Unity of Command Forums

Hey guys,
congrats to your start. This is a great game. It is well programmed, has an easy to use interface without lacking deep dive, it is well balanced and the AI is pretty good. All in all you have laid a good foundation and I am totally looking forward to further developments. I guess the sky is the limit for this engine.

One of my favorites is the possibility to "combine" units with different strenghtes, what you call specialized steps. This gives the game a nice juice. After playing it for a while, I recognized some areas on the unit data where I might have suggestions (sorry when I am too historical on some arguments).

First of all I am wondering why the Russian Tank Divisions are so weak stat-wise compared to the Germans. Certainly you can argue a full-equipped German Panzerdivision (which never was the case) is king of the battelfield.

However on attack (4 vs. 10) and at least mobility (5+2 vs 5+3) you should upgrade them. While playing, the Russian tanks rarely scare anybody, especially when Stuka is available. As the Soviets started to use their tanks in separate divisions (a la Panzerdivision) just later in the war I would suggest to give a Soviet tank divsion a 4-5 strenght maximum to even up the odds.
Anyway in their unit ranks they should be upgraded as these tanks were probably the best who saw mass production. They were just used differently compared to the German Panzer-Divisions. Therefore they are not a force as a sperate division but as part of infantry units they where feared and therefore should be made cheaply available for all ground units (T-34)

I also like the idea of integrating the Panzergrendardivisionen but there is no way they have has less movement than a Panzerdivision. I think they should be the most mobile unit on the map. I also think a soviet basic (non-mot.) infantry is superior in movement to its German counterpart especially in winter landscape. To even this on the German side I would give the Gebirgsjäger no penalty in movement in difficult terrain.

To sum it up, here are my thoughts on the unit data:

Russian Tank Division: Movement 5+3, Attack 8, max strenght 4-5
Russian Inf (non-mot.): 3+2 (less pernalty in winter)
Cheap T34 support available

German Tank movement 5+2, Armor 5, max strenght 7
Grenadier movement 5+3 (highest in game)
Gebirgsjaeger no penalties on any terrain.
8.8 first in attack mode for infantry (mostly as it was usually only answer of the German "soft" units against the Soviet armour masses)

Some other thoughts:
Maybe you can use the SdKfz 232 for Recon and keep the 251 for Grenadiers only?
Did you ever think about adding the mobile SPA (Hummel, Wespe) to German units (maybe instead of "blackshirts")?
Did you ever think about some sort of Fog of war (FOG) The maps are to small to make disappearings a realistic move but maybe hiding the units strengthes?

Volksturm units..
My suggestion is to have a simple uniform (like romanians) with german helmet.

Volkssturm =/= Volksgrenadiere

Apologies for cross-posting, but I think this is important. In my experience playing as Axis in the Stalingrad campaign (v1.04), once I've captured one or more Soviet supply centres the enemy forces start running out of supplies & then things become too easy. IMO the AI would be a more challenging & fun opponent if, after losing a supply centre, it concentrated on recapturing it instead of continuing as though nothing had happened.

Just my 2c.

ralph-moeritz wrote:Apologies for cross-posting, but I think this is important. In my experience playing as Axis in the Stalingrad campaign (v1.04), once I've captured one or more Soviet supply centres the enemy forces start running out of supplies & then things become too easy. IMO the AI would be a more challenging & fun opponent if, after losing a supply centre, it concentrated on recapturing it instead of continuing as though nothing had happened.

Just my 2c.

There's a whole thread about that and I've also mentioned it somewhere else as far as I can remember:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1807

As for the chess, what do you think to add a variable timer (difficult levels)
for the "end turn" to make the sense of tension of the real war.
It is too simple spend 5, 10, 15 and over .....minutes thinking on
the map and after all is ok push the end turn.
Red Army never let a minute of pause especially in the last 3 years of war.
And so it is possible to simulate the surprise of the soviet offensives,
with suddenly ending turn and start a soviet attack.
I think it would be very nice.

Like the game, hate the bobbleheads and little tanks. I vote for NATO counters as an official alternative for base game and all DLC's. Pretty please...?

gunnergoz wrote:Like the game, hate the bobbleheads and little tanks. I vote for NATO counters as an official alternative for base game and all DLC's. Pretty please...?

This has already been suggested in other threads of the forum. Personally I don't like NATO counters. But that's due to the fact that I have no experience with board wargames, I just can't recognize them instantly. In Germany you only have access to wargames as imports, which is due to some silly predjudices against wargames caused by WW II. None of the well known wargames has been published in German language, and there simply are no German board wargames. The only exception are Sci Fi and Fantasy wargames and strategy games. I love the aesthetics of the game, and they play a big part in making it unique. But since a lot of grognards demand it, I guess it'd be cool if that would be implemented as an option (but it should NEVER totally replace the existing icons). BTW, those NATO counters are the main reason why I don't like Gary Grigsby's WitE (NATO counters and WW II make no sense!). It'd be even cooler if official Soviet military symbology and German military symbology of that time would be introduced as an option. Would make more sense than NATO counters.

oh ! yes we need 2xPelin help for a resource/maps thread.

nikdav wrote:oh ! yes we need 2xPelin help for a resource/maps thread.

Posts moved to viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1853