Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

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Rudankort
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

Post by Rudankort »

hs1611 wrote: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:40 am First the ridicullously complex one:
- ALL GROUND UNITS provide Support Fire, Offensive as well as Defensive;
- Leave Fighters and Artillery as they are, maybe nerf Art a little bit;
- Everybody else provides Defensive Support Fire at 50% their regular attack stats and Offensive Support Fire at 33% their regular attack stats;
~ All Support Fire (except maybe, as stated above, Art and Fighters) is suppressive only;
- Units can only fire in support (offense or defense) within their range. Range 0 and 1 units can only fire against adjacent enemy units;
- Every unit can only attack once per turn, let's say it has 1 attack point per turn. Offensive Support Fire spends 0,5 attack points. So a unit that fires in support of an attack CANNOT make an attack that turn, but it can still provide support to 1 more attack by another unit;
- Because of the previous point Offensive Support Fire SHOULD NOT be automatic. Prior to the attack the player would have to select which, if any, eligible units would be used in a support role;
- Obviously support fire spends ammo, if possible 1/2 or 1/3 ammo point. If not possible then a full point.
You are quite right, this is a complex suggestion, although many points in it make sense. Offensive support fire is an interesting idea, but if it was implemented, I'm sure people would be very disappointed if it applied to AT only, because in reality it looks more like a generic "real mass attack" rule, where several units can attack enemy unit at once, while that enemy unit cannot respond to them all. I would be very cautious with adding such rules though, because they can make defender's task even harder than it is now.
hs1611 wrote: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:40 am And now a simpler one, which I actually tested on PzC. It works but my testing was not extensive enough to conclude if it was balanced:
- This one applies to Anti-Tank only, maybe even to TOWED ANTI-TANK only (leave Fighters and Artillery as they are, maybe nerf Art a little bit);
- AT units would be switchable between DIRECT FIRE or SUPPORT FIRE (defense only) mode;
- Since units must be switched BEFORE they attack, if you choose to have an AT unit provide support during the AI's turn you cannot use it to attack on your turn;
- Support Fire in this case works in the same way as Artillery, meaning the AT unit can be behind the unit it is supporting. The enemy unit DOES NOT have to be within the AT's range;
- AT Support Fire should be good against HARD TARGETS only.
This approach is definitely a possibility. Weather we need to implement it or not will depend on the results of testing new support fire rules, not just internally by the team, but also by alpha and beta testers. Basically, it is similar to fighters limited to 1 support per turn, but even more strict than that. It might be needed if AT support fire is totally unbalanced, but I doubt it. Especially if it is towed AT only, because once again, the task of the defender is already quite difficult. BTW, we don't need a switch to implement this, just require an unspent attack action at the end of unit's turn as a precondition to providing support fire on enemy's turn.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

Post by Rudankort »

ptje63 wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:23 am I dont understand how with turn limit off, the turns are not synchronized to the amount of days of fighting.
In Panzer Corps, there was no standard duration of a turn. This was configured for each scenario individually, and one turn could easily be 1 hour or several days. If we do not specify how long a turn is in a game with turn limit turned off, then we do not specify on which date the scenario ends either.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

Post by Rudankort »

Gwaylare wrote: Wed Oct 24, 2018 3:13 pm Does this mean a unit sitting in terrain will never be forced to retreat? At the moment a unit will not retreat or surrender as long as entrenchment > 0. This improves terrain a lot, because units are much more protected against artillery.
I think, a unit sitting in terrain never retreating would be too much, because most terrain types in the game have at least a little base entrenchment. So, only entrenchment which unit accumulated itself affects retreats.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

Post by ptje63 »

ptje63 wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 11:23 am
Rudankort wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:54 pm
ptje63 wrote: Fri Sep 28, 2018 2:51 pm No turn limit should have consequences for follow up scenarios - the longer it takes in theory other scenarios can end up being postponed. I would opt for less prestige awarded if one choses to continue to play beyond a certain pre-chosen amount of turns.
Not necessarily, because we are not saying turn duration is the same in both modes. With turn limit off, turns will not be getting a date assigned to them, so we can still assume the battle ended at about the same time as historically.
I dont understand how with turn limit off, the turns are not synchronized to the amount of days of fighting.
If a turn is equivalent to a day of fighting, then a scenario with unlimited turns, one day will conflict with the start date of a next scenario...
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

Post by Rudankort »

ptje63 wrote: Wed Nov 21, 2018 4:46 pm If a turn is equivalent to a day of fighting, then a scenario with unlimited turns, one day will conflict with the start date of a next scenario...
As I've already explained, we don't specify any turn duration in case of unlimited turns. If the battle took more turns, you can think about it as if commanders simply micromanaged their troops more tightly, giving them more orders per day.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #4

Post by Tassadar »

AT support fire seems to be a good idea only in defensive role, and only against units directly in the open, next to the At unit. They can move next to the unit they need to support, to provide covering fire (example, an infantry unit marching to attack a city hex), but cannot do that from behind them. It makes positioning important and prevents from creating nearly invincible swarms. Aside from the tactical implications, it would make no logical sense for AT units to ba able to suddnely fire from a hex away.

EDIT - when thinking about units slots a lot in the past, I was considering an idea of unit "avalibility", a variable changeging over time from 1 to let's say 5 and then infinite. It would be a representation of production capacity and historical numbers and could be affected by +1 (but not more) by spending prestige. A fun little idea, ut the more I thought about it, the worse it seemed. It would be a nightmare to set up the variables for time periods and research it for each and every unit. The idea of having one unit occupy more than one slot is clean and simple, I like it. I'm a fan of having a varied core, with specialized units to be able to adjust my deployment to the situation and like to have that "historical" feel to my army. FFor example Ifinished GC East with an elite star Panzer IV, since it was just so useful in many situations where I was reluctant to risk my better tanks.
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