Gameplay changes in 1.20

[monkspider]

I have to agree. I didn't like dragging along all these aux units in my inventory for multiple scenarios when they couldn't do anything, and they throw off my unit numbers.

[Herald611]

I've been trying out some GC scenarios with the new rules, not much to report, the range penalty for artillery does not appear to be crippling, I notice it mostly when it seems the Strategic Bombers are starting to get relatively more effective in suppressing units. It might be difficult for inexperienced people, though, as they must rely more on brute force, but that requires some more input from others I guess.

What I did notice was in small scenarios with only a few cheap artillery units, is that it is very difficult to wear down entrenchment if only a single artillery piece is available. Units with high entrenchment take almost no damage and get barely suppressed, that is OK by me. But the entrenchment gets lowered by one, than increases again, and the next turn it's the same result. This is a bit too much like WW1 for me.

So either I make a very risky attack to help reduce entrenchment, or I need to reinforce the attack somehow. This can also be noticed in 'Fort Capuzzo', take a single 25-pdr and an infantry and attempt to wear some Italian unit with 8 entrenchment down...

Couple of ideas:
1. As already mentioned, have artillery knock down 2 entrenchment with a succesful attack. Simple, predictable.
2. Have a random bonus when attacking, like the initiative dice roll, so that an attack has a chance to remove an extra point of entrenchment.
3. Have extra entrenchment removed in relation to the attack result: if the attack results in any kills an extra point is knocked of, so heavier guns have a better chance of reducing entrenchment.

I think the range penalties for Arty are crippling. I just played Tunisia over with no artillery, and extra tac bombers, and did much better.
Please put things back they way they were.
I also like idea 3, that heavy hits should take off more entrenchment.

[monkspider]

The range penalties for artillery seem to be pretty unpopular. For what it's worth, I found them to be fine. In fact, they might have made things easier overall in the D-Day scenario. Without the range penalty, all that enemy artillery would have really chewed my troops up.

If you drop the range penalty or reduce it maybe only -1 attack, then I hope you keep the entrenchment bonus. I find it actually gives entrenchment real significance.

One other suggestion, Deducter suggested increasing the rate of experience gain for infantry, and I have to second that recommendation. They gain experience very slowly, and it is very noticeable in this expansion. I think the experience rates for AA could probably use a boost too.

[deducter]

In a way, the old artillery system seemed wonderful because the AI is still mostly incapable of using artillery in any competent manner. If the AI could play like a human, and utilize elite, overstrength artillery the same way a human player does, the new changes would be greatly welcome. Imagine if the AI could drive up mobile artillery, suppress your infantry in close terrain, then slam them with tanks and/or force surrenders, and finish by putting a Tiger II in a city hex protected by a Brummbar. Or if the AI understood how to pick apart defensive artillery using any variety of tricks: counter battery fire, bombers, ammo depletion, flanking. Then changes to the artillery system would seem very welcome.

I can, however, understand that the range penalty is quite severe for green artillery. -4 attack/2 hexes is harsh on low caliber guns. Another change to get an equivalent result is to tone down the effects of experience on artillery firepower, so instead of+ 1 SA per 100 exp, only +0.5 SA per 100 exp, but the range penalty is reduced to -1 attack/hex. This does mean that elite infantry will better resist elite artillery fire, but I think that's fairly reasonable.

I wrote up a post in Berlin West about how to adjust to urban warfare in the new artillery system. It's basically more like multiplayer, which I think is an excellent change. I also want to say that elite infantry are very noticeably better than green infantry, and most critically elite infantry, even though they take more damage, are very cheap to reinforce compared with all the other unit classes. So instead of sticking to the old heavy armor + rocket artillery combo, consider using new core options.

On another note, replays are awesome, but I was hoping for more UI support. I was wondering if there can be a fast forward turn button (goes forward one turn, to the start of the faction with initiative), a rewind turn button (goes back to the beginning of the current turn, if there, goes back one more turn), and a pause button. Right now, it can be difficult to follow the action, and there's no way of selectively rewatching interesting stretches of the game, which usually comes towards the middle.

[Tarrak]

On another note, replays are awesome, but I was hoping for more UI support. I was wondering if there can be a fast forward turn button (goes forward one turn, to the start of the faction with initiative), a rewind turn button (goes back to the beginning of the current turn, if there, goes back one more turn), and a pause button. Right now, it can be difficult to follow the action, and there's no way of selectively rewatching interesting stretches of the game, which usually comes towards the middle.

I can only second Dedcuter's post. This would make the replays really great.

Is there any chance to get some of the more popular cheats like: reform units, chess and chess dice as an option?

[Zhivago]

Range penalties on artillery should be an optional, select-able choice, or only be implemented in General, Field Marshall and above levels.

[Rudankort]

As I said somewhere above, range penalties were not meant to cripple artillery further, but to make positioning of artillery a bit less trivial than in 1.14. To keep this idea, and avoid nerfing artillery too much, I could instead give artillery a bonus, if it is used at short range. So base unit stats are used when firing at maximum range, and if you get closer to the enemy, you can deal more damage. Thoughts?

[Ballacraine]

The principle sounds good to me.

It really depends on the range of the artillery piece.

It is self-defeating if the guns have to be on the adjacent hex to the enemy.

That is why the 2 hex range of the 25pdr puzzled me a little.
I can understand motorized assault artillery getting close, but not vulnerable towed artillery.

Balla.

[billmv44]

As I said somewhere above, range penalties were not meant to cripple artillery further, but to make positioning of artillery a bit less trivial than in 1.14. To keep this idea, and avoid nerfing artillery too much, I could instead give artillery a bonus, if it is used at short range. So base unit stats are used when firing at maximum range, and if you get closer to the enemy, you can deal more damage. Thoughts?

This sounds good to me. I like the bonus concept instead of the penalty.

[deducter]

Range penalties on artillery should be an optional, select-able choice, or only be implemented in General, Field Marshall and above levels.

I am very much in favor of tying rules to difficulty levels. Higher difficulty should require better unit positioning. I think instead of giving artillery even more firepower, which the class most certainly does not need, giving it a penalty at longer ranges at higher difficulty is a good solution.

[monkspider]

I agree with Deducter, I think artillery was strong enough as it was. Implementing a bonus based on shorter range would make defensive fire even more powerful. Maybe a compromise would be -1 attack per hex instead of -2 now.

[Mountaineer]

I added transport to a unit and lost the elite strength. I understand if I upgrade the unit, but not the transport

Also, I thought you could elite strength a unit regardless of its experience. Did that change back?

[ThvN]

As I said somewhere above, range penalties were not meant to cripple artillery further, but to make positioning of artillery a bit less trivial than in 1.14. To keep this idea, and avoid nerfing artillery too much, I could instead give artillery a bonus, if it is used at short range. So base unit stats are used when firing at maximum range, and if you get closer to the enemy, you can deal more damage. Thoughts?

If you decide to use this, please make it a small bonus, so not +2 but +1 per hex.

Personally, I think it would be sufficient to just reduce the current range penalty to +1 defense per hex for the target instead of +2, and more importantly implement a mechanic to reduce entrenchment a little bit quicker, like I proposed earlier.

This would give enough of a nerf, while remaining subtle. The current reduction in artillery effectiveness is because of multiple factors, and the new entrenchment system plays a big role, in open terrain it is not that noticable, only on very tough targets at maximum range. But with heavily entrenched units the reduction in effectiveness seems more pronounced, because the entrenchment cannot be reduced easily;

What I did notice was in small scenarios with only a few cheap artillery units, is that it is very difficult to wear down entrenchment if only a single artillery piece is available. Units with high entrenchment take almost no damage and get barely suppressed, that is OK by me. But the entrenchment gets lowered by one, than increases again, and the next turn it's the same result. This is a bit too much like WW1 for me.

So either I make a very risky attack to help reduce entrenchment, or I need to reinforce the attack somehow. This can also be noticed in 'Fort Capuzzo', take a single 25-pdr and an infantry and attempt to wear some Italian unit with 8 entrenchment down...

Couple of ideas:
1. As already mentioned, have artillery knock down 2 entrenchment with a succesful attack. Simple, predictable.
2. Have a random bonus when attacking, like the initiative dice roll, so that an attack has a chance to remove an extra point of entrenchment.
3. Have extra entrenchment removed in relation to the attack result: if the attack results in any kills an extra point is knocked of, so heavier guns have a better chance of reducing entrenchment.

[Rudankort]

I agree with Deducter, I think artillery was strong enough as it was. Implementing a bonus based on shorter range would make defensive fire even more powerful. Maybe a compromise would be -1 attack per hex instead of -2 now.

My concern is, people will hardly notice -1 attack. The difference should be noticeable, or people will not be motivated to place artillery closer to the enemy.

But yes, you have a good point about defensive fire.

[Rudankort]

I added transport to a unit and lost the elite strength. I understand if I upgrade the unit, but not the transport

This sounds like a bug which must be fixed.

Also, I thought you could elite strength a unit regardless of its experience. Did that change back?

Yes, it was changed back in beta 2.

[Rudankort]

Personally, I think it would be sufficient to just reduce the current range penalty to +1 defense per hex for the target instead of +2, and more importantly implement a mechanic to reduce entrenchment a little bit quicker, like I proposed earlier.

I think, only heavy guns should reduce entrenchment faster than normal - but then this aspect becomes quite complicated.

[Rudankort]

I am very much in favor of tying rules to difficulty levels. Higher difficulty should require better unit positioning. I think instead of giving artillery even more firepower, which the class most certainly does not need, giving it a penalty at longer ranges at higher difficulty is a good solution.

I'm not a big fan of difficulty-specific rules which do not really make the game harder, but richer and less straightforward. That's the reason why rules like weather, supply and fog of war are not part of difficulty model. Difficulty must be about, ahh, difficulty.

[deducter]

I agree with Deducter, I think artillery was strong enough as it was. Implementing a bonus based on shorter range would make defensive fire even more powerful. Maybe a compromise would be -1 attack per hex instead of -2 now.

My concern is, people will hardly notice -1 attack. The difference should be noticeable, or people will not be motivated to place artillery closer to the enemy.

But yes, you have a good point about defensive fire.

Well, another clever compromise can be to tie the entrenchment AND the range penalty together, but this requires a more complicated rule set.

The idea is this: for every point of entrenchment 2 or above, there is a penalty of 2 attack per hex range for an artillery. So, for instance, an entrenchment = 4 infantry defending vs a range = 3 artillery at max range will get a bonus of entrenchment (4 x 2 = 8 ) and range (2 + 2 = 4) for a total of 12.

An infantry in the open, with no entrenchment receives no defensive bonuses whatsoever against an artillery, even one firing from max range.

An infantry in a forest, with entrenchment = 2, will receive an entrenchment bonus of (2 x 2 = 4) and a range bonus of (2 + 2) = 4 for a total of 8 defense for the first shot. BUT, for the second shot, the entrenchment of this unit is reduced to 1, so the defense bonus is 2 from entrenchment, and there's no range penalty.

Another advantage of this system is that short range artillery like the StuG IIIB or the Churchill SPART, the "assault guns," will truly excel at taking out entrenched infantry. These units won't have to suffer a range penalty regardless of entrenchment. This is a nice historically accurate detail.

However, such a rule lacks the simplicity of the simple range/hex penalty. It is more of a brute force solution designed to make sure that units with high entrenchment are very resistant to artillery fire that can be mitigated somewhat with better positioning, but units with no entrenchment are not and positioning is unimportant.

[Zhivago]

Range penalties on artillery should be an optional, select-able choice, or only be implemented in General, Field Marshall and above levels.

I am very much in favor of tying rules to difficulty levels. Higher difficulty should require better unit positioning. I think instead of giving artillery even more firepower, which the class most certainly does not need, giving it a penalty at longer ranges at higher difficulty is a good solution.

We have debated many times how in touch "factually" this game is with reality, but turning to a real world example, is there a real-world rationale that a shell fired from a farther distance is not as devastating as one fired from closer in? I would think that a shell large enough to travel three hexes (or more) would be especially devastating. Maybe there is a veteran artilleryman out there that can answer this question? Also, penalizing the longer distance dilutes the artillery range hero, doesn't it?

[Zhivago]

I am very much in favor of tying rules to difficulty levels. Higher difficulty should require better unit positioning. I think instead of giving artillery even more firepower, which the class most certainly does not need, giving it a penalty at longer ranges at higher difficulty is a good solution.

I'm not a big fan of difficulty-specific rules which do not really make the game harder, but richer and less straightforward. That's the reason why rules like weather, supply and fog of war are not part of difficulty model. Difficulty must be about, ahh, difficulty.

I guess my overall issue with Allied Corps is that when it comes down to it, in most areas, the allied equipment (arguably for most of the war) is inferior to its German counterparts. I am finding that I am taking much higher casualties, especially in scenarios like Sicily where the Axis troops are in well defended and entrenched positions. It doesn't help matters that artillery is not as effective for suppression and counter-entrenchment. In Tunis, it seems to take a convergence of 10 units to kill the 15SE Tiger, all the while casualties are very high (and I am hitting the Tiger with strat bombers, surrounding it so it can't re-load, and backing up those surrounding units with artillery to lessen the wallop the Tiger dishes out. And what is with the German motorcycle units in Allied Corps? They seem to be made of Kryptonite! I never used them in Panzer Corps because they never seemed as survivable or as useful as regular recon units. In Allied Corps, I'm shelling them, and then hitting them with Churchill tanks, and they are surviving two and three attacks--and inflicting casualties!

I dunno...I guess one of the things that makes the German army fun to play in Panzer Corps is the superior equipment...the sense that you are the best on the battlefield. In Allied Corps it is more of a question of, how can I keep the core I have been nursing along for a dozen or more scenarios alive. I guess this is why Allied General never held the same appeal to me as Panzer General back in the day.