Paratroopers ruin the game in MP

[Mordan]

I am playing a good player..

Its basically only paratroopers stealing a victory city hex after another.. That's all there is to it with so few Core Slots and para trooper mechanics.

Its just op to do that. Have a para trooper plane flying at all time and you get to take hexs pretty easily. 100 prestige and a thorn in the side.. Simple scout with the smallest plane.

There is hardly any downside since gameplay is so slow. its takes an enormous amount of units just to kill one unit.

[Nalikill]

If paratroopers ruin the game, maybe buy them one at a time?

[Mordan]

If paratroopers ruin the game, maybe buy them one at a time?

as someone said.. its gamey... in PC1.. para were a threat but it was more veiled..

Here its right from the start and its not fun.. After a few games, the core slot is too constraining in MP, making the para tactic op. Right now I don't like the Core Slots given in MP scenarios. Only price should be a factor.

The para shouldn't be able to land, move in the same turn.. It was better when they landed and some were stunned from the landing.

[Dorky8]

The MP France scenario is a nicely laid out balanced game. Paratroopers completely ruin it, make it unplayable. The use of paratroopers isn't balanced in France, much more advantageous to Germans.. A vast majority of the open cities are behind French lines. The argument that "both sides can use paratroopers" goes out the window.

You are also correct on the MP core slots. Many MP scenarios have far to few units.

[Nalikill]

paratroopers
pair-o-troopers
hence, get them one at a time.
Then they'll be singletroopers.

[ErissN6]

Yes, para shouldn't be able to attack while landing, they had to gather first.
Too, units in a structure should beggin entrenched at least at half level.

[Kerensky]

You are also correct on the MP core slots. Many MP scenarios have far to few units.

We wanted MP to be about maneuver and encirclement. Which means maps on the larger side relative to unit count and prestige levels. The campaign is a good place for overwhelmingly huge armies with buckets of prestige just smashing into each other. In MP, there are more avenues to attack down than you have forces at your disposal, on both sides. You need to detect where you opponent is committing, and either choose to try and engage them, or try and contain their concentration of force and go race across the rest of the map because they've balled up their forces into a tight and inflexible formation and have no prestige/slots left to cover their exposed areas.

It's supposed to be a balancing act, because the nature of support fire units precludes satisfying combat. The arty/at support deathball is real. You ever try and break a formation of units with a cheap, mobile, but powerful anti-tank gun like a Nashorn protecting every unit surrounding it? It's not fun, hope you have air superiority because you aren't cracking that nut head on.

So if someone is deathballing powerful units in a tight cluster, it means they annihilated their prestige to form such a formation. Which means the rest of the map is unprotected and ripe for the taking.

Paratroopers reaching behind the French line, is it so problematic? Just buy 1 infantry unit and put it on each French supply hex. Use that French rail network to shuffle French forces quickly. No paratrooper assault can take on a supply hex protected by a single entrenched infantry unit. And paratroopers running around the map gathering non supply hexes... that's not so bad. Dedicate 1/2 of a recon car to shadow them and take back a hex as soon as they move on to take the next. Their investment into paratroopers means less investment in their main thrust.

[Kerensky]

One cheap 90 prestige bridge engineer can lock down a supply hex against 3 times their number of paratroopers.



And as long as paratroopers aren't able to take the hex immediately... it's a supply hex. Buy some of your own units, obliterated those lone paratroopers, and use the French rail network to redeploy those purchases somewhere more useful.

A unit entering the Paris rail line can reach almost the entire map in a single move. That's an impressive level of mobility.

[Mordan]

One cheap 90 prestige bridge engineer can lock down a supply hex against 3 times their number of paratroopers.



And as long as paratroopers aren't able to take the hex immediately... it's a supply hex. Buy some of your own units, obliterated those lone paratroopers, and use the French rail network to redeploy those purchases somewhere more useful.

A unit entering the Paris rail line can reach almost the entire map in a single move. That's an impressive level of mobility.

I don't understand something.

Why can't 3 paras take out a single weak bridge engineer... Something is not making sense here.


My observation was based on a Hylan Valley MP game I am currently playing in PC1. Core Slots are not a problem. Prestige is.. That's what make it fun. If my opponent want to mass Churchill VII... so be it. I didnt' spend all my prestige in the first turns, i will buy units to beat them.

In MP maps, Prestige should be the only deciding factor. If you are successful implementing a winning strategy with a given unit, why would the high command complain?

In PC2. I am playing a MP tiny random map with 40 core slots. All taken. 1000 prestige. I am russian. He is english with churchill and some armored artillery. I encircled a tank.. the tank has no ammo. I have 4 infantry around it for 3 turns. Impossible to kill. All I have is a stupid T34 that barely scratches it.. And a churchill and an archer are coming.. There is zero chance to do anything.

In PC1, infantry could high roll and damage lone tanks.. Its frustrating that infantry cannot even kill. In PC1 infantry, could destroy a lone Tiger II without ammo, bits by bits.

All this makes the gameplay of PC2 much slower, even bogged down at times. While completely killing a unit in PC1 was a matter of good planning and in 1 turn it was job done with 2 or 3 units.

[Kerensky]

One cheap 90 prestige bridge engineer can lock down a supply hex against 3 times their number of paratroopers.


And as long as paratroopers aren't able to take the hex immediately... it's a supply hex. Buy some of your own units, obliterated those lone paratroopers, and use the French rail network to redeploy those purchases somewhere more useful.

A unit entering the Paris rail line can reach almost the entire map in a single move. That's an impressive level of mobility.

I don't understand something.

Why can't 3 paras take out a single weak bridge engineer... Something is not making sense here.


My observation was based on a Hylan Valley MP game I am currently playing in PC1. Core Slots are not a problem. Prestige is.. That's what make it fun. If my opponent want to mass Churchill VII... so be it. I didnt' spend all my prestige in the first turns, i will buy units to beat them.

In MP maps, Prestige should be the only deciding factor. If you are successful implementing a winning strategy with a given unit, why would the high command complain?

In PC2. I am playing a MP tiny random map with 40 core slots. All taken. 1000 prestige. I am russian. He is english with churchill and some armored artillery. I encircled a tank.. the tank has no ammo. I have 4 infantry around it for 3 turns. Impossible to kill. All I have is a stupid T34 that barely scratches it.. And a churchill and an archer are coming.. There is zero chance to do anything.

In PC1, infantry could high roll and damage lone tanks.. Its frustrating that infantry cannot even kill. In PC1 infantry, could destroy a lone Tiger II without ammo, bits by bits.

All this makes the gameplay of PC2 much slower, even bogged down at times. While completely killing a unit in PC1 was a matter of good planning and in 1 turn it was job done with 2 or 3 units.

In a word: Entrenchment. Eventually the Fallschirmjagers will win, but they lose precious time digging out even a lowly bridge engineer. And that delay is all the time needed to organize a response to paratrooper insertions. Or you can just leave all your supply hexes unguarded, and suffer the consequences.

It should be noted I can't really speak for randomly generated multiplayer maps. But I would think it's obvious the difference between carefully hand crafted and curated content is going to perform more consistently to its intended design than something created by a computer generating a map from a seed and assorted variables.

The 10 primary MP maps were purpose built. Randomly generated maps... anything goes.

I disagree Panzer Corps 2 bogs down. In fact I argue it takes better planning than just throwing a ridiculous amount of dice against a target. Proper counters are more effective, general swarm tactics are less effective. So if anything, the opposite of your statement is true. This is apparent by the people throwing paratroopers into entrenched enemy infantry and being boggled at the poor result, as well as people who consider paratroopers completely worthless as seen in other forum discussions.

While pioneers, both in their stats and their traits and how they affect entrenchment are massively successful against even outrageous 25 stacks of conscript units, because it's a more specific counter.

I think this is where a few people definitely are running into issue with the game's heightened complexity. Unit stats aren't the be all end all the were in the original game. All those traits are so much more meaningful, which is why they are also more visible and come with tooltip explanations this time around. Everytime I hear someone say 'Panzer IIC is garbo, go straight to IVD or 38(t) I cringe... and continue to use my Panzer IIC and its 150% RoF trait to awesome effect.

[Edmon]

Entrenchment is really uber powerful, especially in cities.

The paras are losing in the screenshot because 9/10 entrenchment is like a 72% ish damage reduction.

However, once they lay into them a bit, that figure should drop and the paras should start winning...

But yeah, in this game infantry in cities is just amazingly uber to the point that you need at least 2 pioneers and 1 artillery / level bomber to make any real headway (if your in a hurry).

[Mordan]

Entrenchment is really uber powerful, especially in cities.

The paras are losing in the screenshot because 9/10 entrenchment is like a 72% ish damage reduction.

However, once they lay into them a bit, that figure should drop and the paras should start winning...

But yeah, in this game infantry in cities is just amazingly uber to the point that you need at least 2 pioneers and 1 artillery / level bomber to make any real headway (if your in a hurry).

yes and the paras being op.. you basically have to spam bridge engineers (why oh why only 1 core slot?) in every city. Which does not make any realistic sense.

[dalfrede]

. . . yes and the paras being op.. you basically have to spam bridge engineers (why oh why only 1 core slot?) in every city. Which does not make any realistic sense.

The game does not have a good set of garrison troops but bridge engineers are a good 'make do' substitute.
Not every city, only supply hexes.

Have you ever heard of saboteurs?
The Dieppe Raid?

If your opponent can only do what you like, it's not much of a game.

[Kerensky]

The game does not have a good set of garrison troops but bridge engineers are a good 'make do' substitute.
Not every city, only supply hexes.

You would think with the way people complaining about how OP supply hexes are, they'd properly garrison them instead of just leaving them completely empty and ripe for the taking.

I mean, you are free to buy any unit you want to garrison. Buy a HW infantry. Buy a tank. Buy an air defense unit. It's pretty obvious you have total freedom to choose whatever unit you want to garrison with.
I picked bridge engineer for two reasons. Low cost and infantry. This makes it the most efficient garrison unit. Hurray for making bridge engineer units more useful and giving them more roles, right?
If you are Soviets, by all means substitute conscripts in, far better choice with their beefy +5 unit strength.

It's not like this is un-counterable. If you really want a successful behind the lines operation, make it 2 paratroopers and 1 pioniere. Granted you're limited to landing the pionere only in very specific places, so the paratroopers will need to find a suitable airfield nearby and secure that first.

It's a game of escalation.

You have no garrison, 1 paratrooper walks in no trouble.
You have a pitiful garrison, paratroopers need extra support to take such an important hex.
You have a strong garrison, time for the enemy to use good recon, detect a strong position, and change plans by looking somewhere else. As you made painfully clear, no side in any MP map has enough resources to cover everything all at once. There's going to be weakpoints somewhere. (non random)

No one said the French in Fall of France need to purely be on the defensive. If the Germans are rushing you in two battle groups, imagine if you pile all your forces together and crush 1/2 of their army in ~10 turns. Now you've got 20 more turns left to clean up the other half of the army, and start racing to take back all the ground you've lost to that other half that you ignored and allowed to totally roam free.

It's a big map with a large turn timer. Giving up on turn 5 is only acceptable if you've made tragic mistakes like losing a major portion of your army from bad positioning and encirclement, to no benefit.

[Kerensky]

What I really want to see is the 'paratroopers so OP they are map breaking' crowd to have a discussion with the 'paratroopers are the most worthless unit in the game' crowd.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1072040/ ... 886886166/

[Mordan]

What I really want to see is the 'paratroopers so OP they are map breaking' crowd to have a discussion with the 'paratroopers are the most worthless unit in the game' crowd.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1072040/ ... 886886166/

I am only talking about MP games which are the most akin to chess tanking and that's the only thing that interests me (its in the title)... you keep referencing AI games in campaign scenarios.

The game is not fun for me. I have twice the fun playing again MP PC1 with all its flaws than MP PC2.

I just surrendered after 2 turns a paratrooper took a city hex and obliterates everything. It was an interesting balanced game, ruined by op paratroopers taking a vic hex. totally anti climatic for both players.

It was much much better in PC1 when any city could deliver units but after 2 turns of being taken.

I don't want to be forced to garrison units in vic hexes with such a low unit count and slow gameplay with unit escaping through everything.

Paras in PC1 were perfect.. not too strong.. allowed to distract and do some guerilla.. not being able to fly in the air.. waiting for a vic hex to be free.. move.. land. move inside vic hex.. buy arty and carry the game. Complete rubbish.
Its even worse if you don't go plane strat and use flak to defend. the guy uses a scout plane, its a full bucket of free prestige. para lands on airport, then move to city.. or vic hex.. 100 to 150 prestige won. it forces units from the front to come back to take the threat.. game ruined, not enough core slots. bye. a 3 core slots unit requires like 10 cores slots to be taken out.. game over.. front crumbles.

i am talking MP games only on random maps, and tournament grade steamroller kind of maps from PC1.

[Mordan]

Entrenchment is really uber powerful, especially in cities.

The paras are losing in the screenshot because 9/10 entrenchment is like a 72% ish damage reduction.

However, once they lay into them a bit, that figure should drop and the paras should start winning...

But yeah, in this game infantry in cities is just amazingly uber to the point that you need at least 2 pioneers and 1 artillery / level bomber to make any real headway (if your in a hurry).

i can understand that design decision when focused on 1 player campaigns.

But in multiplayers with a very low unit count, its just not fun. Paratroopers in those MP games are a constant huge threat that totally unbalance everything.

I am playing against someone doing this all the time. It works too good. The game devolves in a continuous back and forth with paratroopers all the time. Its boring and unrealistic. If not vic is available.. he takes an airport and a city. with all the resources required to take him out, he is WAY out in both prestige and core slots. Rince and Repeat once the paratrooper is dead.

if you don't take him out.. he move to airport and flies out or get entrenches and good luck taking him out.

[Dorky8]

Dude. They don't care.

[Nalikill]

Dude. They don't care.

They care. There's just a difference between 'caring' and 'agreeing with you'. If we see some playtests / simulations / calculations / estimates of the cost to execute on paratroopers vs. the cost to get rid of them vs the cost to guard against them pre-emptively, that might be a more persuasive discussion than 'this mechanic is obviously bad and needs to change'.

Design is almost always data-driven. Making sure it's driven by the right data is the hard part but it's rarely going to change via a purely rhetoric-based argument.

[Dorky8]

What I really want to see is the 'paratroopers so OP they are map breaking' crowd to have a discussion with the 'paratroopers are the most worthless unit in the game' crowd.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1072040/ ... 886886166/

Dude. They don't care.