Difficulty curve and unit tactical value trouble.

[Kerensky]

When I have finished the campaign, I will most likely do another no-titan run, but I will feel weird about purposefully using worse tactical options than what is available to me.

You say tactically worse, but trust me once you get the hang of the game and really master the subtleties and mechanics behind it, you'll see that good infantry use has it's place in this game just like good titan use also has it's place too. They work best in concert, having too many titans is just as damaging as too many infantry.

There is a massive unit variety in this game, I strongly recommend you take the time to explore them. Not everyone is going to like every single unit, but there are some really amazing units I think people are overlooking because they see Titan.

And going from one extreme of ALL TITAN to NO TITAN is going to cause it's own problems.

[soldatmesteren]

Because 100% of ork units are all Gargants.

Funny enough, there are some pretty amazing space marine infantry who are especially good at countering heavy ork artillery. You'd be surprised how well an assault unit does when it can actually get under the minimum range of Lobba equipped units!

If I open up the editor and start counting ork infantry presence on maps, even late game maps, and compare to that to Ork Gargant totals... I think you'll be disappointed. That Factory map we are using as example in this thread... There are about 39 Ork infantry units and 0 Ork titan units (gargants and stompa units).

Second to last battle of the game has 1 Gargant and 1 Stompa and something like 36 Ork infantry units.

It all sounds right to me. If you buy all Titans to counter Gargants and Infantry, you are going to suffer. If you buy all infantry to fight infantry and Gargants, you are going to suffer. If you buy a diverse and well mixed CORE to fight a diverse and well mixed enemy force, you will have the best success in the end.

I did buy only Titans(15) with the exception of 1 assault terminator. I blasted the shit out of all the orks.
The titans have great range and mobility, so they can quickly move about and come to each others aid and blast the hell out of orks.

Also, there might be a lot of build up areas and ork infantry in that level, but what about future missions. If i go for a big assaulty army just for that one mission, what about future missions with a lot of open areas and heavily armored vehicles.
Titans does all the jobs. Assault infantry does some jobs and the bog-standard marine seem to do no job.

[Kerensky]

Also, punishment on infantry units who lose experience so fast because they require constant replacement is something we're definitely aware of. If possible, we might do something like give a reduced experience loss rate to infantry class units, but this is beyond a data change, so I can make no promises towards it.

[soldatmesteren]

When I have finished the campaign, I will most likely do another no-titan run, but I will feel weird about purposefully using worse tactical options than what is available to me.

You say tactically worse, but trust me once you get the hang of the game and really master the subtleties and mechanics behind it, you'll see that good infantry use has it's place in this game just like good titan use also has it's place too. They work best in concert, having too many titans is just as damaging as too many infantry.

There is a massive unit variety in this game, I strongly recommend you take the time to explore them. Not everyone is going to like every single unit, but there are some really amazing units I think people are overlooking because they see Titan.

And going from one extreme of ALL TITAN to NO TITAN is going to cause it's own problems.

Ever since I got access to Titans, I have been running as many titans as possible, and they have been rolling over every mission with ease. I am at mission 25 now I think, counting from Act1 mission1.
The first mission where you get access to the Salamander chapter

[Kerensky]

I did buy only Titans(15) with the exception of 1 assault terminator. I blasted the shit out of all the orks.
The titans have great range and mobility, so they can quickly move about and come to each others aid and blast the hell out of orks.

Also, there might be a lot of build up areas and ork infantry in that level, but what about future missions. If i go for a big assaulty army just for that one mission, what about future missions with a lot of open areas and heavily armored vehicles.
Titans does all the jobs. Assault infantry does some jobs and the bog-standard marine seem to do no job.

To each their own. Sounds like two different, but both totally viable, play styles to me. And we very much do want to maximize the possible ways to play this game has to offer. You prefer to spend all your money up front for maximum 'all in'. I prefer to cheapen some of my units so that I have more mid-mission flexibility and adaptability. Some low end infantry might move up a little bit, but I doubt by very much, if at all. They undoubtably serve their purpose and they do it very well and very cheaply. To anyone who doesn't like them, they can choose a different playstyle and still enjoy success with our game.

I would be very curious to see how the game's Glory score tracking handles the two different CORE approaches if we get that functionality at some point though...

[Kerensky]

Ever since I got access to Titans, I have been running as many titans as possible, and they have been rolling over every mission with ease. I am at mission 25 now I think, counting from Act1 mission1.
The first mission where you get access to the Salamander chapter

That sounds fine to me, if that is fun for you and how you enjoy the game, why should we break that by tripling Titan prices or imposing a forced a 'Titan limit' where you can only have X Titans in your CORE force? Play the way you want and have fun with the game.

I guaranteed that on Very Hard difficulty though, you will never be able to afford enough Titans to destroy the 50% strength inflated Orks, they simply lack the price efficiency to cut through so many Orks within the designated mission time limits, especially on scenarios like the factory example where at least 50% of the total enemy composition is made up of Ork infantry entrenched in cover providing terrain.

[soldatmesteren]

Ever since I got access to Titans, I have been running as many titans as possible, and they have been rolling over every mission with ease. I am at mission 25 now I think, counting from Act1 mission1.
The first mission where you get access to the Salamander chapter

That sounds fine to me, if that is fun for you and how you enjoy the game, why should we break that by tripling Titan prices or imposing a forced a 'Titan limit' where you can only have X Titans in your CORE force? Play the way you want and have fun with the game.

I guaranteed that on Very Hard difficulty though, you will never be able to afford enough Titans to destroy the 50% strength inflated Orks, they simply lack the price efficiency to cut through so many Orks within the designated mission time limits, especially on scenarios like the factory example where at least 50% of the total enemy composition is made up of Ork infantry entrenched in cover providing terrain.

Yes I am curious about the harder difficulties. Is the amount of resources you get the only changes for difficulty levels?

[Kerensky]

Easy Player Points (%) 200 Player Experience (%) 200 AI Hit Points -50
Normal Player Points (%) 100 Player Experience (%) 100 AI Hit Points 0
Challenging Player Points (%) 80 Player Experience (%) 100 AI Hit Points 0
Hard Player Points (%) 70 Player Experience (%) 100 AI Hit Points 20
Very Hard Player Points (%) 70 Player Experience (%) 100 AI Hit Points 50

That bit about 'AI hitpoints', for anyone wondering, actually refers to AI formation size.

So if a normal mode Gretchin has 40 unit count and a normal mode Skullhamma tank has a 2 unit count, on Very Hard the same Gretchin will have 60 unit count and the same Skullhamma will have a 3 unit count. Thankfully these numbers do not round up, else Gargants would go from being 1 unit count to being 2 unit count!

[soldatmesteren]

I have now finished the campaign, and there is still absolutely no reason to buy anything else than titans other than something to capture victory hexes.
I can now say that, since Act2, the steel legion under my command have suffered a total of 0 casualties in this war for Armageddon.

[Bersercker]

I'm still at Act1 on very hard(so no titans and space marines), but i find infantry units invaluable at being shot at and hacked to pieces. Like, its much more efficient to be losing cheap conscripts than losing expensive leman russ'es with veteran crews, especially if these conscripts are in good cover. Feels very w40k-like, so props to the developers. "It's what we do best, we die standing". xD

[Kerensky]

I'm still at Act1 on very hard(so no titans and space marines), but i find infantry units invaluable at being shot at and hacked to pieces. Like, its much more efficient to be losing cheap conscripts than losing expensive leman russ'es with veteran crews, especially if these conscripts are in good cover. Feels very w40k-like, so props to the developers. "It's what we do best, we die standing". xD

Yes, definitely this! That is totally intended, and definitely a personal favored tactic of mine!

http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 21#p507958

20 Always bring dedicated scouting units to screen your main advance, preventing enemy counterattacks from reaching your expensive combat and artillery units is very important!

Even so, we are aware that some infantry, especially non-assault infantry, could use a little bit of a boost. We are carefully analyzing feedback so we should have some tweaks and improvements in this regard in the next patch.
Bottom line though, especially with regards to Imperial Guard infantry, their lore dictated role is pretty clear. They are pretty much fodder, but even so they still serve a purpose being a cheap screen and bullet sponge to protect your much more valuable Leman Russ and especially artillery vehicles.

[Fimconte]

My core issue with Titans and other ranged units is that taking no return fire is best defence.
Ie. if I have an option to move in and take -5hp on a terminator squad with 65 armor vs 30 (resulting in expect loss of one terminator and -2hp on second) or take '-1hp' on Titan with 110 armor and 15hp, the tactically superior option is quite clear.

Also of note, early game Salamander Scouts are absolutely obscene due to the 35 strength 40 shots at range 3.
Granted you might miss some shots, but you also won't take any return fire before you start meeting Range 3 Orc units.
And by that time you have tougher tanks/more artillery to demoralize these higher range units.
Once demoralized, you can safely engage... At range 3, forcing the rest of the Orc units to move up if they want to return fire.

I actually was fielding as many as 6 at one point, with Destroyers and Annihilators for AT (and let's be honest, Annihilators deal plenty of damage as well after targets are softened up and you can engage enemies at closer ranges to offset the accuracy loss on the dual lascannons).

Combined with multiple Bombards/Basilisks for support fire (reminds me of 21cm MRS 18 spam), such a force is much more efficient at avoiding damage, spotting enemies and neutralizing them en-mass.

That said, Command Squads have a position, but mostly due to their Leadership ability.
In combat I only use them as mop-op crews when the enemy is sufficiently demoralized.


P.S. I think AI units that have been attacked should switch to 'active' mode. There are several missions where you can kill 'inactive' enemies by staying outside their shooting range and just bombarding them to death with Artillery or Autocannon fire.

[rezaf]

P.S. I think AI units that have been attacked should switch to 'active' mode. There are several missions where you can kill 'inactive' enemies by staying outside their shooting range and just bombarding them to death with Artillery or Autocannon fire.

Actually, this kind of thing happened to me in most missions of acts 2 and 3. I think it's related to having so many titans in my core - they seem to "break the AI" in the same sense highly experienced Tiger IIs would sometimes do in PzC: AI attack odds against them are probably highly unfavorable, so unless they have a gargan about (and sometimes even then), they tend to opt into twiddling their thumbs. At least 30% (probably more like 50%) of all turns in missions of the last two acts have come and gone without the AI moving a unit or taking a shot.

In hindsight, difficulty after act 1 was wildly fluctuating, with some pretty rough missions (even with mostly titans in the core) and some that could be finished with 50% turns left.
Titans really should be as I believe it's called in some tabletops "limited deployment", as should be a lot of the vehicles available. Unfortunately, quite a few missions would be a nightmare to play and win without access to a lot of titans.

It's embarrassing how little effort went into balancing this game.
_____
rezaf

[oninohalibut]

Hi All,

Long Time player of various Slitherine games and Wargames (first time poster )

I really don't like have a limited core force it really feels like I have to disband units to then expand my core force (losing all that lovely experience) to then change the setup for certain scenarios to be able to have a fighting chance. I am still on the first chapter and on scenario 7 or 8 I think and my Infantry force is getting slaughtered like no tomorrow (and unlike PzC for example where I could buy either auxiliary units or cannon fodder units at the start of the scenario the current game doesn't let me do this. Now yes in 40K IG are used this way but in game where you don't have that many units to start off with this really doesn't work for me

So my idea for an improvement is to have an unlimited core force but then in each scenario then limit you to what forces you have available a bit like the army lists are used at the moment an example would be

Core Force
2 x Baneblades
2 x Titans
3 x HQ
8 x Infantry (Conscripts, Steel Legion)
3 x Support Infantry (Heavy Weapons/Mortar)
3 x Leman Russ
3 x Artilary

Scenario 1
1 x HQ
4 x Inf
1 x Support Infantry
2 x Tank
2 x Art
1 x Super Heavy Support (Titan/Baneblade)

Scenario 2
2 x HQ
4 x Inf
1 x Support Infantry
4 x Tank
2 x Art

This would allow you to have some flexibility with your core force depending on resources, but still allow the scenarios to be balanced and stop an all Titan force from running amok unless you had a scenario of Titans Vs Gargants which would be awesome by the way.

You could also think about some kind of exchange mechanism e.g. sacrifice 4 Infantry units for an extra tank unit if you wanted to go tank heavy and that's your play style. The IG from memory have a lot of different army configurations (from memory) e.g. lots of infantry and tank heavy forces.

I suspect that this would be a major code re-write but I think would make a superior game and answer a lot of the current player criticisms.

My only other criticism is the manual and having unit explanations for those not used to the 40K universe. I have not played 40K in years so having fun trying to find out what all the different units do again.

Other than that a good game that once it has been patched I suspect will be a great game.

Thanks Slitherine and the Developers for both this game and many others and keep up the good work.

Mark.

[Schweinewitz]

oninohalibut:

The core unit limitation also annoyed the hell out of me and so I changed the slot limit of all scenarios in the Editor. This is surely against the intentions of the designers - but now I simply have more fun than before and that is what counts IMO. There's still a limitation though: the available purchase points, but I'm ok with this.

[Kathapalt]

oninohalibut:

The core unit limitation also annoyed the hell out of me and so I changed the slot limit of all scenarios in the Editor. This is surely against the intentions of the designers - but now I simply have more fun than before and that is what counts IMO. There's still a limitation though: the available purchase points, but I'm ok with this.

You can change the purchase points in the editor aswell + you only need to do it once. ofcourse you have to do it before you get in to that mission. I editet around 100k puchace points, now it can use infantry and all the cool units with out the fear of losing all points after mission auto replenishment.

[oninohalibut]

Agreed you can edit the number of units and purchase points but this seems like a little bit like cheating the game to me . I want to have some tactical flexibility in my force plus it will also give he game some replay value perhaps one run through I will go with a large infantry force another run through I might want a massive Tank army instead. I am just trying to come up with something that might make the game be able to give this to me

[Schweinewitz]

Thanks for the input, folks! I agree with you, oninohalibut, it's cheating to edit the scenarios this way but for me the limitations are just to restrictive and I like to build my army the way I want to. I can live with the purchase points as they are now for I don't intend to flood the map with dozens of units, but I want the possibility to add a handfull of them - some cool ones like Kathapalt mentioned.

Interesting idea, BTW. I would like to see something like that in the game, would defenitely increase the replay value.

[Kathapalt]

Well editing is cheating but in single player mode its cheating your self only =) im ok with that if it gives me more fun.
Ofcourse editing units for multiplayer or boasting here in the forums that hard mode is easy peasy ( after editing 10000000000 reqruitment points) is a different story.

[Okim]

Would be great if you could buy titans and more advanced units only with Glory Points. 1 reaver = 5000 points, for example. If you wish to get more of them - kill more, capture more, loose less, eliminate specific enemies, complete secondary objectives and etc. Something like that. Loose a titan/advanced unit - and loose a bunch of glory points. I doubt that in 40k universe high lords would easily assign such a relic as a Reaver Titan to an ill-known (or inexperienced/incompetent) commander.

BTW, what is the current use of glory points? Just to compare your efforts with the other players? I haven`t seen any 'Halls of Glory' or something in the game.