Slitherine

I've seen certain mods do this, adding the camo trait to PaKs and certain self propelled Anti Tank units.
My guess would be that giving that trait to Paks and those SPATs which don't have a lot of ground defense, e.g. the Marder series vs the StuG series, might make those less armored SPATs more viable?

Has anybody played with that change? Does it work? Does it make those units more fun because they cause ambushes all the time? Or does it play crappy because you constantly run into enemy ambushes?

Edit: As a quick explanation, the camo trait is what the mines in africa corps and other scenarios use. You don't detect a unit until you're right next to it or literally run into it and get ambushed.

It's a great idea to try to make towed AT useful. Trouble is, the AI really doesn't scout well at all- it can easily be baited into ambushes as it is. This would further aggravate the difference in skill between the human player and the AI. Indeed, it would allow extremely small human forces to slow the AI's advances down to nearly nothing. Besides, recon needs this a lot worse than AT- at least self-propelled AT are useful whereas there aren't any useful recon units at all post 1942 aside from the LRDG and Sahariana.

I'm using this feature on certain AT and all recon units in my current let's play. I'd be glad if people watched and commented on how they like the changed gameplay the feature offers and if they think it's viable ot include it as an offical patch maybe to make those units more interesting.

KeldorKatarn wrote:I'm using this feature on certain AT and all recon units in my current let's play. I'd be glad if people watched and commented on how they like the changed gameplay the feature offers and if they think it's viable ot include it as an offical patch maybe to make those units more interesting.

Fantastic video! Love your historical analysis. However, it doesn't show the effect of your camo changes. The reason is that towed AT units can't be used offensively anyways so we won't see what you can do with them until later when you are on defense. When you are on offense and get ambushed, if you don't kill the AT right away you know where to find it next turn. When the human is on defense, you can put a towed AT right in the middle of a forest or mountain road. The AI will hit it and be ambushed. They won't be able to finish it though, due to the surrounding slow terrain. Then, on your turn, you will move the towed AT back one hex. The AI will not remember it is there and will get ambushed again! In this way, you can slow the advance of 20 Russian tanks to one hex per turn with one pathetic little 7.5cm towed AT that doesn't even have a truck!

One other thing- I had no idea the briefings in the PC version were so superior to the iPad ones! Incredible.

proline wrote:One other thing- I had no idea the briefings in the PC version were so superior to the iPad ones! Incredible.

Uhm, if you mean the maps and all that, that's not part of the game. That's what I added for the videos

KeldorKatarn wrote:I've seen certain mods do this, adding the camo trait to PaKs and certain self propelled Anti Tank units.
My guess would be that giving that trait to Paks and those SPATs which don't have a lot of ground defense, e.g. the Marder series vs the StuG series, might make those less armored SPATs more viable?

Has anybody played with that change? Does it work? Does it make those units more fun because they cause ambushes all the time? Or does it play crappy because you constantly run into enemy ambushes?

I'm trying to catch up on the forum after a few incredibly busy months, so apologies for the late reply. Bottom line: after playtesting, I'm not convinced about the 'camo' trait except for a few very specific instances. Although I haven't tested everything yet.

Background: I did some modding and playtesting with the camo mod, but that was months ago. Sadly some issues with my old PC forced me to stop modding for a while and then a busy period left me unable to spend much time on games until recently. Your idea about giving the camo trait to towed AT and light SPAT was one of the things I tried.

It was alright when I used it for light scout/recon units, for towed AT it did not feel natural when playing, and especially SPAT with camo felt just weird. I am still contemplating about giving camo to the towed units, but I do not want to give it to SPAT. The biggest problem is that a StuG is lower and easier to hide than the earlier Marder models, which are just PaK's slapped on top of a tank chassis. So applying it consistently is very difficult. For example, how high does the GD need to be before you feel it does not need the camo trait? You can also simply increase the GD for the Marders and claim it is because they are difficult to hit, because GD is not only representative of armour thickness but other factors as well.

One advantage of the camo trait is that it makes recon units more useful, but I did not like the strange empty hexes in a defensive line where you knew something was hiding. Especially on maps that are large-scale it looked out of place to me. For dedicated, light recon units it seems to work and is somewhat logical, but AT units with it seem to cause more raised eyebrows and frustration than improvements to my gaming experience. But that is very personal, of course.

I did discover that making AT better is very hard, because they have so many drawbacks in the stock game. Of course, the towed AT class became almost obsolete during WW2, and the various methods in making them mobile were not always successful (the US 'TD' concept, or the German 'interim' models). Towed units should be worse than SPAT, and the heavier the caliber the worse it gets. Towed units are cheaper, but not much else. But in the game, AT is not competitive compared to a lot of other classes.

For a start, the towed units are way too expensive when you buy them transports, and the cheaper SPAT's are outclassed by tanks that are more useful and cheaper in the long run because they take less damage. On top of that, AT class has a poor unit selection in the early years, and when they start to improve the tanks often remain a better choice overall. It seems they are simply not economically viable until late in the war (with the soft cap), harder to use and their advantages are very limited; for example their biggest advantage, the +3 ini when they are attacked by tank/recon class cannot be exploited easily (well, by me at least )

So I tried to approach the problem from different angles; to give some insight in ideas I was testing (one of my goals was/is to improve AT, AA and recon classes), the best results were made when I nerfed some other unit types, in combination with some movement/combat rule changes. It is unpopular to make units worse, but it might be the only way to keep things balanced. The best changes I've tested so far:

A new movement cost system (a few dozen movement types, with four types of towed movement), including changed terrain values.

Changing the spotting values: Give all medium/heavy tanks and closed SPAT units (like Elefant) only 1 spotting, but give the light tanks that were used in recon roles (like PzII) 2 spotting or reconmove. Open-topped units (Marders etc.) and towed AT got 2 spotting. The low spotting for tanks sounds frustrating but it makes recon much more useful.

I also did some work on completely reassigning attack/defense values with some homemade formula, as some are simply way off in the stock game. I was still testing AA changes when my old PC started behaving strangely, luckily I did not lose all my data. For AA testing, a primitive high/low altitude combat system showed some promise despite problems I was still working on. I did discover some bugs/issues still left in PzC however...

And I even went back to the old Panzer General system of having dedicated (sometimes switchable) medium-heavy AA units and lighter units that can actively attack both ground & air targets without the need to switch. It worked better than expected, too good even during the early war years, so it needs tweaking. And all this tweaking and testing takes a lot of time...

And I'm sure a lot of players would find those 'improvements' questionable, but I'm not done testing... But with the beta eating all my precious gaming time, it will be a while before I can continue. So those are some ideas as food for thought, they might give some inspiration. If you have questions or need some more details, just ask.

Nice ideas. We'll see how my let's play trying out my changes turns out I'll have to use it one way or the other, at least the the entirety of campaigns. I might be able to change equipment files between DLCs, I don't know, but I'll be stuck with it otherwise So far I like the changes but we'll see how it works out once SPATs show up

KeldorKatarn wrote:

proline wrote:One other thing- I had no idea the briefings in the PC version were so superior to the iPad ones! Incredible.

Uhm, if you mean the maps and all that, that's not part of the game. That's what I added for the videos

That should be part of the game.

ThvN wrote:Changing the spotting values:

I've tried 1 spotting for French tanks in my personal mod. It seems to work quite well and encourages cautious use of tanks in line with contemporary reports. French tanks have a reputation for poor visibility and an overworked commander in a 1 man turret, and there were German reports of French tanks completely failing to spot nearby movements, so it seems appropriate. My cavalry have only 2 spotting (after reading Achtung Panzer I couldn't allow them 3), so motorcycle troops and Panhard become indispensable with their 3 spotting, and the limited off road movement constrains scouting, which also tends to favour defence and limited counter attacks.

As an alternative to adding Camo trait, I'm increasing the GD and AD of the French 25mm towed AT to reflect the small size and excellent flash suppressor which made accurate spotting difficult in real life. I haven't tried this version yet, but it should in theory improve its value when playing French forces, while reflecting the frustration of knowing roughly where the guns are but not accurately enough to take them out easily when facing them. Before I took a break, the portee version of the 25mm was working quite well as an annoying hit and run unit, and with 2* experience and an ambush it could cause a lot of trouble to early German tanks.

I find all the talk of trying to make recon essential by crippling everything else kind of disappointing. Sure, that makes it so you have to buy recon, but it doesn't move recon any closer to its full historical role. What I mean is that recon wasn't used in WW2 because tanks and infantry somehow couldn't avoid being ambushed on clear terrain. Yes, it was necessary for certain tactical roles, such as spotting for long ranged artillery (and I do mean artillery, not tanks) as well as finding enemies obscured by terrain. But recon also had strategic value- finding out where the enemy will attack next and when. This strategic value is gone in PzC because the emphasis on pre-programmed attacks makes strategic recon unnecessary after the first play through, and because recon aren't vast enough to spot an approaching attach and escape.

Furthermore, nerfing tanks does nothing to give recon any of their historical abilities such as speed (current recon have to move forward 4 back 3 each turn for a gain of 1, that's not exactly covering a lot of ground), ability to escape from an attack, or the ability to occasionally hide themselves, particularly among friendly populations.

In conclusion, the way these nerfs include recon is too forced- it is by making everything else lame rather than giving them their historical abilities back. Why not start by making them faster and/or removing the unnecessary recon move penalty? Why not limit non-recon vision through close terrain to 1 hex and expand vision over clear terrain by 1 hex? (Yeah I'm dreaming now, engine changes aren't happening...) Why not give them an ability to evade by retreating from one attack per turn? Make them interesting, don't make other things suck.

Which is exactly why I'm testing the camo trait on them.

That's a good point about how to make recon more useful without nerfing other units - I nerfed my French tanks to capture historic feel and it made recon a bit better as a side effect.

Some ideas that would make recon more useful without nerfing other units:
- make recon immune to ambush
- if they accidentally contact a unit, they are still allowed to carry on moving.
I think that these two effects could in practice be achieved by removing the movement cost of stopping to look.

Agreed. Often you can't even keep recon alive with the move 4 back 3 system, because if they hit a 1943+ tank or AT they die, or at least lose a bunch of health and take a move penalty. So if there are enemies in the area you often can only move forward to the limit of your sight, so it becomes even less than 4 forward 3 back.

Surely removing the recon move penalty would be a small change to the game engine?

KeldorKatarn wrote:I've seen certain mods do this, adding the camo trait to PaKs and certain self propelled Anti Tank units.

Guess I am one of those modders guilty of meddling with unit stats too much

However, as to the discussion, you might be aware already of how complex the matter is. I have come to the conclusion that making a change and being clear about the description to allow for individual change is the only way out, since there is no once and for all solution here.

In my opinion, the main problem is the lack of "true representation" of each unit, meaning no one can be really sure about what one these little icons really represent. And even if that were possible at times, different map scales render any kind of historical adaptation questionable (BTW: Why is it that you cannot blast bridges )

So what do we talk about here, really? A set of abstractions, oversimplified representations, child-like models. And these things are hardcoded within the game. Take the unit traits, for example. How much fun would it be to allow for new unit traits to be individually created, since then the possibilites for modding units could really go full throttle. But in my own experience as a "modder", the static nature of given units traits has always been annoying. For example, the camo trait. Meaning I needed to impovise to get along. It really is a work around, in 80 % of the cases.

So if you think you can solve this gordian knot, well, let me be your guest. But based on my own experiences, you will get 80 %, but never 100 %. So I suggest to think about the weakness you are willing to tolerate at first, since that will be much less work for you. It's a limited game, you know.

I was thinking about blastable bridges earlier today while sitting in a plane (I'm not the pilot!).
First create a structure with the same bridging trait as bridging tanks and bridge engineers have and ensure you give it move = 0, so it stays where it's placed. Blow up structure = no bridge. I haven't tried it yet, but I can't yet think of a flaw in the plan.

Of course you either have to create your own scenarios, or edit the standard ones (after saving the original!).

captainjack wrote: First create a structure with the same bridging trait as bridging tanks and bridge engineers have and ensure you give it move = 0, so it stays where it's placed. Blow up structure = no bridge. I haven't tried it yet, but I can't yet think of a flaw in the plan.

Of course you either have to create your own scenarios, or edit the standard ones (after saving the original!).

This is a nice idea! But as to scenario design, you would have to take into account that the hex with the bridge is "blocked" because no land unit is able to enter another hex with something which is interpreted as a land unit.

Also, it might happen that the bridge can be destroyed a little bit too easily. Since the system would recognize it as an infantry unit with movement 0, but not as a structure. Which means if the bridge would be forced to retreat, but cannot do so because of movement 0, it would be destroyed right away. Thus you would have to "ramp up" the defense stats of a bridge.

If you made the bridge "structure class" it would not be possible to force a surrender.
I hadn't thought about the issue of being unable to put troops on the bridge itself, so that is a bit of a problem. I think you need real modders (eg people cleverer than me who can create purchase mods special unit types and new terrain types) as this one is a bit beyond me.