I achieved decisive victory on regular, lost some arvins, one US inf, an engineer, and a Huey in total.
Your most important units are engineers. At the start of the game, have one engineer make a beeline for the spot of your main fire base. I would also clear forests and make roads along the way if possible and if that does not cause a turn delay.
Another engineer should spam a forward base near the HQ, have your Green Beret walk in and start training Arvins (theses guys rock so hard it is unbelievable. Better intel, no PP malus if lost, can hold their own when ambushing or with some exp.) Your green beret is also very important and hard to replace. ONce the 2 arvins are out, move the beret to another forward base and repeat. The 2 arvins would be enough to visit and hold the two nearest villages.
Once the main firebase is done, your engineers should clear the forests in order to make roads to link up villages to your bases. Your HQ plus initial arvins can usual hold 2 villages. Make sure the main firebase has easy access to 5 villages (2 turn access via APCs, heli if needed). Save for a chinook.
Move your arty piece to the main fire base.
Once other arvins come out, have them make tours of nearby villages.
With 7 villages being held, you are on your way. Around this time you might get NVA intervention with tanks. Use air strikes or tanks if needed. I did not buy any Apaches, nor any armour, and my arty piece was almost always out of position. Which meant that I would often detect but have no one to respond.
I am scared of RPG ambushes, since I don't think I can ever get to them without mechanized transport, and they shoot at choppers or APCs. I usually had an airstrike deal with them.
When most villages are connected, build some forward bases, have your arvins in ambush there. These forward bases should be in the way of the Ho Chin Ming Trail. When you see the fire, go visit, then back to base. your choppers seems to resupply everyone in a base at one time.
Once the situation for the seven villages have stabilized, push with arvins and US inf and engineers to clear and build roads to the last 2. You will want the escort because likely the NVA base is there as you have left these alone for 20 or so turns! Have an airstrike handy to hit the base. I don't know how the base fired upon my discovering troops, but as I had no movement, I had to airstrike or lose an US inf.
At these point all your arvins in your rear will visit and reveal no new intel, likely because you have been killing so many VC. It is pretty much wait until the game is over.
i think I need to find a way to spare some points for a QRF, like tanks or an Apache. I spent most of my points on supplies, movement, bases, repairs, logistics and engineers. Thank god for those arvins.
Now time for Veteran!
This captures the flavour of COIN very well, my only gripe is there doesn't seem to be a way to deny access to the villages. It seems the VC will always get through, and all you can do is have guys on ambush (or waste your green beret trying to detect them). Clearing forests also does not seem to help in detection, which makes no sense. If I see a group of people out of the village, that is pretty much Vietcong. For example, if you see a large group of people in the middle of the desert, that is extremely strange, but the same large group in a large city is not so strange. So a large group of people on the edge of the forest on a grassy field far from villages is pretty much guaranteed to be VC. So if I clear off the forest, I think I should see this group sooner, but they seem to waltz in in stealth mode even with cleared forests. The NVA also has stealth mode, which is strange as I thought they were regulars.
