A constructive list of general gameplay issues (not specific unit/division balance)

[Boxman]

Artillery historically was not called in by skygods who had perfect communication with all units in the field.

The United States and United Kingdom had the best field communications and best artillery of the war. The US had the best by far for the reasons I will explain in a second.

German FOs were specially trained survey teams that would literally survey the battlefield with land survey equipment and report their findings back to the artillery battalions and exactly where to hit with extreme precision. This means that German artillery missions were slow, generally had to be preplanned, and heavily reliant on extremely well trained and limited FOs, but mostly pinpoint accurate.

UK fire missions were able to be called in by a plethora of men, not just FOs. They generally used already available maps and did not use survey equipment. They substituted accuracy for sheer number of shells. When someone called in a firing mission, batteries would fire scouting shells, when the shell landed more or less on target whoever called in the barrage would relay that information back, and then the Brits would drop the hammer.

The US developed arguably the most intricate artillery system ever seen by planet earth. They created metal tapes, like tape measures, that had the calculations for massive, MASSIVE amounts of meteorological, windage, barrel wear, distance, elevation, and more variables that allowed the US to drop entire battalions of artillery support anywhere, anytime, with the precision of the Germans. The pre-calculated data also meant that with some napkin-back calculations and a timer, the US could drop a multitude of batteries on a single target at the exact same time. This could be done with no more than 20 minutes preparation, depending on exactly how much artillery was being used.

This led to situations like Mortain in August '44 where something like 3 companies of American GIs held off an entire Panzer Grenadier division for 2 days because whenever the Germans would advance up their hill, over 12 battalions of American artillery would drop the hammer on them, shoving them back off. We are talking emergency fire missions made up of a dozen battalions of artillery able to blow up specific slopes of a specific hill within minutes with no prior scouting shells. That was the sheer efficiency and danger that Uncle Sam's artillery brought to the game.

So when you say stuff like this, it's kinda silly, because for some armies, like the US Army, they might as well have had a sky god dropping the shells as far as the Germans were concerned.

 

[451]

I generally agree with the OP. Not necessarily in specific issues (though I think he's right about several of them), but just in the overall package in terms of how the game flows and plays.

I've said this before, but I think Steel Division makes some notable and significant improvements to gameplay over Red Dragon (and yes, I know they are different games in some ways), but it still isn't quite where it should be. In other words, Steel Division still suffers from a chronic case of Wargame-itis, with overall lethality being too high, especially towards infantry and crew-served weapons, and artillery and other "toys" being far too dominant in what should largely be a battle between infantry and armored units. I think it's a brainbug common to many armchair-general games where Fancy, Shiny Toys are given primacy and the poor bloody infantryman is relegated to being cannon fodder. Games like this try to simulate the guns and toys too hard, and forget to appropriately abstract factors that are difficult to simulate, like the fact that infantrymen don't just stand around waiting to get annihilated by every gun in sight.

Wargame was particularly bad on this point. Steel Division is better, but still has a lot of room for improvement.

Fair points to what you would want to see. Remember though, that this is an abstraction of what it is like to be a wartime commander and meant to be an engaging game.

The principles I can see that Eugen are striving to obtain are the premises of combined arms warfare, that is, fire and maneuver and fire and support. So far, the game does a well enough job of approximating these aspects alone.

 

[BCGaius]

Fair points to what you would want to see. Remember though, that this is an abstraction of what it is like to be a wartime commander and meant to be an engaging game.

The principles I can see that Eugen are striving to obtain are the premises of combined arms warfare, that is, fire and maneuver and fire and support. So far, the game does a well enough job of approximating these aspects alone.

I'll have to disagree then!

I find fire & maneuver pretty lacking right now - why bother maneuvering when it's easier and less costly to just annihilate the offending enemy position with artillery, air strikes, or very long range guns?

And my point was that there was room for improvement in the abstraction you mention because it's simulating (the inverse of abstracting) too hard. The game simulates what happens when a 75mm HE shell detonates in the midst of an infantry team, when it needs to be abstracting it instead. You shouldn't simulate the effects of 75mm HE on infantry if you're not also simulating every other factor involved, such as whether the infantry are prone or not, whether they've had time to dig foxholes or not, what the precise lay of the land is, what kind of dirt they're lying in, and so on and so forth. Obviously, all of that is far too onerous and fiddly to simulate in detail, so by necessity you must abstract those factors. In essence, the game is simulating destructive weapons of war in a vacuum, and not compensating with a sufficient level of abstraction for the things it isn't simulating.

It's like making a game about medieval combat where the swords are modeled in exacting detail, including their ability to cut, stab, and generally murder people, but it was too hard to model armor so everyone just dies as soon as they're hit with a sword. Maybe that's an interesting game, but I'd argue that it's a flawed one if it's trying to achieve historical authenticity.

 

[Steeperman]

I don't mean a player backloading his deck deliberately to be heavy on phase C, but the divisions designed from the ground up to be strong in phase C. It a concept just doesn't really work with the current rules.

That is right, starting settings should be changed to 2500- 3000 points. Had good experience with it, being more interesting for Phase C- heavy decks. Not sure, if it is perfect tho. Any other experiences?

They're nice but they don't make up for having nothing but a 200 point tank with no HE and no planes (Bef. Pz II would be worth taking if you got 2 per card). 2nd ID has support units worthy of being called godlike.

A Beute Firefly- Beute Cromwell combo can be really hard hitting. You can't really counter it effectively and it can push really far in early game.

 

[Kleinburger]

I'll have to disagree then!

I find fire & maneuver pretty lacking right now - why bother maneuvering when it's easier and less costly to just annihilate the offending enemy position with artillery, air strikes, or very long range guns?

And my point was that there was room for improvement in the abstraction you mention because it's simulating (the inverse of abstracting) too hard. The game simulates what happens when a 75mm HE shell detonates in the midst of an infantry team, when it needs to be abstracting it instead. You shouldn't simulate the effects of 75mm HE on infantry if you're not also simulating every other factor involved, such as whether the infantry are prone or not, whether they've had time to dig foxholes or not, what the precise lay of the land is, what kind of dirt they're lying in, and so on and so forth. Obviously, all of that is far too onerous and fiddly to simulate in detail, so by necessity you must abstract those factors. In essence, the game is simulating destructive weapons of war in a vacuum, and not compensating with a sufficient level of abstraction for the things it isn't simulating.

It's like making a game about medieval combat where the swords are modeled in exacting detail, including their ability to cut, stab, and generally murder people, but it was too hard to model armor so everyone just dies as soon as they're hit with a sword. Maybe that's an interesting game, but I'd argue that it's a flawed one if it's trying to achieve historical authenticity.

I do not know where this conclusion came from but the game is most definitely not simulating the effects of 75mm HE. That would require physics calculations beyond what this game engine can handle. HE + Cover Modifier = Damage done to Unit, is an abstraction not a simulation. Infantry units receive modifiers to the HE damage of weapons based on the cover they are in. What they need to do which I believe is the point you were trying to make is add in more modifiers to make the abstraction more complete.

 

[Graphic]

I generally agree with the OP. Not necessarily in specific issues (though I think he's right about several of them), but just in the overall package in terms of how the game flows and plays.

I've said this before, but I think Steel Division makes some notable and significant improvements to gameplay over Red Dragon (and yes, I know they are different games in some ways), but it still isn't quite where it should be. In other words, Steel Division still suffers from a chronic case of Wargame-itis, with overall lethality being too high, especially towards infantry and crew-served weapons, and artillery and other "toys" being far too dominant in what should largely be a battle between infantry and armored units. I think it's a brainbug common to many armchair-general games where Fancy, Shiny Toys are given primacy and the poor bloody infantryman is relegated to being cannon fodder. Games like this try to simulate the guns and toys too hard, and forget to appropriately abstract factors that are difficult to simulate, like the fact that infantrymen don't just stand around waiting to get annihilated by every gun in sight.

Wargame was particularly bad on this point. Steel Division is better, but still has a lot of room for improvement.

All the core systems in SD are superior to Wargame IMO. It's imbalanced, has lots of issues, but that's expected from a brand new game. I'm pretty confident it will end up in a good place.

 

[TRIUMPH]

"Off map artillery is mostly fine."
besides the fact it still takes no skill to use and has no counter play. Yeah, just fine. It got a bandaid that lowers the overall skill cap of the game.

 

[Boxman]

"Off map artillery is mostly fine."
besides the fact it still takes no skill to use and has no counter play. Yeah, just fine. It got a bandaid that lowers the overall skill cap of the game.

So, you are a German Panzer Grenadier. You have a machinegun. You are shooting at Americans as they advance on your position. What are you going to do to stop the USS Texas from dropping naval shells on your head?

The reality is that there really was no way to counter these naval units or the German railroad arty unless you spend large amounts of resources to penetrate enemy lines with recon units or air units to counter it. Also, I think 3 barrages that take almost a minute to call in per unit is far from some overpowered, game breaking mechanic.

 

[TRIUMPH]

direct LOS channeling spell equals counter play. forward observer acts as a forward observer and potential AOE can still carry over hard objects like buildings and green cover. Get the best of both worlds.

 

[Boxman]

direct LOS channeling spell equals counter play. forward observer acts as a forward observer and potential AOE can still carry over hard objects like buildings and green cover. Get the best of both worlds.

I would personally like to see LOS restrictions, so you don't have FOs stuck behind a hedgerow calling stuff in on things he can't see, but I would also like to see infantry FOs. Both for historical purposes and gameplay purposes. FOs, for the most part, are useless after using them, that being said, they also have VG optics, but are generally so squishy that they will be destroyed by even light attacks. Infantry FOs would add resilience and stealth, as well as allowing for them to be used as recon after their barrages are spent.

 

[evilcat]

I doubt direct LOS is needed.
Since artilery crew probably has some maps, every recon squad knows how maps work, and as long as we have radio we can just ask artilery section to bring some freedom at coordinates.

FO units could probably have recon optics, so even depleted can serve as observers, they even have that fancy distantmeter.
Infantry based FO sounds ok.

 

[kvnrthr]

1. Anti-tank guns are still too easy to kill. It's a combination of excessive amounts of mortars in phase A along with recon being too easily able to spot AT guns in green cover. Theoretically you can hide them behind the hedge and move them forward at the right time but IMO it's an excessive amount of micro to demand from people to make up for a flawed system. AT guns should be laying in ambush ready to fire, and right now it's a death sentence to use them that way.

This is absolutely a huge problem. As soon as the location of an AT gun is known, it is smashed with absolute pin point accuracy within 20 seconds by aircraft/artillery and dies almost instantly. They can't move out of the way quickly either. These things must be made far more survivable in some way.

 

[Harold Alexander]

"Off map artillery is mostly fine."
besides the fact it still takes no skill to use and has no counter play. Yeah, just fine. It got a bandaid that lowers the overall skill cap of the game.

Show me where my arty touched you?

Spoiler

Current Off Map Arty in the game are fine, and very helpful for the some light decks like the Luftlande.

 

[Zinegata]

1. Anti-tank guns are still too easy to kill. It's a combination of excessive amounts of mortars in phase A along with recon being too easily able to spot AT guns in green cover. Theoretically you can hide them behind the hedge and move them forward at the right time but IMO it's an excessive amount of micro to demand from people to make up for a flawed system. AT guns should be laying in ambush ready to fire, and right now it's a death sentence to use them that way.

I feel this is more of an issue with a lack of a proper limber for most ATGs in addition to having a lot of fast-firing arty on the map. Having no hotkey to order a quick-load of the ATG into its limber is also contributing. That said I tend to currently view ATGs as a surprise weapon that pops out of cover, takes out a tank or two, and anything it does after that is essentially gravy. They're cheap enough to be lost.

3.

There's too much artillery, in all phases and all types, and some types are too deadly. Phase A is mortar tag, in Phase B/C you break out the atomic rockets to make sure your opponent can never mount an attack again. Mortars and rockets should be suppression tools and not efficient killers; mortars to relieve yourself from a troublesome unit, rockets to prepare an area for assault by troops and armor.
Rockets should also have fairly long aim times to prevent their use as a panic button to instantly blunt any attack; it shouldn't be too long, so you can still use it to punish a meandering attack, but as of now it's basically a "your attack fails, try again in 5 minutes" button.
The lethality of howitzers is fine.
For availability, IMO in phase A you should have access to one motorized mortar per card or one card of 2x infantry mortars. All rocket artillery should come one per card. High HE SPGs should come in one per card. Towed howitzers can come in 2x per card to make up for their vulnerability.
Off map artillery is mostly fine.
I also feel like artillery uses way too little supplies. You can supply massive amounts of artillery on just one or two trucks.

All I will say is that a primarily 3AD player that I tend to buy artillery ahead of tanks in Phase B, which should say a lot regarding how powerful the damn things are.

4.

Phase C focused decks seem to be getting worse by the day as the metagame solidifies and people learn the game, and the problem is the current Conquest mechanics and/or the standard rules. Most of the time you win based on the 1-3% you seized in the very opening stages of the game, and the C-decks simply don't have the manpower/money to contend with the phase A divisions then. By the time you've built up your strength, you have very little time to retake ground and even less time to accrue victory points from it in order to eke out a win.
Ideally, we've got to rethink how much of the map you need to control before you get points, and how much each tier of control awards the player. Getting points at 51% is simply bad; such a small difference can be the result of accidents, luck, or map imbalances. If reworking the rules for Conquest isn't in the cards, we've got to rethink the standard settings, like 50 minute timers, higher required score to win, or both.

There was another thread that did the math and the OP there showed that many decks actually get more points in Phase A than in Phase B thanks to the 500 point initial spread!

Which to me is likely the bigger cause of the irrelevance of Phase C. There's just too much that's already been done and lost by Phase A, while Phase B tends to be too intermediary to really alter the balance much before Phase C can really get rolling.

I think that the solution - which may seem counter-intuitive - is Phase B income should be dramatically higher than it is now. Indeed, Phase B income probably should be higher than Phase C income. Meanwhile, the "super unit" spread between Phase B and C should be a bit more dramatic (when currently Phase C often has few new toys compared to B).

And the reason for this is that the fundamental unexplored strength of the three-phase system (from a compelling gameplay perspective) is your ability to carry over points from earlier phases to buy better units in the latter ones. The transition from Phase A to B currently tends to be the most interesting and dynamic point in the game - not only because of the dramatic upgrade in capabilities of most Divisions but also because your phase B deployments are often in part determined by your Phase A point savings.

By increasing Phase B income over Phase C - and having a lot more dramatically powerful units introduced in Phase C - there will be a closer replication of the Phase A->B transition. This way, players will have to be torn between spending a lot in Phase B (even though they know these units will eventually be outclassed in Phase C) or holding out with current units for the big push in C.

Finally, the 51% thing is fine for preventing stalemates. But the point gains should be exponential once you go past certain breakpoints - say at 55% you will earn 3x or 4x more point as opposed to 51-54%. Right now most games exist in the 51-54% range anyway and if one side is able to get to 55% then there should be a dramatic change in the point gain to trigger people to start doing more stuff (and also because if one team is at 55% then they're probably really superior to the other and it's better to end the misery more quickly )

These issues, along with a multitude of other minor ones, are starting to make the game feel less and less about who uses infantry and tanks more effectively. Infantry and tanks should be the focus of the game. Other elements of the game, like OP strafing from planes, one-shot bomb runs on AT guns, ultra deadly rocket artillery, unit deleting mortars, etc. are diminishing that.
In other words, units that should support infantry and tanks in doing the killing are instead doing much of the killing on their own. Planes and artillery should make it easier for infantry and tanks to move in for the kill, not be primary methods of killing units by themselves. It's almost as if infantry are support units for the support units! They create a buffer zone to guard your artillery so it can kill stuff, and look at things for your planes to go in and kill, then they move forward in the empty space (if they don't get obliterated by a rocket strike). It feels backwards.

Well, to be fair a lot of the actual Normandy campaign was just infantry calling artillery and airpower on the enemy - which is why the majority of casualties on both sides were caused by artillery (something like 60% of Allied casualties were caused by mortars alone).

My general feeling though is aligned with yours on how much and how effective the damn arty is though. In Phase B a lot of players will tend to have artillery concentrations that were typically reserved for entire regiments; whereas on-map their unit count will be closer to that of a reinforced company. I think that such a level of arty concentration should really only be "buyable" by Phase C - which coincidentally is also when you really need to have something that can delete large swathes of the enemy frontline to effect a massive swing in territory and in the points. Before then the game should be more focused on the tactical side with only a few supplementary artillery or mortar pieces on both sides.

 

[Stim]

Hi, about artillery systems in WWII especially US vs German there is nice historical info source https://armyhistory.org/u-s-and-german-field-artillery-in-world-war-ii-a-comparison/

Main question is how deeply do you want to simulate-recreate artillery systems in a game like SD 44 ?
Those feedbacks are based on skirmishes - separated short battles.

As arty observers were used also spot planes which greatly improve accuracy.... is it cakculated/implemented in the game? - I did notice any positive impact on artillery accuracy when spotting plane used, correct me if I am wrong.

Note: Based on this historical source, during Normandy campaign US artillery notice also ammunition shortage. How do you want to simulate this on skirmishes?

 

[Zinegata]

Note: Based on this historical source, during Normandy campaign US artillery notice also ammunition shortage. How do you want to simulate this on skirmishes?

The main thing here really is that one company of troops shouldn't be getting a regiment's worth of artillery in support by the middle of every game. These concentrations tended to only be available after a period of build-up.

 

[Tank Girl]

All the core systems in SD are superior to Wargame IMO. It's imbalanced, has lots of issues, but that's expected from a brand new game. I'm pretty confident it will end up in a good place.

Me too, at least for the "hope" & Will end up- - part.

But the "Falling Back" Mechanics are a living nightmare right now and greatly reduce the fun at the moment. They make it almost completly to make good use of jumbos (with their limited numbers anyway) and can also be annoying for german pantherz.
The Fall Back Mechanic didnt work out well in Wargame:EE and I highly doubt it will every work in Steel Division. Which would be just sad since it would mean that I have to turn my back on this game. No need for a heart attack just because of stupid falling back AI...

 

[Fussel]

Disagree with at guns being not survivable enough. They are very usefull and you can often save them with the fall back command where they move unrealisticly fast out of the line of fire. Once your opponent invested in bombers and artillery you have to obviously adept.

 

[Karlburg]

Disagree with at guns being not survivable enough. They are very usefull and you can often save them with the fall back command where they move unrealisticly fast out of the line of fire. Once your opponent invested in bombers and artillery you have to obviously adept.

Yes, but the adaptation is 'don't use AT guns in phase B+C' and 'don't use battlegroups that rely on AT guns for high AP in phase B+C'.

 

[Fussel]

Yes, but the adaptation is 'don't use AT guns in phase B+C' and 'don't use battlegroups that rely on AT guns for high AP in phase B+C'.

This is not necessarily true. You have to be more carefull with them, meaning not putting them in the hedgerow till they have a shot. With all these vet2 17-pounders it doesn't take many shots to kill your target. In the late game you will also most likely have some airdefense up and even if he is going for your at-guns with bombers and manage to destroy them he will often trade the bomber for it.