More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

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kvnrthr
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More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby kvnrthr » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:27 pm

It would be nice, since the unit strengths and experience carry over, to be able to know which units will be in the next scenario and to pick (to some extent) the starting positions of units. Sometimes I have two divisions, one was destroyed and returns as a regular while another is an elite unit with many specialists, but the elite unit goes away and is not carried over, or it might just start in a bad position. Sometimes a 1-step is even put on the frontline as well.

funky_trader
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby funky_trader » Sun Nov 17, 2019 6:44 pm

I second that! It took me a few campaigns to realise some units were porting over from previous scenarios, with their strength as it was at the end of that previous scenario. Nowhere is this explained or made clear, and leads to a few issues:

1) Often you get to your last objectives on the last turn. It is very tempting to suicide a few of your units to soften up the entrenched German unit and take the objective on time. The rationale being that it doesn't matter since you'll get a clean slate on the next scenario. However it does! And you may be essentially entering the next scenario in a no win starting condition because all of your best units have been ground up to dust and replaced with regular, no specialist steps, weak units. This is such a big choice to make, but nowhere is it hinted at! I've been stuck at one of the Italian scenarios in the campaign because my leftover starting units are too weak. But trying the standalone scenario, I realized the starting strenght should be much better than what I had.

Solution: make it clear that some units carry over, and highlight which do

2) Given that units carry over, it is imperative that we be able to pick their starting positions! A typical strategy that I have adopted is to rebuild a unit as a specialist artillery one (with 2 or 3 artillery steps), and rebuild another one as the puncher (i.e. tanks, engineers, recon). This means that on the first turn, the artillery specialist will soften up enough the entrenched German unit for the puncher to take it out and advance. However, given that all starting positions are seemingly pre-set, it doesn't make sense that the puncher starts on the first line and the artillery specialist stands way in the back. Again, this means some campaign scenarios become unwinnable relative to their standalone versions. Some scenarios are so tight on time that you absolutely need to go through entrenched units on the first turn. And you can't do that if all your artillery units are in the back rows at the start. Further, as kvnrthr stated, some 1 step units that got busted on the previous scenario sometimes end-up on the frontline at the start. Needless to say this may make your first turn attack more or less impossible as you rejob your units around.

Solution: a big change probably, but we need to have some sort of influence on the starting location of units that carry over

3) When I pay prestige to reinforce a unit that does not carry over to the next scenario, I might be shooting myself in the foot. I thought I was building a strong unit that will be reusable, but I ended up paying 200 prestige for a one time boost (worse than a card!). And given that I didn’t reinforce any of the units that ended up carrying over, they are all too weak to actually win the scenario. And I’m now out of prestige (or at least enough prestige to reinforce everyone properly).

Solution: make it clear that some units carry over, and highlight which do


Overall, I’ve had to restart the grand campaign several times to figure this out as I progressively chew through all my carrying over units to get the objectives on time. This isn’t to say that you can’t do it, but hitting all the extra objectives becomes progressively less likely. And even simply hitting the primary objectives on time becomes a challenge.

funky_trader
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby funky_trader » Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:38 pm

Case in point, scenario 2 of the African campaign. I had transferred artillery units to my arty specialist and my puncher in the previous scenario. Now they are are completely useless until turn 2 or 3. In a 6 turn scenario! Unless I spend CPs to reasign yet again their sepcialist steps. See picture.

Another crazy thing that I just realized happened. In the previous scenario, a tank specialist unit got transformed into a straggler at some point. It went back to its HQ, and was back in the unit pool at the end of the last turn. However, I forgot to reassign it. Now, it's lost forever! Your reinforcement pool doesn't carry through to the next scenario! That is problematic.

There's a lot of oversights with the way stuff you do in one scenario has impact on the other, but nothing is clear, known, or certain. And all of this info is completely hidden unless you end up discovering it because you have UoC addiciton issues ;)

Hopefully this will get fixed in a coming patch :)
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funky_trader
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby funky_trader » Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:13 pm

Oops, slight precision. Steps in the reinforcement pool do carry through scenarios! I was looking at the wrong army group. My bad

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Tomislav Uzelac
2x2 Games
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby Tomislav Uzelac » Mon Nov 18, 2019 7:58 am

Thanks for your analysis.

We are looking at an improved unit management "layer" but this is a long term project. This would solve many of the issues you mention.

In the meantime, there will be "hacks" like better marking of persistent units and similar.


Cheers!

nigo
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby nigo » Mon Nov 18, 2019 1:05 pm

Suggestion:


Stats and historic from previous scenarious would be good, If will show in the unit card.

Ritalingamer
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby Ritalingamer » Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:44 pm

I have a hack for this. Not a complete solution, but it helps. If you finish a scenario early or reach a point where you can't realistically take more objectives without excessive casualties, use your surplus CPs and turns to reorganize specialists. Give priority to artillery, engineers, recon, Priests, and other pricy specialists. Especially strip any units who won't be appearing in future scenarios. These steps will appear in your force pool at the start of the next scenario, able to be redistributed as needed.
A little gamey, but it works.

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Spaceman95
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby Spaceman95 » Wed Nov 20, 2019 11:33 pm

Ritalingamer wrote:I have a hack for this. Not a complete solution, but it helps. If you finish a scenario early or reach a point where you can't realistically take more objectives without excessive casualties, use your surplus CPs and turns to reorganize specialists. Give priority to artillery, engineers, recon, Priests, and other pricy specialists. Especially strip any units who won't be appearing in future scenarios. These steps will appear in your force pool at the start of the next scenario, able to be redistributed as needed.
A little gamey, but it works.


Not a bad metagame hack at all!

Note also that you don't have to sit around waiting for all the stragglers to come back to the HQs (unless they are down in the boot of southern italy ;) ) - or buy new steps through the SHAEF reinforcements card. All stragglers go back into their respective HQs ready for the next scenario. However, watch out for this in Normandy, as the double HQs in Breakout can be confusing!

But yeah, there's been a good bit of discussion of potential improvements in later patching to improve the immersion/'role playing' in the meta layer (unit rosters and commitments, step and specialist transfers, etc.), but it requires a lot more work from the guys!

funky_trader
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby funky_trader » Thu Nov 21, 2019 2:35 am

Ritalingamer wrote:I have a hack for this. Not a complete solution, but it helps. If you finish a scenario early or reach a point where you can't realistically take more objectives without excessive casualties, use your surplus CPs and turns to reorganize specialists. Give priority to artillery, engineers, recon, Priests, and other pricy specialists. Especially strip any units who won't be appearing in future scenarios. These steps will appear in your force pool at the start of the next scenario, able to be redistributed as needed.
A little gamey, but it works.


I've actually started doing that a lot more. Another pretty interesting exploit: completely disband a weak division (2 steps or less), and it will reappear as a 3 step division in the next scenario, on top of which you can reinforce with those 1 or 2 steps you saved up.

What I actually really hate at this point is hwo you have no idea which unit will spawn where. The more you get into difficult scenario, the more likely you will have destroyed/weak divisions at the end. And then the odds that one or more start on the frontline just seem to rise.

kvnrthr
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Re: More deployment options and choice of units to carry over

Unread postby kvnrthr » Sat Nov 23, 2019 6:49 pm

I've started to look ahead. Fortunately the strategic map shows you the next scenarios, so I can go straight to the scenario see which divisions and armies will be there next. Some units stick around for a really long time (e.g. British 7th armored division follows us everywhere! As do the lower numbered American infantry divisions and all the parachute divisions.) while I generally am more ready to sacrifice anything designated as a task force or brigade as those hardly ever show up again (though some British armor brigades hang around). Just labeling the carried over units would be a great start.

I notice that carrying over units makes me much more cautious. In UOC1 you were ready to burn up every last unit you had on the last turn (especially those Soviet rifle corps, which pretty much had to be sacrificed for breakthroughs.) In UOC2 a well taken care of unit is the gift that keeps on giving. Woe to those who let their airborne divisions or elite armor get destroyed, as you'll need to pay in casualties to get equivalent results with regulars.

Does the game allow you to completely disband a unit? I'm not sure it let me but that might have been because of my lack of command points.