Code's Tank designs (WIP)

For those that are curious, or new to the game read further, if you are intermediate or above skip to Basic Medium Tank. Before you even start to make a tank design you should know about how to 1. Tech Juggle
and Applicable MIO's.

Tech Juggle is when you have a 100x bonus on a tank and say you haven't researched the basic medium tank yet, research say basic or improved armor on the left, get one of your OTHER research slots and then research the basic medium tank THEN research what you were researching with the basic/improved armor so you KEEP your research bonus. Do not burn a bonus on 30's tech.

Applicable MIO's. Strap in because this part of the game is one of the most infuriating and you're about to find out why.

This is the United Kingdom, and they have Two Tank designers.





Figured it out? The medium tank designer only applies to MEDIUM TANKS, not light tanks, not heavy tanks, not even Medium Tank Destroyers. Buttt Vauxhall or the "infantry tanks designer" that applies to every single armor tech, even amphibious tanks. But surely the medium tank has "great" bonuses to specifically mediums, right? Wrong.
Without adding a policy to the Vicker's Armstrong Company and btw I have already picked out our correct traits if you want to go medium tanks with this design company it gets...



Now let's look at what the infantry tank designer can give us to ALL tanks.



While you can go the Anti-Tank trait for 10% hard attack and 10% piercing we're going for the soft attack. Why? Because Soft Attack is King, mainly in SP. You are looking at a difference of 20% soft attack, and if you run a heavy cannon III with 2 small cannons that's 40 soft attack plus our MIO that makes it 48. That is huge. Even if you are going mediums with a medium cannon II with 32 soft attack you get 50. All tanks benefit from soft and hard attack increases, because that directly increases their damage against another unit. In SIngleplayer, the AI is pretty much braindead when it comes to making tanks, but that is why I play sheep mod, and I'll be showing tank designs that work mainly work on sheep mod which means.. they will blow the vanilla AI out of the water.

I'm going to focus on the 1938 Medium, 1940 Medium, 1940 Heavy, 1943 Medium, 1943 Heavy, and 1945 Modern Tank. 1936 Heavy is just a complete waste of IC, and the whole purpose of going Heavy's is to get the heavy turret earlier than the modern turret allowing one to run heavy cannons which have higher hard attack, and piercing.

If you have read the Tank Introductions because you are new, now you are ready to build but before I start I'm going to note a serious problem with this player base on so called "meta". If you ask anyone on this game the meta is to build mediums, that's not entirely true. You might say that because of the medium cannon II's 2 point higher soft attack compared to the 30 on Heavy Cannon III that mediums are better against AI in vanilla SP - true. The problem is in MULTIPLAYER, and to a degree sheep AI. Let's get started, shall we?

Basic Medium Tank is the one of the first earliest tanks you can build in 1938, if you are going heavies you have to "wait" till 1940 or better yet simply get a research bonus to get it in late 38, early 39. While a basic medium is a good start, it is very basic in terms of the stats it provides.

Techs needed:
Improved Armor; 14 Armor Value (1938)
Anti Tank Upgrade 1 or/and Arty II (1939) to get Medium cannon I (You also get Basic-High-Velocity Cannon from Anti Tank I 1936)
Radio II
Maintenance Company II for Easy Maintenance -7.5% IC + 10% reliability.
As you build your future tanks, you are going to want to hug the anti-tank tree as that gives you every cannon in the game that you'll need in terms of hard attack and a decent amount of soft attack. Artillery tree gives you the medium howitzers with a-lot of soft attack, but little hard attack and piercing though.

[/screenshot] [screenshot=3686913756;sizeOriginal,floatLeft;https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/13225816344540037719/BDA78315AE937D81B6EAC5DCE40FCD6FCF12E428/][/screenshot] That is best used in MP and Sheep Mod. However if you are playing with vanilla AI then the medium howitzer can be beneficial due to the high amount of soft attack. [screenshot=3686913689;sizeOriginal,floatLeft;https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/11956844810059428133/D1B6E77A1AEAA427723F4C0C9CF28A1647C7B77F/][/screenshot] [screenshot=3686913820;sizeOriginal,floatLeft;https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/14048071735536161408/77CDFEA3FE878635D8B1C722E2B5ECCFB2DEAE07/][/screenshot] Now a basic medium TD can give you almost 200 additional hard attack, but you got infantry levels of soft attack however. Not exactly worth it against vanilla AI but it is usable in MP or Sheep Mod. Another thing is that you should add at least one TD to every armor unit as it dramatically increases the piercing. However the Basic Medium is so low it'd only give a +2, so we'll only do that with Improved Medium Tanks and above. Note how I don't mention heavies because heavies have heavy cannons..




That is best used in MP and Sheep Mod. However if you are playing with vanilla AI then the medium howitzer can be beneficial due to the high amount of soft attack.





Now a basic medium TD can give you almost 200 additional hard attack, but you got infantry levels of soft attack however. Not exactly worth it against vanilla AI but it is usable in MP or Sheep Mod.
Another thing is that you should add at least one TD to every armor unit as it dramatically increases the piercing. However the Basic Medium is so low it'd only give a +2, so we'll only do that with Improved Medium Tanks and above. Note how I don't mention heavies because heavies have heavy cannons...

Here we go, this is where you now can choose between Riveted and Welded Armor and have that armor increase be semi-relevant. Generally going riveted is the better of the two as the -20% production cost gets you more tanks or.. soft attack. It's less about building tanks, and more about getting soft attack, and in the case of MP or sheep mod enough hard attack and piercing to actually break tanks. For simplicities sake I am just showing Riveted because the piercing off of a infantry division with line anti-tank can pierce a welded, sloped armor with the armor policy mio. The bigger thing is that with building mediums it's about putting as much soft and hard attack onto the battlefield as possible. With an average of 15 IC, you are going to outrun a heavy tank maker in terms of just how much you have on the field. Going welded is for larpers who want to pretend they can see the T34 bouncing off shells. Every Medium Tank is relatively the same minus the MIO each country is given. As the United States does not have an infantry tank designer which means they deal less soft attack. The French, British, Russians, and Germans all have infantry tank designers. The UK can make better tanks than a US can, yet most players have the UK go full air with the US building medium tanks without the 8-10 soft attack increase.
Techs needed:
Advanced Armor Protection (1941)
Improved Anti Tank Upgrade I (1941)
1940 Improved Medium Tank
Advanced Radio (1941)
You should already have Easy Maintenance, among other previously mentioned technologies.
If you get a research bonus for 2x arty, then getting Anti Tank Upgrade II (1942) can be worth it as it gives the improved-high-velocity cannon which is 'meta' for medium tanks. More on that soon.

For the rest of this guide we'll be using the Infantry Tank Designer, because the medium tank designer sucks ♥♥♥♥, and does not give you the soft attack that you desperately need. Breakthrough is a stat that lowers your enemy's damage to you, and if you have more of that breakthrough than your enemy's defense then you are good. Nine times out of ten, you are going to have enough breakthrough. How much is enough? 1000 or more. Medium TD's can actually reach this number despite having the TD designation. Again note that down. Get ready.





















Putting one tank destroyer into our medium cannon II tanks gives us 30 extra piercing. The main thing that you need is piercing with a medium and this is what most players go.

Answer: Medium Cannon II medium tanks with improved high-velocity-cannon. If you want you could go the piercing squueze adaptor but you lose hard attack, and it costs 1 extra tungsten - not worth it CURRENTLY.