Denied Air Force versus Denied Artillery

[mdh_slith]

I am about to reach AO 1939 from SCW and am wondering about negative traits. I have seen some posts by players that say 1939 covers all of the artillery purchases you may need and thus can take Denied Artillery for AO 1940. But where does that leave AO 1939? Is Denied Air Force valid or too tough to take? My first playthrough (before my Windows reinstall wiped it) saw me only upgrade a few artillery to 15cm and take 1 20cm artillery piece. Did upgrade my fighters though.

[Vorskl]

I am about to reach AO 1939 from SCW and am wondering about negative traits. I have seen some posts by players that say 1939 covers all of the artillery purchases you may need and thus can take Denied Artillery for AO 1940. But where does that leave AO 1939? Is Denied Air Force valid or too tough to take? My first playthrough (before my Windows reinstall wiped it) saw me only upgrade a few artillery to 15cm and take 1 20cm artillery piece. Did upgrade my fighters though.

I only enabled arty in 1939 to make my shopping; Soviet arty captured in SCW covers all you need, but you cannot leave w/o 21cm german gun, but it in 1939
Denied airforce is a more tricky issue. I played with Airforce in 1940 as you have to deploy many bombers in Dunker and British scenarios. You dont need airforce in 1941

[dalfrede]

I play Denied Art: SCW, AO39, AO40
Denied Airforce: AO40, AO41

[Magni]

New artillery per year, going by memory:
'39 - 15cm SfH, 21cm Mörser, Sturmpanzer I; the SfH can easily be substituted by using captured 15cm arty from the SCW or the French in '39, and the Bison is kinda meh IMO.
'40 - Nothing new for this year at all, I think?
'41 - 17cm K 18 (attractive alternative to 21cm Mörser if you don't have a reduced/zero slot hero), Stug IIIB (very useful assault vehicle and infantry support in the right situations, and extremely cheap slot-wise), Nebelwerfer '41 (kinda eh on towed rockets), Wurfrahmen 40 (excellent mobile rocket arty) and sIG 33 II (Sf) (kinda meh, like the Bison).
'42 - Nebelwerfer 42 (same firepower as Wurfrahmen for one less core slot, but not worth the towed gun disadvantage IMO), StuH 42 (excellent unit, useful in both the assault and AT role)
'43 - Wespe, Hummel, Panzerwerfer and Brummbär (all excellent for mobile operations; wespe is maybe somewhat mediocre, but still good)

Some are only avaiable relatively late in the respective year, though, so you might be better off waiting for next year.

For Denied Air, '39 should be doable, but '40 would be nigh-suicidal especially if you want to go to Seelöwe; AA veteran would be mandatory in that case. '41 would be doable again I think.

[Scrapulous]

On my current playthrough, I went this way:

• SCW: Denied Airforce & Denied Artillery: Captured artillery is plenty, and I like the challenge of using just the biplanes you start with. Captured Soviet aircraft become more important. Getting both of these allowed me to take Battle Academy, which I like in SCW because I want to get as many units as much experience as I can in the first DLC.
• I took Denied Artillery in 1939; at this point I was desperate to upgrade my aircraft and I could live with my existing stockpiles of captured artillery.
• 1940 I took Denied Airforce. At this point I wanted to convert my captured artillery pieces to unlimited German equivalents. There are also a lot of aircraft capture events in 1940, and I felt that my Bf-109Es from last year and the captured planes would be enough. It wound up being fine, although I should mention that my air force contained my best heroes and by the time of Seelowe I was bringing 6 fighter wings along.
• 1941 I took Denied Artillery again. I just wrapped up Yugoslavia, but so far I have no regrets.

I should mention that in all of these years I took Retrograde, Slow Modernization, and Industry Connections. Industry Connections in particular takes some of the bite out of my approach because it mitigates some of the pain of Retrograde and it can mitigate next year's Denied Artillery/Airforce pick if it's different than this year's pick (because you sometimes get models as prototypes that won't become available until next year, and if you get, say, a Ju-88A prototype in 1939, the prototypes don't disappear when you choose Denied Airforce in 1940).

[adiekmann]

I do not play trying to capture everything in sight in SCW. So unless I am fortunate enough to have an Overwhelming attack + Envelopment/Shock Tactics hero combo, I am not going to be swimming in Russian built artillery by the end of Spain. Therefore, in my current play through (I'm at Lille in 1940 at the moment), I upgraded and purchased all the aircraft that I wanted in '39, and bought extra for my reserve too, but played with Denied Artillery. Then in 1940, I also upgrade all of my artillery but played with Denied Air Force. In '41 I will continue to play with Denied Artillery, possibly for the rest of the war. Including the "Land Stuka" you get a the beginning of '40, I have a total of 8 artillery units. No, I rarely get to deploy them all at once, but I'm probably future-proofed and won't need more for at least the foreseeable future.

The reason is based on what is available/new for purchase and upgrade. In the Denmark scenario at the end of '39, you have the Ju 88A available and I make it a point to upgrade all my Strat bombers to that so I won't miss it in '40. But in '41 you have the Bf 109F available and it's a noticeable improvement over the Emil. Plus you have better versions of the Ju 87 available again too.

So, in short, you need to have some knowledge of when various models of equipment become available, decide if it's important enough for you to upgrade, and plan ahead with back up/reserve units so you don't get caught with insufficient numbers of aircraft or artillery, like at Dunkirk.

[Edmon]

So, firstly, Denied Artillery and Denied Airforce only disallow the purchase of these categories. They do not stop you from having either of these things. Therefore, it is a very powerful play to always take Industry Connections in combination with either or both of these traits. Though it is not as useful in SCW, it is still useful because most of the "advanced" stuff that Industry Connections produces is either specialist artillery or new version aircraft, when it isn't giving you useless Spanish units.

There is a lot to be said for the strategy of taking a break from these two traits and loading up on 109's and 15cm/21cm in 1939. This will easily carry you all the way to 1945 in terms of artillery. In terms of aircraft, you will easily reach the end of 1941 and beyond, because you can pick up British aircraft (including the vastly superior to anything you will get, hurricane, in 1940. The spitfire isn't bad either).

You can take both Denied Artillery and Denied Airforce in SCW and rely on encirclement and the artillery/aircraft you started with, to get all your work done. I would not even say it is that hard.



Here are some tips:
1) Killer Team > Readiness. Readiness on a fighter turns Galland or Bar into unstoppable war machines. When you get Hurricanes, their poor air-defense stat becomes irrelevant with a Readiness hero, as the hurricanes big guns always shoot first when defending, turning attacking enemy planes into mincemeat.

2) The 21cm in Seville could literally see you to the end of 1945 with a repair hero and/or if you look after it. Fixed Artillery hardly changes throughout the whole war. Find a moment to load up on 15cm's and your good for counter-battery support and close in defense forever. I managed to farm nearly 90 Spanish 15cm guns.

3) Just to restate, if you are running both of these traits, industry connections is a great first pick for a positive trait. Grabbing AA veteran is also very nice, if you doubt you'll be able to hold the air.

[adiekmann]

I would add to Edmon's suggestions: Put Bär in a Hurricane along with a No Retaliation hero. That negates the relatively low initiative of the Hurricane (its biggest weakness) yet takes full advantage of its superior air attack.

[scott_mathieson]

in my current playthrough i have been working with no artillery' and no airforce, along with collector/retrograde.

In spain this is fine only issue is Ebro as their airforce is difficult to deal with even with anti air vet as your AA isn't that mobile.

in 1939 it was really an issue at all bit harder at times but not game breaking, with retrograde you will be using the gear you started with until you get to Finland

what i have noticed is:

Industry connections becomes a bit like heroes in way a it can bring you alot of help, I haven't got anything artillary/aircraft wise yet and i have just started 1940 but bit more luck would have improved things considerably.

working with minimal airforce and having panzer general selected gives you lots of slot capacity and you will end up with lots of ground unit, in my case due to collector i ended up overstrengthening most of my tanks and recon.

resist the 88mm and other big guns if you have anti air vet the smallest AA guns with the low alttitude perk will shred their fighters and tactical bombers once they start fielding strat bombers those guns will still put enough suppression on them that a single squadron with galland will be enough.

on the positive side no artillery is free points in my opinion, there are plenty of guns to plunder and reuse. you could allow yourself artillary in on one dlc stock up on german 15cm guns and get by on them and gifts etc for rest of the war.
no airforce is also free points if you are happy to play with no airforce or very little and us anti air vet. it is much harder if you want an airforce as its too rare that you can get hold aircraft, theres no equivalent to filed repair hero so supplies will run out when you get gifts and protoypes have same limitation s as well as you needing luck to get them.