Veterancy?

[Gilmore]

Is it possible for infantry and tank units to be able to acquire veterancy in this game and will it have a real impact on their skills, such as health and accuracy?

I believe in Men Of War units could gain experience, but I never particularly noticed a difference in performance. I'm a big fan of how Company Of Heroes incentivizes keeping your soldiers alive by unlocking new abilities and improving their general stats, though I'm not sure how you would be able to incorporate that in a game like this.

[CalvinJZ]

I'm not sure if that's still a thing in GoH but in CtA and MoW veterancy does affect health, stamina and overal weapon handling. Although with GoH leaning more the realistic side of things, i suppose they mainly kept the stamina and weapon handling thing.

Health most likely won't be affected as much, but if we look at say the base units of different veterancy by default, health does differ. So that leads me to believe it's very similar to the other games when it comes to veterancy, however how hard it scales is still unknown. Most likely you are still not going to survive 1 or 2 rifle hits with your max veterancy soldier anyways as opposed to a non veteran, but it would be closer to the order of pistol hits, maybe a normal soldier can take 2-3 and a veteran might take 4.

Anyways don't expect much from the health difference but more about stamina and weapon accuracy.

[Total Eclipse]

Originally posted by Courage The Cowardly Dog:

Is it possible for infantry and tank units to be able to acquire veterancy in this game and will it have a real impact on their skills, such as health and accuracy?

I believe in Men Of War units could gain experience, but I never particularly noticed a difference in performance. I'm a big fan of how Company Of Heroes incentivizes keeping your soldiers alive by unlocking new abilities and improving their general stats, though I'm not sure how you would be able to incorporate that in a game like this.

I always hated veterancy in single battle games. A soldier is not going to be a veteran, because he fought in a single skirmish.

In CoH2 the system is outright stupid as the models who reinforce are also veterans. It might eb that the unit has nothing to do with the original veteran squad and still qualify as a veteran.

In MOWAS2 there is veterancy, but it is stupid. A volkssturm unit gets a lucky kill on a superheavy tank and he is at max veterancy (which increases weapon skill, healthpoints and maybe stamina) all, because he knocked out a tank. A civilian who was given a weapon now is better, than a soldier who at least has basic training, because he knocked out a tank. Sounds very stupid.

MOW incentivizes you to keep everything alive, because once your manpower hits the cap you'll only get payback. Which means at late game you have a very tiny income. If you keep your units alive you'll get an advantage later.

Such a thing doesn't really exist in CoH2, because your manpower is unlimited it is the income which is limited there, based on how big is your pop cap or if you called in a "ace tiger tank", who misses point blank shots. So of course they have to incentivize players with their veterancy system.

[hawka]

So if the goal of this is realism, I do agree that the only real improvement would be around weapon handling and maybe stamina (if they run around a lot). I do think it is cool for units to have a personal kill counter just because I like to see what each unit has done.

[M4F10S0]

Originally posted by hawka:

... I do agree that the only real improvement would be around weapon handling and maybe stamina...

Soldiers will have stamina. So they won't run fast forever.

[fumantze]

In previous Men of War and Assault Squad titles I made mods to change how the veterancy changed things, for my taste. Never touching health, only weapon handling and stamina.

[JohnDogma]

As far as the talk of how health shouldn't be included in the veteran system, I think it's acceptable (to a point) if you integrate it into some head cannon. The health is just a numbers stat in the game. I like to think of it increasing as not necessarily just a health number going up, but a measure of unit toughness. A veteran would be much less likely to panic or pass out after taking a single rifle bullet, or a few handgun rounds even. They would also be better at fighting through the pain, and more effective at care under fire. Which is why I think that it's understandable in Gates of Hell, especially since the *health* only goes up ever so slightly.

[Doc Erica]

Originally posted by hawka:

So if the goal of this is realism, I do agree that the only real improvement would be around weapon handling and maybe stamina (if they run around a lot). I do think it is cool for units to have a personal kill counter just because I like to see what each unit has done.

The problem I always find when we start discussions around game mechanics and realism is that there is no threshold of "realism" vs not realistic enough. That doesnt mean it cant be reflected in the gameplay or mechanics, but everyones definition of realism is not going to be the same. Plus trying to relate realism concepts to numbers on a stats sheet is a toss in the dark. In the Army, most of my engagements were from 200-500 meters away unless I was in a town. Ingame thats not feasible even though weapons are effective up to generally those ranges. If we made it a carbon copy from real life into GOH, every soldier will be shooting lasers since the maps are generally only 200-400 meters in length. So to make the game more of a game the accuracy and stamina needs to be reduced since its scaled downwards. Plus also, even back then soldiers were very rarely sprinting or running more than 50 meters at a time. US WW2 training stipulated the 3-5 second rush which is about 15 -20 meters. Add in gear, lack of food and hydration, limited physical training in the field, plus EVERYONE smoked like crazy. Even nowadays, you very rarely find soldiers sprinting for long periods; the only real exception is probably urban operations like house clearing. But this is what I mean: realism is not an objective thing to quantify easily.

[Saxhorn]

Is it possible for infantry and tank units to be able to acquire veterancy in this game

Yes veterancy exists in Gates of Hell (and I'm pretty sure it was in CTA as well).

It's worth having Veterancy in Conquest because the soldiers move onto the next battle with you. It's a long term investment into soldiers who stay with you throughout your campaign.

In other game modes it's nice but generally the units are disposable and you don't keep them long enough for them to get enough veterancy levels for it to matter.

One level of veterancy adds stamina
The next level of veterancy adds +1 star to accuracy with weapons
The next level of veterancy adds 10% (I think 10%) health
and then I the cycle repeats.

A "basic" tier 2 soldier starts with
200 health
125 stamina
3 star weapon skills for their "roll" riflemen have 3 stars with any rifle but 2 stars with an MG or SMG, soldiers with an SMG have 3 stars with any SMG but only 2 stars if you give them a rifle or MG.

At vet 1 they have 144 stamina but still have the same weapon skills and health.

At vet 2 they have 144 stamina, +1 weapon skills so the rifleman get 4 stars with a rifle (and 3 with the SMG) but still only has 200 health.

At level 3 they finally get the extra health but it's only 20 health more than the basic guy you spawned in but it took three veterancy levels to get to these 20 health points.

will it have a real impact on their skills, such as health and accuracy?

It takes a very very long time to level up soldiers to the point where these increments make a huge difference. So it depends on what you define as "real" in the above quote. Is 10% a "real" difference?

You are better off simply purchasing a higher tier unit that spawns with veterancy levels. When you add 10% onto the already buffed health the tier 4 or 5 soldiers have you get a larger increase and because it's easier to keep a soldier with more health alive its a bit easier for them to live long enough to achieve even more veterancy.

The big exception to the above is your tank crews and AT gun crews. Having veteran crews seems to be worth the effort. They shoot more accurately and that's important. They seem to get stunned for less time when the tank is hit? (Not sure about this - just seems that way to me). That really helps a lot when you blunder into a bad spot.