HI

Hi. The anti air can only attack units on the ground. Maybe it was sending your AA to his airport. They are a defensive unit. They only shoot when shot at, so you keep them with armies or on resources that you want to protect. If the planes are patrol attacking instead of direct you will need to run your AA to a point within their patrol circle and then when the planes shoot their half power shot every 15 minutes, your AA will defend at half power.

To get an idea of battle outcomes, click on the group of enemy planes, then click on the title bar to show army details. It will tell you the damage those planes will do on a direct attack against infantry, light armor and heavy armor. If patrol attacking it will be half that value every 15 minutes. Note the hit points of that group of planes as well. Click on your army with anti air in it and do the same. You will see how much damage your army will do defending against his planes. Knowing amount of damage will be done each attack, plus amount of hit points each army has will give you an idea of the battle outcome. If allot of planes you will need allot of AA.

Interceptors are always a good investment to counter planes. Some like to invest in strategic bombers to take out the air strips they are flying from. All planes will do some damage to air strips.

I think for someone struggling with game mechanics, AA is a better invetsment than an air force.

The main defense against air is to keep your units in stacks. For example, having 5 infantry together with your artillery provides good basic protection against 1-2 plane attacks. As your opponents become more serious, you also have to get more serious. A stack of 5 tactical bombers needs 2-3 AA in addition to the other units in the stack. As the opponent uses higher level bombers, or sends larger fleets, be prepared to match them.

The basic math I use is to have enough anti-air defense in my stack to shoot down the attacking air force in 1-2 turns. For example, if the enemy bombers have 100 HP, then I want about 50 AA defense in my stack. This is enough to discourage most players, because airplanes are expensive, so if you're trading HP for HP then it's a pyrrhic victory for them. Most will look at your "spiky" stack and keep their airplanes away.

What you can't do any more is run around with single units and soft armies. The enemy air force will find those and erase them one at a time. In CoW, this is the way air forces get used, they are not used to "soften up" targets. That's a job for shooters like artillery, cruisers, and rocket artillery. Airplanes are expensive and fragile, sending them against high AA stacks is a bad idea. But they can erase soft targets (like undefended artillery) or high value targets (like a light tank trying to run around your flank, or a transport trying to unload units before your own ground forces can get there).

Thanks for everything!

SO basically I should leave my AA units in the stack and when the planes come and attack me the AA will bomb it back right?

Same for anti tank and all that?

Look at the stats of each unit. Attack values apply when you are the one driving or flying. Defense values apply when the other guy is attacking you.

AA has really high air defense. It's added to the air defense of other units in the stack. Infantry is respectable, tanks are bad, artillery is bad, etc.

This is also why you fight in BIG STACKS. The attack and defense values are added. You want to kill the enemy fast, dealing max damage while taking min damage in return.

thanks for all of that

ill put that in mind when I play future games

any recommended research order? like should I focus on tanks or ordinance

oh and I died in the german empire game

Research few units, to high levels.

For example: Artillery, then level 2, level 3, then upgrade all of them. Infantry level 2, 3, 4, then upgrade to 4 if they are reasonably healthy.

Bad example: Light tanks, then medium tanks, then heavy tanks. Always chasing new units. Always playing with level 1 units. No, you want to build a swarm of armored cars and upgrade them to an angrier more powerful swarm that can move fast and find advanced stealth units before your artillery run into them.

so ive been playing as ma clique lately

been getting militias to lv 2 and 3

but I just feel like its really annoying to need to upgrade the units

also ma clique is comintern so favours medium tanks right

but should I get medium tanks or just level up the armored cars to really high level

Lightningstar7081 wrote:

so ive been playing as ma clique lately

been getting militias to lv 2 and 3

but I just feel like its really annoying to need to upgrade the units

also ma clique is comintern so favours medium tanks right

but should I get medium tanks or just level up the armored cars to really high level

Most of these unit discussions are pointless.

To win reliably and efficiently, 95% or more of the damage you deal will come from bombardment units. RRG, rrarty, arty, cruisers, battleships. Your other units exist to support your shooters. Scouting for them. Flipping provinces. Providing defensive screens. Serving as damage soakers.

It's all about the shooters. Everything else is a support unit. Just get the most HP you can get for the buck, depending on your doctrine and resource availability.