The case against recon

[ThorHa]

Reviewing my forces prior Prokhorovka I noticed something odd: I still have a carefully nurtured recon car at 3 stars strength 1 in my core reserve, not used at least for 10 scenarios.

Now normally I am an information junkie, so the question is - why?

And the answer is easy:
1) Too many spotting heroes on all kinds of units, I have e.g. 2 tanks with spotting 4 in my core. this is consistent throughout all of the 3 playthroughs now
2) The only prestige saving way in PC is to move in battlegroups, tightly packed, carefully advancing, rear units first and front units last, making it impossible to run into an ambush
3) All battlegroups advance on nearly the same line always, as long as the terrain is not divided by rivers. Furthermore I automatically close gaps between battle groups with single units, often AT, to prevent surprise attacks in the flank or rear out of the fog of war. Failing that I cover even rear flanks with infantry if necessary to avoid attacks on arty. Frontline units are usually that strong that I don't have to fear surprises, mostly the enemy lines up along my frontline waiting to be picked

All 3 together nullify the need for recon units. Completely. Thus I prefer one slot more with a powerful fighting unit. Case closed.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Dragoon.]

Yeah you're right, since only tight coherent formations (basically the classic pike and bow, where arty and heavy tanks replaced corresponding units) allows you to stand against against the massive Russian armor hoards during the GC with little or no losses, scouting becomes less an issue.

But I found great use for them later during the defensive battles of '44 and '45 because of the scout move ability. Since you can bait the AI to move into specific directions and doing reckless attacks by camping outside a victory hex. Let the AI have the victory hex, next turn kill the defender and retake the hex with your scout but abandon it immediately again. The AI will likely send next turn a unit to take it back.
If you do this with a victory hex that has good close terrain next to it, like forrest or an urban hex, you can even ravish IS-2 tanks easily with infantry. Just make sure to have some high ground defense arty behind them, like the Brumbar to avoid having your arty suppressed and then infantry getting overrun. Oh and this works really great on or next to bridge victory hexes too.

[ThorHa]

In my TotalWar battle set up bows are positioned in front of pikes .

Regards,
Thorsten

[Bonesoul]

In relation to recon units I tend to agree that with spotting hero's and the need for tight planned formations recon units for recon become quite redundant. I mostly use them now because of their range and better survivability at that range than a half track in transport mode. I now the AI tends to leave victory hexed unprotected and so often sneak recon around the side of AI formations to grab free prestige in their rear, their innate spotting allows me to just check and make sure there's not a conscript guarding the hex without risking being spotted.

Not having got to the late war scenarios yet I'm guessing, but the AI's habit of doing this may make this a nice source of prestige to offset the pounding I'm going to take from Massed Russian IS-1/2 attacks.

One thing I'm not sure of is if the double move capacity of the recon unit can be used to pull AI formations in a particular direction, if I move so the recon is in spotting range of an AI unit then use the 2nd phase of its move to move away, will the AI on its turn respond to the sighting it was given and be drawn in that direction, or will it ignore the sighing if the unit is not in sight at the start of its move?

Cheers
Bone

PS: One of my big issues with recon type units in any turn based game is their vulnerability when caught. When IS-2 bump into recon, recon run away, they don't stay and fight to the death. But how do you model recon running away in the AI's turn.

[Bonesoul]

In my TotalWar battle set up bows are positioned in front of pikes .

Regards,
Thorsten

But in total war your bowmen can be set to run away behind the pikes automatically as enemy infantry/cavalry get close!!! Skirmish mode for PzC recon units

Bone

[ThorHa]

Try that against the Mongols .

[captainjack]

I rarely use recon for exactly the reasons given - I have one tank and a Kradschutzen with 4 spotting and one tank with 5 spotting, and I prefer units that can fight.

However, I like the recon move for finding minefields - it's not so much the 1 damage (which is irritating) but the fact that running into a minefield stops your units at the point of contact. Not so good for a 4* SE tiger if it's close terrain and there are two or three SMG or Guard units sitting nearby. Losing a captured recon hurts less.

When I forgot to deploy any units in the lower right corner of Prokhorovka previously, the auxiliary mobile AA unit had survived by hiding in the furthest corner. I'd had a run of bad games and decided to try the other Kursk route. At Prokhorovka again, with one deployment left I put the BA64 from Stalingrad next to the auxiliary AA unit. It had enough GD to survive attack by a KV1C and a conscript unit and then recon move allowed it to slip through the 1-hex gap. I hid it in the corner next to the AA unit to recover. After a few turns it was all clear, and it recaptured the airport and city hexes and helped finish off the AA and AT units when some other units arrived from the left. That's probably my first successful use of recon since 1939.

[Scholomancer]

After reading this thread I'm going to sell my unused recon off for prestige as I agree with all of the above.

It's a one-trick pony; an opportunistic raider than can use it's multimove to scoop up empty victory hexes or to pick off a weakened enemies before retreating. But almost any alternative unit such as a tank or AT can do that as well and doesn't need to retreat. Furthermore, any alternate unit can handle a strong-counter attack if it's caught out. Furthermore, you can't include most recon into a battle group as they are too weak for any serious fighting. Recon is not even very good bait for killzones as they themselves get killed too easily.

I think the main problem with all PzC, AC, and AK recon units is that they aren't slippery enough. In other games (I am thinking of TOAW for the old folks), you could set the units to "minimize losses" and so would retreat again and again to avoid heavy combat. You would have force them to run down their movement points before they started taking serious damage.

PzC isn't that detail oriented, but I think a possible fix is to increase the movement of all the recon for gameplay purposes. I play the way ThorHa does, but the average battlegroup movement is what? 4 hexes? Increasing the movement of the recon units to say an average of 10-12 would allow you to dart out, push back your fog of war and get back under the wings of the battlegroup. It would also actually be useful for scouting out a battlegroup's line of advance. This would mimic the historical mission of the armoured car and be literally a game changer for this underproductive unit.

A second thought would also be to increase it's close combat defence again for gameplay purposes; a single infantry shouldn't be able to dismantle a recon unit in a woods or urban hex. Just some thoughts - still going to disband my recon.

[Dragoon.]

You should play peoples general. That was one good design exsample for scouting. Actually maybe even a bit too complex for the panzer general series.

[ThorHa]

Yeah. With later US recon cars that would be Tiger Is in the PC world. An example for too far - in the opposite direction.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Tarrak]

I have to disagree with you all. Certainly recon cars are not strong combat forces but they are far from useless. Sometimes it's great to be able to scout ahead and plan the movement of your main forces accordingly to the position of enemy troops. Just move the recon car 4 hexes forward, use his superior spot range and then move him back again behind your front troops so it's save.

Another not mentioned yet advantage of recon cars is their ability to plug gaps in your defense lines if the need arise. Yes in theory this can be avoided with careful planing and movement but sometimes everyone just makes a mistake or is forced by the timer to rush things and a gap in your defensive lines can happen which only a recon car with it's high speed can reach. Now i rather plug it with a recon car then let it open so enemy units can sneak past and attack my vulnerable and expensive artillery. Yes the recon may get heavily damage or even destroyed but their are cheap and i usually don't grow to attached to them anyway.

The recon move ability can be used as well to finish off low HP enemy units that retreat back and are protected by enemy Zone of Control. A recon unit can move past the ZoC, destory the said unit and then sneak back behind our lines. No other ground unit is capable of doing this.

Add all the abilities you already listed here before to the list and imho it makes the recon cars far from useless. They are specialist with limited use yes but they certainly have their uses and i like to always have one recon per battle group.

[ThorHa]

Not very convincing.

The scouting issue is a non issue for the best method to advance in PC as explained before. Leaves the "close the gap". One non fighting unit per battlegroup (usually 3) for just this purpose? Well, not me ...

Regards,
Thorsten

[rezaf]

Yeah, recon units are another victim of the way unit limits work in PzC - i.e. every unit, a 5 star tiger or a inexperienced recon car - cost 1 slot, and paired with scenarios pitting you against ridiculous numbers of uniformally powerful enemies, this means it's a waste to go with a recon unit.
I use them early in the war, but by '41 or '42 they lose all usefulness in combat (barring things like attacking trucks and whatnot) because most armored enemy units are likely to one-shot them - I admit that's a mild exaggeration, but then again, enemies hardly come "alone" in basically all scenarios.

There are undoubtedly way to make recon units work in the grand scheme of things, but in the current setup ... yeah, I just stop using them.
_____
rezaf

[Dragoon.]

Recon units are a victim of the primitive scouting rules in this game. You see everything inside your view range. It does not matter if it is a huge and distinctive shaped King Tiger on open grounds, or a small Hezer in the woods. Even light infantry, dismounted in the mountains, can be spotted by everyone, as long they are inside your view range. Luckily the devs said, when this was bought up earlier, a PC sequel will have more sophisticated spotting rules. Until then recon units are just units with sequential moving ability and awful ground defense values, that get worse as time progress versus other unit types.

[Iscaran]

I tend to agree that in comparison to other PG series titles (especially when compared to Peoples General) - scouting and Recon units in PzC are slightly not as usable as they could be.

I think there is only little which would already make them more then good. For example if they could (at least somewhat take less dmg). They dont have to deal more dmg but maybe it could be made similare to peoples general where recons had a kind of "evasive" maneuver for attacks on them (not sure if it was only first attack or all attacks).

This added to the recon unit would be what I think an already sufficient buff to make them much more used und usable widespread.

But as it is now you cant even place a recon somewhere without having to fear it gets destroyed immediately unless either BEHIND your lines (which effectively dramatically reduces its "spotting" ability because every hex you have to "move out" is a hex less you can "return" behind your lines.

Or alternatively increase their movement range by 1-2 hexes - and / or +1-2 view range.

[SSLConf_Slygore]

I think the detractors are forgetting the Recon's 'Juicy target' bonus. I always have the recon at the front lines backed up by an arty. Then the AI always comes after the recce and because of the supression the Reece is usually fine.

[Forefall]

I play without special heroes and with a restricted core size with very limited prestige. Under those circumstances, recon offer a significant advantage. When every single one of your units has 2 or 1 range, suddenly the 3 range matters. With a limited force size, you have limited "actions" each turn. It is very valuable when a recon can scout, pick off a low-life enemy unit, and then cap a town: 3 for 1. Finally, they are also cheaply priced units for their stats and when very tight on prestige, they become attractive.

That being said, playing under normal rules, even on Rommel, recon can be useful for 39 and 40, but beyond is almost always a waste of a slot.

[Scholomancer]

On that note perhaps recon will be more useful for the Soviet Corps. If the developers hold true, most Soviet units have very poor visibility. One or two Soviet recon units may actually be useful, and from what I remember of stats they seem to be more powerful than their German contemporaries.

[Razz1]

It's been ages since I've had a spotting hero greater than one. I can see your point with a +4 spotting hero.

However, I don't like using a tank as a scout. too easy for it to get attacked first.

[nikivdd]

I concur with Slygore. From DLC 40 on, a recon + a StuG IIIB make a good team
A recon is a favorite target for the AI but personally, my battlegroup without a recon wouldn't feel the same. That's why i try as much as possible to have the recon protected by a StuG IIIB or better.