Grand Campaign Unit Revisions - Update for GC42-43West

[orlinos]

nikivdd:

From what I understand from discussions about the AI - it is stupid and incapable of making a decent plan - but can count well. It attacks when it sees an opportunity to inflict more damage in prestige (which need not always be wise from strategic point of view). In Deducter's mod the AI often seems more aggressive, because it knows it can hurt the player. The Polish cavalry is definitely more dangerous now.

The AI can also see more now, since their recon too has spotting = 4.

I lately had a vicious attack of Russian fighters on my Stuka in 1942. It was defended by an experienced BF, but it still lost some strenght points. And then more fighters came and the Stuka was not defended during next attacks. The result? A 13-strenght bomber reduced to 5 points! I retreated it and let it rest for the rest of the scenario, since I didn't want to waste prestige on elite replacements - nor loose experience.

[Radoye]

One thing to note that by 1942, you really aren't meant to use the Panzer II or Panzer I anymore.

What remained in service of those tanks was by then used for reconnaissance (before specialized variants such as Pz II Luchs became available).

So maybe a recon PzII later upgradeable to PzII Luchs?

What people don't seem to understand with the upgrade concept, it was not the case that an unit (platoon, company, battalion, regiment, brigade, division, corps) would bring their old equipment to be refurbished and then returned to them.

Usually the process of "upgrade" would go through regular replacement - old model destroyed equipment would be replaced with newly produced later model one until slowly the entire unit has transferred to the new stuff; by then, the new losses would start to be replaced by even newer models.

Sometimes the whole unit would be pulled from the front for rest period, reorganized and issued brand new equipment and after going through training on their new stuff returned to the front.

A tank company would under normal circumstances never be upgraded into a self propelled AT gun company, it doesn't matter if the SPAT is based on the same chassis or is a completely different design. Sometimes the role of an unit would change (light tank platoons not being used in tank-to-tank combat anymore but tasked with reconnaissance duties) but you'd never see a medium tank unit becoming SPAA (by trading their PzIV's for some of the AA vehicles based on the same chassis).

So the "Series" field should be best utilized by naming the type/role of the unit (light tank, fighter squadron, regular infantry, rocket artillery) and not the model of the equipment used (PzIII or PzIV chassis)

And availability of certain unit types within a class should be determined by the role these types have been employed at the time. (Ie - if a P-47D has been issued to an unit that has been used solely for ground pounding and has not been engaged for various reasons in air-to-air combat then a TB-class P-47D should be in order.)

Hope its clear what i've been trying to say (i'm not 100% sure myself what was i trying to say actually _...

[ivanov]

Deducter - are you planning to update the price of the Panther variants? Anythoughts how to further differentiate the D and G versions?

[deducter]

There's a reason this mod is called "Unit Revisions" and not "Historical Accuracy."

There's no way of simulating the rest and refit process in this game. If there were a way, I would try to incorporate that instead.

Really, upgrades in this mod function mostly for gameplay balance reasons. There's no way to historically accurately depict upgrades in this game anyway. The Panzer IIC can be upgraded to the Marder II in 1942. This is designed to 1) showcase the Marder II, which if you can get one with 3-4 stars immediately in 1942 performs very well and 2) make it so that the player is rewarded for carrying a Panzer II from 1939 through to 1942. Eventually, of course, there comes a point where the Marder II is useless and there's no further upgrades in that family, but I think that's fine. Even in 1943-1944, if you use the Marder II correctly, it can perform well.

There is why I have the Sturmpanzer I upgradeable to the Grille H in 1943, for balance reasons. Same thing with stuff like the P38(t) to the Marder III. I know this isn't the most historically accurate, but I consider it better for gameplay fun to commit this sin.

The experience penalty was primarily instituted to prevent the player from getting 4 star Tigers/Panthers in 1943, or 5 star Me-262 in 1944. My testing found that those units are as amazing as ever. BUT, now, it will cost you lots and lots of prestige to get to that point, as it should. If you want to nurture a few super elite Tigers/Panthers at the cost of everything else, you are still free to do so. But it's not by default the best choice anymore.

So the "Series" field should be best utilized by naming the type/role of the unit (light tank, fighter squadron, regular infantry, rocket artillery) and not the model of the equipment used (PzIII or PzIV chassis)

That said, I like this idea. Maybe for a future version, I'll change some things around based on the role of the unit. But still, I would never have stuff like Panzer IV upgradeable to Panther in family, because that would be horribly unbalanced.

[deducter]

Deducter - are you planning to update the price of the Panther variants? Anythoughts how to further differentiate the D and G versions?

Yeah I'm working on that. I'm making some more changes now. Basically the Ausf. G will be moved back to the start of Bagration, so the Ausf. A will have a bit more time to shine. The difference between the two models will be 40 prestige, the Ausf. G will be at 842 prestige, 10% cheaper for SE versions. I was hoping for other comments so I can do more changes, instead of just updating to v1.71 with the Panther changes.

[nikivdd]

Yes, there are changes. In general, because the AI's units have been buffed, they will tend to attack more. The changes are subtle and not obvious except to the experienced player.

For instance, in 1943 the Soviets will buy T-34/43 towards the end of scenarios to counterattack with. I think it's more realistic and fun than seeing 5 KV-1C or IS-1 spawn.

In general, the Soviets are more aggressive with their units on the attack. This is particularly noticeable with air units in 1943. They Soviets WILL attack into your fighters with some of their good ones (La-5FN, Yak-9D, and especially the Yak-3). This is really true for your fighters that have been weakened to say 7 strength. The AI can and will kill those fighters of yours. It really does require a completely different mindset for your air units in 1943. Using them aggressively will cripple your prestige. Instead, hold them back to cover your units (especially your expensive units, the artillery and Tiger/Panthers). Hold them back near your FlaK. Lure the AI's fighters in, then weaken them with FlaK and finish them off with mass attacks.

The air war is really hard in 1944 because by then, even air parity is very challenging. The Soviets will swarm and kill your fighters, and then, well, they can run rampant with their air units. You have to be very, very careful with your air units by then. All of this is historical and really gives you a sense of the futility of the war. Perhaps some players will find it frustrating, but, well, so did the Germans.

Splendid. I just saw for the first time a TKS attacking a PzIIC (but resulted in -6 for the TKS and the PzIIC no damage).
Yeah, the IS-1 spawn worked on my nerves and the Sov fighters never gave me a sweat.
As you say, some changes might be frustrating to some players, but a DLC or any other historical campaign shouldn't be a walkover in 44-45.
Perhaps a PZII could be upgraded later to anything with the same chassis.

@Orlinos. Thanks for sharing your experience. And i like to watch Czterej pancerni i pies

[orlinos]

What people don't seem to understand with the upgrade concept, it was not the case that an unit (platoon, company, battalion, regiment, brigade, division, corps) would bring their old equipment to be refurbished and then returned to them.

[...]

So the "Series" field should be best utilized by naming the type/role of the unit (light tank, fighter squadron, regular infantry, rocket artillery) and not the model of the equipment used (PzIII or PzIV chassis)

And availability of certain unit types within a class should be determined by the role these types have been employed at the time. (Ie - if a P-47D has been issued to an unit that has been used solely for ground pounding and has not been engaged for various reasons in air-to-air combat then a TB-class P-47D should be in order.)

Hope its clear what i've been trying to say (i'm not 100% sure myself what was i trying to say actually _...

The way the "family" system of upgrades works is a pure fiction and it's gamey, there is no life equivalent of it. It's just there to give player more nasty choices - do I just sell this old Panzer IV, so that I have more money to spend on a new Tiger, or do I upgrade it to Tiger (paying full price), because I want to keep the part of experience and my heroes on the unit?

In reality, of course, it makes no sense.

[orlinos]

Perhaps a PZII could be upgraded later to anything with the same chassis.

Mine become a nice Marder with +2 Ini hero, or something similar.

@Orlinos. Thanks for sharing your experience. And i like to watch Czterej pancerni i pies

Are you from Poland originally or is just this movie so known outside of my country?
Funny thing with it, it's a beautiful, warm piece about friendship and an ugly piece of soviet propaganda at the same time. But I'm getting too OT.

[nikivdd]

Are you from Poland originally or is just this movie so known outside of my country?
Funny thing with it, it's a beautiful, warm piece about friendship and an ugly piece of soviet propaganda at the same time. But I'm getting too OT.

Zona to Polka

Back on-topic. What is actually the best thing to do with the capturable equipment? I do remember using the Mathilda II's until Stalingrad without Deducter's efile.
Still, it is a pitty that the vanilla efile only included one Pz II and one Pz38(t).

[ivanov]

@Orlinos. Thanks for sharing your experience. And i like to watch Czterej pancerni i pies

I think their tank was an independent operational unit of it's own and it was able to win the war single handed \m/ \m/

[nikivdd]

@Orlinos. Thanks for sharing your experience. And i like to watch Czterej pancerni i pies

I think their tank was an independent operational unit of it's own and it was able to win the war single handed \m/ \m/

Like Kloss found out who was Gruppenführer Wolf

[deducter]

Back on-topic. What is actually the best thing to do with the capturable equipment? I do remember using the Mathilda II's until Stalingrad without Deducter's efile.
Still, it is a pitty that the vanilla efile only included one Pz II and one Pz38(t).

With the Western Allies equipment, honestly, I don't even use them. You can if you want, and despite their slow speed, they actually have the best defenses of any German unit until you get captureable Russian equipment in 1941. It's not until the start of Fall Blau (Voronezh) do the Germans even GET to buy a hard unit with GD = 14. But those tanks, the Char B1 and Matilda II, really weren't that great historically.

Now, the captureable Russian tanks, on the other hand, that's quite a choice you are presented with. The short answer is that there is no obvious answer, whether to keep or to disband. They are so much better than anything you have in 1941 and even most of 1942. BUT, they also cost so much more than your units. In 1941, refunding a T-34 will get you about 700 prestige. That's enough for 2 Panzer IIIs. KV-1B cost 800 prestige in 1941 and 700 in 1942. Only in 1943 do the KV1-B and KV-1C tanks go down to about 500ish prestige. But in 1943, all captureable Russian equipments get their guns upgraded, to encourage the player to continue to use them. Perhaps in my manual I should list the exact cost for those units, I will probably update that.

But, if you use exclusively captured equipment, you'll run into a serious problem in 1943, because the best tanks by then are German-made. The Panzer IVG and the Panzer IVJ are both very good, not to mention the Tigers/Panthers. You'll have to upgrade out of family if you want to preserve heroes/medals. And factor in the prestige you could've gained by disbanding them.

I personally disband most of the captured equipment for prestige (because I am desperate for prestige usually), but I keep 2-3 in my core.

[orlinos]

Zona to Polka

Send her my greetings, Poles are the most beautiful women in the world.

Back on-topic. What is actually the best thing to do with the capturable equipment? I do remember using the Mathilda II's until Stalingrad without Deducter's efile.
Still, it is a pitty that the vanilla efile only included one Pz II and one Pz38(t).

I'll risk it, maybe I'll be able to answer you before Deducter.

EDIT: not possible, he's answering too fast. Sorry for my joking side today.

There is supposed to be no "best thing". In present play I disbanded most of the captured tanks, because I had so little prestige. But for example the T-34/41(r) I think I'll keep. Although the costs are so high...

One other choice might be to use some of the equipment to take heavy punishment (instead of the rest of the core) and just use ordinary replacements on it, between scenarios. It won't get experienced that way, but it might serve as powerful cannon fodder...

[nikivdd]

Ok thanks for the info. I usually used the russian tanks as bait.

[deducter]

Actually thanks to orlinos for pointing out the Panzer IV discrepancy, I actually noticed there are some serious problems with SE panzers. The problems are a holdout from a previous version. I better fix those problems, and I'll upload another version later today, with the Panther changes too.

[deducter]

Another version out, with changes to Panthers, fixes for various SE Panzers in 1943 and beyond, some other small tweaks, update in the manual to include more information on captured equipment.

[ivanov]

Thanks for this!

[Radoye]

There's a reason this mod is called "Unit Revisions" and not "Historical Accuracy."

There's no way of simulating the rest and refit process in this game. If there were a way, I would try to incorporate that instead.

Yeah i know. That was more of a passing comment, the main point was this:

No need to go to Marders through tanks.

You should be able to get to Marder series from PzJag I and later upgrade to Nashorn (light to medium chassis with open top, light to medium to heavy gun, relatively cheap).

Separate from this would be the StuG's and Hetzers (light to medium chassis, closed turtle-shaped superstructure, medium gun, moderately priced somewhat below contemporary medium tanks).

Yet separate the heavies - Elefant, JagdPanther, JagdTiger and other monstrosities (heavy chassis, heavy gun, VERY expensive).

These three upgrade lines should be kept separate from each other, but there is no need to cross-upgrade with tank class. Light tanks (Pz I and Pz II) should, after their usefulness in tank role has passed, go towards recon class.

Pz III and Pz IV would be medium tanks, Panthers you could classify as MBT's (Main Battle Tanks that is) to keep them separated from earlier stuff as well as from the heavies (Tigers, mice and the rest of the ZOO). Alternatively you could introduce two subclasses in the medium class, one for tank-to-tank work armed with high velocity guns and other for infantry support armed with short 75mm. So then the early Pz IV's would go to inf supp and later get Pz IIIN upgrade, while early Pz III's in the tank-to-tank line would then get the long barreled Pz IV's.

Same with SP artillery - keep the storming guns (close support vehicles) separate from Wespes and Hummels and such, also you can create two separate lines for storming guns - one for open top variety and other for those turtle shaped ones.

This way you can still get all your ideas and concepts implemented while maintaining IMHO better logical coherence of your upgrade paths.

[deducter]

There's a reason this mod is called "Unit Revisions" and not "Historical Accuracy."

There's no way of simulating the rest and refit process in this game. If there were a way, I would try to incorporate that instead.

Yeah i know. That was more of a passing comment, the main point was this:

No need to go to Marders through tanks.

You should be able to get to Marder series from PzJag I and later upgrade to Nashorn (light to medium chassis with open top, light to medium to heavy gun, relatively cheap).

Separate from this would be the StuG's and Hetzers (light to medium chassis, closed turtle-shaped superstructure, medium gun, moderately priced somewhat below contemporary medium tanks).

Yet separate the heavies - Elefant, JagdPanther, JagdTiger and other monstrosities (heavy chassis, heavy gun, VERY expensive).

These three upgrade lines should be kept separate from each other, but there is no need to cross-upgrade with tank class. Light tanks (Pz I and Pz II) should, after their usefulness in tank role has passed, go towards recon class.

Pz III and Pz IV would be medium tanks, Panthers you could classify as MBT's (Main Battle Tanks that is) to keep them separated from earlier stuff as well as from the heavies (Tigers, mice and the rest of the ZOO). Alternatively you could introduce two subclasses in the medium class, one for tank-to-tank work armed with high velocity guns and other for infantry support armed with short 75mm. So then the early Pz IV's would go to inf supp and later get Pz IIIN upgrade, while early Pz III's in the tank-to-tank line would then get the long barreled Pz IV's.

Same with SP artillery - keep the storming guns (close support vehicles) separate from Wespes and Hummels and such, also you can create two separate lines for storming guns - one for open top variety and other for those turtle shaped ones.

This way you can still get all your ideas and concepts implemented while maintaining IMHO better logical coherence of your upgrade paths.

The upgrade principles isn't that simple. No way I would ever allow a Marder II to be upgraded to the Hornisse. Way too powerful. You can get a 4 star Hornisse in time for Kursk, that unit is too effective.

The problem with your proposal is that it would simplify the game too much. There would be a number of families, and you just look at the families and upgrade new equipment automatically without thought.

It's not as simple as maintaining coherence in a unit family. By this logic, the Panzer IVD should be upgradeable to the Panzer IIIN, and the Panzer IIIM should be upgradeable to the Panzer IVG. I don't like that. The Elefants/JagdTigers are not interchangeable is intentional.

Panzer II to Marder II may not be the most logical choice in terms of the roles of the units, but I don't see any need for more recon units for the Germans in 1942. A Panzer II recon unit in 1942 serves absolutely no function, because there are recon units already armed with the same gun. The Panzer II Luchs is unique in 1943 because it is tracked-movement as opposed to half-track or wheeled, making it really good in the snow.

Again, there is a compromise in terms of historical accuracy and gameplay with regards to upgrade. I stick mostly to the model in the vanilla equipment file, with a few exceptions here and there for gameplay reasons to encourage players to get certain units. Or in some cases, to not punish the player for making a certain choice. Getting a Sturmpanzer I in 1940 is fine, it should not feel like a "dead-end" choice.

That said, I do admit some units like the Panzerjager IB are problematic. I'll have to think about a few examples like that.

[nikivdd]

Thanks for the update. I gonna check the manual aswell for the capturable equipment.

If i saw was right for the upcoming expansion AK, what about the idea of unit conversion? For example a PzII to a Sturmpz II?
Or at present, a Pz I to a Sturmpz I?