Should Panthers be cheaper?

[Wushuki]

In history the Panther tank were a big step up compared to the Tiger tanks. This wasn't because they were better, but because they were cheaper. According to Wikipedia a panther cost 117,000 RM whereas a Tiger cost 250,000 RM. They were only slightly more expensive than the Panzer IVs. Germany therefore ended up switching their production from Panzer IVs to the new Panthers.

I find that in Panzer Corps 2 the moment when Panthers become available is always a bit disappointing. You have to wait a long time to get them, but they are pretty much equivalent to Tiger tanks and cost the same. As such, I end up not getting any at all. So the question is, should they be made cheaper to become a true upgrade? Either in slots or in cost? That would cause them to become an upgrade when they finally become available.

On the one hand you could say that this violates the design strategy of the units now, their cost seems to be based on performance, not historical accuracy. On the other hand, Panthers that played a large and important role in the war are a basically a redundant unit now.

What are your opinions?

[nexusno2000]

Tiger is slower though, but not a lot. Has better GD and AD, but weaker HA.

Given the high GD of enemy tanks late war, the 23vs25 can be important.

But really it's pretty much the same tank stat-wise. Tiny differences.

• Tiger I DE Tank 730 7 6 150 Tracks 50 2 0 9 22 23 0 1 25 15 4 Hard TigerEarly 26.12.1942 01.01.1946

• Panther D DE Tank 710 7 5 180 Tracks 60 2 0 9 22 25 0 1 24 13 4 Hard PantherA 04.07.1943 01.01.1944

• Panther A DE Tank 730 7 5 180 Tracks 60 2 0 9 22 25 0 1 24 14 4 Hard PantherA 27.08.1943 01.01.1945

• Panther G DE Tank 740 7 5 180 Tracks 60 2 0 9 22 25 0 1 25 14 4 Hard PantherG 17.03.1944 01.01.1946

[Kerensky]

I wouldn't say no to some price and slot balancing for late war units.

[nexusno2000]

The really interesting question is why do the stupid long 75mm gun on the Panther give the same SA as the Tiger's 88mm gun, a gun more capable of shooting HE shells.

And in general, why do tanks have such very high SA?

[Patrat]

And in general, why do tanks have such very high SA?

My guess would be that tanks have a high shock effect on soft targets.

[Retributarr]

Tank Construction Time-Factor:
The 'Man-Hours' [Need to Verify from Online Source] ...to construct a 'Tiger-Tank' was something like 300,000 hours... verses a 'Panther-Tank'... 150,000 hours. I don't see how this would have any bearing on the Game itself!.

[Horseman]

And in general, why do tanks have such very high SA?

My guess would be that tanks have a high shock effect on soft targets.

Most tanks also carry one or more HMG. These would contribute to SA.

But I agree with Nexus - SA values on tanks do seem a little high.

[scott_mathieson]

maybe an idea would be limit some units in line with how many were built or cost etc. The way it works at atm if your army has access to better tanks it generally means you have less of them. Where as in reality you would retain the amount of tanks generally by only having some of your units upgraded.

So maybe later tanks only cost more in slots if crews are bigger or historically units of those tanks were smaller. But you only get limited amount of them.

Example
Run a core with 4 units of main tanks pz 3s
4 units of support tanks pz 4s

Along come tigers but due to limits
You now run 2 units of pz3s and 2 units of tigers.

Also allows for the imbalance of tigers vs t34 in that tigers were better but t34 more mass produced.

Obviously prestige costs would be much higher but not the core slots so much.

[Patrat]

And in general, why do tanks have such very high SA?

My guess would be that tanks have a high shock effect on soft targets.

Most tanks also carry one or more HMG. These would contribute to SA.

But I agree with Nexus - SA values on tanks do seem a little high.

It's a well known historical fact the tanks could decimate infantry caught in the open, especially before the introduction of man portable AT weapons. . Imo that's why they have a high SA.

[kondi754]

The fact is that the 75mm cannon of the Panther tank had much better parameters than the 88mm cannon of the Tiger I
The caliber is not everything - the length of the barrel is also important, which affects the initial velocity of the projectile as well as the available specialized armor-piercing or fragmentation shells
I think the parameters of the Panther are even slightly understated in PzC 2

However, both of these tanks were extremely failure-prone, which should also be taken into account when setting their ratios compared to other tanks

[Retributarr]

The caliber is not everything - the length of the barrel is also important, which affects the initial velocity of the projectile.

The 'Length of the Gun-Barrel is most significant... as it dramatically increases the velocity of the spent war-head... thereby resulting in a greatly enhanced projectile speed... which then results in an increased "Impact-Force" of the stored "Kinetic-Energy" [F=MA Force equals Mass times Acceleration] of that said projectile that now has a greatly multiplied penetration force/power... making it an extremely lethal weapon to hard targets!.

[kondi754]

So the maximum muzzle velocity of the Tiger I projectile was about 900 meters per second (700 for standard AP projectile), but for the Panther with sub-caliber shell with a tungsten ballistic cap it was up to 1,200 meters per second, if I remember correctly

[fluffybunnyuk]

Sure they should, if someones happy to take on rebalancing all the other late game units...

[George_Parr]

However, both of these tanks were extremely failure-prone, which should also be taken into account when setting their ratios compared to other tanks

I think that is a bit too harsh. Neither were particularly failure-prone when running normally. They had their issues early on, which is completely normal when you rush tanks into battle before you really tested them, just look at the T-34 early on, most crews didn't even know how to use that thing because they were barred from training with it, and that was during peace-time. Once the kinks were dealt with, both Tigers and Panthers were mostly fine in that regard. It was more a situational problem, being forced to push your best forces into action without giving them a break.

The much larger issue, at least with the Tiger, was that it was used in a way it really wasn't designed for. It was meant as a breakthrough tank, used in short and decisive battles to break the line and allow the regular tank-formations to exploit the hole in the line. Once that was accomplished, they were supposed to be moved back for maintenance, and then eventually transported to the next line that was to be broken. They were explicitly not meant for constant fighting. But that's exactly how they ended up being used. Everytime there was a new hotspot in the front, the Tigers were send to fix it, causing them to be constantly on the move, being in action all the time, and many times even moving there on their own instead of being transported. This meant that not only weren't they getting the maintenance they were supposed to get, they didn't even get the regular maintenance other tanks would get. That's what happens when a tank designed for offensive operations comes in at a time where you lose the initiative.

[Plaid]

It seems unit cost is calculated based solely on unit stats, using some formula.
These creates questionable situations, like T-34 / KV 1 having roughly same price or specialist infantry having almost same price, as regular.
But generally speaking there is so much prestige in the game and upgrade families are no longer a thing, people have little reason (besides roleplay and slow modernisation) not to go all Tiger II, leaving tigers and panthers behind.

[Wushuki]

It seems unit cost is calculated based solely on unit stats, using some formula.
These creates questionable situations, like T-34 / KV 1 having roughly same price or specialist infantry having almost same price, as regular.
But generally speaking there is so much prestige in the game and upgrade families are no longer a thing, people have little reason (besides roleplay and slow modernisation) not to go all Tiger II, leaving tigers and panthers behind.

Definitely. Prestige often is not a limiting factor at all, only core slots are. Whereas I would say that it should be the other way around. Players should attempt to cost efficiently defeat their enemies and be excited about being awarded with additional resources. A unit cap should be something to avoid crazy and unintended situations, rather than the main way of limiting what players can field. Now it is just a near unlimited pool of resources that doesn't really serve a purpose.

Of course games like these tend to have spiralling effects, if you start out doing well the game will become easier and easier. If you start out doing poorly the game will become harder and harder. It looks as if panzer corps 2 tries to alleviate this problem by simply limiting how much you can field so that you will always end up with a roughly similar force. I feel the solution they chose isn't the most entertaining however and surely other options exist.

In my eyes the long term solution would be in the direction of expanding the strategic campaign part of the game, in games like X-Com and Total War this works quite well. Did you fail to capture Norway? Less steel for your factories to produce tanks. Did you succeed at taking the Caucasus? Your oil production is increasing and this allows you to field more planes and other vehicles. The similar game Fantasy General 1 already experimented with this in giving you control of the research of your faction. You could choose how much resources to spend on building units and how much on researching new unit types, as well as which types to research. Admittedly, It didn't work so well there by creating a cookie cutter strategy to only develop a few unit types and ignoring the others. But well executed I think that making the strategic part of the game more interactive could work very well.

[Horseman]

It seems unit cost is calculated based solely on unit stats, using some formula.
These creates questionable situations, like T-34 / KV 1 having roughly same price or specialist infantry having almost same price, as regular.
But generally speaking there is so much prestige in the game and upgrade families are no longer a thing, people have little reason (besides roleplay and slow modernisation) not to go all Tiger II, leaving tigers and panthers behind.

That's been a problem since good old PG!

PC2 has made some inroads though, the slot system certainly throws up some choices. I for one kept Panthers around until the end in my first play through, partly because of slots but also because they have something Tiger2s don't have, speed! I suspect I'll keep them around in my current one to, you don't need all Tiger 2s in the end and "quantity has a quality all of its own"

Likewise I didn't go all Jets for my fighters either. In all previous versions I would switch to Jets as soon as they were available!

I guess the only real way to stop getting only the best all the time Would be to have strength point limits for practically everything, so treat all units like prototypes where you only have limited availability but more generous in SP allocation. This could go someway to say there's only so many Tiger 2s produced. But then you have to work out how many sp of each unit do you get, too many and it's a pointless system too few and it would become very frustrating. Interesting concept though IMO.

[kondi754]

However, both of these tanks were extremely failure-prone, which should also be taken into account when setting their ratios compared to other tanks

I think that is a bit too harsh. Neither were particularly failure-prone when running normally. They had their issues early on, which is completely normal when you rush tanks into battle before you really tested them, just look at the T-34 early on, most crews didn't even know how to use that thing because they were barred from training with it, and that was during peace-time. Once the kinks were dealt with, both Tigers and Panthers were mostly fine in that regard. It was more a situational problem, being forced to push your best forces into action without giving them a break.

The much larger issue, at least with the Tiger, was that it was used in a way it really wasn't designed for. It was meant as a breakthrough tank, used in short and decisive battles to break the line and allow the regular tank-formations to exploit the hole in the line. Once that was accomplished, they were supposed to be moved back for maintenance, and then eventually transported to the next line that was to be broken. They were explicitly not meant for constant fighting. But that's exactly how they ended up being used. Everytime there was a new hotspot in the front, the Tigers were send to fix it, causing them to be constantly on the move, being in action all the time, and many times even moving there on their own instead of being transported. This meant that not only weren't they getting the maintenance they were supposed to get, they didn't even get the regular maintenance other tanks would get. That's what happens when a tank designed for offensive operations comes in at a time where you lose the initiative.

Ok, although I disagree, because both of these tanks had a lot of problems all the time, mainly with the suspension and required very careful exploitation from less and less experienced crews
Two logistical issues are even more important:
1.the need to operate all German heavy tanks and tank-destroyers only in the vicinity of railroads, because rail transport was the only possible way to move them over longer distances
2.very small number of appropriate bridges (especially on the eastern front) which they could cross (even with the support of Panzerdivision or Panzercorp engineers ), and there are a lot of rivers in Belarus, Baltic states or Poland for example

[Horseman]

However, both of these tanks were extremely failure-prone, which should also be taken into account when setting their ratios compared to other tanks

I think that is a bit too harsh. Neither were particularly failure-prone when running normally. They had their issues early on, which is completely normal when you rush tanks into battle before you really tested them, just look at the T-34 early on, most crews didn't even know how to use that thing because they were barred from training with it, and that was during peace-time. Once the kinks were dealt with, both Tigers and Panthers were mostly fine in that regard. It was more a situational problem, being forced to push your best forces into action without giving them a break.

The much larger issue, at least with the Tiger, was that it was used in a way it really wasn't designed for. It was meant as a breakthrough tank, used in short and decisive battles to break the line and allow the regular tank-formations to exploit the hole in the line. Once that was accomplished, they were supposed to be moved back for maintenance, and then eventually transported to the next line that was to be broken. They were explicitly not meant for constant fighting. But that's exactly how they ended up being used. Everytime there was a new hotspot in the front, the Tigers were send to fix it, causing them to be constantly on the move, being in action all the time, and many times even moving there on their own instead of being transported. This meant that not only weren't they getting the maintenance they were supposed to get, they didn't even get the regular maintenance other tanks would get. That's what happens when a tank designed for offensive operations comes in at a time where you lose the initiative.

Ok, although I disagree, because both of these tanks had a lot of problems all the time, mainly with the suspension and required very careful exploitation from less and less experienced crews
Two logistical issues are even more important:
1.the need to operate all German heavy tanks and tank-destroyers only in the vicinity of railroads, because rail transport was the only possible way to move them over longer distances
2.very small number of appropriate bridges (especially on the eastern front) which they could cross (even with the support of Panzerdivision or Panzercorp engineers ), and there are a lot of rivers in Belarus, Baltic states or Poland for example

Indeed - even as some of the kinks were being worked out new problems appeared, namely the use of sub standard materials in construction. I don't believe either of the big cats were ever at the stage where they were as reliable as the good old Panzer IV although they weren't quite as unrealible as they were when first deployed.

[Plaid]

I guess the only real way to stop getting only the best all the time Would be to have strength point limits for practically everything, so treat all units like prototypes where you only have limited availability but more generous in SP allocation. This could go someway to say there's only so many Tiger 2s produced. But then you have to work out how many sp of each unit do you get, too many and it's a pointless system too few and it would become very frustrating. Interesting concept though IMO.

In PC 1 West GC was made very good prestige-wise, I played on Rommel and never had more than 2000-3000 free prestige until last missions of winning path, where you receive massive ammounts. That prestige shortage was enough to prohibit all Tiger II kind of core force.
East branch felt worse from this perspective, with all that prestige stacked from early years, it was possible to upgrade and overstrength everything and still have 50000 in the bank.
In standard PC1 campaing and in Africa Korps prestige is somewhat scarce too (again on Rommel).

In PC 2 on generalissimus I have 40000 prestige after Kursk without super-actively saving it. I even give elite reinforcements to auxilary units, because why not.
Flexible command + deadly grasp seems to be infinite prestige mode, adding trophies of war on top is even more prestige.
Its somewhat wierd, how commander traits affect difficulty more, than actual difficulty setting.