Recruit vs. Improve

[desert dawg]

I have to admit I'm losing a lot of games to the turn counter. By the way I'm playing the first campaign on easiest. I noticed that I was able to buy one very nice unit and improve about 3 or 4 core units in between scenarios. But, again, I'm not making to the end before the victory counter expires. So, now, I'll try just improving the core that I start off with and forget about increasing my core size for a few scenarios. Any advice between the too??

[Obsolete]

Since it is quite possible to win every scenario on the hardest setting, for a brillian victory, I think the main problem is how you are handling your strategy. Seems to me you are probably not PUSHING your victory enough.  I suggest, try and make EVERY action count.  Have you ever tried the PG series by chance? 

[desert dawg]

Actually, I still have PG3 and PeGWW2 on my hard drive and I love them. I think you may be right about not pushing hard enough for the victory positions. When I push hard I find that a lot of my units are too spread out or get killed due to not refitting them. But, back to the question, in the beginning should I be trying to enlarge my core, upgrade my core to better equipment or both. If I'm choosing I think it should be both enlarging and upgrading the specialized core group (i.e. arty, recon, AA, and the likes and not so much inf and arm).

[Erik Rutins]

I always start by upgrading, though not necessarily to the max, and then follow that up by adding some additional air and artillery as resources become available, so that I can better support two directions of attack.

[Obsolete]

I am always in big favour of the upgrade in most situations... since upgrades retain exp.

[willgamer]

I'm only playing on the middle difficulty (officer?), but I do have a string of brilliant victories in the first 4 Barbarossa campaign scenarios.

Some ideas that work for me:

1. If possible, avoid replacements in units that have been knocked down to a 1 or 2 since they will be refilled for free between scenarios.

2. Mobility is often a game changer, so try to add halftrack transports to your infantry and arty asap.

3. Do improve tanks and especially fighters to the best unit available.

4. In most scenarios you will mostly encounter infantry; consider at least one infantry killing upgrade for most units.

HTH!

[sliver_bullet]

I don't have the game yet but I do think that upgrading  your core unit should be given priority  , a smaller but more powerful forces will be better 

You need to focus on the main objective , some times we get side track by unnecessary target , learn to let go smaller gain for the bigger objective

Every move must have an objective , every unit must be part of bigger plan

Set turn target for each objective to be capture ......

Just my little knowledge of PG warfare [;)]

[brianlala]

I've always bought a stug antitank unit in between the first and second scenarios for 300 resource points (or upgraded that anti-gun to a stug for 160 resource points (I believe) in between the first and second scenarios and found that one unit to be a big help. It has excellent soft and hard attack values. If you upgrade your PzII to a PzIV (with its best-in-class soft attack values) then you will have a great infantry basher as well.

I second that other person's suggestion to NOT re-fit units that have been knocked down to their last 1-3 strength points. Re-fitting units in the middle of a scenario is incredibly expensive and is done for free at the end of a scenario. The less re-fitting you do in a scenario, then the more resource points you will have to upgrade or buy new core units.

On the first scenario it should be fairly easy to get a brilliant victory after some tries on Officer (medium difficulty level). Split your force in two (they actually start split up) and have the infantry units take the bridge and advance north to that city. Have your tanks and that one recon scout take that first town victory hex on the right and then move on to the bridge. After taking that first town on the right, you can then peel off one of your weaker tanks (I circled it in red. It is a PzII i believe) to support the infantry advance up north.

If you are using artillery or air support, always do the artillery or air support mission before attacking with the ground unit rather than the other way around. That is a needlessly costly mistake that I often make. So for example, on mission 1 in the Operation Barbarossa campaign, start off by using your fighter to attack the Russian infantry unit on the bridge. Then use that artillery unit to bombard the infantry unit and finally start attacking with your infantry units. You should be able to eliminate this russian unit and have all your infantry across the bridge by the end of turn one. Here a picture showing how far you should be able to get with your infantry group on turn one.

Notice how my artillery unit is across the bridge and in range to bombard that anti-tank gun for turn 2. You can attack and then wait to move your units for later in the turn if you haven't noticed this already. I don't think you could do this in PG1 although maybe you could in PG2 or 3 (I forget). That is another helpful trick I've been taking advantage of.

I'll also point out that there are many ways to do the scenarios. I have taken an all-out blitz strategy for most of the campaign scenarios (in the operation barbarossa campaign) with the idea that the higher losses I take (and more costly re-fits) will be made up for with more resource points by getting "brilliant" victories and taking more non-essential victory hexes (which also often provide resources).

A more conservative strategy could be to aim for normal victories, which would allow you more time to soften up opponents, do more scouting before attacking, and result in reduced need to re-fit units. This comes at the cost of less resource points for a normal victory as compared to a brilliant victory. I try to let the scenario introduction dictate which strategy I'll use.

[Obsolete]

1. If possible, avoid replacements in units that have been knocked down to a 1 or 2 since they will be refilled for free between scenarios.

During the beta I was tempted to make a suggestion to add in some sort of penalty to avoid this exploit.  However, since it's somewhat become a standard tactic amoungst the GP series, and I felt General was hard enough, I didn't bother.

I still wonder if maybe I should have put in that suggestion.

[brianlala]

I don't think you'd need to add in a penalty for this (aside from maybe an experience point penalty). The game sounds hard enough as it is for most players and those looking for more challenge can always try the harder difficulty levels.

[Obsolete]

Yes, but technically, we could have made the game a little bit easier to make up for the difference.  But it somehow feels like.... we'd be missing out on some lacking strategy by doing so.

[Wolfe1759]

ORIGINAL: Obsolete

1. If possible, avoid replacements in units that have been knocked down to a 1 or 2 since they will be refilled for free between scenarios.

During the beta I was tempted to make a suggestion to add in some sort of penalty to avoid this exploit.  However, since it's somewhat become a standard tactic amoungst the GP series, and I felt General was hard enough, I didn't bother.

I still wonder if maybe I should have put in that suggestion.

I think it plays fine as it is given that at 1-2 strength points left you are not going to be using it in combat and if you do or if gets in range of an opposing unit it will probably be destroyed outright. In effect it simulates a shattered unit that is no longer combat effective in anything other than a last ditch defense or take ground at all costs attack.

[vonRocko]

Thanks for the great advice guys. I am a PG vet. But this game is a little tough for me. I am not complaining, I am glad it is. It seems one mistake and you blow your chances to win. Since I know PG, I thought I would breeze through this. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Hanal]

Also, you need to stagger your ammo/fuel supply refills among your units....a real turn killer is to suddenly find that too many of your units run out of fuel/ammo at the same time so your offensive stalls.....keep a close eye on your units supplies and replenish a few per turn, when they start getting low....dont wait until they completely run out!

[henri51]

Everyone is forgetting the most important Panzer General tips (you can find some on the web). Assuming that the game plays like Panzer General, here are some of the most important tactics (I only got the game yesterday and got my ass handed to me because I had forgotten how to play PG - my memory came back overnight).

1) Always protect your bombers with a fighter, otherwise you will lose them in the first few moves. The fighter will attack enemy fighters trying to kill the bomber.

2) When attacking cities, usually kill the adjacent artillery units first, usually with tanks.

3.If there are AA units defending the city, dont attack the city with planes until you kill the AA (usually with infantry).

4) Dont send your recon units into the teeth of the enemy: leave them enough points to turn around after they spot the enemy to scoot to freedom. Recon units are not blitzing units, but they have a long range of vision.

5) Try not to stop your embarked units (infantry and artillery) adjacent to enemy units, where they can take heavy damage if attacked. Infantry units can move before they attack, and artillery can attack from 2 hexes or more away.

6. Finally dont move a unit in the teeth of the enemy only to notice on the next move that it is out of ammo and movement points and that it can neither attack nor move away.

7. Use units for what they are best at: artillery mostly against infantry, tank killers against tanks, infantry against AT units, etc. Right click on your units to see what they are best at killing and defending against. And dont try to kill en entranched Tiger II with a Pz II....[:'(]

Finally, expect to lose most scenarios the first time you play them. [8D]

Henri

[micha1100]

ORIGINAL: henri51
...
2) When attacking cities, usually kill the adjacent artillery units first, usually with tanks.

3.If there are AA units defending the city, dont attack the city with planes until you kill the AA (usually with infantry).
...
7. Use units for what they are best at: artillery mostly against infantry, tank killers against tanks, infantry against AT units, etc.

Actually, the way the game plays now it is best to use tanks for everything. Unlike in Panzer General I cannot think of anything that tanks do worse than other units. If you use tanks to attack and capture cities you can pretty much ignore any enemy artillery or AA units, especially as those never move anyway.

[Ronald Wendt]

Hello,

ORIGINAL: micha1100
Actually, the way the game plays now it is best to use tanks for everything. Unlike in Panzer General I cannot think of anything that tanks do worse than other units. If you use tanks to attack and capture cities you can pretty much ignore any enemy artillery or AA units, especially as those never move anyway.

Which difficulty did you play with ? Have you already gone through all three campaigns ?

Tanks should be much harder to maintain as they are usually more expensive concering reinforcement. In addition many of them run out of fuel easily and get stuck on the way to brilliant victories.
Still my personal experience of the game was that a good mix of forces was much more successful than any monoculture attempt.

But which experience did other player have ? Do others share micha1100's experience ?

[micha1100]

ORIGINAL: Ronald Wendt
Which difficulty did you play with ? Have you already gone through all three campaigns ?

Tanks should be much harder to maintain as they are usually more expensive concering reinforcement. In addition many of them run out of fuel easily and get stuck on the way to brilliant victories.
Still my personal experience of the game was that a good mix of forces was much more successful than any monoculture attempt.

I have played all three campaigns, the first two as "Officer" and the last as "General". In the first two campaigns I had, iirc, brilliant victories in all but one scenarios. In the third I had achieved only one brilliant victory. The limited mobility of the tanks certainly had an influence there. But I'm not sure how a mixed force could have done better. What use is it to send infantry and artillery units in their transports ahead when they won't be able to achieve much except being decimated by enemy units the happen to meet?

Perhaps I'm not playing the game correctly. If someone can show me how to gain brilliant victories in campaign 3 with a mixed force I'm perfectly willing to learn but my own experience so far is that infantry on its own is not very effective and when used next to tanks I had almost always wished I had another tank instead. Of course tanks are more expensive but in many scenarios I haven't bought any replacements anyway.

Btw two weeks ago I had created a thread where I posted some personal opinions about things I believe are suboptimal so far. If you have the time I'd very much appreciate to hear your comments. Perhaps I have misundestood some things or they were deliberate design decisions?

[Ronald Wendt]

Hello,

first of all its nice to see you have such a deep interest in our game. In this post i integrated all posts of you i thought being relevant.

Now want to imply that our game is a game first and then a simulation. We tried to be accurate in many things e.g. the maps(locations,distance, terrain)/Scale/OOBs/time line/mission targets. Also there are only few scenarios atm. that have targets the attacking side did not reach historically. Whenever realism interacted with the flow of the game we always chose the alternatives we felt were more fun to play.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
I have played all three campaigns, the first two as "Officer" and the last as "General". In the first two campaigns I had, iirc, brilliant victories in all but one scenarios. In the third I had achieved only one brilliant victory. The limited mobility of the tanks certainly had an influence there. But I'm not sure how a mixed force could have done better.

The with increasing difficulty the resources are much more in the focus. Thus your tank forces are often more expensive to maintain. So what use is a 5 Point tank division when you can refill two Infantry divisions that than have more attacks with the same amount of resources ? This question is only of interest if the resources are limited, of course. So on "leutnant" and "officer" this usually is not an important question. So if you can repeat your experience while playing the first two campaigns on diffult, then we might have overseen a gap in the balancing during our QA.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
What use is it to send infantry and artillery units in their transports ahead when they won't be able to achieve much except being decimated by enemy units the happen to meet?

To answer this, one had to know much more about the all in all situation. Artillery is of course not made for direct encounters. Also transports should be used carefully to avoid heavy damage - but thats quite natural and not a design mistake imho. Maybe you leftout details?

ORIGINAL: micha1100
Perhaps I'm not playing the game correctly. If someone can show me how to gain brilliant victories in campaign 3 with a mixed force I'm perfectly willing to learn but my own experience so far is that infantry on its own is not very effective and when used next to tanks I had almost always wished I had another tank instead. Of course tanks are more expensive but in many scenarios I haven't bought any replacements anyway.

Well in Operation Blau you already got a mixed force and you usually don't have too many resources to build significant new units.
Getting all brilliant victories is really much more depending on the right division of forces and good resource management. "Brute Panzerforce" won't help here. But this should be true with the other campaigns on hard, too (see above)

ORIGINAL: micha1100
In the last few days I have played the Barbarossa campaign until I reached the outskirts of Moscow. Then the historical note told me this was the farthest the Germans ever came, and the game brought me back to the main menu.
So the campaign ends there? No scenario where I can try to take Moscow? I know the Germans didn't manage that, but come on, I have won brilliant victories in all scenarios and still don't get the chance to improve the original outcome? This was really an anti-climax for me.

When i made the campaigns tried to recreate the historical course of each campaign. I never chose battles that were lost by the nation that is played in the campaign. So what you get is pretty much the key battles and the way the armies had to go during those campaigns. I also tried to recreate the difficulties that the armies were facing. Thus there is a great influence of weather, resources and the distance on the maps.
I am sorry if that did not work for you.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
I have bought this game and do like it so far, but I noticed several things that to a greater or lesser extent limit the fun I am having (some have already been mentioned in other threads):

1.) Unlike in PG, OB doesn't seem to place much emphasis in combined arms warfare. Tanks can do everything (except cross rivers), it seems. I think an army consisting exclusively of tanks would still be very efficient. I'm not sure if this is a good thing.

My experience with PG is different, "tank rushes" worked quite wll for me in PG & PG2.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
2.) The scenarios often seem to pose more logistical than military problems. Usually the farther victory locations are only lightly defended, but far away. The only way to secure a brilliant victory is often to absolutely ignore opposing units and march on as quickly as possible. This is, however, easily done as the enemy's units tend to run around in circles on unimportant terrain instead of counterattacking or falling back to save the still-unconquered victory locations.

While reading about the battles in the East i came to the conclusion that indeed weather and logistics were very important. These are military problems. I think you mean not everything is solved by battles, which is true.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
3.) The AI absolutely refuses to re-take victory locations. I even made a test where I volutarily vacated a victory hex with an opposing unit directly next to it. So in the AI's turn it could have re-taken the victory location just by moving one unit one hex unopposedly. It didn't do it, instead moved the unit off to search something in the forests.

This is indeed odd and not quite intended.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
4.) Fuel and ammunition seem to be much too expensive in relation to the unit prices. For example armoured infantry carriers cost 40 resources, and it also costs 40 resources to fill them up with fuel, which is obviously ridiculous.

This is obviously ridiculous but necessary. This emphasises the importance of the goods ammo and fuel without introducing seperate stocks for them. This is for keeping things simple while simultating supply issues.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
5.) Also ridiculous is the rule that with three adjacent enemy units the own unit cannot be rearmed or refueled, but it can receive reinforcements. It's possible to bring in, for example, new tanks but impossible to bring in fuel and ammunition?
I actually like the idea that the more enemy units are adjacent the more difficult it becomes to sustain the own unit, but the way it is done currently does not make much sense. I'd rather like to see the quantities of new fuel and ammunition being (only) gradually limited while the possibility of reinforcements should be decreased significantly. The way it is now the AI can defend some locations very well by always reinforcing the unit in question (even if it cannot be resupplied) if I don't have enough powerful units near it to ensure that it is killed in one turn.

This rule is indeed debatable, atm. it is very simular to the PG2 rules. It actually can lead to some odd situations though.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
6.) Infantry seems to out-march tanks, especially on roads. I don't think this makes sense. Actually I think infantry is often more mobile without transports than with it, because you rarely get to use the full mobility of the transports but have to regularly miss a turn for refueling. Speaking of that, there should be an option to abandon the transports. There are lots of possible situations where the player would gladly lose the transports if the infantry would just march instead of being stopped cold for a turn for want of fuel (like when a city has to be taken or there's a crippled enemy unit to be finished off).
7.) Pioneers seem to be unable to build bridges, but infantry units seem to be able to cross rivers with their transports - how do they do this?

Pioneers can repair bridges, but not build them to keep the strategical importance of the given bridges. Giving them the ability would destroy many settings and render the brigde feature useless.
Trucks cannot be abandoned to keep things simple.

Once more back to difficulty. I started a poll some time ago. Though there are quite few that took part yet, people seem to be quite satisfied with the game in this point. I don't know if you have already given your vote:

Difficulty poll

The aim of the poll was to get an idea if there should be changes in the balancing of the maps/campaigns. Obviously there seems not need for that right now.

[micha1100]

ORIGINAL: Ronald Wendt
The with increasing difficulty the resources are much more in the focus. Thus your tank forces are often more expensive to maintain. So what use is a 5 Point tank division when you can refill two Infantry divisions that than have more attacks with the same amount of resources ? This question is only of interest if the resources are limited, of course. So on "leutnant" and "officer" this usually is not an important question. So if you can repeat your experience while playing the first two campaigns on diffult, then we might have overseen a gap in the balancing during our QA.

I will try the other two scenarios with "General" as well and see how it goes. But I know that I did not all that much use the infantry I already had because they were so fragile and didn't really achieve the results I needed.

To answer this, one had to know much more about the all in all situation. Artillery is of course not made for direct encounters. Also transports should be used carefully to avoid heavy damage - but thats quite natural and not a design mistake imho. Maybe you leftout details?

I did not mean to say that the fragility of artillery and transports is a design mistake. What I wrote was a reply to your remark that tanks are slow. If I (correctly) cannot send transports ahead then it won't be possible to advance faster than the tanks go anyway.

When i made the campaigns tried to recreate the historical course of each campaign. I never chose battles that were lost by the nation that is played in the campaign. So what you get is pretty much the key battles and the way the armies had to go during those campaigns. I also tried to recreate the difficulties that the armies were facing. Thus there is a great influence of weather, resources and the distance on the maps.
I am sorry if that did not work for you.

I think the most interesting thing in wargames is the option to do better than the historical counterparts. What fun is a WWII game where it is certain from the start that Germany cannot win the war no matter how well you do?

My experience with PG is different, "tank rushes" worked quite wll for me in PG & PG2.

Well, my PG experiences were some years ago so I may not remember everything, but I do know that tanks had, for example, a lot of trouble fighting against dug-in infantry in cities. They also showed effects (at least suppression) when facing enemy artillery support. In OB you can pretty much always simply attack your tanks into cities and also ignore defensive artillery support.

While reading about the battles in the East i came to the conclusion that indeed weather and logistics were very important. These are military problems. I think you mean not everything is solved by battles, which is true.

Logistics, of course, are important, but when I spend the last five turns of a scenario just driving my units basically unopposed towards the last victory location(s) I think it's rather boring. This game is no true simulation anyway, rather a fun game like PG, so in my opinion interesting combat situations would be better than extended refueling exercises.

This is obviously ridiculous but necessary. This emphasises the importance of the goods ammo and fuel without introducing seperate stocks for them. This is for keeping things simple while simultating supply issues.

Your game, you decide. But I'm really not happy with that. Of course there should be situations where supply is short, but in the game it often leads to decisions whether it is worth it to re-supply, and this feels really strange.

ORIGINAL: micha1100
5.) Also ridiculous is the rule that with three adjacent enemy units the own unit cannot be rearmed or refueled, but it can receive reinforcements. ...

This rule is indeed debatable, atm. it is very simular to the PG2 rules. It actually can lead to some odd situations though.

IIRC the PG rules influenced reinforcments and resupply equally. I don't think it was possible there to reinforce when it was not possible to resupply.

Pioneers can repair bridges, but not build them to keep the strategical importance of the given bridges. Giving them the ability would destroy many settings and render the brigde feature useless.
Trucks cannot be abandoned to keep things simple.

Then Pioneers seem to be vastly over-costed. At PG they could work a sbridges and had a big advantage attacking fortifications, but at OB I really don't see how they are worth their cost.
As to the transports - how difficult could it be to add the option "abandon transports"?
You also haven't explained why infantry can march as fast as tanks and how the can cross rivers with their transports.