Why am I crap at this game?

[Kalund Brasov]

I only completed PzCorps 1 on the easiest level. I started PzCorps 2 on General (middle) level but found I was struggling to complete most early Poland/Norway scenarios--touch and go whether I just completed them on the last turn. Then came the race to the Channel. No way could I get anywhere near the Channel ports. So I restarted the campaign on Colonel level, only to find nothing much had changed. Yes I got to the Channel ports on the last turn and actually managed to win at last. Now I'm off to Smolensk only to find I'm short even of the outlying cities. And yet people boast of doing this game on Generalissimus. What am I doing wrong?
For me (apart from being useless, obviously!) it's all in the numbers and game vs. "reality." I seem to have to spend the prestige I get at the start of a scenario on "healing" units. It's rare to upgrade or enlarge my army. Obviously I'm taking too many losses per scenario. But then, hang on, how "real" are some of the probabilities here? How can a Russian cavalry unit in a city in the early days of Barbarossa fend off several tank units? How can a Katyusha Rocket unit be encircled by 4 German infantry and armour units and still hold them off for several turns? Where's the real bonus for encirclement? Where are the millions of Russian captives and casualties caused by massive encirclements which of course cannot be replicated in the game? The biggest problem I have is in reducing enemies in towns. It really holds up any advance I try to make. Encirclement never seems to have much effect and Stukas seem to be a waste of time in this. Why does my CO tell me I've had a year off enjoying the delights of Paris only to find, in spite of his warning to go into Russia with better troops, I've got no prestige accrued to do such a thing? 3000 points to buy a Rail Mortar???? What?! Where do you get that from? Why are enemy (in all scenarios) units the same strength even in the lower difficulty setting? Are the early Russians really that good compared to the Germans? While I blitzed (sort of) towards Smolensk, one 15 (really?) strength Russian infantry unit stayed in Grodno holding off 3 of my best infantry units who had it encircled. They never did finish them off and would have been useful at the front.
I understand it's a game and a challenge rather than a reflection of history but this irritates me. A big disappointment of the first game was to find that you couldn't change history no matter how well you did in the scenarios. So what's the point of the campaign?
If anyone can give me any advice I'd be grateful.

[eddy16]

Go to easy difficulty, you get free elite replacements every turn, learn some more mechanics, take turn limit off too, that way you can contrentrate on kills, good way to start.

[DiceWrangler]

Taking urban areas defended by entrenched infantry requires a combined arms approach.

If you cannot encircle the enemy units then start by reducing their entrenchment values with Artillery followed-up by suppression from Strategic Bomber(s) -- ideally with a Recon adjacent to the target hex for increased accuracy. This will also reduce the enemy unit's ammo and fuel but, if not encircled, it does not usually matter since they will be re-supplied the next turn anyway; though note that some units have very little ammo so they may actually deplete it while defending against your assaults.

Start the ground attack with a Pioneer unit with another infantry units on either side of it. Units adjacent to an Engineer unit, like a Pioneer, will be benefit by ignoring half of the enemy unit's current entrenchment level. There are some armored units, like the StuG (0-range Artillery) and Flammpanzer (flamethrower tank), that can help too.

In general, your other armored units should avoid attacking entrenched infantry in urban areas and Tactical Bombers, like the Stuka, are best reserved for tough or hard-to-reach targets like tanks, anti-tank guns and artillery.

[Path]

Judging by your text you lack an understanding of very basic mechanics, including close terrain, suppression and entrenchment. You'd benefit from familiarizing yourself with how combat is resolved before anything else, e.g., cavalry is considered infantry for the purposes of combat resolution and is so going to have a substantial advantage over tanks in close terrain (cities, forests, hills etc) and entrenched infantry in a city are extremely difficult to defeat w/o artillery support to remove their entrenchment (unless you use engineers).

Start by playing through the tutorial, and if you still need tips you can check out Let's Plays or have a look at http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=596 , the AAR section of the official forums where players detail their strategis for scenarios.

[Cptn_Miller]

Only way we can help you is if you list all the units in your army, ususally these problems are due to army composition, basics for victory are at least 2 tanks, 1 eng inf, long range arty, stuka or 2, couple fighter planes, and never ever forget the 88's .... as soon as u get option to buy, must add them to your army - great AA/AT support.

Arty parked right behind your front line troops also add great support, both AT and vs inf, also offer counter battery fire, must have.

Eng / Pioneers attack enemies w/o their entrench values, units near the eng get 50% reduction to enemy entrench, so these guys are very valuable. Only inf worth your prestige. Soften up enemy with arty, stukas, attack with eng's and win.

Also agree, lower difficulty, no need to punish yourself first run thru, its a fair challenge for new folks even on the lower settings, dont nerf your prestige.

[Kalund Brasov]

Quote

Originally posted by DiceWrangler:

Taking urban areas defended by entrenched infantry requires a combined arms approach.

If you cannot encircle the enemy units then start by reducing their entrenchment values with Artillery followed-up by suppression from Strategic Bomber(s) -- ideally with a Recon adjacent to the target hex for increased accuracy. This will also reduce the enemy unit's ammo and fuel but, if not encircled, it does not usually matter since they will be re-supplied the next turn anyway; though note that some units have very little ammo so they may actually deplete it while defending against your assaults.
.

Thanks. Recon and Strategic bombers are the only things you suggest that I don't have. I never found the bombers to be worth the bother in PzC 1 and have never gone back to them.

Originally posted by Path:

Judging by your text you lack an understanding of very basic mechanics, including close terrain, suppression and entrenchment. You'd benefit from familiarizing yourself with how combat is resolved before anything else, e.g., cavalry is considered infantry for the purposes of combat resolution and is so going to have a substantial advantage over tanks in close terrain (cities, forests, hills etc) and entrenched infantry in a city are extremely difficult to defeat w/o artillery support to remove their entrenchment (unless you use engineers).

Start by playing through the tutorial, and if you still need tips you can check out Let's Plays or have a look at http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=596 , the AAR section of the official forums where players detail their strategis for scenarios.

First, I have played the tutorial, and I completed PzC1! As for the combat mechanics, please explain to me why there are two adjacent cavalry units in the city of Grodno where one you can damage with a tank pretty well, and the one next to it is fatal to attack! My real point is not so much the taking out of such forces but that the doing so seems so detrimental to making progress across the map as it is such a grind. The core force just seems too small to me to enable all bases to be covered---certainly within a fixed time limit.

Originally posted by Cptn_Miller:

Only way we can help you is if you list all the units in your army, ususally these problems are due to army composition, basics for victory are at least 2 tanks, 1 eng inf, long range arty, stuka or 2, couple fighter planes, and never ever forget the 88's .... as soon as u get option to buy, must add them to your army - great AA/AT support.

Arty parked right behind your front line troops also add great support, both AT and vs inf, also offer counter battery fire, must have.

Eng / Pioneers attack enemies w/o their entrench values, units near the eng get 50% reduction to enemy entrench, so these guys are very valuable. Only inf worth your prestige. Soften up enemy with arty, stukas, attack with eng's and win.

Also agree, lower difficulty, no need to punish yourself first run thru, its a fair challenge for new folks even on the lower settings, dont nerf your prestige.

Thanks, but, apart from a shortage of artillery, that's what I have. For Russia, though, I still have a few 38(t) tanks. My main concern at this point is never having enough prestige to upgrade and expand sufficiently. Other people obviously manage prestige better!


Too little time, not enough good troops!

[eddy16]

Good tip for bombers is tactical bombers, like the Stutka is good for outright kills, especially tanks, strategic bombers, good for suppression, naval attacks and has the excellent range, be careful though early is scenerio with long range bombers, enemy fighters will massacre it.

[Kalund Brasov]

Hopefully I've learned a bit from your helpful suggestions. Starting again from my original deployment and investing in a STUG and a Nebelwerfer along the way, I've done far better this time around. Unfortunately still one or two turns short, though! At the gates of Smolensk...

[DiceWrangler]

Careful with that Nebelwerfer. It has a devastating attack but only TWO rounds worth of ammo so it is better on offense, not defense.

[Path]

Impossible to say w/o seeing the situation, but the most likely explanation is that one is entrenched and the other is not. You shouldn't be using tanks to assault cities, however; even specialised tanks like the Flammpanzer suffer against unsuppressed targets in close terrain and will trade poorly (high-tier tanks are a lot more expensive than infantry).

You don't seem to understand entrenchment at all -- a fully entrenched unit (10/10) is effectively negating all incoming damage from a tank and most incoming damage from infantry. You need to remove the entrenchment or use units that ignore it, e.g., engineers or Flammpanzers.

[NETSCAPE]

Read the manual. There is a pdf in your steam game folder.

[Ichthyic]

watch the tutorial videos made by The Edmon. they won't steer you wrong.

by and large, most mistakes are made by people not understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the units they are using, and how those are affected by the ground tile the unit is on.

understand things like tanks are easy prey to infantry in forests and cities, for example, and you go a long way towards doing better in this game.

also... this game really emphasizes supporting your units with artillery/AT/AA. learn how to make a "phalanx" with a tank, infantry, and two support units to move across the map with.

finally, people have a natural tendency to either turtle too much, or overextend too much. give yourself a place to fall back to with more support if your phalanx looks like it is in danger of getting encircled, but at the same time, you have to keep moving your offensive units forward all the time, or you will run out of time to complete the objectives.

[Cptn_Miller]

Originally posted by Kalund Brasov:

Hopefully I've learned a bit from your helpful suggestions. Starting again from my original deployment and investing in a STUG and a Nebelwerfer along the way, I've done far better this time around. Unfortunately still one or two turns short, though! At the gates of Smolensk...

No Stug, no nebelwerfer, you need the long range arty,150mm +, 170mm prob best overall at 4 hex range and not too expensive, for 2 points the marder II or other versions can do the same role for less core slots than stug, panzer's better option for cost than td's early, higher attack vs inf. Just as Ichthyic said, combine all the blitzkrieg tactics(phalanx) and proper units = win.

[Ichthyic]

those anti-air 88s are great multi-role units. bring them along as a second support unit to protect your troops and artillery from air and armor attacks. don't forget to set them as AT whenever it is raining as well. a perfect fast moving phalanx should be:

-pioneer infantry for hitting entrenched positions and ambushing armor (give them the best vehicle you can buy, as the vehicle quality actually contributes to their firepower).
-tank for open field combat and to combat other tanks; always pick a tank that has at least 5 movement. You can use the supertanks that are slow, to deal with breaking up enemy armor chokepoints as you run into them, but they are poor choice for phalanx as they slow you down too much and can't maneuver past enemies.
-artillery (sFH 18 to start is great as it can act in both AT and soft target support modes at the same time), later you replace with SPGs like Hummel, or use a bigger gun like k18 or the Morser if you don't need the soft support.
-AA (the 88s are the best early investment, and remain viable for most of the campaigns)

heroes that allow you to move, deploy, and attack in the same turn are useful for all your units (excepting tank of course). double support and expert support are good for your artillery/AA. lethal is well, brutal, on your AA especially (if you don't have that as a commander attribute). no retaliation is good for your tank and infantry units.

that's basically it. a small air force in support (2 fighters, 2 tac bombers, and eventually a strat bomber) and a recon unit up ahead to scout and help target things and help with encirclements, and that's all there is to this game really.