Kerensky wrote: ↑Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:10 am
I'm confused by the statement that infantry will be more powerful. Maybe we didn't play the same game, because infantry are the best (economical) units in the entire game. No unit can do as much as they do for the prices they come at. The fact the cheapest unit in the entire game can threaten the most expensive shows how good (properly used) infantry is. Conscript swarms taking down King Tigers works in open and close terrain. In open, they drain all its ammo, and in close, they actually are killing King Tigers not just ammo draining. The reason infantry don't seem good is because the campaign environment hurts them. They are required to absorb huge losses to do their job, and constant elite replenishment to maintain infantry experience are untenable compared to overpowering a Tiger that pays for itself when it blows up 10 strength Allied tanks in a single shot and takes no return damage. In multiplayer, infantry are the kings; tanks are luxury units you only wield in absolutely critical areas and rarely purchase new unless you are absolutely swimming in resources but low on core slots.
I think that we both agree on the place and role of infantry in the game, just prefer to present it differently. Infantry has got low price exactly because at a higher price it would see even less use, when it already struggles hard in campaign environment. And the reason for that is, in many cases infantry can be replaced in its role with other units. For example, with arty+tank combination. My goal in the new game is maybe not making infantry more powerful per se, but more important and irreplacible in its unique role.
Kerensky wrote: ↑Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:10 am
Saying lone AT is vulnerable as ever is a problematic statement. Any AT worth it's salt (Pak 75, Pak 88, 17 pdr, 85mm, 100mm, et cetera) doesn't ever need any help, it's absolutely going to dominate any armor foolish enough to engage it head on.
I never said that AT was vulnerable when alone. Only that in Panzer Corps you already have to deal with these units one way or another, and the new AT support mechnics does not change anything in this regard. Jagdpanthers covered with 2 Wurfrahmens did exist before.
If I understood your above posts correctly, you argued that AT support has some fundamental, theoretical problems. But I don't quite understand what these problems are. Along the same lines, you could argue that arty support in PzC has a fundamental problem: in a triangle of three artilleries each unit is covered by two more, against
any attack. And you could illustrate it with this example from Barbarossa, where the best german infantry, tank and SPAT cannot do anything against such a formation of the best soviet artillery of the time.
But of course, this completely changes in late war, where arty's hard attack rating cannot catch up with advancement in defense of armoured units. In fact, this situation is probably wrong and unrealistic, because even 6 units of ISU-152, which should suppress the hell out of any unit, cannot do much against good (but not the most powerful) german units:
Getting back to defensive triangle of 2 artys and an AT. I won't repeat again that only the most powerful units in this formation pose a problem, and they can be run out of ammo by any crappy unit, including Conscripts you mentioned above, and then they are easy prey. Let's just tackle them head on.
Example one: 2 Hummels (biggest hard attack) and a Jagdpanther. We bring in three SU-100s to create mass attack and get some decent chances to defeat that Jagdpanther. Admittedly, they are still struggling, but that's because Jagdpanther is such a powerful unit. With new rules, Hummels would not generate even that little suppression they do now, so maybe the odds would be even better for soviets.
Example two: now we replace Jagdpanther with the most powerful towed gun, 8.8mm PaK 43/41. This unit is not vulnerable to hard attack, but as a soft target, it becomes extremely vulnerable to artillery. We bring in two Katyushas and a T-34-85, and...
...and actually we did not need the tank, because the two Katyushas fried that poor AT.
Finally, looking at your example:
Kerensky wrote: ↑Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:10 am
So the normal answer to Exhibit C is use a tank to tackle that arty piece first and smash it to bits. Then the infantry can 1 - 7 the AT and eat it for dinner.
But under your new rules, that towed AT would support the ARTY unit... meaning even something as powerful as a Panther is going to get ripped to piece trying to engage that artillery piece. The problem is that there is no direct way to engage these units anymore, because AT supports ARTY but ARTY also supports AT. You may respond to say use artillery fire to soften an arty unit. What if its a heavily armored ARTY support piece like an Su-122 or even as big as ISU-152? Arty softening fire won't do anything to that.
With new rules you basically need just one additional step: suppress that AT. Since it is standing on the front line, it is not exactly hard. After that your tanks are free to attack that artillery behind the lines, and your infantry is free to obliterate that AT.
Important point here is that the new rule is defensive and benefits the defender for the most part. I think, this rule will make deconstructing the defense a little bit more interesting, because you can have different combinations of arty, AT and AA, all in soft and hard target variants, and there are more subtle differences between various units that will be expressed in their traits. However, in most cases the attacker has tactical initiative and local concentration of force, so this task should be solvable. If, on the other hand, the attacker brings in his mobile fortress, this fortress will not win the battle automatically, because it is purely a defensive formation. The defender is not obliged to attack it if he does not see a good chance, just like he is not obliged to attack your 15-strength 5-star King Tigers now. He can just sit there and see how the attacker is going to win this engagement. After all, in most defensive scenarios the goal of the defender is usually to slow down the attacker as much as possible, not necessarily obliterate him in every engagement. Of course, the problem of stupid AI which can be baited into suiside attack exists, but we are specifically trying to address this problem in the new AI.