Looking to try German side...

[madflava13]

I've always played as the Allies - and I understand the strategy for that side. But I'd really like to dive in and try the Axis for once.
I'm curious as to what advice/strategies the more experienced players use for the Axis side. Particularly, I'd like to know what types of aircraft I should focus production on, where the better locations to base them are, strategies for each theater, etc...
For instance, it looks to me as though the Me210 is worthless and I should stop that production, along with some of the Italian airframes.

Hopefully we can get a good discussion going and I'll pick up a thing or two... Thanks!

[Charest]

I always played german side, but never really in PBEM, so my advice will probably not be 100% accurate.

My strategy is to focus on very few models. I usually stop almost all the production of NJG, except the good'ol HE 219, with a few of them, maybe 6 or 7.

A few industries are too expensive to change without a raid destroying them: consider carefully if it's worth it to lose 40, 50, 60 days of production to switch. Most of the time, it's not worth it. Those industries, if I remember well, mainly produce ME 109 G. Too bad. [:(]

The rest, 50% of fw 190 A, 25% research on fw 190 D, and 25% on the rest. This is a compromise between results and investment: the D model arrive pretty soon so it's able to make a difference, but it's not the best plane. It's still fast, maneuvrable and durable enough for most of 1944. Then, if you invested in a better plane a little, by the end of 1944, you'll have a better plane to upgrade your old models.

I always invested in research for the DO 335 or the TA 152, but I never played long enough to actually see one of those planes fly without cheating. Also, I do not fall for the ME 262: 4 engines plane means that for each ME 262, you could have 4 FW 190 D or TA 152 a little later.

I also like to have some ME 410 gruppen, especially with rockets as they really wreak havoc on bombers, mainly in cohesion. Afterwards, it's a piece of cake chasing them down with your planes.

For role playing, you should not totally ignore italian planes, notably the Re 2005 that is quite good against fighters and recons.

For tactics, well, it really depend if you're playing against a human I suppose, but the months of 1943 should be used to prepare the onslaught of 1944. Try to keep looses low and make opportunity attacks, move back flak to better sites... but the most important to keep things under control IMO is to upgrade your obsolete aircraft: that is including the ME 109 G. This model is good enough for your expandable gruppen, but you'll lose too many good pilots with those flying tombs. This is why I invest heavily in FW 190 A. They are available from the start and are an excellent plane up until the middle of 1944. You'll do more damage with them than you'll ever do with ME 109's, and at a much more bearable price.

On the field, the all out assault against a stupid AI raid is really effective, and you can completely destroy bomber groups if you are not playing too bad.

[madflava13]

Thanks for the tips... You mentioned some factories not being worth the upgrade - if they're destroyed by the Allied attacks, are the upgrades "free"?

Also, I have read a lot of people like the K model 109s. What are your thoughts on that? I notice short endurace, but pretty reasonable stats...

[Charest]

You have to understand first that i'm really no expert.

I think the the 109 K is good but his range is really really short, and while it's a real potent fighter against fighters, it's firepower is not really good against the bombers. It can be really good on making the first contact with the fighters, making them drop their fuel tanks and being able to shoot down some in the process. But I never really went against the fighters anyway, so who am I to tell...[&:]

I prefer the 190 as an all around good plane, usable on every occasion.

Factories that are leveled to the ground (90+ damage) will not produce for a couple of weeks anyway, so it's a good time to change production if you want. The retooling penalty will fade as the building is repaired, meaning that you will not lose actual production in the retooling process. The penalty is 10 days for every unit power of the factory, so a level 6 factory will take 2 months (60 days) to retool. Time to repair damage is never exactly the same, but if I remember correctly, its about 1-2 % per day.

I don't remember if the factory is operationnal at 50% damage or less though, but I think this is correct. So it basically mean that an industry knocked down is down for a month, more or less.

Now the tricky part: be SURE that the factory is not a multi-production factory before messing things around with the production. Whatever you change in the production will stop the ENTIRE factory. I read somewhere that it will be changed for the new game, but for now it's quite unpleasant to find out by yourself. So it's not always worth it to change production.

And to produce an aircraft, you need: 1) the parts, one per plane, 2) the engine (s), one for most fighters, 2 for most NJG, and a whooping 4 for the ME 262, and 3) an assembly line, one per plane. The engines are the most tricky to adjust. To do research, you need to have those 3 things produced, as it would be if you produced an actual plane.

There is somewhere hidden in the game the number of parts and engines produced, so if you stop producing those and keep an assembly line for a specific plane, it may continue to produce planes for a while. It's impossible to guess how much of each things you have, though.

Just to adjust for the first time, I really suggest that you try it not on your real game. It's so easy to mess things up in the process, you can ruin your entire game.

Good luck!

[Hard Sarge]

in this one, it is going to more work, we got a lot more plane types and engine types, so it is going to be much HARDer to get into the just build one type and let everything else sit on the side

you going to have to ask yourself questions about the 109 vs the 190, over 20 K the engine power of the 190 really gave out and the 190 is not a good High Alt plane (17-24s tend to fly above 20 K)

(reason for the work on the 190 D, and Ta 152, also, you going to have the 109 H, which in real life was dropped as the other planes coming were looking better (so in effect, a lot of 1945 models killed models that could of flown in 44, and models for late 45 early 46, killed models that could of flown in early 45) 

so you are going to really need to keep both in production

the Nightfighters
in old game, everybody dumped the 110, with out knowing how many of them had been rearmed, but some of the late 110 G4s are going to be decent planes, the 219 is sweet, but so is the 154 and the Ju 88G is a monster, the overall best may still be the Ju 388

plus if you got the time and reseach, you also got the 262 and the 335 nightfighter that be built

(the 219 was a great plane and one of my Favs, but the old game had the best model, and that model was more a what if, then a real production model, we have the production models)

the 109 K, is still a good plane, but it is not the wonderbird it was before, also it was about the longest legged model of the 109 family (which still is not saying much) but short range should no longer be a reason to not build it

of course, by that time, the question is going to be more of do you want 1000 109 Ks, 1000 190 Ds, or 1000 Ta 152 H, or C or 500 Do 335s and can you keep the production of what you want to build, building

(also in old game, you only had to change the Assembly to change the plane type, now alot of the planes have different engines also)

the 110/410s are going to be nasty bomber hunters, and with the paks, can be even more deadly, just do not let them see a Allied fighter

49 and under, the factory works, 50 and above, the Factory is shut down, Heavy damage can take away total point size of a factory, or cause it to disperse (breaks down into new factories)