Artillery/SPG & Tanks - You & The enemy

[Zync]

There are two things in is the game that I find frustrating, it's artillery/self propelled guns and enemy tanks. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but I'm going to say it anyway.

1) My artillery/SPG & Tanks
While it does serve a purpose, such as taking out enemy AA and gun emplacements, it kind of destroys the tactical side of the game. Pretty much the main tactic is to increase the game speed to +10 and bombard the ♥♥♥♥ out of everything until nothing is left standing, then send in the tanks to mop up the few stragglers. In a way it kind of defeats the purpose of using infantry and tanks to flank, and defend, key positions. I understand that this was very much a main tactic during every war, but it kind of makes the game boring.

Yes, I know what you're going to say: "If you don't like it, then don't use artillery", well the only problem with that, is that (even on easy difficulty) the enemy will always have tanks that are 1 to 2 tiers above what you have. For example I might have medium tanks with 70/40/25/20 armour and a 60/90 cannon, but the enemy rolls up with heavy tanks with 100+/50+/35+/25+ armour and a 80+/100+ cannon. You can try and flank them with infantry, but the tanks secondary weapon mowes them down, unless of course you want to sacrifice 1 or more infantry units to take out a single tank. You can flank with vehicles, but you're almost guaranteed to lose one or more vehicles. So your only real option is to use artillery.

2) Enemy artillery & tanks
The AI in this game makes it almost impossible for you to disable enemy artillery with your own before they kill off your units. For example, you begin the game by bombarding an enemy position with your artillery/SPG, then the computer returns fire with its own artillery. Despite the fact the enemy hasn't actually spotted your artillery/SPG, either with a spy plane, ground attack planes, bombers, or infantry/vehicles, they will always, 100% of the time, target your artillery/SPG perfectly. Obviously there's a random element as to where the shell lands, but it will always land in very close proximity to your units. Whereas when enemy artillery is firing at you from an unknown position, you can only see a small blip on the map, but where they are actually positioned can be far away from that blip. So you're at a massive disadvantage when it's your artillery/SPG vs. enemy artillery.

The enemy artillery in historical battles are also ridiculous. They will have several heavy guns, several howitzers, and several SPG's, and once you start advancing your units, or firing your artillery/SPG's, you're basically screwed. Half your army is wiped out before you can have any serious impact on the battle. Your bombers/ground attack planes get shot of the sky before you can destroy 10% of their artillery.

Enemy tanks are also frustrating, as they will always be better than what you have. Not only that, their weaker tanks with cannons that lack the penetration power to destroy your tanks, still somehow manage to destroy, sometimes with only one-shot, your superior tanks. Many times I've sent a heavy tank and a medium tank up against an enemy medium/light tank, and I've always ended up losing my heavy tank. I would use the heavy tank, with better armour, to draw the fire of the weaker tank, and then use my medium tank to flank and hit them from the side or rear. By the time the enemy tank is at 50%, my heavy tank is destroyed, and the enemy tank then turns on my medium tank, and either comes close to, or succeeds in destroying my medium tank. I've also tried sending in infantry first to draw the fire, and then send in my tanks, but the enemy tank will ignore the infantry, and start destroying my tanks.



It would be great if there was a mod or some way to either disable, or remove, both the player's, and the enemy's, artillery and SPG's from the game, and also make it so the enemy has tanks/vehicles that are of equal ability to your own. As it is, especially with historical battles, they have a huge advantage with regards to having many more units than you, so it really throws it out of balance. I like a challenge, but the majority of battles are simply ridiculous.

[Jocek]

The game is well balanced, your topic includes the answers for your problems.

Enemy artillery is much more precise and can destroy your howitzers easily to prevent you from using your arty too much, and making the game boring as you said.

I don't know which campaign you tried, but the three factions are a bit different.

As the germans, complete bonus missions during the campaign to get the valuable rewards. Focus on the missions rewarded with tanks, tank destroyers and you will get an enormous heavy tank army before the big endgame battles. So it isn't true, that you have always weaker tanks. Use your tanks with hit and run tactic, always keep moving. Forget your slow ground attack planes, only your fighter planes are usefull.

As the allies, your air fleet are deadly. Your ground attack planes are fast and strong, survive several hit from AA guns, and their recharge time is crazy. Your british tanks are crap, endgame shermans and the pershing are stronger, but with your air superiority, you can bomb everything and destroy the hiding german giants.

As the soviets, try to get the fast T-34/85 and the heavy IS-2 as soon as possible. Their SPG's are slow and weak against infantry attacks. Use Katyusha rocket launchers instead of spg's, they are perfect against enemy strongpoints. Pe-2 bombers are very fast, use them instead of the slow il-2 ground attacks.

Forget the COH/C&C/Other RTS style and the health bar. One shot to a good place causes serious damage, and a smaller army can destroy your bigger. Use your officers and snipers to detect the enemy with the binoculars. Try to lure enemy tanks far from their bases. Always entrench your army.
And last thing: you don't have to complete your objectives in order. If you find an unprotected route to the enemies backyard, you will get a big advantage. You can attack the marked locations from behind and destroy everything before turns around.
This is a great game and don't need to be changed. Simply forget the health bar and the "select your whole army and right click on the enemy face to face" tactics.

[horrible statue]

I agree with this. This game is frustrating and cheap. All of this is easier said than done. Id like to see one video of anybody doing anything in this game that doesnt result in just popping the speed up to 10, using artillery to decimate everything (if available) or even if you do things right with using combinations the game will throw objectives at you that require you to keep all of your units alive which is just impossible given how broken the mechanics are in this game. Why dont all the missions lay out objectives from the onset so at least you can try to approach the missions with a strategy instead of just trial and error? sometimes even when I pause and individually assign targets my tanks will just blindy move into the fray without even firing at all.

oh and what the ♥♥♥♥ is up with the objectives? they seem to be translated poorly from russian or german or something. they should have considered learning some english or having a writer edit some of the written material here because the english is some of the worst ive ever seen translated. games like this should stay in russia if thats the kind of translation we get.

not to mention the pathfinding. its some of the worst ive ever seen in any game ever. especially considering how important pathfinding is in rts... half of the time I spend just trying to get my ♥♥♥♥ accross a bridge.

this game is ok im almost finished both the single player and the expansion content. but it was overrated. today it is hard to recommend this crap over legacy of the void.

dont waste your time you wont leave this experience with anything but frustration, anger, and regret.

If you are a grognard like I am, stick with the operational art of war or starcraft 2. nobody should have to subject themselves to this garbage.

[ecimir]

I would disagree with almost everything written above.l think pathfinding is very good. Sometims if one bridge is crowded your unit will move down the river trying to find another one. Even if it gets stucked it will notice you that it cant reach its destiniation. Use A for agressive movement. Your units will automaticaly attack enemy units as soon as they spot them. When you use your artillery try to disperse it as much as you can to avoid being hit by enemy fire or use mobile artillery. There are multiple ways to outgun more powerfull tanks. Use decoys and try to hit them from behind or rear. Their armor is always weaker there or use ground atttack planes if you are sure there are no AA guns near them. You can also lure them in minefield where they will get stucked. Use your spy or officer to spot them with binoculars. Then, you can finish them off with your artillery or AT guns.

There are many great mods for this game that give you a more units and make gameplay more realistic. Most popular are Mission Kursk mod and GZM mod.
In my oppinion Blitzkrieg is one of the best RST games and probably best ww2 RST game.

[Macdallan]

The pahtfinding is hit and miss at best from the very little I've seen so far. A tank will drive straight at an obstacle it clearly can't drive through until it bumps into the obstacle. Only then does it execute a slow turn to get around the obstacle instead of slightly altering course BEFORE it hits the object and simply driving around the object without stopping and making a slow turn. I have seen the units drive in formation fairly well and occasionally find a good path through and area, but that's rare.

I don't think the pathfinding was bad for the time, but compared to more modern games I simply can't consider it good.

[Vovin]

The only issue I have is the lack of reliable penetration on tank vs. tank engagements. Pretty sad to see my entrenched Ferdinand fight two SU-100's directly in front (around its max range), bounce 4 times, penetrate once dealing 50% damage, and then die in one shot from an SU-100.

Or when your tank can't path, and it drives in reverse towards the enemy..

[Cpl. Burden R 3294]

Penetration issues in BK are largely down to armour values being "soft".

What I mean is, if you look at the XML files, if the frontal armour for a unit is stated as say 200, the actual file shows a min of 150 and a max of 250, giving a huuuge variance.

This is why sometimes an M3 Stuart knocks out a Tiger.

All easily fixed with mods but, yes it is an issue.

[Cybernetic General]

Originally posted by Zync:

There are two things in is the game that I find frustrating, it's artillery/self propelled guns and enemy tanks. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but I'm going to say it anyway.

1) My artillery/SPG & Tanks
While it does serve a purpose, such as taking out enemy AA and gun emplacements, it kind of destroys the tactical side of the game. Pretty much the main tactic is to increase the game speed to +10 and bombard the ♥♥♥♥ out of everything until nothing is left standing, then send in the tanks to mop up the few stragglers. In a way it kind of defeats the purpose of using infantry and tanks to flank, and defend, key positions. I understand that this was very much a main tactic during every war, but it kind of makes the game boring.

Yes, I know what you're going to say: "If you don't like it, then don't use artillery", well the only problem with that, is that (even on easy difficulty) the enemy will always have tanks that are 1 to 2 tiers above what you have. For example I might have medium tanks with 70/40/25/20 armour and a 60/90 cannon, but the enemy rolls up with heavy tanks with 100+/50+/35+/25+ armour and a 80+/100+ cannon. You can try and flank them with infantry, but the tanks secondary weapon mowes them down, unless of course you want to sacrifice 1 or more infantry units to take out a single tank. You can flank with vehicles, but you're almost guaranteed to lose one or more vehicles. So your only real option is to use artillery.

2) Enemy artillery & tanks
The AI in this game makes it almost impossible for you to disable enemy artillery with your own before they kill off your units. For example, you begin the game by bombarding an enemy position with your artillery/SPG, then the computer returns fire with its own artillery. Despite the fact the enemy hasn't actually spotted your artillery/SPG, either with a spy plane, ground attack planes, bombers, or infantry/vehicles, they will always, 100% of the time, target your artillery/SPG perfectly. Obviously there's a random element as to where the shell lands, but it will always land in very close proximity to your units. Whereas when enemy artillery is firing at you from an unknown position, you can only see a small blip on the map, but where they are actually positioned can be far away from that blip. So you're at a massive disadvantage when it's your artillery/SPG vs. enemy artillery.

The enemy artillery in historical battles are also ridiculous. They will have several heavy guns, several howitzers, and several SPG's, and once you start advancing your units, or firing your artillery/SPG's, you're basically screwed. Half your army is wiped out before you can have any serious impact on the battle. Your bombers/ground attack planes get shot of the sky before you can destroy 10% of their artillery.

Enemy tanks are also frustrating, as they will always be better than what you have. Not only that, their weaker tanks with cannons that lack the penetration power to destroy your tanks, still somehow manage to destroy, sometimes with only one-shot, your superior tanks. Many times I've sent a heavy tank and a medium tank up against an enemy medium/light tank, and I've always ended up losing my heavy tank. I would use the heavy tank, with better armour, to draw the fire of the weaker tank, and then use my medium tank to flank and hit them from the side or rear. By the time the enemy tank is at 50%, my heavy tank is destroyed, and the enemy tank then turns on my medium tank, and either comes close to, or succeeds in destroying my medium tank. I've also tried sending in infantry first to draw the fire, and then send in my tanks, but the enemy tank will ignore the infantry, and start destroying my tanks.



It would be great if there was a mod or some way to either disable, or remove, both the player's, and the enemy's, artillery and SPG's from the game, and also make it so the enemy has tanks/vehicles that are of equal ability to your own. As it is, especially with historical battles, they have a huge advantage with regards to having many more units than you, so it really throws it out of balance. I like a challenge, but the majority of battles are simply ridiculous.

I completely agree, yes. I love the essence of Blitzkrieg, but (as you point out), you can just bombard the map at an increased speed, and then mop up any survivors with your units.

If I knew how to mod Blitzkrieg, I'd do something like this:


1. Disable the "Suppressive Fire" command for artillery/SPG, stopping players from just turning the speed up to 10x and endlessly bombarding any targeted area of the map.

2. Stop player and enemy artillery/SPG from being detected on the map, making scouting essential, and stopping the enemy from unfairly bombarding you at the start of certain missions.

3. Increase the reload time for all artillery/SPG and decrease their ammunition.

4. Include an option to disable artillery/SPG altogether.

5. Include an option to disable faster speeds in-game, but not lower ones.


Sudden Strike Gold and Sudden Strike 2 Gold are quite similar to Blitzkrieg if you'd like to try them. There's also Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, which I think of as a more hardcore and open-ended version of the original Commandos.

[Cpl. Burden R 3294]

Those things can be modded in easily, but it's better to correct the issues with artillery (over penetration and too greater accuracy) than to nerf it in that way. You might want to try my mod "Crimson Fields, Crimson Skies" as it fixes these things and more.

[Cybernetic General]

Originally posted by Cpl. Burden R 3294:

Those things can be modded in easily, but it's better to correct the issues with artillery (over penetration and too greater accuracy) than to nerf it in that way. You might want to try my mod "Crimson Fields, Crimson Skies" as it fixes these things and more.

Thank you kindly for your mod recommendation. I'll try it soon.

[Diablo7]

Originally posted by Cybernetic General:

Originally posted by Cpl. Burden R 3294:

Those things can be modded in easily, but it's better to correct the issues with artillery (over penetration and too greater accuracy) than to nerf it in that way. You might want to try my mod "Crimson Fields, Crimson Skies" as it fixes these things and more.

Thank you kindly for your mod recommendation. I'll try it soon.

Try it man! Is really god lol He's not lying at all. I've been playing "Crimson Fields, Crimson Skies" for a month now and I haven't completed the german campaign! I'm in chapter 9 and is set in 1942, so you can imagine how much there is to play. And most importantly, it solves the sniper artillery. Neither you or the enemy can see each other artillery. So you either have to scout the map or risk an attack with the artillery pounding your forces.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Zync:

There are two things in is the game that I find frustrating, it's artillery/self propelled guns and enemy tanks. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but I'm going to say it anyway.

1) My artillery/SPG & Tanks
While it does serve a purpose, such as taking out enemy AA and gun emplacements, it kind of destroys the tactical side of the game. Pretty much the main tactic is to increase the game speed to +10 and bombard the ♥♥♥♥ out of everything until nothing is left standing, then send in the tanks to mop up the few stragglers. In a way it kind of defeats the purpose of using infantry and tanks to flank, and defend, key positions. I understand that this was very much a main tactic during every war, but it kind of makes the game boring.

Yes, I know what you're going to say: "If you don't like it, then don't use artillery", well the only problem with that, is that (even on easy difficulty) the enemy will always have tanks that are 1 to 2 tiers above what you have. For example I might have medium tanks with 70/40/25/20 armour and a 60/90 cannon, but the enemy rolls up with heavy tanks with 100+/50+/35+/25+ armour and a 80+/100+ cannon. You can try and flank them with infantry, but the tanks secondary weapon mowes them down, unless of course you want to sacrifice 1 or more infantry units to take out a single tank. You can flank with vehicles, but you're almost guaranteed to lose one or more vehicles. So your only real option is to use artillery.

2) Enemy artillery & tanks
The AI in this game makes it almost impossible for you to disable enemy artillery with your own before they kill off your units. For example, you begin the game by bombarding an enemy position with your artillery/SPG, then the computer returns fire with its own artillery. Despite the fact the enemy hasn't actually spotted your artillery/SPG, either with a spy plane, ground attack planes, bombers, or infantry/vehicles, they will always, 100% of the time, target your artillery/SPG perfectly. Obviously there's a random element as to where the shell lands, but it will always land in very close proximity to your units. Whereas when enemy artillery is firing at you from an unknown position, you can only see a small blip on the map, but where they are actually positioned can be far away from that blip. So you're at a massive disadvantage when it's your artillery/SPG vs. enemy artillery.

The enemy artillery in historical battles are also ridiculous. They will have several heavy guns, several howitzers, and several SPG's, and once you start advancing your units, or firing your artillery/SPG's, you're basically screwed. Half your army is wiped out before you can have any serious impact on the battle. Your bombers/ground attack planes get shot of the sky before you can destroy 10% of their artillery.

Enemy tanks are also frustrating, as they will always be better than what you have. Not only that, their weaker tanks with cannons that lack the penetration power to destroy your tanks, still somehow manage to destroy, sometimes with only one-shot, your superior tanks. Many times I've sent a heavy tank and a medium tank up against an enemy medium/light tank, and I've always ended up losing my heavy tank. I would use the heavy tank, with better armour, to draw the fire of the weaker tank, and then use my medium tank to flank and hit them from the side or rear. By the time the enemy tank is at 50%, my heavy tank is destroyed, and the enemy tank then turns on my medium tank, and either comes close to, or succeeds in destroying my medium tank. I've also tried sending in infantry first to draw the fire, and then send in my tanks, but the enemy tank will ignore the infantry, and start destroying my tanks.



It would be great if there was a mod or some way to either disable, or remove, both the player's, and the enemy's, artillery and SPG's from the game, and also make it so the enemy has tanks/vehicles that are of equal ability to your own. As it is, especially with historical battles, they have a huge advantage with regards to having many more units than you, so it really throws it out of balance. I like a challenge, but the majority of battles are simply ridiculous.

Grinding down the enemy with artillery is normal and realistic.

I never had issues destroying enemy arty using my arty.

I usually enjoy spending a lot of time on my missions and just destroying everything with my artillery before I send my troops in.