Artillery is Rather Broken

[Ishihara]

I'm loving the power of sending over a simple Fiesler Storch aircraft which seems to turn most city battles into much lest costly affairs. Coupled with the arty barrages, it is my most useful blowtorch & corkscrew tool.

I haven't yet had the chance to play with the Storch for recon purposes. Using it over a city that you need to clear will provide the recon bonuses to ground troops, which I've found to be a big plus. Does the use of the Storch also help enable encirclement? That's how I've dealt with troublesome entrenched city victory squares up until now. I got as far as Kiev in my first "intro to PC2" playthrough before I realized I needed to restart and really figure out the game mechanics that will suit my playstyle. SPOILER! My first attempt at Kiev didn't go so well, as I got totally bogged down trying to work through all the infantry units. It wasn't until I combined recon units to encircle, artillery/air to suppress and used the pionere ability to ignore entrenchment/give 50% ignoring entrenchment to adjacent units that I was able to work through that scenario successfully.

[Plaid]

The German and British Assault Guns have EntKiller4 trait, which makes them TrackedStrats.
The Russian and American Assault Guns have EntKiller2 trait, which makes them pointless.

H/T to nexusno2000 for noticing the EntKiller4 trait, I had missed it.

EntKiller is not that great ability. Why invest into units, which reduce ent faster, while you can invest into engineers who ignore it completely.
Same for fort killer, heavy duty AT weapons destroy fortifications much better, than any dedicated fort killers.

StuG type units are good to protect troops in urban scenarios, as they are harder to supress, but thats like 2 scenarios in current campaign.

[nexusno2000]

The German and British Assault Guns have EntKiller4 trait, which makes them TrackedStrats.
The Russian and American Assault Guns have EntKiller2 trait, which makes them pointless.

H/T to nexusno2000 for noticing the EntKiller4 trait, I had missed it.

EntKiller is not that great ability. Why invest into units, which reduce ent faster, while you can invest into engineers who ignore it completely.
Same for fort killer, heavy duty AT weapons destroy fortifications much better, than any dedicated fort killers.

StuG type units are good to protect troops in urban scenarios, as they are harder to supress, but thats like 2 scenarios in current campaign.

You either run pure eng, or ent matters.

Plus eng ignore the accuracy penalty for ent, but afaik not the initiative modifier.

But yeah, it's not very strong, more of a small added bonus. Overall the stug artillery line stub3b, suth42, brumbar, stumtiger is rather lackluster.

[jeffoot77]

"Just 1 15cm + 1 17/21 cm and maybe a plane attack"

--> is it a joke ? i just want to take a small city in the top corner and i have to send 2 artillery ? i already sent ONE artillery and one infantery ( that' s already a lot for just one engeener! ) and it is not enough to just wipe out a little engeener ! I m just in poland! i can't have a lot of units and no stug !

[MickMannock]

"Just 1 15cm + 1 17/21 cm and maybe a plane attack"

--> is it a joke ? i just want to take a small city in the top corner and i have to send 2 artillery ? i already sent ONE artillery and one infantery ( that' s already a lot for just one engeener! ) and it is not enough to just wipe out a little engeener ! I m just in poland! i can't have a lot of units and no stug !

Two infantry and a strategic bomber then?

[Plaid]

--> is it a joke ? i just want to take a small city in the top corner and i have to send 2 artillery ? i already sent ONE artillery and one infantery ( that' s already a lot for just one engeener! ) and it is not enough to just wipe out a little engeener ! I m just in poland! i can't have a lot of units and no stug !

You have lots of options how to take city - from brute-forcing with 5-6 units (defender runs out of ammo and can't do anything after it) to ignoring it and its 50 prestige reward completely.
But 1 infantry is not enough unless it is super unit with heroes/overstrength.

[nexusno2000]

"Just 1 15cm + 1 17/21 cm and maybe a plane attack"

--> is it a joke ? i just want to take a small city in the top corner and i have to send 2 artillery ? i already sent ONE artillery and one infantery ( that' s already a lot for just one engeener! ) and it is not enough to just wipe out a little engeener ! I m just in poland! i can't have a lot of units and no stug !

I think you're the one joking.

When did ever infantry take a town from other infantry without support???

Sure, you can do it with a single infantry and say a stug or little artillery, but you will take huge losses for little gain.

But using combined arms you can, if you use sufficient resource, take that town with almost no losses at all.

[jeffoot77]

my plan was just to weaken the defensive engeener to take the city in 9 turns ( one entrenchment lost by turn) . Is it too much ?

i sent 2 artillery and guess what happen !

the engeener get 2 new entrenchment by turn ! and my two artillery remove 2 entrenchment but for nothing ! so i can't weaken the city ! even with 2 artillery. If there were 1 real death, i could have taken the city in 9- 10 turns with unit str to 5... In PC1 , you take the city with only one infantery and one artillery in 2 turns. In PC2, you need 3 artillery or 2 artillery with a plane and 9 turns ! Even Kerensky say it here : viewtopic.php?f=464&t=97884 I quote: "
Infantry losses are so high, even when everything is done right, it takes time to set up the assault"


Just to say that artillery suck to attack a city

[Horseman]

my plan was just to weaken the defensive engeener to take the city in 9 turns ( one entrenchment lost by turn) . Is it too much ?

i sent 2 artillery and guess what happen !

the engeener get 2 new entrenchment by turn ! and my two artillery remove 2 entrenchment but for nothing ! so i can't weaken the city ! even with 2 artillery. If there were 1 real death, i could have taken the city in 9- 10 turns with unit str to 5... In PC1 , you take the city with only one infantery and one artillery in 2 turns. In PC2, you need 3 artillery or 2 artillery with a plane and 9 turns ! Even Kerensky say it here : viewtopic.php?f=464&t=97884 I quote: "
Infantry losses are so high, even when everything is done right, it takes time to set up the assault"


Just to say that artillery suck to attack a city

Have you linked the wrong post because Kerensky does not say that anywhere in that thread?

[Plaid]

my plan was just to weaken the defensive engeener to take the city in 9 turns ( one entrenchment lost by turn) . Is it too much ?

i sent 2 artillery and guess what happen !

the engeener get 2 new entrenchment by turn ! and my two artillery remove 2 entrenchment but for nothing ! so i can't weaken the city ! even with 2 artillery. If there were 1 real death, i could have taken the city in 9- 10 turns with unit str to 5... In PC1 , you take the city with only one infantery and one artillery in 2 turns. In PC2, you need 3 artillery or 2 artillery with a plane and 9 turns ! Even Kerensky say it here : viewtopic.php?f=464&t=97884 I quote: "
Infantry losses are so high, even when everything is done right, it takes time to set up the assault"


Just to say that artillery suck to attack a city

It doesn't work like you expect. Artillery softens up defenders, causing some supression and some entrenchemtn reduce, after that you should attack (prefferably with infantry) on the same turn and cause damage.
Role of artillery is to provide better odds for following attack, not to destroy units.
If you feel like sieging for 9 turns, just place 2 units on opposite sides of the city, defender will become encircled, getting 2 supression per turn and various penalties, you dont need artillery for that at all.

[Nalikill]

Artillery are vital for taking a city. If your artillery suppresses the enemy, a pioneer can force its way into the city with a single attack.

Remember the enemy is forced to retreat when you destroy 66% of its UNSUPPRESSED strength - so if it's unsuppressed strength is 0, then any actual damage will cause them to retreat.

Encirclement makes suppression last across multiple turns. So if you encircle, bombard with artillery, and then move your artillery forward you can keep your artillery moving, keep the front moving, and keep making progress despite attacking these fortified positions.

Once a pioneer is in the city, it is basically the only unit in the game with Close Defense. So it will take massively favorable trades on Close Terrain. Anything dislodging your pioneer from the city will be shredded unless it has massive air and artillery support.

[nexusno2000]

my plan was just to weaken the defensive engeener to take the city in 9 turns ( one entrenchment lost by turn) . Is it too much ?

i sent 2 artillery and guess what happen !

the engeener get 2 new entrenchment by turn ! and my two artillery remove 2 entrenchment but for nothing ! so i can't weaken the city ! even with 2 artillery. If there were 1 real death, i could have taken the city in 9- 10 turns with unit str to 5... In PC1 , you take the city with only one infantery and one artillery in 2 turns. In PC2, you need 3 artillery or 2 artillery with a plane and 9 turns ! Even Kerensky say it here : viewtopic.php?f=464&t=97884 I quote: "
Infantry losses are so high, even when everything is done right, it takes time to set up the assault"


Just to say that artillery suck to attack a city

1. You're doing it wrong. You use artillery, plane, then attack. No time to recover any ent!
2. PC1 was easy mode.

[George_Parr]

The ultimate example of this is the 1 range StuG and Brummar artillery types. They are so short ranged, they're sort of not even artillery anymore. They provide support fire for sure, but the inability to fire over a hex and needing to be in limited real estate adjacent hexes really hurts them.

I never really understood why PC1 had the ranges it did for the Sturmpanzer 1, Brummbär, Stug and the Panzerwerfer. StuGs had a range of 6000m, which was generally more than the rocket artillery or Sturmpanzer 1 had, but that doesn't show in the game. While the Brummbär, even though it used a similar type of gun to the Sturmpanzer 1, had an abysmal range compared to that vehicle.

[nexusno2000]

StuGIIIB tries to portray the original role of the StuG, which was infantry support on the offensive. Taking out pillboxes and the like with close-range shots from 7.5cm gun.

This is why it has range 1, which basically means no retaliation. Plus it can support adjacent units, regardless of range.

It also has bunker killer and x4 entrenchment killer.

So I think it depicts that rather well.

But it's not a very good unit. Fun to use, but good? Not very.

[panzeh]

StuGIIIB tries to portray the original role of the StuG, which was infantry support on the offensive. Taking out pillboxes and the like with close-range shots from 7.5cm gun.

This is why it has range 1, which basically means no retaliation. Plus it can support adjacent units, regardless of range.

It also has bunker killer and x4 entrenchment killer.

So I think it depicts that rather well.

But it's not a very good unit. Fun to use, but good? Not very.

Yeah, i'm not sure what the role for them really needs to be, so that they don't invalidate real artillery.

[Kerensky]

Yeah, i'm not sure what the role for them really needs to be, so that they don't invalidate real artillery.

I pitched an idea where their adjacent bonus was special. Like recon give accuracy boosts and engineers ignore half entrenchment, if you have adjacency bonus from a 1 range close support artillery tank, attacking your targets triggers a free, preemptive shot from the Brummbar. Free shots are balanced out by the need to have adjacency.

So order of operation looks like:

Move brummbar near city. Bombard city with attack order.
Move infantry near city and adjacent to brummbar.
When ordering infantry to attack, brummbar preemptively fires a free shot before the infantry assault begins.

That's a great boon to compensate for the massive drawback of having to be artillery that is adjacent to the target. Literal close fire support.

Ran out of time to discuss, maybe something for future?

[panzeh]

Yeah, i'm not sure what the role for them really needs to be, so that they don't invalidate real artillery.

I pitched an idea where their adjacent bonus was special. Like recon give accuracy boosts and engineers ignore half entrenchment, if you have adjacency bonus from a 1 range close support artillery tank, attacking your targets triggers a free, preemptive shot from the Brummbar. Free shots are balanced out by the need to have adjacency.

So order of operation looks like:

Move brummbar near city. Bombard city with attack order.
Move infantry near city and adjacent to brummbar.
When ordering infantry to attack, brummbar preemptively fires a free shot before the infantry assault begins.

That's a great boon to compensate for the massive drawback of having to be artillery that is adjacent to the target. Literal close fire support.

Ran out of time to discuss, maybe something for future?

Could be interesting- maybe a little too good, but i'd have to see it in action.

[SineMora]

I like Kerensky's suggestion, although it'd have to be tested for balance. Assault guns occupy a weird and not particularly useful niche at the moment. On topic, artillery in general is working splendidly and finally suppressing, paving the way for ground assaults rather than murder everything the way it did in PzC1. One of the better changes in PzC2.