Air defense of tanks still too high

[aleader]

Just played through the main campaign again after putting 1.04 on. I still can't understand why I lose at least 1 plane every time I attack a US tank, yet sometimes (seems to be about 20% of the time) do zero damage to the tank? Were tanks historically this powerful against Me262's and Stukas? I would think it would be pretty difficult to bring a jet down with a turret-mounted MG, yet it's possible to lose half your airforce to tanks, which is ridiculous. This must be a gamey way to lessen the power of air assets to compensate for the AI? Can anyone explain this?

The fact that I'm still playing this game after buying it the day it was released is a testament to the game. This issue is frustrating though.

[Kerensky]

Me262s are not designed to be fighter-bombers, at least not in PzC. They are pretty much true and true air superiority vehicles.
As for Stukas, the G model is very potent against armor. Even the best Allied armor (M26 and IS2) suffers about 20% casualty rate by an attacking Stuka G (0 experience Stuka G mind you).

Just remember that weather often affects air unit effectiveness though. Clouds cut their ability do to damage in half, and snow and rain reduce it to 0.

[aleader]

I don't know if you really read my post. I have no issue with the Me262 or Stuka's attack effectiveness. My issue is with the effectiveness of the tanks to defend against them. And when I say 'lessen the power of air units' I mean lessen their usefulness against tanks that have air defense values.

[Kerensky]

Already been addressed.

http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29081

If you are resuming your campaign after applying the patch, your equipment file may not be up to date (each save file stores its own equipment file). Best way to make sure is to check the unit stats or begin a new campaign.

Kill chance should be down to about 6%, not the old 20% you are seeing.

[aleader]

Not a resume, started a new campaign after a clean install and the 1.04 patch. It does show 6% chance of a kill. Went and played a few more times before I came to any conclusions.

Played through the East Coast to West Coast again. Kept track of attacks on tanks with Me262's and Ju87G's. I deliberately attacked them every chance I got. 49 attacks, lost planes 37 times for a grand total of 44 losses (lost more than one sometimes). Correct me if I'm missing something here, but that's a lot better odds than 6%. Those tanks are still far overpowered with their ability to take down planes in my estimation. I recall one attack where a Sherman took down 4 (!) Me262's. That's crazy.

[Razz1]

It's the random generator that's doing it.

[lordzimoa]

I recall one attack where a Sherman took down 4 (!) Me262's. That's crazy.

It is not one Sherman against a Me262, it is a tank corps or division with full AA capability being attacked by a Luftwaffe Gruppe or Staffel of Me262`s. The game is abstracted and it is never a one on one, unit against unit situation.

Depending on the scale of the maps the size of the units differ from Corps to Brigade. Battle is taken place within a zone of 15km2 to 5km2, again depending on the maps.

We use one unit icon to represent a group of units, where the unit on the map represents it`s key strength, but just imagine full AA capability within that Tank corps represented by your Sherman unit icon. An extra specialized AA brigade nearby your tank corps would be able to give even more AA defence bonuses, is the tank corps in open or closed terrain, in protection of a city, is it good or bad weather, is it entrenched or suppressed, do you have good initiative... all play a factor.

Like in real war, you scout, estimate, plan and than execute and than you will have to wait and see how the result turns out. In some cases it can be a walkover, in other cases it will become a big nightmare. Some plans look brilliant on paper, but in practice don`t work, some plans seem nuts , but turn out really good in the field. Luck, like in real life, also plays a role in war.

Than deal with the situation as best as you can.

If you make outcomes highly predictable in any strategy game, it will become very boring quite soon. Now players are sometimes frustrated as a plan fails, as on paper it looked all so well and easy and the odds were in your favour. Welcome to the wonderful world of warfare I would say, there is no perfect strategy, as so many factors play a roll, the outcome is hard to predict.


Cheers,

Tim aka LZ

[El_Condoro]

^ That's interesting because I remember being told that considering a unit as an abstracted version of a larger unit as you've described was against PG principles. It was during the debate over having overrun way back in beta. viewtopic.php?t=23891&postdays=0&postor ... n&start=40 - last page.

I totally agree with what you're saying but it adds a whole new dimension to discussions such as whether AA and ART should be able to take flags - if they are accompanied by units of infantry, as they would be in real life, then why can't they take flags?

It also raises the question of exactly how the statistics of a unit are arrived at; the Sherman above has a turret mounted MG for AD and so one efile designer says it should have a low AD stat. Another efile assumes an AA accompanying unit and gives the Sherman a high AD. The same Sherman is lousy in close terrain, but if it has accompanying INF why does it get such a low CD stat? When this debate starts, we are getting into an organisational equipment file where a Sherman icon might represent a tank brigade or regiment with accompanying support elements.

What is the 'philosophy' that has been adopted for PzC?

[Rudankort]

Our approach to unit stats in PzC was simple. First, the stats of the units were derived directly from technical specifications of historical equipment. E. g. higher combat speed results is faster movement on the map, thicker armor results in higher ground defense rating etc. Second, statistics of certain units we adjusted manually to achieve a better game balance. Due to the abstract nature of the game we had enough freedom to do that, because, for example, it is not specified how many men and machines comprise each unit, and it can differ between nations. There were also differences between units not represented in their primary technical stats (caliber, penetration, armor etc.).

However, we still assume that most units consist of the equipment shown on their icon for the most part. Of course, there is some additional stuff in each unit (for example, towed arty units must have some men and trucks which allow them to move on their own, even if they do it at a very slow rate). But it was not our goal to represent "composite units" in the game, because many units would not exist as separate entities in this case (for example, a lot of equipment like artillery and AT guns were part of infantry units, they did not exist on their own). It is the fundamental design principle of PzC that different kinds of equipment exist as separate units on the map, so that the player is free to coordinate them the way he wants, not the way it is hard-coded in game formulas.

Still, the game remains very abstract. Each unit has only 10 points of strength, and it is difficult to represent weaker attacks (like tank's MG against plane) without actually killing some strength. Over many combats it all averages out (6% kills is not a huge number), but in single encounter tank's performance can be pretty spectacular against planes, better then you could expect. But then again, Me262s are not supposed to kill a lot of tanks on their own either.

We could set fighter's hard attack to 0 and avoid the whole issue altogether, but we felt that it would be more interesting if they can actually attack hard targets, in which case some tanks would retaliate and some would not. This makes tank class a bit more varied. For example, most soviet and british tanks have zero air attack, while most american models have [1]. This makes fighting americans a bit different than fighting GB and USSR. You, as the commander, are free to avoid tanks with [1] air attack, and there is nothing wrong with this tactics. Usually the planes have a lot of other good targets to choose from.

[Rudankort]

As for artillery and AA units not taking cities, I think that this rule has some interesting gameplay implications. For example, this rule allows you to bypass enemy AA units instead of destroying them. On higher difficulty levels this comes very handy, because AA units are quite powerful when defending, and killing them would take a lot of time and losses. Nuances like this make the game richer, even though each separate rule may not sound like a big deal.

[impar]

It was during the debate over having overrun way back in beta. viewtopic.php?t=23891&postdays=0&postor ... n&start=40 - last page.

Shouldnt have read that thread. Now I really miss Overrun!

I totally agree with what you're saying but it adds a whole new dimension to discussions such as whether AA and ART should be able to take flags - if they are accompanied by units of infantry, as they would be in real life, then why can't they take flags?

They should take flags. That was one of the archaic rules of PG1 that was fixed in later PG versions.

Funny thing is that PzC, being inspired by PG-series, is facing the same gameplay evolution challenges that PG-series faced. Even the possibility of "a more advanced hero system" (mentioned here) reminds me of the attachement system of PeG.

PzC developers have made an excellent game (better with the DLCs) and come up with some sound new rules, the "mass attack" concept, the "no-ammo-spent-on-[1]", incremental upgrades, and some other opaque rules that pop in the forum sometimes.

That said, this is a list of gameplay elements I would like to be added to PzC:
- Some kind of overrun ability on tanks.
- Paratroopers jumping onto an hex adjacent to an enemy AA would be shot at by the AA.
- Light AA, AT and ART pieces being able to be air-transported to a friendly airfield.
- Ability to disband just the transport of an unit.
- Mountain troops movement independent of transport on rough terrain.
- Player being able to choose the movement path of an unit by Ctrl+click on a hex in the path the player wants the unit to go through.

I realise that Overrun ability is polemic, but it is such a great gameplay element that it should be included in some fashion in PzC. It was not in PG1, the same as others mechanics that make PzC the game it is; the recon movement of recon units, the fighter-bombers attacking air targets, the switch role ability of some units, the "move-and-then-shoot" of towed units, the Heroes, ...

PS:
Ah! Took too long to post. Rudankort ninja-replied.

PSPS:

As for artillery and AA units not taking cities, I think that this rule has some interesting gameplay implications. For example, this rule allows you to bypass enemy AA units instead of destroying them. On higher difficulty levels this comes very handy, because AA units are quite powerful when defending, and killing them would take a lot of time and losses. Nuances like this make the game richer, even though each separate rule may not sound like a big deal.

So, the reasoning is that allowing AA and ART to take flags would make the game harder in the harder difficulty settings?
Isnt that what harder difficulty aims at?

[alex0809]

- Player being able to choose the movement path of an unit by Ctrl+click on a hex in the path the player wants the unit to go through.

That's what I'm missing the most.

[Rudankort]

impar
Some elements which you mention will make it into the game at some point. Some will not. In PzC I follow certain design principles, and I only adopt elements from other games which fit into these principles. For example, one of the basic principles in PzC is that the battles are won by cooperation of many units, not by a few units killing everything in their path. And two consequences of this rule are:
- Every unit has just one attack per turn.
- Units risk to take some casualties in every battle, unless their opponent's attack rating is zero.

Overrun, as it existed in PG2, violates both principles, and so will not make it into PzC. And I doubt that this concept can be "adapted" to PzC without making the fans of overrun upset. The only thing I can see happening is an overrun unit trait available to modders, but not used in the base game.

[soldier]

I think aleader makes a fairly valid point. I Also still notice odds of 1 vs 1 everytime a german fighter attacks a US tank. This means the tank seems to have just as much chance of hitting the fighter as it has of hitting the tank. I don't see how this can be. Weight of fire and number of guns heavily favours the aircraft. Not too mention that a fighter is going to have a much easier time targetting a tank than the other way around.

[Rudankort]

I think aleader makes a fairly valid point. I Also still notice odds of 1 vs 1 everytime a german fighter attacks a US tank. This means the tank seems to have just as much chance of hitting the fighter as it has of hitting the tank. I don't see how this can be. Weight of fire and number of guns heavily favours the aircraft. Not too mention that a fighter is going to have a much easier time targetting a tank than the other way around.

Predictions do not tell the whole story because of the rounding. Fighters have a higher kill chance in such combats.

And once again, let's not forget that strength of 10 means different things for different units. For infantry this could be tens of thousands, for tanks - thousands, for fighters - hundreds.

[Rudankort]

Regarding the title of this topic, I don't think that high air defense of the tanks is too high. Performance of fighters against tanks is adequate and inline with tactical and strategic bomber performance. We don't want fighters (and consequently bombers) to inflict more damage to tanks than they already do.

So, the only questionable part is weather [1] air attack of tanks is too powerful against the planes. We might want to increase GD of air units a little bit more. Although frankly, it is unlikely to change anything. If kill chance becomes 5% or 4% instead of 6%, it won't be a dramatic change. A radical solution would be to set AA of all tanks to zero, but I've already explained above why we decided not to do that.

[impar]

impar
Some elements which you mention will make it into the game at some point. Some will not. In PzC I follow certain design principles, and I only adopt elements from other games which fit into these principles. For example, one of the basic principles in PzC is that the battles are won by cooperation of many units, not by a few units killing everything in their path. And two consequences of this rule are:
- Every unit has just one attack per turn.
- Units risk to take some casualties in every battle, unless their opponent's attack rating is zero.

Overrun, as it existed in PG2, violates both principles, and so will not make it into PzC. And I doubt that this concept can be "adapted" to PzC without making the fans of overrun upset. The only thing I can see happening is an overrun unit trait available to modders, but not used in the base game.

Ok...
And an "Exploitation" ability?
If a tank destroys an unit it can still use the unused movement points of that turn.
No second attack.
The tank can take casualties from the attacked unit.

Examples with a 5 point movement tank:
- It uses all of its 5 movements points to get near an enemy unit, attacks and destroys it. No Exploitation since all movement points were spent.
- It uses 4 of its movement points to get near an enemy unit, attacks and destroys it. It can stil move 1 hex.
- It uses 3 of its movement points to get near an enemy unit, attacks and destroys it. It can stil move 2 hexes.
- It uses 2 of its movement points to get near an enemy unit, attacks and destroys it. It can stil move 3 hexes.
- It uses 1 of its movement points to get near an enemy unit, attacks and destroys it. It can stil move 4 hexes.
- It starts the turn near an enemy unit, attacks and destroys it. No Exploitation since it is the usual attack and movement.

PS:

We might want to increase GD of air units a little bit more. Although frankly, it is unlikely to change anything.

And it would be a bit weird. Fighters didnt really have all that armour, they werent Hs129.

[Rudankort]

impar
This sounds like a very weird trait, something like phased movement, but with additional constraints. But let us see what other people think.

[impar]

Since "Exploitation" has a negative conotation, it can alternatively be called "Breakthrough".

It would also serve to easily explain the difference between a proper jagdpanzer (ex: Jagdpanther) and a tank (ex: Panther), without going into some more opaque rules of initiative and attack\defense.

[El_Condoro]

I like impar's suggestion but I would expect an attack to cost the movement points it would take to enter the attacked hex (1 in clear, 2 in rough etc.) so the MPs remaining would be reduced by the attack.