Returning player - what's the verdict on Axis Operations?

[econ21]

I bought the Spanish Civil War DLC when it came back but did not get into it as my old computer struggled with the graphics. I now have a new computer and there is the Steam sale so was wondering about other DLCs. What do players think of them? I loved the PzC Grand Campaign and liked some of the innovations of the PzC2 base game such as heroes and commendations (although being an old timer, preferred the cleaner 2D look of PzC).

On an unrelated question - can you upgrade captured and gifted units to regular German ones (e.g. once they become obsolete or spare parts run out)? The FAQ talking about four classes of units (core, aux, captured and gifted) left me a little confused on that.

Also - does anyone have a link to a good thread discussing the best traits? I found some good ones on best heroes.

Thanks for any opinions and advice.

[RVallant]

Steam/Casual reviews: Mixed, I guess.

Overall verdict in my opinion: The Axis Operations are very good. They have a good mix of the major battles, some unusual incidents that you might not have considered (French Saar Offensive for example) and a good mix of Air only operations, some theoretical a-historical operations, for example; a theoretical early Sealion scenario based on war-game simulation results.

Around 1943, you start to get a split in the timeline, roughly around Stalingrad and Kursk battles. If you 'win' them conventionally, you can elect to stay on the historical timeline where you go on to lose.

If you trigger some conditions (I won't spoil it) you'll trigger an alternative history timeline where you get to see a theoretical alternative war. So, by 1943 you have two different storylines to go through.

Yes, storylines. Although you're the General, you have Wagner as your staff officer, and they use him to relate the story of the German officers in your army. Wagner's fortunes tie in with the campaign's fortunes, and showcase how the soldiers feel about the war on a personal level, as well as showcasing tactical options (he is quite clever, he should be a general I think), and Ana Sofia (who you meet in the SCW) showcases the impact of the war on civilians.

The AO is very good in terms of scenario variety, but also in terms of educating about certain aspects of the war, they've done a very good job in pointing out why Germany won/lost each scenario you fight in, and because they've got their little character storylines going on, you have a consistent theme and story behind everything in a historical context.

So, overall, I do think it is worth getting them all. SCW and 1939 are the most 'controversial' on Steam, because SCW requires you to give up the infantry war ~ it is easy to work around though, and 1939 tackles unknown theatres, like French Saar rather than focusing 100% on Poland, so people got upset over that for some reason.


To answer your other question;

Yes you can upgrade captured and gifted units into German ones at any point in the campaign. Auxiliary units are important in SCW but by 1944 I don't think it's used much at all anymore, so you don't really need to worry about those.

Captured units are something you want to do because Soviet tanks are usually superior to your Panzers. And capturing units makes you very rich, which is important for all those elite replacements!

Gift units are worthwhile because they're usually either niche, or very powerful for the time period. You can swap them into other German units at any time, and you usually will have to when they become obsolete, usually because their defensive stats make them a liability later on basically.

So, there's no penalties there, enjoy them all.

As for hero traits, I think there is a big topic about it on here somewhere, but you'll find no one ever agrees on anything as it is a matter of playstyle.

Usually, Double Attack and Double move heroes are superb on Tactical bombers (a good source of anti-tank attack basically), whilst camouflage is usually put on AT or fighters (for surprise attacks), but nearly everything will work and have its niche, feel free to play around with them.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

The most unique feature of gifted unit is that they don't need spare parts for repair when you play with the new Limited Stock feature, in which your normal German equipment also become limited like captured ones, and you only receive some new parts by each scenario with this feature on. Of course you can upgrade your gifted units to something else, the only downside is the fact that you won't be able to get it back again.

Edmon has posted one video on Youtube talking about how he ranks all the traits, but it includes ALL traits, that is, those you won't get as a hero are also in the ranking. He does explain how each of them works, which should help you to understand how to use them and have your own idea about it. As RVallant said, some traits are definitely stronger than the others, but it's up to your playstyle to actually decide if they are that important, because some of the combinations are indeed niche enough to make certain people like or hate them for various reasons.

[Ryba666]

I think overall AO Campaign is good, it have some very good moments, sometimes meh. Uniques heroes for your units which are mostly historical characters are nice gol to accomplish. Weakest from this all DLCs are imho AO 1944, lost opportunity to create 2 DLCs (historial and ahistorical), year which was full big interesting battles and smaller operations on both fronts is shorter than AO 1939 when war lasted only few months, really devs?

But for other point of view AO1945 was good (at lest for historical path) DLC, imho top DLCs are: AO 1940-AO 1943