All older units and Inf-class would be relegated to defence, occupation or other support roles only.

Should I run into a good player, however, I will figth a retreating battle with the relatively fast SP-units, outpacing the enemy ... and still obliterate his army.

However, after some time (especially late-game) the units would all be upgraded to level 2 or even 3. Level 2 would make it 150% in HP and level 3 some 200%, thus, heck yeah, such a stack would grow to a pile of HP.

So, late game 2 synchronized groups would definitely amount to some 2400-2500 HP, while already deducting for incurred damages, though still split in 2 groups for SBD. No magic invloved.

Now if a player would choose to go big on Inf-class, the units would be cheaper and faster to upgrade and HP would rise much faster. So, no magic there either.

What I do not get though, is why any player with half the wit of a 12 yr old would have 1 stack of 2700 HP?

That must make about a 100 units of any type in 1 stack and that is ridiculously inefficient...

It just crazy to not split that.

I would love to farm such a heap of crap! Good for the K/D ))

Would take quite a bit of time to slaughter that heap, but ultimately they all melt.

So, especially late game any succesful player on the map can have stacks of the mentioned size.

This is why I asked you what your priority is on every map you play, but your answer apparently went somewhere else.

Or, if that is truly your priority, than it is no wonder you get beaten more often than not.

Now what is worrying is that you immediately assume that a large stack must be bought with gold.

We will get to that later.

Ad 2. "acronyms" => I will try to use smilies then.... Anyways, all these acronyms are in the internet.

Now to the priority in the game:

Ad 3a. "No 1 priority. ultimately winning I suppose," => Winning is not a priority but a goal. To achieve that goal, one must set priorities. These are different things.

Ad 3b. "The first priority is survival" => Survival is again not a priority, but a subordinate goal, to be achieved when winning is impossible. This might force you to change priorities a little, but not at the core.

Ad 3c. " knowing who is around you." => only noobs would not check the stats of their neighbours, right? And your first target would be the best player, as he is likely the most dangerous. Alternatively, if he is talkative and not a backstabber AND ONLY if geographically appropriate, one might want to ally and go back2back, each in another direction with room for growth. To ally is not necessarily the same as going into coa, btw.

Ad 3d. "everyone wants to attack, rather than talking to those adjacent." => logically, you cannot survive (let alone win...) if you don't expand. Depending on the place you are in, you may háve to kill all your neighbours for the sake of expansion. As said, in some cases it may be appropriate to ally with someone, but mostly one should not ally with direct neighbours.

The most silly thing - which you will observe in i.e. WaW, is Brazil, Argentine and another South American in coalition Or Canada and the USA . How dumb is that? That, after all, is nothing but a guarantee for remaining small and thus losing.

And one shoud never-ever ally too early or - what so many halfwits do - get into a coa. You cannot know how the map will develop and having to leave a coa and betray your mates is the lowest thing to do.

I preferably do not ally before several days have passed and my position is strong and other strong players can be identified.

And if it is not necessary, I will not enter a coa at all and go for a solo victory.

Ad 3e. "I also put a fair amount into the economy and morale." => now there is a priority....finally!

The Old Greeks said it thousands of years ago already:

"Three things are required to wage a succesfull war: Gold, gold and...gold"

Ofc they did not refer to in-game gold as in CoW, but to the ability to finance the war.

Or, in other words, they referred to the economy being able to carry the cost of a prolonged war.

And there you have your priority Nr 1! It is your economy!

Priority Nr 2 is - not surprisingly - your economy!

And to finish it off with your 3rd priority - you guessed it, I hope - it is indeed ... your economy!!

Your economic (aka Industrial) development strategy is paramount to achievbe success.

Your priority, whether you start as a big country or small, is to become the Nr 1 economy on the map....or at least be in the top 3.

Only when you have the goodies and the tax income to expand Industry and are thus able to produce Units, you can win.

If you do not set your economy as top priority, you are dead in the water.

Remember I was playing a map as Canada and said I was likely not going to win?

After all, it is such a shitty country and takes forever to get anywhere with the new rivers etc.

Guess who is 1st place in economy now at Day 10? Indeed: Canada

Guess who is now 2nd place with 160 points (after a coa with 450 points by 3 members and runing out of space) with a lot of growth room ahead? Right: Canada.

Will I still surely lose or can I win that map now? Well, by now I produce as much as any 2 of the coa together.

And probably having the better knowledge of the game-mechanics, general strategy and tactics, I fear I might still win after all

And, no, it did not require gold.

South USA happened to be a good player too from stats, and being too slow to cross those awful rivers into N-USA, I had to coop with him and devide the N-USA and the AI: 3 cities for him and 3 for me.

Having killed the AI and N-USA, I entirely focussed on Industry and surplus went into tech.

Crossed to Ireland too late and couldn't take UK, bc it take a whole ff-ing day to cross to ireland and France beat me to it.

Moved on to Morocco and Spanish Sahara and took those with ease (still fully Inf-class, but same set-up; didn't lose a single unit; just some HP).

Now owning the larger part of Algeria too and finally able to build my 1st SPG and finishing research on SPAA as I write this.

Now we start rolling ... litterally

Baseline: Economy, economy, economy etc.

Moral is in the first place an important factor for your ... economy: increasing output, reducing build times.

I put all my warbonds into city moral in Ireland, Morocco & Spanish Sahara for instance.

And all my resources went into new Industry there.

After that the increased output went into unit production there.

But I could only build up the industry and production facilities in N-Africa, because ... my economy was already Nr 1 and I thus had the resources and cash to do so (and those bloody warbonds...I wonder if I could have done this so fast without them, bc I just pumped up the moral, shortening build and production time considerably ).

Thus again:

You have only 3 priorities (= which?).

Remember them!

Everything depends on it.

Also having a 3000 HP stack late game WITHOUT using gold...

Now to you your remarks:

"There is no way you can accumulate scores of stacks without buying it with gold" => 100% FALSE!

"because the resources required would be huge." => 100% TRUE! But who is the boss of your economy?

"If you did nothing but upgrade you wouldnt move so you have to get the money from somewhere so we will agree to disagree." => 100% Bullcrap! It is all about your 3 priorities! (= which?)

With that said, ofc there are players who do what you say. They just buy success in the map. But these are few.

The rest that beats you, you should study, bc they are simply better than you.

Read the newspaper. What are their rankings in economy, tech, army? How do they fight and with which weapons?

GOLD never-ever was the problem that made anyone lose almost every map!

Skill and dedication are!

You are obsessed that I dont know what I am doing. I always will select the appropriate provinces to build so I put the least important resources furthest from the border. I then do economic upgrade. Level, recruitment, level.

But if you dont build any forces one attack will wipe you out. I put more effort into economy and morale actually.

Where I need some assistance in probably is in force composition.

PS The 2500 stack was star level HT.

BladeFisher wrote:

ad2. "But if you dont build any forces one attack will wipe you out." => there is a balance to everything.

My regular 1st steps towards victory:

1st build up Local Industry, bc in 3 steps you go to 200%. You produce more per invested $$ and faster.

2nd you put 1 of each military building (in maps where you have nothing). 1 of each, bc you can't fill more production lines anyway. Only exception being sometimes 2 barracks, each on the far end, when your cities are stretched out. And then you produce your fav or most needed troops.

3rd you built Industry in your cities with leftover RSS. Most often only the ctity with the RSS you are short off or will be (as every country is short off something), but always focus on Metal, Oil, Rares, bc you need these for Industry development. Don't forget to break off city Industries when you can build Local Industry.

4th you position your troops; most often not in the city you want to protect, but favorably utilizing terrain bonusses while in ambush. Always avoid fighting in your cities as it causes damage = economic loss.

5th troop production: depending on your situation this differs every map and doctrine.

For early def, I often go for Militia & Arty.

For early attack, 2 AC for capturing empty/emptied centres to increase overal speed by fast owning the terrain, Arty and some Inf to def/block the arty in case of counter attack (rare, bc nobody has lots of troops yet and they will be spread out, so arty will damage counter and def by Inf will finish off the counter)

6th Trade on the market. Don't be afraid to buy RSS, even at higher prices, if this boost your economy (or gets you a unit production going which you despereatly need).

7th Manage RSS and constructions. Break off constructions (not productions!) when you achieve a certain required production level, but are getting short of the next RSS. That way you don't wait for a building to finish and can start the other one faster.

I guess you may know that stopping a construction does not cost you anything and when restarting, you do that where you left off. Same for level 2 or 3 Propagande; as soon as you achieve the set moral goal, break off and use RSS elsewhere.

8th Remember that every problem you solve will create another to be solved. Plan ahead.

ad3. "I put more effort into economy and morale actually." => put all effort there. The rest follows automatically upon succesfull economic development.

ad4. "Where I need some assistance in probably is in force composition." =>

The composition of any army group depends on your play style and available time.

A good army group is always mixed and a player should use the Combined Arms Approach (which is nothing else than the US version of the Blitz approach, but than far far slower), but with a focus on the troops you play best with.

Also, do you play fast or slow? Aggressive or defensive? Which doctrine? How long will you be AFK and does this match the other players (sleep times, work times)? Do you have occupation where you can't access the game for hours or work a lot at home and can run the game behind Office?

That differs for every single player.

If you can be an active player or are serious enough to take precautions everytime, I would build my army groups around Arty and later SPG/SPRA with attention to AA capacity (add AA or leveled Militia; Militia being far more versatile than AA - which I hardly ever built - and later SPAA) and speed (add AC for capturing fast, bc Arty is slow until you get SPG/SPRA).

Note that when you are caught in melee, your ranged weapons will suffer badly.

Always withdraw when going AFK longer or set up a trap (kill-zones) with the ranged behind a block of defenders and possibly air support, when you know what is coming. Arty is also great for provoking (especially AI) counter attack, so that you can profit from def values and terrain bonus. Unless you are a tank player; those can't be helped.

A good trap is worth a million gold ))

BTW, I never build tanks, except LTs (and tanks which are almost finished in captured cities). I even seldomly develop the LTs (I prefer the ACs as I will kill most enemy on def after provoking attack) and mostly keep LTs as cheap level 1 for speedy capture or occupation troops when out of Food.

Any developed and possibly useful Tanks are expensive and slow to produce, requiring huge investments in facilities and research, which simply do not ever pay off. It is question of ... economics.

Also, Tanks can only fight agressive melee battles and thus increase you D in the K/D, while they suck at def.

Tanks are not magical. Far from even. In fact, I consider them entirely useless the way that players use them in CoW ... or how the Russians use them in Ukraine for that matter. Love to see them melt ))

A few relatively cheap Militia lvl 3 (and, if you happen to have one, an AT of even lvl1, will easily kill an HT, 2 MT or 3 LT in mountains of forrest. Do the math => the tank user is the loser .... in both battle and economics.

ad5. "PS The 2500 stack was star level HT." => Well, I have not yet encountered an Elite HT army yet. Single ones or maybe 2 or 3, but not a true stack.

It is possible - if late game - when the player totally focussed on that and developed littel else.

But every problem has an answer. If you had had airforce (HT have lousy AA capacity) and/or arty, you could avoid melee combat and just kill them off before they reach you. Also HT are not good vs INF-class.

Choose your battles and how you fight them and where: a pack of Militia in the forrest or mountains will stop any tank army dead in its tracks ... notably even without AT, which again I hardly ever produce; Elite Tanks or not. Especially when playing Pan Asian with 70% bonus for Militia in Forrest

Instead of being impressed by that moron putting al his efforts in Elite HT, I would be ROFL (Rolling On Floor Laughing) while LMFAO (Laughing My Fat Ass Off)

PS: having Premium is an enormous buff. The construction and productioin wait-list of 4 each gets you more output. Also the Firing Setting for all ranged weapons get you a lot of peace of mind and hours of sleep.

Most importantly you can have groups split, but in the same location, while moving and thus maximize on SBD perfectly on attack, while maintaining maximum HP in 1 spot, thus sharing received damage.

@BladeFisher

Do you realize why people like to attack early?

I mean not the 12 yr olds, but the real players?

vonlettowvorbeck wrote:

@BladeFisher

Do you realize why people like to attack early?

I mean not the 12 yr olds, but the real players?

produce militia infantry artillery anti tank and anti air if you are in allied doctrine region and rush everywhere while your factories are growing

and road to war , clash of nations , hww maps for lazy or beginner players , real players always play world at war map

who wants to wait along days to fight against inactive and beginner players ? you reached high level technology but what will you do with it ? fighting against AI ?? no thanks I dont care AI diplomacy even at world at war map because at day 2 all AI will disappear

you keep to saying ability is more important but you say you need 100k gold to join world at war map. LOL