Prestige is a resource defined by a number that is visible at all times during a campaign or scenario, located on the HUD at the upper left of the screen.

Left: The appearance of 100 Prestige during a battle.

Below: The appearance of Prestige during a conference.

Prestige is the lifeblood of any Unity of Command II campaign - it is the solitary resource with which you can upgrade your Headquarters' (HQs) branches, upgrade your HQ's range and/or movement, acquire multiple specialisations for HQ actions, acquire additional Command Points (CPs) for your HQs, commit to alternative-history campaign tracks, purchase steps and specialists from the force pool store, as well as purchase cards (freebies from lower difficulties not-withstanding). All of the above can decisively help you achieve victory in any given scenario, and thus help you along the way to total victory in the campaigns you play.
Despite its importance Prestige can only be spent at certain points in your campaign, mostly in conferences and the battle preparation phase of certain scenarios. Because these will only take up a small amount of your time during any given campaign it is of considerable importance to pay attention to what you can spend your Prestige on and how you should spend it. Wasting these opportunities, or ignoring them to focus entirely on the turn-based battle management, is usually a quick way of getting your armies annihilated.

During a campaign Prestige can be gained in one of two ways; capturing objectives and receiving free prestige from an in-game HQ upgrade (on Easy and Normal difficulty, you also receive a bonus amount of prestige at the start of every conference). Other than the base amount of Prestige you start a campaign with (which varies depending on both the campaign in question and the difficulty level), the overwhelming majority of Prestige you'll gain will come from capturing objectives. As you'll want to capture objectives in order to win scenarios, Prestige will naturally increment as you achieve victories, no matter the quality of said victories.

Most bonus objectives award 20 Prestige upon their completion, as well as (shockingly) a bonus of some kind, although you'll sometimes come across bonus objectives that award 50 Prestige instead - the extra 30 Prestige is the bonus in question. Should you not achieve a bonus objective by the turn it specifies, then you will permanently miss out on its rewards, Prestige included.

Primary objectives work somewhat differently - if they are captured by the turn they specify (and you hold them for the rest of the scenario past said turn) then you will receive a whopping 50 Prestige. However, should you capture and hold a primary objective a turn later then it specified you will receive 40 Prestige instead. Capturing and holding a primary objective two or more turns later than specified will result in you receiving only 25 Prestige. This means that even in your worst victories, you'll be gaining at least 25 Prestige per captured primary objective.

Right: The objectives list for a scenario. The numbers to the left of each objective represent the Prestige reward for capturing them on that turn.

The other way to gain Prestige in a campaign is through free Prestige rewards from in-game HQ upgrades. These moments will be extremely rare in most campaigns, but here's how they work: when receiving an in-game HQ upgrade, if you have no free specialisations left, you will have the option of selecting a "free" 25 Prestige alongside either a paid specialisation or extra CP (if you've reached the maximum number of specialisations and CPs for your HQ, then the free Prestige will be your only option). This may sound complicated, but it will be explained fully in the "In-Game HQ Upgrades" section of this guide.

So now that we know how to gain Prestige, what can we spend it on? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot indeed...

Here is a list of everything you can spend Prestige on in any given campaign of Unity of Command II:

• During a conference, you can spend Prestige to increase the range and/or movement of an individual HQ (dependent on the HQ in question). These upgrades will always cost a flat 25 Prestige. These are covered further in the "HQ Conference Upgrades" section.
  
  
• During a conference, you can spend Prestige on upgrades for an individual HQ's branches. These upgrades will vary between 25, 50 and 75 Prestige. These are covered further in the "HQ Conference Upgrades" section.
  
  
• During a conference, you can spend Prestige to purchase cards. The prices of differing cards, across differing campaigns, can vary wildly and will be discussed further in the "Cards" section of this guide.
  
  
• During a conference, you can spend Prestige on a strategic "Plan" to advance the campaign down an alternative history track, provided you have met the necessary requirements to enact such a plan. These alternative history plans cost 50 Prestige each. They will be discussed further in the "Miscellaneous Prestige Expenditure" section.
  
  
• During the battle preparation phase, you can spend Prestige to purchase steps and specialists, provided there are still reserves in the campaign theatre force pool store. These also fluctuate widely in both price and availability between campaigns (and even campaign segments!) and so will be discussed further in the "Force Pool Store" section of this guide.
  
  
• During a scenario, if you use an 'Elite Replacements' card, you can purchase steps and specialists from an "elite store" for the remainder of the scenario. Similar to the force pool store, these vary considerably in price and will be briefly discussed in the "Cards" section.
  
  
• During a scenario, if one of your HQs levels up, it will receive an 'in-game HQ upgrade' and you will have to choose one of three different upgrades for said HQ, usually consisting of either a 'specialisation' or an additional CP. In almost every case, at least one of these options will cost Prestige and the price will vary wildly depending on the options, from 20 to 75 Prestige. This will be covered further in the "In-game HQ Upgrades" section.
  
  
• At the end of a scenario, if you have failed to capture and hold every primary objective, you can choose to play "One More Turn", allowing you to play an additional turn for 25 Prestige. This can be done repeatedly, with double the Prestige cost for each extra individual turn. This will be discussed further in the "Miscellaneous Prestige Expenditure" section.

Note that no matter what you purchase, it can be reversed as long as you don't go to the next conference; if you purchase steps/specialists you do not want, or pick the wrong in-game HQ upgrade during a scenario, then you can restart said scenario to get back your Prestige. You can also reset back to the beginning of the most recent conference at any time during a campaign segment, refunding all Prestige spent from that point on, but losing all Prestige you have since earned. Both restarting scenarios and resetting to conferences from the map screen will cost a small amount of score.

If you would like to skip the sections that detail what you can spend Prestige on and go straight to the part of this guide where I advise what you *should* spend your Prestige on, then you can navigate to the "Alright, so what should I actually spend my Prestige on?" section of this guide.

Conferences are some of the most important parts of any Unity of Command II campaign. These rare opportunities following clusters of battles can help define and strengthen your HQs, which can lead to a tremendous permanent boost for your forces over the course of any given campaign.


Above: The starting conference of the 'Victory in the West' campaign.

You can select any of your permanent HQs from the left side of the screen during a conference to see the range and movement of the HQ, as well the actions attached to the five specific branches of each HQ. No matter the HQ, no matter the campaign, these five branches will be the same: Force Pool, Intel, Operations, Logistics, and Engineering. While the branches for HQs will always be the same, the actions available within those branches can vary drastically depending on the type of HQ it is, as well as its parent nation. Each HQ will also have a pop-out description ("Designer Notes") attached to it, written by the developers; although this description mostly exists to give a brief history of the HQ's forces and its commanders, it can also give important hints as to which specific branches you should focus on upgrading.


Above: An overview of the British 8th Army HQ as it starts in 'Victory in the West'; we will be using this HQ as an example for this section and the next. (You can click on an image to enlarge it).

At the top of every HQ's description is the number of Command Points (CPs) it currently has, next to the full name of the HQ and its current commander. Beneath that is the range and/or movement upgrades for that HQ, with upgrades increasing sequentially like this: 5, 8, 10, 11, 12 (these distances work the same as supply hubs, hence the symbology of the truck icon). However, certain HQs can have either their movement or range permanently locked to a specific amount, in which case these upgrades will be for either movement or range exclusively.



Then there are the branches. Every branch for every HQ is divided into three levels, with the first level of every branch usually unlocked from the start. While the actions within these branches will often be the same, they will almost always be in a different order from other HQs, and some actions are specific to certain kinds of HQ (for example, the 'Oversupply' action is found only on German HQs). The CP cost for these actions can vary considerably between HQs as well.

Here we'll give a brief overview of every HQ action from each individual branch. This won't be an exhaustive explanation of each specific action, rather just a quick description - if you want to find out the full extent of these actions then I would recommend looking them up in the manual. Note however that every HQ action can only be enacted on units attached to and within range of their respective HQ.



Force Pool is the top-most branch of every HQ and can have the following actions: Deploy, Reorg, Transfer Step, Transfer Step (Long Range), Security Unit, Kampfgruppe.

• Deploy: Deploy a step or specialist to a unit from the HQ's force pool.
  
• Reorg: Remove an active step or specialist from a unit back into the HQ's force pool.
  
• Transfer Step: Remove an active step or specialist from a unit and immediately deploy it into an adjacent unit.
  
  • Transfer Step (Long Range): A unique Axis variant of Transfer Step, it works the same but instead of being limited to adjacent units, the removed step/specialist can be deployed to any other attached unit within HQ range.
• Security Unit: Deploy up to three infantry steps from the HQ force pool as an entirely new unit.
  
  • Kampfgruppe: A unique Axis variant of Security Unit, it allows the deployed unit to reorg any stragglers in the hex the unit was created on.
  Certain HQs can also have an intrinsic Force Pool ability whereby the reorganisation of stragglers does not cost CPs.

Intel is the only branch that has no HQ actions attached to it - rather, each level of Intel gives your HQ a permanent and powerful buff to revealing the layout of enemy forces. Each level also lowers the amount of prisoners needed to expand HQ reveal range for enemy intel markers.

• Intel Level 1 allows you to see two hexes from your frontline at start of turn (within HQ range).
  
• Intel Level 2 allows you to see intel markers of enemy units one tile into fog of war at start of turn (within HQ range).
  
• Intel Level 3 allows you to see enemy markers from HQ defensive actions on visible enemy units at start of turn (again, within HQ range).

Operations usually concerns offensive and defensive actions your units can take and consist of the following: Feint Attack, Suppressive Fire, Set Piece Attack, No Retreat, Rearguard, Counterattack, Recon in Force.

• Feint Attack: Your unit suppresses an enemy unit's step and suffers a step's suppression in return. Consumes AP.
  
• Suppressive Fire: Bombard enemy unit with artillery, suppressing a random number of enemy steps depending on the number of artillery shifts you have. Consumes AP and must have an active artillery step.
  
• Set Piece Attack: Launch a methodical attack with the entire unit to breach enemy entrenchment and suppress enemy steps. Infantry only, consumes all MP + AP and must have an active artillery step.
  
• No Retreat: Greatly lowers the chances that the unit will retreat on enemy turn, but risks taking more casualties. Consumes all remaining MP + AP.
  
• Rearguard: The unit retreats when attacked on enemy turn, resolving the combat as if it were a feint attack. Consumes all remaining MP + AP.
  
• Counterattack: If attacked normally on enemy turn, the unit counterattacks using its attacking stats. Armour only, consumes all remaining MP + AP and must be in specific terrain to activate.
  
• Recon in Force: Captures an adjacent enemy hex, without entering enemy Zone of Control. Armour only (unless unit has active Recon step), consumes AP.

Logistics concerns actions that manipulate the supply and movement of units, consisting of the following actions: Emergency Supply, Create Supply Dump, Oversupply, Motor Pool.

• Emergency Supply: Immediately supply an out of supply unit.
  
• Create Supply Dump: Adds a supply dump marker to a unit - the first turn the unit is out of supply, the marker is consumed and the unit remains supplied. Consumes all remaining MP + AP, and should the unit move off its hex for any reason, the marker is removed.
  
  • Oversupply: Axis variant of Create Supply Dump, which works the same except the unit doesn't expend any MP or AP, and keeps the marker even after moving.
• Motor Pool: Motorise an infantry unit, giving it an extra +2 MP in extended movement and changing its unit type to 'mobile' for the rest of the turn.

Engineering deals with actions that can allow the breaching of natural obstacles, such as rivers, as well as the entrenchment of units to give them better defences. The actions found in Engineering are: Bridge Repair, Bridge Build, Bridge Destroy, River Crossing, Assault Crossing, Entrenchment/Fortification.

• Bridge Repair: Repairs a damaged bridge. Becomes accessible at start of enemy turn.
  
• Bridge Build: Builds a pontoon bridge. Becomes accessible at start of enemy turn.
  
• Bridge Destroy: Damages a normal bridge, permanently destroys a pontoon bridge.
  
• River Crossing: Allows unit to cross a major river. Infantry only, consumes all MPs and locks AP.
  
• Assault Crossing: Allows unit to attack across a major river. Infantry only, consumes all MPs + AP.
  
• Entrenchment: Unit entrenches, providing a +1 shift and giving multiple bonuses depending on the terrain. Must have all MP + AP, and moving or attacking from the tile removes entrenchment. Fortification works exactly the same as Entrenchment, but can only be used on an already entrenched unit.

At the start of every conference you will be presented with five cards for purchase. On Easy difficulty, two of these cards will be free, while on Normal difficulty, only one will be free. You cannot acquire free cards at conferences on Classic or Hard difficulty. Cards are, in essence, items that are used during a scenario to give the player some kind of advantage for the remainder of that scenario. Normally cards are single use only, being permanently removed once used, but certain cards are Persistent which means that they stay in the players card "inventory" but can only be used again after the next conference. Cards bought during a conference can be discarded at any time, recouping some of the Prestige used to buy it (usually half), but Persistent cards that have been used during a scenario cannot be recouped for any Prestige - you will have to wait until the next conference for your Persistent card to become active again before refunding it for some Prestige.


Above: A random selection of cards available for purchase at the start of a conference. As none are free, and the card inventory is only four slots, this selection must come from a Classic difficulty campaign. Note that the 'Artillery Preparation' card is marked as Persistent.

The cards presented during a conference are randomised from a pool unique to each campaign and its conferences. Therefore, right from the very start, your own campaign can be quite different from someone else's, depending on the cards available to you.

The sheer list of different cards is considerable indeed, but a lot of them are variations on similar theatre assets or unit deployment. For example the "He 111" Bomber card from the 'Barbarossa' campaign shares the exact same effect as the "Blenheim Mk.IV" Bomber card from the 'Desert Rats' campaign; they both provide an 'Air Attack' theatre asset for a single scenario. Note that some cards will provide a theatre asset or a theatre use: in the case of the former, the card's ability can be used every turn of a scenario; in the case of the latter, you can use it just once in a single scenario. (This is usually shown by having a card's '+' number be coloured either white or gold: white indicates you can use it every turn, gold indicates it's one use only).

Thus we will list all card types in the game as of the most recent DLC, 'Don 42'. All cards are not Persistent unless stated otherwise:

• Bomber cards provide a +1 'Air Attack' asset for a single scenario, which can be used once per turn. This can stack with other 'Air Attack' assets. Bomber cards have consistently been priced at 40 prestige with a 20 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Naval Bombardment cards provide +3 'Naval Bombardment' uses for a single scenario. This can stack with other 'Naval Bombardment' assets. Naval Bombardment cards have consistently been priced at 45 Prestige with a 20 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Air Recon cards provide +3 'Air Recon' uses for a single scenario. This can stack with other 'Air Recon' assets. Air Recon cards have been consistently priced at 10 Prestige with a 5 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Saturation Strike cards provide +1 'Saturation Strike' use for a single scenario. This can stack with other 'Saturation Strike' assets. Saturation Strike cards have been consistently priced at 40 Prestige with a 20 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Sabotage cards provide +1 'Sabotage' use for a single scenario. This can stack with other 'Sabotage' assets. Note that certain Sabotage cards differ from others depending on the campaign: the 'SOE' Sabotage card (from 'Victory in the West' campaign) and 'LRDG' Sabotage card ('Desert Rats') are single use cards that cost 20 Prestige, while the 'Brandenburger' Sabotage card ('Blitzkrieg', 'Barbarossa' and 'Stalingrad') and 'Razvedchiki' Sabotage card ('Moscow 41' and 'Don 42') are Persistent cards that costs 30 Prestige. All cards are refunded for 10 Prestige each.
  
  
• Transport cards have dual purposes: they can either add one truck to the supply network of a scenario, or can be used to give the 'Motor Pool' action to every infantry unit of a chosen HQ for the rest of the scenario (note, this latter option is not available for German HQs). They have consistently cost 25 Prestige with a 10 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Elite Replacements cards allow access to an "elite store" for the remainder of the scenario. This allows you to purchase "elite steps" and specialists for your forces in the middle of a battle. "Elite steps" only reduce a unit's experience by 5 points (instead of the usual 20) but in return are usually far more expensive. These cards have been consistently Persistent and cost 20 Prestige with a 10 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Para Drop cards deploy an elite paratrooper unit consisting of three steps. These cards have been consistently Persistent and cost 75 Prestige with a 30 Prestige refund. However, should your elite paratrooper unit be destroyed during a scenario in which it's been deployed, the associated card is immediately, and permanently, removed.
  
  • There are also three unique Para Drop cards in the 'Victory in the West' campaign; these Divisional Para Drop cards deploy a full-strength elite paratrooper unit, and consist of the '82nd Airborne', '101st Airborne' and '1st Airborne'. All three of these unique cards are Persistent and cost 120 Prestige with a 50 Prestige refund. Just like your normal Para Drop cards however, should the respective unit be destroyed then the card is immediately removed from your inventory.
• Intelligence cards, when used, remove fog of war for the rest of the turn. Intelligence cards have been consistently Persistent and cost 30 Prestige, with a 15 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Air Supply cards provide +3 'Air Supply' uses for a scenario. This can stack with other 'Air Supply' assets. Air Supply cards have been consistently priced at 30 Prestige with a 15 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Naval Landing cards deploy an elite infantry unit with three steps that can only be deployed from the sea. Naval Landing cards have been consistently Persistent and cost 50 Prestige with a 25 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Flying Artillery cards provide +1 'Flying Artillery' use. This can stack with other 'Flying Artillery' assets. Flying Artillery cards have consistently cost 40 Prestige with a 20 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Precision Bombing cards provide +3 'Precision Bombing' uses. These can stack with other 'Precision Bombing' assets. Precision Bombing cards have consistently cost 75 Prestige with a 25 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Fliegerleitoffiziere cards provide +1 'Air Attack' asset and +1 'Flying Artillery' use. These can stack with other 'Air Attack' and 'Flying Artillery' assets. Fliegerleitoffiziere cards have consistently cost 60 Prestige with a 30 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Mobile Command cards allow you to refill a single HQ's used CPs, (even if its already moved) for just a single turn. Mobile Command cards have been consistently Persistent and cost 20 Prestige with a 10 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Artillery Preparation cards allow you, for a single turn, to use the 'Suppressive Fire' HQ action without expending AP or suppressing any artillery specialists following the action. This card is exclusive to Soviet campaigns, is Persistent, and costs 30 Prestige with a 10 Prestige refund.
  
  
• Fliegerführer Afrika cards provide +1 'Flying Artillery' use and +3 'Air Recon' use. These can stack with other 'Flying Artillery' and 'Air Recon' assets. This card is exclusive to 'Desert Fox' and costs 50 Prestige with a 25 Prestige refund.

If you are wondering which cards you should purchase over others, check out the second half of this guide starting with the 'Alright, what should I actually spend my Prestige on?' section.

During a campaign, many of your units will be persistent; they will go from scenario to scenario, carrying the same steps, specialists and experience that they finish the previous scenario with. Naturally, this means that whatever damage they take is carried over as well. Worst of all, should they be destroyed, then they will show up in their next respective scenario "reconstituted" with three steps, no specialists and base 'regular' experience. Having this happen to one of your key formations can be disastrous - having this happen to multiple units can end a campaign early.

Left: Note the black number on bronze background in the top left of this unit's description; this "persistence" number means the unit will return for at least three more scenarios after the current one.

So how do you strengthen a unit, either to keep it strong or to restore it following its destruction? Certain scenarios may provide some free steps/specialists at the start but these are few and far between. Restarting scenarios on Easy and Normal difficulty will award free Engineer specialists but this is useless on higher difficulties (not to mention somewhat shameful). Your single best option is the force pool store which is accessible on your HQs during the battle preparation phase, which is essentially a "free turn" that happens before the start of most scenarios.

The store contains a selection of steps and specialists unique to both the "theatre" and "campaign segment" of the campaign you are playing. The "theatre" refers to a section of the strategic map with available scenarios (for example, the 'Barbarossa' campaign has two theatres: "North" and "South". Both "North" and "South" have their own unique selection of steps/specialists from the store). The "campaign segment" refers to the conference and its proceeding scenarios, which lasts until the next conference. Once you reach a new conference, all steps/specialists that weren't bought from the store become unavailable and the store refreshes for the new campaign segment. (Note: this means that the store doesn't refresh every scenario, rather every campaign segment. Thus if you purchase a majority of the store's steps/specialists in the first scenario after a conference, then you will have far fewer steps/specialists available to purchase in the second scenario after said conference, and then the third, and so on until the next conference).

Note that the force pool store is unavailable in scenarios without a battle preparation phase, which are usually scenarios where you do not start with a frontline, e.g. during a major seaborne landing, although there are some notable exceptions.

So what kind of things can you purchase from the store?

At the top of the list of every store are the infantry components and armour equipments that will make up the steps of your forces. Do not confuse these with full steps! As a reminder: an infantry step is made up of one infantry component, a mechanised step is made up of one infantry component and one armour equipment, and an armoured step is made up of one infantry component and two armour equipments. Therefore, you will have to do some basic maths to work out the price of a fully mechanised or armoured step (unless you purchase steps directly to the unit, which automatically sorts components/equipment into full steps - see the bottom right image). Note that most infantry components are specific to their respective faction, e.g. you cannot use Italian infantry components to shore up German infantry divisions. Armour equipment usually works differently, with the armour equipment of "major" factions being used to help create "minor" faction armoured steps, e.g. a Canadian armoured step is made up of one Canadian infantry component and two British armour equipments.

Then there are the specialist steps. Like components and equipment, specialists are usually exclusive to their respective factions, although minor factions can use their "major" faction's specialists without penalty (for example, a British unit cannot use Indian specialists such as "Gurkha Rifles" Special Forces, but Indian units can use British "Royal Marines" Special Forces). As specialists are not considered part of a unit's base steps, there is a limit as to how many specialists can be attached to a unit, ranging from 3 to 1, depending on the faction and campaign. There is no limit as to what types of specialists you may place on a unit.

In the following section, we will list out all types of specialists available. Note that not all types of specialists will appear in every given campaign (don't expect Ski specialists in 'Desert Fox'!).

Specialists are crucial to victory in Unity of Command II - without them your armies will have no tactical finesse or flexibility, and you will no doubt suffer higher than expected casualties as you push towards primary objectives. This is not just because they tend to have equal or higher attack and defence than that of regular steps, but because they have unique abilities that are exclusive to them. While we will be covering each specialist type here, we will not be covering every individual specialist (as there are well over a hundred) and we will not be covering every detail of differing types either (once again, the manual has full explanations for each).

These are all the different specialist types in Unity of Command II (as of 'Desert Fox' DLC):

• Recon specialists can expand the frontline significantly through their ability to capture adjacent hexes as their respective unit moves through enemy territory. They can also warn of enemy units hidden in fog of war without costing their unit its movement points, and can allow non-armoured units to use the 'Recon in Force' HQ action. However they are quite fragile and are usually among the first casualties in a battle. All Recon specialists are marked by green-coloured tiles.
  
  • Ski specialists are a unique type of recon specialist that don't provide the free hex captures but in return provide a +1 combat shift in snow.
  
  
  
• Anti Tank specialists come with high defence and a number of 'defensive armour' shifts, which neutralises the effect of enemy armour shifts. Very useful on units that are otherwise vulnerable to armour and on armoured units that can use the defensive armour shifts to overmatch enemy armour. Note that there are towed versions of this specialist, which are suppressed on movement (but are recovered during enemy turn) and do not provide their defensive armour on attack, but are usually much cheaper. All Anti Tank specialists are marked by dark blue-coloured tiles.
  
  
  
• Artillery specialists usually come with solid defence and almost no attack. In return they provide a number of 'artillery shifts', which can be extremely powerful on the offensive, as well as giving the equipped unit access to the 'Set Piece Attack' and 'Suppressive Fire' HQ actions. You can also get towed versions of this specialist, which are suppressed on movement (but are recovered during enemy turn). All Artillery specialists are marked by purple-coloured tiles.
  
  • There are also Assault Gun and Divisional Gun specialists (colloquially known as "Arty-AT"), which provide both defensive armour shifts and artillery shifts, alongside their base stats. Although they usually have less of each shift type compared to their basic counter-parts, this flexibility makes them very useful but also very expensive. The Divisional Gun specialist is more or less just a towed version of the Assault Gun, which suffers from the same problem of towed suppression as other towed specialists. All Assault Gun/Divisional Gun specialists are marked by purple-coloured tiles.
  
  
  
• Tank specialists are what you might imagine - they have high base stats, as well as having at least +1 armour shift. As they are essentially a direct upgrade to anti-tank specialists, they are usually priced accordingly. All Tank specialists are marked by light blue-coloured tiles.
  
  
  
• Engineer specialists allow you to negate enemy entrenchment, remove enemy entrenchment far more easily and can ignore certain terrain shifts. They are extremely useful, extremely fragile and (usually) extremely expensive. A must have for breaking a heavily fortified position. All Engineer specialists are marked by orange-coloured tiles.
  
  • Engineer Tank specialists are an extremely rare type of specialist that combine both the Tank specialist's armour shifts and the Engineer specialist's unique abilities. These are marked by light blue-coloured tiles.
  
  
  
• Special Forces specialists usually come with high base stats and the ability to ignore an entrenchment shift. They provide +1 attack loss shift, which means that when the unit they're attached to attacks an enemy, your unit is less likely to take casualties. All Special Forces specialists are marked by black-coloured tiles.
  
  • There are also certain specialist steps that have the "appearance" of Special Forces, but lack their unique abilities. These "pseudo forces" provide some base attack and defence, but have no intrinsic abilities (e.g. the Italian "Blackshirt" specialist provides 2 attack and 2 defence, but absolutely nothing else.)
  

Note that there are also certain specialists from the above list that are considered Amphibious - these usually provide bonuses relating to river crossings. For example, Amphibious Tank specialists don't lose their armour shift when attacking across rivers and Amphibious Special Forces can allow their attached unit to launch 'Feint Attack' actions across rivers.

Note that depending on the campaign the prices of certain steps and specialists can vary considerably, so there is no clear "purchasing guide" for them all. If you want to see my recommendations for which general specialists you should purchase, then you should check out the 'Alright, so what should I actually spend my Prestige on?' section of this guide.

During scenarios, your persistent HQs will have an experience meter underneath their Command Point reserve. Whenever a unit attached to that HQ gains experience through combat, while in range of its parent HQ, the HQ will gain an equivalent amount of experience. Once the HQ's experience threshold has been reached, your HQ will receive an in-game HQ upgrade.

Right: The experience meter is located on the bottom-left side of this HQ; the HQ currently has 0 experience, while the threshold for the scenario is numbered at 190.

In-game HQ upgrades are a way to improve your HQ side-by-side while improving your troops. Once you've reached the required experience (which varies between HQs and the scenarios they appear in), a pop-up will appear with three options: an extra Command Point (CP) for a Prestige cost, a "specialisation" for one of your HQ actions for a Prestige cost, and a specialisation for one of your HQ actions that costs nothing (it's "free"!). There is no way to gain specialisations other than through in-game HQ upgrades.

To refresh on what a specialisation is - it allows you to make a HQ action cost one fewer CP to use, thus allowing you to use more actions in a single turn. If you take a look at HQ actions during a conference you'll see one or two "dots" above most of them; an orange dot represents a gained specialisation for that action while greyed-out dots represent the number of specialisations you can still get for that specific action. If an action doesn't have these dots, then they cannot be specialised under any circumstances (force pool actions for instance have historically never been capable of specialisation).

Left: An in-game HQ upgrade (note, if an option has a greyed out price that means you do not have enough Prestige to buy it).

While the choice of specialisations on offer for an in-game HQ upgrade is somewhat randomised, there are a special set of rules that decides what choices are offered. First off, the "free" option will always be for an HQ action that hasn't before received a specialisation. Thus, if all possible HQ actions have already received at least one specialisation, you will not receive any free option for further specialisations. Instead you'll have the choice to gain 25 Prestige for free (note, this is the only way to gain Prestige other than from capturing objectives or Easy/Normal conferences).

The specialisation that's offered for a price can either be for an action that's already been specialised before, or hasn't. The price can vary considerably based on the HQ, actions and campaign. If there are no more available actions to specialise, then no paid option will appear.

CP upgrades are usually the most expensive option on an in-game HQ upgrade. These are the only way to increase the number of CPs for your HQ and max out at nine (9). Once a HQ has nine CPs, it cannot gain any more (there is even an achievement for accomplishing this!). Should you reach the almost unprecedented scenario of having maximum CPs as well as fully specialising every unlocked HQ action for a single HQ, then you will have no choice but to take the free 25 Prestige from future in-game HQ upgrades.

There are a couple more things to spend Prestige on other than what was covered in the previous sections and they will be covered here.

First are alt-history tracks. Before a scenario, you can check if any upcoming bonus objectives can allow you to put an alt-history "plan" into action at the next conference. If you take that bonus objective in the scenario it appears in, then at the start of the next conference you will have the opportunity to switch tracks and go with an alt-history plan. This costs 50 Prestige to do, regardless of campaign, and can be done as many times as there are alt-history tracks. Going down the historical track, whether by failing the relevant bonus objective or specifically choosing the option to stay historical, costs nothing.

The final way to spend Prestige is through the rather unknown, and somewhat shameful, "One More Turn" system. This system is active on all Easy or Normal difficulty campaigns, and can be switched on in the options menu for Classic or Hard difficulty campaigns. What it entails is as follows:

Should the final enemy turn of the scenario come to an end, and you do not control all primary objectives, then you will have the option to play "One More Turn" (declining the offer immediately fails the scenario). You will have to pay 25 Prestige (50 on Classic/Hard) to play one extra turn after the original final turn, in an attempt to capture whatever remaining primary objectives you have not yet taken. Should you fail in that as well, you will still be able to play "One More Turn" for double the prestige cost of the previous extra turn. This can continue ad inifinitum (so, if on Easy/Normal difficulty, on your second "One More Turn" offer the prestige cost will be 50, on your third it will cost 100, on your fourth it will cost 200 etc.) until you no longer have the Prestige necessary to continue.

So here we go: the main purpose of this guide, to advise you on how you should spend your hard-won Prestige. Keep in mind, this is a subjective and personal section based upon my playthroughs of Unity of Command II's campaigns, and my own experiences may have been vastly different from yours. Considering the scale of the question we will be splitting this part into multiple sections but if you want a simple answer, here goes:

TL;DR: Spend Prestige on necessary HQ upgrades and steps and specialists for your persistent units. Everything else is tertiary.

Other than arguably 'Moscow 41', your campaign will come down to the effectiveness of your forces. If your forces are weakened after the first handful of scenarios then your campaign can become exponentially harder; this is because the great majority of Unity of Command II's scenarios have you go on the offensive and having strong divisions/brigades to help capture fortified objectives is crucial for victory, as well as having the mobility to reach said objectives in the first place. Therefore it is of paramount importance to help your units in any way you can.

One way is giving them the ability to do more stuff. The Operations section of most HQs is absolutely vital for this: 'Feint Attack' is a universally useful ability which allows even the most pathetic unit to assist in an important combat, 'Set Piece Attack' is borderline necessary for some of the toughest-to-take objectives in the game, while 'Suppressive Fire' can turn an extremely powerful enemy unit into a shell of itself with a few lucky coin flips. Don't underestimate the value of 'Rearguard' and 'Counterattack' either, as they are extremely valuable in the few defence focused scenarios of the game and are very helpful to put on units you have left exposed. Only 'No Retreat' and 'Recon in Force' are somewhat lacklustre and quite situational.

Left: The German unit is fortified on a mountain tile and is of elite experience - a very tough nut to crack. While the special forces and engineers will negate many of the defensive shifts, an all-out assault will end with considerable casualties (which are all worth Prestige). 'Feint Attack' and 'Set Piece Attack' will not only have a better chance of forcing the German unit out, but would risk little to no casualties on the Allied side.

More mobility is vital to getting your forces where they need to be, so you might be surprised to hear that Engineering is the second most useful HQ branch; this is because of actions like 'Repair Bridge' and 'Build Bridge', which can bypass normally paralysing rivers. 'Swift Crossing' and 'Assault Crossing' are mostly irrelevant due to the lack of Major Rivers compared to minor ones... until you get to the scenario where you need to cross one and you're left without a paddle (note: at the end of certain conferences the game will sometimes warn you if you haven't taken certain levels of Engineering that it thinks you should have - treat these hints with the respect they deserve). Naturally, be mindful of the combat theatre; the above HQ actions are a lot less useful in the desert, for obvious reasons, but in Europe, where enormous obstacles such as the Rhine and Danube exist, they can be absolutely necessary.

The other HQ branches are not too necessary by themselves - rather you should be on the look out for useful individual actions. In Logistics while the 'Supply Dump' action is almost laughably terrible, its German opposite in 'Oversupply' is immensely useful throughout many of the "lightning war" campaigns they will end up fighting - it's borderline mandatory on any Panzer Group/Army HQs under your control as it allows your best units to fight at full strength far beyond the support of your other forces. 'Motor Pool' can be quite useful if you know your HQ is mostly infantry-based (and won't be heading into mountains soon) but is otherwise secondary. And while 'Emergency Supply' is maybe the single most important HQ action in the game, it is unlocked by default on every HQ (as of February 2023) and thus will never need purchasing.

Meanwhile, the Force Pool branch is similarly not worth touching; while the German version of 'Transfer Step' isn't bad by any means, it's usually not worth the Prestige when there are so many better options. Considering that the most important actions are 'Deploy Step' and 'Redeploy Step', and they are both universally unlocked from the beginning, most Force Pool upgrades are usually worth skipping. The sole exceptions are the Level 3 branches for the Soviet HQs of 'Moscow 41' - as you will likely take plenty of casualties in that campaign, being able to reorganise the plentiful stragglers while mounting your own offensives will be very helpful. But it is quite an expensive get; you have multiple Fronts to juggle; and you can't neglect the Operations or Engineering branches, so it will mostly come down to your own personal judgement.

Left and Right: While the Force Pool actions may be useless most of the time, for scenarios where you have multiple stragglers the 'Kampfgruppe' order can be surprisingly useful. On the left is a three-step straggler. On the right is the same three-step straggler integrated into a three-step Security Unit, to make a sudden six step unit out of nothing, and all in a single turn.

Last but not least when it comes to important HQ branches is the perennially underrated Intel branch. While it may not have the flashy actions of the other branches, it is extraordinarily useful - being able to effectively double your vision with a single level, before increasing it by a further 50% with the second level. That extra information at the start of a turn can allow you to plan your breakthroughs with far more accuracy and while the final level is probably overkill (not to mention extremely expensive) it can prove its worth in the more modern campaigns where enemy 'Rearguard' and 'Counterattack' tokens are far more commonplace. In any case, on any HQ worth its salt, Level 1 Intel is a must.

The Range/Movement upgrades are an interesting one; naturally, if your HQ has a ton of units spread across a long front then the extra range is extremely important. If your HQ has several fast moving units then getting enough movement to keep up with them is vital as well. You should definitely invest into at least a few Range/Movement upgrades if it's on one of your most persistent HQs.

...Which leads to the exceptions to all the above guides: HQs with poor quality troops and/or a lack of persistence. While on average the majority of your HQs will feature in the majority of the scenarios you play, there will be noticeable exceptions. If you don't mind a few spoilers you can look up the scenario charts in the 'Manuals' folder of your copy of Unity of Command II which explicitly tells you which scenarios feature which HQs. Sometimes they are reasonably balanced; other times it's clear which armies are taking a backseat. If you know an army is going to provide only a secondary role in its campaign, or has terrible quality troops which will rarely affect the outcome of a battle, then it simply isn't worth investing in them at all. Check the 'designer notes' of each persistent HQ under your command as they will usually clue you in to the quality and future usage of your HQs.

Below: A HQ from the 'Stalingrad' campaign. With some critical thinking, you can figure out which HQs aren't worth putting any Prestige into at all.

But all the unique actions, logistical savvy, tactical manoeuvring and strategic genius won't matter an inch if your units aren't strong enough. You will need strong units to take tough objectives, and the majority of your units in any given campaign are persistent, which means they carry their strength over between scenarios. There are no enemy units which are persistent - thus any losses you incur are far more damaging to yourself in the long run than any you inflict upon the enemy. Furthermore, Unity of Command II's enemy AI can be surprisingly cunning and will commit overwhelming force to destroy any vulnerable or exposed divisions you've left out to dry. However, it will rarely sacrifice its forces against a strong unit. Thus keeping your units strong not only allows you to go on the offensive better but keeps your units safer defensively as well.

Right: In the 'Gazala' scenario you command a large combined arms force in a tough battle. But in this picture you don't have to look hard to see the cracks; most of the units are reconstituted from having been destroyed in previous battles, leaving them with an experience deficit compared to their opponents. And the units which haven't been destroyed are severely weakened: this adds up to a scenario which is now far harder than usual and is perhaps even impossible - requiring a restart either to the previous conference, or perhaps the campaign as a whole.

To that end, the Force Pool Store is invaluable; it is almost never a bad idea to save prestige after a conference to splash it all on steps/specialists. You'll want steps to keep your units healthy and you'll want specialists to give you plenty of offensive and defensive options.

The reason why steps are so important is that they are usually cheaper than specialists and provide the majority of the base stats for your units. A single armour step usually has far superior stats to a specialist while being around the same price or even cheaper. An infantry step, while usually having worse base stats than a specialist, will be universally cheaper - thus a stack of three extra infantry steps is usually stronger than an equivalent costing specialist.

One of the other main reasons you want to keep your units at a high step count is to prevent them from being in the 'weak' state; this happens when a unit drops beneath three active steps (active/suppressed specialists play no part in a unit being 'weak'). A 'weak' unit exudes no Zone of Control, which can allow enemies to easily surround them and, being 'weak', destroy them. The more steps you have, the more it will take for your opponent to make your own units 'weak'.

There is one major problem to increasing the number of steps a unit has however: experience. Whenever you deploy a step to a unit, that unit loses 20 exp. Should a unit lose enough exp, then it will drop an experience level (>300 for Veteran, >200 for Regular). We just talked about how you should keep your units strong to both take objectives and keep themselves safe; each experience level does both, providing both positive combat shifts on offence and defence (which is unique among all combat shifts) while also providing a bonus 'attacker loss shift' per experience level (which is a complicated way of saying the more experienced a unit is, the less damage it will take on the attack). Keeping one eye on the experience level of your unit when adding steps is critical - if it doesn't drop beneath one of the thresholds, then it's worth adding.

But what happens when strengthening a unit is guaranteed to lower its experience level? As much as you may want a simple answer, this is entirely a judgement call based on factors such as the unit in question, how far into the campaign you are, its opportunities to raise its experience again etc. A good balance to keep in mind is that if your unit is missing at least three steps, then bringing it back to full strength at the cost of an experience level is usually the right call.

Right: This elite, powerful division is missing three of its steps; any additional step will lower its experience to 'veteran' quality. Thus it will be up to the player to decide if such an addition is worth it, especially if they don't have three steps to spare.

Specialists on the other hand, can have a wealth of different applications, depending on the specialist in question (refer to the 'Types of Specialists' section for a refresher on what each of them does). It should be stated right away that 'Artillery' specialists are some of the most powerful in the game, not just because of added combat shifts on the offence, but because they allow a unit access to the 'Set Piece Attack' and 'Suppressive Fire' HQ actions, both of which are incredibly powerful tools in the right hands. Their 'artillery shifts' can only be negated by certain types of terrain, allowing basic infantry units to punch well above their weight, and mobile artillery can give armoured units a different option on the offence from the easily negated 'armour shifts'. Just be careful when attacking into cities/towns using them (especially when using 'Suppressive Fire') as you may turn the city to rubble - one of the most loathsome things that can happen during any given scenario.

'Engineer' specialists are incredibly valuable as well; not only do they negate a plethora of defensive enemy shifts, but they can reduce enemy entrenchment easily, making them a godsend for rooting out tough enemy units on key objectives. They naturally go hand-in-hand with 'Artillery' specialists, turning 'Set Piece Attacks' into true bunker buster assaults (and Soviet 'Engineer' specialists can even perform 'Set Piece Attacks' without an 'Artillery' specialist!). However, they are fragile, usually being one of the first steps on the loss queue, so make sure they are on experienced units which, as stated earlier, take fewer losses on the attack.

'Recon' specialists are must haves on armoured units, or whichever units you plan on breaking through enemy lines with. Their abilities to check the fog of war for enemies, secure ZoC for your advancing unit, as well as take the first hit for your valuable armour steps gives them a surprising amount of defensive finesse to your strongest units. 'Anti-Tank' specialists turn a fragile infantry unit into one that can trade with enemy armour, 'Special Forces' provide even more protection for your forces while acting as "pseudo-engineers", while 'Tank' specialists are never a bad option, regardless of the unit.

Specialists, all in all, are always a good addition to a unit, regardless of the type. On top of their unique effects, they do not lower the experience of an attached unit, unlike deployed steps. The only caveats are their pricing and rarity, which varies between campaigns and even conferences. Debating which specialists to purchase in which specific scenarios of individual campaigns would require multiple guides in and of themselves, and so will not be covered here.

There is one major problem with the Force Pool store however: it is not available in every scenario. Scenarios where you don't start with a frontline, such as seaborne invasions, will not have a battle preparation phase and thus, no Force Pool store. However, the decision to provide a battle preparation phase is entirely up to the campaign designer - thus, certain scenarios may pull a fast one and surprise you by launching you into battle immediately. This is relatively rare but can be quite the shock if you saved prestige from the previous conference (*cough* 'Stalingrad' *cough*) thus leaving you with a full wallet of Prestige and nothing to spend it on.

Which leads me to the most important point - spend your Prestige! With few exceptions, you'll want to enter the first turn of a scenario with as little Prestige as possible. Spend it on necessary HQ upgrades during the conferences, as well as vital steps/specialists in the battle preparation phase; unless you have a plan on saving Prestige for a critical upgrade at the next conference, or perhaps an alt-history "plan", there is no reason not to spend your Prestige immediately. As you will likely be on an offensive mission, with primary objectives to take, you'll be guaranteed to gain Prestige before the end of the scenario. And while Prestige doubled its role as "score" in Unity of Command 1, and thus you did not want to spend unnecessary Prestige where it wasn't needed, in Unity of Command II Prestige and score are separate and thus there is no penalty to not spending it. I have seen an absurd number of Youtubers who have ended a battle preparation phase with 50+ or even 100+ Prestige because they want to "save it for the future"(?!), thus severely weakening their chances for victory in the very scenario they are fighting.

Left: Try to make sure your Prestige doesn't look like this...

As always, with every rule comes its exception; in certain scenarios you will start with the majority, if not all of the objectives under your control. These are almost always exclusively "defensive" scenarios where you have to hold off a superior force using whatever units you have on hand. Here, you'll start the scenario with a ton of extra Prestige already in the bank from the objectives you start with control of. Thus, if there is a battle preparation phase with a force pool store, you might be tempted to spend the treasure hoard of Prestige that's been dumped in your lap but be cautious; many of the objectives in these kinds of scenarios have a "hold by this turn" caveat, which means they can be lost during the scenario... along with their Prestige reward. This also goes for the primary objectives; while you will start with 50 Prestige per primary objective held at the start of the scenario, should you lose one of these objectives and gain it back later, after its Prestige reward has fallen, then you will lose the respective missing Prestige. But what if you spent it all earlier? Then congratulations: you've found the only way to enter negative Prestige, which is a position you never want to be in. So think twice about spending Prestige in defensive scenarios.

Right: ...or like this!



And that concludes what you should spend prestige on. I'm not forgetting anything am I?

Oh yeah, Cards. With two notable exceptions, here's my advice on cards:

Never buy cards.

Despite being one of the first things presented to you during a conference and usually having a powerful effect during any given scenario, cards are just generally not worth it. What do I mean by this? Well, it comes down to resource allocation and variances in difficulty.

Cards represent a third thing to spend Prestige on, and thus will naturally cut into the budgets you set aside for HQ upgrades and steps/specialists - as there is not a single card that strengthens your units in any way, buying cards intrinsically makes your own troops weaker, which we've discussed at length is a terrible thing to happen. The great majority of cards only provide a temporary bonus, which is usually a theatre asset for a single scenario, which pales in comparison to the possible effectiveness of a strong specialist (for example, a 50 Prestige 'Flying Artillery' card may recoup its cost by helping take a primary objective on time... but a 50 Prestige 'Engineer' specialist could very well do the same, with the bonus of sticking around for all future objectives and scenarios that the unit/HQ it's attached to persists).

Also, most cards have pretty poor effects anyway. While a 'Bomber' or 'Flying Artillery' card can have an appreciable effect on a given scenario with the right application and timing, cards such as 'Air Recon', 'Sabotage', 'Intelligence', and 'Mobile Command' (which was recently reduced in price from a ludicrous 40 Prestige down to 20), are pretty much not worth the inventory slot they fill. 'Truck' cards are useful, but there's not a scenario where you can't succeed without them, thus making them more of a "I'm not familiar with supply yet" card. 'Precision Bombing' and 'Naval Bombardment' are extremely situational, not to mention expensive, while the 'Elite Replacements' card may look good due to being able to improve your forces, but the fact you have to buy a card just to buy more expensive specialists than what can be gotten from the basic force pool store is a massive drain on resources, and for what? So that a single elite unit can stay elite with extra steps? Or that you can use it during a seaborne invasion, where your own forces are usually strengthened for free anyway? Stay away from this one.


Above: A 75 Prestige card for three uses of a single asset in a single scenario.

Right: A selection of steps and specialists for a variety of prices. Even the extremely expensive 'Mörser' specialist gives a unit a tremendous offensive boost for as long as you can keep both unit and specialist alive.

But what about the 'Para Drop' cards? Surely deploying an elite unit onto the battlefield, even behind enemy lines, while being persistent, is a good pickup, right? Well, yes, the para drop brigades that are available in nearly every campaign's card pool are good cards, but remember what I warned about weak units. These brigades are only three steps and start with no specialists; one wrong deployment or committed AI focus and you can kiss 75 Prestige goodbye. Not to mention the inherent problem with being available only one scenario per conference - if there's just one or two scenarios in a single campaign segment, then persistent cards like the 'Para Drops' can excel. But if there's three plus, then you'll have a dead card taking up a slot in your inventory for an exhausting amount of time. ('Naval Landing' cards are the same as 'Para Drop' cards but with far less deployment options, thus making them far worse).

Which leads to the next point about not buying cards - the availability of them in the first place. On Easy and Normal difficulty, you'll receive two or one cards respectively for free. On Classic and Hard, your card inventory is reduced in size, thus making it even more important to pick what cards you keep carefully. So how do you get cards on Classic or Hard if you're not buying them? Bonus objectives.

A large number of bonus objectives in any given campaign (with the notable exception, again, of 'Moscow 41') give a card for free, as well as the normal 20 Prestige. While the specific card is tied to the objective and won't change regardless of restarts, this is still your best way of filling up your card inventory and you do it while gaining, rather than spending, Prestige. As there's usually a bonus objective that awards a card in nearly every scenario, buying up cards in conferences only to have to dismiss a newly earned one due to a lack of inventory space is a waste of resources in more ways than one. And due to the fact that coming out of a conference you'll have either only three (on Easy and Hard) or four (Normal and Classic) card slots open means that you can fill your inventory quite quickly with the smart taking of bonus objectives.

Left: The objectives list for a single scenario. Note the bonus objectives with a "+" symbol - this indicates a bonus objective that rewards a card.

This all adds up to make the purchasing of cards one of the worst ways to spend Prestige in the game. While they can provide a strong independent effect for a single scenario, their commonality as well as their overall Prestige costs are considerably lacking in comparison to persistent HQ upgrades as well as the strengthening of persistent units. The only time that purchasing cards (regardless of quality) is not only acceptable but advisable is during the conference before the final scenario of a campaign, as buying every chance to help achieve such a victory to win the campaign outright is highly recommended. But for general campaigning, cards are simply not worth their cost.

With the exception of two...

As we've repeatedly seen, there are always exceptions to the rules when it comes to Unity of Command II, and in the case of buying cards there are two notable examples that are simply so strong that they must be, at the very least, considered equivalent to both HQ upgrades and steps/specialists. While not necessary for ultimate victory in a campaign, they should at the very least be seriously contemplated as they can heavily impact the outcome of a single scenario in a much greater (and cost effective) way than any of their peers.

These two cards are the 'Divisional Para Drop' and the 'Artillery Preparation' cards.

The 'Divisional Para Drop' (DPD) card is (as of January 2024) exclusive to the 'Victory in the West' and 'Second Front' campaigns, and costs 120 Prestige, making it the most expensive card in the game. "But EgoVermin you handsome devil you," I hear you say, "Didn't you just say that the normal 'Para Drop' card, which costs 45 Prestige less than its divisional cousin, wasn't worth buying?" You are right, I did say that, but the DPD has one tremendous advantage over the basic 'Para Drop' card that more than makes up for its massive increase in price; it has three extra steps.

Right: The '1st Airborne' version of a Divisional Paradrop Card.

This change is enough to make the card a scenario winner all by itself. The one major weakness with the normal para drop was, well, its weakness - three steps is very vulnerable to just about anything, even with elite experience. But to double that amount of steps, on top of the strong base stats of an Allied airborne unit, as well as being of elite experience, makes the DPD a monster of a unit. Drop it into terrain that negates armour shifts, such as woods, swamps or cities and the AI won't be able to dislodge it (and won't want to). Dropped in the right place, and supported by the right push, it'll help you cruise to a victory far easier than any theatre asset could.

But, obviously, the card carries terrible risk as well. Deployed in the wrong place, or leaving it out of supply for too long, means kissing goodbye to a very valuable 120 Prestige unit. On top of this the card, while persistent, is usable only once per campaign segment; again, the fewer scenarios in a campaign segment the better, but in the larger sections you'll have a 120 Prestige card burning a hole in your inventory for quite a while.

The other card is the 'Artillery Preparation' card, which is (as of January 2024) found in the 'Moscow 41', 'Don 42' and 'Kursk' campaigns, and costs 30 Prestige. You might be confused on this one as well, if you haven't seen it in action. After all, it relies on not only having HQs with the 'Suppressive Fire' action, but also having powerful 'Artillery' specialists attached to your units, which are both expensive and limited. And because many of the Soviet arty specialists are towed, this means the majority of your units with artillery will want to start their turns next to their German peers, who have them beat in base stats and (usually) experience.


But none of that matters because 'Artillery Preparation' absolutely ruins a scenario: a solid use of a 50 Prestige 'Flying Artillery' can suppress an enemy unit; a solid use of a 30 Prestige 'Artillery Preparation' can suppress an enemy army.

The caveats are soon dismissed: all the persistent Soviet HQs start with 'Suppressive Fire' and with a single specialisation can reduce its cost to a single CP; you'll want to be purchasing 'Artillery' specialists for your units anyway so they have a fighting chance against the Germans; and the majority of scenarios start with tight frontlines, where your huge numbers of infantry divisions are already adjacent to their German opposites. For several of the scenarios in 'Moscow 41' and 'Don 42' a turn 1 'Artillery Preparation' can win the scenario single-handedly, provided you have troops to back it up.

Even at its weakest, where you get unlucky coin flips or there's not enough specialists to go around, you can usually fully suppress one or two enemy units, then immediately attack them to wipe them out. That's one or two less enemy units, and a cleaner frontline, for 30 Prestige. And the card is persistent, so it's coming back after next conference.


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Above: Four different screenshots of the same scenario, on the same turn, at different locations. Note the three powerful Panzer units, as well as the strong German infantry unit with attached artillery. All four units are in range of Soviet units with their own artillery, capable of 'Suppressive Fire'.


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Above: The same units after a single use of 'Artillery Preparation'. All the Panzer units have been fully suppressed, and the infantry unit is weak. And because none of the Soviet units used their AP, they immediately followed up by wiping out the weakened German divisions. When using 'Artillery Preparation', your only limit is the number of Command Points you have.

'Moscow 41' seems to have been designed almost with the 'Artillery Preparation' card in mind - indeed, the devs have actually coded it so that it has a higher chance of appearing at conferences than any other card. It gives your statistically weaker forces a huge offensive advantage that can swing whichever scenario you use it in, or it can be a first turn nuke to set the ball rolling and keep the AI on the back-foot for the rest of the battle.

But you must be aware, this isn't magic artillery: you will have to remove entrenchment from German units in forests before they can be fully suppressed, while using it on cities will turn them to rubble and ruin your day. While the 'Suppressive Fire' itself can help remove entrenchment with a little luck, you should absolutely not use 'Artillery Preparation' for sieges.

These two completely different cards carry risk, and improper use can backfire severely. But the rewards far outweigh what the other cards can give and in both 'Moscow 41' and 'Don 42' I would argue that acquiring 'Artillery Preparation' cards outweighs the purchasing of most HQ upgrades - it's just that good.

Alright, so saying earlier that everything other than HQ branch upgrades and steps/specialists was tertiary was maybe just a little hyperbole. In-game HQ upgrades can be very useful, but unlike with the other categories, this one is a little more complicated due to the sheer expanse of this topic.

The problem with in-game HQ upgrades is that the choice is random every time, and whether an upgrade is worth Prestige or not is dependent entirely on the HQ in question. For example, let's say in the 'Desert Fox' campaign you get the option to upgrade the backwards Italian 'X Corpo' HQ and can choose to get a specialisation for 'Bridge Repair' for 30 Prestige. Do you take it? Of course not, that's an easy pass. But what about a specialisation for 'Emergency Supply' for the 'Afrikakorps', which would lower its cost from 5 to 4 CPs, thus allowing you to use it twice in a turn? Now that's definitely worth it. How about a specialisation for 'Set Piece Attack' on the 'XX Corpo'? Hmm, well let me check which infantry units already have artillery...

What complicates this even more is the extra CP option. That above example featuring the 'Afrikakorps' seems like an easy take, but what if the HQ in question was still missing a CP? Then the choice would be between an excellent specialisation and a universally useful extra CP. However, the 'Afrikakorps' HQ starts with 8 CPs already, which is an excellent amount, so perhaps we can skip the CP this time.

But let's say this same choice was offered on 'US II. Corps' in 'Victory in the West'; a specialisation in 'Emergency Supply' versus an extra CP. The 'II. Corps' will eventually become the '5th Army' and increase the number of units under its command, so getting better 'Emergency Supply' would be helpful for the future increase in units. But the 'II. Corps' starts with an abominable 4 CPs, a terribly low amount - in this case the extra CP is almost certainly the right option.


Above: The very rare example of an in-game HQ upgrade where the HQ in question has maximum CPs and two "first specialisations" left, leaving a choice that involves two different free options.

Thus it can be very difficult to judge what to buy during an in-game HQ upgrade, or whether to stick to the free option. As a general rule of thumb however, be very careful of spending prestige in the middle of a scenario like this if it's the final scenario of a campaign segment; you'll want to save some for the following conference, especially if there's an alt-history plan you want to put into action.

Another good rule is as follows: if you didn't put much prestige into the HQ at the conference, then its maybe not worth putting prestige into it during the scenario.

One of Unity of Command II's greatest features is its extensive and well developed "alternative history" campaign tracks; during specific scenarios, you can capture certain bonus objectives marked by a "token" (represented by a letter of the alphabet) which otherwise gives no immediate bonus other than the base 20 Prestige. These "token" objectives can change the course of a campaign: sometimes they'll give you a better starting position in a future scenario, sometimes they'll change the frontlines on the map screen, sometimes they'll grant extra reinforcements for a future scenario or even skip a future scenario entirely. Some, however, allow you to completely change the course of your campaign.

These objectives that allow you to go down "alternative history" tracks are shown in advance on the map screen, both during a conference and before you launch the scenario that that specific objective appears in (you can also find these objectives in the scenario charts of their respective campaigns in the 'Manuals' folder, accessible from the main menu). Completing that objective will allow you, for a 50 Prestige cost at the start of the next conference, to activate a "plan" that will cause your campaign to go down an "alternative history" track. These tracks can sometimes add additional scenarios to ones you were going to play anyway or, more often then not, they completely change the scenarios you will play for the rest of the campaign.

So, should you pay for these plans and go down the alt-history tracks? That, ultimately, is entirely up to you. The game will warn you beforehand that alt-history tracks are tougher, which is usually true, but they are also usually on a larger scale with a more "interesting" design. They also provide a +30% score modifier for each alt-history track you go down. The choice is ultimately yours but once you've made your decision, it cannot be reversed: you are "locked in" on your chosen track.

There's nothing wrong with looking at the scenario charts of a campaign beforehand and plotting out your path to ultimate victory. If such a path takes you down alt-history tracks, then be sure to save some Prestige on the final scenario of the segment before you make your choice, otherwise you may not be able to pay the 50 Prestige price that's required (and having a little extra for the conference is never a bad idea either). However, if finishing a campaign is all that matters to you then skipping out on alt-history tracks for the easier, and less expensive, historical route is absolutely the right way to go.

Even during it's most difficult scenarios, Unity of Command II is a pretty forgiving game; as long as you're not butchering your own forces, you can usually "win" a scenario fairly easily, even on Classic difficulty. This is because all that's required to win a scenario is to capture every primary objective before the end of the final turn - bonus objectives are entirely optional, as are the turn limits on primary objectives, allowing you to take your time if you don't care for perfection or gold stars.

So if you ever reach the stage where you've failed a scenario, and the game offers you "One More Turn", you should never take it. Something has gone seriously wrong and it's up to you to figure out what.

Did all of your units get massacred? Make sure to avoid poor combat predictions, even '1:1' trades - sacrificing steps and specialists so that you can take an objective earlier is simply not worth it from an economic standpoint. The prestige lost from destroyed steps is rarely made up with the capture of an objective earlier than necessary or a bonus objective you would have otherwise missed. If you're getting crushed when the enemy attacks, then make sure to check out the "legend" on the 'Terrain View' which can be found at the top right of the screen during a scenario, next to the 'end turn' button: the tooltips on this "legend" can tell you exactly how terrain can influence combat, and where best to keep your forces safe from the enemy (it can also explain why certain combats can be more difficult than you think they should be).

Did all your units starve to death? Make sure to play the 'Basic Supply' and 'Advanced Supply' tutorials; they offer an excellent view of how to manipulate supply and how each supply source works in its entirety. Even a basic understanding of the supply system can massively improve your game.

Did enemy units suddenly zoom through/around your lines and cut you off? Check out the 'Advanced Movement' tutorial, which gives the lowdown on Zone of Control, which is critical to keeping the AI off your flanks. I myself originally played through the base game and first expansion without having any clue how ZoC worked, but once I completed that tutorial, I felt my game improve significantly.

Ultimately, if you're ever faced with "One More Turn" then it's never worth spending prestige on. And it's not because "I just need one more turn to win", it's because there are parts of your game that you can work on. This is nothing to be ashamed of: Unity of Command II is an easy game to pick up, but can be a very difficult game to master, and even a player comfortable with other strategy war games can pick up a thing or two from the excellent tutorials found on the main menu.

This concludes the guide on how and what to spend Prestige on. It isn't entirely universal, and many purchases in your own games will come down to judgement calls, but I hope this guide has helped, even in just a little way, whether you're a three-year vet or a new player.
In any case, good luck and have fun, commander!

The main reason I wrote this guide is that I believe Prestige is one of the few things not covered properly by the in-game tutorials. While the independent tutorial scenarios are excellent guides towards winning scenarios and the tutorial campaign offers a solid look at persistent units, seaborne invasions and tough bonus objectives, none of them truly cover the importance and abilities of Prestige. Proper use of this resource can make or break a campaign and it is merely glanced over in the tutorial campaign.

Below: The tutorials and 'Tutorial Campaign' can be found in the 'Tutorial' tab of the main menu. They are well worth checking out, even if you are a veteran to the game!



This guide took longer than I expected to write, ballooned to be much larger than expected, and was quite the exhausting effort; this will probably be the only serious guide I'll write for this game, despite my love for it. Let me know in the comments if there's anything you think I should add, have missed, or you disagree with.

A massive thank you to all that have read this far, played the scenarios I've made, or even just clicked on anything I've posted for this game. And of course, a special thanks to the wonderful folks at 2x2 Games and CroTeam for making my favourite strategy game ever, and one of my favourite games of all time!