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I actually won the main campaign and it only took me 376 hours (according to Steam).

Wow that was difficult. For those of you who have never played, a decisive victory in the West Coast of the U.S. is brutally hard. You have tons of territory and only 18 turns and the U.S. Air Force is huge, the Navy bombs the crap out of you when you get in range, Pershings and Firefly Shermans all over the place and Rangers in the cities. Some strength 15 in L.A. and S.F. Not to mention the most powerful and longest range AA and Arty in the game.

Add in about 10 fortresses and the Rockies funneling your troops right through the kill zone. And as icing on the cake a fairly large Armor + Ranger counter attack from Montana that you have to deal with.

I managed to take San Fran, Seattle, and Sacramento all about the same time with SF falling last on turn 16.

So yeah, just here to brag. Probably hardest campaign I've ever won in a wargame.

Congrats.

I have the game but have not played that far into the game yet.

For me the hardest part was psychological. You spend about 12 scenarios doing everything you can to preserve your core units and maximize their experience, get heroes with special abilities, etc.

Then in the final scenario you have to practically throw them away to reach the goals on time. I had to do things like send 5 star level bombers directly into flak to take out battleships. Or take cities with tanks because I couldn't afford to wait for the infantry. Or leave a trucked up artillery unit without air cover because I could not wait till a fighter was available. Or leave units on river hexes. These are all things I would never normally do. I got from Poland through U.S. Midwest without losing a single core unit so I had grown kind of fond of them.

I find this game much more challenging than the Strategic Command series. I know it's not apples to apples but they both have that beer and pretzels, just one more turn sort of feel to them that has me end up playing till 2 am on a work night sometimes.

Panzer Corps is one of my favs going back many years. I dread going against the Russian droves later in the campaign....a lot of screaming at my computer screen as the hordes overrun my Panzer divisions. Fun nonetheless.....

Is this like Panzer General in that your scenarios are tightly timed? I hated that.

This is essentially an update by Matrix of Panzer General.

"Herr General, it took you a year and a half to conquer Poland. The General Staff has determined that your service will no longer be needed..".

Stuff has to happen according to a carefully thought out timetable. If ur late it fucks up other things they've planned. Pisses im off. They're pretty firm on 'get r done' quick

Yes, and I hate that too. It bugs me to have to put units at risk fighting battles that they shouldn't be fighting because you can't wait for arty and bombers to soften up the targets first.

But... in order to win it all, you need to purposely take as long as possible to win the scenarios without going over the limit.

That way you can collect more turn based prestige and get more experience for your troops.

Also, in some cases you want to purposely NOT get a decisive victory so you take a longer path through the scenario roadmap and again, build up more prestige and experience. It's all a bit gamey.

Actual war rarely goes like the textbooks would indicate----real war is kinda 'gamey' as well
but then I know what you are talking about...just messin' with ya

Here's a couple of examples of what I consider 'gamey'.

1) Destroying units in all objective cities but purposely not actually capturing the last city but leaving empty. Backing one hex away so the AI can place reinforcements. Then hammering the bejesus out of them with your arty and bombers to jack up their experience. Lather, rinse, repeat until the final turn and then finally take the objective to win.

2) Purposefully placing a bomber at the very edge of enemy vision and then a fighter protecting it just outside of vision. Enemy will send fighter to attack and get surprised by your fighter and then wiped out on the next turn. I call this the fighter trap. Can give you total air supremacy by turn 3. The same can be done with bombers by replacing that bomber with an arty.

3) Right before the win, save the game. So if you don't get your SE unit when you start the next game you can restart from right before the win. This way, you can get all 3 SE units as early as possible and get maximum experience on them for the later scenarios.

There are many other lesser tactics like using free replacements to fill up a unit before selling it and sending your auxiliary units to certain death in amphibious operations to draw enemy fighters out, etc.

But you really have to use every trick in the book to stockpile the amount of prestige you'll need to invade USA. I think I had 5 Tiger II's 4 Amerika Bombers (looked like B2's), 6 fighters that might as well have been UFO's with their stats, 6 maxed out arty (5 stars and 15 strength) and a bunch of Panther G's and Jagpanthers. Everything at least strength 11 and 3 stars, most 4+ stars. Most with 1-3 heroes. And I had 16,000 prestige left over when I invaded East Coast USA. And still that was just barely enough to win with literally 0 prestige left when I finally took San Fran.