Realizations from my current soviet long campaign

[runequester]

Started a long campaign as the soviets last night and I had a few realizations I wanted to share:

1: Ive been playing Steel Panthers, then SP WAW and now, for the last year or so, SP WW2, propably 6 or 7 years of playing this game i nsome form or another, and yet, Im perpetually amazed at how in-depth and comprehensive this game is

2: I am also perpetually amazed at how fantastic SP WW2 is. You guys did an ace job!

3: Last night was the first BIG game I played. 2 companies of infantry, 1 company of T26, 1 company of T28, a 45mm AT gun battery, a 37mm flak battery, 3 mortar batteries, some scouts, some snipers, 2 engineer platoons.
Usually, I play with about a company of infantry and a tank platoon plus some assorted add-ons.

Big games are FUN! Really felt the maneuvering and jostling for position.

4: Those AA guns have a hell of a lot of range. I was picking off Polish cavalry at 1500+ meters with them.

5: The T28 isn't a bad little tank for its period. I normally always buy T26 for 1939, but the T28 did fantastic at breaking up dense Polish infantry formations

6: I just updated from 2.5 to 3.5, and the annoying bug where the unit wont fire the last shot from weapons that aren't in the first weapon slot is gone.

7: Did artillery become more lethal in either of those patches ? Even 82mm mortars and 75mm arty seems to cause a fair bit of casualties now, which they rarely seemed to do before.

[Charles22]

Regarding #6. I mentioned as much on one of the sticky threads, to which I got no response. I'm surprised they didn't list it in the fixes. IIRC, that bug had plagued all the SP versions, which if true, makes it being fixed and it not being listed even more surprising.

[Imp]

Yeah big games are fun & allow you to have a variety of units while still being fairly realistic.

To realy appreciate maneuvering try a late era main battle tank game. Fast units high hit chances plenty of jockeying for position. Often play them with 40-60 tanks & support. Combined arms is far easier late era due to speed & improved radios you have to be very careful with poor radios as can hit contact & hence moral problems since the radio codes changed in a patch. New ability to press the 5 key & see your company is very handy for maintaining cohesion.
Like WW2 adapting tactics to your sides abilities is vital.

A note cavalry are size 2 units & fast so vulnerable

[Charles22]

I think a lot of people get into large core forces, simply because the starting default 3000pts is enough for a large force in the early years.

I play with between 3000-3300 points starting off. With Germany, I would play just 3100, but I have to get 2 88's into the force as early as possible, so they can get more experience. I generally don't even fire them in a given battle, but they're there for when things are quite a bit rougher, such as French tanks or early USSR tanks. In any event, I play witha 200X140 map, so playing with a large force is VERY important.

I suppose most people wouldn't dream of playing 200 hexes high with just the 100-115 core units I pick, but that's my main criteria for a core force, how many units there are. I know what kind of game to expect since I'm used to it, and with that much map height you get yourself a real late Eastern Front sort of game, where at least half your armor is busy reacting to the latest enemy surprise location. If I added any more units to the amount of units I pick for both core and support, there would be no holes in my defense, therefore making it not as interesting generally.

Playing with a large force, as well, often gives the AI some pretty good vareity to choose from, thereby making the game more interesting from that point of view. IMO, if you start picking a much larger force, as I have done for experimentation's sake some time ago, I find the AI picks way too much artillery to make the game very interesting. Spending two thirds of the AI's turn in artillery dropping all over the place, can get boring pretty fast.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by runequester

6: I just updated from 2.5 to 3.5,

I hope you updated 2.5 to 3.0 to 3.5 and not just 2.5 - 3.5

Don

[runequester]

Originally Posted by DRG

I hope you updated 2.5 to 3.0 to 3.5 and not just 2.5 - 3.5

Don

Yeah, I did them in sequence

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Charles22

Regarding #6. I mentioned as much on one of the sticky threads, to which I got no response. I'm surprised they didn't list it in the fixes. IIRC, that bug had plagued all the SP versions, which if true, makes it being fixed and it not being listed even more surprising.

In a nutshell.. we forget. It's either something Andy fixed right after the last release and promptly forgot about or it's a side effect of the "W" key fix. We're not sure which

Don

[runequester]

Originally Posted by DRG

In a nutshell.. we forget. It's either something Andy fixed right after the last release and promptly forgot about or it's a side effect of the "W" key fix. We're not sure which

Don

However it got fixed, its awesome

[Charles22]

Thanks all.