New general traits

[Bylandt11]

What do you guys think about the new general traits?

Force concentration doesn't seem worth it, but the other strengths are interesting.

Terrain expert is certainly good pick when playing at higher levels: lower casualties are important. Maybe it's also a good idea at lower levels. It's like an extra hero attached to each ground unit.

Meticulous planning: looks very promising, but costs 2. Unfortunately it doesn't affect air units, or it would be an auto-pick.

Aggressive deployment: this I tested and it is very, very strong. It does more than it advertizes. Not only can units that deploy from transports attack, but they will always deploy even with no movement points left. No more need for selfpropelled artillery. The towed artillery is cheaper, faster and has greater power. The AA can now intervene at longe range. Engineers, with slowness as their main drawback, can now attack as far as their trucks can carry them. Also: no more ambushes (from the air or the ground) against units in their transports. I tried this strength in the SCW and it is OP. I will now probably use Denied Artillery in every campaign, as captured artillery is enough to do the job.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to compensate the new strengths with the new negative traits. These are bad. Perhaps very experienced players could use Arrogance. Force dispersion could perhaps be used in the main campaign or the SCW (but not during later campaigns). BTW: you can't combine Force Dispersion with Force Concentration: the second trait will do nothing. Ruthless and Slow Reaction are too damaging.

[Kerensky]

I would definitely be curious to hear if players who find hero combos to be game breakingly problematic will start using the '1 hero per unit' trait.

I mean, before you could just enforce the rule on yourself, but now it's actually baked into the game and not just a home brew self imposed rule...

[Rifraff]

I would definitely be curious to hear if players who find hero combos to be game breakingly problematic will start using the '1 hero per unit' trait.

I mean, before you could just enforce the rule on yourself, but now it's actually baked into the game and not just a home brew self imposed rule...

Just found out about it and really want to try it out. Not a big fan of captured equipment or prototype units. So can totally live without them.

I do like the special heroes though. I saw Rudel comes with the 1940 version. Do we need to go back to whenever it was to get Albert Kerscher and Oleh Dir or will we get them sometime during 1940 if we pick that trait?

[SineMora]

I would definitely be curious to hear if players who find hero combos to be game breakingly problematic will start using the '1 hero per unit' trait.

I mean, before you could just enforce the rule on yourself, but now it's actually baked into the game and not just a home brew self imposed rule...

Playing w/o generic heroes it feels a bit cheap as you're effectively getting free points, but you are giving up the arguably strongest tool in the process, so I'm torn on it. Aggressive Deployment and Meticulous Planning are both hilariously overpowered and fun, though, and to afford both some sacrifices will have to be made. Either the tooltip for the former is misleading or the trait is bugged, because it automatically deploys units regardless of how far they move.

Terrain Expert doesn't modify the max entrenchment levels, so I'm not sure I'd sacrifice anything for it. Arrogance could be fun to play around with, but Ruthless could potentially cripple prestige (and limiting deployment of enemy units), and Slow Reactions is nasty as well.

[sebb81]

I would definitely be curious to hear if players who find hero combos to be game breakingly problematic will start using the '1 hero per unit' trait.

I mean, before you could just enforce the rule on yourself, but now it's actually baked into the game and not just a home brew self imposed rule...

I took it because of the combo problematic

[sebb81]

Playing w/o generic heroes it feels a bit cheap as you're effectively getting free points, but you are giving up the arguably strongest tool in the process, so I'm torn on it. Aggressive Deployment and Meticulous Planning are both hilariously overpowered and fun, though, and to afford both some sacrifices will have to be made. Either the tooltip for the former is misleading or the trait is bugged, because it automatically deploys units regardless of how far they move.

I have to aggree Aggressive Deployment is either totally overpowered or it is buggy...

[colberki]

I will restart from SCW to enjoy these new traits and all the other improvements. Delay playing AO 1940 itself. Who knows how long a wait it will be for AO 1941. Panzer Corps 2 for me a definitely worth my time for many replays.

[scott_mathieson]

had restart scw during the week to play through all 3 dlcs, now wish i had waited to try out some of theses traits, the different ways to play this game are really impressive

[scott_mathieson]

does slow reaction affect covering fire ?

[Scrapulous]

I think the new traits are all very powerful. Force Concentration is cheap: one point for the ability to further exploit hero synergies. My Zero Slot, Consolidator, Lethal Attack 20cm artillery is a beast. It's two beasts with a Double Attack hero.

Terrain expert is great for minimizing the effects of sloppy placement, and also only one point.

Meticulous Planning indeed doesn't affect air units, but it frees up Segmeted Movement heroes to be put on air units. The flexibility it gives to ground units is huge and further relaxes the requirement to place units with chess-like precision.

Aggressive Deployment is astoundingly powerful and a huge bargain at 2 points. It effectively gives one of the best heroes, Fast Deployment, to any unit with organic transports (it doesn't work for paradrops, for instance, nor amphibiously). I have to agree that it's too powerful for its cost. That 20cm artillery I mentioned is absolutely insane with Aggressive Deployment. It has the equivalent of 5 heroes. Yikes.

I haven't tried the new drawbacks yet, but they all looked a little too risky for me. Arrogance was tempting, but I am still sometimes surprised by predictions (it's how I detect enemy heroes, sometimes D:), so I didn't take it.

[Bylandt11]

They just patched Aggressive Deployment. Not surprisingly, the abiltity to dismount and attack whatever the distance travelled, was a bug. It was crazy to attack with infantry (including pioneers) that had just travelled 8 hexes by truck or to aggressively intervene with towed artillery and AA from one front to another.

I enjoyed it while it lasted though. I waltzed through the infamous Battle of the Ebro on Field Marshall level just before the patch.

Terrain expert now also adds to max entrenchment.

[SineMora]

They just patched Aggressive Deployment. Not surprisingly, the abiltity to dismount and attack whatever the distance travelled, was a bug. It was crazy to attack with infantry (including pioneers) that had just travelled 8 hexes by truck or to aggressively intervene with towed artillery and AA from one front to another.

You can still do this -- you just need to pick up Meticulous Planning as well

[nono hard et heavy]

Hello guys.
For me, one unit = one hero. No combo. I prefer play like this.
Greetings from France.
Bruno

[kverdon]

Note: The "One Unit = One Hero" trait only applies to new heroes. If you have units with multiple heroes it does not force you to go down to 1. Not sure if this is a bug or not.

[adiekmann]

I like heroes. I have no problem with multiple heroes on a unit, unless you cheat to create them. On the core that I have used in AO40 and since SCW, I do not have a single Overwhelming Attack nor Shock Tactics. So I don't really have any "super combo" hero teams that I can make anyway unless you consider something like Lethal Attack and Double Attack a super combo, which I do have. I got an Envelopment hero midway through AO40, but it on its own is of limited value. But that's why the options are there. Maybe someday in the future for a new challenge I will try it out, but for now I have no interest.

[CroCop96]

I like the arrogant trait and I think I'll pick it in most of my future playthroughs.

It took some time to get used to, but now I'm perfectly content with it - playing the way God intended, always bombarding the enemy with artillery, encircling them if possible, and reconnoitering, you shouldn't have too many problems.

If your infantry is attacking a fortified town covered by arty, you know your boys are not going to have a good time. If you are attacking an enemy tank regiment with your own similar-tier tanks, you know you can expect something like 2 and 2 casualties on each side.

What I mean to say is that the lack of predictions is remedied by applying the right tactical principles - if my Pioniers are attacking dug-in enemy infantry with 8/12 HP suppressed and their entrenchment destroyed by arty, I know we'll push them out of the town while losing 1-2 HP and that's it. If they're supported by their own arty, I know I'll take a further 0-2 casualties and some suppression as well, but I'll always try to neutralize their arty with tactical bombers, long range arty or, if possible, with tanks or armored cars - depending on the strength of the enemy line.

The worst scenario is when you're attacking experienced enemy fighters with your own - which is remedied with a) mass attack, b) some motorized flak lighting them up prior to the attack.

Point is, nothing too bad can happen with the arrogant trait if you're playing decently. It's a bargain.

[Bee1976]

I will restart from SCW to enjoy these new traits and all the other improvements. Delay playing AO 1940 itself. Who knows how long a wait it will be for AO 1941. Panzer Corps 2 for me a definitely worth my time for many replays.

Same here. OfC i will play AO 41 to AO 45 straight after release, but im really looking forward to play all DLCs from SCW to 45 again

[SineMora]

does slow reaction affect covering fire ?

A belated reply, but no, Slow Reaction does not apply to support fire.

[Scrapulous]

Point is, nothing too bad can happen with the arrogant trait if you're playing decently. It's a bargain.

Well... in the DLC, the enemy general is Kerensky, who is good at making assumptions like this expensive. Not only are the objectives often inconsistent with cautious, "correct" play (always supporting units, lining up artillery and air support before assaulting, careful reconnaissance, etc), but Kerensky is also good at setting up enemy units with difficult hero combinations. De Gaulle is the most obvious example, but there are minor but still troublesome other instances scattered throughout the later DLCs. Heroes, especially in combination, can really make the mental arithmetic involved in assessing an attack complex and can subvert your normal assumptions about the likely outcome of a battle.

This perspective might say more about my shortcomings as a general officer of pixels, but one of the things I like about the DLCs is that Kerensky doesn't always let us "play decently," as you say, if we want to win big. Bold gambles and reckless encirclements and such are risky but can be rewarding, and are sometimes necessary. If you can play with Arrogant on and not suffer from any of these tensions, then I admire your skill.

[tvautd]

Dont know if its the right place to ask but anyone knows what exactly does Inneficient Supply? How much less supply i`m receiving? Seems like ammo is no problem, but having troubles with fuel on my recon cars, feels like they get only 4 pe turn.