Paratroopers are kinda bad after 1.02

[Raganr129]

paratroopers bad.png (51.96 KiB) Viewed 3711 times

So I want to talk about this aspect of the recent patch.
I'm not sure if this change was specifically directed at paratroopers or not, but it certainly makes their use a whole lot more challenging, and I'm not sure it's in a good way.
In previous versions of pzc2, you would be able to embark on turn 1, then on the next turn, fly to your target location and drop in the same turn, allowing for them to be safe (in the air anyway) during some maps with multi-turn flights to their destination, like Crete, where the drop locations are outside the escort range of your fighters.

With the new rules, you are going to be flying to the drop location and waiting an extra turn to deploy. This presents at least three problems for some of the previous scenarios:
1) You're spending an extra turn in the scenario where you might not have been before just to get the men on the ground, that scenarios were perhaps not designed around.
2) As mentioned earlier, you can easily be outside the escort range of your fighters.
3) They're less of a "surprise" attack as they hover menacingly over the drop location.

I'm potentially okay with the vulnerable trait being added to the transports, but not in conjunction with the old disembark being gone.
Thoughts?

[R2G2]

I think this was done with the intention to balance MP matches. I feel your pain in regards to DLC play, but there are some gamey exploits done at the start of most MP matches with airborne troops. There could be some more reasons, but this is the main one that I know of.

I’d prefer the unit to lose all movement points after dropping in a hex, as opposed to them sitting in the sky for an extra turn with a negative trait. Or maybe they could just delay air transports for a fixed amount of turns at the beginning of every MP and random scenario map.

[Gfot]

Yeah, there's been a lot of complaining about them on MP (I don't play MP so I will accept that the complaints were valid), but we shouldn't be playing complaint ping-pong here, they should find a solution that works for all game modes. There are scenarios where you need to deploy paratroopers and being able to disermbark in one turn is a major part of the strategy. I am actually just about to finish denmark in a playthrough I started the other day, so I'll try the new version out at Fornebu and see if you can still save the Bluecher when having to wait one turn to start attacking the fort.

[IceSerpent]

I just tried Crete, can't even figure out how to establish the beachhead now. Best attempt so far ended with my forces getting kicked off the island by turn 6 and Student's forces wiped out on turn 12...

[R2G2]

The random move Editor script cannot be used with air transports, so this will negatively impact the AI’s effectiveness with paratroops. I’m imagining a D-Day scenario where the 101st Airborne gets completely shot out of the sky by the Axis player’s second playthrough…

[IceSerpent]

Now I have this mental image of Atlantic Wall consisting solely of acht-acht batteries.

[Raganr129]

I just tried Crete, can't even figure out how to establish the beachhead now. Best attempt so far ended with my forces getting kicked off the island by turn 6 and Student's forces wiped out on turn 12...

Crete is the exact scenario that brought this up lol

[Gfot]

Εben Emael Briefing

Wagner: "Make sure you immediately encircle the fortress before the gunners can man their guns".

Panzer Corps Commander: "But I can't, new orders from OKH specify our gliders need to hover over the targets to give the enemy airforce a sporting chance of shooting them down"

Wagner" Oh well, YOLO"

Seriously, this looks like a typical case of bad internal communication, my guess is someone made the change to fix the issues in multiplayer, and didn't even think of how it would affect the AO campaign. The change itself is not crazy or bad in and of itself, but it is a complete disaster in the context of the campaign. The enemy usually has more planes than the player's force, fighters usually cannot escort paratroopers to the drop zones and the way the maps are, you can't drop further away and regroup (reinforce and resupply) before attacking. You're forced to hover over the target and suffer casualties (even with good fighter cover you'll lose some), then drop at below 100% strength, spend the first turn encircled and under attack, and then try to maximize the potential of your 3 Ammo points to obtain a source of supply.

[Khancotlette]

I should agree. Paratroopers are now completely useless. I think either 'next-turn' landing or extreme vulnerability of transport planes should be put away.

[Tassadar]

Agreed as well. I'd have the units land suppressed as it was in the first game and also trigger AA/fighter fire if in their range when landing instead. Current approach may work multiplayer, but screws existing campaign scenarios a "bit", at least until adjusted, with Εben Emael indeed being the most critical case.

[Gfot]

Or if they absolutely need to keep both for MP, they could change paratroopers to be able to attack on the turn they disembark. If you manage to keep casualties to the transport low (say 2-3 points), your offensive combat power will be about the same as it was when being able to disembark in one turn. Of course you'll still have less health, so it's still a reduction in power for the paratroopers, but nothing dramatic.

[R2G2]

Can air transports just be delayed a set number of turns with Lua script on the MP scenarios? This would resolve the MP issue while also not effecting DLC play.

[Raganr129]

Yeah, I never considered MP play, I don't play the game for that aspect, it never interested me all that much, and this was coming from the point of view of a campaign focused single player. Therefore, I can't really speak to whatever exploit they were being used for in that arena and how bad it was for the meta, but I'd be curious How well the change is being received by those players.

That said, I would like a rollback or an optional/secondary ruleset to be made available in the campaign settings or whatever to give paratroopers back the way they were designed originally. Is there a way to make a mod for a second ruleset? I've only ever fiddled with the unit rosters.

[FunPolice749]

I just noticed this and WTF? This has literally just made Eben Emael and a couple other scenarios almost impossible.
I also read that there are some scenarios in 1942 that practically require paratroopers and I bet they aren't working with this change either.
A really short sighted change that has just made numerous scenarios almost impossible. This needs to be rollbacked ASAP.

[Gfot]

They're not impossible, the extra turn in Eben Emael for example means you'll get bombarded by the Range 5 forts for a turn, I got lucky, they targeted my mobile force that was rushing to the fort, so my paras were pretty much intact. But yeah, it's poorly thought out, for example in the training mission for Eben Emael which is 7 turns long, you can only start hitting the targets on turn 4 now.....

[PaxusZero]

Sadly, the extra move from meticulous planning doesn’t allow them to disembark either.

[IceSerpent]

They're not impossible, the extra turn in Eben Emael for example means you'll get bombarded by the Range 5 forts for a turn, I got lucky, they targeted my mobile force that was rushing to the fort, so my paras were pretty much intact. But yeah, it's poorly thought out, for example in the training mission for Eben Emael which is 7 turns long, you can only start hitting the targets on turn 4 now.....

It may actually be impossible to get all objectives on Crete. Even with "cheesy-as-hell" core that sports 3 consolidator+zero slots pairs (in other words, 3 stacks of paratroopers are OS to 25), I've yet to manage to get to the last two victory hexes in time.
Haven't tried Eben Emael yet, but normally paratroopers get attacked shortly after the drop...so if they do get suppressed by forts, they probably won't survive.

[brumleek]

Unfortunately I don't like this paratroopers change a bit. As a singleplayer gamer I will just avoid them completely in my core, making them an obsolete unit. And I will probably do my best to avoid any campaign scenario focusing them. Sadly, I enjoyed them immensely in AO.

As for multiplayer... ... Edmon already described in detail how to efficiently counter paras in different forum thread.

So my questions stands:

- Why this unfortunate nerf had to come at all?
- If there was a real and unsolvable multiplayer problem with paras in their previous state, can't you just drop them from multiplayer rooster?

Campaign implications of this change seems to be too severe. Not only for few paratrooper-centered scenarios, but for any player that liked to use them just for fun, even if there were far better options how to spend valuable core slots.

[SirAllan]

I must admit - I love my paratroopers or used too, this is a ridicolous nerf, just for satifying some crying MP's - you (devs) have to ask yourself, what is most importent: singleplayer campaign (main reason for buying this game) or multiplayer for only a limited amount of players ?
Btw is this change the reason why, we dont have any airlift transport point anymore? Cause we used to have 3 airlift.
Dear Devs Im begging you to turn that nerf of paras back to what is was and give us back the airlift points too.

[brumleek]

Btw is this change the reason why, we dont have any airlift transport point anymore? Cause we used to have 3 airlift.

Oups - I did not even noticed it because I read the patch notes prior to AO 1942 campaign start. I have discarded paras from my rooster automatically then and did not check the UI for slots available... Is this really happening?

I second SirAllan's plea for rollback. I would love to drop my Fallschirms on top of Elbrus and save my Gebirgs the trip .