Got the game a few weeks ago and have played Juno, Omaha and East of the Orne. Great fun. Here are some observations on game play. I read a long thread over at "the Blitz" about bunker/pillbox busting. I have no problem with it being hard to take out, but I do find it strange that big guns can fire 360 degrees from these structures. Don't think I ever saw a fortification in Normandy that could (may be wrong). I think that the bunkers/pillboxes are somewhat abstracted to include defensive trenches, but in that case it should be easier to cause casualties/disruption from adjacent hexes? Since there is a function for direction restriction of units I'd like to see that for guns in fortified positions. Furthermore the rocket batteries are very powerful and cause a whole lot of casualties. Footage that I have seen of rocket launchers is that they leave quite a stream of smoke behind at launch. The game has a "dust spotting" feature. Could this be applied to rocket batteries so that they can be targeted by counter battery fire and/or direct fire?
A lot of counter battery stuff goes on with the game engine, which might take account of that. I agree that the Nebelwerfers gave out a lot of smoke making spotting easier, but usual practice was for them to bug out ASAP for that very reason.
As far as I can tell most of the Nebelwerfers remain in pretty much the same position the whole scenario. I also once saw them fire at adjacent hex - I doubt rocket artillery can fire "as short" as 250 m.
Doug and I have been hammering away at a scenario design issue since Kursk, viz.: the tendency to create too many "bunker busting" scenarios.
They are a joyless exercise and we've kicked back and forth whether they're just too hard to disrupt, whether the op fire is just too harsh, or whether the VP levels need to be adjusted better. The Normandy scenario we're wrapping up in the current round of the Blitz tournament is the worst example we've found, unfortunately, where the defending Germans need literally do nothing other than let op fire happen for the attacking Americans to reef themselves and receive a Major Defeat.
I regard this system as all but necessary, but there is some tweaking to do.
Jim
Good to hear Jim. Yes, major defeats so far. The beach landings and para drops are the reason why I bought this game so any tweaks are very welcome.
Until any tweaks are made, would adjusting the advantage make things better (what exactly does it affect)?
Quote from: rocketman on July 01, 2016, 05:24:24 PM
Good to hear Jim. Yes, major defeats so far. The beach landings and para drops are the reason why I bought this game so any tweaks are very welcome.
Until any tweaks are made, would adjusting the advantage make things better (what exactly does it affect)?
Do make sure you've applied the latest patch; it makes disruptions a bit easier.
Also, if you hunt around both here and at The Blitz you'll find a post I made about strategies for attacking fortified positions. Particularly in Normandy, paying attention to the impact of terrain on direct fire is absolutely essential. There are many hexes, particularly in bocage country, where the direct fire reduction against them across certain hexsides approaches 100%. If you try direct fire versus a unit in a trench,(-30%) in grass (-5%), behind a hedgerow (-50%) firing uphill -(-15%), well, do the math. The only thing you're going to do is attract return fire that you are not nearly as protected against.
Panzer Battles is very different in how it plays than Panzer Campaigns. It is often very much in your interest to
not execute direct fire against a position from certain directions, but rather to bypass and isolate enemy positions and then disrupt them with artillery fire, and then assault. Combined arms tactics are an absolute must. Keep armor back and use it in a fire support role for your infantry. At this scale, armor really is an infantry support weapon and not really a breakthrough weapon, particularly for the Allies.
Allied artillery and air power are also essential. Concentrate fires as much as possible. Adjust the op fire characteristics of your units so that they don't take unnecessary shots that expose their positions and draw return fire. Remember that units can move through enemy ZOCs, so bypassing is very possible.
Most scenarios have very, very tight time limits. You absolutely have to focus on objectives and not get drawn into pointless firefights for inconsequential terrain. This is very hard to do. The temptation is to reduce positions that may be a threat, but you usually don't have time to do that. Bypass them and go for the objectives.
Finally, as Jim indicated, there are just some scenarios that don't make good H2H games. Hill 192 is one of those, IMHO. It's an interesting single player scenario as the Allies, but it's just way too easy for the German player when playing H2H to run out the clock. I feel like in that one (and I have to say a few others that were picked for the tournament) that the balance is adjusted for SP and just doesn't work at all for MP.
Single player in Panzer Battles is
hard until you get your head around the system. Expect defeats until you learn what to do and what not to do. Having everyone attacking and shooting all the time is definitely one of the things not to do, and that I had to unlearn!
I totally agree with Panzerde. I've found things exactly as he says. An excellent post. O0
Good insight into how to no/not to do stuff Panzerde. Juno taught me to bypass units more and not stack units too much. Omaha taught me the hard way of what you exemplify with fire across hexsides. I need to check that listing better to understand cumulative penalties. I will definitely have to unlearn not to fire on every opportunity, which is hard to resist when you want to micro manage everything. Now I play Sword which is luckily much flatter and open, so fewer fire penalties. I will try to use the insights here to my advantage and see if I can avoid another major defeat.
Watch out for mines on Sword. Just as you start breaking out you run into minefields which are a pain, since you need to get on towards Bayeux, but don't get much time to do it.
Guys,
Some really good posts here. A couple of comments from me as the team leader for these projects.
We continue to tweak scenarios based on your feedback. We've realised that we have probably assumed too higher an ability in players when setting timings, objective points etc. We have some pretty experienced play testers and that has resulted in scenarios that are right for highly experienced players, less so for newbies. We're working on a middle ground, including grading them on difficulty.
We're loath to downgrade them too much for all the reasons Panzerde mentions. This game teaches you about combined arms. Everything has a use and it varies based upon the tactical situation - trying to explain that to players without another 100 pages of strategy notes is hard - better to let players do some reading and find out that some of those historical tactics actually work.
We did not test all scenarios extensively for head to head. Hill 192 is an example of a scenario that we thought would work but has turned up the need for a new HTH version. We need that feedback so we can adjust/include revisions for the next patch. We also feedback to the original designer so they can adjust their 'style' accordingly.
Finally, we're in the middle of what will probably be the biggest changes for the game system where we're updating elements of the user interface away from some of the 'arcane' Tiller approach. More to follow on that, but we're trying to include player aids such as showing on map all the terrain modifiers for hexes you can fire at. No more firing with direct fire at hexes with -100% defensive values. All of the changes and updates are coming from player feedback so please do keep posting as we're trying to remove the niggles in the system.
David
Excellent news David. I was just about to suggest some enhanced visual aids for assessing hexside penalties, stacking and general terrain info. I sure don't mind the game being calibrated for the experienced players. Nothing is more offputting than a pushover AI.
One tweak that I might suggest is lowering the point penalty for naval losses in the beach landing scenarios. As vacated landing crafts wasn't of any tactical value it seems harsh to lose many points on that behalf.
While you are at changing the UI, may I suggest that settings are saved between sessions (labels, elevation, highlighted units etc)? Right clicking on hexes with units to bring up unit information would also save time.
Keep up the good work, this is turning out to become one of my favourite games.
Another couple of helpful UI features would be programmable hotkeys and at least on my screen there is room for a whole lot of buttons so you don't have to go into menues too much.
It's undoubtedly a great game. Despite Panzerde's correct comments (IMO) on combined arms, and tight turn limits, I do think there still needs some scenario tweaking. I remember doing an AAR article on Brettevillette scenario
http://grogheads.com/?p=9868#more-9868
Quote
I survive although the SS Das Reich kampfgruppe give Brettevillette a final assault, taking 14 casualties to my 7. It has been a tense battle, and despite holding the sole victory hex and having inflicted over twice the infantry losses and six times the vehicle losses all I have achieved is a minor victory! Hopefully someone will tell me where I went wrong...
Given that I only had 6 turns, and got the above result, even now I still don't know how else I could have gained a major victory in what was an encounter battle between broadly similar sized forces.