What to do with them?

[GaryChildress]

I have to wonder why bother with the following categories of units when playing a campaign game as Germans:

Anti-Tank - Are these good for anything?
Anti-Aircraft - Isn't it better just to purchase fighters?
Strategic Bomber - Aren't tactical bombers more useful?
Recon - Why buy recon if you can just save, move, and then load save? [:D]

Is there really any reason to waste scarce PPs and core slots on these? It would probably make more sense if you were issued one of each category at the beginning of the campaign, forcing you to use them. Otherwise you could probably go an entire game without ever using one.

[BriteLite]

Every unit type has advantages that sometimes are subtle and not easily noticed. I generally don't buy many AA and AT units but I do get a few. If the AI has naval forces the best way to deal with them is Strat bombers. A Ju-88 is and absolute naval killer. Norway is difficult to win without at least one. Also important for neutralizing cities/ports and reducing enemy unit effectiveness prior to combat. Recon is essential to see enemy positions as you advance your kampfgruppen. Compare the cost of recon to rebuilding/replacing your best units that are ambushed and sometimes destroyed,

As Allied airpower increases during the war experienced AA units will many times allow friendlies to survive combined arms attacks to fight another day. The same is true of AT units as the campaign evolves into a defensive struggle.

My 2 cents

[GaryChildress]

Anti-Tank units are almost worthless. I remember in PG 1 I used them to knock out pill boxes, they were very effective against them, but there aren't much in the way of pill boxes in PC. Even in a defensive scenario it's probably better to have a tank than an anti-tank unit. There really needs to be some reason to have them in this game. Otherwise they are a useless category.

The only saving gace for anti-aircraft units is that fighters are very expensive. Still if you can afford the price, it's better to fill core slots with fighters than AA units. I really don't see any use to AA if you can afford fighters.

Bombers are good against naval units but how many scenarios do you find yourself up against enemy ships? Norway I managed to squeak by without any strats. Sea Lion you get a couple strats by default so you don't need to purchase any. Strats can suppress land targets but I find that most of the time they just kick up dirt and don't do a thing to their target, not even suppression. So it's probably better to use Stukas.

Recon are actually somewhat useful. They have a 3 hex spotting range and can multi move making them useful for capturing multiple undefended objectives if you need to or they can move past ZOCs to take out a depleted artillery unit or something. However, if you can afford a regular tank or another infantry unit you are probably doing yourself a better service then wasting a slot on recon.

Sure, units have their advantages and disadvantages, they're not completely useless but in the final analysis I can get through any scenario without resort to a single unit from the four forementioned classes. In fact purchasing a single unit from any of those classes is probably more of a detriment when you consider wasting valuable core slots. It's a no-brainer. Instead of anti-tank, buy a tank. Instead of AA, buy a fighter. Instead of Strats buy a Stuka. Instead of recon, invest in something more useful like another infantry, tank, fighter or tactical bomber. Otherwise you're basically squandering resources.

You can easily fight a whole campaign just using infantry, tanks, artillery, fighters and tactical bombers and nothing else.

In order to make them a little more useful you could do the following:

Anti-Tank: gives a hard attack and hard defense bonus to all adjacent units on both offense and defense. AND/OR give them a free shot against adjacent enemy units like an artillery unit.

Anti-Air: Gives an air defense bonus to all units within their firing range (eg. all units within two hexes of the AA unit if it has a range of 2) and takes a shot at any air attacks within their firing range.

Bombers: Give you +25 prestiege points every time they bomb a city.

Recon: spotting range of 4 instead of 3. Max movement of 10 instead of 8.

[Razz1]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Recon - Why buy recon if you can just save, move, and then load save? [:D]

SO you propose for us to cheat?

You are fooling yourself if you think cheating is rewarding.

[homunculus88]

AA units can fire defensively multiple times, until they run out of ammo, fighters only fire defensively once. I use AA units to cover my artillery and fighters to cover my tactical bombers.

The late-war german self-propelled AT units are VERY powerful. If I remember correctly, they are cheaper when compared to a tank of similar power. On the other hand, towed AT units are not that good.

But I too find strat bombers rather useless, except against enemy navy, where they are really good. Perhaps it would be good to give some feedback about the result of the bombing run. If I remember correctly, in PG you got a message like "The enemy loses XX prestige" when you bombed a city with a strat bomber.

[Rudankort]

I posted this link somewhere already, but it will be useful here too. Check out this video AAR of Low Countries scenario played on Manstein difficulty level (all enemies at 15 strength):

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26173

It shows how useful strategic bombers can be.

[Rudankort]

To answer the original post, it all depends on the specific situation. Do you play single scenario or campaign? Easy or hard difficulty level? Single player or multiplayer?

If you are playing 1939 campaign and the difficulty is not set too high, you can probably win with almost anything. But if you pick 1943 campaign for example, and don't have time and money to bring up big and experienced fighter and tank force, AA and AT units can well be a better choice. Recons are indispensable in multiplayer. About strategic bombers I posted above.

[Zerstorer]

Since most PC scenarios are primarily "offensive" in nature, the defensive units AT/AD (especially the towed units) tend to be less useful. Units that have no offensive capabilities simply aren't presented as many useful situations... not only are they generally not needed in most (early) scenarios, gaining experience with them is more difficult since the AI must initiate combat with them first. Since the oportunities to use these "defensive" units is more restrictive, it would be nice to see them have a more "specialized" advantage in the game. AD units could/should have offensive capability - possibly something like what is already available for the 88s - selectable anti-air or anti-ground modes. For AT units, maybe an addition initiative bonus if they have not moved the previous turn. Maybe a special offensive "surpression bonus" for AD vs aircraft or AT vs tank could work. Or simply make towed AD/AT even less expensive to balance them out. Just a few ideas.

-just saw Rudankort's response - and certainly agree that Recon and Strategic Bombers are useful (more so than towed equipment).

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Rudankort

I posted this link somewhere already, but it will be useful here too. Check out this video AAR of Low Countries scenario played on Manstein difficulty level (all enemies at 15 strength):

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26173

It shows how useful strategic bombers can be.

What are the strategic bombers accomplishing? I see them kicking up dirt when bombing an enemy unit but most of the time they aren't damaging them and I don't see where they are causing any suppression? [&:]

[Rudankort]

When the work on Panzer Corps only started, we had a lot of discussions how to make certain unit classes more useful, and some steps in this direction were made. For example, merging AA and AD classes was made to make AA units more useful overall and provide better upgrade options. Recons were revamped and air recon nerfed down. AT units were made much better in offensive role (in PG series they recieved a crippling initiative penalty, in PzC they only get very mild -3 which is often compensated by generally high AT initiative ratings provided by their powerful guns). So, we did think about this.

However, when working on this, we also realized that making all classes equally useful in all cases is just not realistic. AT and AA units are not useful to germans in early scenarios, yes. But they are very useful to the allies. This is realistic, because germans are on offense and allies are on defense. Do we really need to change this and provide reasons for germans to use AT and AA guns offensively?

In late war, on the other hand, germans are on defense, and those great SPAT units they posess become very valuable. Look at the price of Elefant, JagdPanther and JagdTiger, and look at their stats. When used wisely they can oppose even the most powerful allied tanks, for half the price.

PS. I agree that the price of towed AT guns might need some reduction.

[Rudankort]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
What are the strategic bombers accomplishing? I see them kicking up dirt when bombing an enemy unit but most of the time they aren't damaging them and I don't see where they are causing any suppression? [&:]

When you see them "kicking up dirt", they cause long-term suppression to enemy units, and this is one useful thing they do. When long-term suppression is exploited in the right way (e. g. you suppress arty and AA units to disable their defensive fire, or you surround suppressed unit and force it to surrender) it can be a very valuable asset in your battle.

Another useful thing is that they destroy unit fuel/ammo reserves. For example, a couple of bombing raids with strategic bombers leaves those formidable forts in Belgium with no ammo, and then assault units come in and finish them off with no casualties to themselves.

[Josh]

Strat Bombers rule, really. Once you have upgraded to a decent bomber it can stay in the air almost forever, it's very resilient against Flak, and suppresses enemy units into dust (as in up to 100% suppression and only two rounds of ammo left)
 
Recon rules too! You want to hit that Russian Arty first? Then use your recon, yes you can use planes as scouts but you can be assured that plane will be shot down by the Flak that *always* accompanies the ARty.
 
AT guns you're spot on, they suck. If you move them by their transport they're sitting ducks in their trucks, if you move them one hex they will be nowhere near the front. The AT gun is a typical unit I would buy as a non-core unit, but alass that is not allowed.
 
Not sure about the 88 Flak yet, trying that out myself now. As it is I use fighters for bomberprotection/ enemy fighter destruction, and the 88 as Flak cover for my troops.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Rudankort

When the work on Panzer Corps only started, we had a lot of discussions how to make certain unit classes more useful, and some steps in this direction were made. For example, merging AA and AD classes was made to make AA units more useful overall and provide better upgrade options. Recons were revamped and air recon nerfed down. AT units were made much better in offensive role (in PG series they recieved a crippling initiative penalty, in PzC they only get very mild -3 which is often compensated by generally high AT initiative ratings provided by their powerful guns). So, we did think about this.

However, when working on this, we also realized that making all classes equally useful in all cases is just not realistic. AT and AA units are not useful to germans in early scenarios, yes. But they are very useful to the allies. This is realistic, because germans are on offense and allies are on defense. Do we really need to change this and provide reasons for germans to use AT and AA guns offensively?

In late war, on the other hand, germans are on defense, and those great SPAT units they posess become very valuable. Look at the price of Elefant, JagdPanther and JagdTiger, and look at their stats. When used wisely they can oppose even the most powerful allied tanks, for half the price.

PS. I agree that the price of towed AT guns might need some reduction.

I've tweaked the initial "Poland" campaign a little, adding an AT, AA, Strategic Bomber and Recon to the default core battlegroup already placed on the map. So at least you start out with one of each and are somewhat forced to use them in the game. This is the best solution I know of.

[Rudankort]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
I've tweaked the initial "Poland" campaign a little, adding an AT, AA, Strategic Bomber and Recon to the default core battlegroup already placed on the map. So at least you start out with one of each and are somewhat forced to use them in the game. This is the best solution I know of.

Well, some people will like it, some won't. Personally, I prefer to give the player the choice to buy whatever they want. That is the reason why Poland is such a small map with so few core units - we give the player an option to build the core the way he wants in the course of the campaign. People who prefer more realistic force composition are better off playing individual scens, where you are forced to deal mostly with what is given to you.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Rudankort

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
I've tweaked the initial "Poland" campaign a little, adding an AT, AA, Strategic Bomber and Recon to the default core battlegroup already placed on the map. So at least you start out with one of each and are somewhat forced to use them in the game. This is the best solution I know of.

Well, some people will like it, some won't. Personally, I prefer to give the player the choice to buy whatever they want. That is the reason why Poland is such a small map with so few core units - we give the player an option to build the core the way he wants in the course of the campaign. People who prefer more realistic force composition are better off playing individual scens, where you are forced to deal mostly with what is given to you.

I swapped out units already placed on the map for these additions. I didn't diminish the number of purchase slots any in the game. The player still gets to purchase the same additional units he could before. Basically I used an AT in place of one of the PZ1s, the AA instead of a starting Me 109, A recon instead of one of the foot infantry units and a strategic bomber instead of the Me110. It also makes the scenario a little more challenging I think.

[Zerstorer]

ORIGINAL: Rudankort

When the work on Panzer Corps only started, we had a lot of discussions how to make certain unit classes more useful, and some steps in this direction were made. For example, merging AA and AD classes was made to make AA units more useful overall and provide better upgrade options. Recons were revamped and air recon nerfed down. AT units were made much better in offensive role (in PG series they recieved a crippling initiative penalty, in PzC they only get very mild -3 which is often compensated by generally high AT initiative ratings provided by their powerful guns). So, we did think about this.

However, when working on this, we also realized that making all classes equally useful in all cases is just not realistic. AT and AA units are not useful to germans in early scenarios, yes. But they are very useful to the allies. This is realistic, because germans are on offense and allies are on defense. Do we really need to change this and provide reasons for germans to use AT and AA guns offensively?

In late war, on the other hand, germans are on defense, and those great SPAT units they posess become very valuable. Look at the price of Elefant, JagdPanther and JagdTiger, and look at their stats. When used wisely they can oppose even the most powerful allied tanks, for half the price.

PS. I agree that the price of towed AT guns might need some reduction.

Agree that the PC changes have certainly been an improvement over the original game. It's one of the best aspects of PC !

No. The reason for any change would be to make them a more useful purchase prior to mid-late war (changing offensive capability would be just one possible approach - giving the player a legitimate reason for purchasing them and creating a balanced force). While it may be realistic that AD/AT units are not as usefull for the Germans as the are to the Allies early on... historically the Germans really did "purchase" them - trucking them along to Poland, France etc. There just isn't a reason to purchase them in PC for half the war - and - maybe never will be. That's OK too, just unfortunate that any unit type would be relatively unnecessary.

A price reduction for towed AT guns sounds like a simple solution. Maybe that would also work for the AD class as well... certainly for the early war/small caliber weapons.

[GaryChildress]

This is what I did. The only changes are units swapped out. Nothing else.

[Rudankort]

No. The reason for any change would be to make them a more useful purchase prior to mid-late war (changing offensive capability would be just one possible approach - giving the player a legitimate reason for purchasing them and creating a balanced force). While it may be realistic that AD/AT units are not as usefull for the Germans as the are to the Allies early on... historically the Germans really did "purchase" them - trucking them along to Poland, France etc. There just isn't a reason to purchase them in PC for half the war - and - maybe never will be. That's OK too, just unfortunate that any unit type would be relatively unnecessary.

Well, I think that getting a PanzerJager (6 initiative and 10 HA is quite good when it appears) is not such a bad idea. As for AA, 88mm FlaK appears quite early and many players seem to be using it with good effect. Also, I agree that SPAAs might use active attack ratings (not in []), just like in PG, this might make them an interesting option. This, combined with some price tweaking, will probably improve the balance a bit.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Rudankort
Also, I agree that SPAAs might use active attack ratings (not in []), just like in PG, this might make them an interesting option.

Can this be edited in the "Equipment" file somehow?

[Rudankort]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
Can this be edited in the "Equipment" file somehow?

Yes. In eqp file negative attack ratings are "passive" and positive attack ratings are "active". So just remove "-".