BMfox wrote:
You can clearly see that the Tank Destroyer is four times more effective against the armor branch. Actually it's pretty vulnerable against the infantry branch.
My point was that the TD are better matched vs Infantry than vs Heavy Tanks, especially early game. Early game, the optimal stack of 5 Heavy Tanks beats the optimal stack of 5 TDs. Even if the TDs are defending. The reason this is so bad is because of the fact that TDs are only good for defending vs armor. The fact Heavy Tanks can still beat them AND 100% outperform them offensively and vs infantry makes the TD a very useless unit.
BMfox wrote:
One should never prioritize a medium tank over a TD. Both units complement each other, when stacked together they can outrun and take down a heavy tank.
In this discussion, we are replacing the TD with the Heavy Tank. Someone researching Heavy Tanks will still have Medium Tanks. The group of Medium Tanks with Heavy Tanks will take down the group of Medium Tanks with TDs, but yes they are slower. The point is that the TD is meant to be specialized as your defensive armor, when the Heavy Tank is much better to be used as your defensive armor.
BMfox wrote:
Why would you go for a heavy tank anyway? There's this wonderful unit called "Mechanized Infantry" in the armor branch that is the fastest unit in the game, strong in offense and defense, high AA value.
Because my Heavy Tank (grouped with other units) can attack/defend better vs any armor, attack/defend better vs any infantry, and has very high health. If my enemy has invested in TDs, he is going to be behind because of how much the TD lacks. Mechanized Infantry are great, and make for a very powerful stack, especially with Heavy Tanks. An optimal group of Mech Inf with Heavy Tanks will do much better than an optimal group of TDs with Mech Inf.
BMfox wrote:
Diversity is the key in this game and I highly believe that artillery, SP artillery, medium tanks, motorized infantry, mechanized infantry and tank destroyers are the best unit selection to victory. Specially when you have a decent amount of interceptors and tactical bombers for air assistance.
If someone had your exact build, but instead replaced your TDs with Heavy Tanks, they would be in a much better position 99% of the time. Heavy Tanks are much more useful than TDs in almost every element in the field. An optimal group of either TDs or Heavy Tanks is just 5. 5 Heavy Tanks does so much more vs EVERYTHING than 5 TDs. 5 Heavy Tanks are even better when defending vs Tanks, but they are especially better doing everything else.
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My whole point of this is to explain why the TD is a useless unit, they do not fill a niche and are outperformed in the only thing they are good at (defending vs armor), by a unit that is exceptional fighting anything on the ground. A Heavy Tank should not be that competitive with the TD in defending armor. In a realistic mirror match vs your identical self (replacing TDs with Heavy Tanks), the Heavy Tank clone will win. His stacks will be tankier when fighting artillery battles and be much more effective offensively and vs infantry.
I do not mean to make Heavy Tanks look OP or make it out like Heavy Tanks are a necessary unit to build. All I am saying is that there is no point investing in TDs because Heavy Tanks leave them no room to thrive.
Thank you for your response and feel free to let me know if anything I said does not make sense. 
. That being said, you are much more likely to have battles of more optimal stacks, stacking your 5 Heavy Tanks or your 5 TDs with many other units. The stack with the 5 Heavy Tanks is going to be so much more powerful than the group with 5 TDs. Heavy Tanks are completely worth their slower speed and higher cost if you are looking for powerful armor units to stack. A TD just cannot compete with the Heavy Tank in realistic scenarios you would have playing this game.
