Thoughts on War Stories...

[RVallant]

So, I've finished the campaign and I enjoyed it. However, it just feels like they didn't go far enough in the story and personal connection of the characters. It's just not enough. They advertised it as a story driven campaign but at most it's just tiny blurbs here and there with some objectives not giving any dialogue at all. If you want a more story driven experience just play AO. No adjutants and no end debriefs here. No comments on capturing objectives. The combat and maps are actually quite fun and they did a great job on that. It just feels like this whole campaign is a setup for stuff to come after. I'm almost certain we will be seeing our Polish core force and characters again. Especially if it's an allied campaign. I'm also disappointed in the command infantry and tanks. They give zero aura abilities like they do in mods for Panzer Corps 2. What is the point of them? The other added units like the Uhlan and new German armored cars, Polish tanks are all very nice.

Yeah, I think a big part of why people liked the AO series was the investment in the story and characters. I agree that there needs to be at least a Wagner type adjutant that can help to drive the story along. I did enjoy the distant and cold telegraph briefings, as it helped to give the player the feel that they were on their own with like C2 existing higher up. However without a Wagner around it made our “player general” and the story feel sterile.
I really enjoyed the campaign and hope that it is developed in to a multi-installment dlc where our Poles will fight on to the end of the war. My hope however is that they will find a way to develop these fictional characters further, while also working some of the historical Polish heroes into the next installment.

Agreed, though it is interesting that some on Steam forums do not want any of the story whatsoever.

I do think the briefings on this was a complete miss.

I just activated the objectives panel and used that to understand exactly what I needed to do, that's how unclear the briefings were at times.

[Tassadar]

Agreed, though it is interesting that some on Steam forums do not want any of the story whatsoever.

Steam reviews are weird, not just for this DLC, but in general. I find it a bit strange that the thing people seemed to complain the most about there was that... you cannot change history and end up retreating. That's a bit bizarre seeing that it would for the most part lock away potential for continuing this as a series. Of course more narration would help battle this feeling in a way, but it is still almost a total opposite of the forums here, where people are fine with historical scenarios and were actually more critical of fictional ones!

[Bee1976]

Wow! Yay! I did it!
Ok im late to the party, but in my 7th playthrough attempt i was able to beat the DLC ofc on Generalissimus

And i wanted to "beat" the DLC not just finish it, which means saving ALL civilians and fulfill all mission objectives.
I failed on MLAWA, i dont think its possible to destroy all enemy units in that timeframe and the way i play the game. I dislike mass captures. But i tried to do fulfill the objective until the end!

I played with:
+liberator
+killer team
+anti air veteran

-retrograde
-slow modernisation

In all my previous attempts i failed to survive the prestige drain. Playing with mostly inferior equipment against tons of raging enemies..warshaw endet most of the other playthroughs
But i got a legendary hero at start, and combined with liberator it was possible, but my core is in a real bad shape at the end of the DLC
--------------------------------
I enjoyed the difficulty lvl. Although im pretty sure i wont ever touch this DLC again, it was the most challenging DLC so far for me.I like the story parts and the "sidequests". To some extend i enjoyed the new mission design.

Stuff i would change/adjust:
- debriefings, i love debriefings
- most maps more felt like solving a riddle/puzzle than battles, more fighting pls
- mlawa and warshaw might need some finetuning
- the price, for that amount of work and the fun i had i still consider that DLC underpriced
- its short! 2-3 fighting missions more would have been fun

and something i always mention, the flaws of the hero system are fully exposed on a short campaign like this. I mean in my winning playthrough i got so many bad or useless heros...that steals a lot of fun for me. I enjoy building up a nice and juicy core, and recieving heros i dislike hurts.

But that DLC was fun, a tough challenge (for me) and defnitly worth the money. I hope it will be continued!

[GUNDOBALDO08]

I just finished dlc, after reading final debriefing I’m quite sure that It will be an Allied grand campaign and some hero of fall of Poland will be exported… and I’m very happy!

[Tassadar]

I played with:
+liberator
+killer team
+anti air veteran

How did AA Veteran work for you? I am really curious since at first it felt it will be the most important trait I did not pick in my run, but then I adapted the approach and was able to work without using a combination of suppressing AA cover and fighters. Makes me wonder if it as useful as it seem for this DLC.

In all my previous attempts i failed to survive the prestige drain. Playing with mostly inferior equipment against tons of raging enemies..warshaw endet most of the other playthroughs

I think this was the intent, to force the player to choose battles carefully and only commit when it made sense. It is a much more difficult thing to balance, that for sure!

- most maps more felt like solving a riddle/puzzle than battles, more fighting pls

Agreed, but again I think this was the intent due to the nature of the conflict, a workaround of the problem that it would feel strange to win all the battles by clearing the maps, yet loose the war. This DLC put effort on the enemy tactics advantage, their air superiority and overall equipment advantages. If a French DLC appears, I think it will start to be a combination of both more - still facing the player against impossible odds and having to achieve specific goals, but also allowing to stand up to the Germans more often. While 1939 felt like an issue with the power of the players core based on numbers and quality, my bet is 1940 will be more about overcoming the logistical issues the French army had and their obsolete WW1 doctrine.

and something i always mention, the flaws of the hero system are fully exposed on a short campaign like this. I mean in my winning playthrough i got so many bad or useless heros...that steals a lot of fun for me. I enjoy building up a nice and juicy core, and recieving heros i dislike hurts.

All short campaigns have this, even the base game suffers from it, but we probably did not see it as much then, since everyone was new to the system. As we all played more, we started to get our preferences towards heroes. The random nature does ask a lot in terms of adaptability and can drastically alter the way you play. For example, in my run I made heavy use of my Provocator heavy infantry unit, it allowed for some creative approach towards missions. If I did not have him, I would have to change my play style to some extent for sure. I don't think it is something Panzer Corps 2 will change, it would require a slightly different system, with more incentive on player chose and less on random element, but elegant enough that it cannot be abused for especially overpowered cores. For example, I think the heroes could be spread into 5 tiers with the highest and lowest tier being the least probable ones. Then, each mission the player could be given a choice who to promote out of 3 choices within the same tier instead just being given only one. After choosing one, getting the same hero again could have a reduced probability as well.

[adiekmann]

Wow! Yay! I did it!
Ok im late to the party, but in my 7th playthrough attempt i was able to beat the DLC ofc on Generalissimus

And i wanted to "beat" the DLC not just finish it, which means saving ALL civilians and fulfill all mission objectives.
I failed on MLAWA, i dont think its possible to destroy all enemy units in that timeframe and the way i play the game. I dislike mass captures. But i tried to do fulfill the objective until the end!

I completed my first playthrough on the default setting, so I did not have much of a problem as I got to learn the maps and figure out what needed to be done. I'll be cranking up the difficulty to at least Field Marshal on my next attempt!

I played with:
+liberator
+killer team
+anti air veteran

-retrograde
-slow modernisation

I played with Killer Team, Liberator, Infantry General, and Perimeter Control.
Negatives were my usual ones: Slow Modernization, Trench Slog, and Arrogant

Many of the early maps had little Luftwaffe presence so I felt the 2 points for AA Veteran were better spent elsewhere. Eventually I did wish I had it and I am not sure if I will next playthrough. It often is one of my standard positive traits as it makes an AA 8.8 cm Flak a beast! Since your army is primarily infantry based, I thought Infantry General was a no-brainer. A Core point saved on each unit equates to a few more deployable units vs. not having it, especially with the low slot value of early game units.
Perimeter Control is one that I rarely if ever choose since the base game released five years ago, but here I thought it might make sense, especially when trying to save a near-death core unit. I would recommend it again, especially on harder difficulty. IMO Slow Modernization and Trench Slog are especially easy choices once again. You are rarely on the offensive where you are going to deal with heavily entrenched enemy forces, and the equipment file doesn't change much so SM makes a lot of sense too. Seeing you choose Retrograde now has me thinking that that is a smart decision as well for the same reason. For veteran players who understand the game mechanics I feel Arrogant is an easy free point that I have always chosen for all my campaigns for some time now.

In all my previous attempts i failed to survive the prestige drain. Playing with mostly inferior equipment against tons of raging enemies..warshaw endet most of the other playthroughs
But i got a legendary hero at start, and combined with liberator it was possible, but my core is in a real bad shape at the end of the DLC

The combo of OA + Env, Liberator, and default difficulty setting meant that prestige was never a remote issue for me. That is something my next playthrough on much higher difficulty will certainly make the game a much different experience for me I am sure!
--------------------------------
I enjoyed the difficulty lvl. Although im pretty sure i wont ever touch this DLC again, it was the most challenging DLC so far for me.I like the story parts and the "sidequests". To some extend i enjoyed the new mission design.

Stuff i would change/adjust:
- debriefings, i love debriefings
- most maps more felt like solving a riddle/puzzle than battles, more fighting pls
- mlawa and warshaw might need some finetuning
- the price, for that amount of work and the fun i had i still consider that DLC underpriced
- its short! 2-3 fighting missions more would have been fun

and something i always mention, the flaws of the hero system are fully exposed on a short campaign like this. I mean in my winning playthrough i got so many bad or useless heros...that steals a lot of fun for me. I enjoy building up a nice and juicy core, and recieving heros i dislike hurts.

I started out with a OA + Envelopment hero combo from the get-go and maximized its use! However, thereafter I received an underwhelming collection of Heroes as well. But as Tassadar said you adjust them to maximize their usefulness to the greatest extent that you can and that's part of the challenge/fun as well (so long as they don't ridiculously suck.)

But that DLC was fun, a tough challenge (for me) and defnitly worth the money. I hope it will be continued!

[milliethedog]

Hi, just been reading all the above posts, I share a lot of the thoughts. One thing has puzzled me from the start is I found it very easy to save the 5 heroes when they are in trouble etc. From the comments above it looks like the traits that I like are different to most, I always pick Meticulous planning and Aggressive Deployment and on this DLC Infantry General. It means that my heroes have the ability to bypass the very odd blocking unit or simply put clear ground between them and any German units. I am sure that this has been overlooked for the Heroes, Beta testing should have picked this up if it was indeed unintended. Sorry if this has been pointed out else where and i have just missed it.
Martin

[Bee1976]

How did AA Veteran work for you?

Great! Im pretty sure i wont ever play this DLC on a higher difficulty with out it. On some maps the Luftwaffe simply swarms you. (Mlawa/Warshaw) for example. And your own fighters are inferior which means high losses and therefore a bad prestige drain. And OFC you dont have unlimited aircraft.
It was a decision to make use of antiair guns instead of deploying tons of weak fighters. Fighters dont do much damage to ground targets so early in the war. So at some point they are quite useless. AA Guns on the other hand can work as anti tank, and that ability comes in very handy.
So it was way more prestige effective to play with aa vet and 3-4 AA guns.

Considering the hero system i agree on all of your and adiekmanns points. Its hard to balance. And ofc i have my preferences on using heros. But i got some real stupid heros in my playthroughs, like 3x provocateur, 2x leadership and aiming assistance in one run.
On my winning pt i got 2x Overrun...i couldnt barely make good use of 1 of those, but 2 ?
I would prefer a system were i can choose a specific hero out of 3 suggestions. I wouldnt mind some prestige cost for that feature. Something like accept a complete random hero like it is now, or do you wanna spent xxx prestige to promote 1 of your own soldiers (3 suggestions).

On a long campaign i dont care if i get bad heros, i simply sell them. On 1943 its way less frustrating to recieve a 6th sense hero dann in SCW. Bu on short campaings it really hurts.

@adiekmann
Yes. I tried to utilize Infatry general on some pts. Its nice to field more units at first, but the evil reality for me was:
more units that i had to protect, that recieved losses and that drained my prestige.
For me and the way i play the game, it was better to reduce the amount of units and to raise the quality (overstength)

[Tassadar]

Hi, just been reading all the above posts, I share a lot of the thoughts. One thing has puzzled me from the start is I found it very easy to save the 5 heroes when they are in trouble etc. From the comments above it looks like the traits that I like are different to most, I always pick Meticulous planning and Aggressive Deployment and on this DLC Infantry General. It means that my heroes have the ability to bypass the very odd blocking unit or simply put clear ground between them and any German units. I am sure that this has been overlooked for the Heroes, Beta testing should have picked this up if it was indeed unintended. Sorry if this has been pointed out else where and i have just missed it.
Martin

Yes, some traits can greatly change the way specific campaigns work. It's one of the reason I did not decide to get the negative "Delayed Reinforcements" one, as I was pretty sure it would make saving key characters impossible on some occasions (and based on my run, that would be true in on at least two occasions).

But i got some real stupid heros in my playthroughs, like 3x provocateur, 2x leadership and aiming assistance in one run.

Nothing shows individual preference for heroes better than this. I'd be the happiest general alive if I got 3 times Provocator. I'd just try to set up multiple bait formations in every scenario and watch as the AI blunders into them lemming style. Just having one of these heroes carried my entire playthrough, with 3 I would probably rush to capture Berlin.

[Bee1976]

Nothing shows individual preference for heroes better than this.

Indeed

I'd be the happiest general alive if I got 3 times Provocator. I'd just try to set up multiple bait formations in every scenario and watch as the AI blunders into them lemming style. Just having one of these heroes carried my entire playthrough, with 3 I would probably rush to capture Berlin.

Well, ofc i like provocateur aswell, but three times the same hero in such a short campaign is no fun. And the eqipment is to weak to make greeat use of 3 times provo.
And the mission design isnt good for this either,. most missions are not "get rif of all enemy units" or "conquer and hold victory hexes". Most times i had to keep moving to prevent getting hammered into oblivion. (on generalissimus)
And AI is strong enough to hurt the trap/bait combo a lot.

For my playstyle other heros would have been great, and im not talking about S-Tier Heros like Camouflage, Vigilant, No Retaliation or Lethal Attack. (I would have killed for one of those)

Readiness, First Strike, Fast Deployment, Tank Killer, Prudent would have been nice and juicy heros (for me)

[RVallant]

AA Veteran is an S tier trait, I never leave home without it.

0-10 killing planes is just too obscene not to, especially if you get anything like the 2cm flakfierling, or the 8.8.

Kill Team is a complete noob trap trait IMO though. Heroes are dime a dozen as it is.

[Bee1976]

Kill Team is a complete noob trap trait IMO though. Heroes are dime a dozen as it is.

Nah not really, on long campaigns you are right. Playing with a grown coreforce in 1942 it doenst really matters if you got 3 more heros or not

In a short campaign, heros can be the gamechanger.
Imagine getting ZeroSlots thats a full OS big bad artillery piece, worth nearly 25% of your starting core.
Or Double Attack, on most units this is like an additional unit
Camouflage....will save you sooo much prestige

So i would say it depends. ts a gamble. If you get good or useful heros, its worth the 2 points on a short campaign. Because it can be way better than any other positive trait (except AA Vet and MP - those 2 are really good) if you get bad heros its wasted points.

[RVallant]

Kill Team is a complete noob trap trait IMO though. Heroes are dime a dozen as it is.

Nah not really, on long campaigns you are right. Playing with a grown coreforce in 1942 it doenst really matters if you got 3 more heros or not

In a short campaign, heros can be the gamechanger.
Imagine getting ZeroSlots thats a full OS big bad artillery piece, worth nearly 25% of your starting core.
Or Double Attack, on most units this is like an additional unit
Camouflage....will save you sooo much prestige

So i would say it depends. ts a gamble. If you get good or useful heros, its worth the 2 points on a short campaign. Because it can be way better than any other positive trait (except AA Vet and MP - those 2 are really good) if you get bad heros its wasted points.

That's my thing though, it's a gamble for a crutch, and a lot of bad guides overrate it by suggesting to save-scum a trio of heroes. I can go without the artillery piece and use something different, I can utilise other tactical considerations to make up for double-attack etc, it just becomes an early game crutch, when you're probably going to get something similar across the campaign anyway.

Whereas, other traits are more radical game changers;

For me, the top three(ish) outside of spoils of war (which is insanely overpowered) would be;

AA vet - obviously

Aggressive deployment - An obscene one tbh, because it lets you attack after deployment on infantry and every single towed type of unit, from AA to AT to Artillery, so it can almost devalue SP models in some ways, especially later when you get tracked transports.

Perimeter Control - because voiding ZoC makes encirclements quicker and especially brutal.

Special mention to Master of Blitzkreig just for being able to roll tanks over minor rivers like it's a road!

I dunno, for me I'd pick any of those over three heroes.

[Bee1976]

Whereas, other traits are more radical game changers;

For me, the top three(ish) outside of spoils of war (which is insanely overpowered) would be;

Aggressive deployment

Tryout Meticolous Planing instand of Aggressive deployment. Its hardcore overpowered.
2 movement on every ground unit means:
- the same benefits like agressive deployment, you just need to "disembark" your infantry or towed gun manually. - its even better because you can use complete max range for units in transports
- moving away from the frontline and repair
- weak defense units can move in, attack and move out


As you can see, i havent used it in my winning playthrough, i try to avoid it like mass captures and encirclements. I think its real fun to play with meticolous planning, but everything gets way easier.
back to heros:

I always or nearly always pick "killer team", there are better traits but i love the hero system and the way you can modify your units (artillery support camouflage Neubaufahrzeug, anyone ? )

[Hohenhole]

I'm really curious if in the Fall of Poland changes something if you don't pick "Slow modernization" and "Retrograde" traits, there is some upgrade you can miss in this way?

[DefiantXYX]

I'm really curious if in the Fall of Poland changes something if you don't pick "Slow modernization" and "Retrograde" traits, there is some upgrade you can miss in this way?

Retrograde are like always free points, if you want it easier, just take it. Slow modernization might be the same, some guys in this topic picked it, it think its also free points.

To the DLC:

I had two important questions.
1) Will you be able to move your core to subsequent DLCs? Well, most of my units are already 5 star and have several rewards. There are no special heroes you get for your core. So I think it wont be possible. Thats almost a game over for me.
2) Did they find a way to play a defensive campaign with your core? Nope. They did not even try. Either you just play some puzzle maps or you have to attack. Dissappointing.

Going on with some neagative points:
- no briefings, no enough maps
- should I somehow now, that this whole campaign is about the 5 special heroes? Like other guys here already said somehow some of them dissappeared, not because they died, I just forgot what to do with them.
- 5 star and easy awards. If I can reach max units in one campaign its demotivating me. And its breaking the balance, the last maps were just boring when I was slaughtering tons of enemy units with my "elite core".
- after some maps I start to kill tons of enemy units while losing only a few. How can I lose this war? The germans got just panzer I and II crap, the standard polish tanks are just better. Especially the russian in the last missions are just canon fodder. Without that silly respawn feature I would have won the map in 3 turns. I was just overrolling everytyhing.
- no army management. There is nothing to do. Caches are full with crap (why downgrade polish tanks to Panzer II?), you can get a 88cm gun, some BF 109 and thats it. I know, the war lasts only 4 weeks, but its a main feature of this game. I was hoping for a solution.
- no super heroes. no points to spend. Just boring repetitive events with the story heroes.
- no Warshaw. No Modlin. I was curios to see how they set up huge defensive battles. You cant even play them.
- No choices, no different ways to go. Why should I play this again?
- no improvement of the AI at all. You are playing vs germany now. War would have been over in September 1939 if the german would have been that stupid like the AI. Its attacking well protected units, losing 10 for killing 1. Ridiculous!

Whats on the positive hand:
+ I like early war gaming. Without 3/4 heroes on any units and 5 stars and experience the game recquires some strategic thinking.
+ The first part of the DLC was something new and you can feel, that the devs had some ideas. I think there was a lot of missed potential.

Overall I can say I just like this game and the setting of ww2. So I had some good hours with this DLC. For 10€ its fair.
Will I play this DLC again? Hmmm, if there might be another one with a chance of importing something from this campaign I might play it again and try to safe all 5 heroes. Otherwise no thank you.

[Zbrozlo]

If you're disappointed with the 'Fall of Poland' DLC, you might want to try something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUzF195 ... 7fF3M4dx4F

[Thunderhog]

If you're disappointed with the 'Fall of Poland' DLC, you might want to try something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUzF195 ... 7fF3M4dx4F

I'm not disappointed in the gameplay of Fall of Poland; it's just the lack of story and personal relationships that they marketed the DLC around. Also, Order of Battle is old as shit and shows its age.

[Zbrozlo]

If you're disappointed with the 'Fall of Poland' DLC, you might want to try something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUzF195 ... 7fF3M4dx4F

I'm not disappointed in the gameplay of Fall of Poland; it's just the lack of story and personal relationships that they marketed the DLC around. Also, Order of Battle is old as shit and shows its age.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure."

[Stuttgart1506]

I hope there will be more content, PC2 is the best in class...