DLC 44 Grand Campaign East arrives

[ivanov]

As to some solid, historical data, prior to the Operation Citadel, the II SS Panzer corps had only 4 panzer battalions in it's structure ( the 1SS LAH and the 2SS Das Reich divisions fielded only one panzer battalion each, while the 3SS Totenkopf had two ) and 12 motorized infantry battalions. So even before the "biggest" and the most famous tank operation of the WWII, the ratio between the tanks and infantry, in this elite German formation, was like 1:3.

Of course I don't expect the game to be so much historically acurate, but I am not very happy when the actuall tanks vs infantry ratio is completely reversed in the DLC.

[MartyWard]

That's something PzC doesn't (can't?) replicate, either - 2 days into Kursk and only 40 of the 184 were still operational due to mechanical failure. Wikipedia - Panther

Yep they were notoriously unreliable when first introduced. But in the game assuming they were transferred to your core is not so unrealistic, after all your deeds have been very presigous up to now so you deserve the best and newest equipment. If you view armour units as battalions you'd have about 5 of them in your core. Maybe a Tiger battalion and a few PzIV's. Not so different than just buying the best equipment available.

[MartyWard]

Of course I don't expect the game to be so much historically acurate, but I am not very happy when the actuall tanks vs infantry ratio is completely reversed in the DLC.

When you look at some of the sample cores posts there are cases where the player has more artillery units than infantry units, which is even more out of whack from a historical point of view.
But the game is by nature ahistorical, no one unit or group of units fought the all battles and got the results you get in the game. So I don't see anything wrong with building and using an 'ahistorical' core plus I am not good enough to play with PzIII's in 44. I bought the game to play it to the finish, not be stomped to death 1/2 way through

[ivanov]

But the game is by nature ahistorical, no one unit or group of units fought the all battles and got the results you get in the game. So I don't see anything wrong with building and using an 'ahistorical' core plus I am not good enough to play with PzIII's in 44. I bought the game to play it to the finish, not be stomped to death 1/2 way through

We certainly have a slightly different expectations in regards to the game, but that's ok. Obviously PC is balanced to be tank-friendly and that's probabbly the reason of it's commercial success. Right now, I am completely happy using the Deducter's e-file, which is a superbly crafted masterpiece and addresses most of the issues I had with the game.

[shawkhan]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the name of the game, and it is just a game is PANZER Corps. Tanks are to be expected. As one plays games for fun, players should feel free to play any way that floats their boat as they are not hurting anyone else.
Myself personally, I like to take a historical situation and try to do better than the original playthrough of the real adversarys. Choosing a more effective force is one way to 'do better.' I certainly don't feel like re-enacting a dismal failure as I am not a masochist.
Wargames have been around for centuries. It is not necessary to get every detail correct in order for a scenario to be adjudged 'historical'. It is doubtful that any history is completely accurate anyway as it is subject to the memories of participants and documents that are never completely accurate. To get the flavor of a battle it is merely necessary to get the ratios of opposing forces somewhat correct. Everyone agrees that there were lots of tanks at Prokhorovka for instance, so have tanks on that map and you are mostly there.
I have no intention of trying to be historically accurate and recreating the Wehrmacht's performance at the 1944 battles. Fortunately we have no 'Hitler Rule' that requires us to stand fast in horribly exposed positions and forgo the maneuver that was the hallmark of the Wehrmacht.
For the record I personally play the early war years with no more than four tanks. I am one of those weird people who like playing with infantry. When the PzkfwIVF becomes available I believe the survivability and firepower of the improved panzer finally makes them worthwhile. There is method to this madness as well,as infantry losses are 'trivial' to replace, particularly as few of my infantry use anything better than trucks as transportation. Keep the replacement costs down and one can amass a lot of prestige, anticipating Tigers/Panthers greatly increased operating expenses.
If you choose to play in other, to me strange ways, have at it!(and have a Great time)

[deducter]

At the risk of starting another 100-post, I do want to emphasize that I think about the game from a powergaming/balance standpoint first. This is strategy game. Choices should matter. It's bad when one or two units are better in every way than anything else in the same category. When would you want to buy anything else?

Take MP. Right now it is very well balanced. But imagine reducing the price of a Tiger II down to 300. No one would buy anything other than the Tiger II. No infantry, or other tanks, or artillery. The Tiger II's excellent stats are balanced appropriately by its high cost and hence rarity. If the Tiger II is as affordable as an infantry, there'd be no point in having any other unit. That's not a strategy game anymore.

In the DLCs, effectively, the Tiger II is "free." You have more than enough prestige to afford a core full of them if you want. There's no "choice."

[AgentTBC]

I'll chime in on deducter's side here. My level of enjoyment is decreasing with each successive DLC as my core units become increasingly homogenous and powerful. The most fun scenarios were DLC '39 when you had to make use of a bunch of garbage units. A core composed of 100% artillery, FW190, Panther/Tiger isn't nearly as fun. There really needs to be a way to encourage a more mixed selection of units.

Yes, one can deliberately choose to avoid the better units. That's not good game balance, it is a kludge to get around having to make good game balance. The better solution is to balance the game in the first place.

[boredatwork]

As deducter said a consensus is unlikely. Rather than continuing to respond to individual points I'll sign off of this thread by restating my suggestion so that if/when Alex returns he may decide whether or not it's worthy for implementation in his game or some future project.



- First despite what SOME people in this thread claim I am NOT suggesting they be FORCED or even encouraged to choose one type of core over the other. By all means if you want nothing but the best you should continue to have that option.

- My point is the DLCs are *already* biased in favour of one solution (taking the best) which infringes upon the enjoyment of the game for those looking for alternative paths.

- Saying that picking a lesser force automatically deserves to be steamrolled because that's what happened to the German army is bogus because let's be clear about "victory" in the DLCs - the Germans lose. Get as many decisive victories as you like and the Germans still get ejected from Moscow or Stalingrad or Minsk. Therefore a "Victory" for the Germans constitutes not necessarily winning, but rather not losing as bad as they did historically which WAS entirely possible with the forces they had available since you no longer have der Fuehrer telling you "not one step back" like your historical counterparts had to deal with and are free to conduct your battles as you see fit.

- The problem is, in the limitations of premade scenarios currently overall core strength, hence scenario difficulty fluctuates wildly depending upon core composition. This makes the scenario designer's job much harder because he simply cannot satisfy both parties with a the single pre-made soviet force - either it has to be reasonably themed to accommodate the role play crowd (OR a player that begins the campaign other than in 1939 and whose default core does not come pre-equiped with the best units) OR it has to be filled with hundreds of IS-2s to challenge the power gaming crowd.

-The cause is IMO directly tied to the core slot system. Currently no matter how you choose to build your core, the scenario restricts you to a maximum total quantity and yet prestige, even on higher difficulty levels is rarely a restriction on overall core quality the later into the DLC you get, which means overall core quality can vary considerably:



Both cores are constrained by the 26 unit quantity limit in the example but the lower one is qualitively nearly twice as powerful, will do much better in the average battle leading to yet further increases in quality. Such a core is, with a bit of experience, fairly easy to obtain in the DLC on most difficulty levels thus nullifying the original designer intent that prestige would moderate quality.



What I'm proposing is the common wargame standard approach of giving players COMPLETE FREEDOM* TO CHOOSE based on a TOTAL QUALITY LIMIT per scenario:



In this second example you'll see the player still has complete freedom to choose a tiger heavy force if that is his desire, the difference being he'll now have fewer total units than the player at the top. Both core forces however are now equally powerful (theorectically), thus simplifying a scenario designer's job since he now knows that regardless of whether a player buys the best or buys average equipement, whether he started the campaign in 1939, or 1942, or 43, the player will always have a 12500 power force in that specific scenario, allowing him to create a soviet force that present a reasonable challenge to a 12500 core regardless of what it is composed of.

The point is now difficulty can be tied directly to level - too hard? Allow the player to deploy 15000 pts worth of units. Too easy? Cut the player's deployable units to 10000. Such an approach is far more effective and predictable than cutting a player's prestige by X% when it is impossible to predict, 30, 40, 50 games into the campaign how much prestige or otherwise a player will have accumulated.

The further advantage of this approach is, as it's not a case of cramming unlimited prestige into a finite number of core slots, many of the weaker units now become viable *choices* for the player - Marders, and towed ATGs, Hetzers, 20mm and 37mm Flak, SPAA, etc as their individual (lack of) quality is offset by being able to deploy them in greater numbers.


(*Complete freedom would obviously still have to be some sort of unit cap to prevent stupidity like taking 750 x 3.7cm paks to defend Berlin but the average player core ideally should not approach it to retain the *reasonable* freedom of choice the designers intended.)



I will now attempt to refrain from further comment...

except...

I don't think very many, if anyone, uses more infantry than tanks. Be it in the Vanilla game and especially in the DLC where they are specifically designed to be tank friendly.

<--- ~12 Infantry, ~9 Tanks - I can live with the ratio because I pretend each infantry unit represents an infantry regiment and tank units represent tank battalions thus 2/2 is the approximate equivalent to a 1944 PzDiv - the only reason I argue so passionately is I don't want to see the GC turned into the horrible stock Bagration/Balaton IS-2/SU-100 spam because the players with all King Tiger cores complain the game is too easy.

[MartyWard]

There really needs to be a way to encourage a more mixed selection of units.

You mean just being able to choose not to buy the best units possible isn't enough encouragement?

[MartyWard]

- My point is the DLCs are *already* biased in favour of one solution (taking the best) which infringes upon the enjoyment of the game for those looking for alternative paths.

What you are asking for already exists, you can choose to play with any type of equipment you desire, with any amount of prestiges or core slot limit you desire as the game sits.
Having the best equiment certainly doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the game but NOT being able to buy the best sure would.

[boredatwork]

- My point is the DLCs are *already* biased in favour of one solution (taking the best) which infringes upon the enjoyment of the game for those looking for alternative paths.

What you are asking for already exists, you can choose to play with any type of equipment you desire, with any amount of prestiges or core slot limit you desire as the game sits.
Having the best equiment certainly doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the game but NOT being able to buy the best sure would.

Call me when you decide to read what people actually write instead of what you think they're writing and we'll talk.

Good day sir.

[MartyWard]

- My point is the DLCs are *already* biased in favour of one solution (taking the best) which infringes upon the enjoyment of the game for those looking for alternative paths.

What you are asking for already exists, you can choose to play with any type of equipment you desire, with any amount of prestiges or core slot limit you desire as the game sits.
Having the best equiment certainly doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the game but NOT being able to buy the best sure would.

Call me when you decide to read what people actually write instead of what you think they're writing and we'll talk.

Good day sir.

I'm not saying your ideas are not good or shouldn't be used but the simple fact is that you can already do what you ask. You can play with any mix of equipment you like and even win if you are skilled enough, as the many AAR's show.
You can self limit to a certian prestige cost for your core.
If you think the DLC's are biased towards tanks then you can choose a force that helps unbias them.
Heck you could probably even go in an edit the AI forces if you think they are wrong and you want to dive into the programing/modding end.
They are good optional or house rules.
I just don't think the majority of those who bought the game would enjoy it as much if those were implemented as standard rules.

[deducter]

Well, I just want to say there are many players from all over the world, and maybe it's just a case of misunderstanding. My native language is English (and judging by boredatwork's posts, his is probably too), but it may be that other players aren't as familiar with English. So perhaps we just have some communication breakdown.

boredatwork's proposal is not the same as the current system. Assuming a core slot of 23 units, it is not possible to deploy for instance the upper core in his screenshot OR the core in the bottom screenshot. You can still deploy a weak core with Panzer IV/Panzer III etc, but you'd be limited to 23 units. The advantage of using Panzer IV/Panzer III should be that you can have more of them. You literally are allowed to deploy 2 Panzer IIIs for 1 Tiger, or some other balanced ratio.

[AgentTBC]

Exactly! Right now you can deploy either two King Tigers or two Panzer IVs. Why would you ever deploy the Panzer IVs? If you could deploy either two King Tigers or four/five Panzer IVs that would actually make the game more interesting and increase player choice. Why is increasing player choice a bad thing?

[MartyWard]

boredatwork's proposal is not the same as the current system. Assuming a core slot of 23 units, it is not possible to deploy for instance the upper core in his screenshot OR the core in the bottom screenshot. You can still deploy a weak core with Panzer IV/Panzer III etc, but you'd be limited to 23 units. The advantage of using Panzer IV/Panzer III should be that you can have more of them. You literally are allowed to deploy 2 Panzer IIIs for 1 Tiger, or some other balanced ratio.

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, tons of game have used similiar systems and it is a good way of balancing.
What I'm saying is that you can already do it if you want. There are cheat codes that allow you to add as many or as few core slots as you want. And there are cheat codes that let you set prestige. So you make the changes and play with the core you want. If you run out of prestige at slot 23 then you probably have a lot of expensive tanks. You field a horde of units, you have a mix of units.

[MartyWard]

Exactly! Right now you can deploy either two King Tigers or two Panzer IVs. Why would you ever deploy the Panzer IVs? If you could deploy either two King Tigers or four/five Panzer IVs that would actually make the game more interesting and increase player choice. Why is increasing player choice a bad thing?

Just change the number of core slots available using the cheat code.
The hard part is balancing it based on the AI force in the scenario. For example two Tigers can only kill two units max per player turn. Five Pz IV's could theoretically kill five units per turn so you would have to put a little thought in how many additional slots you added based on the number & composition of the AI force.

[Zhivago]

- My point is the DLCs are *already* biased in favour of one solution (taking the best) which infringes upon the enjoyment of the game for those looking for alternative paths.

What you are asking for already exists, you can choose to play with any type of equipment you desire, with any amount of prestiges or core slot limit you desire as the game sits.
Having the best equiment certainly doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the game but NOT being able to buy the best sure would.

I could not have said it better, MartyWard!

[Zhivago]

Even though I may be categorized as a power-player, my core is always comprised of 20-25% infantry. The imported core I used throughout DLC 42, 43, and 44 had only 3 fighters, 4 tactical bombers, and one strategic bomber. I also use about another 15% artillery, and about another 10% anti-tank. The rest are Panzers. I try to slowly upgrade from Panzer III's to Panzer IV's when the Panzer IVG's become available because the Panzer IVG suits my playing style better, and has greater survivability/upgradability than the Panzer III's. When the Tiger I's come along, I try to replace about half of my better rated Panzer IVG's to Tiger I's, and when the Panther D comes along, I try to slowly convert the rest of my Panzer IVG's to Panthers. Ultimately, my tank core is half Tiger/half Panzer, so it floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee!

[boredatwork]

I'm not saying your ideas are not good or shouldn't be used but the simple fact is that you can already do what you ask. You can play with any mix of equipment you like and even win if you are skilled enough, as the many AAR's show.
You can self limit to a certian prestige cost for your core.

...

They are good optional or house rules.
I just don't think the majority of those who bought the game would enjoy it as much if those were implemented as standard rules.

You say it is possible to win with weaker units if you are skilled enough? True enough - I've finished 1944 with more infantry than tanks in my core and 60% PzIVs so it is possible - but what if you aren't skilled enough? - you mentioned you couldn't win using PzIIIs in certain scenarios - why should you or a player of similar skill always be shoehorned into forever being *forced* to take a single option because that is the only one you can win with?

I don't disagree with you that the cheat codes, modding, and self handicapping currently allow for a relatively wide range of options - but doesn't giving weaker players a choice as the default option make for a more compelling game?

Look at Starcraft - an immensely popular series due in part for providing, as the default option, a variety of equally viable strategies to win - players don't need to use cheat codes or play on lower difficulties to have a Marine heavy force be competitive with a Battlecruiser force - the internal game mechanics already see to that.

That is the model which, in my humble opinion PzC should strive for as it makes scenario design and difficulty balancing sooo much easier because you can apply the +/-% bonus not to prestige which as is demonstrated in every sequal since the original PG impossible to moderate, but rather directly to the deployable core on a scenario by scenario basis. Would it appeal to the majority of PzC players? I'm sure there would be an initial negative knee jerk reaction, because they couldn't buy as many Tigers as another player bought PzIVs, but once they realise the viable options open to them, without the need to cheat or self handicap, I think, if the popularity of SC is an indication, it would be a system many could live with, especially as it increases replayability - if there are multiple viable paths to victory (quantity vs quality) by default then you have additional options for replaying the DLC instead of most expensive units you can afford *always* being the best choice.


And for those that can't, cheat codes work both ways - if you really don't enjoy being stuck with a 23 unit core compared to my 35 unit core just "ctrl+alt+shift+c+core +10,000pts" to allow you to field another 10 Tigers, playing on a higher difficulty than you usually would to keep the game challenging for you.

[El_Condoro]

boredatwork's proposal is (IMO, of course) an elegant and simple solution that caters for choice and the ability to compose a core of less-than-the-best unit types and still have a good chance of success. Using cheat codes is only viable for those who know about them and, because they were intended for developers to test scenarios, they do not allow a level playing field. That may not be an issue for other players but anyone who uses cheat codes automatically reduces their kudos for success, at least in my eyes.

There are a couple of additional considerations I'd like to add to the proposal:

1. The prestige cap for a campaign scenario would need to incorporate the relative value of the player's core. So, if the cap was 15,000 and the core was worth 8,000 the player would have 7,000 with which to modify his core for that scenario. This would get into some arbitrary areas, though - how to put a value on the experience and heroes of a unit, for example. It is still a great way to make sure the scenario is played with a capped prestige, which can be modified for the difficulty level used by the player.

2. The upper limit cap would need to be included for the reasons boredatwork states. Another reason is that map designers will need to account for larger cores so that their maps don't become clogged or look too cluttered. Perhaps a relatively minor consideration, though.

As has been stated, there are many wargames that use a similar approach that still allows for a wide range of player choices within a given scope. I'm not sure what the developers have in store for the future or the degree to which they want to change the current system but it's still worth discussing.