Artillery: What would you change, and why?

[CptJackSparrow1993]

As a Panzer Corps player who would like to eventually get into the modding scene to create mods for, especially, PzC 2, I figured I'd ask for some opinions from people here on the forums about stuff, just so that I can begin the spit balling process of trying to see what I might want to do for a few different future projects that only exist in the idea stage for the moment. Artillery drew the short straw and came up first. So, I'd like to get some answers from people focused on the following bullet points.

1: What do you like/dislike about artillery as it currently exists?

2: What would you change about artillery to balance it/make it better/nerf it?

Thank you

[Bee1976]

Most artillery pieces are quite useless compared to the 2 artillery pieces nearly every1 uses:
15 cm and 21 cm

even the quite strong rocketartillery like wurfrahmen or nebelwerfer isnt used that much, there are some niche pieces like the SU-152 that are used. the issue is, artillery is balanced around prestige cost, slotwise there is no reason to use something else than a 15cm gun. and in the ao series you drown in prestige.

the biggest issue is at support on that 15cm guns, the best way would be to take that from the artillery. maybe smaller artillery pieces might deliver real, and not supressing dmg while support firing. some real small artillery pieces might be an addition to infantry units like trucks, and stop existing in the game as a unit itself.

getting rid of at support and adding some small artillery pieces to infantry would change a lot:
1. at-guns would be more useful and needed in the game
2. in reality infantry was able to kill tanks in open areas. even not heavy weapon teams. of course this was a high cost solution with high casualties, but they were able to do this. right now, try to kill a better tank with 6 Wehr-Infantrie, even if you surround that tank and supress him full, you wont be able to kill 1 tank in open tiles. that would be solved with a little more firepower.
3. during midwar and latewar infantry isnt a real thread, as long as you keep your units protected enemy infantry is a joke. with that change and a little more firepower on infatry, that would change a little

there are some more ideas how to improve artillery, but most of them would need a change to the game mechanicwise

[Grondel]

this is something we are currently working on. since u just got an invite to the discord we can talk there after u´ve seen what we did so far.
since evrything is currently work in progress and might still changed significantly i won´t go into detail here, but the points Bee has made are all taken care of alrdy.

sers,
Thomas

[CptJackSparrow1993]

Right, will do, Grondel.

[IntoTheRain]

There are a lot of areas I feel like the game could improve. Looking at a few other hex based wargames, its becoming increasingly clear to me that Panzer Corps 2 just didn't innovate enough.

For Arty though, most of the problems just come from the following:

1) The core slot costs of many Artillery pieces do not adequately reflect the performance increase. A 21cm MRS 18 has more range, more than double the AT value, and more AI than the LeFH 18, yet costs only 50% more core slots. Its better in counterbattery, far better at AT, and just all around safer and more effective to use.

2) Rocket Artillery doesn't have a distinct enough role. In practice its little different than the tube artillery. If it got more power but shot only every other turn, or did even heavier suppression but little actual damage it would at least have a different use case.

3) There isn't a distinct enough difference between mechanized artillery and towed guns. With *everything* in the game being mechanized, there just isn't a lot of incentive to go for mechanized pieces. There play very similarly, and the towed guns are often faster at getting around.

4) The game overvalues quality over quantity to an absurd degree. Yes, its fun to play with big, powerful toys. But the hex based system leaves room for little else. In practice most of WW2 was fought using Maneuver warfare, which required more numerous, smaller assets. I've never once looked twice at the Stug IIIBs though or the 7.5cm. Why would I? They have less range, the hex based nature of the gameplay limits your ability to stack them in range, and its more targets you have to guard. Even if I did accept all those downsides, their damage output still probably doesn't match those of one of the larger guns.

[rivvendarke]

Maybe it should be changed completely. Until the recent changes (in the mods) the usual tactic was to keep 15cm arty in the second line to defend against attacks. These direct fire support happened irl but was quite rare.
The scale of arty doesnt fit the rest of the game anyway so why not try to move it to its historic role. This could be archieved by a massive range increase and maybe a slightly reduced damage and maybe 25% more slot cost. The 10,5cm gets range 6, the 15cm range 8 and the 21cm range 10. Ammo for all is reduced to 1. The 7,5 cm, the 8,8, the Stugs, Stuhs aso should have range 2, soft and hard support but no crazy numbers and be used for direct fire support..
This would bring the guns to their historic roles and makes the smaller guns relevant while changing the tactics for the game completely.
Just an idea..

[sstejona]

In fact, in my opinion, many players play with the tactic of setting up a lot of 17 or 21 mortars and thus nipping any offensive in the bud. Tanks can be shot at directly and cause significant damage and there is actually no need to fight your own artillery, as it is already being fought by the defense during the attack.

[DefiantXYX]

Once again the biggest problem with artillery are heroes. Vanilla 21 gun with camo can wipe out an whole elite army in one turn.

And it depends on the year. Artillery from 1936-1941/1942 has almost nothing to do with artilley from 1943-1945.

Like I already said, I do not really like the recent changes. 21 guns are useless as long as you are not defending. If you put 15guns to AT mode they are too strong, especially with a range of 2 and without counter fire. And you can already do that with AA, so why would you use AT units in the early years of the war?
Right now I am playing SOE with 15 guns and AT support hero

Unfortunately I do not have any smart ideas.
I would say keep the artillery as it originally was until 1943. If its possible you could adjust the core slot when you use overstrength. If you can run light art. with a strength of 14 for 4 core slots while 15cm guns require 1 core slot for each overstrength you might rather use light art. over just 15cms guns..
>1943 you could just lower the core slots and maybe add some range. Otherwise there is no real reason to run only tanks and anti tanks plus air support.