Decisive victories?

[Brindlebane]

What gains do you get from Decisive Victories other than an SE unit.I was under the impression you could get some more prestige for doing so but maybe not.I bought a few more DLCs and now having got to grips with the game(or so i thought) started from scratch and decided to go for DVs in every scenario.

Now when i first got the game i used to just plod along and maybe scrape an MV and my prestige would be nice and steady and above the 1500 mark usually but i was using green reinforcements all the time also.So now i changed tack,elite reinforcements to try and get exp up,blitzkrieg tactics and all out assaults for DVs.Turns out i was doing better when i didn't have a clue on how to play the game.All i end up with now is,DV sure but a lot of dead or battered units and minimal prestige in the next scenario.So really i'd be better off just securing a win and then picking off all the surrounding towns-two town hexes equal one victory hex,prestige wise,and with less casualties.

I think i might have got tunnel vision in the game in regard to DVs,anyway i thought the reward might have been better.I'm sure i read somewhere this game had an easy learning curve,i think it's a little bit more steeper than i thought

[Tarrak]

DV may offer you more prestige but it's not always the case. It depends on the choice of the campaign designer. While in theory it's logical to award more prestige for a DV it leads to a problem in a long campaign. If you are doing good and are getting DVs you get more prestige and this makes next scenario even easier as you can afford better units and more overstrength. Now you probably get a DV again and next mission becomes even easier. Exactly the opposite is the case when someone is struggling. He only gets a MV and gets less prestige making the next fight harder for him and possibly leading to another MV only and the spiral goes out of control.In the vanilla campaign you usually get more prestige for a DV, in the later campaigns the rewards are usually same tho exceptions exists.

Another point of getting a DV over MV is of course the possibility of different campaign branching. In the vanilla campaign for example Getting a DV in Low Countries and in France opens up the option to invade England and knock it out of the war in 1940 already.If you fail to get the both DVs you are just carrying on with England still in war on different campaign branch. The later campaigns, and especially the DLCs, as they are more historical, tend to have a lot less branches but they still occur from time to time.

Finally even if there is no other incentive to get a DV you may just have the personal ambition to get one. It's a very good reason as well imho.

If you are having problems reaching a DV tho and your troops ends really badly mauled after rushing for one it may be really better to settle for a MV and live with it. Especially when there is no different campaign branching involved. It's a tactical decision you as commander have to face, a Pyrrhic victory after all is not really going to help you.

[Brindlebane]

Thanks for the reply.My umpteenth restart of the DLCs,not that i mind,the games a pleasure to play.Just going for the win now and the DV if i have time and doing fine.One thing i wasn't doing properly is stacking arty behind units,great protection.I'm moving each group as a whole unit with the arty,something i wasn't doing before.

[timek28]

Brindlebane,

my fist thought when I saw you were getting battered was that you didn't use support properly (artillery, flaks and fighters). Basically game and AI has pretty straightforward mechanics. If it sees your units exposed - for example infantry in open ground or tanks in close terrain without support it will attack it immediately. This applies for artillery too. If AI sees your artillery without air defense (flaks or fighters). It will attack it very soon. So you have to learn to protect your units and move forward in somewhat organized formation. Of course this is not possible all the time, as you need to make gambles here and there, but generally large losses are usually the product of no support or inappropriate unit usage (infantry leading attack in open terrain for example, or tanks leading attack in mountains). If you pay close attention to your unit ordering you will have losses but rarely big ones. Instead AI will be reluctant to attack and if he does he will have huge losses.

[Brindlebane]

Ah thanks for that timeK.What you mentioned is precisely what's been happening.I have been struggling to keep infantry alive and have seen certain units jumped.I've been too bravado and leaving units isolated too much.Thanks for the tips

[timek28]

No problem Brindlebane

And don't forget that self propelled units are generally much more useful then towed ones. Be it artillery, AT guns or flaks (well flaks can be exception sometimes to this rule - until Ostwind and other armored flaks appear). SP artillery is maybe not strong as 21cm MRS one, but it is useful right away and may help large advances rapidly. Also watch for defensive attributes on artillery as it is attacked from enemy planes and artillery often. Too bad SP artillery is only available later in the game, so early advances must be cautious and slow.

[Tarrak]

Be a but careful with the self propelled artillery tho. They have the undeniable advantage of being mobile but they pay usually for that with a lot less ammunition supply compared to their towed counterparts. This may lead to your artillery running out of ammo on defensive fire fast and using up a lot of turns for reload. I personally tend to have a 50/50 mixture of towed and self propelled artillery. The SPGs cover my advance while the towed guns lurk behind the lines and when a prolonged siege/defense is needed somewhere the towed guns close in and replace the SPGs which run off to where else they may be needed.

[timek28]

Be a but careful with the self propelled artillery tho. They have the undeniable advantage of being mobile but they pay usually for that with a lot less ammunition supply compared to their towed counterparts. This may lead to your artillery running out of ammo on defensive fire fast and using up a lot of turns for reload. I personally tend to have a 50/50 mixture of towed and self propelled artillery. The SPGs cover my advance while the towed guns lurk behind the lines and when a prolonged siege/defense is needed somewhere the towed guns close in and replace the SPGs which run off to where else they may be needed.

Makes sense. But then again, towed guns have much lower defensive values then say Sig38S ton SP armored artillery. Generally I came to the conclusion that the game is about preserving prestige as much as possible, and that defensive values are the key (although it is nice when they are balanced with the attack values). When I turned all my Hummels into Sig38t artillery and my Wurfrahmen into Panzerwerfer their experience rose rapidly and dramatically and I didn't have to spend a ton of prestige on fixing them from air attacks or attacks from AI artillery. This is primary due the fact that you cannot protect all your artillery pieces perfectly all the time from air or ground attacks, so when they are exposed they better have good defensive stats. This also applies to say difference between Sdkfz7/2 and Ostwind SPAA.

On the other hand tanks are not that easy to buff up to say Tiger2s or god forbid to dreadfully slow Mice. Simply because they are main advancing weapon and there is just not enough time to drag Tiger2s all across the map to every single objective. That is why Panthers are a must even very late in the game when they are not strong enough compared with IS2s or M26s.

But this is just me, and everybody has different playing style.

[PanzerTax]

Hi,


This brings up a big point about Panzer Corps that has niggled me lately.

I have been playing Allied Corps and standard Panzer Corps (not DLC). I have found I have fairly generous helpings of prestige even on Field Marshal. When I gain MVs I am not particularly disadvantaging myself in terms of prestige. Thus there is no need to hurry and units are easily replaceable, so the challenge of tactics and resource management is reduced.

I played every one of the old Panzer General series including many mods, and these basically were a battle for survival where you carefully husbanded your prestige throughout the campaign. Gaining a DV was vital for survival, and I was MUCH more motivated to push the troops forward.

Is it a question of design philosophy and gamers tastes? I don't mean to be harking back unneccessarily, but it interests me to understand where and why Panzer Corps has made improvements and significant changes.


Cheers

[KeldorKatarn]

Well you can deny yourself the DVs, but you'll miss scenarios and in both AC and the normal vanilla campaign you can't win without DVs in certain scenarios.
And even in the grand campaign... you often miss bonus scenarios which can give you extra bonus units, more XP and other intersting stuff...