Flanking

[Kerensky]

I dunno if this is something planned for Panzer Corps, but I was curious if it was.
For example, in Panzer General, if you surround a King Tiger with Shermans... well you're probably looking at a 0 - 7 result for attacking it until the King Tiger finally runs out of ammo.

Granted on the scale that Panzer Corps is played on, flanking might not make much sense, but I wouldn't mind seeing positioning mean a little more than it did in PG. I don't know what the PzC plan is, but if there are plans for positioning to be more meaningful, I think that might be a good dialogue to engage in.

It could be something really simple too, just an arrow pointing the direction a unit is 'facing'. Attacking the unit head on or through the two other front hexes is a head on engagement, while the other 3 hexes are considered flanking.

[Obsolete]

PG did have an element of flanking. In PG2 your initiative decreased by one every time a unit was involved in a battle per turn. In PG-III the penalties were increased even further for each combat involving the same unit.

[Kerensky]

That sounds more like zerging than flanking though, doesn't it?

[LOGAN5]

The scale doesn't allow for flanking, how can you flank infantry division inside a city? you can surround it or attack from multiple directions.

[Kerensky]

In regards to the scale, I would imagine it's not that much of a problem.
For example, in this picture:

Pretend for a moment the infantry in the city in the 'middle' of the map has a little arrow pointing to the NORTHWEST hex, indicating facing.
If you attack that unit from the NORTH, NORTHWEST, or SOUTHWEST, there's no change, standard Panzer General encounter.
Imagine if you somehow got a unit to attack that hex from the SOUTHEAST. Would it be so unreasonable for there to be an additional, albeit small and not overpowering, benefit to that? Taking this picture into consideration, you've got ZOCs to content with, plus the water forms a natural choke point.

It might add a new element that panzer general hasn't had before, where positioning and forming a continuous 'front' means more than "an enemy is next to me, I can't fully supply or reinforce to 100%"

[Obsolete]

Well, if we are going PG style, then it causes some problems, since in actuality you are not hitting with flanking units at the SAME TIME, instead one unit moves... attacks, then another unit moves, and then attacks. So for this, I guess the old method of reducing initiative per battle is fine.

Now... if this remake allows true simultaneous attacks, then one could go the Combat Command route and add a 10% bonus to each adjacant hex with an attacking unit, to be applied to the total fire-power being applied against the defender.

[rayduhz]

Well, if we are going PG style, then it causes some problems, since in actuality you are not hitting with flanking units at the SAME TIME, instead one unit moves... attacks, then another unit moves, and then attacks. So for this, I guess the old method of reducing initiative per battle is fine.

Now... if this remake allows true simultaneous attacks, then one could go the Combat Command route and add a 10% bonus to each adjacant hex with an attacking unit, to be applied to the total fire-power being applied against the defender.

I agree, true flanking in the PG game dynamics really could not work due to the fact only one unit attacks at a time. Even if you had directional indicator on the unit, what stops the unit from facing the direction of the second attack? If that was the case you could defeat ANY unit with ANY unit just simply by attacking multiple times in different directions all in ONE turn. i.e. multiple militia vs a King Tiger and the militia is the victor. Should never be the case unless the KT is out of ammo or fuel.

Perhaps something can be added as a bonus to the SECOND attacker who attacks a unit from the complete opposite direction the first attack came from. For example a Sherman attacks a Tiger from the TOP. Then another Sherman attacks from the BOTTOM of the Tiger. The bottom attack receives a % bonus due to attacking a unit from a complete opposite direction its previous attack came from. This would also make users wary about terrain and possibly a continuous front line. IMO I think it’s important that this would ONLY work if the unit was attacked from the complete opposite direction. Attacking from the north and then the northwest does not institute flanking in the current PG game dynamics because units attack one at a time. Also a unit should only allow to be flanked ONCE per turn. This helps eliminate militia beating Tigers simply by flanking in one turn. Maybe even eliminate (or only allow certain units) flanking from certain units versus other units?

[terrymulijana]

How about giving a leader's ability unit like Flanking Manouver so that after giving the condition a unit being attack from North then only unit which have attribute Flanking Manouver can get the flanking bonuses, otherwise it should be from opposite direction ( South ). IMO this could have certain tactical situation which decide certain unit can be more effective than others for certain condition

[Obsolete]

Directional Flanking seems to break down in PG. Since one hex often counts as an ENTIRE CITY....

[gib10]

ya flanking isn't applicable in a strategic game. in a sense you get a flank bonus already by virtue of more units attacking the same target. flanking a side or rear and getting a bonus in combat is only for tactical level games. pg is strategic and your talking that even though a hex is surrounded(Nuts!), there's a ring of outward facing troops by the 1000's on each hex side.

But that brings up a point i hope they do take into consideration: if I attack a defender with say 5 units, the thing that pg did a shitty job originally was alloing the defender to fire back 5 times. in order to better the game, they need to make the remake do old school combat - all attackers are declared against the target. do this for each target. then combat resolution phase where each fight is carried out and results applied. if they do this then they can still have the unit shoot back correctly - they can fire once at each of my 5 attackers with 1/5 of their strength. Hopefully that makes sense but it apparently was not self evident to the original makers of pg lol.

[Obsolete]

That may be too rough on the defender, unless you allow stacking of units.

[terrymulijana]

ya flanking isn't applicable in a strategic game. in a sense you get a flank bonus already by virtue of more units attacking the same target. flanking a side or rear and getting a bonus in combat is only for tactical level games. pg is strategic and your talking that even though a hex is surrounded(Nuts!), there's a ring of outward facing troops by the 1000's on each hex side.

But that brings up a point i hope they do take into consideration: if I attack a defender with say 5 units, the thing that pg did a shitty job originally was alloing the defender to fire back 5 times. in order to better the game, they need to make the remake do old school combat - all attackers are declared against the target. do this for each target. then combat resolution phase where each fight is carried out and results applied. if they do this then they can still have the unit shoot back correctly - they can fire once at each of my 5 attackers with 1/5 of their strength. Hopefully that makes sense but it apparently was not self evident to the original makers of pg lol.

agree with you gib10, lets think about giving a Blitzkrieg type game Series for the flanking type of tactical games. I'd like to see this posibility of porting Panzer Corps tactical element to Blitzkrieg type of game for online multiplayer gaming if any of that detail is not overwhelming. I mean multiplayer PBEM would be good if you have several tactical response manually simulated by your friend as tactical officer right while you sit at the top of strategic general ?

[Rudankort]

Guys, this may disappoint some of you, but in PzC defender WILL fire back as many times as it is attacked. There are many reasons for that. On one hand, on PzC scale (one turn spans full day or even several days) it is nothing unusual that defending unit can fight several battles on a single turn. Especially if the defender represents, say, the army defending Stalingrad. On the other hand, having only one "counterattack" action opens the gate for various "dirty" tactics like: remove counterattack by attacking with a weak/cheap/auxiliary you don't care for, and then bring in your main force and finish off the enemy. Also, this would make mass attacks too powerful: it does not matter how well you play, just bring in enough units. It may easily happen that on turn 1 there are no enemy units around VH, and on turn 2 all defenders are killed and VH is taken, with defender having no chance to react. I don't think this makes the game more interesting. Instead, you will have to crack the defense, find the weak spot, and bring in the right units to exploit it.

However, PzC will feature mass attacks which means attacking one spot with several units will have some advantages, and the damage done to attackers will be distributed more evenly in this case.

[gib10]

@Rudankort

Ok. But you could solve the dirty trick problem by requiring all attacks be declared against a target then resolve them. That way its easy to divide the strength of the counter attack evenly against all the attacking units. You are making a fatal mistake coding the game without that if you allow a defender to fire 5 times and each of the 5 attackers only fire once, that just doesn't make sense does it now?

Otherwise if you do code it the way your saying(standard pg) then how are you going to reduced the strength of each counter attack when you don't know in advance how many attackers to distribute your str points to?

See my point? Otherwise defenders "magically" get multiple shots when they should only have 1 just like attackers. That was a huge issue with pg for me and I don't think I am alone on that

"one turn spans full day or even several days) it is nothing unusual that defending unit can fight several battles on a single turn." - yes but the way your going to re-simulate it, it would be as if my 5 attackers each are a seperate battle but they are not. It's not like my first unit attacks from 6am - 10am then then next unit fights from 10-2...etc....no, its all the same battle over the unit time period.

If you guys do make the game that way because you need to get it out the door well then I guess no amount of logic will change deadlines and honestly I understand that being a dev myself

That brings me to another idea. Can we mod the game and change the way combat works so I could play my games with the declare all attacks first then resolve all fire?

I'm still interested in getting it when released but just had to vent my #1 annonyance with pg

Thanks for your time!
Gib

[gib10]

Just wanted to add a clarification in that my above logic assumes say 5 of all one type of attacker. If my 5 units were: 2 inf, tank, tac bomber, and arty then a full attack using the defenders air attack would be applicable and so would it be fo rthe tank but the counter attack against the 2 inf units but be at 1/2 (for 2 units) against each infantry.

hope that clears up what I think is logical...

[Rudankort]

Indeed, this particular aspect is decided. But it is not because of deadlines etc. As you are a developer yourself, you will believe me that I can code mass attack in the game in a couple of hours. No deadlines would prevent me from doing so, if I thought that I was doing a fatal mistake.

But, as I said, I'm convinced that such a decision cannot improve the game, only make it worse. Let's face it: if you distribute defender's strength between 5 units, it has very little chance to do any significant damage to attackers and survive, no matter how you code the math. And this means, individual attacks will make very little sense, mass attack will become universal method to win any battle.

I'm sorry if this decision makes you unhappy, but game design is an exercise in compromises. I've been reading PG-related forums for years, and I know for sure that a lot of people would be upset if I implemented YOUR proposal. I guess, you can't make everybody happy at once.

Which brings use to the question about moddability. There are a lot of things which you can change/tweak in Panzer Corps, but I'm afraid that simultaneous attack is not one of them. I have nothing against this idea, but I don't see how I could possible enable that. One one hand, this would require very deep UI and game engine tweaking. On the other hand, this would require possibility to code all combat algorithm from scratch. The only way I see to allow this is to code everything in the game (except perhaps the graphics engine) in a script language, but PzC is not coded this way, and at this point it is too late to rewrite it. Besides, this means that the modder would need to be an expert programmer, because he would need not only to change game code, but also to fix the AI to work well in new circumstances.

So, if you have any ideas here, please by all means share them.

[Rudankort]

PS. But probably I could add "DefenderShootsOnce" parameter to game data files, if this would make any of you guys happy. Anyone interested?

[gib10]

once against each TYPE of attacking unit. Ex 2 tanks, 2 inf and 2 air units attack a defender. the defenders attacks against 1 tank, 1 inf, 1 air because they are all different types. If 4 inf attack 1 infantry then only 1 counter attack becasue the attackers are all of the same type.

[gib10]

"But, as I said, I'm convinced that such a decision cannot improve the game, only make it worse. "
Oh if you're already convinced then your not really open to discussion then are you? By doing it the "pg way" that has already made it artificial and worse, this only makes it better so I really don't see how its worse. Its made better by the fact that the defender doesn't get magically more number of shots against a type just because theres another one of that type involved in the battle. Horse, look water...

"Let's face it: if you distribute defender's strength between 5 units, it has very little chance to do any significant damage to attackers and survive, no matter how you code the math. "
Then don't distribute the hits. In the attacker delcaration phase, the defender will then choose to apply their counter attack 1 one unit of each time they have a weapon system(attack rating) against.

"And this means, individual attacks will make very little sense, mass attack will become universal method to win any battle."
O_0.....You're right, no commander ever wants to have localized numerical superiority on the battlefield.....that would be..just..wrong..right?

Actually your use of "universal method" is intriguing - will there be other methods to win a battle? That kind of sounds promising/ like your hinting at something perhaps? I think I know what you mean - we want combat interesting and for it to be a "pick apart the opponents defenses" with choosing the right unit to attack with at the right time or something like that. I just wanted to point out the fact that a 5 inf vs 1 inf, each should just get 1 shot and never understood where the defender got 4 extra shots(all at full str against the next 4 inf involved in the battle) . If you wanted to direct all the str points in counter attack to 1 unit with their shot you could do that rather than a distributed hit. keep in mind that if a tank, inf, and say air unit all attack 1 inf then Im ok with full str(or nearly full?) counter attacks because each is a different weapon system so to say. you have bazookas and at guns for tanks, mgs vs the planes, etc.

"I'm sorry if this decision makes you unhappy, but game design is an exercise in compromises...I guess, you can't make everybody happy at once. ""
Of course. Just like with any product, you market to the masses. Look at WOW - its not a rpg but an action fantasy game so the masses will play it vs a good game where the smaller market segment of rpgers will enjoy it(plot, rpg, story line, secret doors or even just doors in dungeons!, traps, riddles....after all these elements were left out of WOW because only rpg players would like/enjoy them).

"I've been reading PG-related forums for years, and I know for sure that a lot of people would be upset if I implemented YOUR proposal."
That's a suprise because It was so self evident to me that the core defense counter attack combat mechanic that needed changing. I guess if everyone jumps off the bridge then I should too. Or is it when 12 people tell you your drunk you need to lay down - I can't remember

[rayduhz]

PS. But probably I could add "DefenderShootsOnce" parameter to game data files, if this would make any of you guys happy. Anyone interested?

I think that would work only if the secondary attackers only get a minor attack bonus. Otherwise it would be exploited no matter what unit was in battle.