PC Blind

[WarHomer]

I´ve played PC/PG throughout all the years, but never before tried a blind grand campaign playthrough.

Inspired by another thread I started one this Holiday. I choose hardest diff and Ai 2, but didnt change anything else. I never start over, not even from the start of a mission.

I´m in 1940 now and its going too well I think. Only lost one cav unit in 1939, which I could easily replace. I even got lucky with my first 2 inf heroes (both movement).

How do you guys do Blind GC?

[goose_2]

Well I am in 1945 and am close to completing my blind Grand Campaign East.

All I can say is save your money and diversify your units.

[TSPC37730]

Don't be misled. You'll probably see few losses for the first few years & increasing prestige levels. You'll probably plateau prestige-wise around '42 or '43 when the cost of experienced air & armor replacements really begin to bite. If you run out of prestige in the latter years the game becomes virtually unwinnable.

Enjoy the good times - for now. But don't waste your prestige. Not a single nickel of it.

[rubyjuno]

Please excuse my ignorance, but I saw this post and wondered what playing "blind" means?

[tenshin111]

Please excuse my ignorance, but I saw this post and wondered what playing "blind" means?

Playing "blind" is playing a given scenario or a campaign for the first time, without knowing what kind of surprises has been left there by the scenario designer

[ycloon]

I am at GC42E and just finished Stalingrad Docks. When there are two alternative paths in the GC, I play though each path to see how things are like. It is more time consuming but very informative for a first time/blind player.

You should definitely save your prestige because of prestige soft cap, which you could disable under the new patch I'm told (there is discussion of this in the forum). I personally do not agree with the soft cap although I understand the developers' intention. I like to play with a mixed core anyway and I like the challenge of destroying powerful Soviet units with less powerful German units so the soft cap isn't really necessary. Still, I've not started GC43 or the later DLCs, so I might change my mind.

The other advice is to grow your corps with an eye on the upgrade paths for your equipment. Upgrading within a family is cheaper and can save you prestige.

You should also consider the experience cap in each DLC. Once a unit hits the experience cap, consider fielding a green unit that you might need in the future. This gives you a ready stable of fairly experience units for future DLCs. Believe me, experience makes a big difference and can help to reduce damage taken = prestige saved.

If you plan to play through the entire Grand Campaign, also think about the difficulty settings that are right for you. In particular, combat randomness (normal vs. limited/dice chess vs. none) and experience. Normal combat randomness can produce very extreme combat results and can be quite frustrating. With dice chess, the randomness is limited so that combat predictions are more meaningful. With none, there is no randomness and combat predictions are spot on.

As for experience, note that under FM (which I presume is the difficulty you are on), your units get 50% XP only so it takes a while longer for units to gain experience. I think this could become a problem in the later years when you field green units and the Soviets have 2-3 star units with good equipment. Maybe I'm just a lousy player with no planning ability, but I personally do not subscribe to the game mechanic of halving XP. I completely understand that it is to make the game a bit more challenging but I don't like this approach. It is as if my units are slow learners and need twice the combat action to learn what the Soviets/Poles/French/Brit learnt.

Have fun playing. PzC is a great game.