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!
