Units You Never Buy

[kondi754]

Er, not really. The Ki-43 was arguably the best dogfighter of its time, so the agile Spitfire would have been a better choice to face it. The units in Burma had to make do with Hurricanes because they were low-priority units, not because the Ki-43 was crappy enough that Hurricanes were a match for it.

Burma Road treats the Burma campaign as if it were just another front, thus the preponderance of funnies, SPGs, Spitfires and Churchills available.

Ok, it doesn't matter, although in my opinion Oscar, as well as Hurricane, was an obsolete plane in 1942 ... Hurricane was enough, but I'm not saying that was successful, it was enough to keep the balance.
I mean that in Burma DLC there are Ki-61, Ki-84 and even more modern constructions, and finally prototypes of jets, so the player can't maintain the "historical" core, because he will lose another battle

The funniest thing is that playing in a way that matches the reality of a given ToW would be much more interesting than copying Panzer Corps

[Admiral_Horthy]

The funniest thing is that playing in a way that matches the reality of a given ToW would be much more interesting than copying Panzer Corps

Fully agreed with that... However many people want to shop units freely and see a lot in the shop window.
Another level of difficulty could be historical OOB choices.

People are different, with many gameplay style and preference. Someone want quick combat, someone realism, someone what-if overkill. I think OOB is already flexible to provide many choice - and much more possibilities lie in front of us. We modders and scenario makers can make a difference - and of course help to make it better by showing alternatives to the devs with new ideas

[TheFilthyCasual]

In retrospect I take back what I said about engineers. Not having them when you need them (mines, bunkers, etc) can bring your advance to a screeching halt.

I stand by the rest however. I think Commandos have to be rethought, though perhaps at the risk of making them OP (maybe make them very expensive):

Something like, removing the cost for their attack (so, by default, they take no return damage when attacking), then allowing them to move again after attacking. This means they truly can hit-and-run, but will, just as now, be cut to pieces if an enemy unit catches up to them and attacks, as they WILL take massive damage if they are the defenders in an engagement rather than the attackers.

[Knirsch]

While I agree that commandos are weak and that engineers and antitank units are very situational, you guys ignored one big issue. As bru said:

You guys mentioned my top bugaboo: submarines. My other one is strategic bombers. I do want to use these for a well-rounded attack but usually resources are tight and these fall by the wayside.

Strategic bombers are expensive and they don't have the same killing power as tactical bombers, I have used one a couple of times in a campaign, but I really don't see the point.

[GabeKnight]

Strategic bombers are expensive and they don't have the same killing power as tactical bombers, I have used one a couple of times in a campaign, but I really don't see the point.

I do. They're basically a mobile 10(+)hex-range arty unit that does not lose efficiency.

[gunnyjs]

Engineers are great when playing against the AI in order to put down mine fields if one remembers that this can only be done if a unit is not adjacent to it and that it takes about 3 turns before the engineer can put down another mine field so buy 2 or 3 as needed. Furthermore, later on if you have the resources you can upgrade the unit to a regular fighting unit. Finally this unit and subs and perhaps others can be enhanced using the research points if you think its worth spending them on this ... the SPECIALIZATION points ...

[TentacleMayor]

Towed AA, especially if it doesn't have an anti-tank mode. I always find myself reluctant to allocate command points to those except to defend airfields in specific missions or if I want to concentrate my fighters on a different flank.

Engineers are great for detrenching units while being pretty cheap and expendable. They're nothing to scoff at in high-cover terrain either.

[terminator]

Towed AA, especially if it doesn't have an anti-tank mode. I always find myself reluctant to allocate command points to those except to defend airfields in specific missions or if I want to concentrate my fighters on a different flank.

This is the reason why, if I need an AA unit I buy at the beginning 8,8cm FlaK 37 then afterwards Wirdelwind or Ostwind to have the opportunity to switch

Did you see this mod (The "Gabe-Mod")

Screenshot 660.jpg (405 KiB) Viewed 3453 times

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... &start=160

Engineers are great for detrenching units while being pretty cheap and expendable. They're nothing to scoff at in high-cover terrain either.

Engineers are useful in capturing cities

[terminator]

Engineers :

wwii_us-663.jpg (150.78 KiB) Viewed 3132 times

[GabeKnight]

Engineers :

Yeah, I've changed my mind about them, too. By now, there's usually (at least) one engineer unit deployed every time I play a scen.

[Horst]

I already brought shame to me by abusing the cheapest land-units to clear mines by running into them instead of waiting for engineers to arrive (if I brought one at all). Sometimes, you just have enough RP to do some sacrifices to save time although you often have too many turns left in the end anyway.
I still like engineers in defensive missions that can quickly entrench the nearby troops that have to repair frequently meanwhile.

When I deploy my core, too many gifted regular infantry units and especially recon units besides all the usually useless captured units sit idle in my reserve. I wish I could sell all these extra useless units, no matter their experience, forever that they won't show up in the graveyard anymore.
In Endsieg, I had about 30 extra units in the reserve that couldn't find a place in my core anymore in the end.

[prattaa]

I like to have one ground recon unit in my core as they can be very useful in killing weakened units. I found it very important in OOB and especially in Erik's PzC campaigns to kill units when you have the chance. If they are allowed to repair it can really bog down your advance.

Strat bombers are very useful for draining efficiency on powerful units. Especially T-34 and KV-1 in early war scenarios. They should do more damage to infrastructure though.

[Horst]

I started to like strat bombers too, but if the AI keeps getting new spawns of fighters during scenarios then they have a huge repair cost coming. It was nearly impossible to use bombers in Endsieg with all these many AI flyers, especially near the end. You rather need more fighters to deal with all the many enemy bombers too. That's why I'd prefer a little more protection to escorted bombers. Only the heaviest bombers, like B-17 and B-29, have an acceptable survival rate.
Map designers often stack dozens of supply points on single settlement tiles that using strat-bombing becomes a hopeless endevour during scenarios. It's surely necessary sometimes the more cramped a faction is in defense of an area. Getting rid too quickly of supply points is just a too easy victory. I always enjoy maps where strat bombers can help encircling lots of enemy units.

[GabeKnight]

There was this very useful Fin./Ger. Junkers tact. bomber in WinterWar that acted more like a strat. bomber. And it had some decent air def. stats as well.

Map designers often stack dozens of supply points on single settlement tiles that using strat-bombing becomes a hopeless endevour during scenarios. It's surely necessary sometimes the more cramped a faction is in defense of an area. Getting rid too quickly of supply points is just a too easy victory. I always enjoy maps where strat bombers can help encircling lots of enemy units.

Okay, but these maps have to carefully selected and balanced to do exactly that, allow encirclement in a meaningful way. If the supply points are too scarce or positioned wrong on the map, a "bold" move behind enemy lines capturing a large supply hub could break the whole scen that way.

In "usual" scenarios, personally I'd suggest a generous approach to adding supply to cities/towns/etc. Some supply "weak spots" can be created intentionally after playtesting and balancing later.

An under-supply-situation for the whole enemy ground forces should happen rather very late during the mission or in selected areas only IMO.

[Horst]

PK_03_Kharkov_42 is maybe the best example according to my experience where strat-bombing can slowly strangle the encircled enemy to almost suffocation. It's still an early scenario where the player possibly doesn't have the budget for strat-bombers yet.
If you encircle along the eastern 20er supply spots the rest of points in the middle is at least manageable to conquer and reduce to a satisfying degree.
5 and 10 points are still at least doable for strat-bombings unlike these of 20-100+.

PK_03_Kharkov_42.jpg (514.68 KiB) Viewed 3011 times

[PoorOldSpike]

I find many units are simply too specialized to be generally useful and thus not worth the resource investment. For example, I personally avoid using....
3. Dedicated anti-tank units. Tanks can take out tanks too, but they can also take out infantry, so I'd prefer to simply buy another tank unit instead of some AT guns or tank destroyers...

Whoa Jack, you're missing out on the awesome power of AT guns (and tank destroyers) if you avoid buying them, look-
In the pic on the left the 3 naked American infantry units are defenceless as that panzer clobbers one of them, notice in the exchange of fire the infantry has taken a massive 5 strength points loss from its original 10 strength, but the panzer hasn't even been scratched and is still at 10 strength.

But in the second test pic on the right I've backed up the infantry with an AT gun, and this time the infantry has only lost 3 strength points but the panzer has lost 4.
WAIT, there's more good news for the Americans, because suppose more panzers show up in this same turn and attack any of the infantry units, the AT gun will automatically fire again and again to back them up, THAT'S awesome..




Below: Here's a screengrab from the start of a Jap AI attack scenario of mine, the japs are about to launch a big attack from the north against my Brits; I've only got 4 infantry units in the front line (1/2/3/4), BUT I've placed an AT gun (red circled) behind each one to back them up.

PS- in the ebb and flow of a fluid battle it's not always possible to get our AT guns into position all neat and tidy like that, but hey that's war so we can only give it our best shot and have fun trying..




Officer- "I say you chaps, what are your orders?"
Gunner- "We were told to set up our AT guns to halt the incoming enemy armoured assault sir"
Officer- "Good show, have a tea break first, then carry on"


http://www.mission4today.com/index.php? ... orum&f=134

[TheFilthyCasual]

When it comes to Strat bombers, the issue is that I usually eat up all my air points with fighters and tactical bombers, and a single Strat bomber just takes too long to do anything - you really need two of them. This is why I wish the US Campaign was split between an Army and a Navy/Marines campaign, because out of necessity I end up filling my air core with carrier planes. Which is too bad because I know that B29s are very useful on Leyte (because of how far your airfields are from the western side of the island) and Okinawa (where the Japanese have a lot of ground units and not a lot of supply points to spare).

The most useful place I've found for strats is Rangoon. Rather than actually trying to capture both Japanese supply depots, you can simply cut off the eastern one and strat bomb the western one to run the Rangoon defences out of supply.

[cutydt02]

Its no use to compare between tactical and strategy bomber because me410 will be only choice for air support.
About engineer, another choice is let them defend your supply line (scrap unit like to cut our line btw)
And Pak 5cm is good enough without AA ability

[Zekedia222]

This is just my two cents, but campaigns give the AI FAR too many naval or air units, at least in most cases.