Demotorise Your Core: Idea for Your Next Playthrough

[Hexaboo]

Hello everyone, I am happy to share with you this revelation I had recently, about how you could bring your core in line with the proportions of infantry and tanks/motorised troops that were there in real life.



As a quick summary, the basic idea is to leave only 20% of your core slots (not counting the planes) to anything motorised, mechanised or eating petrol and making a whirring noise. Check the video for more details and examples, as I've almost completed the historical branch of the main campaign on Generalissimus with Europe on a Shoestring using this approach, and it might be just the thing to spoice the game up for you!

Looking forward to your comments and opinions.

[Retributarr]

I already did that in 'SPAIN' for one of the scenarios!:

Where its obvious... that you will not be able to do much 'Cross-Country' travelling… do consider... relieving yourself of vehicle transport... that you will not likely be able to make much use of... especially in 'Mountainous, Swampy or heavily Forested' terrain.
----------------------------Additional Comment:-----------------------------------
I thought that it would be clearly obvious that by 'De-Motorizing' your 'Units'... that this would now make more 'Core-Slots' available for the player to use... to now add more 'Ground and or Air Units'.

But!... just in-case... that conclusion didn't strike home... that this message somehow didn't get across... I wanted to make sure that by the player doing this action... there would now be positive benefits from doing so in under these specific situations.

[Hexaboo]

Where its obvious... that you will not be able to do much 'Cross-Country' travelling… do consider... relieving yourself of vehicle transport... that you will not likely be able to make much use of... especially in 'Mountainous, Swampy or heavily Forested' terrain.
----------------------------Additional Comment:-----------------------------------
I thought that it would be clearly obvious that by 'De-Motorizing' your 'Units'... that this would now make more 'Core-Slots' available for the player to use... to now add more 'Ground and or Air Units'.
But!... just in-case... that conclusion didn't strike home... that this message somehow didn't get across... I wanted to make sure that by the player doing this action... there would now be positive benefits from doing so in under these specific situations.

About cross-country, I agree, Pioniers and Grenadiers are significantly harder to use (and it's hardly ever beneficial to prefer their motorised versions to tanks), because they're slow. All of the 3-hex-movement infantry is surprisingly mobile, especially with forced march, and trekking through forests/mountains isn't much of a problem (in Italy, mountains are your only salvation on top difficulty ). Horse transports are also very versatile, and are actually better than lorries in difficult terrain.

And no, this idea is definitely not about gaining a competitive edge or making anyone's life easier in this game. It's about trying something different that has some basis in real events, and go past the usual highly-efficient combos. E.g. I'm extremely happy that 15 cm guns really don't work in this mode. Normally, they are strong and versatile, and reasonably-priced, but with my demotorisation approach, they inevitably occupy the motorised slots (no horse transports), and are nowhere near as interesting.

[Kerensky]

In my most recent playthrough, I wanted to try a very simple approach. Only trait was killer team, and Generalissimus -80% prestige. And that's it, no other traits or anything. Not even my coveted Trophies of War...

Spain is brutal, forget about getting every single bonus objective. lol
You can still get enough to earn every reward, but it's a much tighter result that doesn't leave you with hardly any left over CPs at all.

Prestige is a never ending nightmare to the point where I had to start sacking mediocre leaders for that precious 1k injection just to be able to afford reinforcements. I did a pretty good job using some elite replacements to keep experience levels high, but that stopped at Ebro. Had to switch to normal experience destroying replacements full time, and couldn't even re-buy a lost 88. Never realized just how much prestige those things consume because they are also very fragile in attacked in AD mode or assaulted by strong infantry that really devastates them. Had to resort to pulling units out of reserve instead of buying new units to replaced the dead.

[Tassadar]

That's tempting to consider. In my current campaign (on General) I'm dealing with huge prestige gains, much more than I'll realistically need and I've been thinking how to further offset that beyond the prestige sink events in a run with Slow Modernization and Retrograde one day, as unless there's an option to remove accuracy boost for the AI, General is as far as I'm willing to go. 20% of motorized core seems extreme due to the way the game is built, but some other self imposed restrictions based on such rules seems quite fun.

I'm now feeling inspired to do the Slow Modernization / Retrograde thing based on actual production figures of individual vehicles. It would mean not dividing the core based on historical army compositions, but just how much was available. I would need to think hard how to set up the individual ranges, but let's say for now that anything under 500 build could only ever get one unit (so no more then one He 112 in Spain and certainly not more than one Panzer I Breda), 500-1000 two, 1000-1500 three and so on (counting exact available sub-variants). Probably could be less restrictive, but then it would be too generous for the MVP units.

[Vorskl]

I envy people who have enough time to invent and inflict themselves new ways of suffering.
From the history point of view, the strength of Wehrmacht were self-sufficient motorized divisions - tanks, arty and motorized infantry together.
What needs adjustment is prestige system - it appears a player gets too much, hence able to deploy whole tank armies of Tigers while in the real life Germans were using all kinds of ancient french and CZ equipment up until the end.

[Kerensky]

I envy people who have enough time to invent and inflict themselves new ways of suffering.
From the history point of view, the strength of Wehrmacht were self-sufficient motorized divisions - tanks, arty and motorized infantry together.
What needs adjustment is prestige system - it appears a player gets too much, hence able to deploy whole tank armies of Tigers while in the real life Germans were using all kinds of ancient french and CZ equipment up until the end.

I would have to argue one of the pillars of Panzer General has always been about power fantasy and using legendary equipment like Tigers and Panthers to their fullest is a big part of that charm. It's in the DNA of the game ever since the beginning. Which is fine because it leaves room for really dedicated and advanced players to alter the rules as they see fit, which is something more dedicated and advanced players are really good at doing.

The backwards situation would be to make all the coolest and best equipment ultra rare, and make everyone suffer through the reality of these weapons. And then your average or even below average player will just start firing up cheat codes to have 'unlimited pool of tanks'. That's just not fun.

It's why vehicle breakdowns is never a popular mechanic regarding these vehicles, but it still crops up every now and then...

[Scrapulous]

I envy people who have enough time to invent and inflict themselves new ways of suffering.
From the history point of view, the strength of Wehrmacht were self-sufficient motorized divisions - tanks, arty and motorized infantry together.
What needs adjustment is prestige system - it appears a player gets too much, hence able to deploy whole tank armies of Tigers while in the real life Germans were using all kinds of ancient french and CZ equipment up until the end.

I would love it if there was a game option to enable limited numbers of core units, the way that captured equipment is limited. The amounts of equipment available would tick up per mission, ideally in a way that emulates historical rates of production. Then, in the late war, when you're having to decide between fielding one Tiger unit with some spares or two Tiger units with no spares, but you have 100 PzIIIJs available... well, you have some realistic choices to make, don't you? And you're rewarded for being careful with your best units instead of throwing them into the "I have unlimited Tigers" meat grinder.

[Hexaboo]

20% of motorized core seems extreme due to the way the game is built, but some other self imposed restrictions based on such rules seems quite fun.

I'm now feeling inspired to do the Slow Modernization / Retrograde thing based on actual production figures of individual vehicles. It would mean not dividing the core based on historical army compositions, but just how much was available. I would need to think hard how to set up the individual ranges, but let's say for now that anything under 500 build could only ever get one unit (so no more then one He 112 in Spain and certainly not more than one Panzer I Breda), 500-1000 two, 1000-1500 three and so on (counting exact available sub-variants). Probably could be less restrictive, but then it would be too generous for the MVP units.

Absolutely, the designers of the campaign expected the player to spam lots of tanks, but trust me, 20% is quite enough for most missions in the campaign. It does require beefing up your tank/motorised units and equipping them with top heroes, and this approach requires you to be slower and more deliberate (I'd say most missions aren't possible on Guderian), and actually have a solid frontline for once. Try Poland with my approach, you might enjoy it I love the idea of combining something like this with Slow Modernisation/Retrograde: no fuel, and no wunderwaffen for you sir!

I envy people who have enough time to invent and inflict themselves new ways of suffering.
From the history point of view, the strength of Wehrmacht were self-sufficient motorized divisions - tanks, arty and motorized infantry together.

Don't get me wrong, I am playing this on Generalissimus/Europe on a Shoestring difficulty just as a proof of concept (and to finally complete the main campaign on Generalissimus, but that's beside the point). On something like General, it wouldn't be much more difficult than the more conventional approach. The whole point is to look at your core in a different light and try something new.

In my most recent playthrough, I wanted to try a very simple approach. Only trait was killer team, and Generalissimus -80% prestige. And that's it, no other traits or anything. Not even my coveted Trophies of War...

Prestige is a never ending nightmare to the point where I had to start sacking mediocre leaders for that precious 1k injection just to be able to afford reinforcements. I did a pretty good job using some elite replacements to keep experience levels high, but that stopped at Ebro. Had to switch to normal experience destroying replacements full time, and couldn't even re-buy a lost 88. Never realized just how much prestige those things consume because they are also very fragile in attacked in AD mode or assaulted by strong infantry that really devastates them. Had to resort to pulling units out of reserve instead of buying new units to replaced the dead.

Oh god, now I've got to try this, could I borrow like 20 hours somewhere?! Ebro is the end of pretty much everything: prestige, perfect win streaks, hope... I'm actually having to resort to selling heroes myself, but still keeping up elite reinforcements at demotorised Normandy.

And AA guns are surprisingly expensive in general, not just the 88s — had to find it the hard way, with a tremendously failed all-AA gun run of the main campaign.

[Tassadar]

So, I've started a run along some similar idea (my basic AAR is always a bit behind what I actually play due to the time needed to make all the notes and comments). I'm applying VERY slow modernization with added extra restrictions, custom core, retrograde, no captured equipment aside from confirmed battalion level cases, historical production limiting unit availability and not using prototype only gift units (so no Verdeja 2 for me). It's on General difficulty, but has been absolutely brutal so far. Currently on Corunna Road with just 2 Panzer IA's, one SdKfz 221, two 3.7 cm Pak 36's, a single 2 cm FlaK 30, single He 51, single Hs123a, single He 70 Rayo, three Ju 52 bombers and... 8 artillery pieces.

With the production amount restrictions I'm not allowed to buy any more of the available tanks and recons and had to severely modify the core I was granted at turn 0 Seville, disbanding quite a few units. What's even more painful, is that retrograde even in Corunna road still does not allow me to purchase more AA and AT guns, or even a He 45 that's would be amazing in these circumstances. Republican air force is absolutely terrifying, but at least I took AA veteran and my 2 cm FlaK 30 is extremely busy, trying to cover as much ground as possible. I'm not in a dire prestige situation... yet, but Early Madrid got really hot and only some extra Italian support helped to survive that (but alas, due to retrograde I can't even buy CR.32's!). My prestige reserves are much lower than initial AAR (roughly half of the amount) and I will absolutely take the Bilbao route trying to see some different scenarios hoping that I actually can finish this at all! Based on some equipment analysis I did if I survive to AO 1939 things should be more reasonable, but so far it's like nothing before. Really challenging, but at the same time tons of fun.

[BaronVonWalrus]

I haven't quite gone that far in my latest playthrough, although I've always been a leg infantry proponent. I've taken the Italy branch for the first time in 1943 and have been "levelling up" accordingly in the prior battles - slow modernisation, my favourite trait, really bites in 1943 as your enemies suddenly have 1943-version infantry everywhere whilst you're stuck with only 3 upgrades a mission (and FW190s / ME410s / Panther Ds / Brummbars / Elefants that need to be upgraded to at the same time). My first full campaign made me realise the importance of having at least 1 Jager division, as I didn't have one!

As there's no cavalry / bicycle recon option, a self imposed cap on fuel drinkers would force a major rethink for me despite my liberal use of leg units - I get lots of value out of experienced kradschutzen and SdKFz 232 / 234s, for example.

Maybe the way forward (for me anyway) is to stick to a max of 1 Panzer and 1 PzG Division in the Corps, plus a Tiger / Tiger II attached battalion once they're available? I think it would also be realistic to allow at least one of the inf divisions to have a StuG / StuH, as tales of their exploits as fire brigades in infantry regiments are ubiquitous.

De-motorising the heavy field artillery would also force adaptation - no bad thing - and I could keep the 17cm and its counter battery fire attached to the PzG division.