Couple of issues I came by recently with the game

[timek28]

As some of you know I'm playing AK again this time on Fieldmarshal difficulty. While I like challange there are some illogical things in the game that I just realized:

1) SInce I didn't play Caucaus scenario before (I couldn't get DV in Persia) this is the first time I had to convert all my units into Gebirgjagers or Alpine units. While it is certainly fun and challanging I also had to disband of all my transports in order to make conversion right. I also understand the need for this, but this is done in a wrong way. I'm disbanding my transport and not gaining any prestige in the process (like when you disband a whole unit). In fact I'm loosing prestige as I upgrade from one type of infantry into other. I have around 8 infantry units, 4 in halftracks and 4 in trucks and once I have to put them into transports again it will cost me dearly. 4*200 prestige + 4*50 = 1000 prestige lost because of transports! How can that pay off in the end? Unless winning Caucaus brings like 5000 prestige or something...

2) ...prestige brings me to other topic. There are some random dollar hexes on the map. They bring 500 prestige or so. I like the idea, but what is the logic behind this? Those are some completely random villages albait hard to reach. It would have made more sense if it was some more important cities or airfields or whatever. Also missions around Tobruk and Malta gave some bonus prestige for successfull actions - one gives 4000 and other 1000. This is great and very helpfull as it rewards player for his dilligence. It is usually triggered after some message order thing is done. Like destroying allied fleet or defending airport.

However after these missions there is no such thing as a prestige bonus. In missions after Palestine there was also no unit bonuses. Not that I have been able to find out. For example in Persia there is amphibious counter attack which is not small - by Soviet troops. My pretty exhaousted units are able to repel that attack, but no prestige is awarded for this. In one mission around Syriya there was one remote airfield on far east - well entrenched but once taken there was no unit bouns for this (as there was before this mission). This brings sour taste to my mouth as I feel that I gain nothing by essentially loosing units to some side missions or by conquering locations that look as if they hold reward units.. This is not the only example - hordes of british paratroopers are similar example. At least some small amount of prestige or some mediocre unit would be nice concidering the fact that I destroyed whole divisions or captured remote well defended locations..

3) All enemiy units on map have same experience which is usually comparable to experience of my best units. Why not make experience random in some range (1-3 stars for example)? Why make all AI units have the same experience? While I understand that this is artificial way of making game tougher, it is just unrealistic. I noticed this in GC East but in AK it is maybe even more obvious. While eventually I always get a DV there is no way that I can have all my planes 3-4 starred by Persia mission like computer does. This comes down to pure logic - the ones that are longest in use have most experience (I always buy elite replacements except for recon units). By the time I hit Persia, I have around 5-6 fighers from which 3 are maybe 3 starred and 2 one and one zero. There was no way in which I could have gotten more exerpience than that. Especially considering allied air supremacy before the arival of Fw190. Maybe if I played perfect but I don't want to play 10 times a single mission in order to get perfect result, and I think I play fairly well.

4) While I enjoy scenario design and their dynamic nature (messages and all), I also find AI completely unaware of my movement lots of times. Of course if AI was more clever he would crush me easily as in a lot of AK missions there are plenty more AI units then mine. When I say unaware - take Persia mission for example. Most of AI units are completely static. They are well entrenched in the middle, but once you flank them north and south the whole maneuvre goes unoticed by guarding middle units... Considering number of units in the middle of the map any breakout or the counterattack would have created big problems for my flanking units as the mission was challanging as it is. But like I said there is no logic in standing enemy units while you flank them completely. Maybe if developers put less AI units able to threaten flanking but with some kind of trigger that would order counterattack or breakout once my units have flanked them completely. I don't know, but static unaware AI units are meaningless in my oppinion .

Other than that game is great as I said before, just some issues here an there

[ThvN]

Hi timek28, Caucasus is a tough one, prestige you get is 3100, but it doesn't matter if you lose or win, you go to Arabia anyway. The next scenarios also all give you over 3000pr for MV's, On the Road to India 4500pr, even for MV's.

And I'm not sure about the lack of bonuses, I presume you mean you can't capture any more units after Persia, well there is only one, On the Road to India, Mirpur Khas (56,18), a Sherman Firefly.

The dollar signs, are they the ones in Iraq? Since you mention that 'after these missions' there are no more prestige bonuses I'm confused a bit. Which mission(s) do you mean by that? Generally speaking, yes, late in the game these bonuses are rare, but there are a couple:

Iraq (the dollar signs): capture Zanjan (32,2): 500pr, Arar (5,27): 500pr

Arabia: capture Abu Dhabi (40,11): 400pr, Jeddah (6,18): 400pr

East Africa: Nairobi (12,39) becomes a mission objective to free Italian prisoners: 1000pr reward. Just a kind of mission you should like.

I suppose it is difficult for the designers to make a map that plays well on all difficulty settings, the best thing you can do is help betatesting .

[timek28]

Hi timek28, Caucasus is a tough one, prestige you get is 3100, but it doesn't matter if you lose or win, you go to Arabia anyway. The next scenarios also all give you over 3000pr for MV's, On the Road to India 4500pr, even for MV's.

Yes it is a tough mission I can sense that. But it's ok, I like challanges. What I also like is that challanges are correctly rewarded. From what you are saying I cannot distinguish difference in prestige between getting Loss, MV or DV in this scenario. It seems that I will get same amount of prestige no matter how I do on the field. I remember that in one mission I accidentaly got MV instad of DV then got DV after loading last move again. I think difference in prestige was some 200 to my complete suprise! Is this possible in AK? In PK and DLC DV gets you usualy 3000 prestige while MV gets you 2000 which is a big difference. Anything less would mean there is no difference in DV or MV (except maybe turning tide of campaign).

And I'm not sure about the lack of bonuses, I presume you mean you can't capture any more units after Persia, well there is only one, On the Road to India, Mirpur Khas (56,18), a Sherman Firefly.

I remember Firefly from the first playthrough. Well - when I say lack of bonuses, I mean they should be spread more evenly. If not in every mission then maybe in every second. Last bonus unit I remember getting was Churchil tank which I sold for prestige (as it was unusable in offense) and it was in Syria mission if I remember correctly. Before that there was a bonus unit (or few like dash to the wire) in almost every mission. After Syrya I think I played 3-4 missions (Iraq, Basra, Persia and now Caucaus) and there were no bonus units. And none of these missions are easy. Persia took heavy toll on my tanks as I had to go with Panzer 4G, 3M and Stug 3G units instead of Tigers in order to use prestige to build stronger air core.

The dollar signs, are they the ones in Iraq? Since you mention that 'after these missions' there are no more prestige bonuses I'm confused a bit. Which mission(s) do you mean by that? Generally speaking, yes, late in the game these bonuses are rare, but there are a couple:

Iraq (the dollar signs): capture Zanjan (32,2): 500pr, Arar (5,27): 500pr

Arabia: capture Abu Dhabi (40,11): 400pr, Jeddah (6,18): 400pr

East Africa: Nairobi (12,39) becomes a mission objective to free Italian prisoners: 1000pr reward. Just a kind of mission you should like.

I suppose it is difficult for the designers to make a map that plays well on all difficulty settings, the best thing you can do is help betatesting .

Yes I meant dollar signs in Iraq. 2 of them. I see what you are saying. Well bonuses are pretty rare it seems.

Like I said I would have no problem with rewards being rare, but it would be nice if they were spread more evenly. Also if one side mission had prestige reward (destroying allied fleet, or covering RANDOM airport and getting 4000 prestige for that!), why should some side mission of arguably same difficulty have no prestige rewards? At least couple hundred Pr.

I guess it comes down to the developers intent of showing us how on greater difficulty settings there is a need to play a perfect game in order to maintain stable core and preserve units.

[brettz123]

As some of you know I'm playing AK again this time on Fieldmarshal difficulty. While I like challange there are some illogical things in the game that I just realized:

1) SInce I didn't play Caucaus scenario before (I couldn't get DV in Persia) this is the first time I had to convert all my units into Gebirgjagers or Alpine units. While it is certainly fun and challanging I also had to disband of all my transports in order to make conversion right. I also understand the need for this, but this is done in a wrong way. I'm disbanding my transport and not gaining any prestige in the process (like when you disband a whole unit). In fact I'm loosing prestige as I upgrade from one type of infantry into other. I have around 8 infantry units, 4 in halftracks and 4 in trucks and once I have to put them into transports again it will cost me dearly. 4*200 prestige + 4*50 = 1000 prestige lost because of transports! How can that pay off in the end? Unless winning Caucaus brings like 5000 prestige or something...

You don't need to convert any of your troops to gebirgsjaeger so I'm not sure why you did this. It was simply a bad choice on your part. You get two auxilliary mountain units that should be used to capture mountain objectives. Having said that I think Caucuses is probably the worst scenario in Afrika Corps but you still wasted prestige when you didn't have to.

2) ...prestige brings me to other topic. There are some random dollar hexes on the map. They bring 500 prestige or so. I like the idea, but what is the logic behind this? Those are some completely random villages albait hard to reach. It would have made more sense if it was some more important cities or airfields or whatever. Also missions around Tobruk and Malta gave some bonus prestige for successfull actions - one gives 4000 and other 1000. This is great and very helpfull as it rewards player for his dilligence. It is usually triggered after some message order thing is done. Like destroying allied fleet or defending airport.

However after these missions there is no such thing as a prestige bonus. In missions after Palestine there was also no unit bonuses. Not that I have been able to find out. For example in Persia there is amphibious counter attack which is not small - by Soviet troops. My pretty exhaousted units are able to repel that attack, but no prestige is awarded for this. In one mission around Syriya there was one remote airfield on far east - well entrenched but once taken there was no unit bouns for this (as there was before this mission). This brings sour taste to my mouth as I feel that I gain nothing by essentially loosing units to some side missions or by conquering locations that look as if they hold reward units.. This is not the only example - hordes of british paratroopers are similar example. At least some small amount of prestige or some mediocre unit would be nice concidering the fact that I destroyed whole divisions or captured remote well defended locations..

Bonuses like that should be very rare and getting them for taking some random airfield in the middle of nowhere doesn't seem to make much sense to be honest. The prestige bonuses fit within the narrative of the campaign / mission which makes sense. What you are proposing is just random. I wouldn't mind if every scenario had a bonus of some kind as long as it somehow made sense but what you are proposing is just random.

3) All enemiy units on map have same experience which is usually comparable to experience of my best units. Why not make experience random in some range (1-3 stars for example)? Why make all AI units have the same experience? While I understand that this is artificial way of making game tougher, it is just unrealistic. I noticed this in GC East but in AK it is maybe even more obvious. While eventually I always get a DV there is no way that I can have all my planes 3-4 starred by Persia mission like computer does. This comes down to pure logic - the ones that are longest in use have most experience (I always buy elite replacements except for recon units). By the time I hit Persia, I have around 5-6 fighers from which 3 are maybe 3 starred and 2 one and one zero. There was no way in which I could have gotten more exerpience than that. Especially considering allied air supremacy before the arival of Fw190. Maybe if I played perfect but I don't want to play 10 times a single mission in order to get perfect result, and I think I play fairly well.

It isn't an artificial way to make the game harder it represents that as the war progresses enemy units just like yours gain combat experience. I have 5 fighters when I get to Persia, 3 have 3 stars and 2 have 2 stars. It makes the air battles harder but intelligent use of your fighters and AA units makes it doable without any serious problems. Again this represents the allied ability to field quality planes at this stage of the war. I did not find that the allies ever had air superiority in Afrika Corps. I felt that the allied air power was significantly tougher than in the Eastern DLCs but that is as it should be. It would appear that you need to work on using your air power better and this includes your AA. From your complaints I would guess that you are not as good as you think you are and might benefit from trying new things or playing on a lower level.

4) While I enjoy scenario design and their dynamic nature (messages and all), I also find AI completely unaware of my movement lots of times. Of course if AI was more clever he would crush me easily as in a lot of AK missions there are plenty more AI units then mine. When I say unaware - take Persia mission for example. Most of AI units are completely static. They are well entrenched in the middle, but once you flank them north and south the whole maneuvre goes unoticed by guarding middle units... Considering number of units in the middle of the map any breakout or the counterattack would have created big problems for my flanking units as the mission was challanging as it is. But like I said there is no logic in standing enemy units while you flank them completely. Maybe if developers put less AI units able to threaten flanking but with some kind of trigger that would order counterattack or breakout once my units have flanked them completely. I don't know, but static unaware AI units are meaningless in my oppinion .

Other than that game is great as I said before, just some issues here an there

AI certainly needs some work and should be better at recon and reacting. Hopefully this gets worked on in future releases.

[brettz123]

Hi timek28, Caucasus is a tough one, prestige you get is 3100, but it doesn't matter if you lose or win, you go to Arabia anyway. The next scenarios also all give you over 3000pr for MV's, On the Road to India 4500pr, even for MV's.

Yes it is a tough mission I can sense that. But it's ok, I like challanges. What I also like is that challanges are correctly rewarded. From what you are saying I cannot distinguish difference in prestige between getting Loss, MV or DV in this scenario. It seems that I will get same amount of prestige no matter how I do on the field. I remember that in one mission I accidentaly got MV instad of DV then got DV after loading last move again. I think difference in prestige was some 200 to my complete suprise! Is this possible in AK? In PK and DLC DV gets you usualy 3000 prestige while MV gets you 2000 which is a big difference. Anything less would mean there is no difference in DV or MV (except maybe turning tide of campaign).

You are incorrect in what you think a DV and MV get you in Panzer Corps. This is not a set prestige number it depends on the specific scenario.

[timek28]

You don't need to convert any of your troops to gebirgsjaeger so I'm not sure why you did this. It was simply a bad choice on your part. You get two auxilliary mountain units that should be used to capture mountain objectives. Having said that I think Caucuses is probably the worst scenario in Afrika Corps but you still wasted prestige when you didn't have to.

Maybe it was a bad decision. Initially I thought I should capture all mountain tops in order to win. I must have misunderstood mission briefing. That is why I converted all infantry. Nevertheless I did not switch infantry units back to transports after this scenario as terrain in the following scenarios either favors heavy armor usage (Arabia for example), or is covered in hills (India for example), so mountain units do just fine as they are.

Regarding your suggestion to use only 2 auxiliary mountain units to capture mountain top I'm sure it is doable if you only go for that one point (far west). But breaking through mountain fortifications in the middle of map to force your armor over the Caucasus and flanking enemy on mountains is hardly doable with only 2 mountain units. In the center of the Caucasus AI at one point gathers around 10 mountain infantry units in attempt to counterattack. Regular units here would have hard time unless heavily backed up by artillery.

Bonuses like that should be very rare and getting them for taking some random airfield in the middle of nowhere doesn't seem to make much sense to be honest. The prestige bonuses fit within the narrative of the campaign / mission which makes sense. What you are proposing is just random. I wouldn't mind if every scenario had a bonus of some kind as long as it somehow made sense but what you are proposing is just random.

I don't understand what you mean by this... I'm not proposing random bonuses. I'm proposing quite the opposite - bonuses that are given in case of following:
1) Capturing vital strategic point (important airfield, important harbor, oil field or supply dump - as in DLC)
or
2) Destroying large and important enemy army formations (complete naval fleet, large airborne counterattack, large counterattacking amphibious force) etc...

I wanted to say: while this is partially implemented it is inconsistent. There is no rule where you will find bonus and bonuses are concentrated in few missions instead of spreading them more evenly.

Hopefully this makes sense now.

It isn't an artificial way to make the game harder it represents that as the war progresses enemy units just like yours gain combat experience. I have 5 fighters when I get to Persia, 3 have 3 stars and 2 have 2 stars. It makes the air battles harder but intelligent use of your fighters and AA units makes it doable without any serious problems. Again this represents the allied ability to field quality planes at this stage of the war. I did not find that the allies ever had air superiority in Afrika Corps. I felt that the allied air power was significantly tougher than in the Eastern DLCs but that is as it should be. It would appear that you need to work on using your air power better and this includes your AA. From your complaints I would guess that you are not as good as you think you are and might benefit from trying new things or playing on a lower level.

I already played on Colonel level and beat the game without any problems. There is no need for me to play on level lower than that. I'm always trying to improve.

I won't get into argument weather I'm good or not, as it is all relative. I just know that if I think through and calculate my moves without rushing I have no big losses, as AI attacks only if he knows that he has better odds. Too bad I don't have that much time to always calculate the perfect move.

To get back to my point. I agree with you that air battles are tougher then in Eastern DLC. That's completely normal as allies always relied heavily on air power. But like you said you had 3 planes with 3 stars and 2 with 2 stars. Wouldn't it be OK for AI to have similar experience on his planes? That is what I was trying to say. Since we as players buy equipment gradually and get experience gradually our units cannot have exactly the same experience as AI units. Maybe with perfect play they can have SIMILAR experience one to other. AI units that have same experience as if ALL AI units have been bought in the SAME time and have gone through SAME tough battles, which in my opinion is unrealistic.

Also having one or two inexperienced AI units here and there would be good for new player units to match up against them instead of being hunted by much more experienced AI units. Since all AI units are of same experience the only way for new player units to gain experience without being compromised themselves is to finish off already badly damaged AI units.

The bottom line is like you have said even with this system it is doable with careful planing, yet a bit unrealistic.

[timek28]

I didn't want to open another thread for the one more issue I found.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about everything and anything buy one thing has absolutely no logic.

Capturing the city that gives bonus units ONLY works if you capture the city PRIOR to the last move. Because there has to be a MESSAGE that you recieved a bouns unit. What the heck? If you do that on last move you won't get bouns unit!!!

Is there any logic to this? This is purely done to annoy players. Now I have to reload the game and do my moves differently to get the bonus units... This should be corrected because it is completely uncessary.