Panzer General Classic Mod (Help wanted) [0.15]

[aleader]

PzIII's have low Soft Attack and thus not as good vs Infantry as PzIV's. As for Grenadiers, I suggest using Pioneers instead (ignore entrenchment) supported by a lot of artillery (at least 1:1 ratio with infantry).

I also find Strategic Bombers to be most useful due to the fact that they reduce enemy supply, heavily if experienced/advanced models.

Commit to destroying Air-Assets.
You should assume the worst and dedicate at least 3 if not 4 Fighters to wipe out one Allied Squadron.
It might take time to clear them all out, but at least they can't reinforce themselves.

Remember, the AI does not purchase Armour or Airplanes.

Thanks for the suggestions. Tried it again after I posted and was still not able to get the far coastal cities by the end. The French infantry I spoke of were not entrenched and were purchased after I'd wiped out the entrenched ones. A few times I lost 6-7 3-star Grenadiers to raw, un-entrenched french infantry, which was shocking to say the least. The combat results in these cases showed a 1-6 ratio in MY favour. This happens continuously, and I don't know if that's a game flaw or specific to the scenario? I don't expect perfect estimations, but something closer would be nice. What's the point of having them if they're going to be so off-the-wall wrong?

As for the fighters, my strategy is always to take out the airforce first, but you only get one Me110 fighter, and I had only bought 2 core fighters, focusing instead on infantry\arty. The problem with that is I couldn't wipe them out in a turn and they'd escape and replenish them every time.

I know the PzIII was not a great infantry tank, but to lose 4-6 2-star tanks when attacked by again, raw, un-entrenched french infantry is a bit ridiculous.

I guess my frustration comes when I take Paris and a few others and then run into another 6 infantry squads, 2 AT guns and an arty piece surrounding some nothing town that blocks my way. Seems like I'm fighting the Russians, not the French. Is nobody else having issues with this one? I've probably played PG and now PzC about 20,000 times, so I don't think I'm that inexperienced in this...

How are the French able to purchase so many units on the fly?

[rezaf]

I have to say, I played the scenario at least half a dozen times, and I never had that much trouble.
Sometimes bad luck prevents a decisive victory - not that rare - but I wasn't stopped in my boots or something.

France has a lot of prestige in this scenario - they start with 1500 and get 130 each turn, so that'll allow them to buy quite a few units. The numbers were taken straight from PG, where everything is a lot cheaper.
The problem is, Rudankort's PzC AI is a bit retarded in that it appearently NEVER buys the more expensive units like tanks and airplanes - it sticks to buying hordes of throwaway infantry and fortifies every objective with the Art/AA/AT trinity.
That's not related to this mod - it's a PzC issue, and it's somewhat embarrassing for Rudankort that it STILL hasn't been fixed.
His AI was plagued by this habit back in the PGForever days (that's Rudankort's free PG remake he coded before moving on to develop Panzer Corps) and appearently he just doesn't care about addressing this major flaw. There's little I can do about this, really - I STILL hope he will finally do his homework and address this in a PzC patch, though.

Well, what I COULD do is, play around with the scenario triggers introduced in 1.01 and just HARDWIRE AI reinforcements, but take away from their prestige in turn. Maybe I'll end up doing just that, we'll see.
I would also really have a way to prevent unit-spamming by limiting how many per turn or which units at all a unit can buy - sadly, this cannot currently been done. Also, it's not possible to restrict where the AI can place their purchases.
Again, it's all the fault of Panzer Corps and it's AI, not the one of this mod, sorry to say.

I wish I had some definite tips for you regarding the France scenario, but, frankly it wasn't usually one I had to really struggle with. Keep you forces together (don't split them up into too many assault spears), have three Me109s if possible, have four core artillery units if possible, try to play it safe by not trusting the combat predictions but always suppess enemy forces if you can, rather wait a unit to surround the enemy and utilize the bonuses from multi-face attack ... the usual suspects.
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rezaf

[Fimconte]

Thanks for the suggestions. Tried it again after I posted and was still not able to get the far coastal cities by the end. The French infantry I spoke of were not entrenched and were purchased after I'd wiped out the entrenched ones. A few times I lost 6-7 3-star Grenadiers to raw, un-entrenched french infantry, which was shocking to say the least. The combat results in these cases showed a 1-6 ratio in MY favour. This happens continuously, and I don't know if that's a game flaw or specific to the scenario? I don't expect perfect estimations, but something closer would be nice. What's the point of having them if they're going to be so off-the-wall wrong?

As for the fighters, my strategy is always to take out the airforce first, but you only get one Me110 fighter, and I had only bought 2 core fighters, focusing instead on infantry\arty. The problem with that is I couldn't wipe them out in a turn and they'd escape and replenish them every time.

I know the PzIII was not a great infantry tank, but to lose 4-6 2-star tanks when attacked by again, raw, un-entrenched french infantry is a bit ridiculous.

I guess my frustration comes when I take Paris and a few others and then run into another 6 infantry squads, 2 AT guns and an arty piece surrounding some nothing town that blocks my way. Seems like I'm fighting the Russians, not the French. Is nobody else having issues with this one? I've probably played PG and now PzC about 20,000 times, so I don't think I'm that inexperienced in this...

How are the French able to purchase so many units on the fly?

Experience is relatively useless for Infantry and for low Attack value units in general, because per 1 star, you gain either +1 HA/SA/Init or +10% HA/SA/Init, whichever is lower.
So for a 5 SA infantry or Tank, the 3 stars is only a +1.5 SA increase (not sure if rounded up or down).

I would recommend for the most part to ignore elite replacements for high casualty units (Infantry/Tanks) early in the war. They gain experienced at very fast rate until you have 3 stars so you can use normal replacements without much worry.

I haven't played PGC again in 0.15, but in 0.14 I found myself quite flush with prestige.
Then again I did abuse the per-turn prestige somewhat by delaying victories until the last possible turn.
I think I had Low Countries cleared by turn 12 or 13, but at 50 prestige per turn, I delayed until the last possible win turn of 19, that's a hefty 600 prestige gained.
Same for Norway, 40 prestige per turn.

I have to say, I played the scenario at least half a dozen times, and I never had that much trouble.
Sometimes bad luck prevents a decisive victory - not that rare - but I wasn't stopped in my boots or something.

France has a lot of prestige in this scenario - they start with 1500 and get 130 each turn, so that'll allow them to buy quite a few units. The numbers were taken straight from PG, where everything is a lot cheaper.
The problem is, Rudankort's PzC AI is a bit retarded in that it appearently NEVER buys the more expensive units like tanks and airplanes - it sticks to buying hordes of throwaway infantry and fortifies every objective with the Art/AA/AT trinity.
That's not related to this mod - it's a PzC issue, and it's somewhat embarrassing for Rudankort that it STILL hasn't been fixed.
His AI was plagued by this habit back in the PGForever days (that's Rudankort's free PG remake he coded before moving on to develop Panzer Corps) and appearently he just doesn't care about addressing this major flaw. There's little I can do about this, really - I STILL hope he will finally do his homework and address this in a PzC patch, though.

Well, what I COULD do is, play around with the scenario triggers introduced in 1.01 and just HARDWIRE AI reinforcements, but take away from their prestige in turn. Maybe I'll end up doing just that, we'll see.
I would also really have a way to prevent unit-spamming by limiting how many per turn or which units at all a unit can buy - sadly, this cannot currently been done. Also, it's not possible to restrict where the AI can place their purchases.
Again, it's all the fault of Panzer Corps and it's AI, not the one of this mod, sorry to say.
_____
rezaf

I think a better solution than reinforcements would be to simply place the units you'd like the French to have and cut the prestige per turn to a minimum, and give the French a larger sum of Prestige to cover the cost of reinforcements.
Then limit the "Core" (and "Aux") slots for the French to stop them for wasting all that prestige early on.
But this might conflict somewhat with a faithful reproduction of PG.

[BriteLite]

[quote="Fimconte I think a better solution than reinforcements would be to simply place the units you'd like the French to have and cut the prestige per turn to a minimum, and give the French a larger sum of Prestige to cover the cost of reinforcements.[/quote]

Rezaf: IIRC I believe the issue with the AI purchasing cheap units existed in original PG although not as severe as PGF and PZC. I agree with Filmconte. Regarding PG and PGF I would replace the AI's starting forces with equipment upgrades and increased experience to make the games more challenging. I was satisfied with the results most of the time. If you can hardwire the desired reinforcements via the triggers I for one would welcome that.

BTW I have d/l your newest version and will be beginning that in the next day or so. Would have already done that but had comp problems and had to get a new laptop. This time I intend to play it through without modifying anything.

Thanks for your continued efforts.

[Kerensky]

Well, what I COULD do is, play around with the scenario triggers introduced in 1.01 and just HARDWIRE AI reinforcements, but take away from their prestige in turn. Maybe I'll end up doing just that, we'll see.
I would also really have a way to prevent unit-spamming by limiting how many per turn or which units at all a unit can buy - sadly, this cannot currently been done. Also, it's not possible to restrict where the AI can place their purchases.
Again, it's all the fault of Panzer Corps and it's AI, not the one of this mod, sorry to say.
rezaf

As a tip/hint, this is exactly how 100% of DLC campaign scenarios are designed.
The AI is almost entirely stripped of prestige, maybe 50 to start and 50 per turn so the AI can afford replacements, and all units are pre-placed and pre-scripted.

I can't share the details of how people feel about this just yet, but I can tell you the response has been extremely positive.
The AI does very well when it's giving proper configuration, instruction, and scripting (just like any other game) but leave it to it's own devices, and well... That's why people say what they say about PzC AI.

[aleader]

Experience is relatively useless for Infantry and for low Attack value units in general, because per 1 star, you gain either +1 HA/SA/Init or +10% HA/SA/Init, whichever is lower.
So for a 5 SA infantry or Tank, the 3 stars is only a +1.5 SA increase (not sure if rounded up or down).

I would recommend for the most part to ignore elite replacements for high casualty units (Infantry/Tanks) early in the war. They gain experienced at very fast rate until you have 3 stars so you can use normal replacements without much worry.

I haven't played PGC again in 0.15, but in 0.14 I found myself quite flush with prestige.
Then again I did abuse the per-turn prestige somewhat by delaying victories until the last possible turn.
I think I had Low Countries cleared by turn 12 or 13, but at 50 prestige per turn, I delayed until the last possible win turn of 19, that's a hefty 600 prestige gained.
Same for Norway, 40 prestige per turn.

Good tips, thanks. I went back and played again because I do love this game and after stepping away from it for a day, couldn't stop myself from trying again Went back to the previous (France) scenario to see if it made a difference. Cleaned up in 17 turns and completely forgot about the holding off until the end thing to gain per turn prestige.

However I did beat Paris with a different strategy in 25 turns (still got a decisive, even though it says if you win with six turns remaining). Only left an infantry unit and PzIVD in Amiens (later added an arty piece), and thanks to the bonehead AI that kept trying to attack me across the river there, I held them off. Picked up another fighter in France this time and that helped a lot too. Put the rest of my force around Reims and attacked there. In this way I was able to get to the other cities much quicker, thus minimizing the spamming by the AI. Also, for whatever reason the combat results were far more accurate this time, and I was able to dispatch with the CharB1`s a lot easier.

I still don`t know how I could have gotten there much faster without risking losing a lot of my trucked units to attacks. If anyone has suggestions, I`m all ears.

[Shrike]

Started playing this mod last week and am now ready to take on France. Norway was refreshing: I only got a marginal victory there (nasty weather) but so far that map provided the most fun. Spotted a small typo in the city name of "Lamur" in Low Countries though. That should be "Namur". Low Countries may need some extra balancing, because even on Field Marshall you hardly ever run into any tanks before reaching the coast. I don't remember there being so little of 'em in PG. Anyway, getting a decisive there is way too easy. Alternatively you could reduce the number of turns by a third for both decisive and marginal victory?

[Tarrak]

Started playing this mod last week and am now ready to take on France. Norway was refreshing: I only got a marginal victory there (nasty weather) but so far that map provided the most fun. Spotted a small typo in the city name of "Lamur" in Low Countries though. That should be "Namur". Low Countries may need some extra balancing, because even on Field Marshall you hardly ever run into any tanks before reaching the coast. I don't remember there being so little of 'em in PG. Anyway, getting a decisive there is way too easy. Alternatively you could reduce the number of turns by a third for both decisive and marginal victory?

If memory of PG is quite right Low Country there used to be a pushover scenario. After Norway which is a bitch for movement and space it was a nice and easy Blitz. France on the other hand used to be a major pain again to get decisive. Kind of exactly other way then PC is.

[Shrike]

Just played France and ... lost! No railroads available on this very large map, AI spamming full circle defenses at every major city, making it a slow slugfest every city ... please tell me if you managed a decisive on this one! Either the AI gets too much prestige, either it needs different scripting. I could probably get a marginal with a bit more luck, but decisive seems to be absurd.

[rezaf]

Looks like it's time to me for yet another playthrough of my own mod - but I DID manage a DV in France numerous times in the past. Unless there were major changes effecting things in 1.01, my experiences should still apply.
Also, remember that I even fixed turn lengths. In the original PG, there was a bug in this scenario, which forced you to win it in like half the total turns or something ridiculous like that. I had a special tactics for this with some paras and precise tank strikes, and it still relied HEAVILY on luck.

Has someone already played the new Moscow maps, or one of them? I'd like to get some feedback of whether people think the scenarios are now more winnable than before.
_____
rezaf

[aleader]

Just played France and ... lost! No railroads available on this very large map, AI spamming full circle defenses at every major city, making it a slow slugfest every city ... please tell me if you managed a decisive on this one! Either the AI gets too much prestige, either it needs different scripting. I could probably get a marginal with a bit more luck, but decisive seems to be absurd.

DV is quite easy in this one. My last play through (with Patch 1.02) was a DV in 17 turns. Leave only a few infantry\arty units at Liege\Luxembourg and concentrate your attack at Namur (spelled Lamur in the scenario) through the forest. Cover your force with fighters/AA and take out the french airforce early. After taking Namur it's a cakewalk. The next Paris scenario is a stretch though, and the France scenario in the PzC campaign is much tougher.

Rezaf, will you check the turn count in the Paris scenario? I was able to get a DV on the last turn even though it says with 6 remaining? I can't fathom how one would get a DV in that one in 20 turns

[aleader]

Looks like it's time to me for yet another playthrough of my own mod - but I DID manage a DV in France numerous times in the past. Unless there were major changes effecting things in 1.01, my experiences should still apply.
Also, remember that I even fixed turn lengths. In the original PG, there was a bug in this scenario, which forced you to win it in like half the total turns or something ridiculous like that. I had a special tactics for this with some paras and precise tank strikes, and it still relied HEAVILY on luck.

Has someone already played the new Moscow maps, or one of them? I'd like to get some feedback of whether people think the scenarios are now more winnable than before.
_____
rezaf

I'm just starting the Sealion map Rezaf. Will post when I get through the Moscow maps.

[Shrike]

Aleader, does that mean you're not confronted with the "circle of doom" defense phenomenon then? What's the difficulty level you're playing on? This may be particular to Field Marshall (and then probably also General) level. I'll have another go at it tomorrow, just to see how things work out the second time 'round. I did play this map to death in PG and PGF though and never had a problem there. In a way it is cool to play more or less the same map with the PC AI, but I think a lot more scripting may be needed to prevent the same circle defense reflex ad infinitum, because that just makes it tedious.

[Kerensky]

In a way it is cool to play more or less the same map with the PC AI, but I think a lot more scripting may be needed to prevent the same circle defense reflex ad infinitum, because that just makes it tedious.

Think of it this way. If you configure the AI the same way in every map, that is to set it as the defensive player, give it lots of prestige, and lots of open core slots, why should you expect it to not repeat the same patterns and behaviors every single time? You are giving it the exact same set up after all.

And you know what they say about the definition of insanity.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quote ... 33991.html

[aleader]

Aleader, does that mean you're not confronted with the "circle of doom" defense phenomenon then? What's the difficulty level you're playing on? This may be particular to Field Marshall (and then probably also General) level. I'll have another go at it tomorrow, just to see how things work out the second time 'round. I did play this map to death in PG and PGF though and never had a problem there. In a way it is cool to play more or less the same map with the PC AI, but I think a lot more scripting may be needed to prevent the same circle defense reflex ad infinitum, because that just makes it tedious.

God no. I have enough trouble on Colonel. Only time I get to play this is when the kids are in bed or I go out of town with work. I did run into that 'circle of doom' in the Paris scenario though (see previous posts).

[rezaf]

Think of it this way. If you configure the AI the same way in every map, that is to set it as the defensive player, give it lots of prestige, and lots of open core slots, why should you expect it to not repeat the same patterns and behaviors every single time? You are giving it the exact same set up after all.

While there is some truth in that, no doubt, it also raises the question why the AI cannot be made to make more varied buying choices by ANY means. I guess there IS a means to at least give it certain units now, with the reinforcements mechanic, but I do hope Rudankort isn't done with the improvements in this area.
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rezaf

[Shrike]

OK, got marginal victory at second attempt, two turns short of decisive. I started with 5 open core spots though, so I guess that a better player than me will manage this on Field Marshall, while Kerensky will probably not even break a sweat on Mannstein Still, it's quite inconsistent with Low Countries as far as the difficulty level is concerned. I would reduce the objective turns on the latter and throw in a few extra AI tanks at the start.

[Shrike]

Doing Caucasus now and noticed an image bug with the sIG33 Sturmpanzer II Bizon II. The portrait picture in unit detail screen doesn't show.

[rezaf]

Doing Caucasus now and noticed an image bug with the sIG33 Sturmpanzer II Bizon II. The portrait picture in unit detail screen doesn't show.

Technically, that's not really a bug - there IS no portrait picture for the Bison II.
rivvendarke has made his B/W picture mod compatible at least with 0.14 of this mod, so using that will at least show you a picture for this unit, although it'll not cover the units added in 0.15,
I might eventually invest a little effort in this area, but - sorry to say - for the moment, I don't consider it to be a priority.
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rezaf

[Shrike]

No problem, I appreciate your mod work as it is. There are indeed more units without a picture.