My thoughts on Unthinkable

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funky_trader
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My thoughts on Unthinkable

Unread postby funky_trader » Thu Aug 27, 2020 11:51 pm

Finally finished the full campaign, earning all objectives (and side objectives) on time on classic difficulty. I went the ahistorical way to get to Operation Unthinkable. While I really liked all of the ahistorical path missions, that last one (Unthinkable) was not as fun. Here's some of my thoughts

The mission should really be split into two components, north and south.
  1. The AI always has had a lot of trouble the more troops and space you add to a mission (i.e. Taifun in UC1). I think there might be too many options to evaluate, and it starts picking sub-optimal ones. Even if it makes the same error rate as in other scenarios, the simple fact that there are more decisions to be made, and thus more resulting errors on an absolute basis, leads to more situations that can be easily exploited for a human.
  2. The paratrooper cheese is intense in this mission. You have several units to drop, and if you've managed to keep the air army from market garden, you can have easily about 8 paradrop. I'll give you that there's a lot of Soviet units in the rear that will take care of them over time (if not by turn 2 or 3), but it still cripples the AI supply lines. Combined with quick advances and the creation of pockets, I would say close to 70% of AI units were out of supply by turn 2 and cannon fodder by turn 3.
  3. Related to paratroopers, dropping them deep in the enemy's rear close to HQ leads to HQ blowing up bridges left and right, often exacerbating the supply issues. Granted, now at least, the AI can rebuild bridges, but shouldn't it try to kill my units first before blowing up important bridges?
  4. This links back to smaller scenarios. Splitting into north and south portions, and removing half of Poland would improve AI efficiency and player fun. The north is really about trying to encircle the Berlin pocket in Poland. The south is about grinding your way to the Osel, and then taking the other side. My different armies (British 2nd, US 1st, US 3rd in the north vs. US 5th and Free French in the south) had little interaction and overlap (or even reasons to overlap). Then, once you've done that, there's nothing left. It's pretty much open country to the last objectives. Sure, the AI has a few reserve units left, but they're bumps in the road at that point. I won on turn 9 (vs. first objective needed to be taken by turn 10) and could have easily done 7 or 8 if I had been more aggressive or optimized some more.
  5. The AI has some issues defending the Osel in the north. It completely abandoned the river in turn 1 (perhaps related to the fact that my paratroopers had put the entire area out of supply?). Or perhaps it was simply shuffling units as it kept changing plans.
  6. Supply should be much more of an issue. The Allies are attacking at the tail end of their logistical lines, through a destroyed Germany, into a destroyed Poland. And this isn't some carefully planned operation that was in the works for several months. Yet, we have 100% supply efficiency and 9 or 10 supply barrels to place around. Operation Overlord is so much more difficult than Unthinkable, simply because you're at 50% supply efficiency. You would think that moving things through the ruins of Berlin would be a hassle at least. Perhaps a gradual increase in supply efficiency through time (or side objectives that improve it) would be a great idea to increase the feeling of initial desperation and difficulty.
  7. Finally, even I was feeling overwhelmed by so many units. I love UoC because of its small scale nature. You have 10-30 units, objectives coming due in 3-8 turns, and then it's done. The focus and drive is intense. Here, there's too many units, too many options, too many things to remember.

Anyways, I really liked the overall alt campaign, but felt the end game was a tad disappointing. Certainly could be improved if I was game designer :P (but not looking to be one lol).

Thanks for that update and I can't wait for the next DLC

Grognard
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Re: My thoughts on Unthinkable

Unread postby Grognard » Fri Aug 28, 2020 11:41 am

Good comments and I agree on the paratrooper cheese.

I disagree however on it being too big. The real beauty of UOC 2 is that it can scale from tiny scenarios to vast ones. For instance in a hypothetical DLC it would be great to have lots of tiny scenarios doing an axis defence of Italy versus a gargantuan set of battle around Kursk. The war itself was so heterogeneous that it is good for the game to reflect it. And it is so unusual to have an engine and a UI that makes the game fun across the scale.

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Danielefc
2x2 Games
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Re: My thoughts on Unthinkable

Unread postby Danielefc » Sun Aug 30, 2020 1:15 am

1. Yes and no - the AIs biggest struggle is not having enough units usually (when playing as the Germans). The scale in map size is the issue for the AI in this one. But i find that it performs reasonably.

2. The para cheese is by design for this scenario. If you occupied most of your card slots with paras since Market Garden... Well then here it pays off. Yes it can probably turn into "ultra cheese" if this is the case, but as the saying goes: If you don't like cheese then don't eat it ;)

3. Yes the AI has trouble dealing with "deep" paradrops. It's an unfortunate side effect of being able to drop 6 hexes from your *current nearest frontline*, which in turn allows you to "bunnyhop". I would have liked to change this to *current nearest supplied hex*; but this would require re-design of too much content and bring up other issues.

4. Base game content probably won't change further unless any straight up bugs are found. We are a small team and very busy working on the expansion :)

5. This would be due to the supply issue you mention.

6. This is a good point. But the Soviets would be facing even worse conditions and as such the two sides are "even". Regardless, you are right it would have added an increase in challenge.

7. Agree, and don't worry: this was a one-off - intended to be veeery "over the top".


Cheers for the feedback! :)

funky_trader
Major
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Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:35 pm

Re: My thoughts on Unthinkable

Unread postby funky_trader » Sun Aug 30, 2020 6:42 pm

On the paratrooper army cards, I tend to play on classic, meaning I have 4 card slots available. Following a successful market garden, I'll usually keep 3 paras. The last card slot is used to obtain new cards in any given scenario and immediately use them. I find it the optimal strategy. I rarely have enough prestige to buy cards at conference as I'm too busy boosting my HQs' capabilities. And most cards that you get in any scenario tend to have an immediate usefulness

On the deep para drop, what you proposed would be a great solution if you ever have any time to rebuild that system.

Cheers

juoc
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Re: My thoughts on Unthinkable

Unread postby juoc » Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:31 am

I wrote a longer post that didn't make it for some reason...

I also thought Unthinkable was a bit too big for my taste at first and posted about it a few monts ago, but I've changed my mind after playing it now five times (standalone normal, classic and hard and then campaign classic and hard). Opting out of Unthinkable and ending on a more traditional smaller scenario like Dash to Berlin would be really anticlimatic so I think a big finish is the right design decision here.

I really dislike the idea of splitting the scenario into two. Looking at the map it was not obvious to me where US 3rd would be needed the most. I ended up using it to first help cut of the Berlin pocket and then spearhead an encirclement of the south, assisted by armored units from US 5th and FF, after the soviet counter attack on turn 1 around breslau caught me off guard, so to me it didn't feel disjointed at all. I want to look at the map at the start of a scenario and be unsure of the optimal strategy.

In general I think scenarions should be judged on their standalone version and with 4 paratroopers I think it works well enough although the large scale makes the AIs tendency to sit tight when beeing encircled becomes more apparent.

So, in short. Please at least one large scenarion like Unthinkable and Taifun and more scenarios with less obvious strategy for the DLC :)