Rumor progress...

You can actually move faster with maxed out abilities if you take damage abilities for Guderian and Konev instead of Rumor, particularly if you boost with medals. They do so much damage that you rarely get any benefit from Rumor. They kill everything in one turn. Rumor is the most critical skill for naval generals.

I’d love to know what you are attacking that can take 200-plus damage from Konev and 300-plus from Guderian in one turn, more if you can double hit with Guderian by destroying city fortifications. I was killing most everything in one turn by pairing them up long before I maxed out tech. You aren’t fighting a bunch of stacked heavy tanks very often. Guderian can one-shot any unstacked artillery unit by himself, along with infantry in stacks of 2 or 3, sometimes 4 if you get Panzer Leader to trigger. Stacked tanks can take one shot, but rarely a hit from both Konev and Guderian in the same turn.

The difference is a lot more one-shots. If you take an additional damage skill, boost it with a medal and then get bonuses from percentage abilities and leader skills, it can mean the difference between one-shotting a unit or not.

Ok, give me an explanation why:

1) My maxed Guderian with 3 tank medals can't hit 450 hp. I assume it's because of Rumor taken instead of Plain fighting. Am I right? Is it Your version?
2) My Guderian sometimes can't shoot once again after kill. What is the version for this case?
3) Weaker units can easily be killed by team. Strong generals are necessary to kill strong enemy generals. Here Rumor is much more valuable imo. Are You one-shooting enemy generals?

Yes, often I am one-shotting enemy generals. Go check out the 1939 27-turn Soviet conquest I just posted in the world record thread. There are tons of screenshots. I got a one-shot kill with Manstein on Leeb and a couple of other artillery generals. I got one-shots on several infantry generals, all with full health. I even one-shot Germany’s Manstein and Franco because the reality is you are not fighting every enemy general at full health. So maybe Rumor helps you on a couple of full health enemy tank generals early. But for every other turn, you move faster with the extra damage giving you extra assault hits and taking out additional units. Now, you don’t get 100 percent Assault until your tech is upgraded. But Rumor still isn’t helping when you are fighting vanilla units with no general attached. At most, a stacked tank takes two turns to kill. Let’s do the math. Max Plain Figting with Medal is 36 additional base damage. It is way more than that if you get a Panzer Leader hit, plus the bonus damage you might get from Armored Assault with medal (48 percent of 36 is 17) or Explosives if you are attacking a city. At a minimum, in those two turns you are giving up 72 damage. From a practical perspective it’s well over 100 when you apply all the bonuses. Combine that over the course of a dozen or more turns, and yeah, Plain Fighting would give you way more damage while you get virtually no benefit from Rumor. Because, once again very few of the units you face have the HP to survive for two turns, and almost none are going to last more than two turns.

You can take a “tactical skill” that may help you three or four turns max, or a damage skill that will shave several turns off your victory time.

This game is ultimately about completing objectives as quickly as possible. Early on, Rumor is a helpful skill because you don’t have the damage output to quickly dispatch enemies, and Rumor helps your generals stay alive longer. But when you have Guderian and Konev maxed out, your damage output makes Rumor unnecessary. You don’t need it to keep them alive because they kill enemies quickly, and you are sacrificing additional damage that would help you finish scenarios and conquests in fewer turns. It’s not just a little, either. It is 36 base damage if you are sacrificing each turn if you take Rumor instead of Plain Fighting and the medal boosting it. Six stars of tank skill only give you 30 base damage, for comparison. I don’t even use the Assault Medal on my top tank general because he rarely takes retaliation damage, and the added output from taking the medal for Plain Fighting is so good.

Tank attack upgrades up to Pacific is 12 points. Tanks attack upgrades maxed - 48 points (36!! additional points)
Now please go and check the attack of Your heavytank in Soviets 1939. As soon as You look at the screen You will understand how increadibly weaker same heavy tank will be for the player with only Pacific upgrades.
For sure You can one-shot many generals. But mainly it's because of this basic attack buff due to techs. In comparison to techs influence plain figting is almost nothing for the player with no techs.