Five Star AA Units

[Rayrard]

I am having an issue with the 5 star AA units, as in getting to that level.

I have the German mobile AA on Afrikacorps that I deploy in every battle and give it good action (but not send it out in the front to get smashed on purpose), especially since I have only three fighters (one Macchi, one German 109, and the Malta Spitfire) playing "Italian core only" rules where I use only German units that are gifted to me. I get the AA unit to 4 stars fairly quickly by the Iran scenario but despite lots of planes to shhot at in the final several scenarios it never gets up to five stars for the steam achievement. Same thing with my Recon unit. The stupid thing literally goes from getting experience easy to going up ONE point at a time, whether I knock 8 off a Spitfire or one point. Does the game switch to "one point per attack no matter the outcome" once you reach 400 experience?

I mean I got my recon attacked several times hoping to get some jumps in experience based on action that were better than finishing off weak units, but it kept going up by single experience points. I played the one in the city (Basra?) and the AA shot down 4-5 fighters and paratroopers and got negligible gains in XP for that action. I mean I got bombers and artillery to 5 star easy, but how to get my AA's to five stars on these campaigns?

Do I have to go back to the German Grand Campaign to get these steam achievements? Is there a way to rack up experience faster? Seems difficult to get an AA gun 100 combats in 5-6 scenarios to get from 400-500 XP.

[goose_2]

I am playing Grand Campaign and am in the 1944 part of the campaign.

My AA 88 has 405 experience and I use it every chance I can on land and air but I go up 1 to 0 points per attack.

I am worried that I will be unable to get the achievement as well, so doing the Grand Campaign is no guarantee.

just saying...

[Rayrard]

Well I had my Wirbelwind at 498 on Berlin Redux halfway through the battle and still the opportunity to shoot at US planes on Epilogue. Damn cheat code I used in 44 ruined it. My recon car became unusable in 44 and 45 so that was further from the achievement.

[goose_2]

I am going to try to answer both of your posts on this one post so I copied your quote over from my Grand Playthrough to save me some time.

First to address the AA achievement and recon achievement.
Recon I achieved doing a quick playthrough of Allied Campaign as the British on Colonel level to get that achievement. It took some babying in Europe but the experience earned in Africa pays off in taking out inf in Europe.
I am hoping the same sort of babying will pay off for my AA in this playthrough:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 45&t=65111

This brings me to the question you asked me on that playthrough.
My answers separated in red

So you said you don't buy elite replacements hardly ever?
I hardly did during 1939 through 1940 and only would buy elite replacements between levels, if you pay close attention to my playthrough I list whenever I buy replacements in game and even list whther or not they are elite or regular.


You said you don't buy replacements in scenario but also that you rarely use elite replacements. Does this mean you replace losses to units knocked down to 2 and 3 strength with green repalcements? Or do you make them sit out in the rear and use elite at deployment to bring them back to strength?
I try to make severely weakened units sit out the rest of the scenario, for example in my current playthrough my Captured KV-85 was severely weakened in the middle of my mission so I just backed him up and am keeping him safe. But sometimes if it is early on I will buy Elite Replacements for them. Just not early on.

There are no "retreat hexes" like Soviet corps to get units into your reserve and put in new ones, so how do you manage your smashed and defeated units. It would seem that retreating them all would limit your offensive ability by the end of the battle. I could not justify bringing a 4 star infantry knocked down to 2 strength back up to 10 with green replacements and get it knocked to 2 stars!
I do buy almost exclusively Elite replacements at this point of the game.

I try and nurse my units and avoid huge losses by advancing slowly. If I get one knocked down to 7 or 8 I will use in game elite replacements. If it is down to 2 or 3 I will retreat it and replace losses at deployment with elite.

I am way to aggressive because I want to assure a decisive victory and this is why I lose some units and is why I worked hard in the beginning to build a big bench of core fighters to replace losses on the frontline, so I do not have to put too much stock in any one unit, except Uber Rudel, if I lose him I will probably cry.

Why would you use green on heavily damaged units with experience?
At this point of the Campaign I don't.

Check through the report and watch how often AI do buy replacements in the middle of the mission as I document all purchases and try and make it as thorough a playthrough as I am able without having video.

Thanks for the questions and interest in this great game.

[Rayrard]

Thanks for the double replies.

The replacement strategy makes more sense and is very close to my strategy, except I still don't know how do get more than 50K prestige by 43 in the grand campaign even going easy on overstrength and taking all flags. I don;t lose a lot of men either in the battles and try and do replacements before deployment. Even playing at the colonel level I always seem to run out of prestige after Berlin and only win Redux because they give you 10K bonus prestige plus the large amount accruded during Berlin through flags and surrenders. Even then I only have Tiger 2's as SE and Panthers. I can't afford Maus besides the SE ones they give you, and only 1-2 Me262's.

Maybe I should stop getting the best halftracks for my artillery and infantry... lol. I think it's the soft cap that kills me and my full overstrength artillery and bombers.

[Argelas]

What I remember from my xp experiments in the great campaign is, that I think you get more xp for a X:1 than a X:0 result. Of course you cannot force this without reloading a lot, so it is not useful for a normal game, but might be if you are hunting for one special achievement.

[goose_2]

Just finished Vilna this morning and my AA unit has 3 +2 Att heros and is at 448 experience now, as using and maximizing him as much as possible.

I am pretty confident with 2 more scenarios left to go in 1944 and all of 1945 that I will be able to achieve that elusive 5 stars of experience.

Slowly but surely.
Much easier to achieve 5 stars with Bombers, artys, and tanks.

[captainjack]

I've noticed that AA experience gain seems very slow later on. Rudankort posted an explanation of how experience is calculated a couple of months ago which might reveal some clues whether this slowing down is real (for AA only) or apparent (other units get affected but they spend more time fighting so it's less of an issue).

The trick with building AA experience AA is to get them doing defensive fire, because then you can fire several times per turn, and because fighters and tac bombers have a -5 defensive penalty when attacking. That means a lot more kills, a lot more experience and an earlier chance of a hero. And because you get +2 AA per star and experience is only available while the enemy has air units, you pretty much have to use elite replacements at all times to have a chance.

Because defensive fire is the way to go, you want mobile AA as soon as possible so your AA is always up near the front line - that fast 20mm german unit is useful and effective because of its speed. Also a move hero can make a towed AA much more useful.

If you play Amulet, AA gains experience really quickly. Most AA units are 1 move faster, and mobile units mostly have recon move so you can attack a target and still move to defend others after. Also most AA can switch to artillery which gains experience quickly and still fights when there's no aircraft about. The AA/artillery switch has the added bonus over AA/AT switch in that you won't get +1INI instead of range.

I'm near the end of Soviet Corps right now and have one of my three SU-11s with +2 range that is about 450 experience. The next nearest is just over 300 experience. That's mostly from massive defensive fire efforts as I normally only use one fighter (the captured FW190). While I'd have preferred a decent attack hero, 4 range often makes it possible to get into a good defensive position and still be able to shoot things. I think that this shows that AA experience gain is difficult even when you have plenty to shoot at. That 5* AA achievement is something to be very pleased with.

[Rayrard]

Got to the end off 44 East and have 2 5 star AA guns: one 12.8 towed gun that I had since Poland and the other my mobile AA that got there first.

They benefitted from playing Rommel, Guderian, Manstein in 39-41 and then normal colonel in 42-44 to accumulate prestige. I am now in 45 East on Field Marshall. I want to get my "bomber bases" Wirbelwind to 500 too but it's at about 445 now. I have a powerful airforce (8 fighters + 2 Fw-190G) so they get most experience from spawning Russian fighters and bombers flying in off the map.

[proline]

With regard to getting AA to 5 stars, keep the following in mind

1) They have to see action to get XP. The transformable 88 can attack hard ground units and therefore get used more than the self-propelled AA

2) They have to get kills. The self-propelled AA don't actually kill much until they get 3+ stars on them. Also, fighters die easier than bombers.

3) Putting 1 and 2 together, you generally should start with the 88, not the weak self-propelled. You can upgrade it to a self-propelled later for more mobility (on the other hand, if it has a move hero it can blast anything that comes within 5(!) hexes of it. In that case make it a 12.8, over strength it to 12, and see it one-shot fighters for tons of XP.

Maybe I should stop getting the best halftracks for my artillery and infantry... lol.

There's nothing to LOL about, unfortunately. Using transports incur a HUGE penalty in PzC. When playing as the Germans, saving money is everything. A 1943 infantry is worth 187. A 1943 pioneer with the best transport is 433. That means your losses cost 230% more to replace if you go with the second option! If the second option tips you into prestige cap territory, the cost could be more still. You need to really ask yourself when the transports are necessary- the more you can manage with walking the richer you will be. With good planning, walking is ok on many scenarios. If you do need a transport, get a couple, not one for every infantry unit, and use 50 point trucks where you can.