which units to overstrength?

[ksasaki]

Artillery seems like an obvious choice, provided you can give them good air cover. Tac bombers , maybe. Fighters? I used to but I don't think it's worth it anymore. Everything else also seems like it's not worth it. Tanks and recon will definitely lose some strength over the course of a mission, infantry too. The only infantry I might consider is Oleh Dir, but even he seems to lose a strength point or two. I used to overstrength ALL my units, but I realized that with the experience cap, it's worthwhile to just regular reinforce all my units at the beginning of the next mission for max prestige savings. Strategic bombers are an interesting question, because you could use them in a manner similar to tac bombers just behind the AA, or you can use them "offensively" to try to soften up the AA. Although they have a +4 or +5 DEF advantage versus attack, I always seem to lose bombers against AA.

[Tarrak]

I personally overstrength artillery and all planes as much i can afford. Artillery you can often avoid any significant losses. Same is true for bombers, both strategic and tactical, if you gain air superiority and escort them. Fighters will lose some strength points but it keeps them longer in the fight and gives them more punch so you can gain air superiority faster avoiding strength point losses on the rest of you units from bombing and strafe attacks. Other units ... well thats a bit situational. If i can afford it i tend to overstrength them up to 12 points. Higher it gets way to expensive under the 1.20 rules.It does give you some edge but if prestige is short supply it may be better not do it. Just after the Tigers appear it is probably worth to overstrength them to maximum as well as then they become virtually invulnerable for quite a while until your enemies get tanks that can compete with them.

[Horst]

Classes that rarely fear retaliation like artillery and any bombers are never a bad idea to overstrength. I tend to hold the bomber planes back in the beginning until enough enemy fighter planes are destroyed.
Additionally, don’t forget to overstrength AA units which make it even more unattractive and devastating for the AI to attack your protected ground units with its increasing numbers of aircrafts, especially if you play the Germans. Their ability to soften up safely enemy fighter-plane strength is invaluable to help your own fighter-plane force.
If you need to reinforce your fighters all the time, your bombers become too vulnerable, and without bombers, your ground and naval forces get into trouble due lack of ability to eliminate in particular enemy artillery and naval units.
I rarely overstrength other front-line units after 1.20 anymore, because it happens too often that I can't protect every single ground unit, and even a fighter-plane with minimal SA/HA values is often lucky enough to reduce the expensive overstrength.

[endur]

If you are playing with the prestige tax, that also adds to the equation.

I'm currently in DLC 44. Due to the prestige tax, I do not over strength any units except for my SE units (which are exempt from the tax). For the SE units, I over strength them (tanks and 1 fighter) to 11. I figure over strength going from 10 to 11 before the battle is the same as paying to go from 9 to 10 during a battle. I'm definitely willing to pay to fill up my unit during a battle, as a full strength unit will tend to take less damage than a weakened unit (assuming it has decent initiative to hit the enemy first).

[ksasaki]

what is prestige tax? (I am on ipad)

I used to fill my units during battle, but the problem is the elite cost is much more expensive during normal battle versus deployment phase. If I do replace nowadays I usually just normal replacements in a battle. Of course, if it's a critical unit like my super awesome +4 attack +2 defense pioniere, then I might be willing to make an exception.

[Aloo]

Strategic bombers are an interesting question, because you could use them in a manner similar to tac bombers just behind the AA, or you can use them "offensively" to try to soften up the AA. Although they have a +4 or +5 DEF advantage versus attack, I always seem to lose bombers against AA.

Strat bombers are a must. they get higher effectiveness with overstrenght meaning they take away from the enemy more fuel and ammo. At 15 str they can knock off most ammo from enemy units in one go. This is very useful vs strong fortifications and tanks.

[ThvN]

what is prestige tax? (I am on ipad)

I used to fill my units during battle, but the problem is the elite cost is much more expensive during normal battle versus deployment phase. If I do replace nowadays I usually just normal replacements in a battle. Of course, if it's a critical unit like my super awesome +4 attack +2 defense pioniere, then I might be willing to make an exception.

The prestige tax (it's actually called a 'prestige soft cap') reduces prestige income when your core has a very high points value. It calculates the average (prestige) value of all your core units on the map (excluding SE units, but including any transport vehicles), and if their average value exceeds 400pr your prestige earnings will be slowly decreased, up to 80% when your average unit value is 800pr. So if you have a core on the map with an average value of 800pr per unit or more, you only earn 20% of the normal prestige when capturing cities etc.

So if you have a core made up of a lot of expensive, overstrength units your prestige income will be lower, making it more difficult to afford those units. It was introduced to prevent players steamrolling everything with 14-strength Tiger II's.

The price difference of reinforcing damaged units during battle: During deployment for a new scenario, you can reinforce using 'green' or 'elite' replacements, at 0% and 25% cost (of the unit's purchase price) respectively. During a scenario, 'green' reinforcements cost 50% and 'elite' are 100%, so each point of strength you reinforce costs a tenth of a new unit. So if you can safely retire the unit and have it wait out the battle, getting it back up to strength can be much cheaper than doing it during battles.

[captainjack]

If I have enough prestige I will normally fully overstrength artillery and strat bombers, and sometimes AA. Usually other units get 1 or 2 points of overstrength as it's too expensive to use more, and I'd rather be able to elite reinforce in combat if needed. Occasionally I will fully overstrengh a few super units to improve the likelihood of one shot kills. This would be special cases like the one mentioned above when tigers are very dominant.

Two things that took me a while to take on board that are quite good for getting better value from overstrength:
Engineers and pioneers always lose a point when mine clearing, so don't overstrength units that will be doing this - either pull them back or elite reinforce them when finished. Apparently the experience gain for mine clearing is quite good, so it can be a good opportunity to train up new units.

For arty, AA and flamethrower tanks, check the ROF before over strengthing. Partial strength points are ignored, so not every overstrength point increases your attack equally. Say you have a gun with 80% RoF and 10 strength - you get 8shots. Overstrength to 11, and you still get 8 shots (11 x 0.8 = 8.8, rounded down to eight), so the overstrength point probably isn't worth it. Churchill crocodile gets Rof 140%, so from time to time 1 overstrength point will add 2 extra attacks. 10 strength you get 14 attacks (1.4 x 10), 11 you get one extra (11x 1.4 = 15.4 rounded down to 15), 12 you get 1 extra (1.4 x 12 = 16.8 rounded down to 16) and at 13 you get 2 extra (13 x 1.4 = 18.2 rounded to 18).

[Benlore]

what is prestige tax? (I am on ipad)

I used to fill my units during battle, but the problem is the elite cost is much more expensive during normal battle versus deployment phase. If I do replace nowadays I usually just normal replacements in a battle. Of course, if it's a critical unit like my super awesome +4 attack +2 defense pioniere, then I might be willing to make an exception.

I have only recently bought Panzer Corps for the ipad. The game manual seems to be missing a lot of information, unless I am missing a rule book online? How do I know that my pioneer is +4 attack and +2 defence?

The Games manual states this.
"6.10. COMBAT DETAILS
In Panzer Corps there is a combat details screen showing all the rules, calculations and dice rules used to resolve a particular combat. There are two methods to invoke the combat details. If the combat has already happened, the press L hotkey. If you are only planning the combat, use Ctrl+click (instead of just click) on the target"

When I first read this I thought this was a game manual cloned from the PC version. I may be missing something here. So any advice would be helpful.

[ksasaki]

Yeah, I think they are working on a patch to introduce more information. The pioniere at +4 attack and +2 defense was under the assumption you got two +2 atk heroes and one +2 def hero, or +1 +3 atk heroes and one +2 def hero. Of course pioniere's automatically get +X attack against forts and big guns, I just don't know what it is. I'm sure that's how my pioniere's did 1-2 damage on the brest-litovsk fort !! before the big gun arrived.

[Ron42na]

what is prestige tax? (I am on ipad)

I used to fill my units during battle, but the problem is the elite cost is much more expensive during normal battle versus deployment phase. If I do replace nowadays I usually just normal replacements in a battle. Of course, if it's a critical unit like my super awesome +4 attack +2 defense pioniere, then I might be willing to make an exception.

I have only recently bought Panzer Corps for the ipad. The game manual seems to be missing a lot of information, unless I am missing a rule book online? How do I know that my pioneer is +4 attack and +2 defence?

The Games manual states this.
"6.10. COMBAT DETAILS
In Panzer Corps there is a combat details screen showing all the rules, calculations and dice rules used to resolve a particular combat. There are two methods to invoke the combat details. If the combat has already happened, the press L hotkey. If you are only planning the combat, use Ctrl+click (instead of just click) on the target"

When I first read this I thought this was a game manual cloned from the PC version. I may be missing something here. So any advice would be helpful.

I also only have the iPad version, and from what I've read here, the iPad version does not have the detailed combat screen or a lot of the information in the PC version of the in-game library. I believe they are planning to add most (all?) of that in future updates.

[captainjack]

I got a bit stressed out playing 43 east so switched to Allied corps.
Once past the early Italian bashing scenarios I found I had a lot of prestige, so I have been overstrengthing most units fully and still have enough prestige to cope with in-game elite reinforcement when needed.
There are a couple of units with good combat stats - a Churchill with +3 defence and one with +4 attack - that really benefit from the overstrength ability to do one-shot kills and (perhaps just as important) have such high defence that they can often go through a scenario without losing any points, so the prestige, once spent, rarely needs to be used to restore overstrength.

I have also found that the 2 and 6 pounder on portee is quite effective. Much as with the Panzerjager 1, you need to to ensure it has artillery backing to avoid it being turned into scrap metal. The Deacon, especially has sufficient punch at 4* to mangle most hard targets although the weak defence makes it essential to apply heavy suppression before attacking. Overstrength is also pretty effective, but as these are relatively cheap units, it isn't so bad if they get chewed up a bit.

[Victor_K]

I find over strengthening my tac bombers is useful. Ditto for the 88 AA. I also over strength some units depending on the situation. For example some attack scenarios, my pioneers will be over strength if there are many forts to take out. Other wise I do not over strength until my Tigers show up.