New to the game

With your current team you can easily unlock 40% discount for Konev. Then try to unlock Darlan by playing Challenge conquests.

The difference between one upgraded general and a raw recruit is a huge one. And one upgraded general is more useful on the battlefield than 2 or 3 generals without upgrades. So, yes, I think you should make several levelups. I think lvl 4 PL, Blitzkrieg and AA and lvl 1 Inspiration are enough for your Guderian at the moment.

Inspiration is one of the best skills for a tank general in the long run. It has two components. The first one is that it increases moral. And this alone is worth having, because high moral increases attack by 25%. But more than that at lvl 5 in increases critical damage by 15%. And Guderian potentially has 100% crit rate (when commanding elite units). I recommend just to choose this skill for one of the free slots because it is enough to fight most of the time with Guderian's moral increased. You can upgrade it later. But, don't worry, it is definitely an endgame skill. It is relatively easy to unlock Inspiration. You have to complete the corresponding chapter of Pacific war on normal difficulty and then just to conquer a city with a green circle on hard without actually winning the mission.

Konev is one of the best f2p Artillery generals in the game. And Artillery usually provides a support for your Armoured units and destroys Fortresses and walls. So, Rumor and Explosives are a good choice. Rumor is still an excellent skill and you definitely will need it when fighting against overpowered opponents.

It is close to impossible to win such conquests when you just start the game. A more subtle approach is needed. In 1939 the balance of power is shifting towards Axis states. So, choose a safe 1* Axis state (Hungary or Finland) and just follow the footsteps of German generals, stealing empty cities of both your enemies and allies. Your main objective is to make agreements with all neutral countries and to collect all rewards for this achievement.
In 1943 the situation changes, as you may guess, so choose a safe Allied state (any South American state is a safe bet) and do basically the same - develop your economy and bring all neutral states to your side.

Meantime you get used to WC4 conquests, learn the strengths and weaknesses of both alliances and notice weak spots of both sides. As they say: "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link"

The next step is to conquer the maximum number of cities. The strategy is very simple: you, again, do the same - stealing all empty cities and making agreements with neutral states but when your side is close to victory you just declare war on your Allies (be careful and only declare war on one state at a time) and defeat them one after another.
It is possible to kill two birds with one stone and to combine both tasks in one conquest. I think you get more than enough points to unlock Darlan just by doing this.

After Brooke was released he definitely is one of the best options available. Another general to place Rumor debuff. And WC4 version is significantly more powerful than Rumor in EW5 because you disable opponents completely for two turns with 75% probability (in comparison to 30% of EW5) and in practical terms it means "forever". So, two Rumor debuffers (Konev and Brooke) and encircling an opponent is usually enough do disable him immidietly. Then you can unlock Rommel with 40% discount and buy one Infantry general. Silver tier Infantry generals are good enough. So, Meretskov, Higuchi and Koenig are options to consider. Probably Meretskov is the preferable option because you potentially have another Rumor debuffer together with another powerful debuff. And what is more important he can place both debuffs without retaliation.

Since we get two medals improving chances of Blitzkrieg/Guerilla quite early in the game you can use both of them equipping Guderian and Meretskov.

I think that having 6 land generals and 2 Admirals is almost everything you need for normal/hard/nightmare campaigns. In the long run you already have the backbone of your team: Guderian/Konev/Darlan. With Rommel and Brooke your team is almost complete for the upcoming campaigns (we can deploy only 6 generals even in nightmare campaigns). Then your objective is to unlock Chennault (an incredible support general) and to hire Yamaguchi (the best Admiral in the game). You can use Pavlov, Horton and Arnim for now and later on as bench players. You need more generals eventually for other modes of the game, but if your first team players are well upgraded you will feel comfortably almost everywhere in WC4. Beware: other modes have their specific features! But I am sure you'll cross that bridge when you come to it


Explosives on Konev is a solid option. I personally have this Rumor/Explosives combo on my Konev



But keep in mind that eventually you will have 3 medals improving jungle fighting. So choosing this skill will provide Konev with +37 damage points against all types of opponents when fighting in forests. It requires more micromanaging actions though than Explosives.

Otherwise it is extremely difficult to find an owner of these medals. It is the only type of medals I don't use actually.


There are 3 possible candidates Graziani (mountain fighting), Brauchitsch (mountain fighting) and Govorov (jungle fighting) but none of them is among best generals of their respective classes.

Mountains and Deserts are rare battlefields, but forests are almost as common as Plains.