Slitherine

Why can an 88 changed to Anti-tank mode suddenly be enabled capture the same city? (This is a rhetorical question. )

However, the point is maybe it's time to do away with the old tradition of AD and artillery not be able to capture cities.

What is your opinion on this topic?

I always felt that this rule in PG was a little awkward. My personal experience, being an AA soldier during my military service, told me that due to our training having the same demands as any infantry men had, we could perform their duties easily while in fact they couldn't perform ours.
So once and for all lets do some justice to the artillery branch and let them to be able to capture cities.

I would like to hear (preferably from the Devs) the logic behind this ruling. If it’s not much more than “well, PG had it that way” then why was this the rule back then?

I always thought it was odd that those units couldn't capture cities and airfields, but AT could. At the very least, AA should be able to take airfields and artillery should be able to capture cities. Since that's probably too hard to code, I voted for allowing all ground units the ability to capture.

I have no interest in tradition for the sake of tradition alone. I always looked at it as "front line" combat troops: infantry, tanks, anti tank gunners, recon can capture and hold objectives. Corp level, "support style" assets AAA, artillery etc, not so much. Is there no concern that if these units can capture objectives that a player can simply "fan out" with rear rank types to take cities they know arent held, thus making the game a little too easy?.

Kerensky wrote:Why can an 88 changed to Anti-tank mode suddenly be enabled capture the same city? (This is a rhetorical question. )

However, the point is maybe it's time to do away with the old tradition of AD and artillery not be able to capture cities.

What is your opinion on this topic?

I think everyone should be able to capture cities.

I voted 'no' but not because of tradition but because the effects haven't been tested yet. I suspect TheGrayMouser is right when he says it may make things too easy and I agree with his logic about frontline troops taking and holding objectives. No offence meant to the AA and artillery men here.

Its a rule that has no sense.

I think that all ground units can capture flags.
A special trait in the equipment can solve this problem, leaving the equipment designer the ability to do this.

I think the rule makes sense. I doubt a general would send his artillery through a gap in the front alone. They provide fire support from well back on the battlefield and shouldn't be counted as front line strength.

soldier wrote:I think the rule makes sense. I doubt a general would send his artillery through a gap in the front alone. They provide fire support from well back on the battlefield and shouldn't be counted as front line strength.

Exactly. I was just to post this as well (you beat me to it)


How far away are you artillery from your infantry and tanks that it posses that big of an issue that arty pieces can’t take a city?

For those in defense of the tradition, what is your answer to how multipurpose units are able to break the rule? Not just Air Defense 88s, but say an SU-122 in artillery mode cannot capture a city, but an SU-122 in anti-tank mode suddenly can, or a StuG IV for that matter.

Kerensky wrote:For those in defense of the tradition, what is your answer to how multipurpose units are able to break the rule? Not just Air Defense 88s, but say an SU-122 in artillery mode cannot capture a city, but an SU-122 in anti-tank mode suddenly can, or a StuG IV for that matter.

Well, first need to know how in real life history what technically make these units different when in either of the two modes.
Is it the men, training, equipment – or is it just instead of pointing my gun way up there at that plane, I’m going to point it down here at that tank?
And which mode is the “normal” mode? Is as an AA or an AT?


I'm not for the "tradition" argument - but the more "historical" one.

Kerensky wrote:For those in defense of the tradition, what is your answer to how multipurpose units are able to break the rule? Not just Air Defense 88s, but say an SU-122 in artillery mode cannot capture a city, but an SU-122 in anti-tank mode suddenly can, or a StuG IV for that matter.

StuG is a great example.

This unit can not capture:

This unit can capture:


Makes no sense.
If a city is occupied by AD or Artillery, the civillians will not fight them.

Kerensky wrote:For those in defense of the tradition, what is your answer to how multipurpose units are able to break the rule? Not just Air Defense 88s, but say an SU-122 in artillery mode cannot capture a city, but an SU-122 in anti-tank mode suddenly can, or a StuG IV for that matter.

Imho they shouldnt get to break the rules, whatever equipment pool you purchase them from (ie artillery AD etc) should dictate what they can do re objective hex captures, regardless of what mode they can swap into.

I have visions of infantry disapearing from the game altogther, Kampgruppes of tanks backed by swarms of sturmpanzer and stug artillery racing forward , blasting the oppositionn away and capturing cities, lol

On reflection, it may be OK to allow all units to take flags. I don't think it would be good practice but if a player wants to risk the consequences, then let him. Anything towed will likely be vulnerable in its transport when it takes a flag; SP anything is notoriously lousy at close defense; and the only thing truly 'at home' in a city, which is what most flags are, is infantry. I know I'll continue to use infantry to take cities that have any chance of a counter attack. Other options, such as taking a city with an artillery unit, can be 'player beware'.

TheGrayMouser wrote:I have visions of infantry disapearing from the game altogther, Kampgruppes of tanks backed by swarms of sturmpanzer and stug artillery racing forward , blasting the oppositionn away and capturing cities, lol

I understand those concerns. I don't want an unbalanced game, above all.

soldier wrote:I doubt a general would send his artillery through a gap in the front alone. They provide fire support from well back on the battlefield and shouldn't be counted as front line strength.

In the case of AA, which in a certain case is what I know better, our role was mainly defensive and supportive, but I'm sure it depended in the kind of mission or objectives we had. So maybe we wouldn't be in the spearhead, but if we had to secure an objective in the front line we would do it.
Artillery regiments, for example, were used on the Portuguese Revolution of the 25th of April. They were used to capture and secure objectives, just like any other infantry regiment. Like I've said, our training permits that.

El_Condoro wrote:On reflection, it may be OK to allow all units to take flags. I don't think it would be good practice but if a player wants to risk the consequences, then let him. Anything towed will likely be vulnerable in its transport when it takes a flag; SP anything is notoriously lousy at close defense; and the only thing truly 'at home' in a city, which is what most flags are, is infantry. I know I'll continue to use infantry to take cities that have any chance of a counter attack. Other options, such as taking a city with an artillery unit, can be 'player beware'.

Perhaps arty and AAA should be allowed to capture fully visible objectives, but disallowed to move into FoW under any circumstance.


For me, the common use for this is to overcome firing an arty to suppress, moving 2 or more ground units to attack, eliminating the target but with no valid unit left to capture the objective. I believe the arty should be allowed to capture the objective when this occurs.

And now you are talking about preference about how a player likes to play the game – and maybe that is the whole premise behinds Kerensky’s poll.

But by changing this game rule without a doubt would make the game easier to play (and beat). We already have many ways to accomplish that (lower difficulty levels, cheat codes, etc.) But what about those players (like myself) who want to have a more challenging or historical game play? Not that I’ve done the research, but I would venture to guess that you could count on one hand the number of times an artillery unit in all of WWII, from any country, that captured a city on its own. So if it doesn’t happen, then why would we make the rules to allow it?

Many time throughout this forum the answer to questions of “why” is “well, it’s that way because it is more historical accurate.” So PzC needs to decide – are they going to stay with the more historical accurate or now change direction in to the WWII Fantasy game?

Obviously this is my opinion – but I bet there are others that feel this way as well.

Xerkis wrote:Not that I’ve done the research, but I would venture to guess that you could count on one hand the number of times an artillery unit in all of WWII, from any country, that captured a city on its own. So if it doesn’t happen, then why would we make the rules to allow it? )

We should take that premise in the same way as we accept that a player can choose is core army and depart from the historical accuracy. This is no different.

But I favoured the gameplay. If the devs feels that this will make the things unbalanced and an easier game, we should forget and live with the rule.

Yes, it will make the game much easier. Even in MP.

Until we can program the AI to be better, buy better, moving ARt last and shooting, doing mass attacks, driving transports up to the enemy, and stop placing 6 units around every VH before it decides to play the game... leave this parameter alone.