Slitherine

At last !!! Thank you Deducter I can play Panzer Corps again

orlinos wrote:A little off-topic, Deducter, how do you find vanilla Afrika Corps? I finished the first three scenarios and I am grateful for the training the DLC's with your e-file gave me. I am playing Rommel straight from the beginning, so prestige is scarce, but I get by with a Pak and a ball of string. Even a little Panzer IIC got a big, scary Matilda to surrender.

I generally get ambushes and surrenders like crazy, the AI can't see a damned thing in these sand storms (nor can I). Can't wait to get blown away by difficulty when you make an Africa e-file, if you will.

The motorcycle infantry seems to play an important role in the desert and behave OK here. Since there is rarely a close terrain hex, they do not benefit from their CD of 2.

It will definitely be too effective a unit in vanilla DLC’s. It would probably make normal infantry in ’41 and ’42 useless. Kradschützen is faster and still cheap, Gebirgsjäger - even with trucks – behave better on terrain with many hills and have the same cost as plain Wehrmacht etc.

I do not know what to think of the Italian tank units units. At the moment I just like the graphics.

I didn't have much of a problem with the stock eqp file for Afrika if I decided to simply buy all the best units. It's trivial to do even on Rommel after just 4-5 scenarios. Rampaging around Suez with 8 Panzer IVG bored me. I don't know how long it'll be before I do a eqp file for Afrika, it'd be another very long project, and I'm kinda tired. I haven't actually played this game much recently.

The other thing is that I love playing on the Ostfront the most. The 5 GCs worth of Axis vs Soviet scenarios was more than I could've ever hoped for when PzC was first released. I'm committed mainly to continuing work on GC Unit Revisions and to further improve it, to create what I hope is the gold standard for a "historical" or "challenging" GC experience for all players. I never have to play with one hand tied behind my back with these settings.

deducter wrote:

orlinos wrote:A little off-topic, Deducter, how do you find vanilla Afrika Corps?

I didn't have much of a problem with the stock eqp file for Afrika if I decided to simply buy all the best units. It's trivial to do even on Rommel after just 4-5 scenarios. Rampaging around Suez with 8 Panzer IVG bored me. I don't know how long it'll be before I do a eqp file for Afrika, it'd be another very long project, and I'm kinda tired. I haven't actually played this game much recently.

The other thing is that I love playing on the Ostfront the most. The 5 GCs worth of Axis vs Soviet scenarios was more than I could've ever hoped for when PzC was first released. I'm committed mainly to continuing work on GC Unit Revisions and to further improve it, to create what I hope is the gold standard for a "historical" or "challenging" GC experience for all players. I never have to play with one hand tied behind my back with these settings.

Haven’t you thought of just playing it with even lower prestige? It might be more interesting for you then.

One thing I think this expansion will teach me (and probably other players) is how to battle in the open terrain. I have to say I often feel completely lost, with no forests to hide my infantry in. No obvious shape for my troops to make.

It’s the same in the Ostfront big tank battles, from what I've heard, but since at that point in the Grand Campaign the player also have a very large core, I always felt lost and bored in '42 because of this. I am not yet able to maintain control over so many troops. I hope by playing in the desert with a smaller core (unless it too grows huge in the last scenarios?) I’ll be able to deal with my open terrain trouble first, so then I'll finally be able to defeat the Russians effectively.

(My bold Rommel playing that I bragged about in the previous post just brought me to my knees – I finished Dash to the Wire with 380 prestige and half of my army down to 3 strength points. And I lost the battle, destroying the dumps but having to heroically throw my tanks into crazy a city battle to get the last town back from the English – because my infantry couldn’t arrive there on time. A genius tactician, I am...).

The AI has been noticeably improved in its tactical abilities. It did some new stuff during Piatek and Spoils of War. For instance, I saw a fighter move AFTER a recon unit, this is actually a huge change, since you can no longer rely on hex counting the fog to leave your stukas unprotected. It seems to use air and transport units better and it no longer has certain blind spots (for instance, an attack AI always left one unit left to guard a VH, but now I've seen the AI rush abandon a VH to counterattack).

However, it still seems the AI is hardcoded to always attack after capturing a VH, so you can still exploit that.

I do hope you consider doing an Afrika E-file sometime Deducter. I think you could do some interesting stuff with the Italian units.

monkspider wrote:I do hope you consider doing an Afrika E-file sometime Deducter. I think you could do some interesting stuff with the Italian units.

I have already started thinking about this, but my approach is going to be same as it is in GC Unit Revisions: I intend to set the units stats such that it'll enforce a more historical core composition. Basically, to do this, I'll need to massively increase the cost of all German units so the Italians are cheap enough by comparison to be worth getting.

It'd be a difficulty jump for sure, but at the very least buying Italian units needs to end up saving prestige.

deducter wrote:

monkspider wrote:I do hope you consider doing an Afrika E-file sometime Deducter. I think you could do some interesting stuff with the Italian units.

I have already started thinking about this, but my approach is going to be same as it is in GC Unit Revisions: I intend to set the units stats such that it'll enforce a more historical core composition. Basically, to do this, I'll need to massively increase the cost of all German units so the Italians are cheap enough by comparison to be worth getting.

It'd be a difficulty jump for sure, but at the very least buying Italian units needs to end up saving prestige.

Sounds awesome, sign me up.

Instead of making more videos (which I will resume in the future), I've been playing with a new core this time. Up to 1941 Kiev path now. I got some very nice heroes on infantry (+1 move/+1 Attack grenadier, numerous +2 attack infantry), some okay ones for air, but no defensive heroes for my panzers. It's interesting to see the T-34s inflicting significant damage on my panzers despite always backing them up with 3-star 13-strength StuG IIIG. Nevertheless, DVs are always possible, thanks to the superiority of German air power. The Ju 88A is especially awesome despite its hefty price. It has enough attack to on average inflict several points of damage and suppress a Soviet tank. It's working very well as a hybrid Dive/Strategic bomber.

The motorcycle troops strike just the right amount of balance I think. Their GD is low though, making them quite vulnerable to getting attacked in the clear. Their fast move and good SA makes them useful for mopping up soft targets. In clear terrain, they can move onto 1 forest and 2 clear hexes or 5 clear hexes, which seems just the right amount to me. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Didn't try out the Panzer II Flamm, as my core tends to be infantry heavy anyway and I don't need more close support units.

I also noticed that the price of various AA/ART/AT towed by the Sdkfz 7 are inadvertently slightly higher in price (by 50 prestige) than I intended. It's not a huge difference, and I actually kinda like the slightly higher prices for those units, but I may adjust the price down.

Am enjoying the heck out of your mod and want you to know I appreciate the work you clearly put into your research. Kudos!

deducter wrote:I also noticed that the price of various AA/ART/AT towed by the Sdkfz 7 are inadvertently slightly higher in price (by 50 prestige) than I intended. It's not a huge difference, and I actually kinda like the slightly higher prices for those units, but I may adjust the price down.

Might be tricky, since just substracting 50 from the base prize might for example make 7.5 cm PaK 40 cost less, than 5 cm PaK 38. (In some defensive scenarios I sometimes buy a new Pak without transport, as it is cheaper to elite reinforce - and it can build up experience fast).

On the other hand, current prizes make more advanced PaK's close in prize to self-propelled AT, which are obviously a better choice, since it's much easier to position them fast.

orlinos wrote:

deducter wrote:I also noticed that the price of various AA/ART/AT towed by the Sdkfz 7 are inadvertently slightly higher in price (by 50 prestige) than I intended. It's not a huge difference, and I actually kinda like the slightly higher prices for those units, but I may adjust the price down.

Might be tricky, since just substracting 50 from the base prize might for example make 7.5 cm PaK 40 cost less, than 5 cm PaK 38. (In some defensive scenarios I sometimes buy a new Pak without transport, as it is cheaper to elite reinforce - and it can build up experience fast).[...]

Hm, I checked and only buying 7.5 cm PaK without transport can create any problems, the rest of the stuff (AA, artillery) makes little sense to tow around the scenarios. I'll just avoid buying it without transport.

I adjusted the prices of the "heavypull" equipment in 1942 equipment-file by 50 myself. I need all the prestige I can get.

It's more efficient to reduce the price of the Sdkfz 7 by 50 rather than individually reducing the prices of all heavypull equipment. It seems like this should be a change, but it shouldn't affect more than 500ish of your prestige, out of a total of 20k+ on General in GC42 alone.

I want to include more in another version than just reducing the price of the tractor by 50 prestige though...

Also note that the 7.5 cm PaK received a buff. It has INI = 6 and HA = 16, like most of the other 7.5 cm guns.

Deducter

looking at restarting the GC campaign again after getting through to Stalingrad and then getting distracted with Afrika. I liked the look of some of the new tweaks and already the first 39 scenario seems to have jumped in difficulty(Rommel setting). Am I right in assuming the PZII series of upgrades ends with the PZII Flam I like trying to keep upgrades in family for as long as possible but it does feel a little dead-end?

nvett wrote:Deducter

looking at restarting the GC campaign again after getting through to Stalingrad and then getting distracted with Afrika. I liked the look of some of the new tweaks and already the first 39 scenario seems to have jumped in difficulty(Rommel setting). Am I right in assuming the PZII series of upgrades ends with the PZII Flam I like trying to keep upgrades in family for as long as possible but it does feel a little dead-end?

Sorry it took me so long to respond to this, but actually I removed the PzII family from the Flamm. Perhaps this is a bad idea, but basically I wanted the PzII even in 1941 to be potentially useful (mostly because it is super cheap), and I switched the PzII to the recon family by 1942. I removed the family because I was worried about having a super 3-star soft-target killing machine in early 1941, which cheapens the role of infantry. But I can be persuaded to add the PzII family back to the Flamm if I hear a good game balancing reason for it. The price of the Flamm may have to go down to compensate for its huge weakness to enemy tanks.

I want to come out with a new version in the next few days. Changes include

1. Option A: Sdkfz cost 150 to 100. Same price as trucks, but all heavy caliber weapons can only be towed by this unit
Option B: allow all towed units, regardless of historical accuracy, to be towed by both trucks or Sdkfz 7. Trucks cost 100, Sdkfz 7 cost 150. For gameplay purposes, this is more interesting.
I personally like Option A for the improved historical atmosphere.
2. Ju 87B, Ju 87D, and Hs 129B-2 HA +1. I personally don't feel TAC is too weak, but I fear it might be the case for most players. Keep in mind that the buff to the Ju 87B is very, very big (since it will have HA = 6, the magic number for experience). If I do this, the Ju 87 series in 1939-1942 will perform as well as they do in the unmodded game. Right now, they are slightly weaker.

The reason why I personally don't want to buff bombers (note the extremely low losses due to overwhelming German air superiority in the early war):




Date: second scenario of the Kiev path, 1941.

deducter wrote:[…] I want to come out with a new version in the next few days. Changes include

1. Option A: Sdkfz cost 150 to 100. Same price as trucks, but all heavy caliber weapons can only be towed by this unit
Option B: allow all towed units, regardless of historical accuracy, to be towed by both trucks or Sdkfz 7. Trucks cost 100, Sdkfz 7 cost 150. For gameplay purposes, this is more interesting.
I personally like Option A for the improved historical atmosphere.

While waiting on the official mod upgrade, I have already chosen Option A for myself. Most of the bigger guns arrive during Russia, and trucks are too slow. On the other hand, I am getting hysterical over my prestige. I just finished Storming Stalingrad (ended in a loss-almost-MV, but at least units were OK) and Stalingrad Docks (MV with no losses, but only on the second try. And my bold army ran away when they saw Pavlov’s House. They said attacking it is against union regulations and went on a strike). I am getting desperate.

Off course, the above are not very good, mature reasons to choose either of the options.

deducter wrote: 2. Ju 87B, Ju 87D, and Hs 129B-2 HA +1. I personally don't feel TAC is too weak, but I fear it might be the case for most players. Keep in mind that the buff to the Ju 87B is very, very big (since it will have HA = 6, the magic number for experience). If I do this, the Ju 87 series in 1939-1942 will perform as well as they do in the unmodded game. Right now, they are slightly weaker.

Maybe the buffs should only start in 1942? It’s true, that using a Stuka in Poland and in France is a no-brainer. I sometimes have to be careful in the first few turns (since the AI might attack the fighter-defended Stuka, then use another plane to truly wound it) – but after that, it’s pretty easy. Fly – bomb – kill.

On the other hand, I am having trouble using TAC in late '42 and again turn to using strategic bombers more often. There is more and more enemy AA, so the Stukas keep slowly losing experience or become a prestige drain. When they do attack, the damage to bigger tanks is often not significant, despite having +2 or even +4 strength. So the buff here might make sense.

orlinos wrote:

deducter wrote:[…] I want to come out with a new version in the next few days. Changes include

1. Option A: Sdkfz cost 150 to 100. Same price as trucks, but all heavy caliber weapons can only be towed by this unit
Option B: allow all towed units, regardless of historical accuracy, to be towed by both trucks or Sdkfz 7. Trucks cost 100, Sdkfz 7 cost 150. For gameplay purposes, this is more interesting.
I personally like Option A for the improved historical atmosphere.

While waiting on the official mod upgrade, I have already chosen Option A for myself. Most of the bigger guns arrive during Russia, and trucks are too slow. On the other hand, I am getting hysterical over my prestige. I just finished Storming Stalingrad (ended in a loss-almost-MV, but at least units were OK) and Stalingrad Docks (MV with no losses, but only on the second try. And my bold army ran away when they saw Pavlov’s House. They said attacking it is against union regulations and went on a strike). I am getting desperate.

Off course, the above are not very good, mature reasons to chose either of the options.

deducter wrote: 2. Ju 87B, Ju 87D, and Hs 129B-2 HA +1. I personally don't feel TAC is too weak, but I fear it might be the case for most players. Keep in mind that the buff to the Ju 87B is very, very big (since it will have HA = 6, the magic number for experience). If I do this, the Ju 87 series in 1939-1942 will perform as well as they do in the unmodded game. Right now, they are slightly weaker.

Maybe the buffs should only start in 1942? It’s true, that using a Stuka in Poland and in France is a no-brainer. I sometimes have to be careful in the first few turns (since the AI might attack the fighter-defended Stuka, then use another plane to truly wound it) – but after that, it’s pretty easy. Fly – bomb – kill.

On the other hand, I am having trouble using TAC in late '42 and again turn to using strategic bombers more often. There is more and more enemy AA, so the Stukas keep slowly losing experience or become a prestige drain. When they do attack, the damage to bigger tanks is often not significant, despite having +2 or even +4 strength. So the buff here might make sense.

Thanks for the feedback. I want to make sure that TAC are worth using after 1942 and most importantly that it saves prestige over using STR bombers. This is an extremely important goal. I'm okay with the fact that if you want to spend all your prestige on STR that those bombers are the best, but it should be too costly to do that for every scenario. TAC deserves to be very effective in all years, but they should become hard to use due to the increasing presence of the Red Air Force, not because they don't do enough damage.

All years: Ju 87 and Hs 129 ground defenses will be increased. The Ju 87 air defenses will remain extremely poor for obvious historical reasons.

1942: Ju 87B and Ju 87R HA +1 so it has the same HA as the Ju 87D. The Ju 87D has better SA, better range and somewhat more ammo, but is much more expensive. Thus there'll be an interesting choice in 1942, using the cheap Ju 87B/R (which are now decent against tanks) or the much more expensive Ju 87D.
Keep in mind in 1942 you can ge the Hs 129B-1. While its HA of 8 doesn't seem that impressive at first, it is better than anything else the Germans have available in this year. Get one trained up a bit, and in 1943 it is automatically upgraded to a much more formidable antitank unit.
1943: Ju 87G HA +1.

You are not really meant to be able to always afford overstrength Stukas if you don't use them carefully. One tactic can be to have one overstrength Ju 87 and one only at 10 strength. Send the one with 10-strength to a sector where you might expect some losses, and send the overstrength one to a sector where you are confident that no AA fire will be encountered.

Also the Il-4 and Pe-8 air attack will be reduced. It's very silly that I lost the majority of my fighter strength points thus far in 1941 because of the Pe-8.
I'll also make the KV-1 series of tanks nopurchase for the AI in 1942. It's rather silly that they spam that tank sometimes. Better to have it spam the T-34, which is still a very formidable tank.

Regarding Stalingrad: To win DV requires you to have a good reserve of prestige and most critically to have about 5-6 4-star 14-strength infantry to quickly clear out the defenders. At least 2 such pioneers are recommended. You also have relatively good air superiority during these scenarios, and 2 14-strength strategic bombers are very, very helpful to reduce the ammo of defenders down to 1. Also, perhaps you should choose not to break out. Tatskinskaya is extraordinary brutal with this mod. There's no shame in preserving your forces and building up your prestige to fight another day. Because the Red Army only gets better after 1942.

deducter wrote: All years: Ju 87 and Hs 129 ground defenses will be increased. The Ju 87 air defenses will remain extremely poor for obvious historical reasons.

I’m not sure if it’s that necessary for the early DLC’s – French and English AA’s should remain properly dangerous, but I’ll see how it works out.

In Stalingrad – it will definitely help, there is so much AA here. In the Docks, I often had to keep my airforce sitting uselessly, because of those triple AA’s. (My ground forces and artillery was occupied elsewhere – bad planning on my side).

deducter wrote: 1942: Ju 87B and Ju 87R HA +1 so it has the same HA as the Ju 87D. The Ju 87D has better SA, better range and somewhat more ammo, but is much more expensive. Thus there'll be an interesting choice in 1942, using the cheap Ju 87B/R (which are now decent against tanks) or the much more expensive Ju 87D.
Keep in mind in 1942 you can get the Hs 129B-1. While its HA of 8 doesn't seem that impressive at first, it is better than anything else the Germans have available in this year. Get one trained up a bit, and in 1943 it is automatically upgraded to a much more formidable antitank unit.
1943: Ju 87G HA +1.

Glad to hear of the upgrade. I played with Hs a little, and abandoned it in Reserve after some time (it has two stars at the moment). In 41, very often I used tactical bombers on soft targets (artillery, that nasty AA etc.), so I preferred to have 2 less specialized units. I fielded two towed AT (probably a bit too much, cause they are so slow, but save prestige), my +3 Defense Panzer 38(t) became a very successful Marder III etc. – these are probably the reasons for using TAC on hard targets a bit less often.

deducter wrote: You are not really meant to be able to always afford overstrength Stukas if you don't use them carefully. One tactic can be to have one overstrength Ju 87 and one only at 10 strength. Send the one with 10-strength to a sector where you might expect some losses, and send the overstrength one to a sector where you are confident that no AA fire will be encountered.

Yes, I guess so. In fact, I got that kind of specialization by pure chance – one of my Stukas was heavily wounded some scenarios ago and I decided to use normal replacements, thus lowering its experience to 200. The other remains at 14 strength. I guess I should stop applying overstrength to the wounded unit.

deducter wrote:
Regarding Stalingrad: To win DV requires you to have a good reserve of prestige and most critically to have about 5-6 4-star 14-strength infantry to quickly clear out the defenders. At least 2 such pioneers are recommended. You also have relatively good air superiority during these scenarios, and 2 14-strength strategic bombers are very, very helpful to reduce the ammo of defenders down to 1. Also, perhaps you should choose not to break out. Tatskinskaya is extraordinary brutal with this mod. There's no shame in preserving your forces and building up your prestige to fight another day. Because the Red Army only gets better after 1942.

Thanks for the tips.

I sold two captured T-34/40 tanks before Storming Stalingrad and one T-34/41 before the Docks, to have enough prestige for sufficient replacements and overstrenght. (I still have one T-34/41 and a KV left). On this playthrough, I decided to push prestige up to -30% since 1941 already – but I tried not to spend too much, saving it for tougher scenarios. It worked, but I have to say, when Ilovlya arrived, I went on a shopping spree.

I definitely chose to obey orders and stay in Stalingrad. Since I am right now playing this part of DLC ’42, that I have not yet played, I do not want to push myself too far. Through most of ’42 I mostly got MV's and I am perfectly OK with that – it gives me room for improvement in the future.

I generally use a very slow approach, not fast enough to reach end-of-map objectives (especially on typical "blitzkrieg" maps). I’ll have to learn more in the future, of course, but as of now, I am having great fun creating good defensive positions and letting enemy come to me.

Another change I'll make is to lower the AD of many 1942-1945 russian tanks so that TAC can inflict more damage. The main lure of STR during the late war is their ability to reduce the fuel/ammo of a unit and not their suppressive power.