Slitherine

Halvralf wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:41 pm

kondi754 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:34 pm I wrote it once and repeat it now, Bebro really listens to the testers
The truth is that we spend too much time playing OoB and it's natural that the game is getting easier for us
(The question is how to make it demanding again?)

Hmm Kondi , maybe you need to join AWG? (AWG=Anomynous WarGamers)

Good observation...
Right now I've completely put away OoB, I will not play until the next beta test... I'm planning to concentrate now on creating skins and searching for real names of next anonymous commanders

hrafnkolbrandr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:52 am Thank you.

I started my counterattack at turn 12, retaking Fastov fixed the supply issue. Retook Kiev at turn 20.

Going to stop here and wait for them to correct the date bugs on certain specs and units before I play the campaign further.

I started my counterattack at turn 1, holding Fastov allowed me to avoid the supply issue. Retook Kiev at turn 13.

13obo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 8:56 am I personally like the way the DLC was done with a good balance of east and west front missions. To be fair, the endless Russian maps with green ground/air hordes swarming from all directions start to bore me after 3-4 scenarios.

If you got tired of the Russians, just wait till you hit the West Front Scenarios with their endless stream of Aliied infantry and planes that make the Russians seem like a familly of 5! The western allies takes Horde to a whole new level.

That's a good point though not what I had exactly in mind. The problem with the Russian map and hordes is that they all look too similar- end-to-end land with a few rivers, forests, hills, swamps, and that's about it. There's no sea, there's no mountains, very little thinking in terms of where to push your attack from, etc. You just go forward and grind through whatever is sent to you. That's how Russia really is btw so don't get me wrong that I'm complaining of bad design. It's just boring and that's not the charm of OOB- if you've done a few Japanese/USA scenarios, you'll know what I mean.

I am on the Vyazma scenario atm and can't wait to get it over with and Moscow next, because Europe will have sea and mountains that I so missed. Plus facing a mix of Americans and Commonwealth units adds to the variety too.

The scn in the west don't have much mountains though as the play in areas that didn't have much. There's ocean in few, even with ships!

I'm on Anzio scenario. It's february 1944 I've 16 specialisation points but ACQUIRE option is not available and reason is: "this specialisation is not yet available" Even if I try to acquire specialisation ORGANISATION TODT from 1941 it's impoissible. So my question is: WHY IS THAT?

Now I loaded saved game at the end of FESTOV scenario which is JANUARY 1944. And at the beginning of next scenario (NOVGOROD) I could use my specialisation points. I noticed that "timeline" indicating actual year is missing on specialisation screen in ANZIO scenario, maybe this is the reason of this bug. Could you fix it please?

fidelio77 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 4:55 pm Now I loaded saved game at the end of FESTOV scenario which is JANUARY 1944. And at the beginning of next scenario (NOVGOROD) I could use my specialisation points. I noticed that "timeline" indicating actual year is missing on specialisation screen in ANZIO scenario, maybe this is the reason of this bug. Could you fix it please?

Date bug in the campaign branching :viewtopic.php?f=372&t=88492&p=756683#p756683

Finished Novgorod scenario (middle difficulty). Again, way too easy - I completed all primary and secondary objectives without too much effort. I was expecting partisan activity so I prepared recon units in my back to mop them up. Also, a lot of enemy aircraft was advertised so I prepared AA guns as well. I laid down minefields. None of this was needed. Enemy artillery was advertised as well, but only two light howitzers showed up along with two mobile artillery which was destroyed almost immediately. Most of their tower artillery never moved forward.

I took advantage of a lot of forests available and played ambush & destroy with my gebirgsjager and viking units. 4 panthers served as the armored vanguard. Most of the enemy units never reached my main defensive line. All auxiliary unit got evacuated and incorporated into the defensive line.

After playing this scenario, I came up with a neat idea. We could introduce a special bonus objective. In this case it would be to hold Demyansk at the end of the scenario. Such objectives would never yield any reward that could affect gameplay, it would be just completionist thing. Every scenario would have only one of these and it would just show up on the campaign screen. You could tie steam achievements to it as well if you want.

What do you think?

Mojko wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 9:54 pm What do you think?

I think that all the Steam achievements stopped working after the v5 update or so and I stopped caring about them at some point...

Alright, Kiev is back in Wehrmacht hands after 18 turns. To anybody wondering when the perfect opportunity to counterattack is: I found that right after completing the secondary obj to destroy 15 tanks or SPGs is done, you can begin to push. Red Army should yield right away. Begin pushing, move up arty cover and remember that Kiev has a powerful AT unit and AA cover.
Generally, the usual rules apply: Cover inf with AT behind it. Ideally your Stugs (or whatever you prefer) should be set up with flank cover. Do not neglect the north, several inf will attack in waves there. Minor bug: After shooting down the soviet recon, the photo event is a blank.

Novgorod is once again a defensive mission. Since the briefing already tells you to expect a lot of inf with arty cover and preparation, I opt to leave my tanks at home and go for inf, arty and additional Nebelwerfers. With all the money saved up, I can easily swap my core around and expand it when necessary.
I post my defensive setups in the north and south. Notice that I will mine the southernmost approach, move up my Nebelwerfers to cover the river defense line and if necessary rotate shellshocked units later to the rear. In the north, I will support the aux units with my Stugs and inf and retreat them towards Novgorod. This way, I will have ample units to hold.
Later on, the Luftwaffe will join the fight. Remember that the only viable airfield for repair and refueling not too close to the front is in the south. Plan accordingly.

Alright, Novgorod is mine, no losses. The occassional Soviet unit making their way across the ice can be dealt with. As soon as you get air cps, deploy all fighters and a recon plane, hit the supply trucks, boom, done. Key in this mission is - as said before - to leave the tanks home and deploy Nebelwerfers for defense. All about that shock damage.

Okay, I am back in Vyazma and Rhzev. Deja vu, just less snowy and I am on the offensive.
Hoarding all that money is now paying dividends. I am able to upgrade all my Stugs to mighty, mighty Jagdpanthers and my inf to 44 versions with Panzerfausts. I also let some of my Nebelwerfers tag along. Even though they mostly excel in defense, these tubes of doom can also support a siege. I post my initial setup on turn 1 below. Notice that I form several Kampfgruppen of AT Jagdpanthers, 2-3 inf, arty and sometimes a Panther G tank. To avoid getting flanked, I advance on a broad front mostly along roads towards my objectives. I will add my FW 190Fs later on. So far, I have shunned ground attack aircraft and went mostly fighters and recon.

Halvralf wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:39 pm

WarHomer wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 12:04 pm Is it just me or is this DLC not that hard? It doesn´t quite feel like the crucible of the German war.

I play on Field Marshall with an imported core from Panzerkrieg. I´ve just finished the first mission in the west after comfortably beating the Russians in almost all missions in the first try.

My strategy is a bit like Andy´s with a basic setup of inf and stugs/elephants, only 1-2 tanks, arty (longrange and nebelwerfers), 2 antiair and 1 dedicated dogfighter and 4 Me410 (really powerful plane which completely makes Stukas obsolete except against naval and I haven´t seen any of that yet).

I pick my defensive line, retreat the forward aux and just hold on which has been somewhat easy. Pretty basic with not much challenging outmanouvering or the like necessary or even implied.

Maybe too much xp from my imported core...

I play on diff 3 and as I am as I am I have to try all aspects in the first scenario. First time I just went kazoom attacking and that cost me way too much. Second time I deployed 2x Tigers, 2x Pather D and 3 K18 17 and put all the fighters round the bomber. I also put one of the air commanders with a def bonus in the bomber, I had a Stug and some infantry and BOOM easy!! Now I gonna try out Andy's and your way with lot of inf and Stugs/AT and I will report back. A question, how many Nebels and how many K18 17 did you deploy?

Never more than 1-2 nebelwerfers were nessesary and 2-3 K18 17 gradually up to 5-6 (i´m at mission 12 now).

bebro wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:44 pm

WarHomer wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:34 pm A quick fix while still keeping the highest difficulty level "high" could be lowering the amount of xp that are transferred. Maybe max 1,5 stars from Blitzkrig to Panzerkrieg and 2,5 stars from Panzerkrieg to Endkrieg

It's a good idea, but it would have to be implemented extra, so unfortunately not a quick thing for now.

What I added during beta based especially on Kondi's feedback were extra triggers that remove certain aux units in diffculty IV and V so that the player needs to expose core units more in higher levels. I would be fine with expanding that even more.

I think more enemy units would be better/more fun.

With less units some maps/missions would run the risk of enemy penetration that perhaps were never the intention. It would also make it harder to field just a few of the powerful German monsters (tiger 2´s) which would make the game more trivial.

I disagree about adding more units either on player or AI side.

I'm at antwerp, second to last secario, difficulty 5, and the amount of units I have to manage is getting unmanageable. Got close to 100 CP for regular wehrmacht and 18 for SS that I split to 3 fronts. Add to those the auxiliaries and air units too, and each turn is taking close to 10 minutes to play.

I don't see the point of this excess of units that couldn't be achieved by cutting army sizes by 30% or so. Every element that makes the game fun to play could still be simulated- combined arms, multiple unit classes, attacks/counterattacks, feeling of "epic final showdown", etc.

As it stands now, adding more armies certainly gives more gameplay, which arguably is what the player wants. However, in my view, I'd prefer smaller armies/smaller map size/more scenarios for future dlcs of the scale of Winter War.

Edit: cudos on difficulty though! Even though I've amassed close to 3k RP, I do like the constant feel of action that has been created. Unlike past DLCs, the action continues well after the middle and i to the final stages of each scenario, which wasn't the case before.

WarHomer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:13 pm

bebro wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:44 pm

WarHomer wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:34 pm A quick fix while still keeping the highest difficulty level "high" could be lowering the amount of xp that are transferred. Maybe max 1,5 stars from Blitzkrig to Panzerkrieg and 2,5 stars from Panzerkrieg to Endkrieg

It's a good idea, but it would have to be implemented extra, so unfortunately not a quick thing for now.

What I added during beta based especially on Kondi's feedback were extra triggers that remove certain aux units in diffculty IV and V so that the player needs to expose core units more in higher levels. I would be fine with expanding that even more.

I think more enemy units would be better/more fun.

With less units some maps/missions would run the risk of enemy penetration that perhaps were never the intention.

I agree with you, a minimum of units is needed to hold the line.
Instead of deleting certain auxiliary units, it would have maybe enough to change certain auxiliary units and to give units of lower level : Pz IV -> Pz III, Infantry '44 -> Infantry '43...

13obo wrote: ↑Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:36 pm I disagree about adding more units either on player or AI side.

As it stands now, adding more armies certainly gives more gameplay, which arguably is what the player wants. However, in my view, I'd prefer smaller armies/smaller map size/more scenarios for future dlcs of the scale of Winter War.

The point with the player's core is also related to this being a late-war DLC with mostly large-scale battles, and also the third in line with even more CP heavy units avaialble, so there needs to be some progression in CP. FWIW any future Non-Ger DLC would surely start out smaller again.

But I certainly agree that CP for player should not grow out of control with turn times, and management effort needed in mind.

Of course it also depends a bit what players do with a given no. of CP - using fewer CP-heavy units, or lighter stuff en masse.

Fair point about late-war DLC though reducing CPs by even 10-15% (as opposed to 30%) feels already less intense for me. Has there been a similar comment from beta testers?