Important notice for all options
Your campaign option will not only affect you, but also all AI. Consider this when tailoring your campaign experience. I would say many of the options are more a matter of preference than straight up difficulty slider. For example having low starting troop level will not only give you basic troops at the start, but also the bot. As such there are good strategies involving many combinations of starting options. For the most consistent experience I recommend

• Difficulty Regular
  
• Low number of troops at the start (Scale with starting year)
  
• Low troop level (Scale with starting year)
  
• High starting resources
  
• Low - Normal number of rebels
  
• Alliances at the start and year - preference

Difficulty - This might seems self-explanatory, but you would be surprised. Difficulty has almost no effect on the enemy battle AI. Cranking the difficulty all the way to expert will not make your battles much more difficult, however there are several important changes with difficulty on the campaign map. This includes resource consumption, Campaign AI and Behavior. I recommend you play on Realistic for a fair campaign game.

Number of troops at the start - No matter how much you play with this you will be outnumbered by the bot by the first year. I would recommend retraining the infantry using the squad editor anyway, so feel free to keep that on low. You can crank it up if you want larger battles from the start.

Troop level - Dictates the starting equipment of all troops, including vehicles. I like to also keep that on low in order to keep the feeling of escalation to the campaign. In general many vehicles you can start with on higher levels will be irreplaceable for years ahead and the same goes for the bot. Lower levels will give you a campaign experience more consistent with the research tree of the current year.

Resources at the start
This is probably the most important campaign option. As stated in the intro - the bot will play with the same campaign rules as you. However the bot is a little scammer and will cheat in units and get instant year research, as well as interact with the market without concern for money. That hardly seems fair!

You know what is also unfair? - The bot will not bother to develop its provinces nearly as fast as you would. That means the next time you take over a country you will inherit exactly two things - new mouths for you to feed AND whatever resources the bot happened to have in its cities. Naturally, the higher the starting the resources, the higher your reward for taking over a country, and with this being the only consistent reward for conquest currently, I suggest you set the setting to at least high in order to have a good experience if you want to go for total completion.

Rebels
If you understand the way stability and dictatorship work in the current state of the game this is not very relevant, however on higher levels rebels tend to spawn in the AI provinces, which can ruin the experience by weakening them significantly.


Cheekily hidden in the options menu there are several other global options that can majorly impact your campaign experience:

Resource management
Always on easy! At the current state of the game, you simply do not have the necessary tools to manage the supply chain of an entire island nation without pulling you hair out. The convoy system, the economics statistics and the production screen are bare-bones already. They are at best serviceable for simple operations and I would not recommend to anyone to use them for actual supply management unless they are willing to create a separate excel on their second monitor to keep track of things.

That being said this is the benefits you get from easy:
- Food, Fuel, Ammunition, Construction resources and production resources will be shared across all cities
- If you need ammo or supplies for your armies just click on the resupply button in any town. Also recommended as currently there is not way to determine how many supplies you want your army to carry
- Vehicles, Reservists, Weapons, Attachments and Uniforms will still need to be supplied in the specific town where you are raising your troops.

Highlight enemies
This function is actually slightly different than what you would think. Firstly, it aims to give you an equal footing with the AI by spotting them for you in a red line that transcends walls, trees and other obstructions. This feature is fine, however how this highlighting is determined is unreliable and seems to be based on the AI spotting mechanics than your actual cursor.

Off - it will not be displayed, but spotting mechanics for vehicles and infantry will remain the same in the background
On Hover - It will highlight only the squad the game decides you have hovered over (not always reliable), if they flash red at least you can know that they are spotted by you for your troops
Always - It will not actually always highlight units, but instead every time one of your squads spots an enemy .

Number of units
Pretty obvious, however keep in mind that regardless of the maximum set, you are still hard restricted to 10 squads deployed at any given time.

When choosing all of the settings above keep in mind two things.
1. Stability will determine how frequently (Down to never) rebels will spawn in your country. Stability is dependent on two things

- Procuring enough Food, Alcohol and Cigarettes for your towns and armies. If you are playing above easy logistics the food needs to be present in every town or the global score will be hurt.
- Keeping enough police in cities. I recommend 2 squads per minor town and 8 per major town. Use police uniforms in major towns for better effect. Do not bother delivering ammo to the minor town guards, it is easier to just recapture the down later. One exception to this is ports, as they will be a constant target.

2. Rebels don't care who spawned them and the bot does not care about war justifications, so take this into consideration when determining starting levels

Most of you would be pretty familiar with the basic of this mechanic, so I will not waste too much time with the boring questions. A quick recap so we are on the same page:

• Research options unlock every year
  
• The research speed is determined by the amount of scientist in your republic
  
• The number of scientists can be increased by building research centers and taking over more major towns
  
• Some parts of the research tree are not available and will appear locked with a white lock sign from the beginning

Research strategy
You should think about research time as another limited resource that you have at your disposal. Every research comes at the cost of other potential researches you could be doing right now. One of the ways to improve is to gain more of the resource - increase your research speed. This is possible, but research centers are at their most expensive at the beginning, when you would need them most.

Alternative - cut out useless research
In general there are several researches that have no effect on how your army performs:

• Optics - No real effect on AI performance
  
• Silencers - No real effect on AI performance and makes it hard to determine which units are engaging the enemy
  
• Most weapon archetype side-grades
  
• Pistols and ammo you won't use
  
• RPG rockets - some games you would not even need to produce a single one if you build your squads responsibly
  
• Helicopters - Currently helicopters suck, are expensive and have a slow response time on call-in. There are straight up inferior to any jet in the game and unlike the jets are unreliable in damage-dealing. I would recommend skipping them and going for jets a year later, since by the time you get your production efficiency up you would want to replace them with jets anyways.
  
• AA vehicles - There are very few AA vehicles worth building and those would be good because of their anti-ground performance. Without the AA mod from modDB it is improbable that 1 or 2 AA vehicles can even shoot the enemy helicopters down, so they are a general liability that wastes two squad slots. If you want to avoid enemy air support just hit their airfield before any other town, that way you'll get strafed only once or twice for the war.

In order of importance there are several game-changing researches:

1. Uniforms - Uniforms can quadruple! the shots needed to kill your solders early on. They will be the biggest boost to your performance in the early game
2. SKS/FN-FAL - Some of the most effective weapons for the AI. The bot will perform with these weapons about as good as it is likely to perform with any late-game weapon. They are also cheap and quick to produce and ammo-friendly. Can be replaced later by a rifle of your choice depending on personal cosmetic preference. It is unlikely any further weapon (maybe VAL?) will improve the performance of the AI.
3. Unique vehicle types - First remote MG platform, Granade launching vehicle, IFV, Tank, MBT. All of those vehicles have utility and unique capabilities, so in general it is worth to get at least one of that type. MBTs can also shrug off an RPG hit, making them very valuable additions. They also tend to be more ammo-friendly than IFVs, who shred through ammo with their auto cannon. TOW launcher IFVs are generally worth way more than normal ones.
4. RPG launcher - Optional, but you will need to produce some at some point in the mid-game, as the market cannot support the rapid growth of your military and you would have the industrial base to mass produce an items and forget about it.
5. "Always valid" options - If you find yourself with a month or two before the next year and nothing worthwhile to research, your best option is to start researching artillery and tank ammunition, since those are researches that will be absolutely necessary for you in the future, even if they are not immediately beneficial.

If you go in the forums you can see people having completely different experiences with the difficulty. The reason is that the game requires a specific approach. Once you get the right mindset for the battles, they will become trivial. I can promise you that you can achieve a campaign-efficient kill/loss ratio of about 10 pretty consistently and have tons of fun in the process. The key is in understanding just what the game has to offer


Your troops
I'm gonna say it as it is - They are idiots. They will remain idiots. You know how your available units at the beginning are farm boys with shotguns? Well, now that you have your fancy spec-ops gear and assault rifles you might be fooled by their appearance into thinking you have an elite unbeatable force. The sad reality is if you have good equipment - you just got yourself some well-equipped idiots.

Now they can take can take a few more hits on average and might get a few more in if you have the right weapon, but don't expect anything to change in terms of their awareness and shooting skills . Unlike in mount and blade, where a Swadian knight can kill 50 peasants, here your troops will never reach a K/D that will make the game trivial.

So,since your troops are about as good as the enemy troops, what you need to do is stack unfair advantages in order to give them the best chance. In order of importance those would be:
1. You (manual control)
2. Battlefield positioning
3. Vehicles and support equipment
4. Campaign map force organisation
5. Infantry equipment

Tips on how to control troops:

• The easiest way to control units will be with the action wheel key bind - F. This will also pause time
  
• At the start of the round put all of your troops (Tab) into standing stance, in order for them to move fast and reposition on time. Later you can make them crouch or go prone.
  
• A main task of your troops will be to spot the enemy for vehicles and artillery, so make sure to keep them in front.

Your equipment
Ok, so equipment is not going to make the game easy by itself. That does not mean it's not gonna make it difficult if you don't have it. There are several things to look out when considering equipment choices.

• Choosing the right armor on your troops (Can be done is squad editor)
  Even with the different tiers of equipment not all visual options are made the same - There are sometimes 2 or even 3 different armor options for body and helmet that give different armor values.
  
  
• RPG rationing
  You can choose how many RPGs to have in a squad. The RPG is probably the most important piece of equipment right now. Without having enough, you risk being countered by a single enemy vehicle. However the starting stock of RPGs will need to be rationed for optimal effectiveness. Keep RPGs on every team member can eat into your stock, while every additional RPG in the squad has diminishing returns on AT capability. It is better to have more squads with AT capability, rather than a few really good AT ones. Furthermore, you can always take manual control of the squad member with the RPG to deal with the vehicle yourself.
  
  I would recommend between 3 - 7 launchers per squad depending on the stage of the game.
  
  
• Weapon types
  Currently the bot does not do a stellar job of controlling bursts at long range. That means if you are limited on production, you can pick up some semi-auto rifles to save on ammunition without losing our on AI effectiveness in most engagements. The SKS in particular seems to be performing very well in the hands of the AI. MK14 would also do a good job.
  
  Alternatively you can go with a higher caliber assault rife, but know that after the fist assault rife you choose, any further rearming with newer ARs will not give you much of an increase in combat effectiveness. The recommendation here would be FN-FALL or a VAL.

Vehicles and Aircraft
Generally there are only a few rules u need to follow when vehicles are concerned.

• Never ever use them to tank anything. They will melt at the first sight of an RPG. Optimally a vehicle will only get shot by stray bullets.
  
• Ensure there is a good line of sight to the enemy.
  
• Use infantry in front of them to soak up damage and spot enemies for them (Might be unintuitive, but infantry is both cheaper and better at surviving other infantry head on)
  
• Keep at range from RPGs, sometimes you will get shot from across the map, but it will be generally OK.
  
• Bring a lot of vehicles to cover different sections of the battlefield, as well as different angles of attack

Here is a list of vehicle types and their contribution

• Ground Vehicles
  • Transports - Good for increasing land speed of battalions. Actually harder to use to deploy troops on some maps due to AI. I usually sell all but a few - D tier
    
  • MG/Light recon vehicles - Great early game options. Anything with a remote turret is perfect, as you don't need more than 2 operators in the squad. Vehicles with exposed gunner are unreliable and should be avoided - C tier
    
  • APC - Better MG platforms, very unlikely to get taken out by enemy light vehicles. Generally unlock later and are not very much switching production for them. - C tier
    
  • IFV grenade launcher - Great early option for indirect fire. Can double down as an APC with a good MG afterwards. Generally straight up better than the APC A tier
    
  • IFV auto cannon - Good all-rounders, can do both AT and Anti-infantry damage. Drawback is that they rarely use their MG and prefer to spam more expensive Auto cannon rounds at infantry. Still vulnerable to single RPG hits. - B tier
    
  • Tanks - Your go-to vehicle. Features good MG options that the AI uses, decent HE damage at long range, can take multiple hits from other vehicles and from RPGs. Very survivable platform, and a straight up better option than auto cannon IFVs. - S tier
    
  • Artillery - Great option to pick up. Guarantees good damage on the field and can support adjacent armies by being called in. The only problem with the currently is their proclivity to kill themselves if not set up correctly. A tier
    
  • SPAA - Anti-air vehicles are not in a great spot at the moment. If you want to use them I recommend looking at the AA mod in ModDB, which increases their ammo and magazine size, giving them some chance at shooting down helicopters. There are certain AA guns that can only be used manually by the player as good anti-ground options in a pinch. - F tier
• Aircraft
  • Helicopters - Somewhat weak rn. They come at an awkward time in the research tree, and are unreliable in their splash damage. Also vulnerable to AA
    
  • Jets - Great support units, have good splash damage and come in fast after the call-down. Take about a year to get efficient production.

Enemy troops
The enemy AI will generally speaking be about at the same level as your AI. They will certainly be able to match your soldiers in combat, but are still easy pray for the play or vehicles. One thing to note is that there is a variance in the AI and it seems to be more accurate sometimes, especially when it lock on to a player.

In therms of composition the enemy faction will not engage with the research tree mechanics, but instead will add year-appropriate equipment to their army out of thin air. Currently the bot is not too concerned with logistics or diplomacy and will attack you as it wants, but it will respect non-aggression treaties.

While it might be counter-intuitive to not have tanks and IFVs actually, well, tank and be on the front lines, remember that in this country every single peasant and their mother carries an RPG with 5 rockets. Especially if you want to play with extended AI range, sometimes you will lose a vehicle from a ridiculous shot downrange.

This is why it should be your infantry tanking the damage and facing the enemy infantry head-on. Ironically with SpecOps armor the AI will need to shoot a singe infantryman more times than they would need to shoot a vehicle with an RPG. And a few guns and uniforms are easier replaced than a tank.

No matter the scenario the enemy will actually rush towards your lines (Except garrison in sandbags). This is why it is better to find a nice position where your infantry can spot and your vehicles can shoot from a long distance.

In order to get to a good position on time and not expose your vehicles in the process, you would want to run your infantry to the location and then crouch. Since vehicles are not affected by stance regardless, you can simply to the following.
1. Press TAB to sellect all squads
2. Get the command wheel with F
3. Order them to stand up

This will force your infantry to run to their desination and ignore cover on the way, so it is really nice at the beginning to set up quickly.
Self-explanatory. Can be helpful sometimes if u need to think.

After the latest update you have the option to retreat artillery units. By hitting F6 you can get your arillery out of the fight after they have fired all shots, thus giving you back a productive squad to use in the battle.

Each artillery piece from a nearby battalion on the world map will grant 1 call in, similar to the call ins of aircraft. This is significantly less than the shots they would fire if they were to actually join the battle, but poses no risk to the artillery regardless of the outcome of the combat.

You can use this as an alternative way to field artillery pieces if you feel getting them in the battle directly is too much of a risk or if you just want to field more infantry.



Normally airstrikes are intended to only be callable by using the first person view with the aid of binoculars. However, there is a "creative" tactic that definitely is not an exploit that allows you to call your airstrikes form the overhead view.

1. You must be in a vehicle
2. Hitting F8 in a vehicle will "select" the heli as a squad as well give you the attack option
3. Press M and the attack UI will glitch and the heli will stay selected.