Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

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funky_trader
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Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

Unread postby funky_trader » Sun Nov 15, 2020 9:34 pm

Just finally finished this wonderful DLC. Lots of fun and really challenging. I play on classic difficulty and it really felt rewarding to get every objectives on time given how tight it was.

First off, Stug Life :lol: . MVP specialist step for the on-the-go German panzer with a busy conquering schedule to meet. If only I could put an engineer/recon/stug combo on those tanks, that would be deadly :twisted:

General thoughts:
  1. The Polish campaign was the hardest. You have weak units and need to use speed/avoidance to reach those objectives. It really required a different mindset from how the Germans operate in the rest of the UoC franchise (massively strong units that can also go deep in the rear). Took me quite a few tries to get it, but by the time I hit Belgium and my tanks had upgraded to something decent, I had mastered that style to get all those objectives far in the rear easy enough. I don't remember much else as it was two weeks ago.
  2. Scandinavian campaign. Pretty fun, but I had some issues with Trondheim.
    1. First off, the standalone scenario and the campaign version are slightly dissimilar. In the scenario, those troops up north at Trondheim start with steps suppressed. In the campaign, all steps are in supply. I believe I've seen this bug with the Yugoslavian scenario as well.
    2. Second, getting Hamar on turn 2 is quite frustrating and is likely one of the reasons people talk about the "puzzle" nature of UoC. There is only one set of things that you can do to get it on time. And it all relies on IR 307 not having been mauled in the previous scenario (which was my case). Compounded with bad weather starts, it meant lots of "unfun" restarts.
    3. Third, that one step fallschirmjager south of Dombas causes weird behaviour by the AI. I found out through trial and error that if you send it on the mountain on turn 1, the AI removes its unit from Dombas, leaves it empty, and sometimes sends its HQ down south. So on turn 2, I can put it on Dombas and all ennemy units plus HQ turn out of supply. The AI generally can't take it back before its units run out of supply: I have a one step veteran unit with 4 defense/step defending in a city against a six step regular unit with 1 offense/step offense
      uoc2 ai logic bug.png
  3. Low countries to Dunkirk. The high point definitely.
    1. The Netherland capitulation took me by surprise. It wasn't listed anywhere that taking this "optional" objective would remove all Netherland units from the map. How can it be optional? You can't take Amsterdam (on time) without taking that optional objective. I had already mentally given up in mind that I would be able to take all main and optional obkectives on time. Once you learn how to use this new mechanic, the scenario "makes sense". I'll admit there are some variants so it's not a linear thing, but this should really be a main objective to make the player understand the consequences of its action. Perhaps introducing the mechanic earlier in Poland in a less powerfull and truly optional fashion would also insure that players are familiar enough with it. This is the standard "player training" that most video games would use.
    2. The Belgian capitulation in Dunkirk by contrast was already quite easy to understand by then. It's also a "real" optional objective in that scenario.
    3. Sickle Stroke. Loved it. The balance is extremely tenuous. The supply lines always threathened/uncertain. And yet, there is no way but forward, harassed by surprise counterattacks on your weakened, out of supply units. Not sure if WAD, but the British unit spanning in Calais defends Boulogne instead of the optional objective. I was pleasantly surprised as I could not have dislodged it on time otherwise.
    4. Dunkirk. A tasty reward for having encircled the French and English. Only cristicism, the counter attacks near Amiens are just badly handled by the AI. Sure, they mauled a few infantery divisions, but those are easily rebuilt. Moreover, it often left the Allied units with most steps suppressed or destroyed. I had cleared all of the Allied units from the area around Amiens before I had even reduced the Dunkirk pocket.
  4. Fall Rot & Tannenbaum. Fall Rot was challenging in taking those objectives far far in the rear, but otherwise easy enough. Tannenbaum has some issues. The listed HQ in the scenario chart is wrong. It's not OKW, it's HG A. They also really need another supply source in Zurich. If you take Luzern by turn 4, the Swiss will be out of supply for 3 turns by the time you need to take Zurich. Meaning that you don't even need to do anything, you can just walk some units on the out of supply steps by then. I would also recommend making Lichstenstein an optional objective. It's far in the rear, requires planning, and would be a tough nut to crack if it, and that fortress in front, are still in supply.
  5. Eastern Europe. A bit of an annoying campaign with several little frustrations (more details below). Still fun. I got so overprepared for Merkur (extra battleship card, extra air bombardment card, extra paratrooper card, and extra fliegerkorps card) that it ended up being won by turn 6 or 7 lol

Main criticisms:
  1. In UoC 2 base game, you get the feel that you build up your units over time. I really like having mostly elite units with 3 specialist steps in the final scenarios. Here, there's no real carry through. A few units have more than 1 appearance, but most don't. That means I spend the last few turns of each scenarios systematically stripping units of their specialist steps and/or base steps. HG A had something like 20+ infantery and 10+ armor steps in its force pool by the time of its last appearance :P ...
  2. Same goes for HQ, but to a lower extent. I guess it really becomes apparent in the Eastern Europe scenarios where you have all these new HQs that appear and disappear. I would suggest cheating a bit, and saying that certain HQ turn into other HQ just to allow the player to level them up and have a certain sense of ownership.
  3. In certain scenarios, it is critical that some units start out with specialist steps and veteran/elite status in order to execute a few critical moves early on. If you fucked up in a previous scenario, and that key units is in less than stellar shape, or doesn't have the required specialist steps like engineer or artillery, the difficulty level of that scenario goes up exponentially. It's an old critisism of mine. I would suggest allowing the player to distribute his starting units in certain areas. Perhaps putting everyone in the force pool with a spawning turn of 0 would do the trick. Allowable spawning points should obviously be restricted to the proper areas.
  4. Units that are not in HQ range at the start of a scenario cannot be refitted/upgraded with specialist steps. This is an issue especially in Eastern Europe. In the Greek campaign, you have two units alone on the extreme eastern edge that would benefit from specialist steps if you want to make them usable against the entrenched Greeks in fortresses in the area. And simply in general, if again you fucked up in the previous scenario, and a mauled unit carries through and starts in a spot outside of HQ range, you can't refit it. During the planning phase, you should allow any units to be reinforced from the force pool or with prestige. Once the scenario begins, it's understandable that you would need to be in HQ range.
  5. Army HQ vs Panzer HQ. The army HQ works great. I love the balance between its long command range and small movement range. The panzer HQ doesn't work as well. In most campaigns, you need to send your panzers far out ahead. Generally, by the end of turn 1, you should already have most of that HQ's units out of range. That means you need to move it. However, it will suppress 2 power level, recovering only 1/turn. The next turn, you need to move it again. So you are faced with either having a badly crippled panzer HQ covering your panzers or having it falling behind. In both case, that means I rarely used the panzer HQ's powers past turn 2 in scenarios where there's a lot of ground to cover (Fall Rot, Poland, Eastern Europe). Especially since in Eastern Europe, you have those 1 scenario only panzer HQ that have little to no upgrades and never reappear. If I could at least built up panzergroup Kleist to its max, there would be more usefulness out of it since it can take more suppression before you run out of abilities.

Suggestions:
  1. Have you considered a Spanish or Czech scenario for tutorial purposes? Especially to teach the "surrender" mechanic. The Czech one would be a fun alt-hist scenario.
  2. Encirclement mechanics. Often, you end up encircling a unit with yours. However, you get no attack bonus which feels wrong. Here's a potential new mechanic:
    1. Any unit in direct contact with 3+ ennemy units gets a -1 modifier to its defense roll, scaled by the number of units above 3. So, a unit in contact with 3 ennemy units gets -1, but -2 for 4, -3 for 5, and -4 for 6 (completely surrounded).
    2. As a counterbalance, units with allied backup (i.e. in direct contact with allied units) get positive defense roll modifiers. So +1 at 3 (negating the -1 from 3 ennemy units), +2 at 4, and +3 at 5 (making it quite hard to dislodge massive lines of interlocking infantry units). Obviously, you can give +4 at 6, but that doesn't really mean anything since there are no ennemy units that can attack...
    3. When attacking, to get that encirclement bonus, those supporting units need to each have their action point left. If they can't attack, they can't support. Giving their support also means spending their action point and remaining movement points, if any. So it's more of a combined attack from all sides that overwhelms the defender.
    4. I feel it gives a good balance and some interesting choice to the player. You can combine force to take out a troublesome unit, at the cost of having all those units be unable to push forward if you breach. Moreover, it takes care of issues where a lone infantery unit entrenched in a city can hold off assaults from all sides with ease. In WW2, intense urban combat happened mostly when the city was on the front line, with solid support from the rear. Cities that got fully surrounded tended to fall quickly. Plus, since the big cities tend to be split by major rivers in UoC 2 (Paris, Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, London), they can't get surrounded as much, and so the bonus wouldn't be too strong. Meanwhile, the Maginot line would truly become impenetrable due to all those bonuses from backup units. Finally, it would fit quite fell within the spirit of the game. This game is based on mobile offense and breakthroughs. This would be one more tool in your arsenal.

Hope it helps! I'm going to try the alt-history variant now :D
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Grognard
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Re: Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

Unread postby Grognard » Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:36 pm

Agree with much if this.

Two thoughts:
1. If there were to be a "Barbarossa DLC" it would be great to export the units from Blitzkrieg so that it acted as one super long campaign. That would mean that many units that were only two scenarios in Blitzkreig would reappear later so one would have more of investment in them.

2. A whole NG+ mode (in console speak) where you replayed campaigns with a core force would be amazing. Panzer corps GC is a much simpler game than UOC 2 but the sense of connection with a force that starts in Poland and ends ~100 battles later in Berlin is amazing. It would be great to do this with the base allies UOC 2 and the axis DLC. Even if it unbalances certain scenarios that would be fine as an NG+ mode and add to the fun. The panzer corps GC is impossible without building up prestige over the early years and spending it in the later years. It would be great in UOC 2 trying to get through Blitzkrieg+Barbarossa with enough saved points to make it through 1944/45.

juoc
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Re: Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

Unread postby juoc » Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:31 am

Regarding "5. Army HQ vs Panzer HQ.". I like that the Panzer HQ needs to stay closer to the action but I think it would work much better if it could move AND THEN give orders in a single turn. I hardly ever go to use Recon in force and counter-atttack because of the range limitation.

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Danielefc
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Re: Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

Unread postby Danielefc » Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:48 am

So glad you had fun! Adressing a few of your points:

RE: Units not starting supressed in campaign.

Yea there is a technical issue at play here and I'm not sure it's solvable

RE: Hamar and "puzzle"

There are many issues at play here.

The objective deadlines serve as a guide to help players who are not familiar with every single battle of the war. Tough Hamar deadline = the player will know that heading in this direction FAST is a good idea. It is not intended that one should always be able to get every bonus objective and and every primary objective (on time) in every play through. As it happens it is often possible and we are aware that a lot of players see it as a "failure" if they don't. We have been poor at communicating that this is by design and we are thinking of ways to "solve" the issue in future. Rest assured that the design team pretty much never do a whole campaign with all objectives taken. :D

As for the eternal "puzzle debate", my personal opinion is this: With one or two exceptions there are almost endless ways to win every single scenario; many times not even by design. However we do nudge the player into playing in a somewhat historically accurate manner. If someone prefers a genuine sandbox.... Then there are better games for this. And this is by no means taking a swipe at those games! I personally love Hearts of Iron 4 and the likes. But they have little to do with operational warfare or realism. And this is again not(!) a criticism: "general realism" is a neither possible nor desireable in games imo. Authenticity is though! And each game has its strengths and weaknesses in simulating different aspects of war. Example: if a player uses his panzer divisions to mop up pockets instead of leaving these pockets for the infantry in UoC2. Well then the game punishes him in several ways. This will lure the player into using his panzer divisions in a more mobile way, which will in turn make the game "easier" since the AI wont have time to react. This is authentic in terms of German operations in World War 2: the biggest strength of the panzer divisions was not fighting, it was their ability to avoid fighting. Of course they were powerful formations and could maul more static divisions.... But as a long term operational approach, substained heavy combat was not viable.

RE: FJ unit in Trondheim

Looking into this. It was a problem during testing that I thought I had fixed.

RE: Tannenbaum HQs

An unfortunate graphical mistake in the campaign tree HQs due to some last minute changes. :(

RE: Criticisms

1. This is by design. Historically the (main) strength of the Allies was their ability to power-snowball over the course of the war. "The broad tripple specs and buildup feel" is how we try to communicate this. The Germans simply couldn't pull off this same sort of approach. They grew weaker and weaker as the war dragged on: raising new division after new division, leaving experienced divisions with little equipment/manpower. In the end they could no longer support the panzer drives properly. Notice the waves of followup infantry that you have at your disposal in France 1940. This is what the Germans didn't have later in the war, and so their Panzers were forced to do the infantry's job, and finally they would bleed out as well while not being to fulfill their actual role. As such it is intentional if you find yourself mostly focusing on a narrow set of your divisions (mainly the mobile ones).

5. I agree to an extent and I'm toying with the idea of allowing the Panzer HQs to move and then perform actions in future content. But this will depend upon many other variables, so no promises. (EDIT: And I see it's mentioned in another comment here :lol: But as stated: it may not be possible to implement)

Thanks for the extensive feedback

Cheers!

sourdust
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Re: Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

Unread postby sourdust » Tue Nov 17, 2020 10:21 pm

Great feedback, thanks!

Re: Netherlands surrender - only secondary objectives give rewards; primary objectives can't have a reward tagged to them, other than the prestige gained by their capture. So technically the "dutch surrender" can only be triggered by assigning it as a reward for a secondary objective. It is possible to get all the primaries on time even without dutch surrender, especially with use of a few cards... but obviously surrender is the most straightforward solution.

Re: Tannenbaum - the absence of Swiss supply in Zurich is by design; the general idea being that once the Germans have gotten this far, the bits of the swiss army which haven't managed to retreat to the national redoubt will start to collapse, as defeat is upon them. Taking Luzern by turn 4 is not always easy, depending on what the player brings to the table. I may have another look at the balancing of this one, thanks for the feedback.

Encirclement mechanics... interesting idea. I think some game systems overestimate the benefit of encirclement in some circumstances. Yes, if you are unexpectedly surrounded on all sides, that's bad. But prepared concentric positions can be very strong, as they have the benefit of interior lines, while the attacker has the opposite. The Germans found this out the hard way at Bastogne, but there are many other instances of "surrounded" positions being very tough - think free french at Bir Hachiem, or Germans at Demyansk, or sieges of urban fortresses like Breslau and Budapest, etc. The thing is to distinguish between situations of units getting cut off and cut to pieces, versus units deliberately preparing a concentric position. Personally I feel like few operational / strategic games get this right. On balance I think UoC2 mechanics work well enough for most situations. If you have 3+ hexes on a defending unit, you can cycle more units through to attack, use more special HQ attacks, and can often cut off supplies.

Thanks again, very detailed and useful

C

Articwulf
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Re: Blitzkrieg DLC Historical Path - Thoughts & Suggestions

Unread postby Articwulf » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:21 am

funky_trader wrote:Suggestions:
  1. Encirclement mechanics. Often, you end up encircling a unit with yours. However, you get no attack bonus which feels wrong. Here's a potential new mechanic:
    1. Any unit in direct contact with 3+ ennemy units gets a -1 modifier to its defense roll, scaled by the number of units above 3. So, a unit in contact with 3 ennemy units gets -1, but -2 for 4, -3 for 5, and -4 for 6 (completely surrounded).
    2. As a counterbalance, units with allied backup (i.e. in direct contact with allied units) get positive defense roll modifiers. So +1 at 3 (negating the -1 from 3 ennemy units), +2 at 4, and +3 at 5 (making it quite hard to dislodge massive lines of interlocking infantry units). Obviously, you can give +4 at 6, but that doesn't really mean anything since there are no ennemy units that can attack...
    3. When attacking, to get that encirclement bonus, those supporting units need to each have their action point left. If they can't attack, they can't support. Giving their support also means spending their action point and remaining movement points, if any. So it's more of a combined attack from all sides that overwhelms the defender.
    4. I feel it gives a good balance and some interesting choice to the player. You can combine force to take out a troublesome unit, at the cost of having all those units be unable to push forward if you breach. Moreover, it takes care of issues where a lone infantery unit entrenched in a city can hold off assaults from all sides with ease. In WW2, intense urban combat happened mostly when the city was on the front line, with solid support from the rear. Cities that got fully surrounded tended to fall quickly. Plus, since the big cities tend to be split by major rivers in UoC 2 (Paris, Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, London), they can't get surrounded as much, and so the bonus wouldn't be too strong. Meanwhile, the Maginot line would truly become impenetrable due to all those bonuses from backup units. Finally, it would fit quite fell within the spirit of the game. This game is based on mobile offense and breakthroughs. This would be one more tool in your arsenal.


As Chesty would say...
“We’re surrounded. That simplifies the problem. They are in front of us, behind us, and we are flanked on both sides by an enemy that outnumbers us 29:1. They can’t get away now.