Hi I'm new here and I have a question…

[RiceAndChine]

Hi there,

I have been reading in your fine forums for quite some time now (say 2 months or so…) and I really enjoy the interesting ideas I find. Be it the infantry-push mechanic or the value of strafing, it improved my play A LOT.
But reading this thread:
?topic=12021.15 ( I only posted the end because I am not allowed to post links ;)
left me baffled with a question regarding the infantry push mechanics and tanks.

So lets say I play germany and I have been building 8-10inf / turn and maybe did a baltic AC for slowing the allies purposes (I mean it wont hold long, but you can buy maybe 1-2 rounds of trouble for the sup�ply lines for only 16 ipc) and therefor let all of them march towards russia.

I would try to put them all in relatively even stacks from balkans to belo, maybe even karelia, to maximize my deadzones and minimize the russian possibilities for counterattacks and trade terretories until Japan arrives (this assumes a KGF).

I then would have to build 2 rounds of infantry for europe because of the allies and at that point start to maybe get 1 round of fighters (because of the defensive value and depending on the allies approach (much vs strong)) but from that point on the infantry stacks are high enough to absorb the brunt of the first round attacks/defenses.

Wouldn’t then tanks be the ultimate choice vs. infantry, because of their range?
As long as you need every zone filled with at least some units they only matter as support, but in the lategame (say turn 8+) the fact that they can reinforce makes up for the lack in Hitpoints imho.
Any thoughts on that?

Thanks

Ps.: I read somewhere that there is a possibility to search some subforums, but i couldnt find the magnifying glass…

[Xan]

Short answer: tanks are best land attack unit in the game.

I could be wrong, since in my play group we are just learning the fine art of infantry pushes, but I prefer to do this:

1. Build infantry
2. Use/build planes for swapping territories, since they can retreat and therefore never need to die.
3. Build tanks for taking and holding territories. They attack the same as planes, but you can build 2 for the same cost- so double the attack strength. Two tanks at 3, vs one plane at 4, makes tanks better at defending as well. They can also help defend a newly acquired territory, whereas planes must retreat. Trade off is they can’t hit boats or change from one front to another as quickly.

Those rules change for amphibious assaults. 1 infantry + 1 tank = $8, attack at 1+3=4. 1 infantry + 1 artillery = $7, attack at 2+2=4. So in amphibious assaults, inf and art can be more economical than tanks. Course, if you lose the inf, you cut your attack in half, but if you take inf and tank, losing the inf only cuts 1 off your attack. Also, tanks defend the newly acquired territory better than art. So tanks vs art depends a bit on your income and the circumstances of the amphibious attack.

Other thoughts, people?

[Tall Paul]

Gentlemen,

You both have grasped the main points of land combat pieces. I would simply like to point out a very important idiom:

Use your Tanks/Fighters/Bombers for the “main punch”,…but ALWAYS have enough Infantry to suffer losses in your attack, and then the enemies counter-attack so your “main punch” suffer no losses.

I’ve seen some players go “Tank crazy” and buy ONLY Tanks as much as they could. Soon, their potent offensive runs out of steam because they begin suffering losses of their Tanks. That’s when it gets “ugly” for them. Remember,…A&A is as much an economic game as it is a military game.

So remember, there is no unit more important in it’s use than a sufficient number of Infantry to suffer losses for you. They’re cheap, usefull, and make it possible for the Tanks/Fighters/Bombers to do their thing.

“Tall Paul”

[MrMalachiCrunch]

You almost always end up trading 1 or more territories where there is 1-2 infantry on it and you want to have 1 of your land units on it.  You put all the air you can into these battles if they are the only combat occurring and generally as many land units +1 as the enemy.    You don’t want to use and leave tanks for this so you generally always need a few infantry built per round.  Always exceptions to the builds, ie a round or 2 before a final offensive or a chance to overload a front and force the enemy to back off a territory by building all tanks.  I do often see very aggressive players running out of infantry to use as fodder.

[DWoodchuck]

Tall Paul points out something very important.  Remember that the armies of the time were very infantry-centric.  This is reflected in their ability to bolster the effect of an attack by virtue of numbers and in how they absorb casualties.  As an abstract conceptualization of the historical reality, it works pretty well.  The long and short of it– there is almost always a need for infantry, and there is a major need to constantly ferry fresh infantry to the front to prevent the losses to expensive heavy hitters.

[Kreuzfeld]

I didn’t read it all, but as germany, what you wanna do is make a superstack and scirmish, same as USSr.

infantery is the MOST offensive unit of the game, while tanks are the most DEFENSIVE unit of the game.

Think about it, a good opponent will never alowe you to hit his stack and win the game, so to be able to advance, you need to be strong enough to move next to your opponents big stack, then he will retreat to his reinforcements, and you need to build enough infantry to be able to stand next to him again.

In essence, to be able to take new terretories, you need to have enough infantry to actually be able to hold it against counterattacks.

tanks on the other hand is a GREAT defencive weapon. Imagine russia with 20 tanks (+10 inf) in moscow, 15 inf in cauc and  50 inf in w russia.

at this point, the german is not able to stack next to cauc because you have too much of a punch there, if you are lucky, the japanese need to have about 30 tanks to be able to stand in persia, (which means you can get the tank+ inf stacks in africa to russian homeland). and if japan is to advance to nonsibirsk, then you have a good counterattack there. in fact it does not matter if your tanks are in moscow, w russia or cauc, from all those terrs they can prevent the axis from holding any of the most important terretories on the map. the tanks are not there to advance and take berlin, but to prevent the axis to stack in one of the teretories next to your most important ones, thereby forcing you to chose which one to hold.

so, tanks are defencive, inf are agressive units.

artillery is not as good.

we have similar examples for germany, if germany have 30 tanks in e/europe, then it is more or less impossible for the allied to land safe, there will always be a counterattack strong enough to wipe the allied landingparty off the map. Germanys main need for inf is to keep berlin, scirmish and keep the tanks safe. (we assume the allies are able to stop germans from ever having a real shot at cauc).

The great strength of tanks is NOT their stats, but their MOVEMENT. and infantry standing in moscow can only reach 6 other terretories, while a tank standing in moscow can reach 12 terretories, which means that any axis stack in any of those terretories has to be strong enough to withstand the tankstack in moscow.

when I build units with ussr, I build (after round 2) about 5-8 inf / tank I build 0 artys. with japan, I try to mix inf/tanks, with more inf early and swich to tank only when inf no longer will reach important battles in time (assuming I built ICs).

with USA I try to buildabout 6 inf 1 tank 1 art per 3 transports. with UK I more or less mix according to the on map situation.

[DarthMaximus]

@RiceAndChine:

Wouldn’t then tanks be the ultimate choice vs. infantry, because of their range?

Tanks are important, but as the others have said you need plenty of infantry to absorb any losses.

What an IPM approach allows you to do is take territories without a battle.  You leverage your shear numbers (both attack threat potential and defensive numbers) and force your opponent back.  You only need enough offense to prevent your opponent from doing the same to you and in the case of Germany after round 1 you’ll have 4-5 ftrs, 1 bom, and a half dozen tanks or so.  You don’t need any more offense.  You need fodder!
So with IPM you want to start getting as many units on the board as possible and start shifting the deadzones out (moving them closer to Russia).
First you stack EE, then you look to move that stack to Bel.  From here Russia has a choice, defend Kar or flee to Wrus.  They will likely eventually move back to Wrus since that is far more important and the Bel stack can threaten Wrus directly as well.  So now you’ve gained Kar and have successfully deadzoned it since any units that land there can be hit by your EE or Bel stacks.  Wrus is usually a tough nut to crack so your next target is either the shift of your EE stack to Kar or the movement of the Bel stack to Ukr, EE stack to Bel, Ger stack to EE.  Here you threaten Cauc and Wrus.  Again Russia must choose which to defend and thus you’ll gain another deadzone and find you next target (either Cauc or Wrus).

B/c of your tanks movement you can station them in France (for defense) with the least amount of infantry possible to deter attack.  Then as you move your infantry from Ger to EE to Bel to Ukr in 3 turns you can get your armor there in two.  1 turn to EE, 1 turn to ukr (or wrus).  Although you may need to keep them in EE for protection and to help deter an assault on Fra.  As you move your armor out of Fra, you may need to shift more ftrs there for defense.  But their movement still allows trading on the Eastern front.  Typically 2 ftrs in fra, 2 in EE would allow swapping of postions during each attack phase depending on where you need your strong defenders.

On the flip side Russia will be trying to push its way to Bel which will hold Germany progress at EE and then you just wait for the UK/US numbers to add up and push to EE.  The Russian stacks will then go from Cauc/Mos to Wrus to Bel.  So your armor should be stationed in Wrus.  Not only to threaten Germany from advancing but can also reach the backside of Russia to protect against Japan.

The bottom line is it is cheaper to defend, 3 ipcs get you a defensive roll of 2.  In order to “kill” that unit the other side must spend more than 3 ipcs.  Larger scale battles put the ratio at 3:4 or 5 in terms of what the attacker needs to spend.  So it is just cheaper and easier to move defensive stacks forcing your opponent to spend more to try and kill you.  The simple way to look at it is to kill an inf you’d need at least 1 rt to attack.  Even 2 inf plus planes costs 6 ipc.  :wink: