Is assaulting Bunkers too hard ?

[Mike Bowen]

David

Regarding your ps I think that most people start with the scenarios in the order they are listed - I do.

So I would not worry it is just we have not got off the beaches yet 

I have just got to Omaha and one unit sets up in the water is that right?

Also turn 2 an hq arrives in an odd position I presume on turn 3 it needs to go on foot to move?

I note that there are no Churchill bridge units or the ones with the big roll things on them out of interest is there a reason?

I suspect that the bunker points are because a lot of people start at the beginning but choose their nations scenarios and the 1st bunkers in Utah seem rather tough.


However the British beaches are easier I find due to the churchills and mine clearing Sherman's 

It would be interesting to have alternative scenarios where the funnies were available at the US beaches

I think the game is better than Kursk 

I do however think artillery is a bit underpowered v bunkers in particular the naval guns

After Omaha I will move in land and then go back to the multi beach scenarios 

Mike

Ps sorry about the bold I could not turn it off

[Dog Soldier]

If you have a unit starting in deep water at Omaha, it could be that this simulates assault craft that were sunk before getting to the shallows. These unit appear, but have no boats nor do you lose VP for their sunken craft. Just a bit of chrome really.

After you drop off the first wave you should have plenty of empty boats to pick up those guys stranded in the deep water. Have fun with it.

Dog Soldier

[Mike Bowen]

If you have a unit starting in deep water at Omaha, it could be that this simulates assault craft that were sunk before getting to the shallows.  These unit appear, but have no boats nor do you lose VP for their sunken craft.  Just a bit of chrome really.

After you drop off the first wave you should have plenty of empty boats to pick up those guys stranded in the deep water.  Have fun with it.

Dog Soldier

Thanks there is a landing craft on stand by and I used it

[phoenix]

I wouldn't get dispirited about it, David. I think you could count the number of people in here making suggestions about whether or not bunkers are too hard to take and look at how many copies you've sold (I assume more than 3) and draw your own conclusions. it's nice there's a discussion of some sort, but I would have to assume that the majority of users don't come anywhere near posting in these forums otherwise no one would make any money out of the game, because there's not much more than a handful ever post in here!

For myself, I would repeat what I said at the beginning - I think it's easier to take bunkers in BON than BOKS, and haven't had an issue with it.

I think half the thrust of comments about how individual turns don't seem to play out realistically is just a fact of life with Mr. Tiller's system, and has nothing to do with yourself or the great content you've been providing on that system. It seems to me to be clear that OVERALL, at the end of the day, at the END of the scenario, just about every game I've played with the JTS system has worked out historically, with historical results replicated and historical losses and gains, almost uncannily so. But it remains the case that to get there many individual turns and engagements look counter-intuitive, at the least. That's not your fault, or the fault of the content. That's the JTS turn-based system. Not enough gets killed in some very sharp exchanges, too much in others. That's how it seems to me. Yet at the end we get a really very accurate historical result.

To a certain extent I've decided this is just part of the turn-based nature of things, also partly a function of the abstraction. In real life if a platoon spent 2 hours assaulting a position, I would guess that the real assaulting would take place in short sharp bursts lasting much much less than 2 hours - for the remainder of the time they would be recovering, regrouping, getting into position, taking cover, etc etc. Plus, not all of them would be involved at once. But when we play 2 hours of assaults in JTS games it looks like we order entire units to fire or move for a full 2 hours, because that's what the clicks appear to do. So you have to use a bit of imagination to convert that to real life.

My comments about arty were not about arty on bunkers, to be clear. My impression is that the arty landing on units in the clear is less effective than direct fire against them. Just an impression though. I lose all my games still, so it's easy to get skewed impressions of how the whole world is against me......lol.....

[wiggum]

PS I hope some of you are playing the scenarios beyond D-Day because it appears you are damning the game based on one aspect - bunkers, that are in play for the first day scenarios. That would be a huge disappointment for me and would to be honest, require a fresh look at what breadth we would provide in any future games. Having seen posters in other forums damn Kursk based upon perceptions they had picked up from this forum, I'm disappointed to see the same sentiments and posts here that Normandy has flaws in its overall execution. Myself & the team have played the game a lot and believe that some of the current fixations are misguided and you're missing the focus of the game. I'm starting to believe that we have built a simulation that is too complex for most and the subtle interplay of units types, fire strengths, terrain and opportunity fire is too much for the average gamer. If that's the case, I'll pull back two steps and make a decision on the validity of any future projects. Please view this not as a knock on any commentary, it's welcome, but for me there is a strong trend apparent that is indicating we have failed to build something that is logical to players.

I think no one is "damning the game" Strela.
I love it and im sure the others who make suggestions love it too.
The whole point of spending time here with making suggestions (and modding) is to help getting something thats already very good to become great.

Panzer Battles like all JT games has a high level of abstraction. So there is always another game running...in the imagination of the players. And for me a 18 men unit in a bunker that gets reduced to 5 without even getting DISRUPTED, gets surrounded, assaulted by 180 combat engineers and fights off the assault 20 times in a row (testing,reloading) taking additional casualties without becoming disrupted/broken...does not feel right.
As i said before, maybe i just dont understand how the abstraction exactly works so i hope for the final PzB Normandy Manual.

Now the whole discussion has shown that many agree that maybe DISRUPTION and BROKEN results should be a bit more likely...
Lets quote Ricky B:

Anyway, appreciate the discussion, my only thought, and it is really more based on play since the release, is that the higher morale formations do seem to avoid disruption too long - the lower morale units don't though, I know from playing the Germans in Cherbourg! I never really saw that in testing, but maybe because most of what I tested was the US/Allied in the scenarios I worked on, and there seemed to be plenty of disruptions.

My guess as to the lack of broken units is that, to break, it must reach max fatigue. I think most units are destroyed before max fatigue is reached, so maybe it is as simple a change as to double fatigue or something, to bring in more disruptions and broken units - I see lots of yellow fatigue units but rarely a red, so rarely a chance of reaching the point of breaking. This may need tweaked, but I don't know what drives that, I think it is internal to the engine rather than a parameter.

Rick

It would be great if the dev team would look into that, im just a player with a opinion.
I just have the overall feeling that units in PzB are in majority basically "fighting to death". Slightly more disruption and broken results for both, attackers and defenders would, in my opinion give the game a more realistic feeling.
Especially the BROKEN status seems perfect in some situations (unit reduced from 40 men to 8, takes another casualty) but they seem to happen in a very obscure way, like in a very bad luck dice roll and rarely in situations in which you would expect them to happen.

Maybe you could provide a version of the game with "double fatigue" and send it out to players who are willing to test it ?

[ComradeP]

The assault system (or the bunkers) itself isn't the problem, the problem is each unit having to disrupt which can make small units more resilient than they should be.

In terms of direct fire in infantry combat, German mobile units are in my opinion too good compared to the opposition, just like they're too good in Kursk. I will create a thread in a few hours explaining how this is possible, and why you're seeing the results you're seeing as the Allies to those who are less familiar with the workings of the mechanics.

[wiggum]

The assault system (or the bunkers) itself isn't the problem, the problem is each unit having to disrupt which can make small units more resilient than they should be.

So what do you think can/should be done to tweak this ?
If disruptions and broken status would hit small units that take casualties faster then currently then i think it would be easier to have 3 or 4 small units inside a bunker hex disrupted/broken and a assault will be more likely to succeed.

[ComradeP]

All units being assaulted having to check for disruption would be an option although that could make positions fall too rapidly.

The assault system is peculiar in how it distributes losses. One unit tends to take all or most of the beating. I've seen plenty of results where, when two units were in a hex, the top unit was killed and the other unit took 2-3 losses. Those results are not unusual. Better loss and disruption chance distribution could already help a lot.

[Hadge]

I have little but my thoughts to contribute to this subject, overall. First, has anyone played Omaha to the end yet, against the AI (or HTH but I would expect that to take too long to be done already)? I played that one probably 5 times against the AI and a couple of times HTH to try and get it right. From all of my plays, even early on, I found that it played very historically in both timelines and where the action unfolded, finding it frequently ended with a similar situation at the end to what the US found them in at the end of the day. So to me, that was always a good indication that the Bunkers played just about right.

Now that was a year ago that I did that testing and minor tweaking. It is possible something changed that led to issues with bunkers being too hard tough now, but only a play through to the end will mean anything to me.

As to 10 men stopping 150+ engineers, I just have to say sorry, it happened. Just because you order these men to assault doesn't mean they were going to swarm in there like the elite German engineers did in the wonderful movie Stalingrad, shoulder to shoulder, and try to overwhelm the defenders, however few. The men will go to ground when taking fire, and depending on the situation begin to work out a relatively safe way to move in and eliminate the problem. But that takes time.

I agree a unit that started with 100 men is often not going to put up much fight when down to 10, but again, it happened. Especially in a fight such as this, what happens in a different area is going to have little impact on the forces fighting in a different area of the complex. And the way the finishing off works, it is fewer than 10 men, not 10%. Someone up above mentioned it maybe not working correctly based on it being under 10% I believe, and that is not how it works.

By the way, there were some bunkers at Omaha that were abandoned by their German army defenders at nightfall. These were small groups that fought all day without quitting, probably because the attacks bypassed them.

Anyway, appreciate the discussion, my only thought, and it is really more based on play since the release, is that the higher morale formations do seem to avoid disruption too long - the lower morale units don't though, I know from playing the Germans in Cherbourg! I never really saw that in testing, but maybe because most of what I tested was the US/Allied in the scenarios I worked on, and there seemed to be plenty of disruptions.

My guess as to the lack of broken units is that, to break, it must reach max fatigue. I think most units are destroyed before max fatigue is reached, so maybe it is as simple a change as to double fatigue or something, to bring in more disruptions and broken units - I see lots of yellow fatigue units but rarely a red, so rarely a chance of reaching the point of breaking. This may need tweaked, but I don't know what drives that, I think it is internal to the engine rather than a parameter.

Rick

Hello All,

I have to support Ricks position and points made - I finished the Omaha scenario a couple of days ago (vs the AI) and I thought it played very accurately vrs the actual events of the day.

Here is a link   http://vierville.free.fr/index.htm   to the Vierville Village Council website for some very detailed background info and some amazing photos - many of which I had never come accross previously.

Anyway - Happy new year to all 

Cheers

Chris

[Dog Soldier]

Thanks for the link Chris. That is an interesting web site.

Dog Soldier