beta2, campaign 39, manstein

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deducter
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beta2, campaign 39, manstein

Post by deducter »

Poznan
Turn 2, I stumbled a Bf109 onto a Polish fighter in the middle airfield. The AA gun there doesn’t attack my plane.

Wojciech’s tankette was destroyed by artillery, recon to force it to move into a forest, then infantry. That’s tactics. Many Polish units are inactive, which I like, since it simulates the Polish unreadiness.

Why not put the unsupplied Polish fighters one hex removed from their airfields? That way, they can resupply on turn 1, but can only reinforce on turn 2, which I think would give the German player a better chance to completely destroy them. I say add another one of these fighters, it’d be more fun.

Bypassed the middle city in the woods, sent everything as fast as possible towards the last two VH.

Made DV, 14/14, and even so just barely, routing the last polish infantry out of Konin with the last possible unit. I didn’t capture all the Polish airfields, just 4.

Polish counterattack took back a city, but it wasn’t an objective.

Danzig South

I noticed in your briefing you put the period in ‘Danzig Corridor’ outside the single quotation mark, which I believe is the British system (I am an American, so I’m not sure.) On the other hand, mobilized is spelled “mobilised” in British English, I think. If you are using the American system, it should be “Danzig Corridor.”

Ah, 810 prestige, now this is interesting.

I considered disbanding the panzer Is for prestige, but on the other hand, they have the same defense value, and the P38(t) has a marginally better soft attack, albeit much better initiative. So I kept the panzer Is, since they are easy to replace if destroyed. I even elite reinforced one for kicks. I do expect tanks to get destroyed. Down to 52 prestige.

I am not ashamed to admit that I restarted this scenario twice, a first for me, in order to get a 88 to deal with the Polish armor. Without it, it simply takes too long to deal with even the Polish tanks. I am sure I could’ve made MV, but I wanted to see whether the 88 helps me get DV. And yes, the 88 destroys all Polish armor easily, and I won DV with 12/14. I also lost some infantry on the first two attempts, but better positioning and the 88 gave me the critical advantage, and I preserved my entire core.

Lodz

Nice to see a buff in the defenses of Lodz, especially the addition of two infantry on the fortification hexes, which can activate. The tankette also activated, which is good. I lost a 10th Army PzIIC, but otherwise was able to achieve DV in 12/13. Not too much else to say, I dared not approach the massive Polish force in the north due to playing on Manstein.

One thing to note: I especially enjoy the briefings that give general intelligence information on the disposition of enemy forces, for instance, it would be nice to say something like “Furthermore, while you were away at Danzig, the Luftwaffe has finished off most of the Polish Air Force. What few remnants that exist are still disorganized. We expect no enemy planes in this area.” I think intelligence should generally be accurate up until late 1941, like the Soviet winter counteroffensive that took the Germans by surprise, because they didn’t know about the Siberian troops arriving and underestimated in general the number of reserves the Soviets had. Obviously these things depend on the mission, and it can be fun to play a mission completely in the dark, but this early, I feel it’s nice to say that.

This has a very real effect on gameplay, at least at the higher difficulties, because I keep different units in my reserve to use depending on the situation. I would’ve taken another bomber and dropped my fighter for this mission.

Piatek

Similarly, I know from last playthrough that the Polish actually did have a few air units, so I will use two fighters here. After playing through, apparently the Polish had two fighters, I probably should’ve taken just two BF109s instead of three, but no matter.

It might just be me, but the Poles seemed to have more units, because towards the end they launched some pretty strong attacks in the center and the east, with many tanks.

For most of the scenario I simply let the Polish take the bridges, then destroy their units, and finally retake the bridge. Only the last two turns did I defend the bridges, and it was pretty tense, mostly because of two turns of rain (and muddy terrain!) that limited my air force and the tanks I sent to critical sectors. Ultimately it didn’t matter, I won DV, no losses.

I still think it’d be wise to give the Polish some more artillery to help them attack across the river.
Kerensky
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Re: beta2, campaign 39, manstein

Post by Kerensky »

deducter wrote:One thing to note: I especially enjoy the briefings that give general intelligence information on the disposition of enemy forces, for instance, it would be nice to say something like “Furthermore, while you were away at Danzig, the Luftwaffe has finished off most of the Polish Air Force. What few remnants that exist are still disorganized. We expect no enemy planes in this area.” I think intelligence should generally be accurate up until late 1941, like the Soviet winter counteroffensive that took the Germans by surprise, because they didn’t know about the Siberian troops arriving and underestimated in general the number of reserves the Soviets had. Obviously these things depend on the mission, and it can be fun to play a mission completely in the dark, but this early, I feel it’s nice to say that.
Nice feedback as always. Keep it coming. :D

On the above quote though, I don't want it to become a crutch for the player. If every mission has intelligence tidbits, the player begins to rely on them.
"Oh the briefing didn't mention a counter-attack, there must never be any."
Or even worse, if the briefing is wrong people might say
"Why is the briefing telling me wrong information about this scenario? Was I tricked, or was the briefing written before the scenario was made? What's going on?"

So expect specific intelligence tidbits, when they are offered, to be pretty accurate. In the case of 1941 and onwards, there will be much expect less specific details about enemy force composition and tactics. So it's never going to be flat out 'wrong' but it will become less and less clear in the future. Plus after 30 or more scenarios, I would expect the player has a pretty good understanding of the game and doesn't need such blatant tips that we see in 1939.

Danzig South says straight up "No Polish Air, Heavy Ground Resistance"
nikivdd
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Re: beta2, campaign 39, manstein

Post by nikivdd »

On the above quote though, I don't want it to become a crutch for the player. If every mission has intelligence tidbits, the player begins to rely on them.
"Oh the briefing didn't mention a counter-attack, there must never be any."
Or even worse, if the briefing is wrong people might say
"Why is the briefing telling me wrong information about this scenario? Was I tricked, or was the briefing written before the scenario was made? What's going on?"

So expect specific intelligence tidbits, when they are offered, to be pretty accurate. In the case of 1941 and onwards, there will be much expect less specific details about enemy force composition and tactics. So it's never going to be flat out 'wrong' but it will become less and less clear in the future. Plus after 30 or more scenarios, I would expect the player has a pretty good understanding of the game and doesn't need such blatant tips that we see in 1939.

Danzig South says straight up "No Polish Air, Heavy Ground Resistance"
Good show! At least the 1939 campaign in Poland should be somewhat a continuation of the training missions for players new to the game. Too difficult missions in the beginning, or briefings that leave you in the dark, might be discouraging. Even for the more veteran player, early and easier missions, give your core de core (the first 10 units or so) the chance to gain experience and will really be the core for later missions after 1940.
deducter
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Post by deducter »

Modlin

All I have to say is, having four artillery around Modlin, of strength 18, 17, 15, and 13 will result in losses. I restarted this scenario in an attempt to get DV, yet I still failed on my second, much more successful try. My first attempt would’ve easily net me MV, but I launched a piecemeal assault on the fortress and got slaughtered by the artillery. I kept throwing in new pioneers, but the AI always evicted me one hex away from the city, so it could always reinforce. I eventually ran out of prestige doing this. I did send a secondary force to flank the Modlin fortress on the east side of the river, but I had already lost a lot of units by the time I reached and killed it.

My second attempt I launched a simultaneous offensive from the east and from the north, preceded by strategic bombardment. I also dropped my two fighters and used two strategic bombers to help reduce ammo/suppress the artillery. This worked much better, yet I still lost units, both of my SE infantry in fact. In I was one hit away from killing the Modlin Fortress HQ on the last turn. For next time, a bridge engineer unit may be quite valuable. I shall remember that, since I spent many turns in front of Modlin doing nothing with half of my army. DV is clearly doable, but I’m satisfied with this result.

MV, but so so close to DV. Ah well.

Warsaw South

One word: brutality. If anyone thinks Warsaw is too easy, let them play it on Manstein. I think they’ll find this to be harder than they expected. Let’s just say, this is one good preview of Stalingrad.

Good thing High Command gave me a SE infantry to make up for my loss.

Plus you were right about activating units. On the very last turn, some Polish infantry I left in the fortification hexes activated and took back two VH. I thus had three to get for DV, and that was impossible, in fact, I was only able to get back one and a get a MV. However, I do want to test the Spoils of War Scenario, so I restarted. The second time I concentrated my forces, sent almost all aux units and some main units to get the bonus artillery asap, then concentrated all units to attack Warsaw from the south, in street-by-street fighting. Very brutal, but I made DV 17/20 due to much better tactics. Lost my Gebirgsjager (which I love) due to a lucky Polish cavalry that did 9 damage, killing it.

I always never advocate making something easier, but in this scenario, adjust MV to be three objectives instead of four. I’ve noticed that MV is almost always, at least this early on, very very easy to make, and this would just be more consistent. The Polish infantry seem to activate based on VH. It seems the magic number is 4, I say make it 3, so it’d be more interesting. I captured the last two VH in DV on the last turn.

Bug: When it was raining, sent a plane that was out of fuel to an airfield, but one hex removed from the airfield itself. That should still be enough to resupply, but it didn’t. The plane couldn’t move, but it didn’t crash either.

One of the artillery I captured became part of my core. Is this working as intended?

Spoils of War

If the previous scenario is brutal, this one is just like the last one, except about ten times harder. This is the difficulty I expect a bonus scenario to be.

I’ve played this four times, and on the only one where I went all the way through, I lost. I’ve never lost a scenario before, ever. I ran out of prestige, down from 1500 to 40, although I did have some units in reserve, they wouldn’t be very useful.

88s kill Russian armor, but they can’t survive those 15 str regulars, even with artillery support. Nothing really does much damage to the regulars, since normally I rely on PzIVs to do the job. The only German unit that rocks is stukas, which does destroy Russian armor quite readily.

After careful consideration, I think I know how to achieve MV, and if you can achieve MV, DV should be possible, since all the Russian units activate, and you just have to pretty much kill them all. Lost of units is inevitable, but I cannot lose too many. I may go back and try again, or just do Norway.

Edit: Disregard my previous paragraph. If anyone can even get MV at this on Manstein, I will be very impressed. I have tried a number of ways, and without like losing about ten, fifteen units, I do not see how you can get MV. So yeah, this is one hell of a hard scenario on Manstein.

Edit 2: I finally did manage to get a MV with this scenario, and even that was just barely, with 4 of the VH and many, many losseIs. The AI did leave one unit to guard each of its remaining VH, just like many humans do in MP. Basically this is a MP game, I had to throw away many units to achieve victory. To preserve my core, I used my prestige to buy green units, and the cheapest ones I could get, including panzer Is, which have the same defense values as the other panzers. I only used elite air units and artillery. Three stukas, three Bf109s, and lots of infantry. Preserve the aux units as long as possible. I had less than 100 prestige at the end. Yeah, the difficulty here is high. I'd always envision scenarios of this type, at least from 1941 on, where the briefing may say such and such is DV, but in reality, there is no chance (or almost no chance) of getting it. Even MV would be very, very hard fought. Although I envision this for FM level, and so for Manstein even MV would be pretty much impossible, not to mention DV. I guess this is a preview for some Russian missions, hopefully.

The AI is very good for the most part, there were a few flaws here and there, but on the whole, it played supremely well this time around.

I was tempted to try to kill the KV2 tank that had come to one of the forward VH. But I only had two aux units left to throw at it, so I'd have to lose at least two cores to get it to 0 ammo, then surround it with at least three units. I decided that it wasn't worth the pain.
deducter
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Post by deducter »

Oslo

Blucher was sunk by turn 3, despite my best attempts to rush units over to the fort to distract from their efforts to finish off the heavy cruiser. Unfortunately, the AI focused on the Blucher and killed it without issue. They then turned their guns on one of my pioneers and killed that too. No chance for DV.

I captured all hexes with 2 or 3 turns to spare, but the game didn’t finish again, just like with the Hague the first time I played it. So check the MV victory conditions, maybe it should fire once the Blucher is sunk and two VH are captured.

Lillehammer

The AI might have gotten a slight buff, I think along the western route, but it wasn’t too hard to beat. Not too much to say, I thought this mission was fairly easy. I still think there needs to be a bit more resistance along the eastern route. Made DV with several turns to spare.

Narvik

I made DV 14/18, I thought this mission did not appear to change too much from normal. I used three strategic bombers to crush the Royal Navy, while preserving all three of my capital ships. I sailed them into Narvik harbor and had them assist with bombardment. It was very easy to force a series of surrenders, since sometimes the heavily entrenched Allied units might move. DV 14/18, I did not feel there was a significant buff to difficulty, especially considering this was Manstein. The Royal Navy clearly had more destroyers, but they were easily killed by my capital ships, while the few capital ships the Royal Navy had were easily sunk by my bombers.

I still feel DV should be that you have to preserve all three of the German capital ships, or at least the two battlecruisers, in addition to the other objectives. If I could do this on Manstein, it shouldn’t be very difficult on the other difficulties.

Elben-Emanuel

Pretty easy, despite the overstrengthed forts in the middle, for good positioning and strategic bombers make it easy to deplete the ammo of even the resupplied forts. Not too much else to say, DV 13/15.

Albert Canal

Quite a brutal scenario on Manstein, the AI attacks and resistance is generally pretty good. I probably should’ve assigned two more units to the south group, since that is the group that actually needs to get to Antwerp. But I delayed too long, mostly because I advanced cautiously with plenty of artillery cover. MV, but one more turn and I could’ve captured Antwerp. However, after finishing my turn the victory was bugged, for apparently the Germans “surrendered.” Please fix the MV victory conditions. MV 21/21.

The Hague

DV 16/18, it was a bit dicey with saving the paratroopers, but I rushed one of my own paratroopers to the region and used them to hold the ground while my force took Rotterdam, and then it was pretty straight-forward. Again, not too much else to say, but I thought the AI fought well in general.
Kerensky
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Post by Kerensky »

deducter wrote:ModlinI guess this is a preview for some Russian missions, hopefully.
Interestingly enough, these are Russians units you are fighting on this map so..... ;)
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Post by Kerensky »

You hit just the wrong number to trigger that minor victory. 1 More VH and you would have got a decisive, 1 less and you would have got your minor. Good catch, I'll fix it.

If there are any more problems like this, let me know. Seems no one has trouble with any of the decisive victory triggers, just some of the marginals might be tricky. Once we have an update on the campaign lay out and right before the DLCs go live, we'll do a final pass on all the scenarios to double check their triggers, so if you see any more of these issues, let us know!

The last problem I want is broken triggers, like the issue we have with Stalingrad in the main game currently.
deducter
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Post by deducter »

Stonne

French path this time, I restarted the scenario since it was not clear that the French held the initiative, and I had placed all of my artillery on the frontline. I reorganized my army, and used 4 Bf109s and 3 Stukas, since it looks like most French units will be in the open.

The initial French forces were fairly easy to brush aside, and when I approached Stonne I was rather surprised to find a lack of resistance in the village itself. That coupled with the 22 turn limited suggested to me that the French will be launching a massive counterattack, and this did not disappoint. I positioned my forces in a general defensive position and weathered the massive French onslaught. I defeated the first wave, then pushed out, only to be surprised by a second wave of French attacks, and even a last-ditched, third wave attack. I lost several core units this mission, mostly infantry and two panzerjagers that I sent out to finish off weakened enemies. Fun mission. DV 18/22.

Wassigny

It’s interesting that for DV, no VH are required. This suggests to me that once I capture the French General, a massive, perhaps overwhelming, French counterattack will be launched. This mission will test the ability to fight and retreat.

The initial resistance in the west was fairly easy to overcome, and while there were a few more tanks coming from the north, I dealt with them without much of an issue. After which it was mostly clear sailing. Once Giraud was captured, I was very surprised by the French units that appeared from my rear.

One French Infantry, for instance, was blocking the river pass towards the northern capture zone. I got my recon unit ambushed by it. Yet inexplicably, the next turn it moved towards one of my empty cities. It obviously should’ve stayed on the bridge to complicate matters.

As it stood, I got Giraud back in 3 turns, due to failed French interdiction. The attack on my core was brutal, and I did not hope to try to defeat the 10 or so 15 strength French tanks that came streaming my way. I simply weathered the attack for 3 turns, lost a few units, but otherwise was still in good shape. It helps that I have quite a few units in reserve.

Amiens

One serious counterattack huh? I’m almost at the channel, what could the French possibly have? Apparently a lot of 17 strength infantry, 15 strength Somua tanks, Char B1s, a strong force of bombers, did I mention the many 17 strength infantry, which my PzIV does 4 damage to? Not to mention the strong British defenses, and the heavily fortified Rouen region. This would be reasonably challenging on Field Marshall, but to get DV I had to restart like 4 times on Manstein. Very hard scenario.

The key to winning on Manstein is to realize that the AI counterattack seems triggered once you take one or two VH, I’m not sure exactly how many, because I got the first two VH concurrently. Regardless, I had one turn to put all my units into a defensive posture, and I took advantage of the fact that the AI seemed to beeline straight for the VH, so I set up a kill zone outside of it, where I positioned my 88 to deal with all the French tanks. I forced a series of surrenders or just outright destroyed the French units, and it took 4 or 5 turns just to do that. Taking the rest of the map took another ten turns. DV 23/24, but very very hard fought. Lost a decent number of units.

Just realized that I didn’t use my SE unit last game, and thus far I’ve only gotten the one. If I had some more SE units that probably would’ve helped greatly.
deducter
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Post by deducter »

Dunkirk

The DV victory condition works now. This bonus mission was not as challenging as I expected, in fact, it felt easier than when I did it on Rommel. The main issue is that none of the VH are required for DV, which I feel is silly. They are nicely positioned to simulate the encirclement of the Dunkirk pocket, which even if a lot of the transports are destroyed contains a huge number of Allied forces. Anyway, I was able to achieve DV quite handily, 14/16, before I managed to take De Panne and get the hidden Matilda (although I probably wouldn’t use it, it is too slow for my tastes).

Spoils of War was a good example of a bonus mission, almost impossibly hard on Manstein, and I feel this scenario should be too. After all, it is optional, and no one needs to take this path. Just make capturing all four VH a requirement for DV, and the difficulty will jump significantly. I bet most people capture all the VH on Field Marshall too, in fact, they might even like this change, since it’ll give them a chance to get the bonus unit from De Panne without having to count whether they’ve destroyed enough transports. For the masochists like myself, we can wonder how DV might be achievable on Manstein. I was many, many turns away from capturing the northeastern VH, btw.

Otherwise a fun scenario, I just think the victory conditions should be tweaked for DV, to bring the difficulty up to par.

Reims

The French counterattack seemed weaker than I remembered, or maybe I’m just getting used to destroying 15+ strength French tanks. Again the western approach is too weakly guarded, I basically rushed all of my units down the map to the southernmost VH point, then used that force to capture Reims from behind. My eastern force fought a much slower battle, and after destroying the French counterattack converged on the remaining VH. Last-minute French reinforcements delayed my capture considerably, mostly due to silliness on my part on not moving units up to the cities faster to prevent spawning. DV 20/20.

I highly recommend adding some more units to the western approach. I noticed that there are two French tanks in north part of the map, above the Aisne river. They never activated, possibly because I never bothered capturing the four non-VH cities north of the river. Why not move them to the west, to delay progress on that front?

Dijon

MV 18/18, I had captured the last VH, but I left one French city in the middle uncaptured, and many AI units spawned, one of which walked into an empty VH on the last turn. This was expected, I could’ve disbanded a unit and placed a new one there to defend it, but I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. It is wise to clear out all the backfield French cities on the march to Dijon, I didn’t because I was too concerned I wouldn’t make DV in time. As it stood, I had many units sitting uselessly outside the last French VH, so with better unit management DV is obviously doable. That or disbanding a unit and buying a new one to guard it.

Maginot Line

Pretty straightforward scenario. MV 15/15, but it was because I left the eastern most VH unguarded while I sent everything towards Metz. If I had left one unit (which in hindsight I could easily spare) to guard that, it would be DV 15/15. Especially helpful is that there is no French Air Force, so I used 3 TAC + 3 STR bombers.

Overall Thoughts: Campaign 40 is excellent as always. I still feel a few scenarios could use a slight buff, but otherwise it is quite good. It seems all missions can be done on Manstein with DV. I just feel Dunkirk needs to be harder, and the change to do it is very easy.
Kerensky
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Post by Kerensky »

One problem to an otherwise obvious solution of attaching objective hexes to victory conditions.

Image

Even just adding the phrase "and the words Victory Hex" causes a shift in the alignment of the text to the point where it's starting to clip into the bottom horizontal line. Another line of text, and it will undoubtedly become obscured entirely. So that's out of the picture unfortunately.

Then why have victory hexes at all? Because the AI is driven by victory hexes, the 'solo play' mode for example, if the player should choose to play the Allied player against the Axis computer. In that case, victory hexes are mandatory for the AI to perform at least on a basic functionality.

Besides, the victory hexes here are a good indicator of 'where' to look for transports to sink, and if nothing else, they serve as a nice prestige boost to capture.

Trust me, there isn't any facet of any scenario that I haven't stretched to the absolute logical and game mechanics limit. :)
El_Condoro
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Post by El_Condoro »

All that needs to be done is make the width in UI\newturn.htm to be 450 (or something bigger - but tested for problems) instead of 350 and that makes more room for text. 450 works nicely in my testing but perhaps it's a screen resolution issue.

<div id="VictoryConditions" style="width:450px; height:100%%; margin:auto; padding: 10px 0px 10px 0px">

Could this simple change be made for future releases, please?
ralmoritz
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Re: beta2, campaign 39, manstein

Post by ralmoritz »

deducter wrote:Piatek ... I still think it’d be wise to give the Polish some more artillery to help them attack across the river.
I totally agree with deducter on this one - giving the Polish 2-3 more arty units in the Piatek scenario would make it even more fun!
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