Impossible Polish Units

[danconnors]

I accepted that the Polish general leading the Polish counter attack in the 1939 Grand Campaign had been overstrengthed to 17. He's in charge of their army after all. But in the battle immediately following my sucessfull defense I have just encountered a Polish infantry unit overstrengthened to 20 with 0 experience!!! This is just blatantly ridiculous.

I really think whoever dreamed this up should do some serious soul searching, and he should remember the basic rules of the game. Units like this can ruin the game. This Polish super division fresh out of boot camp needs to be removed, and the Polish general needs to be cut down to 15.

The rules, as I remember them, are that a unit can only be overstrengthened by one for every hundred experience points it earns. And it can't be strengthened beyond 15. If I'm wrong someone let me know.

[Wendigo]

I admire people getting even better discounts than 75% by getting entertained just by trolling in steam but whatever rocks your boat I guess....

[danconnors]

I'm not sure if you're speaking the same language, on the same page, or, for that matter, born on the same planet, as I.

[Delta 66]

AI's units don't follow the same rules than human player's one.
I don't see any problem with 20 str units. Actually in the DLCs AI units str varies from 5 to 20. For various reasons, and for me this is just fine.

Maybe you are talking of the Kampinoska Forest scenario. where some units in the NW have str 20. Actually those units where beefed up in a recent patch, as previously it was to easy for the player to destroy them. In fact the player is not supposed to venture in this assembly area, those units appears in the following scenario. In that case str 20 units represent a pair of regular str 10 units.

Later in he GC many Soviet infantry units have str 20 and low experience, representing conscipt masses, numerous yet brittle.

[danconnors]

The unit I was referring to was in the northeast section of the map. It was the scenario after you win a decisive victory against the Polish counter attack. You must seize ALL objectives AND destroy 12 trainloads of troops.

I know it's not my game, and I certainly didn't make it. I just like a little more consistency in rule following. I never even got to fight the unit. It was guarded by a 15 strength antitank unit and some artillery units. My division of pioneers was lucky to escape alive.

[Wendigo]

It pays to read the briefings. When briefing talks about objectives they are the flags with frames and circled dots in strategic map. None of the objectives in that scenario you talk about are near those massed polish troops.

All the towns/targets without framed flags are secondary objects that you can take for added prestige.

It is for you to decide if you have time or manpower to do it. Not all of them can be taken in every scenario unless you are playing the game on easy settings.

[danconnors]

I turned back the pioneer division and its accompanying artillery unit as soon as I saw what they had run into. I was trying to pick off some isolated settlements to gain easy prestige. It also looked like a way around the main Polish defenses. Fortunately I had left the main force with enough firepower to accomplish the mission decisively.

Prestige is in much shorter supply in this game than the original Panzer General. In the original you could pick up a pz1a for 12 prestige, a pz1b for 24, and the first mobile antitank unit for 24. As a result I am always on the lookout for it (prestige).

[Delta 66]

Once you are familiar with the game, prestige is not a short commodity in the GC. Actually many players experience the opposite problem. Prestige tend to snowball during the GC. The better you perform, the less prestige you have to spend on replacements, then the more prestige you save, etc...
I'm currently playing the GC on Manstein difficulty (all enemy units have +5 strength points), I'm close to GC41 end, and I'm allready at 40 000 pp.

In fact the first year GC39 is often a bit tight on prestige early on, but after Warsaw, it is usually easy (BTW choose Warsaw north rather than south). After Warsaw choose to duel with the Soviets as this scenario provide a lot of pp. Of course you should try to capture as much as secondary objectives as possible. But as previously said some secondary objectives had been made much more difficult in a previous revision.

For the record I have played the GC while setting the prestige to only 25%. It leads to tough purchase decisions, but it is not that hard once you are familiar with the scenarios.

If you find yourself short on pp, a few things to think about:
- don't buy replacements during a scenario, wait until the next scenario setup phase. If one of your unit is badly hurt try to move it back to a safe place until the end of the scenario.
- don't buy all the best equipments as they became available. you can complete GC39 using only 105mm artillery for example, all infantry units don't need the most expensive transport, and some can do with no transport at all.
- considering the complete GC 39-45, you can save a lot of pp by completly bypassing some equipments and wait for long term ones, for example you can try to avoid Pz III which is a bit short lived and focus on Pz IV.
- disband captured units to get some extra pp.
- you can also disband SE units for some more pp. For example during GC 39 the limit is 2 SE units, keep the first one as it helps a lot but disband the 2nd one you get, in later scenario you will again be eligible to gain a 2nd SE units.

[danconnors]

I got rid of the free recon tac bomber last night, after I noticed it was doing very little damage and was taking up a core slot. The free infantry with the unbelievable movement rate, I've renamed 'Legs Infantry'. They are probably my best unit; they move faster than tanks across country.

It's definitely a different game from Panzer General. But it's similar enough to sometimes cause me confusion. Having my recon unit ambushed in a town I have a plane sitting on is one of the differences. I am really enjoying it though.

Can you sell the captured Polish artillery during the actual battle? I captured 6 units, but when redeployment time came I only had one left.

[Delta 66]

You can disband units during a battle but you won't get any pp. You should wait until the next scenario setup phase to disband units and get pp.

Actually the captured polish gun in Warsaw is the first unit available for capture. There will be much more in future scenario. You can check Slitherine forum for a complete captured units database. However I strongly encourage you to play the campaign at least one without checking the list for the pleasure of discovering it on your own.
Also note that to capture units, you usually have to capture a specific hex, however be careful to have another turn left to play as the captured unit will only appear at the start of the next turn you capture the trigger hex. So if you capture such a hex on the last turn of a scenario you won't receive the captured unit.

You only get on ecaptured polish gun to keep for your core. The other ones just last for the scenario. You can see the difference by watching the border around the unit strength
- silver border means auxilliary unit that only last for the scenario.
- gold border means core unit that you'll in your core for the campaign.

About special bonus heroes:

Rudel the recon tac bomber is weak at start, however if you read carefully the message (I don't remember if it is in the briefing or the pop up when he appears), this encourage you to keep him as he will improve to a strong hero later in the campaign.

The "Legs infantry" is super strong (too much IMHO) you can upgrade him to a strong type of infantry like Grenadier or Pioniere, whose main drawback are a low 2 movement points. But with 5 MP they'll rock, on the other hand 6MP for a mountain troops is a bit of a waste.

Also note that bonus heroes were only added in a recent revision, and you can play the GC without any of them without difficulty.

I haven't played PzGeneral, the games certainly has similarity, but they also have many difference from what I have read, so this can be misleadaing indeed.

[Koranis]

I'm at my first playthrough (Colonel difficulty), currently in the middle of the '41 campaign, and I'm swiming in prestige points.

I'm not however a fan of artificial tinkering (like selling all SE units just because they net more prestige), nor artificial handicaps etc. I come from Total War series and I hate its "higher", artificial, difficulties, ie. adding more resources to the AI and less to the player.

I like the challenge of Unity of Command though even if I dislike the lack of character of its units.

I wonder, what does that Level 2 AI does? I've seen very little information about it. Does it provide enough challenge?

[Delta 66]

About level 2 AI, quoting the develloper:
"Some differences are simple (like level 2 will try to protect Victory Hexs with up to 7 units, while level 1 only up to 5), some are very complicated (e. g. level 2 attempts to detect good defensive places on the map and place units there, not just defend cities). And it has become even more tricky as additional content was created. Thus, Grand Campaign gives much less freedom to the AI, and so these differences I've described above might never really show."

I also read that some AI rutines are only used on the higher AI settings.

It makes sense to start with Colonel if it is your first playthrough, However as soon as you feel comfortable with the game. I suggest you'll switch to Field Marshall. After my first play of the base game campaign on Colonel I always played at least on Field Marshall, and frankly I didn't see many differences.

The reason for playing with limited prestige income, is to balance the game depending on your own strength. The game is much more fun when every setup phase you have tough decisions to make. Many players experienced the pp snowball effect during the GC. The point is that if you can purchase anything you want, the core management part of the game becomes very dull.
Historically the Germans were short on ressources in 44 and 45. And if you can affford as many King Tigers as you want, supported by hordes of Wurfrahmen 40 and Me 262, it doesn't feel right historically. It's fun for a few scenarios but quickly become boring.

[Koranis]

Thanks for your answer!

Do you play with AI level 2? If so, did you experience any improvement since you switched to it from lvl 1?

[Delta 66]

I always play on Field Marshall, or higher using the avanced options tab. Honestly I didn't notice any difference ( I might have improved from my first playthrough the base campaign).

IMHO, the biggest issue with the AI is not really the strength, but the fact that it is very predictable. And with experience you tend to abuse of what you know the AI will do.

There was a poll made on the Slitherine forum about which level of difficulty players use.
http://slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=121&t=40956
considering the 3 special levels Manstein Guderian and Rommel are actually FM but harder, we can say that most players use FM, and Colonel comes second. Colonel is also good for those who prefer a relaxed and casual play style.

It really depends on your background in wargames. As the game is fairly easy to get into and targeted at a large audience (for a wargame I mean). Many players familiar with WWII tactics and equipments find the game rather easy, whereas players new to the genre find it more difficult.

It is just fine for me, I only wished that the difficulty levels where better calibrated. With 5 difficulty levels there should be something for everyone. Hopefully with the recent Advanced Options you can tweak the difficulty to make your own challenge. The only problem I see is that everyone will make his own difficulty making comparison meaningless.

The base game campaign being shorter they seems more balanced, and the standalone scenarios are well balanced and really intteresting to play. But for the GC, for me I think something like 1 turn less per scenario, +3 strength pts per enemy units and 50% prestige would be fine. Also initially the bonus heroes didn't exist in the GC, it's fun but I regret that the enemy didn't receive extra boss units for balance.