uran21 wrote:We wanted to address this question trough prestige and I bet it is going to work on some harder difficulty settings.
No, it won't. Absolutely will not work. I cannot stress this enough.
Clockwise from top right. Panther vs M26, Panther vs M36, Tiger II vs M26, Tiger II vs M36.
Image on the left, stat comparison between Tiger II and Panther G.
Panther fails utterly against the M26 (cost 624, 105 cheaper than the Panther)
Panther wins a costly victory against the M36 (cost 288, 441 cheaper than the Panther)
King Tiger completely destroys the M36 at a very low cost to itself (only 1 loss predicted)
King Tiger cuts the M26 in half at a low cost to itself (only 2 losses predicted)
You will see similar results from other nations, replace M36 with Achilles/Sherman Firefly/Su-100, replace M26 with Comet and IS-2.
How much prestige is the player going to
spend to restrength the Panther after these battles? I'll give you a hint, if the player wants to keep any experience on their unit, it's more than the 250 difference between the Tiger II and Panther G.
How much prestige does a player
save not needing to restrength their King Tiger after losing only 1 or 2 in an engagement?
In campaign terms, this is also a failure:
Cost to upgrade any non-Panther to a Panther G, 729. Full price.
Cost to upgrade any non-Tiger to a Tiger II, 980, Full price. Net saving, 251 prestige. Prestige spent to elite a Panther from 4 strength to 10?
437.
I challenge you to provide some conclusive evidence that doesn't contain the words 'we hope' or 'we think' to refute my claims.
Currently:
Reason to buy a Panther over a King Tiger: Save 251 prestige (prepare to spend a LOT more than 251 keeping that Panther up to strength after its 16 GD gets decimated)
Same speed as King Tiger, no reason to switch here.
More fuel than King Tiger, the argument for PzC maps seems to be they are 'small' so... how important does that make fuel?
1 air attack value, can defend itself from aircraft.
The reasons to buy a King Tiger over a Panther:
More soft attack.
More hard attack.
More initiative.
10 more ground defense.
10 more air defense.
2 more close defense.
Nerf the King Tiger and Jagdtiger speed to 4.
Drop King Tiger close defense to 4 (M26 and IS-2 and any other offenders also need this nerf, the ceiling on close defense should be a 4 for all units, except maybe the Maus at a 5).
Buff all Panthers speed to 6.
Increase GD of all panthers by +1.
Possibly increased the price of the King Tiger and/or reduce the price on all Panthers.
Net result:
Panthers are your fast break through tanks. Anything they can't outgun, they can outrun. Good for mobile battles and flanking movement.
King Tigers are your 'go to' tank when you absolutely have to kill something. They're big, slow, but truly the "King" of the battlefield. They might not be able chase down their opponent or exploit a breakthrough, no one puts out the amount of punishment that a King Tiger can while keeping losses at a minimum.
Separate tanks for separate roles.