aster wrote:Hi all, just been getting my feet wet in the vanilla campaign and trying to figure out some stuff I didn't see elsewhere.
1. How exactly is Prestige calculated? It ticks up in scenarios - I assume back capturing victory locations and cities/ports/airfields, but what about destroying units? And there seems to be a bonus after a scenario's completed - is this a fixed value tied to DV or MV, or is it simply the remaining count of location-based Prestige that hadn't been captured in-play? Is it worthwhile to delay capturing that final objective and thus extend a scenario, in order to capture more non-essential locations for the points?
Well, income is dependant on the soft cap. This is a mechanism that slowly lowers your income the more expensive your units are. So if you use units that are relatively cheap, you'll get 100% of the prestige that is preset, but if you use nothing but 15-strength Tiger II's you will only get 20% of the values. It doesn't matter how many units you have, it only calculates the average cost of them and lowers the income based on this value. But the difficulty level can bump your prestige income or lower it as well. So that is why any prestige income values that other people quote may be different for you. I will use the 'basic' 100% values on Colonel level.
As explained by the others, there is a fixed value that is awarded for a Loss/MV/DV. This value can be set for each scenario. Some scenarios also hand out bonuses for completing certain missions, like destroying supply depots or taking out a specific target. This depends on the scenario designer, some scenarios are also set up to give you some prestige every turn.
Other than that, conquering a normal city or airport gives 50 prestige, victory hexes give 100 pr.
But this awarded only on the first time the flag changes into yours. If it is re-taken by the enemy and re-captured by you, no extra prestige. In defensive scenarios, you will often start out with cities, airports and victory hexes which are already under your control. If you allow the enemy to capture them and you re-capture them afterwards, than this is the first time the flag changes into your color so you will get prestige for them! I've used this gamey tactic to get a little extra prestige, and also to get enemy units in close terrain where my infantry could quickly take them out.
Destroying units doesn't give extra prestige, unless destroying certain units is set as a special condition by the scenario designer. But causing enemy units to surrender will give you half of their current value (including strength, so it can be very little if the unit has only a few strength point left).
Capturing extra cities/airports can be worthwile if it doesn't cost you more than the income gained. Also, during the Grand Campaigns and Afrika Korps capturing remote cities sometimes gives you a (pre-determined) extra unit that can be kept or sold off. But sacrificing units to get a little bit of extra prestige isn't worth it. I've had some succes in hoovering up remote cities with recon units and paratroopers aided by strategic bombers, but the main benefit of that tactic is that the AI won't be able to use the city to buy and place units.
2. While I realize mountain troops seem to lose their special movement when attached to vehicles, do other troop types lose their special abilities the same way? For example do Pionieres lose their bonuses against entrenchment if they've got trucks or halftracks?
Transports don't cause abilities to be lost if the unit is dismounted, but the dismounted unit cannot move where their transport can't go. A truck can't go into mountains, and this limitation affects the dismounted Gebirgsjäger as well. Any special unit abilities can only be used if they are not in the transport. So an engineer unit in a halftrack won't get any bonus when they decide to attack while mounted. For any combat while a unit is in a transport only the combat stats of the transport are used, which are very poor.
3. If infantry is airlifted you get a message "Do you want to leave your trucks behind?". I get this extends for the scenario, but is the transport re-attached for the next mission or does it vanish?
It vanishes. No refunds, even if you still have the receipt, you'll have to buy a new one.
4. How does initiative work? Unfortunately on the iPad version we don't have the detailed combat breakdown windows or complete documentation (hopefully Slitherine fixes these soonish) so I'm sort of flying blind with any of the detailed mechanics - initiative, terrain effects, entrenchment, etc.
For some info on weather, terrain and movement, see this post and the links in it:
viewtopic.php?f=121&t=50758#p477826
Initiative is tricky to explain, but it is actually a fairly simple system. When a combat begins, intitiative is compared. Let's say you attack with a Tiger I (ini=11), and your opponent is a T-34/43 (ini=9).
For each point of initiative higher than the opponent, 20% of your shots are taken before before the other may return fire. Each unit is 10 strength, this means they have 10 shots (dice rolls) each. So each point of ini advantage allows 2 shots to be taken before the opponent can attack back. This means that you need to have an advantage of 5 points of initiative to get 100%, the point where you may use all your shots before the opponent may return fire, so any advantage above a difference of 5 ini points has no effect.
But the Tiger I has 2 ini points more than the T-34 (11 vs 9), so it can use (2 * 20% =) 40% of its shots before the T-34. So the Tiger I rolls to hit for its first 4 attacks (out of a total of 10) unopposed. Let's say these 4 rolls result in a single kill and one point of suppression. Now the rest of the rolls are made simultaneously.
But now, the T-34 has already lost a strength point and another one is suppressed (alive but unable to shoot). So it only has 8 attacks left at this moment. So the Tiger I rolls its remaining 6 attacks at the same time as the T-34 rolls for its 8. The results are applied to the units, and the combat finishes. The way it is displayed is a bit misleading, because on the map screen the unit with the higher initiative fires first and then the other shoots backs, making it look like it is all-or-nothing. But it is a lot more subtle than that.
So, a higher initiative will give a better chance of damaging an opponent before they can return fire, but if you have low attack strength and are unable to cause enough kills or suppression the opponent will still be able to use all of his dice rolls when returning fire. Initiative is influenced by all sort of bonuses, like:
1. Before combat starts each unit randomly rolls for +1 or +2 initiative bonus; so having a small ini advantage can still not be enough if the dice rolls are bad.
2. Weather and terrain can limit usable ini, for example during snow/rain or when fighting in cities ini is limited to a max of 1. The random dice roll still applies, so it gets messy quickly if you have bad luck.
3. Initiative bonuses are given for experience (usually half a point per star), heroes (max +1) and special unit class bonuses. For example, AT units get +3 ini when attacked by tanks or recon units. An ambush or rugged defense also nullifies the initiative of the attacker.
I hope they update the iPad version soon, the missing features are really helpful when learning what works best.
and instead of landing craft, how about Viking longships?