Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
What’s new:
SPOTTING
F IGHTER TRAP
THE SAD STORY OF A LONELY T-34
GAMEPLAY EXAMPLE – ALBERT CANAL, TURN ONE, BEFORE MOVING
Infantry
Wehrmacht Infanterie – the simplest of troops, with no special features or abilities.
There are cheap, mobile (with a move of 3) and can be upgraded to mighty
Grenadiers. I like to watch them destroy big scary tanks which wandered
into a forest.
Grenadiers – with only a move of 2, they are extremely slow on terrain with hills
or forests. They are very potent when fighting other infantry or tanks in close terrain.
If supported by artillery, they can even stand they ground to light and medium tanks
in the open.
1
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=121&t=34451#p325498
2 of 15
Brückenpioniere – bridge engineers. They allow passage when placed on a river.2
The icon of Brückenpioniere doesn’t change (unlike in Panzer General II) but the
unit itself acts as a bridge. When fighting on a river hex, they do not suffer any
penalties, but they are still weak and can be destroyed easily.
2
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26511
3 of 15
Movement Extreme – or how I tried beating fsx’s animated gif3
1. Infantry with no transport can walk 3 clear hexes, or one clear
hex and one hill or forest hex.
2. Grenadiers can walk 2 clear hexes or can enter a hill or a forest
and end move there.
3. Gebirgsjäger with trucks are more limited in their move than
when on foot.
When entering mountains, they behave like any other infantry,
spending their whole turn to enter.
4. When entering hills, they are still limited.
5. Gebirgsjäger on foot are much faster on hills and in the
mountains.
6. They can move through 3 hills/mountains/high mountains in
just one turn…
…but they are still just as slow as normal infantry, when
dealing with forests.
7. When in trucks, units cannot enter thick forest or high
mountains.
8. It’s possible, when on foot, but takes all available move points
of any infantry.
9. The manual doesn’t mention it, but travelling on roads always
takes only 1 move point per hex – when on foot or in transport.
10. All infantry may travel using transport planes (Ju 52)…
11. … but only Fallschirmjäger can jump out of them – other
units must be directly above an airport (including one with an
enemy flag).
3
http://www.designmodproject.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2031&t=27429&p=1163758#p1163758
4 of 15
n
5 of 15
Close Defense and close terrain
In Europe almost all terrain is close, except for plains, countryside and fortifications. Cities, hills,
mountains, forests – they all mean close quarter fighting and heavily cap initiative of all troops –
except for the infantry. They also provide good basis for entrenchment, except for swamps. African
environments are not infantry friendly, with only jungle giving good cover.
Close Defense is used by a unit when surprised by
rugged defense, ambushed or fighting with infantry in
close terrain. When any unit except infantry – for
example a tank - fights with infantry – infantry attacks
Close Defense of the opponent. At the same time, the
opponent fights against infantry’s ground defense – that
is, a much higher stat.
This is why it is so dangerous to attack entrenched
troops in cities or forests, or leave a tank in such
environments. A tank with good Soft Attack will still
heavily wound infantry unit, but will take tremendous
losses itself. And repairs will be much more expensive.
When infantry fights other infantry in close terrain, both units use Close Defense of their opponents.
Urban fighting can be deadly for both sides and it is recommended to use artillery support on such
occasion. Troops with defense heroes are also a good choice.
7 of 15
Zone of Control
One of the features that, to my knowledge, has never really been explained in the manual, although it
is very probably well known to those who play wargames. To quote Wikipedia45,
In board wargames, zones of control (ZOC) represent the tiles adjacent to tiles
occupied by objects. For example, in hexagonal tiled maps, the six hexagons
adjacent to the hexagon occupied by a unit would be considered to be in its
“zone of control.”
Zones of control commonly are used to represent the portion of the map over
which a military ground formation has a direct influence, due to the range of its
weapons and the distance its sub-units may deploy from its center of gravity.
The consequences for gameplay are as follows:
1. Ground units must always stop, when entering a hex adjacent to any enemy ground unit, no matter
how many movement points it has left.
2. It may move again on the next turn, but if it wants to “stick” to enemy unit, it will only able to
move one hex.
3. A unit with high Movement may be able to break away from the enemy, circle him and flank.
That’s what makes those T-34’s so dangerous (at least for me, because I often forget to cover all
flanks and end up with a Russian tank decimating my precious artillery). Recon units, with their
segmented movement, are of great value in such maneuvers.
4. The rules of Zone of Control allow the player to effectively trap enemy units, by surrounding them
with one’s own or using impassable terrain. After depleting ammo and fuel with strategic,
even a monstrous KV tank will be harmless.
A unit adjacent to 1 enemy unit only gets approximately 60% of replacements, surrounded with 2
units – get around 30-40%. Being surrounded by 3 units (including air, if it’s not raining
or snowing) means no replacement nor refuel possible.
5. Air units cannot be trapped, since they do not exert Zone of Control, over either ground or air
units. Still, they can fall prey to Unexpected Encounter.
6. If a unit goes recklessly into terrain covered with Fog of War and tries moving through a hex with
a hidden enemy unit, it is ambushed (the planes have an Unexpected Encounter) and combat
ensues – with ambushed unit getting Initiative lowered to zero and using the (usually very low)
Close Defense stat even when fighting in the open, while the attacking unit gets +4 to Defense.
When I started playing Panzer Corps, I generally understood the Zone of Control concept when
moving my units, but I did not really embrace it and was unable to use it to my advantage. I still often
tend to place unit in small, tight groups, rather than build an efficient, long front – which allows the
player to encircle enemy units, while escaping flanking maneuvers oneself.
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_control
5
The Zone of Control image taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zone_ob_Control.jpg, free to use as of
author permission.
8 of 15
Not ideal, but a much better solution. Units
occupy proper terrain and are spread over wider
area – and all, except one, have artillery cover.
The little brave PaK 36 covers most of the north
and north west flank. Unfortunately, it doesn’t
have artillery support, but its positioning lets it
control more terrain. Enemy tanks will hesitate
to attack it and if they do, AT unit will take
much of their strength. When dealing with lots
of infantry, Grenadiers might be used instead.
9 of 15
Spotting
Although it’s possible to play Panzer Corps without Fog of War, it’s much more fun to use this
feature. When you don’t know where the enemy is, good reconnaissance is half success. It also applies
to enemy units. What they don’t see, they won’t attack.
The basic value of Spotting for most unit is
2. Most of AA and AT units have only 1,
recon units and cavalry spot 3 hexes ahead.
This means, that a unit should be safe if
placed 3 hexes away from tanks or
infantry. (Russian conscripts only have
Spotting of 1 and thus usually attack
Safe blindly well defended positions). Unsafe
Recon units might not seem much, if you look on their combat stats, but they allow the player to see
what the enemy is up to. And when you do know – you can try to ambush him.
Fighter trap6
On the first picture the Dingo recon unit spots
an undefended Stuka. Or so he thinks. The AI will send his
fighter to destroy it, but will first have to deal with the
fighter escort, which will partly destroy, partly suppress
the enemy fighter. Only what remains will attack the
Stuka. Obviously it is only a good tactic, if your escort
fighter is much better than the AI’s, and the escorted
bomber is cheap or won’t take serious damage.
Mind you, this tactic only makes sense at the beginning of the war, when enemy fighters come
in small numbers and are weak. I had used it one time in Reims in DLC ’40 and it worked great…
until more fighters came and shoot my Stuka to pieces. She will be remembered.
When you are yourself dealing with enemy bombers
escorted by tough fighters, one of the tactics (except for
only using the AA guns) is to attack the bomber with at
least two fighters. The first one (the toughest plane, maybe
with a Defense hero – or a plane which you deem
disposable?) will take the escort’s beating. The rest will be
able to finish the bomber in peace.
On the other hand, if you have a well overstrengthened bomber you really want to escape unscathed,
it might be worthwhile to use more than one fighter as an escort.
The picture on the right shows an even better tactic – luring an enemy bomber to attack a Panzerjäger
(which has poor Air Defense). The bomber will first run blindly into fighter escort, than be shot by the
AA gun. Little of it will survive and will probably be too suppressed to deal any damage.
6
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=121&t=36868&p=347020#p346911
10 of 15
The sad story of a lonely T-34
7
I played using Deducter’s mod, so there are few differences to vanilla game here (like a Stug IIIA, in vanilla I would use a Sturmpanzer I), but they don’t matter much. The desert camo on BF
109 is just cosmetic – I wanted it to stand out graphically, when other BF planes become available.
12 of 15
Gameplay example – Albert Canal, turn one, after moving
13 of 15
Gameplay example – Albert Canal, turn two
14 of 15
Coming shortly (I hope):
1. Artillery – self-propelled or towed? When and how to use it? Why the size doesn’t always
matter (with ladies, your mileage may vary).
2. Rivers – crossing, bridging, pushing enemies into…
3. Suppression, retreat, surrender.
Much more…
Acknowledgements8
All Panzer Corps team. It’s not yet decided, whether they should be punished or praised for taking so
much of innocent people’s time.
Deducter, for making gameplay videos9 which taught me how to play Panzer Corps and creating
a customized e-file for Grand Campaigns10 which made me love playing with infantry – to the extent
of almost forgetting about panzers. And made my little Pak 36 the baldest of my army, since my
expensive tanks tend to flee at the slightest sight of danger.
Nomercu, for being my first multiplayer sparring partner. What a massacre.
Reinerv had less luck, since brief account problems led us to play the first Piątek scenario turn. Again.
And again. And again.
Everyone in Slitherine and Matrix forums, it is nice and educational reading you.
8
All graphics copyright by the Lordz Game Studio, used only for instructional purposes and usually low-res.
Schmeisser Tiger picture grabbed from:
http://www.wartoyz.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MS601160&Category_Code=
9
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=32405
10
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=147&t=30708
15 of 15