European War 6 Scharnhorst

Basically THE rocket god.

A lot of beginners probably think this guy is good. And you know what? He is good. But Alexander is better as a first buy since he's around same price, can reach emperor, and has that lovely aura. This is actually a pretty good third slot Imo. The main thing he is better then at Alexander is rockets. This guy is a great 3rd slot for people who don't have Napoleon. I don't like John too much as a general but you can get good discount on him which makes him good. John has two terrain fighting skills which is not the best, especially since neither one is plain fighting (although I think jungle fighting is still good, it's not hard to find a forest unless you're in the Middle East). At least you can definently survive buying Scharnhorst as first artillery or first general.

However Sophia is definitely a great princess. She's a good general for artillery and she's even good with her palace skill especially for defense campaigns. None of her skills are quite bad and she can reach emperor as always, and she's only 850 medals. But you also need 120 tulips which is quite a bit. Also unlocking her is very easy, just 3 star French campaign missions. So 3rd Free to play artillery slot Imo is either Sophia or Scharnhorst. Kutuzov is quite hefty for price and I don't get why people call him extremely good, he's OK imo.

EDIT: ok alert isn't great skill on inf or cav, but it's great skill for art and navy. It's good for artillery when fighting navy, forts, and other artillery. I don't think it's a good idea to have your artillery touching one of those things, or just enemies in general. That always usually means something bad for it. It's good on navy for similar reasons, you usually attack or get attacked from far away.  Yes jungle fighting isn't that good for art either, since you shouldn't put artillery in jungles, but she is only 850 medals and the jungle fighting is still good with the Art nerf of jungle.

This guy is debatably comparable to sofia and john. Inspiration is great because highest morale = most amount of damage dealt. His other 3 skills are also great.

Sophia has the same exact 3 first skills, except with jungle fighting instead of plain, which is not as good but still great. Her other two skills she gains is alert (before you roast this skill, remember it makes her a good admiral, good at attacking artillery with artillery, and lastly and most importantly, great at attacking ships). She can also reach emperor

Scharnhorst may not be as good at blowing up cities, but he is far better than her on rocket artillery. Due to inspiration and his other skills, his damage on it will be absolutely massive. As rocket artillery is a desired unit this is great. However, as mahmud ii and alexander, both the aura buff generals, are in fact rocket artillery generals, we may not one. He is also not bad on siege artillery and his output against cities will still be around kutuzov’s, maybe even more. But his defense is not as big as John or Sophia

Then there is the comparison to john. John is a general who has 2 terrain bonuses that work very well together. Meaning that he will have up to 55% boost on mountain jungle tiles. Also, alexander will work well with him. John has the highest battle/artillery ability when compared to scharnhorst and sophia. He also has the highest output against cities.

Conclusion: any 3 will work.

Scharnhorst is quite good, but I prefer Artillery Expert over Inspiration. It would make him better than Mahmoud II. Still great. 5 stars.

So Scharnhorst is amazing, but can someone explain to me exactly why he's the "rocket god"? I don't see exactly what he has that makes him so good for that role.

All his skills work really well on rocket artillery which are intended for killing non fortress objects.

Salvo + crit skill + pf + inspiration are all very consistent skills for rocket artillery. He is very easy to use, doesn’t possess any useless skills like counterattack, does very high damage, and is very cheap.