A few suggestions

Ask, comment, read.
KiwiRob
Second Lieutenant
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:28 am

A few suggestions

Unread postby KiwiRob » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:39 am

First-off, I have to say that Unity of Command II is an inspired wargame, deftly dealing with complex operational issues. Awesome work by the Devs, especially considering they have a fraction of the resources of the big firms.

I have some suggestions to improve what really does feel like something close to WW2 gaming perfection (although I realise that the Devs are busy on the expansion, so to the extent any are considered worth taking up it may be a while):

1. Tank suppression. Tanks of the era were fragile, with panzer units often reporting sharp reductions in combat-ready tank strength due to breakdowns after a matter of a few days' combat. Equally, tank units had mechanics that could, with adequate supplies of spare parts and the like, bring those tanks back to effectiveness in a matter of days. This could be reflected in game terms with a independent risk of suppression for some of the tank and armoured AT units whenever they are used in attack, particularly some of the underpowered heavy tanks, reflecting a temporary loss of strength until refitting could occur. This suppression risk would occur independently of how one-sided the attack was. At the same time, this would mean that some heavy tanks that have been placed in the front of the loss queue, such as the Konigstiger, could be pushed slightly further back. That is, I think the Konigstiger is in slot 1 to reflect its breakdown risk, but being in slot 1 also means that it is likely to be killed rather than just suppressed. Given how well-protected the Konigstiger is (I believe that there are no documented cases of a 17-pounder successfully penetrating the Konigstiger's frontal armour), this is a bit harsh.

2. Some armoured AT seem too close to the front of the loss queue on attack. It becomes especially difficult to use Stug- and Jagdtiger-equipped units in an attack, since the armour shift provided by these units isn't effective. The Germans didn't use self-propelled guns as the tip of the spear in assaults, so they shouldn't really be in slot 1 on attack. (True, there was a ex-panzerjaeger unit that was given Elefants at Kursk and, overestimating their protection, they drove them straight at the Russians and suffered disastrous losses, but on the whole the comment stands.)

3. Engineers are rightly in slot 1 when their abilities are being used. But if their abilities aren't being used then the risk of loss becomes too high, and it feels like attaching engineers becomes an expensive risk should a bad combat result come about. If attacking an unfortified unit with no amphibious assault required, the engineers should drop to slot 3 or so.

4. Specialists have been given fairly strong powers in the recent upgrades. That leaves their relative usefulness rather too high compared to engineers for my liking, but one aspect that stands out is their position in the loss queue. If Rangers are with a unit such that the unit avoids both entrenchment and amphibious penalties, the Rangers shouldn't also be in loss position 3 by inspiring the regular GI's to do great things and take the losses in front of the Rangers. I suggest that all specialists should be no lower than loss position 2 on attack.

5. AI reinforcements can be permanently blocked by sitting on their entry hex, allowing for some cheesy tactics. To reduce this effect, the AI should be able to bring the units at a wider range of entry points a turn after the first, and maybe wider still the turn after, and also to be allowed to enter a player-controlled entry hex as long as that hex that isn't physically occupied by a player unit.

6. Probably the most complex fix, but also the most frustrating: If a player unit disappears from the game, or is to be rebuilt, the temptation is to strip the unit as far as possible. (True, if you don't like the cheese, don't eat it, but still the temptation is there...) To avoid this, the unit should disappear from the game along with all steps and specialists that a player has stripped from the unit. Equally, if the disappearing unit has been buffed with extra specialists, those extra specialists should not disappear with the unit, as otherwise even a player that doesn't want to be cheesy is penalised. The same goes for paratroopers that have had specialists added, but which are withdrawn for a jump - the specialists should go back to the pool.

Thanks again for a superb game.

Rob

funky_trader
Major
Posts: 62
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:35 pm

Re: A few suggestions

Unread postby funky_trader » Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:25 pm

Some great ideas. Here are my thoughts

  1. Tank Suppression. The game already more or less behaves like this. When attacking with chances that the enemy retreats or is overrun, there is a high probability of having 1 or 2 steps suppressed, especially specialists ones. Perhaps it should be more common in regular attacks as well, but it may complexify the game for little benefit (infantry never gets suppressed on a regular attack, but tanks might, new players might be confused). I agree though that heavy tanks specialists should have a lower probability of getting destroyed, whether on the offensive, defensive, or as a result of aerial bombardment.
  2. Armoured AT. Completely agree.
  3. Engineers. Completely agree. I already wrote a post complaining about their unduly high casualty rate. Especially since they never die when conducting a "set piece attack", although attacking a weakened enemy on open field has a seemingly 30% chance of killing them ;) .
  4. Commando/Rangers. I fully agree, but this might be an overly large request for a very small benefit. A simple engineer rework would already be great.
  5. AI reinforcement. Completely disagree :P . This is a feature of UoC since the first game lol! How can you get the brilliant victory on classic or hard without some good old ripened cheese? On a more serious note, I like to see this as a feature of the game: if your advance is so fast and strong that you can occupy the deployment zone of the enemy, it's more akin to the enemy commander making a decision to not reinforce that sector given the deteriorating odds of a successful counterattack/defence. Race Across France is a good example: if you can't reach Metz fast enough, Axis reinforcement spawn to rebuild defences in the area and stop you from taking secondary objectives. Race fast enough, and the commander likely made the decision to establish elsewhere his new line of defence.
  6. Disbanding unneeded units. I also have issue with this. Ideally, if you disband a unit that's going in some other theatre of operation after the scenario concludes, you should be expected to rebuild it with your accumulated prestige. In other words, you can disband/recycle the steps, but it will be deducted from your prestige at the end. The unit is still needed and theoretically, you wouldn't be able to conduct your subsequent offensives if other theatre of operations fail due to lack of units. Still, this might get overly complex fast (What if a unit gets partially destroyed, do you pay for those steps? Which unit exactly will be used again? What about steps that you add to those units, are they refunded? What if you're already at 0 prestige, do you go negative?). New players will also likely complain about their "weird and seemingly random prestige hit" that they keep suffering from.

KiwiRob
Second Lieutenant
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:28 am

Re: A few suggestions

Unread postby KiwiRob » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:48 pm

Thanks, Funkytrader, I appreciate your thoughts. To give my reasoning on a few points:

Tank Suppression. You're right to point out overrun suppression, and that throwing in an extra factor for armoured breakdown is covering the same point a different way. My suggestion actually came about because I thought that some of the heavy tanks were higher than I expected on the loss queue, and the rationale appeared to be their likelihood of breakdown. But for a Konigstiger to take the first KIA loss doesn't seem right, especially when added to, say, an infantry or mechanized unit that would be much more vulnerable on a battlefield than a heavy tank. An independent suppression risk specifically targeted at those vehicles most subject to a breakdown risk seemed a better approach than giving the heavy tanks the first or second loss slot on attack.

AI reinforcements. I agree with you about Race Across France. Getting to Metz and blocking reinforcements felt satisfyingly right when my units were blocking what could be viewed as forest roads. But it didn’t feel so right when I did the same thing to stop the swarms of Germans attacking the highway to Arnhem by placing a weak infantry unit on their entry hex – why would the Germans not at the very least choose a point of attack a few miles north or south across the open plains of Holland? I got the win, but it felt too game-y after struggling with the scenario many times before. But you’re right that I’m probably discounting all the times in UoC that I took the benefit, knowingly or not…

Disbanding unneeded units. I think that the approach that if the player has stripped steps or specialists from the exiting unit in the unit’s final scenario then those steps and specialists also exit deals with some of the problems you identify with the subtraction to prestige approach. Those steps and specialists would come from the HQ pools if still there, and (painfully) from units randomly selected if there are no matching steps and specialists still in the HQ pool. if there is no matching step or specialists then clearly it was KIA so nothing need occur. It is only going to hit a player that has chosen to strip the exiting unit, so it needn’t strike anyone as unfair.

Cheers,

Rob

juoc
Major
Posts: 57
Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2014 8:34 pm

Re: A few suggestions

Unread postby juoc » Sat Sep 05, 2020 3:52 pm

Many good points here, I especially like the idea of risking casualties when using set-piece attack. I'm with funky_trader regarding AI reinforcement, although I think the deployment zones should be larger (that goes for player naval deployment zones too). Sure, in Market Garden it is a bit extreme but that scenario is also the most puzzle-like scenario in the game.

KiwiRob
Second Lieutenant
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:28 am

Re: A few suggestions

Unread postby KiwiRob » Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:52 pm

I’m going to necro my own thread, since I’ve been meaning to acknowledge that I was wrong and Funkytrader and Juoc are right about AI reinforcement entry points. The logic of a commander recognising that a situation has deteriorated due to an enemy advance and so not pushing the attack is a good one. I also didn’t realise that the Meuse river runs along the right edge of the Market Garden map, so seizing the entry point that happens to be the bridge is anything but game-y.

But the other reason for writing is to give a few more suggestions on the game. Maybe less significant ones, but I hope improvements.

1. Movement cost for stragglers/HQs. The number of movement points should not be the same for all units. Rather, the cost should be set at around half the movement points of the unit. In other words, if a turn is two days long, it takes a day to round up the prisoners. The way the game plays, a panzer unit with 8 MP extended range can comfortably deal with two pockets of stragglers, while an infantry unit can only cope with one - almost the opposite of the reality.

2. Artillery and entrenched units. An entrenched unit in a city is invulnerable to suppressive fire. The only effect possible is turning the city to ruins. There are people in the world for whom an artillery barrage is an irrelevance if they are sufficiently well protected. However, I’d suggest that there are a large number, myself included, that would not take the demonstration of the lethal power of the enemy well. Some level of suppression of entrenched and fortified units should still be possible, even if in the case of a city it risks causing ruins and the disadvantages that brings. Which brings me to the next point.

3. A ruined city helps the defence too much. While it is true that many ruined cities were tenaciously defended, I suggest that the causation typically ran in the opposite direction - they were tenaciously defended, so they got ruined. If a city gets ruined, then it is harder for anything with wheels to operate, but soldiers aren’t much affected. It might be easier for defenders to move between ruined buildings, but attackers can do the same, and both benefit from more cover. My experience of urban warfare is limited to squad level games, so I am hardly in a position to talk, but ruins in those games have little combat effect, so why should there be a large, sometimes game-breaking, effect in an operational level game?

4. River penalties. Engineers and some special forces do not suffer the -2 penalty. That’s great for the player, but doesn’t seem quite realistic. Given the difficulties and vulnerability when crossing a river, some penalty should still be there. Given they wouldn’t have the capabilities of engineers, perhaps amphibious special forces should have a -1 penalty to distinguish the two.

5. Victory hexes. When clicking on the objectives from the drop-down list, the hex on the map should be outlined. On a couple of occasions I have happily captured what I thought was the victory hex, only to find that I was one hex off.