Slitherine

folks, been playing this thing on normal difficulty and honestly I do not see how anybody can win this thing, with as stingy as they are with prestige. Time and time again my units get beaten down, drained of points, weakened to the point of worthlessness, and I have no money and tons of objectives to hit, while an enemy air force loaded with seeming endless spitfires lays waste to my level 2 and 3 tanks--an 88mm anti air defense knocks out a single point on a spitfire--and two fighters MIGHT get ONE down to 2 points. Taking out a tank requires artillery support, a Junkers and at least three tanks encircling it for a kill. I activated the cheat function, ADDED six thousand prestige, and STILL could not get to my objectives. I would enjoy seeing a utube presentation of how somebody at MAX difficulty level wins the Afrika scenaros--after six replays I finally won it--but I had to add in 12000 EXTRA prestige and cranked the units up to 125. I find it IMPOSSIBLE to see how anybody could get this done at the top difficulty==obviously the programmers at Slitherine can do it but you would have to know every single move the AI is making and run around him, Im guessing--but when hes constantly attacking I do NOT see how this can get done.
I don't know if anybody else is struggling as much as I am-- I like the game but something about this level of difficulty leaves something to be desired--especially as you have ONE turn left even for a victory and theres always that last unit buried in the objective, usually with dug in infantry, artillery, anti air and maybe a pillbox just to ruin your day. Maybe the programmers can play it with ease-for us po folk downtrodden with high school ejucascheens, we done plum too stupid to figure it out. Hats off to you guys for making the CHEAT function so easy.

thomasp102 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:51 pm . . . obviously the programmers at Slitherine can do it . . .

No, the programmers at Slitherline don't play at the TOP level.
For PzC the Dev didn't put in the Ultimate Mode because they thought it couldn't be done.

But players did it. So they added features to give challenges to the best [dumbest?].

thomasp102 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:51 pm folks, been playing this thing on normal difficulty and honestly I do not see how anybody can win this thing, with as stingy as they are with prestige. Time and time again my units get beaten down, drained of points, weakened to the point of worthlessness, and I have no money and tons of objectives to hit, while an enemy air force loaded with seeming endless spitfires lays waste to my level 2 and 3 tanks--an 88mm anti air defense knocks out a single point on a spitfire--and two fighters MIGHT get ONE down to 2 points. Taking out a tank requires artillery support, a Junkers and at least three tanks encircling it for a kill. I activated the cheat function, ADDED six thousand prestige, and STILL could not get to my objectives. I would enjoy seeing a utube presentation of how somebody at MAX difficulty level wins the Afrika scenaros--after six replays I finally won it--but I had to add in 12000 EXTRA prestige and cranked the units up to 125. I find it IMPOSSIBLE to see how anybody could get this done at the top difficulty==obviously the programmers at Slitherine can do it but you would have to know every single move the AI is making and run around him, Im guessing--but when hes constantly attacking I do NOT see how this can get done.
I don't know if anybody else is struggling as much as I am-- I like the game but something about this level of difficulty leaves something to be desired--especially as you have ONE turn left even for a victory and theres always that last unit buried in the objective, usually with dug in infantry, artillery, anti air and maybe a pillbox just to ruin your day. Maybe the programmers can play it with ease-for us po folk downtrodden with high school ejucascheens, we done plum too stupid to figure it out. Hats off to you guys for making the CHEAT function so easy.

I absolutely agree here - especially with the random generated battles - When I opened the mission editor I saw why - the enemy was getting between 300-500 prestige points PER TURN!

I have found myself in situations where I bombard enemy positions with tactical bombers, artillery, and then attack - only to see my -1 or -2 damage be immediately reinforced the following turn. I keep fighting fully reinforced enemies while my prestige dwindles away.

seriously? I was playing on normal and had so much prestige I have no idea what to do with it and can't come close to spending it. Have like 6000 I can't spend, I had to up difficulty. Never happened in previous games.

I watched some people playing on you tube ... seriously I couldn't take it ... want make me slit my wrist ... they think just dont have any concept of how to use the game mechanics to use units in the correct order. correct unit for each task ..

So for some this game is very easy others that don't yet know it could be very hard..

But I can say for a new player take the time watch some tutorials or look for people on you tube playing that at not saying things like 3- 0 very good oh yeas nice i can put my tank in this river and my arty in front ...

thomasp102 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:51 pm folks, been playing this thing on normal difficulty and honestly I do not see how anybody can win this thing, with as stingy as they are with prestige. Time and time again my units get beaten down, drained of points, weakened to the point of worthlessness, and I have no money and tons of objectives to hit, while an enemy air force loaded with seeming endless spitfires lays waste to my level 2 and 3 tanks

I know this sounds elitist, but it's all down to how you handle the mechanics of the game: too many losses, and objectives seeming way too far away — those are definite signs of flaws in your playstyle. With no other information from you, all I can recommend is to check the tutorial (it does explain almost everything related to the combined arms system of the game), check the manual, play on easy, and switch the time limit off.

One of the advantages of PzC2 over PzC1 is that it's more open about its mechanics: use this to your advantage.

I don't play at the highest difficulty, but maybe I can still offer some pointers. Maybe you don't need them and actually know all of them, then nevermind.

- Use Tanks to attack units outside of close terrain, use infantry for attacks on close terrain.
- Before you attack entrenched units (infantry in cities especially) use artillery to lower their entrenchment value. You can also encircle those units if you don't have artillery by closing off all 6 tiles that border the enemy unit. You can entrench multiple units at the same time this way. Map border counts as supply for units.
- Check whether units get supported before attacking. The enemy often has artillery or anti-tank in support, which make you lose quite a bit of strength.
- Overall: attack with the right units, know which of your units is suited to which task.
- Use some Stukas (at least in the beginning). The french and british tanks are as strong or even stronger than your tanks. Stukas can take out 3 or 4 of their strength value making them much easier to finish off.
- If you can, make enemy units surrender. Not because of being able to use captured equipment (which is useless for me so far, might change in Russia), but because you don't have to destroy all their strength points that way. You can use enemy units to block their retreat.
- In my opinion Anti-Tank and Anti-Air is not worth it. Other players seem to think differently. In my opinion they use up valuable core slots that could be used for more tanks or artillery. They are way to situational (especially anti-air) and they are almost never where you need them when you need them.If you are aiming for quick victories for the bonus prestige you can't wait for those units to get into place.
- The game differs a bit from PC1 regarding to losses in my opinion. In PC1 I tried to minimize losses of my units, even if they were only slight losses. In PC2 (at least during the first 10 missions I have played), my units have much higher losses, tanks often going from 10 to 4 strength in a single turn because I move them forwards. I elite reinforce during missions much more, but still am gaining prestige. Maybe I am doing wrong but I don't have enough suppression available to attack without losses.
- For air warfare, you don't need more than two fighters in the beginning. I don't know whether it is like in PC1 where you need quite a few more fighters later on in the campaign, but for the 1939 part, two fighters are more than enough, especially if you combine it with some BF110s. Those are especially useful, since they can fight enemy planes in the beginning of a map and then bomb enemy forces afterwards. you also don't really need to escort them. If it is like in PC1, they won't be that strong later on, but then you can just upgrade them into some other planes.