What is the Unit That You Just Began to Use a lot Recently?

AC's are available immediatly; mot.inf takes a few days. By that time L2 AC's are available, so you should actually compare with them.

Furthermore, AC's are light armor while mot.inf is infantry, so they take less damage against most units.

Having said that, I prefer mot.inf as well... it is just not as grim a comparison as those pics suggest.

yahya_ wrote:

BMfox wrote:

Please don't share false information AC are light armour, they get shredded by both tactical and attack bombers, they get also shredded by Medium or Heavy Tanks. They are a good start unit but nothing more. As soon as LT and mot infantry is available they lose their function. Mot Infantry is both faster, reveals armies, perfect scout and has better stats than AC

yahya_ wrote:

When you upgrade armored cars to level 4 they are too OP, fast, good damage against infantry and light armor, and good defense against heavy armor and planes

That’s not what happened in my game

BMfox wrote:

Karl von Krass wrote:

overall, i will continue using cruisers in the early game and research into them, so the extra time that i would've spent on battleships will be saved. battleships can be produced later on when i need to spec my navy into coastal bombardment and Fleet battles. (though carriers can fix this problem)

This is a very good strategy. A cruiser is the best early game naval unit and the best all round, multi functional naval unit. You spam them early on and then upgrade them while you upgrade your naval bases and switch your production to battleships. However capital ships always need to be protected by destroyers and I'm talking in plural about more than one as that is ineffective.

Early game, you build your navy for one, max two purposes. If it is escort/scouting the sea in case of cheap landing attempt, destroyers are better. If it is coastal bombardement, a BB is better. A destroyer + a BB do anything that matters except anti-air better than 2 cruisers, and it is obviously more flexible too. Plus you need the destroyer against submarines anyway.

You only need cruisers when naval bombers start to be a thing, which is usually mid-game.

Possible exception in the Pacific map, I never played it.

Well, it isn't super recent, but when 1.5 first came out, I used to just spam LTs. This obviously wasn't a good strategy for multiple reasons. Now, I like to produce arty, rocket arty, attack bombers, tac bombers, interceptors, BBs, cruisers, destroyers, and subs. I prefer bombarding from a distance before moving in. I mean there are a couple of cases where this doesn't work, but I generally like it, and it works for me.

the armored car

Chimere wrote:

BMfox wrote:

Karl von Krass wrote:

overall, i will continue using cruisers in the early game and research into them, so the extra time that i would've spent on battleships will be saved. battleships can be produced later on when i need to spec my navy into coastal bombardment and Fleet battles. (though carriers can fix this problem)

This is a very good strategy. A cruiser is the best early game naval unit and the best all round, multi functional naval unit. You spam them early on and then upgrade them while you upgrade your naval bases and switch your production to battleships. However capital ships always need to be protected by destroyers and I'm talking in plural about more than one as that is ineffective.

I disagree strongly on this one. I believe that cruisers are actually the worst early game naval units, though they scale up to be "must have" by end game.Early game, you build your navy for one, max two purposes. If it is escort/scouting the sea in case of cheap landing attempt, destroyers are better. If it is coastal bombardement, a BB is better. A destroyer + a BB do anything that matters except anti-air better than 2 cruisers, and it is obviously more flexible too. Plus you need the destroyer against submarines anyway.

You only need cruisers when naval bombers start to be a thing, which is usually mid-game.

Possible exception in the Pacific map, I never played it.

1. availability in research tree, cruisers can be researched earlier than battleships in some doctrines, this allows for the creation of a viable naval fleet at an earlier date. such is an important thing to consider as one can start raiding people from day 1 thus, crippling them before they could fight back. though, attacking on day 1 is not a viable strategy, pre-emptive attacks, however,, are a tactic that i regularly practise and it can definitely destroy infrastructure and cripple the enemy (as stated before).

2. the economic feasibility of making cruiser fleets and it's relative quality compared to battleships. 2 cruisers have approximately the same cost as 1 battleship, but, the quality of the cruiser fleet is higher as they have better AA, Anti-sub, Better speed (henceforth increasing effective range) and better view range (can react to threats better) and has higher HP. The battleship however, needs escorts, but they can deal catastrophic damage to the 2 cruisers. though, the battleships vulnerabilities can be exploited by more cruisers or subs.

3. from the above 2 points, one can conclude the practical benefits of the cruisers,, here i give an example. Cruisers can be made earlier and at superior numbers, thus, they can attack the coastal units of a coastal nation at an earlier date. the defending nation can provide a defending wolfpack of subs to deter the cruisers. in such a situation,, ploughing through the subs is counter-intuitive, and one should make destroyers to defend the cruisers, (ideally 1 destroyer per 2 cruisers). such a stack is fast in speed, can take on lone battleships, plough through recon-subs, avoid larger enemies and can provide coastal bombardment at an early date (this can cause 2 kinds of reactions within defending nation, a) defending nation moves artillery to the coast to bombard the cruiser, thus tying up valuable artillery in the early game, and, b) the defending nation evacuates the coast, causing the coastal cities to be undefended and ripe for the taking ((though the defending troops can come back with artillery support later on)))

Hope this clarifies, the reason why i decided to use cruisers early game. though, i do see the merits of other units. hope, you can see the merits of my argument @Chimere. would like to see your continuation of your argument.

stAsusstuff wrote:

the armored car

I have begun mass production of arty for the first time recently... saved me a bunch

Chimere wrote:

I disagree strongly on this one. I believe that cruisers are actually the worst early game naval units, though they scale up to be "must have" by end game.

BMfox wrote:

I'm pretty sure that your game has the same game mechanics as mine

Mot infantry has more speed than AC and better stats vs infantry, light armor and heavy armor

The higher you research the AC and Mot Inf the bigger the difference gets. Even after the recent AC buff the Mot Inf is still better in many ways. It's faster and has better overal battle stats.

BMfox wrote:

The higher you research the AC and Mot Inf the bigger the difference gets. Even after the recent AC buff the Mot Inf is still better in many ways. It's faster and has better overal battle stats.

First of all, comparing the two units 1:1 really doesn't make sense in the first place because they have completely different resource costs and come from different structures, MI take 2000+ food at level 4 while AC take 0. That being said, armored cars still compare favorably in many key performance metrics that you implied they underperformed MI.

Second, while both units are highly mobile, motorized infantry prefer offense yet armored cars are better on the defensive. Armored cars actually do 19 infantry damage on the defensive compared to motorized 14 on the attack, they do more damage to light armor in the same situation 7.9 versus 7.5 and only do slightly less to heavy armor. These values are for Pan-Asian which have a bonus to infantry damage, but I think they're pretty competitive with other doctrines as well. For Axis, motorized will have an edge in raw damage.

Third, perhaps we're playing different games but armored cars are actually faster at level 4 versus level 4 (which is max level for AC without blueprints).

Fourth, armored cars have 59 hit points and are light armor while motorized have only 36 and are squishy infantry. This makes a huge difference if you actually play out some real combat scenarios. One-on-one is not even a comparison, if a motorized infantry attacks one of these AC they will die in three rounds and do less than 20 damage to the car (anywhere but plains, on plains the car takes a bit more but the battle ends in two).

Fifth, armored cars are much better against tactical bombers. They do 87.5% more air damage, they take much less damage, they have almost twice the hit points. I think someone said motorized were better against tactical bombers above, that's just plain wrong and you don't understand the mechanics.

Additionally Pan-Asian has access to AC4 on day 10.

I use them to ruthless effect. I still use motorized as well they're particularly useful to exploit breakthroughs and attack cities where armored cars will struggle. Armored cars are great for take and hold tactics and just generally running around and being a nuisance. They're more resistant to air attacks than both light tanks and motorized infantry and in most 1-on-1 match ups fair better (avoid light and medium tanks).

If you weren't convinced by theory, here's a practical example. I'm wrapping up a historical 1939 campaign with Japan now. Here's my territory on Day 9:

In the early going the cars were used for scouting and defense against infantry, particularly on plains. Once level 4 is achieved (day 10 for Pan-Asian) they become legitimately dangerous particularly paired with light tanks and motorized infantry. They can split and reform at will taking vast swaths of territory that is usually poorly defended or not defended at all. They simply bypass any force that threatens them or can pull back to the main force quickly and easily (provided you haven't suicide charged).

Armored cars are preferable for this strategy because they are more resistant to tactical bombers. Tactical bombers have much greater range than assault and are harder to mitigate through quick advancing on forward air bases or strategic strikes. Any lone unit is vulnerable to air attacks, but there's no question the AC will do more damage to attacking tactical bombers. Here's a simple combat calculation for one armored car versus one motorized infantry against a single tactical bomber. I'm going to use Pan-Asian level 4 stats for all three units and ignore efficiency losses for lost health to keep it simple:

TAC: 12 infantry damage, 7 light armor damage, HP 41

MI: 4 Air defense, HP 36

AC: 7.5 Air defense, HP 59

TAC VS AC

It takes the AC 6 rounds to kill the tactical bomber (41 / 7.5 = ~5.5), in that time the bomber will do 42 damage. In this case the AC survives with 17 HP.

TAC VS MI

It takes the MI 11 rounds to kill the tactical bomber (41 / 4 = 10.25), in that time the bomber would do a whooping 132 damage. Obviously the unit dies well before that, flat math says 3 rounds but in real life it would be 4 at least due to efficiency losses. Meaning the unit would only do 16 damage to the bomber.

I guess you can decide which you prefer but mechanically there's no question here:

AC kills the tactical bomber and has 17 HP left while the infantry dies leaving the bomber with 25 HP.

Spite_Is_Right wrote:

BMfox wrote:

The higher you research the AC and Mot Inf the bigger the difference gets. Even after the recent AC buff the Mot Inf is still better in many ways. It's faster and has better overal battle stats.

Going to have to disagree with you completely about armored cars. It's nowhere near as cut and dry as you say, and in fact I think you're wrong on some key points.

First of all, comparing the two units 1:1 really doesn't make sense in the first place because they have completely different resource costs and come from different structures, MI take 2000+ food at level 4 while AC take 0. That being said, armored cars still compare favorably in many key performance metrics that you implied they underperformed MI.

Second, while both units are highly mobile, motorized infantry prefer offense yet armored cars are better on the defensive. Armored cars actually do 19 infantry damage on the defensive compared to motorized 14 on the attack, they do more damage to light armor in the same situation 7.9 versus 7.5 and only do slightly less to heavy armor. These values are for Pan-Asian which have a bonus to infantry damage, but I think they're pretty competitive with other doctrines as well. For Axis, motorized will have an edge in raw damage.

Third, perhaps we're playing different games but armored cars are actually faster at level 4 versus level 4 (which is max level for AC without blueprints).

Fourth, armored cars have 59 hit points and are light armor while motorized have only 36 and are squishy infantry. This makes a huge difference if you actually play out some real combat scenarios. One-on-one is not even a comparison, if a motorized infantry attacks one of these AC they will die in three rounds and do less than 20 damage to the car (anywhere but plains, on plains the car takes a bit more but the battle ends in two).

Fifth, armored cars are much better against tactical bombers. They do 87.5% more air damage, they take much less damage, they have almost twice the hit points. I think someone said motorized were better against tactical bombers above, that's just plain wrong and you don't understand the mechanics.

Additionally Pan-Asian has access to AC4 on day 10.

I use them to ruthless effect. I still use motorized as well they're particularly useful to exploit breakthroughs and attack cities where armored cars will struggle. Armored cars are great for take and hold tactics and just generally running around and being a nuisance. They're more resistant to air attacks than both light tanks and motorized infantry and in most 1-on-1 match ups fair better (avoid light and medium tanks).

Avoiding quoting my wall of text, I think there plenty of reasons to use LT and MT. ACs are barely even on the list because so few people use them. That might be due to this belief that motorized infantry are superior in all respects, just sayin...

MI can be better than AC in lots of situations.

In the end it depends

GrandEmpire wrote:

MI can be better than AC in lots of situations.

In the end it depends

I started using commandos recently. They are a good early game attacking unit. If you are in Central Asia, they are a must. They have stealth everywhere. They ignore fortifications. Underrated unit, in my opinion.

It has taken me over 40 played games to be convinced by tank destoyers but now I am totally converted!

I always used to make stacks of LT and MI accompanied by Tact Bombers. After facing an enemy with the same strategy as mine, I finally saw the power of a few high level TD in a stack. When otherwise my troops took a lot of damage, especially against MT and HT, suddenly my stacks became so much more efficient (if slightly slower)

vietcong2005 wrote:

Spite_Is_Right wrote:

BMfox wrote:

The higher you research the AC and Mot Inf the bigger the difference gets. Even after the recent AC buff the Mot Inf is still better in many ways. It's faster and has better overal battle stats.

Going to have to disagree with you completely about armored cars. It's nowhere near as cut and dry as you say, and in fact I think you're wrong on some key points.First of all, comparing the two units 1:1 really doesn't make sense in the first place because they have completely different resource costs and come from different structures, MI take 2000+ food at level 4 while AC take 0. That being said, armored cars still compare favorably in many key performance metrics that you implied they underperformed MI.

Second, while both units are highly mobile, motorized infantry prefer offense yet armored cars are better on the defensive. Armored cars actually do 19 infantry damage on the defensive compared to motorized 14 on the attack, they do more damage to light armor in the same situation 7.9 versus 7.5 and only do slightly less to heavy armor. These values are for Pan-Asian which have a bonus to infantry damage, but I think they're pretty competitive with other doctrines as well. For Axis, motorized will have an edge in raw damage.

Third, perhaps we're playing different games but armored cars are actually faster at level 4 versus level 4 (which is max level for AC without blueprints).

Fourth, armored cars have 59 hit points and are light armor while motorized have only 36 and are squishy infantry. This makes a huge difference if you actually play out some real combat scenarios. One-on-one is not even a comparison, if a motorized infantry attacks one of these AC they will die in three rounds and do less than 20 damage to the car (anywhere but plains, on plains the car takes a bit more but the battle ends in two).

Fifth, armored cars are much better against tactical bombers. They do 87.5% more air damage, they take much less damage, they have almost twice the hit points. I think someone said motorized were better against tactical bombers above, that's just plain wrong and you don't understand the mechanics.

Additionally Pan-Asian has access to AC4 on day 10.

I use them to ruthless effect. I still use motorized as well they're particularly useful to exploit breakthroughs and attack cities where armored cars will struggle. Armored cars are great for take and hold tactics and just generally running around and being a nuisance. They're more resistant to air attacks than both light tanks and motorized infantry and in most 1-on-1 match ups fair better (avoid light and medium tanks).

There is a reason I use light and medium tanks.

I started using armored cars recently and have come to appreciate them. I don't use them to attack, just scout and capture unoccupied terrain. My main rationale for armored cars are that you start with two of them and you need to research it in order to proceed with researching other tanks. Whereas mot infantry is just extra research.

I'm still learning aspects of the game so am not convinced about them. My preferred doctrine is ComIntern, so I'm not really use to doctrine buffs that Pan-Asian or Axis would provide.