Experience caps

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:34 am

While going back and playing some custom Pg2 campaigns, I found myself wishing I could change the experience cap.
For example, nearing the end of a 20 or 30+ scenario campaign, I'm inundated with 5 star 15/15 units, and of course the enemy is almost entirely made up of 5 star 15/15 units.

Fighting equal experience enemies isn't what I'm complaining about, but the idea that I could never really expand my core, because any new purchase would be a 0 star 10/10 fighting 5 star 15/15 units. So I would end up spending all of my prestige upgrading and over-strengthening my units instead of using my prestige to buy more units and expand my core.

Instead of a more 'realistic' unit like a few tigers, several panthers, multiple panzer IVs, and some assault guns to round it out, I seem to just have 6 5 star, nearly invincible king tigers.

Just an idea, but I think there would be more custom campaign flexibility if you had an option to set an 'experience' cap. For example, if you play a 20 scenario campaign where your units can never reach 3 star (and neither can the enemy) to expand your core you have to add more units rather than upgrading and over-strengthening a small amount of super elites.

So you buy lots of units, but when new panthers become available in 1943, you probably won't have enough prestige to upgrade every single tank to a panther, so you end up only choosing your best tanks to be panthers, such as units with leaders, while your other units will have to wait to get their upgrades. This way your unit will more likely have a good variety of equipment, not all the best, plus it encourages the purchasing of brand new units that can actually have a chance to compete.

For example, when you play blitzkrieg, you rarely ever buy an ATG. It's not a good offensive unit when you're campaigning in Poland, France, and Russia. Later on when jadgpanthers come out, you're probably going to need some of them for late war scenarios, except you have to buy a fresh unit because you didn't level up a 5.0cm gun early in your campaign, and now it can't compete against some of the 3+ star enemies you're encountering late in the campaign.

Of course some people prefer a small amount of super elite units, but if the experience cap was an option, it would give campaigns much more flexibility. Seriously though, in some of these custom campaigns, what people do is add like 50+ auxiliary units to the battlefield, to give the player their huge battle anyways. If a player wants a huge campaign, this experience cap would facilitate that a lot better than simply providing all those auxiliary units.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:19 pm

So I would end up spending all of my prestige upgrading and over-strengthening my units...

Well, you generally should be doing that as a rule of thumb anyway....

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:19 pm

I have some good new here: experience cap is implemented in PanzerCorps, and it can be set for each scenario individually. So, you can limit exp to 1 star in the first two scenarios, then to two stars in the next two etc., if you want. Experience of newly-purchased units is also configurable on a per-scenario basis.

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:03 pm

Damn, that's fantastic. I may actually use prototype units instead of immediately disbanding them for more prestige.

And Obsolete, I agree, but if you only make your units more elite, and never increase the size of your core, there's a problem if you simply don't have enough units because you can never train up a new one.

dks · Post by **dks** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:15 pm

hey Rudankort,

real glad to see this uber stopping add in. still leaves room for newbies to enjoy those 599 point monsters.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:54 pm

dks wrote:hey Rudankort,

real glad to see this uber stopping add in. still leaves room for newbies to enjoy those 599 point monsters.

I dont undertsand this "uber" talk, especially for newbies?

My experinace in PG was if you did really well, kept your core intact you could get a decent size force by mid game, a good amount(but not all) being of 4-5 star units... Crom help you though if you botched a scenario or lost a couple. The other route was not upgrading and having larger forces of lower quality...
I also like the overstrengthing of units It cost a lot but the ai seemd to love to nail those units which hurt, since it took a long time to get those 5 stars up to 15 strength points .

Anyway , i guess i just dont understand limiting peoples "strategic options" Ie small uber force , medium force of some high caliber or large low quality force. All had strengthes and weaknesses in the campaigns and gave quite a bit of variety.

If you feel a play style makes a game too easy for you, just dont play that way:)

dks · Post by **dks** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:43 pm

hey THeGrayMouser,

essentially we agree. problem with PG was that your units could reach 599 points experience and walk right over the AI. a 599 points Tiger I or especially a Panther G just waltzed any where it wanted to on the map. fun but not much of a challenge for the experienced player. now PzC gives everyone a chance at what they would like the challenge to be without adding tons of prestige to the AI. prestige was another problem of PG. a player just gets way too much in PG. you could upgrade at leasure to the best equipment almost any time after France. soon prestige was no concern at all.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 12:57 am

dks wrote:hey THeGrayMouser,

essentially we agree. problem with PG was that your units could reach 599 points experience and walk right over the AI. a 599 points Tiger I or especially a Panther G just waltzed any where it wanted to on the map. fun but not much of a challenge for the experienced player. now PzC gives everyone a chance at what they would like the challenge to be without adding tons of prestige to the AI. prestige was another problem of PG. a player just gets way too much in PG. you could upgrade at leasure to the best equipment almost any time after France. soon prestige was no concern at all.

Yes , I do recall having all my infantry upgraded to Pioneers (best attack values and ignore entrenchments) i also recall with some fondness of overstrength 5 star tigers evaporating a full strength Soviet infantry unit in one hit

As long as caps etc can be tweaked in a way that as a player you have choices (ie the settings before you start a campaign) i will likly enjoy any changes.

Obsolete · Post by **Obsolete** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:22 am

...problem with PG was that your units could reach 599 points experience and walk right over the AI.

I'm not sure why you cap the exp at 599. The exp limit in PG2 was limit-less, you could have a 27-bar unit even, the problem is the GUI stopped indicating bars once you broke 500. But this wasn't TOO much a problem since you just had to divide Exp/100 to figure out where you were...

Oh yes, and DON'T reload! I think that was the best counter-cheat ever.