Disappointed by the lack of Overrun ability

[impar]

I miss the Overrun ability of Tanks.

From Panzer General 2 manual:

UNIT CLASS AND EQUIPMENT TYPE SPECIAL
ABILITIES
...
Tank Class: Overrun

Tank class units possess a special ability called Overrun; a powerful advantage usable under certain
conditions. A tank unit that conducts a devastating attack on a weakened foe has the possibility of
‘rolling over’ its opponent. If the tank’s attack eliminates the defender, an Overrun Attack message may
appear in the Information bar at the top of the Main Game screen. If this message occurs, the tank is
allowed to continue with its movement, and attack again. This represents a tank unit’s ability to smash
straight through weakened units. With luck, and a line of weak defenders, a tank may attack and
destroy two or three lesser units in a single turn.

An example:
The rest of your units have reduced an enemy infantry unit to 2 strength and an enemy anti-tank unit to 1 strength.
You move your 5 movement points Panzer 2 hexes to a position where it can attack both enemy units.
The Panzer attacks the 2 strength enemy infantry unit and overruns it (destroys the enemy unit).
The Overrun ability kicks in and your Panzer can now still move 3 hexes (or 2 if a similar recon staggered movement penalty is chosen) and shoot again.
You choose to attack the 1 strength enemy anti-tank unit and again overrun the enemy unit.
You still retain the possibility to move your Panzer.
Your Panzer expends the fuel of the movements and the ammo of the shots.

Thoughts?

[Fritz]

Yes i miss this feature too. Like in Panzer General 3D or Peoples General.

[alex0809]

Devs said it would make tanks too powerful, and I totally agree.

[Rudankort]

We know very well what is overrun, but we decided against including it in Panzer Corps. Overrun ability, as it was implemented in PG2, would make late tanks "super units" which can make multiple attacks per turn and never risk to take casualties themselves. For example, King Tiger overstrengthed to 15 can overrun 90% of allied units in the game (at full strength). I don't see why we would want this. As it stands now, tank class is useful but not overpowered, and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve.

[texican]

Or just say only units with a Strength reduced to 1 (or 2) could be overrun. That might work.

[Locarnus]

And overrun costs movement points.
In PG 2 I once overran 6 units in a single turn, with a Tiger II...
That should not be possible.

Hm, it would be interesting if all actions cost time instead of the current system (something like eg jagged alliance, where everyone had action points and different actions cost different amounts of action points).

But I guess that would be a totally different gameplay...

[Longasc]

I would like to second the voices against the "overrun" mechanic.

I am still a bit on the fence regarding the move+shoot for artillery.

[Obsolete]

For the record, I had voted for over-runs in the beta, but was over-ruled. If they were implemented, I'm in favour of restricting MPs.

[Razz1]

Using the current supply system over run would ruin the game.

A player would never be able to reinforce properly due to this feature.

[impar]

For example, King Tiger overstrengthed to 15 can overrun 90% of allied units in the game (at full strength).

Havent made so far into the game yet, but if a player can get to those 15 overstrength KT, he\she should be rewarded.
It can be done so that only units that have retreated from the hexes they were on, by taking too much damage, can be overran.

I don't see why we would want this.

To cleanup enemy units at the end of the turn.
I am used to have the overrun ability, in PG at the end of my turns I usually had a tank that would mop up several enemy units that had been reduced to 1 or 2 strength.
In PzC, I either have to use too much power to kill those units (so that they disappear) or use several full strength units to kill those 1 or 2 strength units or leave them to be reinforced by the AI. None of those options is efficient.

Or just say only units with a Strength reduced to 1 (or 2) could be overrun. That might work.

Or that. Should be easy to implement and to understand.

Using the current supply system over run would ruin the game.

How so?
A player that chooses to overrun knows he must lose a turn to ressuply\reinforce earlier on than a player that chooses not to use the ability.

[Wings]

We know very well what is overrun, but we decided against including it in Panzer Corps. Overrun ability, as it was implemented in PG2, would make late tanks "super units" which can make multiple attacks per turn and never risk to take casualties themselves. For example, King Tiger overstrengthed to 15 can overrun 90% of allied units in the game (at full strength). I don't see why we would want this. As it stands now, tank class is useful but not overpowered, and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve.

I personally think that all your arguments make perfect sense. Well done.

[Razz1]

Using the current supply system over run would ruin the game.

How so?
A player that chooses to overrun knows he must lose a turn to ressuply\reinforce earlier on than a player that chooses not to use the ability.

Open your eyes and look at the big picture.
You are on the receiving end.
Due to terrain restrictions and other units in the field, you can usually only retreat 1 to two hexes after you attacked.
So you move two behind the lines.
Now the enemy does an overrun and moves next to your unit.
Your reinforcement has just been reduced by 30% on your turn.
The enemy places a plane over your unit or next to it. Your reinforcements have been reduced by 30% again.

When its your turn you are forced to retreat again as you can not reinforce fully. To make matters worse it is easy for the enemy to place another unit next to yours.
Now with 3 units next to you, it is impossible to reinforce.

Now imagine scenario case two:

You are behind the lines. Since overrun is easily done, anything behind the lines gets reduce supply when the enemy uses over run because they move next to your units.
Thus making Artillery near useless. Your other units are useless too.
Why? Because you can only reinforce with supply 50%. You can only replace units 100% behind the lines.

When a over run occurs. Artillery is supply is reduced by 50% plus another penalty to supply from the over run tank.

So... you are going to reinforce artillery and other units with supply of Ammo of 1 per turn?

Anyhow, there are so many ways that over run is bad. Just think about it.

In MP Panzer Corps would be useless to play. In single player the game would fail too.

I hope you get the idea of my explanation.

[impar]

I hope you get the idea of my explanation.

Didnt understand the case two scenario.

[johndoe2]

At least overrunning 6 units in a single turn with a Tiger II is fun - unlike the TEDIOUSNESS of the game as it is now.

What do I mean?

Stalingrad scenario – Gustav rail gun against Maxim Gorky bunker - how many times do I have to repeat the same action? Again and again and again... 8, 10 turns? And not just that one all the bunkers are the same – I liked the old way – artillery plus Stuka plus engineers bunker overrun.

Talking about tediousness - don’t remember which map - enemy infantry surrounded from all sides gets pounded with artillery and then attacked with all troops goes down to 1 strength and does not surrender! The list just goes on...

And last night - Lake Balaton – Tiger I, Elephant and 2 Panthers G against IS2 down to strength 4 and no amo – three turns! It took three turns to kill it! That was the last straw for me - I’m not playing the game anymore. Playing a game should be fun not tedious repetition of actions that achieve nothing.

[alex0809]

I think what you described is exactly what makes this game GOOD, not bad. If every unit was destroyed in the first (or second) attack, then all stats etc would be fairly useless.
Remember that you can lower enemy initiative by placing several units around an enemy.

Talking about tediousness - don’t remember which map - enemy infantry surrounded from all sides gets pounded with artillery and then attacked with all troops goes down to 1 strength and does not surrender!

And last night - Lake Balaton – Tiger I, Elephant and 2 Panthers G against IS2 down to strength 4 and no amo – three turns! It took three turns to kill it!

That might have just been bad luck and/or experienced, entrenched, full-strength enemy vs your worn-down, unexperienced units. Otherwise I can't explain it, because I reliably make enemy infantry surrender/retreat with 1 mid-experienced artillery unit and one mid-experienced Grenadier-Unit. But there's always cases where you just have extremely bad luck.
And the IS2 is a very strong tank, so it's not impossible that it survived a few rounds if it gets lucky.

[Locarnus]

What about my movement cost suggestion?

You can only overrun units w/ strength 2 or lower and it costs you 1 or 2 movement points (since overrun does not work by just looking at them, you should have to invest something). And maybe cap the max overruns per round to eg 2 or so...

[Tarrak]

Just stick to the fact that there is no overrun. Especially late game tanks (T32/85, Panther, Tiger, IS) really do not need any boost. With some experience and overstrengthed they are almost to powerful already. You need to throw a damn lots of units at them to have a chance to stop that beasts. Give them overrun and they become unstopable.

[johndoe2]

If luck is what determines the outcome of some simple conclusions then there is even less reason to invest in the game. Overrun should have been implemented to resolve some ridiculous issues like unit down on strength and no amo evading destruction for three turns. For me there were too many instances of ‘bad luck’ (as you put it) to continue playing the game.

[Tarrak]

If luck is what determines the outcome of some simple conclusions then there is even less reason to invest in the game. Overrun should have been implemented to resolve some ridiculous issues like unit down on strength and no amo evading destruction for three turns. For me there were too many instances of ‘bad luck’ (as you put it) to continue playing the game.

Maybe you should stop trying to finish this said unit off with another unit without ammo? But seriously i NEVER seen an unit down to one strength and without ammo avoiding three or more (assuming you was attacking it every round at least once). Yes it can happen once if you are REALLY unlucky but this happening at least three times in row is about as probable as winning in lotto.

[impar]

At least overrunning 6 units in a single turn with a Tiger II is fun - unlike the TEDIOUSNESS of the game as it is now.

Overruning 6 units was a very rare case, commom overruns were 2-3 units. And it has a cost, you would have expended 6 ammo and Tiger II only carries 8 ammo...

Overrun was a game feature that rewarded the players who managed to achieve a situation where several enemy units were understrengthned, a competent player would then use a tank (only tanks could overrun) to destroy those units. It was a "checkmate" move.

If an overstrengthed late game unit is capable of destroying the majority of 10-strength enemy units, it may be a case of poor gameplay mechanic, as I dont recall experiencing that on PG.
It could be solved by applying a strength modifier to the overrunning unit. Say a 15-strength tank attacked an enemy unit and overran it. The player would then have the possibility to continue its attack (standard overrun ability) but only 12 of the 15 (-20% of total unit strength) would participate on this second attack, the next attack would been 9, then 6 and finally 3.
On standard 10-strength units it would be 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 (-20% of total unit strength).
Not only would Overrun be effectively capped at a maximum of 5 attacks but the longer a overrun cycle lasts the more that unit wastes ammo, on the third overrun attack cycle the unit would be using only 60% of the unit strength but using as much ammo as a 100% strength attack.