Slitherine

*Add Horse Transport*

Honestly, this is something that should of been in game from the beginning.

That's one of those things that's easy to say, but can you make it work?

E.g., as much as I like historical realism in the game, there are compromises you live with to get the tile set/weapons/units/etc. to all mesh into a competitive game. So I'd love to hear your views on what the unit attributes/costs would be on those to make them work?

well Panzer General II had them. Question is.. will they add to the gameplay or will all players simply get rid of them fast... a soviet Corps Core is really large (would make sense for that country) and the horse transport is REALLY cheap... might work.

Can see this working, really cheap transport with rather poor movement rating. People will probably not use them alot in their core force, but auxilliary artillery units with horse transport would add alot to immersion at least to me

Horse transport is something I have been asking for forever! I think that they could take Deducter's overall approach used in his mod and increase the cost of the other transportation options. Horse transportation could have a useful niche in being cheaper upfront, and also providing cheaper replacement costs, although at the cost of being slower.

I would also like to see the Panther II as a special "boss" unit the Soviets could fight at some point (mostly because I really want to see the Panther II added to the game!).

Can we up the production value and add cut-scenes in between missions and have achievements? This makes it feel like the game is less generic among the crowd of hex turn based games and all the PG variants. I also like animated vehicle movement than the static 2d movement. I know it doesn't affect game play but more eye candy please!

I suppose you could give horse drawn artillery a leg movement rating, maybe 3 points, or vary it a bit depending on the gun, the bigger guns being slower. It has always bothered me a bit that large artillery pieces in this game are just as easy to move as the small ones. I find it hard to accept that a 21 cm gun's crew can push it at the same speed as a 7.5 cm gun's crew can push it. Granted its hard to subdivide a movement of 1. But at some point towed guns with no transport really ought to just have move 0.

The Panther II is a good suggestion. I would like to see more types of rail road guns added for the Allies. Also expanded roster for Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Finland needs to be added to the game.

It wouldn’t be Soviet or Red Corpse if the Finns aren’t aboard. Wish I could play them instead of the Reds in a Winter War campaign.

Horse-drawn transport is not such a waste if you make it a cheap or even for free. Movement 4 would make it attractive enough for every infantry unit too. If it’s that cheap then it becomes more valuable on the defense if you get constantly hammered by the enemy and units won’t cost so much prestige to reinforce.

Something that is still badly needed is an option to disband your transport unit wherever you are. For example, if you plan to march through thick forests or do a trip over mountains with infantry units, especially mountain ones.

More "fortkiller" trait options, like fortkiller10, 25, 50. +5 isn’t kicking it for railguns or strategic bombers. Lowering the fire rate is no good solution there to prevent such siege weapons becoming tank-killers at same time. A 15-strength conscript unit becomes often more effective then in stronghold and fort busting by lucky dice rolls.

A working "close" trait that lets whatever unit attack the close defense value in close terrain. For example, I’ve though about giving it to towed anti-tank units, so they are more useful when defending cities.

The AI should really learn to use additional recon moves. It hurts to see it doesn't and feels like cheating if only the player is able to do that.

The briefings could be improved by showing the map at same time. You can hardly imagine what the briefing is about if you don’t see where the mentioned cities and frontlines are. When you finally start the mission and see the map, you’ve already forgotten the briefing again.
Fancy animated briefings showing planned attack movements on a minimap would be neat of course, but I guess that goes too far again.

More exciting events during scenarios, like rescued auxiliary units with unique hero that join your core force. Frequent communication with message boxes that tell about reinforcements, immediate attacks, change of plans, etc. would be highly welcomed instead of the typical wipe of enemy defense lines for one victory hex after the other. You wouldn't feel so alone on the battlefield then.

A constant flow of prestige points per turn by HQ can’t really hurt in each mission as long as it makes sense. That would give the impression HQ is watching you and helps as much as possible to keep your units running. In really tough missions and on higher difficulty grades, it wouldn’t get too frustrating then when there is not a single flag left to capture for a handful of prestige. It gets even worse if every flag is guarded by an enemy unit and capturing it makes you loose more than gain. Combat should never become a nuisance.
Alternatively, I would even go so far to reward prestige for defeating units, although giving points when forcing them to surrender is already fine enough.

Oh, and please, please, please make the game accept a modified movement.pzdat file after a scenario during a campaign. Very frustrating if you tweak something there and it won’t be accepted until you start a campaign anew. All pzdat files should be freshly reloaded when starting a new scenario during a campaign.

Horse transport has been available in the AT and AA mod for a few years.
Movement 3 plus they can move through mountains, which gives them a better value. You can move into a dense forest or mountain and unload an AT or Infantry unit for an ambush.

The Danzig 1939 campaign has these features.

It works very well, especially with auxiliary units.

I would actually question this "can move through mountains" ability. Mountain troops use mules for a reason. Horses don't have the security in their steps to maneuver in such terrain. Mules do since they inherited that from their donkey half. Horses would injure themselves, especially when dragging heavy equipment around. You can of course state that "horse transport" can be mules/horses. But That is stretching it a bit I think. I don't think horses should be able to easily traverse maintainous terrain at all. I would rather offer a special "mule transport" only usable by mountain troops to give them better mobility and maybe allow them also for some small artillery equipment so mountaineers can use that to add to their power. But standard horse transport for standard heavy equipment should not have that. E.g. using horse transports to maneuver a 15cm field howitzer through mountains and mountaineer speed? That just sounds totally wrong. The equipment size should play a role so a special transport for mountains should exist and only be usable by equipment that itself can be transported easily through mountains. Heavy guns cannot so they should not be able to get such an advantage.

Just my 2 cents on the topic.

I’d like a unit trait "replaceone" or "slowreplace" to replace/repair units with only 1 strength point per turn like naval units in ports. I'd like to use this to repair huge siege and railway units.

KeldorKatarn wrote:I would actually question this "can move through mountains" ability. Mountain troops use mules for a reason. Horses don't have the security in their steps to maneuver in such terrain. Mules do since they inherited that from their donkey half. Horses would injure themselves, especially when dragging heavy equipment around. You can of course state that "horse transport" can be mules/horses. But That is stretching it a bit I think. I don't think horses should be able to easily traverse maintainous terrain at all. I would rather offer a special "mule transport" only usable by mountain troops to give them better mobility and maybe allow them also for some small artillery equipment so mountaineers can use that to add to their power. But standard horse transport for standard heavy equipment should not have that. E.g. using horse transports to maneuver a 15cm field howitzer through mountains and mountaineer speed? That just sounds totally wrong. The equipment size should play a role so a special transport for mountains should exist and only be usable by equipment that itself can be transported easily through mountains. Heavy guns cannot so they should not be able to get such an advantage.

Just my 2 cents on the topic.

Don't worry, only light AT and AA can use Horses. You won't have a 15cm carried by horses.

Actually, the 15 cm sFH 18 was drawn by horses in two seperate barrel- and carriage loads:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1314665

I still only allow an SdKfz 7 or 9 as transport for it in my game too though. I'm an animal friend.

Something else: I'd like to see ships or at least capital ships defend themselves against strategic bombers. It's so cheap to sink naval units with these bombers while dozens of mighty AA guns of capital ships simply watch.
Oh, there are so many ideas for additional traits. No one should complain about optional features. For example the ability to defend against strategic bombers mentioned above, and most importantly the ability to counterfire, for example for forts vs. capital ships.