Slitherine

I've very belatedly started playing Axis Operations. I just finished the Spanish Civil War, which was awesome, and am up to Poland in 1939. I wonder for long term planning, given the core slots in later DLCs, what you should be working towards in terms of the size of your Corps?

Following Horseman's AARs and other discussions of historical core composition, I think of a Panzer division in game as 2-3 Panzer units, 2-3 infantry and 2-3 artillery with recon, AT and AA supports. In the base PC2 campaign, I tended to have 2 divisions by 1943 whereas in the PC1 grand campaign DLC, I had three (2 vanilla and one made up around SE troops). The biggest PC1 DLC scenario I recall was Prokhorovka where it was set up that you have three relatively self-contained combat groups (historically, the Leibstandarte, Das Reich, and Totenkopf SS Panzer divisions).

In SCW, I did not form divisions per se as you have no infantry and it doesn't seem to fit. The 1939 scenarios so far are big enough to deploy two divisions as conceived above. But I tend to be bad at building up an experienced reserve in the low power early game and suspect I will need spare veterans to fill out my roster later in the war. PC1 also tended to become more tank heavy in the endgame, which I suspect may still be true of PC2 as tank stats improve far more than infantry ones. Thanks for any advice!

Don't worry about your armored core too early, you can easily farm four Steamroller awards across just four scenarios using a specific Flame Tank strategy.

1. The Valona Setup (Late 1940)
During the Valona scenario, opt for the Italian equipment.

The Build: Create or upgrade to a Flame Tank.

The Hero: Assign a Hit and Run or No Retaliation hero immediately. This is crucial—if you take return damage, you lose the chance for an overrun until you’ve actually earned the Steamroller award.

The Tactic: Push to the upper-left sector. You'll find plenty of infantry caught in the open. Use your Flame Tank to farm easy overruns here.

2. Thessaloniki (1941)
In the Thessaloniki scenario, Flame Tanks become available in unlimited quantities.

At the right aspect of the field, place units at the two river crossings to the right to encircle the enemy army. Once they're trapped and suppressed, send in your Flame Tanks for overruns.

The Result: You can promote two completely green tanks to Steamroller status in this single scenario just by racking up overruns on the trapped units.

You can also send a third Flame Tank to the left. It’s a bit more involved, but you can pull off another Steamroller award there.

Edit: 2 scenarios later, there's the Totally Not Poland training scenario, where you can make them 5-star.

econ21 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 26, 2026 11:05 am
Following Horseman's AARs and other discussions of historical core composition, I think of a Panzer division in game as 2-3 Panzer units, 2-3 infantry and 2-3 artillery with recon, AT and AA supports.

The question is how are you playing the game, which settings? Are you playing "story mode" just for fun? Then is doesnt matter.
Are you playing on hard, always searching for challenges you wont succeed with "historical correctness". Tanks are getting more important, especially if you are farming heroes and start to create strong hero combinations you almost dont need anything else.
The good (or bad?) thing in this game is, in 1940/1941 you have anything you need. With upgrading units you will consume more coreslots, so you wont buy units >1940/1941.
Iirc I was running 6-7 tanks in the lategame. Sometimtes you get some elite units during the campaign, thats the main reason when my core is getting bigger. You you tend to lose units and dont use "old guards" trait it could be wise to run some more tanks, to have some in reserve.

BarbarianHunter wrote: ↑Thu Feb 26, 2026 5:20 pm Don't worry about your armored core too early, you can easily farm four Steamroller awards across just four scenarios using a specific Flame Tank strategy.

No offense, but if you have to use some tactics in late 1940 to get the steamroller award you are doing something wrong.
I easily get my first steamroller in SCW, the latest units get it vs poland in 1939.
Tank + recon combination should be enough to farms some easy kills. No need for flame tanks, who only got 3 ammunition.

Thanks, 6-7 tanks woulde probably constitute two divisions in my mind. Another way to ask the question, is how many battle groups do scenarios typically encourage? So far, I found dividing my forces into two battle groups that head off to different objectives usually works well. PC1 DLC Prokhorovka required three, along with a large core, so building up three self-contained battlegroups or divisions made sense in that grand campaign.

In terms of how I play, I try to make broadly historical compositions work but don't play on the hardest difficulties. PC1 Grand campaign was a blast for me up and including 1943 but then it became clear - as Kerensky put it - my historical core would suffer their historical fate, albeit aided by JS1/JS2 spam. PC2 is a bit different in that it encourages fielding catpured tanks, especially in SCW where Panzer Is struggle against T-26s (as they did historically), so my 1939 core is not as authentic as it should be. I also picked industry connections, which gave me fun prototypes, although keeping them running without replacements is a challenge. By Warsaw, I had to bench some of them and swop in SCW veterans.

DefiantXYX wrote: ↑Fri Feb 27, 2026 7:45 am No offense, but if you have to use some tactics in late 1940 to get the steamroller award you are doing something wrong.
I easily get my first steamroller in SCW, the latest units get it vs poland in 1939.
Tank + recon combination should be enough to farms some easy kills. No need for flame tanks, who only got 3 ammunition.

No offense taken .

The difference is your recon converted tanks are engaging an active enemy in a fluid battlefield, while mine are essentially fighting target dummies in a controlled (Valona) or static environment (Thessaloniki, immobile/suppressed/no ammo).
Plus: You lose an experienced recon unit. I create a green flame tank from scratch (Ignores Entrenchment for easy overrun on entrenched infantry).

OP stated, "But I tend to be bad at building up an experienced reserve in the low power early game and suspect I will need spare veterans to fill out my roster later in the war." I didn't say anything about need. It never hurts to have extra 5-star units with Steamroller in reserve...you never know .

BarbarianHunter wrote: ↑Fri Feb 27, 2026 4:48 pm The difference is your recon converted tanks are engaging an active enemy in a fluid battlefield,

What do you mean by converting? I am only supporting my tanks with the recon trait, makes it easier for a <1 star unit to overrun something.
I am always playing as hard as I can handle, I need my steamrollers way earlier. Sealion can be very hard, I had any bonus I can get for that.

Of course you are right, I you have time and ressources to create some extra units for reserve thats not the worst you can do

DefiantXYX wrote: ↑Fri Feb 27, 2026 7:42 pm

BarbarianHunter wrote: ↑Fri Feb 27, 2026 4:48 pm The difference is your recon converted tanks are engaging an active enemy in a fluid battlefield,

What do you mean by converting? I am only supporting my tanks with the recon trait, makes it easier for a <1 star unit to overrun something.
I am always playing as hard as I can handle, I need my steamrollers way earlier. Sealion can be very hard, I had any bonus I can get for that.

Of course you are right, I you have time and ressources to create some extra units for reserve thats not the worst you can do

My bad . I misread the post, inferring you were ungrading recon cars. Yeah, I'm a big fan of recon as well.

For a long campaign like AO I learned long ago that my max is about 3 divisions. Each is constituted like you outlined: 2 Panzers, 3 infantry (including 1 pionier), 1 each AA, AT, and Recon. Plus 2-3 artillery including sometimes a StuG assault gun. I also have a few additional units like a bridging engineer, an extra AT, and AA. I also usually have a 2-4 additional tanks including a flampanzer and a couple "heavy panzers" (s.Pz.Abteilungen). So ultimately I usually max out at about 9 or 10 tank units.

It should be noted that you rarely are able to deploy all or even most of your core. I rotate them to bring up their experience and bonuses.

How many core slots do you have?
I think even in Kursk with >200 core slots you cant field half of what are mentioned and you did not even name some air units.

Adding my 2 cents here based on various runs, challenges and experiments with silly ideas. I think that historical cores are perfectly viable in all campaigns, and the only really issue is that you might find bonus/elite objectives sometimes impossible to do. Honestly, that's fine and I dare say even great, since with a optimized force most obstacles can be cleared often with time to spare. So as the people before me mentioned, it's all about how you play and as a result, what type of trade-off are you willing to take. If you're fine with not going for 100% completion then you will be just fine with a historical force. If you want to explore every hidden cache and get every award, you might run into puzzle-like situations that are hard to solve without a specific setup.

As for how the composition looks like, these days I usually see a single unit as a battalion/regiment level size force. Air units might differ a bit from squadron to division level depending on the year. Adding AT/AA/artillery support for ground units on company-level support (referencing towed support especially for infantry) adds a lot of flavor and realism, also making use of less popular unit types. I found that this approach allowed me to keep the 7th Panzer Division just fine in the Elite: Ghost Division DLC and up to 3 corps with some army-level attached forces in Elite - 1st Guards DLC. Other DLC I played with a more loose approach, but I think you will end up with room for 3, maybe with luck 4 separate "divisions" in most cases, at least when adding them all up. The thing here is that by mid to late game, from a purely gameplay perspective, heroes you gained over the campaign make infantry more and more redundant, since a tank with the right setup will almost always perform better. However, that's what makes heroes fun even if a bit overpowered. They should allow you to not worry about always going for the optimal choice and sometimes just safely deploy anything you personally like.

Tassadar wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2026 5:10 pmI think that historical cores are perfectly viable in all campaigns,...

Yes, one thing I like about the game is how it simulates combined arms - a historical panzer division works well in game, and in reality it seems like the allies also gravitated to similar formations (I think the US had combat commands that were something like 3 armour, 3 artillery and 3 infantry units). Only some of the early war armoured formations like the British and Russian seem problematic with just too many tanks relative to their infantry components. It's quite striking how the terrain in the game affects the desired balance of tanks and infantry - I went from deploying zero tanks in Grebbeberg to almost zero infantry in Arras a couple of missions later.

Adding AT/AA/artillery support for ground units on company-level support (referencing towed support especially for infantry) adds a lot of flavor and realism, also making use of less popular unit types.

I noticed that in your AAR and it was an interesting - pure infantry does struggle without support (just look at the AI Nationalists). Ghost Division is a great DLC for encouraging a history core - the number of core slots seems just right for a division. I took an airforce, as in these Panzer General type games, it just seems such a handy can opener for tricky situations. But I made a mistake picking the slow modernisation army trait, which is just brutal in that DLC (and the base game Wehrmacht campaign) when you hit 1943.

I'm in 1940 of Axis Operations and having fun, although the gift/prototype units have undermined the idea of a historical core - but for a first run, they are just too powerful to pass up. I was watching one of Edmon's YouTube playthroughs and it resonated with me what he said about taking industry connections - regardless of the in-game power of various traits, it's just fun every mission to be granted a prototype.

DefiantXYX wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2026 2:58 pm How many core slots do you have?
I think even in Kursk with >200 core slots you cant field half of what are mentioned and you did not even name some air units.

I don't remember since that's '43 and it's been a while. I have also been rotating between the three big mods (SoE, AOredone, and GCredo) so it gets all a bit mixed up.

Needless to say to your point, I usually have to make some hard choices and sacrifice some things and rarely get to deploy all that I wish. Some scenarios I make use of the un-deployment hexes to remove units like aircraft after I have air supremecy, but that too is not always possible especially later war. In the end, I usually want a combined arms approach with a balanced approach. For isntance, I've never been one to have only pioniere infantry. I tend to favor more tanks than infantry, however, but that too depends on the scenario. In AOredone I make greater use of AA and probably field fewer fighters than most players. If you accumalate the premium unique heroes, many of them have reduced slots traits included so that certainly helps to increase the number of units you can deploy.

Another point is that for long campaigns I always play with Slow Modernization. This frequently makes the choice of which units stay in reserve for me.

How many tanks you use dictates the terrain, the mission, the enemy of course. I always buy as much of everything i can, so i have a complete panzer corps in my reserve. And if your prime core has full experience you swap of course, so even the reserve becomes elite.
IF you need prestige you can sell some of your hardware.

Off topic but might be interesting for you:

I am in 44 alternative time line, my suggestion: DONT USE HEROES at all.

Heroes seem to be cool at first look.
But the problems: We have a bad tactical ai, especially in offense. If you use heroes you deacitvate lots of core mechanics, so its even harder for the ai to challenge you. If your tanks use close combat like infantry in citys for example, they are nearly unstoppable. Or Flak Heroes make enemy ai attacks costly failures. Even on the highest difficulty, by the way.

So its too easy and even worse, the tactical puzzle game we all love since panzer general or panzer corps one, becomes less interesting.

I stopped playing my actual AO run, because of that.

Next time no heroes. But everything is designed for playing with heroes, so its wise to lower the difficulty. Because without heroes its much harder to farm prestige.

o_t_d_x wrote: ↑Sat Mar 07, 2026 5:08 pm How many tanks you use dictates the terrain, the mission, the enemy of course.

I wish it would be like that. But I cant name 2-3 scenarios where you actually should change your core big time.
Of course not something like Crete, where you just cant use several units.

Next time no heroes. But everything is designed for playing with heroes, so its wise to lower the difficulty. Because without heroes its much harder to farm prestige.

That's a good approach for another run. Could be really interesting.
Unfortunately I like heroes very much while I dont like to play on easy

I am not sure how the game works in >1943 without heroes. I guess you need really low difficulty settings, otherwise you cant deal with the enemy numbers.

DefiantXYX wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2026 12:38 pm Unfortunately I like heroes very much while I dont like to play on easy

Force Dispersion (1 hero/unit) is a good compromise

These traits are completly unbalanced.
In SCW this trait is no problem, in 1944 its game over.
I am more a fan of slider to make it harder/easier. More/less prestige; more/less stronger units and so on...if I am manipulating the game by picking dpoor abilities on purpose I wont have fun. Its like playing a shooter without guns.