Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

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AgentTBC
Second Lieutenant
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Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 4:57 am

Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

Unread postby AgentTBC » Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:07 am

First, I am really enjoying UoC2 and think its an excellent game. I'll post thoughts on it after I'm done with the alternate plan playthrough (I finished my Classic historical playthrough). I'll have many glowing things to say and the only real negative will be the lack of utilization of many of the HQ actions on higher difficulty levels. Which brings us to my question/issue:

When you try to end the conference at which you choose the Rush for the Apennines plan you get a warning that you need Engineer 3 upgrade on the British 2nd HQ. You get the same warning on the historical track at the last conference for some of those HQs and it makes sense because the RHIN ET DANUBE scenaro (I think its that one) is muuuuch more difficult on Classic/Hard if you don't have it, as it takes much longer to breach the Rhine. And is only possible at all because the Germans move units away from the river on turn 1 for no reason whatsoever, letting you build pontoons if you don't have assault crossing. But the extra turn that takes leaves you with literally no room for any bad luck or you'll fail the mission by a turn. So far that is the only mission at all, ever, where I've used Assault or River crossing HQ abilities.

So I figured I better listen and I spent the 100 CP to upgrade to Engineering 3. That's a lot of CP this early in the campaign! I could have used that to upgrade my European HQs before Overlord! And... as far as I can tell its a complete waste of CP? When am I supposed to use it? Is it just to get across the Po river in Road from Rimini? 'Cause if you're using assault crossings on this mission you're doing it badly wrong and are gonna fail big time? You just spam pontoons everywhere.

Am I missing something or should I start over and spend that 100 CP on the european HQs?

(again: great game, the complete lack of use for many HQ abilities is my only gripe so far. I've used some abilities on only 1 mission as stated, and others I've never used at all.)

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Danielefc
2x2 Games
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Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 10:03 pm

Re: Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

Unread postby Danielefc » Sat Jun 06, 2020 8:42 am

I was in doubt whether or not to add the warning in question (a-historical Italy Po Valley). I opted for a "rather safe than sorry" approach since there have been some rather nasty cases of people being forced to restart due to a lack of river assault. But you are right: pontoon spam is the most effective approach in Road from Rimini.

The system itself needs some attention and we are working on more streamlined ways of informing the player if a certain HQ upgrade is important.

As for the "useless" HQ actions. They can all be very powerful. But some of them are indeed either very situational or too much hassle to be bothered with. We have those actions in our sights for improvements in any future content.

Glad you are enjoying the game!

Cheers!

AgentTBC
Second Lieutenant
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 4:57 am

Re: Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

Unread postby AgentTBC » Sun Jun 07, 2020 7:47 am

Cool! You'll probably want to take a look at all the warnings about Engineering 3. I'm playing the alternate plan route now and you don't need it for a bunch of these missions you get warnings for either. Like clearing out Holland: you can just plop a pontoon down in battle prep and exploit it on turn 1, no assault or river crossing needed.

Actually I restarted from the conference and said YOLO and didn't take Engineering 3 with anybody at all even though I got warnings for like 5 different HQs. We'll see how that works out for me, but it does save hundreds of badly-need points to use elsewhere. That's the real problem with the false warnings: you need those points to do other things on Classic/Hard difficulty. On Easy or Normal obviously it doesn't matter as much since it's, well, easy.

Like I said though I'm really liking the game even though this is my only post so far :P

funky_trader
Major
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Re: Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

Unread postby funky_trader » Sun Jun 07, 2020 2:59 pm

Fully agree with AgentTBC here. Several of the warnings turn out to be useless as there are either other ways to cross the river (drop a pontoon, wait for the AI to leave his positions) or the warning is flat out wrong (getting the warning for the Canadian HQ just ahead of Operation Stapler, which at no point requires you to do combat crossing across a river).

@Danielefc

The higher tiers of HQ actions are fun to use, but require both too many prestige to unlock and cost too many action points to be useful. You need to put them in context that there is a direct competition between the most used actions and the least used ones. Build/repair bridge, feint, set piece attack, suppressive fire, emergency supply, and motor pool are used constantly and relentlessly, especially at higher difficulty levels. Yet they cost 2 or 3 action points to use (when not upgraded). Comparatively, no retreat, counterattack, and entrenchment are all unlocked at high tiers of HQ upgrades, also cost 3 action points, and are only good to use when you think the AI will attack. So highly situational in scenarios such as Battle of the Bulge since the AI is typically super scared of attacking. I find that I never need to stop my advance and entrench, or ensure that a unit does not retreat because of a feared counterattack. Moreover, normal/assault river crossing are unlocked at the highest tier of HQ upgrades, also cost 3 action points, and also can only be used in highly specific scenarios. I will typically do only 5 to 8 combat river crossing in an entire campaign. The return on investment is extremely poor.

So this becomes an opportunity cost, or the marginal cost of an additional useful action. Build/repair bridge, feint, set piece attack, suppressive fire, emergency supply, and motor pool will tend to always win out over the other actions (ignoring the prestige cost to unlock them). They are cheaper (somewhat) and are useful in more context. Plus, as you often play the early parts of the game with only these actions, whenever the HQ gains a level, there's a strong chance these actions will be reduced in cost. It's not unusual for the British 2nd/8th and the US 5th to end up with feint/set piece/suppressive fire costing 1 action points each (pretty op). In fact, I sometimes won't upgrade on purpose my HQ to get better odds of reducing costs on these actions in the early phase of the game.

Often, when I end up upgrading HQs, it's not because I think the unlocked action will be useful, but rather because I want this new tier of action to take the hit whenever I move the HQ around. Operations is a good example. Even though I will almost never use recon in force (super interesting, but too costly, there's almost always something better to do with my action points), or counterattack (Battle of the Bulge maybe? some of the alternate history scenarios also), unlocking this tier of action means that if the HQ moves, I won't see set piece attack get suppressed for a whole turn. This often kills a scenario. Likewise with entrenchment. Most of my HQs end up with this action that never gets used. However, since this is second tier in Engineering, it protects the most useful build/repair bridge actions from getting suppressed.

Some additional thoughts on Intel and Force Pool actions. Intel is interesting, but usually quite optional, and quite costly as well. I typically won't have prestige to upgrade those until I'm well into Germany already. Force Pool is the least useful branch to upgrade. Deploy and reorg are obviously super useful in the opening phase of the scenario, but are rarely used after that (except to store steps of units that disappear at the end of a scenario). Transfer step and security unit are completely useless (or at least I've never found a situation where those actions won out over something like a set piece attack). Plus you need to pay prestige first to unlock them, and there's always something more useful to unlock. Transfer step could have some utility if the transferred step wasn't suppressed, such that I could transfer an engineer step to a unit, and immediately follow up with a set piece attack. However, the fact that it gets supressed and won't be useful until the next turn implies that a) there's something better that I could be doing this turn, and b) next turn will see other tactical opportunities which might make the transferred step useless.

AgentTBC
Second Lieutenant
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Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2020 4:57 am

Re: Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

Unread postby AgentTBC » Sun Jun 07, 2020 3:52 pm

I agree with all of that except that I think 5-8 combat crossings is extremely generous and far more than you probably need to do. I've never done one outside of that one RHIN ET DANUBE scenario where I did a grand total of 2, both on the first turn and never again, though admittedly I still haven't finished the last half dozen battles on the exploiting the arnhem bridge track. But yeah that's 2 combat crossings through 1.75 playthroughs (1 full historical track and 3/4 of the alt track so far.). I've never done one of the non-combat HQ river crossings and don't understand why I ever would.

The problem isn't that most of the high tier HQ abilities are never useful, it's there will virtually always be more useful things to do with the same points. (Though some are never useful, like transfer step or river crossing. Ain't nobody got time for two units to sit next to each other and play pattycake for a turn on anything over Easy mode). But yeah, when something like Recon in Force will takes 3 action points to use when you could feint/suppress/setpiece/bridge 3 times for the same cost, well, it's easy to see why you'll hardly ever use it.

I think the river crossing ability is a very good example. It will almost certainly cost you 3 action points to use. Why would you do that when you could spend (probably) 1 action point to build a pontoon the previous turn and have something that all your units can use for only the 1 initial point (or 2 possibly) and is permanent and which can be moved across with full movement. It's hard to see a realistic situation when "river crossing" is ever used in favor of build platoon. Sure you could theorize a situation where everything falls EXACTLY RIGHT such that you didn't have the AP to build the pontoon over a major river the previous turn and you ABSOLUTELY MUST occupy that one hex across the river this turn or you're gonna lose or whatever, but we all know that's not actually how it plays out. (And that's not even touching the cost to research it in the first place.) Because even burning the extra turn to build a pontoon and crossing NEXT turn is more useful, since again you have full movement, don't suppress steps, etc etc.

Eqqman
Captain
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Re: Rush for the Apennines - ENG 3

Unread postby Eqqman » Tue Jun 09, 2020 8:47 pm

I also agree with the bulk of what has been said here, with an exception regarding Security Units. In my opinion this is the most valuable level 3 skill in the game. 'But Eqqman, you extremely articulate and always insightful raconteur, why do I need half-strength or worse units that can't even do anything until the next turn?' you might say. Well, keep in mind that you can also use this ability in the planning phase. Spawn some 1-step units before the battle begins and then kit them out however you like so so you have additional full-power troops right when the battle starts. This is huge, especially in some scenarios where your army may feel a little undersized for what you want to accomplish. All these steps go back into your force pool when the battle ends, so if you haven't taken losses you don't even need to spend prestige a second time getting these bonus units deployed. In some cases, like the British Commonwealth troops, this will also help you build up a supply of nation-specific steps that might not be available for purchase later on. During battles you can also plunk some down to cover spots that you didn't want to defend heavily but want to just block the enemy from walking in there. Or, in spots where movement is restricted you can forward deploy these units past the log jam. Remember that even during a battle you can supplement the unit after you place it with whatever steps you still have in the force pool. Imagine crossing a river with one unit and now suddenly you drop down two or three more (in this case, you'd probably have to pair it with a unit using Recon specialists). Easily one of the best skills in the game hands down and the one I miss the most playing at higher difficulty levels where the limited prestige means I can't give this out to as many HQs as I'd like.

So far Transfer Step is the only skill I've never used in a game, and I can't see as I ever would. Maybe I might use it to average out a 6 - 4 step pair to 5 - 5, but generally I'd prefer to keep my strongest units as strong as I can. And as mentioned swapping around specialists is probably going to cost you a turn of action. Maybe you would do it to help get a specialist up to the front line like towed equipment, that otherwise wouldn't be ready if it had to move with its source unit, or to shift over an engineer.

Recon in Force can be very helpful, but not in ways you can just plan on using it in advance (a possible exception is Race Across France). A good use for it is to claim hexes full of stragglers that would otherwise block your movement, and in the aforementioned scenario there are stragglers already in place on the map. I've even used this to disband an enemy HQ, and take unoccupied objectives that otherwise I wouldn't have reached on that turn. A good example here is the Clear the Scheldt objective in Advance on Antwerp, this will save you having to bridge the river or drive a unit the long way around via the road (not that this is hard to do as is).

I've complained about the boat situation in other threads so I won't do it here. I am working on a hard-mode walk-through that will let players judge for themselves how seriously to take the developer warnings since as pointed out, sometimes you can get by without it. In fairness to the developers though even if the ability isn't a hard requirement for victory it still helps. For example, in the Fortress Holland scenario that another poster brought up, you can build a pontoon in the planning phase so that the enemy unit is killed or retreated out of Utrecht turn 1, but due to the broken bridge you won't be able to occupy the city on that turn and the enemy will just move in a replacement defender. However if you can river cross then the city is yours turn 1. Maybe not so big a deal on Normal difficulty but very helpful when you have the reduced turn count on higher levels.