Why has the PG rule:"prestige for destroyed" aband

[Ritterkreuz]

In PG, you'd get prestige for destroyed enemy units.

I thought this mechanism was fine and realistic.
I agree it might have been too much prestige in some cases (I financed my war in late war scenarios often by buying 8.8FRlaks and destroying enemy a/c in masses).
However sometimes the glory is in capturing cities, sometimes in destroying the enemy (pockets), sometimes a combination of the two.

Since you started off with the PG mechanics, I am sure there must have been a reason to change this rule?

[rezaf]

You might have noticed that in PzC, unit costs totally run out of hand, especially for late-war units.
For example, in PG, a Tiger tank cost 300 prestige. In PzC, it costs a whopping 723 prestige -almost 2.5 times the PG price.

As you got a portion of the damaged unit types base cost, it was felt that this would make balancing very hard, thus the game was changed so you no longer get combat prestige, but scenario designers can give a fixed amount of prestige per turn.

Personally, I'm with you - prestige for combat made sense, and the prices for units in Panzer Corps are outrageous in my opinion.
However, there are also many player who feel the opposite, and think that powerful units should be even more expensive, to make less powerful alternatives viable options and possibly for more reasons.
Can't please everyone, I guess.

MAYBE we'll one day get an option to make enabling combat prestige possible in a mod, but that's a big maybe.
_____
rezaf

[alex0809]

" the prices for units in Panzer Corps are outrageous in my opinion." I don't really get what you mean with this, rezaf. So you rather want an unbalanced game where only the heavy tanks have any use at all?
In Panzer General the heavy units were simply better. I mean, they didn't have any disadvantages they were just better. In Panzer Corps, balancing the units was a big factor. And how else do you want to balance a heavy units stats (making the stats worse would be just stupid)?

[Ritterkreuz]

As you got a portion of the damaged unit types base cost, it was felt that this would make balancing very hard, thus the game was changed so you no longer get combat prestige, but scenario designers can give a fixed amount of prestige per turn.rezaf

PG had both, prestige per turn and per destroyed unit.

After having captured the easy cities, I sometimes run into a situation where I cannot finance my attrition any more - since not all scenarios provide prestige per turn.

[Aloo]

After having captured the easy cities, I sometimes run into a situation where I cannot finance my attrition any more - since not all scenarios provide prestige per turn.

I have this happen to me too, but for me this is great fun to try to finish a scenario with almost no prestige and not loose some vital, but damaged units. If I pull it off Im very happy with the challenge Ive faced.
Of course if I don't make it I either go on if it makes sense and the causalities are not great or restart the whole scenario and play differently.

I consider prestige in the game is well balanced and looking at the different comments think this is the case (some, that like using elite units complain, that there is too little pres some, that like green units, that there is too much) and changing it one way or the other would make more people unhappy.

[rezaf]

I don't really get what you mean with this, rezaf. So you rather want an unbalanced game where only the heavy tanks have any use at all?
In Panzer General the heavy units were simply better. I mean, they didn't have any disadvantages they were just better. In Panzer Corps, balancing the units was a big factor. And how else do you want to balance a heavy units stats (making the stats worse would be just stupid)?

Easy alex, I was just stating my opinion, I'm NOT lobbying for this to be changed. I didn't even adjust it (yet) in the PG Classic mod.

That said, let's face it, cheaper units are STILL worthless for the most part. Core size is very limited, and thus the incentive to waste a precious slot on a unit that's not sufficiently strong to deal with the most powerful enemy units in superior numbers is extremely small. The main mechanic at play in my games is that I think about Elite vs normal reinforcements - that's it, usually.
With vanilla PzC, I feel experience has so little impact, it's best to stick with normal reinforcements.
The only exceptions to the "most powerful only" rule are units where the more powerful versions have severe disadvantages - for example I tend to stick to middling towed artilleries like the sFH18 even if better ones are available - I don't need the constant need to resupply of the more powerful variants. Another example is the Maus, which is just too slow for most offensive maps.

Btw., late game tanks are a nice example for how incentives can be given to adopt different unit types, even if prices WERE much lower across the board. I'd never use an all Maus army, even if I could easily afford it. In fact, I tend to have mostly Panthers, with a few Tiger II and possibly a single Maus - not because I couldn't affort better tanks, but because I like the Panthers higher mobility.

My preferred solution to the issue would be like in PG4 - have force pools. There are only 4 Tiger's available, if you want 8 tanks, you'll have to use some PzIV.
Such feature cannot be retro-fitted into PzC at this point, which is fine - possibly in a sequel. Still, it's the method I prefer to outrageous prices BY FAR.
_____
rezaf

[Rudankort]

The reason why we disabled prestige earned for kills was that we felt it was not important enough, and at the same time created serious balance problems.

Why wasn't it important enough? Because in most scenarios the units you kill are about the same, so prestige you get for killing them is also the same and can as well be given to you in other forms (prestige before/after scenario, per-turn prestige, prestige for capturing cities).

Why it created balance problems? We have run through several iterations of adjusting unit prices, and sometimes the changes were quite dramatic. If prestige given for kills were preserved, we would need to tweak all scenarios after every equipment file adjustment round. And this would dramatically increase the workload.

As for outrageous unit prices, they are not that outrageous as it might seem on the first glance. In PG the best units could easily cost several hundreds, while the cheapest units were only 12. In PzC our principle decision was to avoid "cheap as dirt" units, because otherwise, in multiplayer especially, "swarming" tactics, when hordes of cheap units are thrown at the enemy, would become a major problem. The game is balanced with limited numbers of units in mind (only one attack per unit per turn, limited ammo counts, 1 point of entrenchment removed per attack etc.) When the battlefield is swarmed with crappy units, these rules begin to fail. So, in PzC even the cheapest units cost around 100, and considering this, prices for more expensive units like Tiger II should not look that strange any more. There must be a 10x difference in price between PzI and Tiger II for example, Tiger II is really that good.

BTW, in PG per-turn prestige was hard-coded - only defender could get it, and the amount you got depended on the number of unit slots. So, in PzC this aspect is much more flexible.

[deducter]

That said, let's face it, cheaper units are STILL worthless for the most part. Core size is very limited, and thus the incentive to waste a precious slot on a unit that's not sufficiently strong to deal with the most powerful enemy units in superior numbers is extremely small. The main mechanic at play in my games is that I think about Elite vs normal reinforcements - that's it, usually.

In one of my current mp games, my opponent, the Germans, sent a Tiger II into my rear area. I could attack it over and over again with my armor, thinning my front, but instead I sent two conscripts to pin the Tiger II in. A few attacks, it was out of ammo, and with my conscripts on opposite hexes of it, it couldn't move. So the use of units is not as obvious or simple as a straight up clash of the "best" units of each faction, as so many players try to do in MP. I regularly buy inferior units in MP precisely because they are cheaper and can serve a useful purpose.

As for single player, because the nature of the game where the units are not disposable means that most players will get the biggest, baddest tank for the most part. Certainly on Manstein, having the best units is a necessity to achieve DV. Once DLC 41 comes out, I'll have more to say about the whole EXP thing.

[alex0809]

I don't really get what you mean with this, rezaf. So you rather want an unbalanced game where only the heavy tanks have any use at all?
In Panzer General the heavy units were simply better. I mean, they didn't have any disadvantages they were just better. In Panzer Corps, balancing the units was a big factor. And how else do you want to balance a heavy units stats (making the stats worse would be just stupid)?

Easy alex, I was just stating my opinion, I'm NOT lobbying for this to be changed.

I'm sorry if that sounded wrong, I just asked why you want this change, right now as rezaf explained I think there is a pretty good balance and it sounded to my like you just wanted to make them cheaper for no actual gameplay reason?

My preferred solution to the issue would be like in PG4 - have force pools. There are only 4 Tiger's available, if you want 8 tanks, you'll have to use some PzIV.

But then everyone would have heavies again, I wouldn't like that [/quote]

[rezaf]

As for outrageous unit prices, they are not that outrageous as it might seem on the first glance. In PG the best units could easily cost several hundreds, while the cheapest units were only 12. In PzC our principle decision was to avoid "cheap as dirt" units, because otherwise, in multiplayer especially, "swarming" tactics, when hordes of cheap units are thrown at the enemy, would become a major problem. The game is balanced with limited numbers of units in mind (only one attack per unit per turn, limited ammo counts, 1 point of entrenchment removed per attack etc.) When the battlefield is swarmed with crappy units, these rules begin to fail. So, in PzC even the cheapest units cost around 100, and considering this, prices for more expensive units like Tiger II should not look that strange any more. There must be a 10x difference in price between PzI and Tiger II for example, Tiger II is really that good.

Rudankort, like I wrote, I'm NOT lobbying for this to be changed. I'd love to have an option for combat prestige, eventually, but it's not really a pressing matter to me.

That said, the "outrageous unit prices" have several aspects.

There's the lack of combat prestige - prestige-per-turn CAN cover a decent part of your reinforcements, but it's highly dependent on what units you have and how many losses you take, and what the scenario designer expected you to have.
In PG - like you wrote yourself - on the offense, you didn't get ANY prestige. However, the combat prestige usually still enabled you to cover for most of your reinforcements quite easily.
You're kinda contradicting yourself with the not-important and balance-problem arguments - if a scenario has one type of unit you kill (a fraction of which you get as combat prestige) and you replace it with another, more powerful and expensive unit, which causes more losses to you, combat prestige means the higher losses you'll take are accounted for automatically. Without the scenario designer doing any additional work.
With prestige-per-turn, tweaking or exchanging units means you need to manually readjust the amount you hand out, because otherwise the amount you distributed might no longer be sufficient - or it could not be exorbitant.
The ultra-expensive units mean capturing cities/objectives only gives you meaningful amounts of prestige in the early game - late in the war, you can't even replace a single tank loss with what you get from capturing a city.

There's the whole issue with high-cost low-effect elite reinforcements (don't want to renew this debate here) which plays a role.

And in the late game, thousands and thousands of prestige points are handed out each and every mission - and you need to hoard large parts of it, because costs for reinforcements run totally out of hand. It's often hard for a player to plan ahead for how much prestige needs to be hoarded, because the "feel" for a decent bankroll gets lost when suddenly, 5000 prestige can be withered away easily in a few turns by replacing losses.

Also, at this stage, you essentially STILL have the throwaway unit aspect despite all the work - you have units that cost a fraction of high-end tanks and airplanes, after all, and with 10k prestige on the bankroll, you can purchase quite a few of those. It's undenieable that the burden has been eased a bit, but the essential problem is still there.
Heck, you know what, your OWN AI is guilty as charged about using the "swarm battlefield with crappy units" tactic - WITH the new rules...
_____
rezaf

[Rudankort]

I kinda agree that prestige reward for capturing cities might be a bit to low, although it is still important, even in late war. If it cannot buy you a lot of new units, it is enough to purchase green replacements, which are much cheaper. This means that in most cases you will have enough prestige to properly refit your core between missions, while in the heat of the battle your options to cover the holes are more limited. This does not sound like an unreasonable situation to me.

As for elite replacements, among other things this is where you can direct excesses of your prestige. The game is balanced so that they are not mandatory, but they are still very nice to have. And the price for them is fair, between battles they are 2x times cheaper than buying a new unit, and in the middle of a battle they cost the same. In my personal opinion, in PG it was unwise to buy anything except elite replacements, while in PzC both options see wide-spread use, on all difficulty levels.

I agree with you that it might be hard to plan your prestige ahead, though in PG this was not less of a problem. Probably this aspect could use some more improvement.

I don't think that the problem with throw-away units exists now, and our MP experience confirms that. At least, I haven't heard reports that a swarm of conscripts or cheap AT guns is the best tactics to win a scenario. Of course you can buy a bunch of crappy units instead of one good one, but this approach does not give you obvious benefits, a balanced core will be more effective.

[rezaf]

I don't think that the problem with throw-away units exists now, and our MP experience confirms that. At least, I haven't heard reports that a swarm of conscripts or cheap AT guns is the best tactics to win a scenario. Of course you can buy a bunch of crappy units instead of one good one, but this approach does not give you obvious benefits, a balanced core will be more effective.

Didn't deducter describe such scenario in his post above?

Anyway, it's telling you didn't try to counter the claim that your AI makes HEAVY use of this. If you give it lots of prestige, it literally floods the map with throwaway units just to slow you down. Definately that could use some (read: a lot of) work - though probably not related to this thread's topic.

As for MP, I don't play MP currently, so I couldn't tell.
However, I specifically wrote I'm NOT asking for a change in this area, so I'm not sure why we're discussing the matter.
_____
rezaf

[Rudankort]

Didn't deducter describe such scenario in his post above?

Not at all. His example showed the other extreme - buying just one unit, even as powerful as Tiger II, is not a wise decision. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between. You need a balanced core - some "throwaway" units, some average units, and some elites, able to pack good punch into your core slot.

Anyway, it's telling you didn't try to counter the claim that your AI makes HEAVY use of this. If you give it lots of prestige, it literally floods the map with throwaway units just to slow you down. Definately that could use some (read: a lot of) work - though probably not related to this thread's topic.

There is nothing to counter. Given enough prestige, the AI buys only the best units in their class (on maximum level anyway) - best AA, best artillery. In Germany it will buy Pershings. Etc. But usually the AI is starving on prestige, and that's the reason why it buys what it can afford.

But yes, AI discussion is well beyond the scope of this topic. I know better than many people here what are the AI's flaws and how to address them. But for most players existing AI is more than adequate, and so improving it is a very low priority. This is a sad truth about such a game - personally I would prefer to work on the AI, but more boring stuff always takes priority.

However, I specifically wrote I'm NOT asking for a change in this area, so I'm not sure why we're discussing the matter.

I've decided long ago that I would not try to persuade you about anything. I'm only sharing some thoughts and ideas which stand behind certain PzC design decisions, because it might be interesting to some people here, especially PG veterans. Naturally this happens when a certain topic pops up in discussions, like here.

[VPaulus]

But yes, AI discussion is well beyond the scope of this topic. I know better than many people here what are the AI's flaws and how to address them. But for most players existing AI is more than adequate, and so improving it is a very low priority. This is a sad truth about such a game - personally I would prefer to work on the AI, but more boring stuff always takes priority.

Now, that's a pity. Really.

[rezaf]

I've decided long ago that I would not try to persuade you about anything.

Heh, nice to know that we feel the same about each other. Well, that's not entirely right, sometimes I DO try to persuade you, but you always fail to budge even one inch. And deep inside, I always know this even before I try to make a case...

About the AI buying Pershings ... I think there was a thread where someone was playing one of the scenarios in the original campaign in which the AI gets 2000 prestige (or 1500, something pretty high) at given turn numbers. The AI bought like twenty cheap scout tanks, iirc.
Also, in the DLC, it seems that the AI was deliberately kept on the short prestige leash, so to speak, to avoid the problem with it surrounding it's cities with multiple ART/AA/AT/Inf units.
But yeah, you're right, I realized long ago that it was impossible to get you onboard of the train of thought that says this is a problem in the first place.

Still, thanks for continuing to give your point of view on things. Even if neither me nor you can be convinced of the other ones point of view, it sometimes sheds some light on your design decisions, which can be enlightening to other folks as well.
_____
rezaf

[Rudankort]

Now, that's a pity. Really.

Let's be optimists here. Who knows? We may run out of boring things to do at some point.

[Rudankort]

Heh, nice to know that we feel the same about each other. Well, that's not entirely right, sometimes I DO try to persuade you, but you always fail to budge even one inch. And deep inside, I always know this even before I try to make a case...

Oh, I'm sure that we can find cases where I did agree with you if we try. For example, in 1.05 the Editor will no longer encrypt the user made scenarios.

About the AI buying Pershings ... I think there was a thread where someone was playing one of the scenarios in the original campaign in which the AI gets 2000 prestige (or 1500, something pretty high) at given turn numbers. The AI bought like twenty cheap scout tanks, iirc.

The AI did it to me in Germany. As soon as it got free core slots, he surprised me with four Pershings crushing everything in their path. This was the reason why I failed to capture all cities on the map and kill all units before the scenario ended. Too bad. It is clear why this happened - in Germany the AI has a lot of prestige, but no core slots until you kill the bulk of its army. So naturally it had a lot of prestige by the time it got free slots. A lot depends on scenario design...

Also, in the DLC, it seems that the AI was deliberately kept on the short prestige leash, so to speak, to avoid the problem with it surrounding it's cities with multiple ART/AA/AT/Inf units.
But yeah, you're right, I realized long ago that it was impossible to get you onboard of the train of thought that says this is a problem in the first place.

...as we see in this example. Yes, it is often useful to make decisions for the AI as much as possible, scenario designer almost always knows better. And yes, in DLCs we had to provide some variety, so naturally they are configured a bit differently, compared to the main campaign, AI department included.

[rezaf]

Oh, I'm sure that we can find cases where I did agree with you if we try. For example, in 1.05 the Editor will no longer encrypt the user made scenarios.

That's excellent news, big kudos to you for not only considering but actually implementing this.

Also, I hope you do realize that I wouldn't waste hours posting here, writing tools, making units and mods etc. for Panzer Corps if I though the game sucks and you did a horrible job.
Many developers had the opportunity to revisit classics and try to improve on them in meaningful ways. You just did it and remade PG, not only once but twice, technically, and improved on it - sometimes in ways I disagree with, but at least you tried and succeeded. For that, you cannot be praised enough.
But it'd be kinda boring if I posted a "Rudankort is great" thread every day.
_____
rezaf

[VPaulus]

Many developers had the opportunity to revisit classics and try to improve on them in meaningful ways. You just did it and remade PG, not only once but twice, technically, and improved on it - sometimes in ways I disagree with, but at least you tried and succeeded. For that, you cannot be praised enough.

Hear, hear.

[bebro]

Great news about the 1.05 editor indeed.