Cheats

[Vallon]

Like many computer games, this one cheats. Not content with decreasing the chances of a kill the more you do so, when it launches an air attack isn't it just coincidence that on the player turn it rains?! Not just once, but several times in succession. Just now I had a repeat of an enemy air raid, but could my fighters do anything to respond? No, it started raining. Well fancy that! Three times the enemy aircraft pepper my ground forces while all my fighters sit idle. And as for AA guns, in general they're as useful as firing a party-pop.

[Das Licht]

Yes, unfortunately you really have to realize that there are scripts running in the background that destroy results precisely and not by chance.
You notice this every time you want to destroy another plane with 4-5 planes. You circle around it and actually start with the best result. In the end...there is almost always 1 point left.
And it's not uncommon for the last shot not to count. You can also undo 3 times, but the result of the last strength point still remains. An absurdity.
Which often looks very obvious and is scripted again.
It is simply badly scripted for the player.
Rain is also often very unfavorable when things are going well. So again a malus for the player. The game is already annoying and difficult enough as it is.
You invest so many hours only to end up playing the mission 3-4 times because the information is so confusing.

I wrote this years ago. The game is partially scripted and it doesn't feel good for non-pro players.
It's also badly designed for normal players, because despite everything, you always have to pay close attention to your prestige. You don't need to continue playing in Spain if you spend too much prestige. What you get at the beginning is then no longer enough. So you can play 3-4 missions and suddenly come to a wall. End.
I'm currently playing through Spain once and it's like back then. Sucks.


Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Problem Solver]

Turn off the weather in 'advanced options'

[Boredflak]

Please explain what a PRO player is? That you suck at a game does not mean the game was designed for pro players.

[easylife]

Originally posted by Vallon:

And as for AA guns, in general they're as useful as firing a party-pop.

Have you ever read the manual and understood the mechanics? Small Caliber AA Guns are effective against low flying Planes like fighters and Tactical Bombers with the Low altitude trait. Large Caliber AA Canons are effective at shooting down high-flying strategic bombers or suppressing other Planes. Suppressing means, the enemy planes do less damage on your ground Units and you will have an easy Target with your fighters in the next player Turn.

Panzer Corps 2 can be played without reading the manual, unlike other War Games like "Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2". There both players and Developers agree to read several hundred pages of the manual before playing.

On the top right of the screen, you can see the weather prediction. Unlike PC1 where it was only 80% sure, the weather prediction should be 100%. You might be able to change the weather prediction probability in the settings.

On the top right you also see who moves first in the scenario. In most scenarios you are on the offensive and move first. You can see the weather of the Next Turn. If there is rain or snow, you can't use Aircrafts in the following turn. As Aircrafts can't move in rain or snow, you can capture the enemy Airfield and all Aircrafts stationed there will get destroyed. The same applies for the player side.

[Flopsy_the_rabbit]

Originally posted by Vallon:

Like many computer games, this one cheats. Not content with decreasing the chances of a kill the more you do so, when it launches an air attack isn't it just coincidence that on the player turn it rains?! Not just once, but several times in succession. Just now I had a repeat of an enemy air raid, but could my fighters do anything to respond? No, it started raining. Well fancy that! Three times the enemy aircraft pepper my ground forces while all my fighters sit idle. And as for AA guns, in general they're as useful as firing a party-pop.

The weather can be a nuisance and it's frustrating when the AI gets a turn and yours don't - but the opposite happens too.

As for AA guns, yeah they are just a deterrent in their basic guise. You can make them much more terrifying though, with either the AA Veteran General trait or a Lethal Attack hero. Either of those combined with a Camouflage hero makes them incredibly overpowered, and the AI will just suicide their aircraft into it endlessly.

In the new DLC I've been experimenting with relying solely on AA guns, with no aircraft of my own. You take the traits AA Veteran and Denied Air Force for a net of +1 trait points. You can get three of the smaller AA guns for the price of a single fighter, and they double up as AT guns once all the aircraft are dead. Scatter in one or two of the bigger AA pieces and it works very well, incredibly slot efficient considering you usually need at least 9 slots of fighters (3 x 3) to kill anything.

I'll definitely be doing it again for future DLCs, I don't find that the air force has chance to get enough experience to really shine in the shorter ones. You have to use far too many of your slots on fighters to clear the skies for the actual useful stuff like tac bombers, and in this recent DLC you could only use them in about 2/3 of the scenarios anyway.

[Flopsy_the_rabbit]

Originally posted by Das Licht:

Yes, unfortunately you really have to realize that there are scripts running in the background that destroy results precisely and not by chance.
You notice this every time you want to destroy another plane with 4-5 planes. You circle around it and actually start with the best result. In the end...there is almost always 1 point left.
And it's not uncommon for the last shot not to count. You can also undo 3 times, but the result of the last strength point still remains. An absurdity.

This works the same for your own units. Things get harder to kill as they take more damage.

Originally posted by Das Licht:

You don't need to continue playing in Spain if you spend too much prestige. What you get at the beginning is then no longer enough. So you can play 3-4 missions and suddenly come to a wall. End.
I'm currently playing through Spain once and it's like back then. Sucks.

If you're new and struggling, go for the prestige farming strategy. Take the traits Trophies of War, Deadly Grasp, Flexible Command, Perimeter Control. You can then easily fully surround the AI (Perimeter Control + Flexible Command), they will become suppressed incredibly quickly (Deadly Grasp), and when you get them to surrender you get a bunch of prestige and equipment (Trophies of War).

The easiest way to make something surrender with this is to fully surround it, wait 2-3 turns for it to be fully suppressed (indicated by the blue heart icon), and then do some damage so it retreats (as little damage as possible so you capture as much as possible). The split action is great for this, as you can double up your units to cover more hexes. You can be very risky with this approach, because whatever you encircle will immediately get 4 suppression and in many cases won't do anything on it's turn.

These four will cost you 5 trait points. You can now in this version just give yourself enough trait points to do this directly. However if you want to do it 'legit', the negative trait Slow Modernisation is a no-brainer for the grand campaign (+2). And then I would also take something like Denied Artillery (+3) - you can simply rely on captured artillery at the start as it is identical to your own. Leaving you two trait points to spend on what you like.

Additionally Force Dispersion (+2) isn't going to be too painful in SCW. But you wouldn't want it as you get more heroes in later years.

For subsequent years if you still want the prestige farm traits you can think about swapping between Denied Artillery and Denied Air Force every year. Or possibly Retrograde if you don't want to be as limited in your purchases.

[Complex Strategy]

If you want AA to be useful you need to know which ones are the stand out ones. In vanilla the best ones are generally the quad 20mm flakverling due to them having rapid fire x2 doubling their amount of shots and being way better at suppression or going for something like the Flak 88mm which has extra range and very high air attack to stop heavier bombers.

Also keep in mind your fighters can linger over your own planes and protect them so you can also use them as guards against enemy aircraft by keeping a tight formation. That still leaves the rain preventing your counterattack but would minimize how much the enemy aircraft can damage your stuff