Profile of Appleseed

it is very useless now, before at time where soviets spam M3+flamer and sniper, it have is shine, also were good when soviets spam weapon teams. now it got eaten by shocks and guards the sec it hit front line due to recent change.

it was also able to gain 2-3 vet level before T70 hits the field and able to serve as early counter to take on the non vet T70, now T70 hits the field no far behind SC hits field so it go no chance to stand up against T70t now.

Someone mentioned that there is no heads up for the vet 1 precision strike, but that argument can be countered as there is no heads up for the mortar half-track incinary barrage neither.

Maybe its just me but I have really bad luck using the soviet mortar and if I do get vet its an absolute bonus.

As Von stated, I dont believe this needs a buff or a nerf. Before it has vet, it is terrible IMO.

at least incendiary barrage give infantry teams and weapon teams a chance to get out instead of instant wipe like precision strike does. if your weapon team got wipe by incendiary barrage is just you didn't pay attention to your units or didn't press "space bar" often enough

actually i find 2 pgrens can beat 2 shocks most time just depend on who stop and fire first... only thing i don't like though is shocks take less resource to reinforce than pgrens, because shock's 2.25 armor is hard for other infantry to take them out quickly

i searched for a thread about stug III E after having trouble to get what is it good for.
i am glad i am not the only one
some ideas though:
1) maybe it is good against inf in buildings? someone tried?
2) you need to put this unit in the context of the entire commander.
if you can somehow utilize this unit in a way that allows you to skip a tier? for example like AGs can be used to skip T1.
for example if you plan not getting t3&t4, you will still be able to call this unit to support your tiger.
3) if you have lots of fuel but low on MP you can call it, i think 3 is the magic number in terms of AI killing power.

1） so far i don't see it is effective to garrison troops, in fact i felt it is weaker to garrison troops than Stug 3G or P4, it is better than T70 or Ostwind on buildings that is about it

2）i don't felt this unit can help you skip a tire building because this commander is really weak on AT ability, i actually don't think using Agren and skip T1 is a good choice because Agren really have 0 AT ability, and its med range battles sucks ass, their nades is fire crackers with out any other infantry support 2 grouped conscripts stop move and start firing at Agren troops the second they saw agren can really droping Agrens pretty fast as agren try to charge close to them. and M3+flamer is perfect counter to Agren.

now back to topic, if u want use Stug 3E to skip T2 is impossible, because agren + stug 3E = 0 AT ability, once enemy roll out a T70 or T34 it is death sentence for you. if want to skip T3 it will be a struggle because you need depend on AT and pgren to hold off enemy armor until you get to T4

3) yes 3 is magic number for this unit to start kill infantry fast. but remember if enemy have AT guns, T34, SU76 or SU85 they are all deadly to stug 3E (2 shots from AT or SU85 with 100% penetration, 2-3 shots from T34 and 3-5 shots from SU76). and Stug 3E's range is kind short compare to those units and can only scratch those units. and as a support unit it can't fight its own (i lost a stug 3E to a guard + conscript once, just got cripple by AT nade then guard single handily killed it and my stug 3E the "AI tank" couldn't kill that guard squad before got kill by it)
also 3 stug 3E = 1.5 Panzer or Ostwind. i could rather have 1 stug 3E and a P4 to have a unit to counter the T34 or T70 and flanking unit to enemy SU85

Im not going to defend the performance of the stug IIIe but when comparing to T70 you also need to factor in tech-cost. You can build the StugIIIe without teching at all, it will then be alot cheaper than the t70. Still, for ostheer not to tech at all seems like kind of a horrible idea, so the "lower" cost is really not really there.

i know ppl will bring that building cost, but this unit is call in unit. if follow your logic all call in unit should be weaker compare to building units with similar price. is that truth?

guards, penal cost the same, guard is call in since it don't need tech does it weaker than penal? no..

shocks and pgren, shocks cost little less if u count Pgren need tech. does shocks lose to 1v1 fight with pgren? no... ppl might bring shocks cost more than pgren per unit with out think about tech and building, then that is my point, Stug 3E shouldn't under-performance compare to same cost unit.

mortar HT cost 120mp 30FU almost same cost as building mortar team, Mortar HT don't need building either does it sucks compare to Mortar team? no..

T34/85 is little bit more expansive than T34/76 but since T34/85 don't need building it is actually little cheaper, does it bad compare to t34/76? no....

so far i don't see any call in unit is weaker compare to similar price building unit in the entire game except this one. so i don't think "it don't need tech and build so it should suck" is a valid excuse for this unit under perform than similar cost unit

in fact some call in units is very strong for its price compare to building units

KV8 for example, it have similar cost of Panzer 4 and its counter part is Brummbar. Brummbar and KV8 are both AI tank, so KV8 should be weaker in AI than Brummbar right? actually no, KV8 have better HP, better Armor than Brummbar and it eats infantry squads like snacks. can the more expansive and need tech tank, Brummbar do the same? no it can't. how about compare to Ostwind? KV8 on its price is just little more expansive than Ostwind and Ostwind need building and tech. does KV8 perform crap compare to Ostwind? no, it beat Ostwind in all area except the mobility (Ostwind top speed 5 vs KV8's 4.8)

so building cost and tech price really shouldn't consider for the reason why this unit should suck because this is the only call in unit sucks for its price to be a call in