almost little things punches me hard in the stomache

[JackWulff]

hi, i`ve played the Mega Campaign up to End `43 and there are little things in the gameplay that makes absolutly no sense for me.

a) i am in front of one of the last conquerable cities and the enemy spawn 6 units on his next turn? What? I get often a facepalm when i watch this. Why not decrease the possibility to spawn units to 1 or generally limit the possible units?
b) useless infantry in woods and on hills. Why infantry dont fight much(!) better in that hexes? The scissor, stone, paper princip is outtaked with that weakness. That brings me to the next point:
c) too strong artillery. It wounded too much enemys. So i never need infantry to conquer and defend citys. I did one shoot with arty on it and they are red and no obstacle any more. Why not limit the supressed to max. 1-2 per artillerie attack?
d) AI always shoot with his artillery in the wrong order. Insted of shooting first ist always at the end of an attack. Second point, the AI likes to move his trucks, air defence, one streangths units and other weak crap next to my tanks.
e) Triggers: the attacking in waves is not really challenging in the DLCs. I recon strong troops, which are staying for turns at the edge of a map and they are doing nothing. I can bomb or ignore them, i know they will only attack if they get triggered by my field troops or at a special time. Why not decrease that time?
f) why i have to take enemy cities in a defend scenario to get a decisive victory? Shall this make the game harder? Why not let the enemy attacking stronger? The force to attack lowers the variety in the gameplay and let look the scenarios always like the same.

PC is a going to be a hexfield classic, but there are very little things in the gameplay, that weaken the challenge and fun hard, because they dont make sense.

[ivanov]

I basically agree with all the issues pointed out here. I also hate when the AI spawns new units upon the end of the scenario (it apparentely happenes, when the AI strenght falls below 20 units on the map ). I have also mentioned earlier that it is too easy to suppress the infantry units with the artillery, even when it is entrenched or on the defense in the close terrain. I guess that the main idea behind it, was to have the focus of the gameplay on the offensive action. I suppose that the the devs assumed, that most of the players would enjoy more destroying infinite waves of the AI units, rather than trying to break through more difficult to overcome and harder to suppress AI defensive positions. I personally would prefer the second option.
As to the AI spawning/spamming with the new units, I don't really get the idea behind this process. Wouldn't it be better to make the scenarios shorter, with less but better AI units ( some of them could appear scripted as the reinforcements ), than forcing the players during the last few turns of each scenario, to fight their way through the endlessly spawned AI units?

Obviously, there also would need to be some tweaks of the AI, so it could use it's arty and support units in more efficient and logical way.

[Zhivago]

One issue I see is that some enemy units remain static throughout the entire game, so it is easy to bypass them and forget about them. I think it would be more challenging if some of these "static" units started moving around after they were bypassed. I seem to remember this was somewhat the case in the original Panzer General. If you bypassed some enemy units, you sometimes would find them moving around and re-capturing cities you already had conquered.

[deducter]

The artillery being too good at suppression is mostly noticeable in SP. In MP artillery is still very good, but not nearly as godly. Artillery is balanced well for MP. Getting mostly artillery does NOT work at all.

As for hold position passive units activating after you move past them, the DLCs do have that feature as opposed to the main campaign. Yes Poland and France had units that didn't activate, but from my observation in Russia most units that you bypass will activate and come after you.

[ivanov]

I have to admit, that I am a little puzzled by the whole issue of "active" and "passive" unit settings. As it was explained, an AI unit can only be set to one of those and apparentely there is no way around it. So it would either occupy the defensive position or automatically attack whenever it sees an opportunity to do so ( even if it would be more beneficial to hold on to the well prepared defensive position ). From the other hand, I have also noticed that the Soviet units rarely sit idylle and bypassing the AI defensive positions is usually not a good option. I actually like the fact that some units may be set to stay completely passive. If there was always a threat, that all the AI units move towards the objectives if unmolested, then it would always require players to systematically clear the whole map and discourage bold maneuvers towards the main objectives.

[Zhivago]

It is a rear guard concept. If realism is what you are looking for, it is not realistic for all German attacking units to move forward leaving "static" Russian units in the rear without a rear guard to keep an eye on them or to discourage them from moving around.

[ivanov]

It is a rear guard concept. If realism is what you are looking for, it is not realistic for all German attacking units to move forward leaving "static" Russian units in the rear without a rear guard to keep an eye on them or to discourage them from moving around.

I agree. That's why I have always a lot of infantry in my core, so I can secure the flanks with it if necessary and advance towards the objectives with my mobile units

[4kEY]

I think the AI would be much more challenging if it were programmed to suppress before attacking. Having to worry about suppression attacks would open a whole new level of strategy and I really hope they make some kind of update to implement this. Did the developers intentionally cater to the quick-fix crowd?

As of right now, GTPG, a mod made by nikivdd, is much more challenging (in a gauntlet, Game Of Death kind of way) than the DLCs, though I did enjoy them. '43 East is on its way, but I may be spoiled.

All one needs to do is go into the scenario editor and buff up the enemy units. A difference of three or four stars should solve a lot of ho hum. You can also program each inidivdual unit to behave a certain way, as well as time counterattacks and off-the-map reinforcements, though doing it yourself takes away the surprise.

[MartyWard]

^ Yes if the AI fired artillery first but moved them last then it would be much better. At least some attacks would be against supressed units. Now they hardly ever are.

[El_Condoro]

For modders, if the AI is defending, set artillery to Defend, Active and don't give them any transports. That makes them fire on approaching enemies but they don't move and definitely don't mount up in trucks and end their move adjacent to tanks! For self-propelled artillery this doesn't work and it's a pain. I usually go with no SP ART for a defending AI.

[RichardL58]

^ Yes if the AI fired artillery first but moved them last then it would be much better. At least some attacks would be against supressed units. Now they hardly ever are.

The biggest problem is the AI:s handling of SP-artillery. I think artillery (with a range of 2 or more) should have been programmed to try to maintain at least range 2 from known enemies, and not moving right up front to the panzers. As it is now, the AI fires his Katyusha and then close with my ground units, blocking most hexes for follow up attacks.

[MartyWard]

^ That's why I think they should be the last units the AI moves. They won't end up next to you unless they are all that is left.

[brettz123]

I will take each of your points in turn.

hi, i`ve played the Mega Campaign up to End `43 and there are little things in the gameplay that makes absolutly no sense for me.

a) i am in front of one of the last conquerable cities and the enemy spawn 6 units on his next turn? What? I get often a facepalm when i watch this. Why not decrease the possibility to spawn units to 1 or generally limit the possible units?

I actually like this it means you need to be a little more aggressive and at least get a unit next to a city. It also means you can't just let a city sit in your rear.

b) useless infantry in woods and on hills. Why infantry dont fight much(!) better in that hexes? The scissor, stone, paper princip is outtaked with that weakness. That brings me to the next point:

infantry is very weak in this game. I think a few things would make infantry more intereting.

1. Their normal strength should be able to go to 15. This would make them more survivable and simulate the larger manpower available in an infantry division for fighting as compared to a panzer division.

2. Infantry should be able to attack from trucks and halftracks instead of moving up and having to wait a turn to attack. Currently with the strenght of tanks from 42 onwards it almost doesn't even make sense for infantry to deployed at all.

3. Infantry should have the amount of suppression put on them by attacks decreased by their entrenchment level. for instance if you are entrenched to level 9 and you have an attack that would suppress 5 infantry it would suppress no one but stil reduce your entrenchement level by 1. This would make entrenched infantry the nightmare it really was during the War and necessitate the player using infantry to tackle entrenched infantry.

c) too strong artillery. It wounded too much enemys. So i never need infantry to conquer and defend citys. I did one shoot with arty on it and they are red and no obstacle any more. Why not limit the wounded to max. 1-2 per artillerie attack?

See point 3 above. Artillery should be really strong on the defensive, in large numbers, and against most things in the open. I think my point 3 above would balance out the artillery issues while still keeping it strong where it should be.

d) AI always shoot with his artillery in the wrong order. Insted of shooting first ist always at the end of an attack. Second point, the AI likes to move his trucks, air defence, one streangths units and other weak crap next to my tanks.

This is no joke. The AI should be changed so that it ALWAYS starts off its turn with shooting artillery and bombing things. Right now the AI ends up attacking then shooting artillery more often than not. Pretty much just dumb.

e) Triggers: the attacking in waves is not really challenging in the DLCs. I recon strong troops, which are staying for turns at the edge of a map and they are doing nothing. I can bomb or ignore them, i know they will only attack if they get triggered by my field troops or at a special time. Why not decrease that time?

I really have to agree with you here. This is especially bad in DLC 43 where I will find a large concentration of tanks sitting out somewhere and I get to throw 5 JU-87Gs on them and essentially knock half of them down to half strength or less before they even start moving. Triggered units need to be much more aggressive (especially on the FM level). For instance during the Prohkvorka scenario the mass of counter attacking tanks didn't trigger until I had already bypassed Prohkvorka AND I was bombing them for a turn or two.

f) why i have to take enemy cities in a defend scenario to get a decisive victory? Shall this make the game harder? Why not let the enemy attacking stronger? The force to attack lowers the variety in the gameplay and let look the scenarios always like the same.

I don't have a problem with this at all actually. If you want a decisive victory you should have to work for it a little. Defending is so easy as it is that if you only had to hold for a DV it really wouldn't be a challenge. Though I will say that the defensive battles in DLC 43 are some of the best scenarios I have played so far.

[ivanov]

I like very much all the ideas regarding strenghtening the infantry in the game.

[Kerensky]

Unless there is a way to improve infantry in a way that does not adversely effect multiplayer, I wouldn't count on many changes to how they work or how strong they are.

Infantry are already the most used, and most efficient unit in multiplayer (cost vs ability to do damage to higher priced units), and making them better when they are already so strong and so plentiful would be irresponsible.
The AAR section has several examples of this:
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=28554
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=29276

The only reason they flounder in single player modes is that campaign mode puts a premium on long lasting units. For infantry to be effective, they must be expendable.

That said, we have at least a few ideas regarding scenario design to promote infantry use. DLC 1943 was the big big BIG tank battles DLC, which is an environment that is extremely unfriendly to infantry. DLC 1944 and DLC 1945 won't have such an abundance of open terrain and armored units.

[Zhivago]

Unless there is a way to improve infantry in a way that does not adversely effect multiplayer, I wouldn't count on many changes to how they work or how strong they are.

Infantry are already the most used, and most efficient unit in multiplayer (cost vs ability to do damage to higher priced units), and making them better when they are already so strong and so plentiful would be irresponsible.
The AAR section has several examples of this:
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=28554
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=29276

The only reason they flounder in single player modes is that campaign mode puts a premium on long lasting units. For infantry to be effective, they must be expendable.

That said, we have at least a few ideas regarding scenario design to promote infantry use. DLC 1943 was the big big BIG tank battles DLC, which is an environment that is extremely unfriendly to infantry. DLC 1944 and DLC 1945 won't have such an abundance of open terrain and armored units.

Speaking of, when can we expect DLC 44 and 45 East? I am already anxious for new content!

[deducter]

Unless there is a way to improve infantry in a way that does not adversely effect multiplayer, I wouldn't count on many changes to how they work or how strong they are.

The only way to improve infantry is to use a customized equipment file for the DLCs. For DLC43, you could use my mod that makes infantry a good deal tougher. However, no way would I do something like +5 strength to all infantry. I honestly have no idea how people are using their infantry such that they are ineffective. If you watch my video AAR, you'll see many examples of infantry on the front lines, doing good damage. In fact, my highest kill ground units so far are all infantry.

For MP, infantry is very powerful and cannot be buffed any further.

[El_Condoro]

I think other posters are talking about the weakness of the AI infantry. As has been explained elsewhere, they either leave entrenchment to attack targets or remain utterly passive. When passive, all it takes is one or two artillery salvos to make them not even return fire and they are mostly toast. The suggestion that the entrenchment should have more effect seems a good one to me.

A poll taken a while back showed far and away more players play SP than MP. This would seem to indicate the need for either a separate MP efile and/or (preferably) better use of infantry by the AI in SP. I've been banging on about that for a while, so won't say more...

Infantry used by the player are very effective in SP and MP - it's the AI that needs help.

[brettz123]

Unless there is a way to improve infantry in a way that does not adversely effect multiplayer, I wouldn't count on many changes to how they work or how strong they are.

Infantry are already the most used, and most efficient unit in multiplayer (cost vs ability to do damage to higher priced units), and making them better when they are already so strong and so plentiful would be irresponsible.
The AAR section has several examples of this:
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=28554
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=29276

The only reason they flounder in single player modes is that campaign mode puts a premium on long lasting units. For infantry to be effective, they must be expendable.

That said, we have at least a few ideas regarding scenario design to promote infantry use. DLC 1943 was the big big BIG tank battles DLC, which is an environment that is extremely unfriendly to infantry. DLC 1944 and DLC 1945 won't have such an abundance of open terrain and armored units.

I understand your concern about multiplayer but considering the vast majority of people don't play that way means your example doesn't really hold much water for me . The concern should be with the SP mode. Infantry needs some serious help. As has been stated above it could be as simple as having different files for MP and SP.

[Zhivago]

Unless there is a way to improve infantry in a way that does not adversely effect multiplayer, I wouldn't count on many changes to how they work or how strong they are.

Infantry are already the most used, and most efficient unit in multiplayer (cost vs ability to do damage to higher priced units), and making them better when they are already so strong and so plentiful would be irresponsible.
The AAR section has several examples of this:
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=28554
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=29276

The only reason they flounder in single player modes is that campaign mode puts a premium on long lasting units. For infantry to be effective, they must be expendable.

That said, we have at least a few ideas regarding scenario design to promote infantry use. DLC 1943 was the big big BIG tank battles DLC, which is an environment that is extremely unfriendly to infantry. DLC 1944 and DLC 1945 won't have such an abundance of open terrain and armored units.

I understand your concern about multiplayer but considering the vast majority of people don't play that way means your example doesn't really hold much water for me . The concern should be with the SP mode. Infantry needs some serious help. As has been stated above it could be as simple as having different files for MP and SP.

The nature of combat in DLC 42 and 43 makes German infantry very specialized units that can be fragile at times. It goes without saying that infantry is best against soft targets, city-fighting, and killing armor that ventures into cities, forests, or on hills. In DLC 42 and 43, most, if not all, enemy "soft-targets" are very well entrenched to begin with. Unless you are attacking Russian conscript units, it is unwise in many situations for an infantry unit to try and take on a soft target without some artillery suppression. Also, because there are a lot of open spaces in DLC 43, if a German infantry unit manages to get out in front of German armor in flat hex space without the protection of hills or trees, I have found that the infantry unit becomes a magnet for Russian armored units, and even Russian infantry units. German infantry become road-kill for Russian armor on open hexes. As such, when I play I always try to keep them behind my armor, and close to supporting arty units. I usually bring them forward only for "kill moves" after armor has blasted/blocked other threats from the front and flanks. I currently have about eight or nine infantry in my core, and even though they are fragile, I think it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to successfully play the scenarios without them.