Grand Campaign question.

[stormbringer3]

In researching whether to buy this game I came upon a post that stated that when you go from the East to the West in the Campaign you lose a lot of your Core Forces. If this is so, do you recover them when you go back to the East?
Thanks for any help

[BiteNibbleChomp]

In researching whether to buy this game I came upon a post that stated that when you go from the East to the West in the Campaign you lose a lot of your Core Forces. If this is so, do you recover them when you go back to the East?
Thanks for any help

At the end of GC41, you get the choice to go to either 42-43W or 42. After that you are stuck down either the West or East routes.

- BNC

[stormbringer3]

Thanks for the answer about how the campaign works. So, if you go from GC41 to 42 -43W do you lose a lot of your Core Units as that post suggested?
Thanks.

[rubyjuno]

If you choose to go to GC42-43 West after GC41 then you lose a lot of your core units and prestige, although you get to choose which to keep. This is explained at the beginning of the 1st scenario.

If you do as I do and keep at least one save per scenario, you can later go back and reload the last scenario of GC41 and choose GC42 east and go down that route.

[stormbringer3]

Thanks for the info. What kind of hit do you take? A percent guess would be fine. When you do the Campaign is it better to plan your Core for which front you want to play after GC 1941 or is it something not to worry about?

[hugh2711]

stormbringer 3: "When you do the Campaign is it better to plan your Core for which front you want to play after GC 1941 or is it something not to worry about?"

For the grand campaign BOTH east and west you taper your decisions right from the beginning in 1939 first scenario to take account of the later years in BOTH paths. In both paths I would say from gc39 it pays to only have your SE units as tanks (available as SE from oslo onwards) due to the softcap and other considerations. In both for whatever units you have you use the earlier campaigns gc39, 40 and 41 to 'farm' experience and heroes as this will make the difference in the later more difficult campaings (the exact reasons have been discussed at length in lots of threads). By farm i mean build up as much as possible your experience and 'kills'. If you press control L and look at the calculations after a combat you will see 'experience' as very important and giving your unit an edge, the amount of kills will lead to heroes which makes for tougher units that take less losses.
For example some of the earlier scenarios are very easy and can be finished early however I would refrain from taking that last primary objective while I do some strafing with my fighters to build up experience using up the spare turns untill the end, taking the last primary objective on the last turn with the single unit i have left next to it. I actually use the same trick in the second scenario of gc42/43 west - you will see why in dieppe

another E.G. I would get an 88mm anti aircraft unit right at the beginning and use it as an anti-tanks unit to build up kills to get heroes and experience so that in some of the tougher later gc scenarios it is heroes and much stronger (a range +1 88 is incredible AA)
another e.g. I use at the beginning the he11h2 strat bomber as when upgraded later on it become the biggest ship-kiler strat bomber and use it to finish off units on a river etc to build up its kill count and experience when I could easily use another unit.

all these kind of schemes of course should not be done at the expense of prestige/losses which you should be accumulating. They will also depend on your own style of play etc, e.g. some people like a stronger airforce when playing.

When choosing between the west and east paths you only take 9 units west BUT as those campaigns go on you will find you will be given and capture lots of other units anyway so you effectively build up a new 'core'. you will find when you choose that the most usefull units are the ones with the most heroes and experience. you will have to build up and airforce quickly as historically and in the game the west was more air-centric.
I usually take:
super-rudel (he can destroy anything! I take him as a fighter bomber so he can double as an extra fighter aswell) the (freebie) A+2 i+2 D+1 fighter and the A=1 i+6 fighter bomber you get in 'spoils of war'. I convert any range +1 artilliary I have into wurfrahmen and I take 2. I take ALL the SE units (which dont count towards the 9 ) which are tanks and one other ordinary tank - whichever one has the best experience and heroes. I take the Movement +3 hero (oleh dir?) you get in the sceond scenario of gc39 and whatever is my next toughest infantry.
in both paths east and west I am always looking online to the "captured units thread" and the heroes list thread. In fact it is bookmarked in my browser

In both paths right from the beginning I dont usually use captured i.e. foriegn units in scenarios as they are a technological dead end not worth investing time in (so i convert them to prestige) HOWEVER there are a few exceptions where because of a good hero they are worth spending the prestige to completely convert e.g. in a gc44west cenario you capture a sherman firefly with a + 2 movment hero. If you have farmed your tanks properly up to then it should not be something special BUT IFF you convert it to a king tiger in gc45west a king tiger with a +2 movement is great!.

One of the interesting things about the game is the comparison between the two paths, the western path is evolutionarily technically faster but with a smaller number of units. By the end they are about the same size and strength. In fact I have to say i prefer the western path!

[rubyjuno]

You're not going to like this

I think you can pick 9 units to keep (I had over 40) - but you should have 4 SE units by then and they don't count so you get to keep all of those. I also had over 40,000 prestige and it was reduced to about 1,500 after a couple of turns. At the start I used my prestige for elite replacements and over-strength (and upgrades if any were available, but I don't recall) - as you lose it there's no point scrimping. Hope that helps.

[stormbringer3]

I just bought the game. Thanks for your help everyone.

[TSPC37730]

I just bought the game. Thanks for your help everyone.

Excellent. I think in the end you will find that your gaming dollars were well spent.