Pioniere Balance

[trengilly]

Pioniere units seem a bit overpowered, to the point where its hard to make an argument for using regular infantry.

Usually they were smaller formations and certainly a much smaller part of the army historically. It just feels like we should be relying on them less.

Two possible changes?

1) Make Pioniere units 10 strength (like Kradschutzen). They could still lead an attack but wouldn't be so overpowering. This would also make them less invincible when defending in close terrain.
2) Increase their 'ignore entrenchment' adjacency bonus (could even be 100%). Then they could support more like historical support units and allow regulars to fight in close terrain.

I could imagine changes like this could be very hard for the AI to manage however.

Anyway just my two-cents.

[Kerensky]

There's been a lot of discussion on this already...

but to sum up my thoughts again:

Don't nerf Pioniere and engineers. They serve an important purpose, and so much effort went into making them useful and not just disposable like they were in the original game.
Make other infantry better. Especially Grenadiers. They need something to make them special to make them more attractive to field.

Regular infantry are very nice for their higher speed, and force march for even more speed when you really need it.
Fallschirmjager have a special purpose that is crazy powerful in specific conditions.
Gerbsjager are similar, except their specific condition is Norway/Caucuses type scenarios.

Grenadier... have no special traits. And they're slower. A little extra combat stats is not worth those two giant setbacks.

[Horseman]

Well said and a good summary I think.

You missed off Bridge engineers on your list if infantry units though, tsk tsk

[Kerensky]

Well said and a good summary I think.

You missed off Bridge engineers on your list if infantry units though, tsk tsk

Poor bridge engineers always get no respect. But come on, making bridges isn't very glorious, however practical the function of it is. Although as I pointed out in another thread, they make fantastic cheap 'garrison' units, to prevent paratroopers shenanigans.

Well.. unless you were THESE bridge engineers. Holy crap.

https://youtu.be/lNReCCShKJQ?t=1147

"They worked day and night, chest deep in freezing waters. They completed both bridges in 24 hours. Few of the engineers survived the ordeal."

[Horseman]

Well said and a good summary I think.

You missed off Bridge engineers on your list if infantry units though, tsk tsk

Poor bridge engineers always get no respect. But come on, making bridges isn't very glorious, however practical the function of it is. Although as I pointed out in another thread, they make fantastic cheap 'garrison' units, to prevent paratroopers shenanigans.

Well.. unless you were THESE bridge engineers. Holy crap.

https://youtu.be/lNReCCShKJQ?t=1147

"They worked day and night, chest deep in freezing waters. They completed both bridges in 24 hours. Few of the engineers survived the ordeal."

Yeah maybe those guys should get some respect!

I remember the good old days in PG where bridge engineers were your best infantry!

[comradep]

I'm not convinced Pioniere are overpowered. They're not like the Sturmpioniere of previous games, take high losses and due to 15 strength infantry will rarely do more than about 1/3 damage to enemy infantry units unless the Pioniere have heroes or additional strength points.

If anything, I find infantry performance to be lacking when playing on Generalissimus. It's difficult to create conditions where they can take out enemy infantry in an effective and speedy manner, without taking serious losses.

[Horseman]

I'm not convinced Pioniere are overpowered. They're not like the Sturmpioniere of previous games, take high losses and due to 15 strength infantry will rarely do more than about 1/3 damage to enemy infantry units unless the Pioniere have heroes or additional strength points.

If anything, I find infantry performance to be lacking when playing on Generalissimus. It's difficult to create conditions where they can take out enemy infantry in an effective and speedy manner, without taking serious losses.

I think Pioneers are in about the right spot, other infantry (specifically Grenadiers more so) need a boost as the gulf between Pioneers and the others is too large.

Infantry should mainly (ideally always) be fighting in close terrain. In this the only unit that comes close to pioneers effectiveness is a Gebirgsjager in mountains/hills.

[nexusno2000]

I've given up arguing that Eng are too good. I've just accepted that they are, and don't use a lot of other inf anymore.

(this is single-player, not MP)

Pioneers 4 or 5 slots, +1 for half-tracks. So 5 or 6.

Other inf costs just 1 slot less. That's a VERY small difference in slot cost.

Prestige cost is actually not high at all compared to other inf.

This has to do with the formula that calculates unit cost. The same formula is applied to every unit. So Inf does not pay extra for CD, for example, even though CD is clearly better for Inf than any other unit type.

In the cast of Eng, the formula also fails to take into account the fact that 0-2 CD is meaningless. The SA attack of other inf is so high that almost everything will be kills, or maybe suppression. At 8 CD suddenly matters a lot. There will be way more deflect, some suppression, but not many kills.

(Relatedly, this is what makes say Stukas feel so cost-effective. They have very high HA compared to AD of enemy tanks, so do a LOT of kills.)

Next is special abilities. They cost nothing at all in the formula used. Basically all the abilities of the engineer are free in terms of prestige.

(Relatedly, PzIIC is super good for its price thanks to Rapid Fire, also free.)

So the only extra cost of the Eng is 1 slot. Which is of course well worth the price.

I'll happily continue to use Engineers as my primary inf, mixed sometimes with light inf without transport if I need meat shields.

[Mojko]

I've given up arguing that Eng are too good. I've just accepted that they are, and don't use a lot of other inf anymore.

Same for me. I used Grenadiers only very early on when tanks were not very good. Now all my infantry is Pioneers.

[Plaid]

I think infantry pricing policy is wrong.
Regular infantry should be cheap, HW teams should be slightly more expensive.
But specialist units should be expensive enough to make player think, does he really need them or can live with more standard wehr inf instead.
Niche of Grenarier unit should be "almost pioniere, but cheap".

Pioniere downside is that they have worse raw stats, so sometimes they are getting attacked and damaged on enemy turn in situations, when wehr or grenadier wouldn't be attacked at all. If pioniere was expensive unit, that would hurt, but as its dirt cheap you just elite replace them and go on.

In defense or current pricing though I can say, they infantry costs roughly the same and performs roughly the same. I've finished campaign with 2 wehr, 2 gren and 2 pioniere. One of pioniere was super unit (deployment after move + supress immunity + forces surrenders instead of retreats), but other 5 units all performed equally and had ~same kill count. But I didn't take trench slog and didn't attack heavily entrenched stuff without removing ent first. If you do, you want pioniere for sure.
If Wehrmacht cost current 220 and pioniere cost say 500, I'd just live without pioniere.

[Gwaylare]

Yeah maybe those guys should get some respect!

May be it is a good idea to merge those both units to just one unit. Drop higher close defence to a value of +2 of regular infantry and give it the bridge pioneers ability on top. If you want to keep bridge pioneers as a separate units, give the ability to cross rivers just to the pioneers it self. This will give them mobility where other troops lack those mobility.

For Grenadiers or heavy infantry think about a support attack like AT or Artillery. The have range 0 and will support only if they are adjacent to the attacker. May be they will support adjacent attacks with a bonus like engineers do. (+x soft attack, +x hard attack).

Best regards
Gwaylare

[Horseman]

Yeah maybe those guys should get some respect!

May be it is a good idea to merge those both units to just one unit. Drop higher close defence to a value of +2 of regular infantry and give it the bridge pioneers ability on top. If you want to keep bridge pioneers as a separate units, give the ability to cross rivers just to the pioneers it self. This will give them mobility where other troops lack those mobility.

For Grenadiers or heavy infantry think about a support attack like AT or Artillery. The have range 0 and will support only if they are adjacent to the attacker. May be they will support adjacent attacks with a bonus like engineers do. (+x soft attack, +x hard attack).

Best regards
Gwaylare

I don't think that's an ideal solution. Bridging units are as they should be. They shouldn't be fighting but are unmatched in their primary task...

I also agree with Kerensky in that Pioneers don't need nerfing, other units need a boost to make them more attractive. Actually someone else (Plaid?) Suggested just increase the cost of Pioneers, that could be viable as well to make other infantry more relevant.

Edit: also the part of my post you quoted was aimed at the engineers in the video linked by Kerensky. They were pretty bad ass!

[panzeh]

Yeah maybe those guys should get some respect!

May be it is a good idea to merge those both units to just one unit. Drop higher close defence to a value of +2 of regular infantry and give it the bridge pioneers ability on top. If you want to keep bridge pioneers as a separate units, give the ability to cross rivers just to the pioneers it self. This will give them mobility where other troops lack those mobility.

For Grenadiers or heavy infantry think about a support attack like AT or Artillery. The have range 0 and will support only if they are adjacent to the attacker. May be they will support adjacent attacks with a bonus like engineers do. (+x soft attack, +x hard attack).

Best regards
Gwaylare

I don't think that's an ideal solution. Bridging units are as they should be. They shouldn't be fighting but are unmatched in their primary task...

I also agree with Kerensky in that Pioneers don't need nerfing, other units need a boost to make them more attractive. Actually someone else (Plaid?) Suggested just increase the cost of Pioneers, that could be viable as well to make other infantry more relevant.

Edit: also the part of my post you quoted was aimed at the engineers in the video linked by Kerensky. They were pretty bad ass!

My thought on engineers has generally been to reduce them to 10 base strength but let them transform into bridge engineers so that it's more optimal to use real infantry units for punching instead of the engineers themselves, and maybe introduce an engineer variant that's more expensive and introduced in 1941 with 15 strength and no bridging.

[Plaid]

As a side note, does anyone use new Kradschutzen at all?
They were not greatest unit in PC1, but their distinct feature was being infantry with associated close terrain advantages.
Current version (10 strength, vehicle behaviour in close terrain) seems pointless.

[Horseman]

As a side note, does anyone use new Kradschutzen at all?
They were not greatest unit in PC1, but their distinct feature was being infantry with associated close terrain advantages.
Current version (10 strength, vehicle behaviour in close terrain) seems pointless.

I must admit I've never even glanced in their general direction......old bias from PC1 where I found them redundant perhaps. Or maybe I'm just to exited for armoured cars.

[SineMora]

As a side note, does anyone use new Kradschutzen at all?
They were not greatest unit in PC1, but their distinct feature was being infantry with associated close terrain advantages.
Current version (10 strength, vehicle behaviour in close terrain) seems pointless.

They still count as a soft target, so they can be situationally useful for attacking weak targets with strong hard attacks, e.g., AT guns. I love my all-terrain recons far too much to care much about them, though.

[Duedman]

much effort went into making them useful and not just disposable like they were in the original game.

What? You cannot talk about PG1. Pios were insta citycleaners back then.
Maybe unit costs should simply steadily increase When you pile up units of the same type. Or to have an option for that. So you could force more realism on yourself. No more Tiger monocultures

[Horseman]

much effort went into making them useful and not just disposable like they were in the original game.

What? You cannot talk about PG1. Pios were insta citycleaners back then.
Maybe unit costs should simply steadily increase When you pile up units of the same type. Or to have an option for that. So you could force more realism on yourself. No more Tiger monocultures

He was talking about PC1

[MickMannock]

Maybe unit costs should simply steadily increase When you pile up units of the same type. Or to have an option for that. So you could force more realism on yourself. No more Tiger monocultures

Well, there already is a system for avoiding monocultures, and it's the core system, with the bigger and meaner stuff costing more slots. So maybe the core cost of the engineers should be tweaked?

[panzeh]

Maybe unit costs should simply steadily increase When you pile up units of the same type. Or to have an option for that. So you could force more realism on yourself. No more Tiger monocultures

Well, there already is a system for avoiding monocultures, and it's the core system, with the bigger and meaner stuff costing more slots. So maybe the core cost of the engineers should be tweaked?

I wouldn't mind a base 3-slot support engineer with low strength and bridging capabilities and a 5 or 6 slot sturmpionere unit with full strength and better combat stats