The objective of this guide is to suggest strategies to improve one's single player campaign starting force composition. Starting with an optimized Order of Battle (OOB) will be the greatest single impact to the opening of any campaign. By rearranging components such as regiments, battalions, auxiliary units, and infantry weapons one can create stronger than average 'shock troops' to be used at the point of attack, and weaker 'garrison' units in static defenses. Purchasing critical items like engineer battalions, transport, Anti-Tank Guns (ATG), Anti Air Artillery (AAA) early on, and artillery, tanks, and tank destroyers later, will yield significant advantages by upgrading infantry to mechanized divisions, and improving firepower in general.

The start of a campaign is crucial to maximizing the starting deck (Order of Battle OOB) with a favorable mix of commanders, battalions, and auxiliary units.

• Tip/Trick: Start your campaign, get into Division Management Phase, examine your commanders and auxiliary units. If you don't like your units, hit escape to exit to main menu and start over!

1. Look for good commanders with beneficial traits. Green traits indicate extraordinary abilities. Red traits indicate negative abilities. Look for no more than 2-3 'bad' commanders. A commander costs 1000 points, look for a good starting mix.

Some negative abilities will have very little impact. For example, -1 tank repair or -1 tank xp won't hurt an infantry division. A -1 assault won't hurt a garrison division.

You start with 4 armored divisions and 2 mechanized infantry divisions. Look for appropriate commanders as these 6 units will lead your attack. Note tank combat applies to tank destroyers also. Look for the following commander attributes, in order of importance:

• Infantry: +artillery combat +AT gun combat +morale +fatigue +assault +speed +supply
  
• Inf. Assault: +urban +artillery combat +AT gun combat +fatigue +morale +fatigue +assault
  
• Inf. Garrison: +artillery combat +AT gun combat +fortification
  
• Mechanized: +tank combat +urban +AA combat +fatigue +speed +artillery combat +AT gun combat +assault +supply +morale
  
• Tank Division: +tank combat +urban +AA combat +fatigue +artillery combat +AT gun combat +assault +supply +morale +speed

2. Look for helpful Auxiliary Units. These units are temporary, and only good for one battle. Look for more than a few units. If you only get 2-3 units, and commanders are marginal, restart. Units to look for, in order of importance:

• Regiments: Tank, mechanized, motorized, infantry
  
• Battalions: Tank destroyer (StuG), AA (with 8.8 Flak), ATG (with 5cm, 3.7cm), engineers

3. Look for strong units in your starting divisions. Some units are simply extraordinarily powerful like the 8.8 cm Flak 36. The strength of this one AA unit cannot be overstated, making any motor/mech infantry or tank division into a killing machine. The Flak 36 has twice the midrange anti-tank firepower of the 5cm Pak 38, and almost twice the anti-infantry firepower 7.5 cm lelG 18 artillery. Look for the following, in order of importance:

• 8.8 cm Flak 36, Stug IIIB, Panzer IVF, Panzer IIIJ

• Mobile divisions should always be working to achieve your mission goals. Attacking, defending, resting to reduce fatigue, blocking counter attacks are all valid activities. If a mobile division is doing none of above, redeploy them appropriately and get them in the fight.
  
• Armored Divisions: These are your most powerful units. Use them at breakthrough points to pound your enemy quickly. Armor should also be a 1st choice in armor vs armor encounters although an infantry division with a high At rating can be used also. Armor should be massed whenever possible for a quick decision and to minimize losses. Armor are expensive units and battles of attrition should be avoided when possible. Win quickly with your well supplied armor.
  
• Motorized/Mechanized Divisions: Support your armor. They provide high infantry attack ratings and with appropriate generals, high attacks against forest, river, and urban defenders. Use them in the breakthrough attacks with your armor. Leave the motorized divisions to hold your lines of supply until your infantry can take over. Mechanized divisions take less damage than motorized, prioritize them to continue the attack while leaving the motorized divisions behind to hold lines.
  
• Infantry Divisions: These units lack mobility and are your lowest cost divisions to purchase and resupply. Use them to hold important hexes like supply and airfield. Use them to hold lines of supply. Once the enemy pulls back, push infantry forward.
  
• Garrison Infantry Divisions: These are your weakest units. You may have stolen key regiments to bolster your armor, motorized, and stronger infantry divisions. A newly purchased infantry division should be considered a garrison division until they can be upgraded with additional regiments. TIP- Rename garrison divisions and add the "Gar." tag so you can place them during setup. These divisions are good for holding out of the way key points, that may be surrounded early. These divisions are not expected to take part in any breakthrough attacks. They are only used for holding hexes and denying the enemy.
  
• Air Divisions: These should be placed at an absolutely safe airfield. If the airfield is taken, you will lose all your air assets and should restart. Air divisions are critical for use in bombing key hexes and in attacks to reduce armor/infantry losses. Click on the battle icon for an ongoing battle, then click on the air force icon, then click on the fighter or close support air division to add them to the battle. Repeat if necessary to add more air assets. Air assets will not function under certain weather conditions like low clouds or night time.

• You can remove a regiment of infantry from each of your Panzer divisions and use to mechanize an additional infantry division. This will really help with encirclement and the Soviet divisions are understrength. Just remember to replace infantry in your Armor Divisions ASAP.
  With the extra transport you purchased, you can motorize one of your stronger infantry divisions. If you don't have enough transport for 3 inf regiments + artillery + ATG + AAA + engineer, then go with 2 infantry regiments and drop the ATG and/or engineer and go understrength for 1st map. Fix that though for next map.
  
• For your 2-4 weakest commanders, remove the strongest infantry regiment and ATG brigade, and move to your assault divisions (inf & motor/mech). Rename these understrength division to "Inf Div Gar" so you can easily identify. Use these in static defense roles. They will have 2 Inf brigades + 1 Artillery brigade.
  
• Place engineer regiments in your assault infantry, motor/mech, and armor divisions
  
• Place your 8.8 cm Flak 36 in your motor/mech divisions, then your weak armor division, then your assault infantry. Use 5cm Pak ATG for same purpose when you run out of 8.8 cm Flak 36.
  
• You can switch around infantry weapons to maximize your assault divisions power. Example, replace 5 cm mortar with 8cm mortar.
  
• Try to balance your regiments attack power. No use in having a weak breakthrough division.

Where to spend points and what to buy.

• Resupply during setup: You will need enough of every unit in order to resupply destroyed units after each battle. You will receive some units automatically, but you may have to purchase additional units as needed for upgrading or replacement. This should be your 1st priority before considering upgrading or adding new divisions. For example, if you plan on upgrading a regiment of pz.38 with pzIVc, that will free up the pz.38 for resupply in other divisions. Same with other units.
  
• Resupply during battle: Leave enough supply to resupply during battle. If you use up all or almost all units, you will have nothing left during battle to resupply units and raise them back to 100%. If you have low supply of a particular unit, you may want to switch to a weaker unit in order to stock up some supply.
  
• Flak 36: This is the OP unit of the game IMHO. 88mm AA that functions quite well as an ATG. You should be purchasing this unit at every opportunity. Use them to upgrade weaker AA units when possible.
  
• Transport: Opels, Sd.Kfz. 251, and Sd.Kfz. 7 should be purchased every round as needed to upgrade infantry to motorized, and motorized to mechanized. You can only purchase 2 of each, so you have to buy often in order to equip a division.
  
• Tanks: The first upgrades to your tank divisions should be getting pz.III tanks then pz.IV tanks. You won't be able to upgrade both units in a division right away so make sure to mix a strong regiment unit with a weak units, then later upgrade both to stronger units.
  
• Tank destroyers: You start with Pzjager IB which is the weakest TD available. Upgrade them to the Stug IIIB when available.
  
• 5 cm Pak 38: This is a strong versatile ATG and will be your mainstay until 7.5 cm Pak 40 becomes available later on. Later, the 8.8 cm Pak 43 becomes available. This is the best ATG in the game. Upgrade whenever possible.
  
• Infantry weapons: In order to increase your infantry attack power, you will want to upgrade your infantry regiment weapons. These are the lowest cost weapons in the game. Whenever you have a small ammount of $$ to spend and all other needs have been met, spend on infantry weapons. Geweher is a fantastic upgrade. MP40 is good for 1 regiment unit in the division but not more as it is fantastic at short range, but nothing at mid or long ranges. 2.8 cm sPzB 41 is a good all around ATG rifle. Use this until getting the Panzershrek. The MG 42, MG42 Tripod, Sig cannons, 8 cm, and 12 cm mortars are also a good upgrades.
  
• Aircraft: Your air units won't need upgrade until mid game. You will know when you are spending significant $$ to resupply that your units are being outclassed and it's time to upgrade. By that time you should have accumulated enough 'free' units to upgrade your air units. Use the same upgrade path as the armor, weak + strong, then strong + strong. At some point, you may have accumulated enough supply to add air units to your air divisions. You can have maximum 4 air units in a division. There is no battle resupply for air units, so you won't have to save supply for battle.
  
• Infantry: You may have to purchase additional infantry units after a battle in order to replenish regiments. This is your #1 priority. Make sure to leave enough units in game for battle resupply.
  
• Commanders: Never purchase commanders. See starting tips above for moving weaker commanders to garrison units and stronger commanders to breakthrough units.

Below I will describe the key principles for success in Panzer Doctrine.

Breakthrough:

• During the setup phase, at each point of attack, plan your breakthrough and encirclement, bringing enough motorized, mechanized, and infantry units. It's no good to try to control 8 squares with 6 units. The AI will try to break out through empty hexes and break your lines of supply.
  
• Armor, motorized, and mechanized divisions are your primary means of attacking a single point in the defensive lines of the enemy.
  
• Use of bombers to reduce entrenchment and supplies should be used to soften a target hex where the breakthrough will take place.
  
• Massing your breakthrough forces will allow quick penetration at the key hex.
  
• Breakthrough can be prosecuted at several points to allow for encirclement after the breakthrough, but not too many. It's important to break through quickly and penetrate behind enemy lines to gain the attack bonuses resulting from loss of supply and the encirclement bonus.
  
• Leave weaker motorized units at the breakthrough hex and subsequent encirclement hexes to hold line of supply.
  
• Move up any extra infantry units to hold your line of supply through the break through hex, freeing up motorized units to continue forward on the attack.

There are 5 save slots available so I developed a system to maximize potential and prevent campaign restarts to do a bad save. I use the following formats for all my saves:

Slot Name-Map #-Version

• 1- Purchase Slot: the 1st slot i use for purchase saves, prior to unit placements. This allows me to go back and re-setup units if I have a bad setup. I use this one a lot. It's hard to know how a map will play out before starting. I just load this save, make any additional purchases needed, then re-set up my units.
  
• 2- Setup Slot: This is my finished setup. All units are placed and I'm ready to start the game. I use this when the game didn't go well, and I need to try a different tactic.
  
• 3- Temp Slot #1: Used at key times after a particularly good encirclement or progress in my map strategy. Very important at about 70% of time allotment. Sometimes i come up just short of a victory or total victory, and I can go back and replay without starting map over.
  
• 4- Temp Slot #2: Used at key times after a particularly good encirclement or progress in my map strategy. Very important at about 70% of time allotment. Sometimes i come up just short of a victory or total victory, and I can go back and replay without starting map over.
  
• 4- Finish Slot: This save is taken at the mission completed stage before starting the purchase phase. This allows me to go back and redo a purchasing round where I got the wrong items, or missed something. In certain cases you can't win the next round without upgrading or purchasing certain units, and this allows you to go back and redo.