Spoils of War

[Kerensky]

After revisiting the Spanish Civil War on the public game version, I'm changing my mind about this trait.

It's the only thing keeping my prestige afloat on -80% Generalissimus difficulty. That's just so little prestige to work with with such a gigantic negative modifier. And I can't turn on cheats, because any use of cheats disables the steam achievements I am gunning for.

The whole point of the surrender, and captured enemy equipment systems is to encourage new gameplay. Original Panzer Corps didn't care if you destroyed or made a unit surrender, so you just smashed everything in sight on sight with the biggest guns in your arsenal.

Panzer Corps 2 encourages more variety of gameplay other than SMASHY SMASHY, and it does this by the new encirclement mechanics and also giving prestige rewards for surrender, and then doubling those rewards with appropriate General traits. I like my fast light tanks and recon cars who regularly sweep around and behind enemy formations to form large encirclements as a mechanic. I like it even more that it carries huge rewards in terms of extra prestige and captured enemy equipment.

[Kerensky]

I'm beginning to see how some people find the unit density of Spanish Civil War a little bit too dense. It is really hard to make good encirclements with so many powerful enemy units on the field fighting back against your efforts to engulf them. But at the same time, it felt really shitty in the base game that the AI seemed extremely passively in just letting you always form encirclements around it because it didn't have many roaming, patrolling, or counterattacking units.

Spanish Civil War is very conducive to SMASHY SMASHY, especially in Brunete and Teruel when you are fighting not only a long wall of enemies, but a wall that is more than a few hexes deep as well.

Well we'll see how DLC 1939 feels, but given the absence of all Spanish AI infantry will considerably reduce the total number of friendly forces on a given battlefield... let's see if people feel better with enemy unit density of that DLC.

[Tassadar]

I am playing on General (for the sole reason that I dislike the opponent having accuracy bonuses on higher difficulties and would prefer some other difficulty increase factor to be interested in them) and for this reason I did not pick Thropies of War. I felt I won't need it since I won't have to find so many alternative ways to get prestige, even when imposing self restrictions in buying new equipment for the sake of using many different machines. The game is still perfectly balanced and capturing is a great source of extra prestige and equipment where possible, but I'm not actively doing everything with it in mind. So it feels that the traits were a really wlecome change to fine-tune difficulty and player experience to individual needs. Also, even capturing something does not involve automatic obligation to field it. I'm still finding it difficult to justify the first scenario hidden cache award - it would be amazing, but the core slot cost is crazy.

As for the amount of units - it should be perfectly fine for DLC 1939 to be scaled down a bit. The scenarios do not always have to be grand in AO and besides, the growing core slot requirements will naturally affect this.

[NightPhoenix]

I really don't think the unit density is bad. Encirclements are still quite possible. Currently at +100 captured T-26 alone by the 11th? mission in the campaign. (Albeit with the spoils of war trait) Still think the AI could be more active. And i still feel they are passive for the most part. PzC1 had a lot going on when it came to the AI. Plenty of localised counterattacks and felt overall very engaging. Even in the DLC i'm still missing that. Although it's far better than in the main campaign.

One of the issues might be that generalissimus gives a strengh bonus (in the form of accuracy) to the enemy, it's a pretty big one and unavoidable if you also want to have a serious prestige limitation. That's why i think it's such a shame we don't have sliders like in PzC that allow you to adjust the difficulty to your own liking. (with Rommel difficulty also conveniently not really working in the Spanish Civil War DLC) In the Civil War, i can't play on a higher difficulty than the 3rd. Because i don't want enemy superhumans. But you also can't give yourself less prestige, so you build up huge reserves. That's the thing that could make the difference. Allow people to adjust the difficulty to their own liking, then encircling or not might be less of a problem or more of a challenge according to your own wishes.

[fluffybunnyuk]

The difficulty modifier should be penalties to accuracy, with a secondary modifier of prestige.

So if the base game is -0%,-0% then the next difficulty general should be -10%,-20%.

That way advanced players who use higher difficulties find it harder to do damage. This necessitates more recon cars/planes to improve accuracy , taking up more core slots.
The prestige penalty isnt too high, but enough to start players down the road of captures.

field marshal at -20%,-40%
GM at -30%,-60%

That means a base 20% to hit on GM level with a -60% to all prestige (incl captures).
Its not prohibitive enough to force trophies as a trait since the main focus is improving accuracy since on a 3* limited campaign you'd have 50% accuracy with veteran units.

It also deals with the smashy smashy overpowered aspect nicely. It also would provide a real graded difficulty where there isnt a huge gap in strategy changes necessitated by gimping prestige so much.

Until then trophies is just a means to nerf the difficulty setting.

[NightPhoenix]

The difficulty modifier should be penalties to accuracy, with a secondary modifier of prestige.

So if the base game is -0%,-0% then the next difficulty general should be -10%,-20%.

That way advanced players who use higher difficulties find it harder to do damage. This necessitates more recon cars/planes to improve accuracy , taking up more core slots.
The prestige penalty isnt too high, but enough to start players down the road of captures.

field marshal at -20%,-40%
GM at -30%,-60%

That means a base 20% to hit on GM level with a -60% to all prestige (incl captures).
Its not prohibitive enough to force trophies as a trait since the main focus is improving accuracy since on a 3* limited campaign you'd have 50% accuracy with veteran units.

It also deals with the smashy smashy overpowered aspect nicely. It also would provide a real graded difficulty where there isnt a huge gap in strategy changes necessitated by gimping prestige so much.

Until then trophies is just a means to nerf the difficulty setting.

But why not just let people choose if they don't like an accuracy penalty but like a prestige penalty or the other way around? Then they can also just choose to have the trait or not. They can keep the generic difficulties, so people still get trophies. But allow for these adjustments in the advanced options.

[kondi754]

High units density is very good for PzC 2
I hope it will be maintained somehow in the following parts, so I suggest there would be just smaller maps in AO 1939. Even taking into account the obviously smaller number of units on the German side (and a correspondingly larger number of Polish units adapted to them), then the smaller size of some maps should give a sense of their high density.
I also think that in the base game the density of troops is too low for the size of the maps.

[fluffybunnyuk]

But why not just let people choose if they don't like an accuracy penalty but like a prestige penalty or the other way around? Then they can also just choose to have the trait or not. They can keep the generic difficulties, so people still get trophies. But allow for these adjustments in the advanced options.

Totally agree. 2 settings. A default difficulty, and an advanced difficulty with sliders for different aspects.
Everyone plays the game differently. Allowing more flexibility for setting the difficulty is more inclusive, allowing players to play in ways that appeal to them.

[nexusno2000]

After revisiting the Spanish Civil War on the public game version, I'm changing my mind about this trait.

It's the only thing keeping my prestige afloat on -80% Generalissimus difficulty. That's just so little prestige to work with with such a gigantic negative modifier. And I can't turn on cheats, because any use of cheats disables the steam achievements I am gunning for.

The whole point of the surrender, and captured enemy equipment systems is to encourage new gameplay. Original Panzer Corps didn't care if you destroyed or made a unit surrender, so you just smashed everything in sight on sight with the biggest guns in your arsenal.

Panzer Corps 2 encourages more variety of gameplay other than SMASHY SMASHY, and it does this by the new encirclement mechanics and also giving prestige rewards for surrender, and then doubling those rewards with appropriate General traits. I like my fast light tanks and recon cars who regularly sweep around and behind enemy formations to form large encirclements as a mechanic. I like it even more that it carries huge rewards in terms of extra prestige and captured enemy equipment.

Trophies of War, but ok

The problem is that Trophies is the only simple way of effectively negating the prestige penalty. So it becomes nearly an auto include on FM and GM. That's normally not good design, but maybe it's OK for this specific dlc.

[SineMora]

Trophies is ultimately just a crutch for those who can't gain enough prestige w/o it -- it's not and has never been necessary to beat Generalissimus, let alone FM, much like AA Veteran is a crutch for those who can't handle aeriel combat (unless you're using Denied Air Force and/or Manstein, in which case it's practically required). It's bad enough as it is that captures aren't affected by the difficulty setting, but all Trophies really does is allow you to get away with an inefficient capture strategy.

It gets even more absurd when you combine it with Hero Corps (Madrid '39):



I don't think you can argue that this is necessary to beat Generalissimus If anything, what makes capturing more challenging in SCW is the lack of a functional Deadly Grasp combined with the large amount of OSed units as you'll have to take greater risks, but the number of major rivers and conspicuous absence of supply hexes in general means it's not difficult to encircle enemies, assuming you picked Perimeter Control (which you should be doing if you understand how to play the capture game).

Beating Generalissimus w/o captures at all is quite challenging, though. I first ran through the Wehrmacht campaign with a Hero Corps setup, and while prestige wasn't much of a problem that was mainly because Hero Corps allows you to blitz scenarios so quickly that the bonus prestige from finishing early still adds up to decent sums. I imagine it'd have been a lot uglier had I been using Rommel like on subsequent campaigns.

[nexusno2000]

Trophies is ultimately just a crutch for those who can't gain enough prestige w/o it -- it's not and has never been necessary to beat Generalissimus, let alone FM, much like AA Veteran is a crutch for those who can't handle aeriel combat (unless you're using Denied Air Force and/or Manstein, in which case it's practically required). It's bad enough as it is that captures aren't affected by the difficulty setting, but all Trophies really does is allow you to get away with an inefficient capture strategy.

It gets even more absurd when you combine it with Hero Corps (Madrid '39):



I don't think you can argue that this is necessary to beat Generalissimus If anything, what makes capturing more challenging in SCW is the lack of a functional Deadly Grasp combined with the large amount of OSed units as you'll have to take greater risks, but the number of major rivers and conspicuous absence of supply hexes in general means it's not difficult to encircle enemies, assuming you picked Perimeter Control (which you should be doing if you understand how to play the capture game).

Beating Generalissimus w/o captures at all is quite challenging, though. I first ran through the Wehrmacht campaign with a Hero Corps setup, and while prestige wasn't much of a problem that was mainly because Hero Corps allows you to blitz scenarios so quickly that the bonus prestige from finishing early still adds up to decent sums. I imagine it'd have been a lot uglier had I been using Rommel like on subsequent campaigns.

Well, basically all traits are crutches. As are heroes, medals, and overstrength. And xp stars. Definitely crutches.

For my own part, I do not claim you NEED Trophies. I claim it's the easiest way to negate the prestige penalty. And therefore will be taken a lot.

[SineMora]

For my own part, I do not claim you NEED Trophies. I claim it's the easiest way to negate the prestige penalty. And therefore will be taken a lot.

Of course it is, but why is that a problem? There will always be an easiest option, which is why those who want prestige to require some work don't pick the trait.

[nexusno2000]

For my own part, I do not claim you NEED Trophies. I claim it's the easiest way to negate the prestige penalty. And therefore will be taken a lot.

Of course it is, but why is that a problem? There will always be an easiest option, which is why those who want prestige to require some work don't pick the trait.

That is indeed true.

But in this dlc the developer suggests that captures are a thing, so there is that. Ideally I'd like to be able to capture and use enemy equipment without the very trait that makes it possible and fun also giving way so much prestige.

But it is really my own fault. In the beta I lobbied for increasing the prestige gain from Trophies... It didn't seem very useful at the time (we were swimming in prestige already, and it was nearly impossible to get enough parts for full units).

[fluffybunnyuk]

How about splitting trophies into 2 different traits? Or maybe taking one trait disallowing another?
So if you took perimeter control , it'd disallow Trophies(a) 2x captures or Trophies (b) 2xprestige/capture?

Theres options possible to break up the power 4. Including making victories achievable a variety of styles with different Alternative goals.
Reducing the dependency on this aspect of the game should make it much more rounded for varied playstyles.

I feel sure this sort of thing will be addressed in the next DLC, so i'm happy to stick around and wait, and see.

[Horseman]

How about splitting trophies into 2 different traits? Or maybe taking one trait disallowing another?
So if you took perimeter control , it'd disallow Trophies(a) 2x captures or Trophies (b) 2xprestige/capture?

Theres options possible to break up the power 4. Including making victories achievable a variety of styles with different Alternative goals.
Reducing the dependency on this aspect of the game should make it much more rounded for varied playstyles.

I feel sure this sort of thing will be addressed in the next DLC, so i'm happy to stick around and wait, and see.

I don't think the power 4 needs to be broken. It exists as an option to make things easier if you want or you can choose to ignore it and pick different traits.

It's been suggested that trophies doesn't need the extra prestige and I'd agree. I plan on using it for my first proper SCW play through because u want extra equipment, but I'm hoping I can mod the extra prestige gain out. If not I might have to resort to cheats to take the extra out, but that would be a bit more of a pain.

[nexusno2000]

Mod idea:

Reduce prestige cost of AI units to half. This will halve income from captures.

The AI never buys units, so this only affects repairs (reduce AI prestige by half too).

[Horseman]

Mod idea:

Reduce prestige cost of AI units to half. This will halve income from captures.

The AI never buys units, so this only affects repairs (reduce AI prestige by half too).

Sensible suggestion if I can't mod the trait itself! I haven't explored it yet but hopefully I can sort something out without resorting to cheats.

Then again would that change the prestige cost for me to then buy the unit?

[nexusno2000]

Mod idea:

Reduce prestige cost of AI units to half. This will halve income from captures.

The AI never buys units, so this only affects repairs (reduce AI prestige by half too).

Sensible suggestion if I can't mod the trait itself! I haven't explored it yet but hopefully I can sort something out without resorting to cheats.

Then again would that change the prestige cost for me to then buy the unit?

Yes it would. Back to the drawing board...

Have Rudankort export the value to Rules.json

[Horseman]

Mod idea:

Reduce prestige cost of AI units to half. This will halve income from captures.

The AI never buys units, so this only affects repairs (reduce AI prestige by half too).

Sensible suggestion if I can't mod the trait itself! I haven't explored it yet but hopefully I can sort something out without resorting to cheats.

Then again would that change the prestige cost for me to then buy the unit?

Yes it would. Back to the drawing board...

Have Rudankort export the value to Rules.json

I wonder if he accepts bribes!

[SineMora]

Captures should simply be modified by difficulty like everything else*, so prestige actually becomes something of a concern on Generalissimus. ATM a 370 prestige AA gun is worth ~330 prestige (or ~760ish with Trophies), but with difficulty actually affecting it this would drop down to 67 on Generalissimus, so they'd no longer be ATMs. This might even make players consider garbage traits like Liberator (which seemed like a pretty strong trait pre-release given the assumption that prestige would be hard to come by -- since it's not it's pretty much useless) worth considering.

I'd rather see Trophies drop down to 1 point and the prestige bonus removed entirely, making it a trait for those who want to field rare enemy units (it's not as if you need it to field T-34s).

* Flags aren't I suppose, but if you took that away it probably would become near impossible