Favorite Unit?

Yeah, my simple point is that you can’t just count the number of infantry; you have to factor in the cost. It’s about cost. You don’t say rulers are more valuable than a house even though you probably can and have bought more rulers than houses. It’s like saying you value infantry more if you spend 6 IPCs on 2 of them rather than 24 on one battleship.

ok i know that the price dropped on fighters, but i think that tanks still have the best value. they atack and defend at three, common. fighters are very nice with jet power however.
dp nightmare out

So then in combat you got one fighter attacking my 4 infantry… according to that you think its a better idea to invest in a fighter? Other way around … you have 4 infantry… now would you not attack a lone fighter with a chance to kill it and lose 1-2 men ? if you answer yes to either question then Infantry is the most value as a unit with all other things being equal.

On the matter of the other chaps query… The value of one battle ship vs. 8 infantry with all other considerations being equal. I can get more done with 8 infantry than i could ever get done with just a BB. This is not to say that you may need both. But the decision with all other factors weighed with equal consideration gives infantry the nod every time. Final thought- The axis win by having many land units (infantry), and not with a large navy, while the allies need a naval force insofar as they can ship (infantry and tanks) to the mainland. But the victory will allways be on land. Planes are just a utility to augment both types of forces as they accomplish the land victory.

That’s a poor example with 4 infantry vs 1 plane. First, it’d be more like 3 infantry vs 1 plane for more equal IPC cost. Secondly, this is pointless when you’re not considering naval nations. I’ve already said a million times that infantry is easily the most valuable unit for Germany and Russia who have to prosecute large land wars. That’s never been the argument. For some reason you still argue that infantry is the most valuable for everyone, when this is most certainly not true.

Even if you just count the number of infantry for US/UK/Japan, you do not build more numerical infantry than other units, much less spend more IPCS on them. This is because you have to use transports to get land troops anywhere, so you are building infantry in equal numbers with tanks. You honestly would load transports with 2 infantry rather than 1 infantry 1 tank? In that case then yes infantry would be more valuable if people actually did that, but that’s not the case. You don’t build primarily infantry as naval nations, ever, unless you’re fighting a last ditch effort and you’re going to lose anyways. You’re busy matching 1 infantry with 1 tank, and tanks cost more, so tanks are the more valuable, and if you had the opportunity you would put 2 tanks in the transport since you need to muscle your way through and space is limited so it’s not a question of which unit is cheap fodder more like you need quality units in the transports.

Infantry is obviously most valuable if you don’t have to use transports and your deployment limits are high compared to your income (Germany/Russia). For other nations you’re busy building equal numbers of infantry as tanks, and you’re busy constructing navy too, so infantry can’t be considered the most valuable for those nations. If you’re doing amphibious assaults you don’t try to attack with mass infantry because you need good muscle, and because space is limited on transports you need all the muscle you can pack in.

I cant afford to buy 2 tanks for every transport i buy,because once i got about 8-10 transports for say like the naval powers of Japan, UK and USA i simply cannot afford to make 16 to 20 units in tanks, while still providing all the other requirements of my nation. So i have to use cheaper substitutes such as a highter number of tanks relative to infantry. This will allow me to use Infantry as soak ups when the Tanks attack. I NEVER buy more tanks than infantry, because Infantry have to soak up in combat actions. I lose tempo when i am spending nearly twice as much money getting an army thats 1/2 the size. Tanks are the second most valuable piece, because they can quickly take empty territories and push my Infantry stacks across new distant enemy lands. Basically, for every 10 infantry id think you need 5 tanks. In order to push down an enemy stack of say 8 infantry, id say attack with 8 infantry and 4 tanks. That will give you the best net gain in destroyed units per attack units value invested. This is the heart of what im getting at. You have to create tempi, by the accumulation of small advantages over time. The advantage comes into play when you invest the smallest amount to provide the greatest return on your investment. In the above example we have 8 infantry and 4 tanks attacking 8 infantry…. thats 44 Ip investment against 24 Ip investment.
Now then, if i take your route i can expect to buy more pieces that cost more since your saying items like tanks are more necessary to win with. So we then do the opposite and buy 4 infantry and 8 tanks which now cost us 52 IP . After the battle we lose most of our infantry and our tanks are now exposed to counterattacks w/o adequate fodder. But we also tie up an additional 8 ip that could be spent elsewhere … perhaps on another transport or a fighter or more land units. This is what we call lost tempi and when we accumulate this over time it results in lost tempo for my nation and i am suspect for long term weakness which can cost me a positional advantage and quite possibly the war.
I accept your point but i dont accept its conclusion. All the other pieces are valuable in their own right, while infantry is the staple of the game.

You can’t buy 2 tanks per transport. The limit is one infantry and one tank. I accept that you may not buy more tanks than infantry as naval nations, but I also find it very difficult to believe that you buy more infantry than tanks, because the transport ratio is 1:1 and you want to squeeze in as many tanks as you can with that sort of ratio; it is to me a waste of time to put 2 infantry on board unless you’re fighting a purely holding action. If you had 8 transports as UK, then that’d be pointless since UK’s deployment limit is 8 units anyways; the most transports you’d need is 4 because 4 transports x 2 units = 8 units total. The only reason you’d have so many transports is if you’re saving up for a big attack, and even in that case you wouldn’t be concerned with building 16-20 tanks because transports can’t hold 2 tanks.

I am building as Japan one factory on the mainland where i build tanks only and my transports only carry men. As United states building both, but i gotta have a majority of those units as infantry, so that i dont lose any expensive tanks. Of course i have to buy trannys, fighters, destroyers, and carriers in more limited quantities to protect my sea lanes. At the end of the game if i counted each piece from all 5 nations combined i believe id see more infantry than any other unit. I have never seen more planes or tanks in any event. That leads me to conclude that they were the most needed because they were the most abundant. Tanks usually come in second, followed by artillery

I chose “this question is stupid” :-? It is stupid because you couldn’t choose Transports. Without them you can’t do anything. Your precious infantry can’t swim across the English Channel nor the Atlantic. Whthout them the allies can do nothing. They are the units that make winning the war possible. Transports are the most important units of the game, period.

And now, who would only buy infantry in this game? Sure, INF are the backbone of your army, but nothing equals a well balanced force. You build infantry to lose them, nothing else!

"Feld"marshall Hartmann (I’m just going to assume this is a pun of some sort and not a horrible misspelling), IMHO I do believe you are wrong on both counts.

I chose “this question is stupid” It is stupid because you couldn’t choose Transports. Without them you can’t do anything. Your precious infantry can’t swim across the English Channel nor the Atlantic. Whthout them the allies can do nothing. They are the units that make winning the war possible. Transports are the most important units of the game, period.

So what exactly are you going to move in your ‘precious’ transports? Inf can’t cross SZs and transports need something to transport, so apparently you need both (note, this does not agree with your ‘balanced force’ theory- more on this latter).

If you’re assuming the question implies that you can only buy one type of unit, I would definitely go with only buying infantry. Only buying transports would mean that you can only move the ground units you start with. This is not enough to win the game by a long shot. If you could buy only inf than at least Russia can put up a good fight against the Axis. Can you imagine the game if Russia couldn’t buy infantry???

For the record I don’t think the question assumed you could only buy 1 type of unit, just that it was asking what unit had the greatest overall value (aka what unit is most important to winning).

And now, who would only buy infantry in this game? Sure, INF are the backbone of your army, but nothing equals a well balanced force. You build infantry to lose them, nothing else!

You care to back up this ‘well-balanced force’ theory up with some actual numbers? Let’s each buy up any units we want with 60 IPCs. I’ll buy only inf and you buy any mix of units you wish. I will win >99% of the time on defense. I’m not doing very badly on offense either. All infantry might lose on offense but it will be close and it will never be as bad as a mix of units will lose on offense.

Who said you can only buy one type of unit? Who says we have to buy 60 IPC worth of units each? I’ve never played a game of Axis like that. Generally, a stockpile of infantry is never alone in a game. It’s the side with most tanks, fighters and bombers that wins. What I know is that if there is a fleet of american and British transports, next to UK, I’ll think twice before sending more troops to the east front as the german player.

Feld, the only way you can logically connect your statement…

Whthout them the allies can do nothing.

to the question at hand, which is…

Which unit do you think holds the most overall value? (including price, abilities, atk/def, etc.)

is if you assume that the question implies an all-or-nothing scenario (i.e. that you can only buy 1 type of unit).

‘Without (transports) the allies can do nothing’ is logically the same as ‘transports are needed for the allies to win the game.’

Can’t you see how the 2 statements ‘transports are needed to win the game’ (your position) and ‘transports have the most overall value’ (which could be an answer to the question of this forum) are totally dissimilar statements logically and neither one implies the other?

For example Feld, to win against a competent opponent you need transports. This does not logically necessitate that transports have the most overall value because you also ‘need’ other units too, including infantry. Now let’s take the converse, Feld. If someone thinks inf have the most overall value this does not logically necessitate that you need inf to win the game (although if certainly implies it!). Maybe you can win the game by using the unit with the second-best overall value and overall better strategy than your opponent (this is hard but logically possible). This is why needing a unit and that unit having the best overall value are not logically connected. To make a logical connection I had to fill in the blank with assuming you thought the question asked that ‘if you could only buy one type of unit, what unit would it be.’

Moving on Feld, the simplist way to determine which unit has the best overall attack/ defense value is to assume you buy nothing but that unit with a certain amount of IPCs (say 60) and use it against the same amount of IPCs spent on another type of unit. Then put the two types against each other and see which type of unit most likely wins. This is the hypothetical scenario I was proposing in the last post. True Feld, it is a hypothetical, but it is the easiest way to make conclusions that can be applied to the real game. If you don’t like this method, perhaps you would like to another method to mathematically convince to me which unit (or mix of units) has the best attack/ defense value???

It’s the side with most tanks, fighters and bombers that wins.

This came out of the blue. Care to convince me of this Feld?

Bye, Feld.

I agree hes basically saying that Infantry is the most value as a unit without realizing it. He admits that :

It’s the side with most tanks, fighters and bombers that wins.

So by inference these units will win if you have tons of Infantry to soak up the battle scars while the goodies are screened from combat loses. I am sure he doesnt think these units fight alone without support of many additional Infantry units taking it on the chin every turn. This self defines Infantry as having the most value because its utilitarian contribution in many facets of game include many more of them to be involved in any big attack. Anybody who has more planes or tanks than infantry will lose in the long run, because they will be placed in harms way which costs more to replace.

Most overall value. I see… And how could you mobilise 20 INF in a same space in a turn? Germany has 10, Moscow has 8, and even in the mighty US there are only 22 points total mobilisation in 2 different spaces. They will take two turns to form a single pile. If this isn’t VALUE to you, I wonder what it is.

The game is played turn by turn. it takes time to build up the real army before you attack. Like in Chess you have to first mobilize your army and conduct movements that create the biggest tempo. If the horse comes out before the buggy your in for a defeat.

Nothing quite as valuable as the R1 Battleship! :P

I think “overall value” includes possibility of mobilisation. Don’t you agree? Go ahead and buy 60 IPC’s worth of infantry. Good luck to mobilise them though. This game is not a science, it’s an art. Numbers may favour infantry in a purely -out of context situation- but everyone knows that infantry are cannon fodder, nothing more…

bye duke

I think “overall value” includes possibility of mobilisation. Don’t you agree?

yes. all factors including mobilization (yes, it’s with a ‘z’… go america!) have been included in my analysis. even factoring in mobilization, the infantry are the best unit. they are that good on attack and defense.

Go ahead and buy 60 IPC’s worth of infantry. Good luck to mobilise them though.

not that i need much luck, the infantry get to move 1 per turn no matter what. luck doesn’t play much of a part in it. A few turns is pretty much all it takes to move across asia or between moscow and berlin. that’s not that bad in the long war of attrition. thank you for the encouragement anyway.

This game is not a science, it’s an art.

newsflash, it’s both. just like most things in this world.

Numbers may favour infantry in a purely -out of context situation- but everyone knows that infantry are cannon fodder, nothing more…

infantry are so much more. if they’re just fodder than play your next game with your infantry attacking and defending at 0, but still able to be hit (ie fodder), and see how you do against your opponent who still gets infantry attacking and defending normally. huh, perhaps they’re more than just fodder after all?

bye duke

bye feldy.

There is no place on the map you can mobilize 60 IPC’s worth of infantry in a single space. So I don’t think your example works. And admit that face to face in a combat, infantry stinks. Say you have 3 infantry and I have 3 tanks…who wins?