Running Out of Prestige

[david.brewster]

So playing on difficulty 2, I went through the Poland/France campaign merrily spamming the "elite replacements" button through each battle and at the end of every battle, and still managed to upgrade my units and have like 500 left over at the start of each new scenario. So far so good. But then I move on to the North Africa campaign, and after Tobruk, I do the same thing and I just barely have enough to recover 4/5 of my units to full strength (using elite replace again). Am I using elite replace too much, taking too many losses, or both? In the harder scenarios, should elite replace only be used on a handful of selected units (and just let the others lose xp)?

[Nalikill]

Mostly taking too many losses. It's possible on Difficulty 2 to clear all the missions, use Elite Reinforcements, and have prestige to spare. Need to remember that entrenched infantry can attack adjacent units without losing their entrenchment, and that infantry perform poorly vs. tanks in clear terrain, and that movement points spent on retreat don't get replenished on the unit's next turn.

All those facts mean your infantry should stay clear of entrenched infantry until they're ready to strike the killing blow, or you'll take grievous losses in clearing out the infantry.

Leverage the clear terrain near close terrain and use your tanks to form part of an encirclement, and then send in the infantry only when the enemy won't be able to fight back - when they're heavily suppressed and encircled.

[Yogi the Great]

Last time I played it I managed to squeak out victory, but I've had same problem on this and some other scenarios during the campaigns. Don't use elite replacements all the time but I have run out of prestige. Very difficult to go on when you can't replace as trying to take positions with virtually all units being strength 6 and less is not fun.

[SineMora]

As noted, the most likely reason is that you are hemorrhaging prestige due to taking too many losses; the '39 campaign has limited numbers of enemies and it shouldn't be too hard to make it through it with few in-battle reinforcements. If you find yourself constantly needing to reinforce in battle you should rethink your strategy, because elite reinforcements by themselves shouldn't cause you such problems.

[david.brewster]

Excellent advice! I paid more attention to how I approached entrenched infantry and that alone allowed me to enter the next battle with about 2,000 more prestige

[Nalikill]

As noted, the most likely reason is that you are hemorrhaging prestige due to taking too many losses; the '39 campaign has limited numbers of enemies and it shouldn't be too hard to make it through it with few in-battle reinforcements. If you find yourself constantly needing to reinforce in battle you should rethink your strategy, because elite reinforcements by themselves shouldn't cause you such problems.

It's very easy to do that though, to just "hammer through".... you only get yourself in trouble in Barbarossa or North Africa by doing that, by which point you don't want to restart the campaign because it feels like you've put so much time and effort into the campaign.You don't realize you're doing it wrong until too late.

It would be kinda nice if the game gave you additional objectives about how many losses you could take in one of those '39 scenarios, or if there was an additional tutorial on "how to clear out entrenched infantry"... since everyone who wasn't a Panzer Corps veteran kinda has to learn that one the hard way.

[SineMora]

That's a valid point. New players risk picking up some very bad habits in the '39 campaign because the AI has so little prestige it can rarely afford to reinforce, allowing the player to win through attrition. This changes abruptly in '41 as the AI begins to aggressively reinforce, and attritional warfare becomes unviable.

[david.brewster]

For sure, the Poland campaign should be easier, but it shouldn't teach you to play in a way that won't work at all in other missions. I like the idea of adding objectives about avoiding losses.

For my campaign, going into Battle Axe with a fully upgraded and reinforced army and about 1,000 prestige (after replenishing and upgrading units). Do you think that's enough to save things or should I restart?

[Nalikill]

For sure, the Poland campaign should be easier, but it shouldn't teach you to play in a way that won't work at all in other missions. I like the idea of adding objectives about avoiding losses.

For my campaign, going into Battle Axe with a fully upgraded and reinforced army and about 1,000 prestige. Do you think that's enough to save things or should I restart?

I THINK that's enough, particularly for the North African route, which is a little leaner than the Eastern Front (particularly FEGGING MOSCOW AND STALINGRAD RUMBLE GRUMBLE). It's less comfortable than you'd want to be in terms of margin but it should still be enough. Make sure you have 1000+ at the end of the Gazala scenario though... you're going to want it.

[SineMora]

Yes, I'd have liked to have a larger buffer, but as long as your core is up to date you should be good to go, with the caveat that I haven't seen the composition of your core. To elaborate on Nalikill's post, Gazala is where the campaign branches -- you either go down the historical path, or you go down the ahistorical path that eventually leads to victory for Germany. To unlock the latter you need to complete the optional objectives in the battle and pay an amount of prestige afterwards; I'm not sure how much, but on General it's 3000, so probably slightly less.

[Nalikill]

Yes, I'd have liked to have a larger buffer, but as long as your core is up to date you should be good to go, with the caveat that I haven't seen the composition of your core. To elaborate on Nalikill's post, Gazala is where the campaign branches -- you either go down the historical path, or you go down the ahistorical path that eventually leads to victory for Germany. To unlock the latter you need to complete the optional objectives in the battle and pay an amount of prestige afterwards; I'm not sure how much, but on General it's 3000, so probably slightly less.

0/1000/3000/5000/10000 is the scaling if I remember right.

[Mojko]

My advice is to avoid using Reifnrocements during the battle. Did you know that reinforcements during the battle are much more expensive compared to the deployment phase? It also slows you down because the reinforcements come in suppressed. I pushed it even harder and took the delayed reinforcements weakness which prevents you from using reinforcements during battle altogether. I play on middle difficulty (3). I'm swimming in prestige because of that (about 23 000 before Caucasus scenario - also playing North Africa campaign). Prestige is not a factor for me - I always reinforce all my units with elite replacements.

[gunnergoz]

Real armies, especially WW2 ones, were not composed of "all elite" experienced forces but rather a mix of veterans, raw recruits, in-betweens, a few elite units, and still fewer "overstrength" elite monster units (e.g. Grossdeutchland or Hermann Goering divisions.) I sometimes enjoy playing in a way that simulates this by using regular reinforcements for most units and elite for the few elite units that I want to eventually grow into overstrength monster units that will be my Thor's Hammer on the toughest nuts the enemy offers up for me to crack. This means I don't upgrade all units' equipment equally but instead focus on upgrades for the elites, then if prestige allows, the ordinary units. Playing this way has challenges as you try to make do with ordinary units on much of the map, while preserving your elites for the main thrust and major objectives for that particular scenario.

[ErissN6]

Yes, that' a newb' trap, what to disgust them and uninstall the game and never again buy a PanzerCorp game.

Giving much at first is okay if it is warned that's the most important in the game as a tutorial true scenario.
History sure may help for this, but for the following scenarios we're still in a game, where gameplay is far more important.

[david.brewster]

Thanks for the advice in this thread. It's been quite useful, and I'm now making it through the end of the North Africa campaign with about 3000-5000 prestige in the bank after each mission. Having a lot of fun with this game.

[PoorOldSpike]

Sorry if I missed the answer to this question, but does the AI pump Elite or non-Elite prestige replacement points into its units?
Also, do you guys use Els or Non-Els points or a mix of the two?

[SineMora]

Sorry if I missed the answer to this question, but does the AI pump Elite or non-Elite prestige replacement points into its units?
Also, do you guys use Els or Non-Els points or a mix of the two?

The AI doesn't use elite replacements, so it's a lot more economical with its prestige than most players. I tend to use elite all around, with the exception of the poor Storch as it's liable be shot down at some point anyway. My losses are generally modest, though.

[PoorOldSpike]

The AI doesn't use elite replacements..

Thanks, and that raises the question as to whether we human players should restrict ourselves to using non-elite reps too in the interests of a level playing field, so that we don't get an unfair advantage?

[Nalikill]

The AI in a lot of missions outnumbers you overwhelmingly, with equal or superior armor in some missions, and starts with all its forces pre-positioned in nearly perfect locations in later missions.

It also doesn't carry troops over mission to misison - if it uses green reinforcements, it'll still get a free 4-star Red Guards unit in the next battle anyway.

The ability to pay shedloads of money to keep some XP on our troops is only fair in my mind. If the AI actually carried over XP battle to battle like we do I might agree with you but it doesn't.

[PoorOldSpike]

..The ability to pay shedloads of money to keep some XP on our troops is only fair in my mind..

Thanks, and that brings me to another question-
Which unit will fight better, a unit with say 6 elite strength points, or a bigger unit of say 9 non-elite strength points?
In other words, why spend expensive elite points to raise a units strength by a small amount when we might just as well spend a lot of non-el points to raise its manpower by a larger amount to make it a big beefier unit?
(Maths was never my strong point because I'm a wargamer not an accountant..)