21 cm piece with heroes: double attack and lethal attack - city destroyer - on a hill top :). Add double support fire and counter battery as well (comes with)!
I'm happy to see others arrive at the conclusion: 15cm is the best gun in the game :-D Mostly since the 10.5cm doesn't even TRY to shoot in AT mode. I had some suggestions regarding artillery balance in the beta, but you can't win them all. Keep up the good work Edmon!
Hello. I am here after losing badly in PC2 grand tournament round1, because I completely forgot how arty works and I expected it to work like in... wait for it... PG2. That is counterattack everything at max range. And because I played with replay at max speed, I didn't actually noticed the arty didn't shoot back lol. That is untill round 2, that has a lot of arty on the map, I noticed the tiny icons that explain arty gives support only to adiacent units. And then all the memories came back to me, because you see, I was a PC2 beta player. :) So anyway, pardon the long introduction, I want to say great guide for new players! One thing I did't hear explained is that high ground gives arty 1 extra range. Especially good for 17cm and 21cm as they will punish any arty that dares to attack your frontline units. As others said, I find the 17cm better because of 1 less supply cost. Note I mostly play multiplayer so heroes are irrelelvant here. One more point, antitanks punish more enemy tanks attacking frontline units. While on the other hand, enemy infantry won't do much against tanks in the open. So, unless you play a defense scenario, a better way to push the enemy is to have tanks in the frontline with antitanks in the 2nd row, instead of arty units. You will be on the move a lot of time, so towed arty will need 1 extra turn to deploy and be really usefull, so in this scenario mobile AT is way better. And you can have infantry and arty in the 3rd row, ready to attack the turn after your initial advance.
I converted all of my artillery to 15cm... so they would attack tanks and infantry :D. Problem solved :D. The British don't really get a good AT gun... at least in round 2.
Thanks for the advice Ed. I can't say how important having that 2nd move is in the General's characteristics is for artillery (especially non self propelled. It never leaves artillery in their "truck", which makes ALL the diff.
In the early 70s I played SSI games with an army rotc student (i was Air Force) I played the soviet side and he played german. I always chewed him up with artillary. Sightlines and range are king.
Great explaination. I came to the same conclusion. I have until Rostov, 3 15cm sFH and 2 21cm Mrs 18(each of these two with overstrength and a no slot hero). They get me often in the side where my AA-Gun were attacked, because of the arty don't suppressed all.
Great video. It feels like the designers wanted to greatly increase the role of AT guns (well justified from a historical perspective). But by leaving these two arty units with the ability to hurt tanks, it both undercut the role of AT guns a bit AND made other arty units little more than novelties or super niche. IMO they should have just gone all the way and taken the ability to use arty against tanks entirely (also not totally realistic) - that way all arty would be even on that point, and AT guns would be given a much greater importance.
Just a thought, maybe a video on your end game corp/army build as unit composition, etc.? I do and have found your guides here quite informative and helpful and I thank you for the time you took to put them together. /salute Sir.
I can certainly put something together, but it does depend a lot on what traits you take and somewhat on the map your facing. Likewise the difficulty level can force you to take generally good things instead of specializing for each mission, as prestige can be tight. I will give it some thought.
I was making a mod to the units to where AT guns had infantry/arty support and Artillery had AT support. Because in real life they were used that way. AT guns had HE rounds ect.
well, the 15 cm and 10,5 cm was the main guns of the german army thru the war for a reason, this game is just being historically correct. Some guns are best for offensive and some are better for defense.
It's almost as though ALL armies no mater their nationality used variations of 150mm -155mm as THE heavy artillery, while the weird arty was used for specific tasks and smaller formations had medium arty from 75mm - 105mm. ;-D Joking aside, hard to argue with your conclusion. It would be ironic if the devs built it like this to "reflect reality" (all these guns existed) without necessarily thinking about the consequences. There's also a danger of using "3 gazillion different units available" as a selling point when in fact standardisation is one of THE ideals when it comes to training, deployment and logistics in a nation's military. If they bring changes designed to tweak balance and make more units viable, the danger there is you need to run a pool of tons of different units so you can always have at least a few of the "correct" ones for the current mission. Lots of models may look nice, but building a set of mechanics to try to make all of them genuinely viable can cause all sorts of unintended consequences. My "30 second thought" is it would seem more reasonable to give ALL arty one of the two specials (AT or counter-battery) and then balance through juggling cost, slots, range, damage and the like. The other thing that occurs to me is it's peculiar that this wasn't immediately apparent when the DEVS looked at the implications of restricting the AT/CB attributes, or at least their Alpha/in-house testers didn't tell them. Perhaps they did. Very helpful info, thanks.
If they want the other artillery to actually be useful, it needs to have counter battery at the very least. The thing is, while bringing it to unpick city defenders is what most people think it's for... and all of the artillery is good for that purpose, the real reason to bring it along is to make sure you can't be easily counter attacked. Only the 15cm really serves this purpose. There is a special mention for the 21cm since the huge range and counter battery skill means it protects you from enemy artillery, but it's not got counter soft so it's vunerable to infantry, most recon cars, etc.
Correct me if I am wrong but 15cm gets an equal/slightly improved SPG variant around 1943? So mid-game-ish? Hummel I think, extra mobility and defense. I prefer to run x3 15/hummel and leave counter arty/at to tanks and dive bombers. If you don't roll the zero slot hero those larger guns are crazy expensive compared to active troops such as mid-game tanks that overstrength with air support can overrun 2-3 units per turn.
Noob question. So artillery doesn't have to be directly behind a unit taking fire to support it as long as it's in the artillery's range? I know I already posted on this but I'm still learning heh. I played Panzer General and LOVED it but PC2 has got a bit more to it which is awesome!
Artillery needs to be next to the unit it is supporting, with the exception of the "counter battery" ability, which is what the 21cm and one hero has. Then as long as the attacking enemy artillery is in range, you will fire on it.
The 21 does better for me than the 15 but I've gotten 2 double support hero's. With the extra range the hurt they put on artillary during just a 2 turn siege of a major city block is WAY more worth it, especially since entrenched infantry are less likely to come out into the open to fight and the counters are in my case more against armor... which it does WAY more dmg. But I will agree in open field the 15 is more well rounded.
I have no problem with artillery not supporting against tanks, they do little or no damage to thing like T-34, leave alone heavy tanks. Models which don’t support against soft are annoying to have through.
Hi Edmon.... i have a doubt. Why sometimes Anti-aircraft gun and Anti-Tank guns don't fire even if they should fire supporting other units that are under attack? Do you know something about it? (They are unpacked of course).
@@TheEdmon thank you. In AT that was happened... an Anti-tank did not defend the Anti-aircraft when in AT mode. But what about Anti-Aircraft not firing against enemy bombers and fighters when attacking our units in their range? You know something about this?
@@ricardolemos8866 Anti-Aircraft will fire against any aircraft attacking a ground unit, in their effective range, as long as they are in the correct mode. They won't fire on units attacking another air unit, however.
@@TheEdmon Thank you. For sure it was that... i saw aircraft in range attacking my units (it should be planes by your explanation) and anti-air gun did not fire. Keep the good work
I think the logic used in this video is a little flawed. The 10.5cm leFH 18 is half the core slot cost of the 21cm gun and only half the cost, and has 5 air defense instead of 1, meaning it's much less of a good target for air strikes (especially noticeable in MP or even skirmish/random maps). Even the 15cm only has 3 air defense. When you think about it, 5 air defense is only 4 less than the soft attack of a Ju-87B, and probably other ground support aircraft as well. We even see that you only have about $1385 prestige to work with on that first mission after buying aircraft, meaning that one 21cm gun is going to take a LOT of your starting funds... 29% of your funds, to be exact! This video also doesn't discuss the context in which you might want to use the lighter artillery; in campaign you want to start out with these units, build up some experience, then upgrade them when you have more core slots, since early on their soft and even hard attack is plenty for most targets they can shoot at, and you can justify the cost of a motorized transport on the lighter howitzers since they don't cost as much in the first place. With transports you can even use artillery to cap undefended cities and airfields if the situation calls for it. Infantry never stop being a threat so something that deals with them is also quite strong. Cheaper howitzers have the added benefit of more map presence since you can afford more of them both in Prestige and and Core Slots, allowing you to engage on more fronts more efficiently to win scenarios within the turn limit. So anyway, I think that saying that "no other artillery exists" is at least a partially if not fully invalid statement considering that air strikes and breaks in the line heavily favor the use of lighter field guns and artillery pieces compared to dumping your resources into one unit that can lose half its strength in a single turn to even some fighter craft.
Infantry have a defence of 6 to 9. With only 12 attack, the 7.5cm (the artillery that costs 120/2) will only damage 30% - 60% of the time / size. The 10.5cm, which is 210/3 has an attack of 16, is much better, doing 100% - 70% / size. However, it is only 50 prestige and 1 slot cheaper than the 15cm, which does 18 damage, therefore doing 100% - 90% and also enjoys the benefit of 18 hard attack, +1 range and AT return fire. Note: You won't see these numbers early because 0 star units have 50% accuracy. But the 15cm is objectively superior to the others. The 7.5cm is frankly, garbage. The 21cm is very expensive and is a special case. It is the perfect place to use a zero slot hero as it is the only artillery that counter batteries other artillery. The best way to defend it is to simply over an aircraft over it (any will do) until all enemy fighters are destroyed.
I think so, but if you have a weak computer, you can get the first game and all it's expansions very cheaply. The requirements are very low for the first game and it's a lot of fun IMO. This one is very sexy looking, has more features, but obviously is more expensive and really does require a monster PC due to the UT4 graphics engine.
I don't want to appear pointlessly argumentative, but while I am coming round to your view that 150mm is the way to go, for the reason you state (it alone has AT support), I think you are overstating your case. I don't agree with the premise that artillery is mainly valuable for defensive fire. These PG games are nearly always about the player being on the offensive. Artillery is mainly useful to reduce entrenchments and to suppress the enemy. There are relatively few defensive scenarios. Yes, sometimes the AI will attack you even with armour when you are the attacker. But you try to avoid that by preempting the attacks - using stukas or setting traps tc. If you are on the defensive, you prepare for that by putting infantry in cover and have an armored shield in the open. But armour is not very dangerous to infantry in good cover - you don't need AT support if you are infantry in a city. I am not sure how good 150mm support is against hard targets. But in PzC, I found it underwhelming against heavy Soviet armor (it would cause may be a few points of suppression or loss - not nothing, but not much and not enough to protect infantry in the open.). PzC2 has added AT support - I suspect AT guns are more effective at keeping T-34s etc at bay than 150mm (of course, you could say "why not both?") In PzC1, I would argue defensive fire was only really important against soft targets - those SMG units in Stalingrad GC scenarios, for example. At the moment (Kharkov), I have 2x150mm, 2x105mm and 2xStugIIB in my core - largely because this feels roughly historically authentic. The 105 artillery has a lower core slot component, which is valuable. I like the Stugs for city busting - they are surprisingly survivable. I'd like to try the rockets and the long range artillery, but core slots are short. As I say, I agree with you that if I had to pick one, I think I would go for the 150mm as it is well-rounded but I do think you are over-simplifying.
You can defend your offensive with the 15cm. I.E., if you end up putting your infantry next to theirs in a city, if they attack it, they will take the counterfire. The suppression and damage will persist into your turn, so you can take advantage and kill them. Likewise with the tank situation, if they attack you on their turn and the 15cm counterfires, the suppression will persist into your turn. You can then surround them for an easy surrender. Apparently, people are taking flexible command and tropies of war to especially take advantage of this as well. You can get good AT support from your 88 flak and 21cm gun as well, so it's not just the 15cm doing all the donkey work. It's just a really flexible bit of kit that you don't need a magic ball to use. It'll always counterfire and that'll always prevent some damage.
I do feel the 150mm is a bit too strong, but honestly, If there was any decent AT gun around the time you are relying on it, It might be a choice, but after playing with all the early game AT, I am forced to conclude they are all just terrible. Not worth the vulnerability to still lose to a matilda, and when you can't scratch the paint, 10 initiative just doesn't matter. I do feel that the 170mm gun is just better than the 210mm. It does basically the same thing for less core slots. Minor nitpick, but I just don't think that the extra hard attack on a unit without hard support is worth the investment, and as I will illustrate later, more soft attack is not useful after about 15ish, barring really unusual circumstances. I think you are massively undervaluing the wurfrahmen 40. My general feeling that self propelled is just massively better than towed, and this thing is ridiculous. Move and fire is just amazing on artillery, and it's firepower is insane. against an 8 ground defense enemy (pretty typical), in a forest, It will typically kill a couple and do 8 or so suppression, meaning it's taking 2 thirds of a full health enemy out of action. It's hard to do much better, as you are already well into diminishing marginal returns on suppression at this point (if a suppressed step is suppressed again, it gets discounted), but it's also hard to do much worse. But rapid fire on artillery is just way more impactful than strength. a 17 attack versus 8 defense is a 0% deflect/90% suppress/10% kill. (wurhfrahmen 40 against a soviet infantry). Comparing that to a 170mm Artillery strike, 19 soft attack versus 6 defense (170mm artillery versus an enemy artillery piece), that only becomes 0%/88%/12%. An extra 4 points of strength relative to my opponent gives me a TWO percent chance to kill a unit I would have suppressed anyways. This is peanuts. More soft attack is not impactful. Compare that to just rolling twice as many dice. It's not comparable. at all. Rolling more dice isn't a little bit better. It's WAY better. a wurfrahmen 40 doesn't have much ammo, but while the ammo holds, it is not even remotely comparable to conventional artillery. Suppressing two thirds of an infantry unit in cover is silly, and rolling more dice is going to be a lot less variance in the event that you are playing with a high level of randomness. This thing is crazy. Also, there is a massive defensive advantage for being INSIDE the town shooting out, than outside the town shooting in. Being able to roll up and attack the same turn can be quite a big deal, and having your pioneers 2 tiles away, and your wurfrahmen 6, means you can fill the rest of the space with all the things you need to defend with on the prior turn, and consolidate your defense on your current turn. If you can reduce the unsuppressed strength to 5 before the fight even starts, it's not going to take much to finish that fight, which means by the time the enemy gets a turn, you are already in the town, with a fresh unit, which is basically immunity to tanks and probably a good 38% versus infantry. This is super useful for forcing river crossings too, as all the open ground minor river hexes are unlabeled vulnerable terrain (city hexes don't seem to be, for example, the river hexes inside paris don't seem to be vulnerable terrain). So if you have to attack from a river hex, you REALLY want to move a unit across the bridge the same turn, to protect your attacker who is now vulnerable. Move and fire is a big deal. Also, I really feel that you DO know what's coming, due to how much the scout plane reveals. The scout plane covers a 9 hex wide path that is up to 17 hexes long. If you are getting ambushed by tanks, I think you are doing recon fundamentally wrong.
The 21cm has AT support? So your second paragraph doesn't make any sense. One of the key points I was trying to make is that artillery, while nice for suppressing things for you to attack, is not really that important in that role. Helpful yes, but that's not why you deploy it. You can get strat bombers to do the same thing for 1 core slot each and later you get get 3 slot ones that totally suppress most if not all of a target. You can also use mass attacks to prevent damage with lots of splits, etc. The REAL purpose of artillery in my opinion is to prevent the enemy from attacking you and it is in this role that the 15cm excels. The 21cm, with it's AT/Counterbattery can be used to add additional defence against hard/artillery as needed. It's an excellent weapon with a zero slots hero, since the core slot cost can be totally mitigated this way. Both can also use a rapid fire hero to become outright better than anything else (things with a trait already, can't get it twice). All the other kinds of artillery may be great at suppressing or killing infantry as well as some damage against hard in an offensive role, but offers inflexible and unwieldy defence (if any) and does not deter the A.I. from suiciding units at you to do prestige damage. There are missions where hordes of very fast units come after you after a certain amount of turns. This is when artillery like the 15cm especially shines.
@@TheEdmon Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I meant soft support. Neither the 170 or the 210 have the full support suite, but they are functionally identical. the 170mm just has lower attack values but lower core slot cost. Strat bombers are not even remotely comparable at the time the wurfrahmen 40 becomes available, because they don't scale: you can't strat bomb the same thing 4 times in the same turn, and Trying to attack a unit with 10 unsuppressed steps is just fundamentally different from trying to attack a unit with 5 unsuppressed steps. For one thing, you are likely to be taking more than twice as much damage damage, and secondly, the retreat is much less certain. I use strat bombers all the time, and I like them, but they are fundamentally different from rocket artillery. They are great against heavy weapon infantry, as 2 carpet bombings on the same encircled unit run it completely out of ammo. And it's nice to have supplemental suppression. But the wurfrahmen 40, is not even remotely comparable. It does literally twice the damage AND it has the soft support ability, AND it does twice as much anti infantry damage on defense as a 150mm Artillery piece. I get your argument on the defensive merit of 150mm artillery pieces, and I do use them. but if you aren't going to be in the open, AT support is not useful. 100% more soft support is, and so is 100% more soft attack.
@@timmietimmins3780 I believe I said in the video that the key thing about the 21cm is that it has counter battery with massive range and that I use it to deal with enemy artillery at that massive range, the fact that it also serves as an anti-tank support weapon is a bonus that really adds to it's flexibility. If you like the rocket artillery then more power to you, I think it's too specialised and requires too much babysitting in what may be a developing battlefield. Especially when you start reaching missions where you are on the defense and are going second in the turn order against waves of units rushing at you from all directions. A 15cm for me typically delivers 1-2 kills and 5-7 suppression once you get past the very early game. A strat bomber can easily deliver the rest of what is required to allow a flame tank and/or engineers to do heavy damage with 1-2 losses at most. At this point, the Wurfrahmen just sounds like overkill for the task you can already achive with the 15cm + a strat bomber and without giving up your ability to counter hard. If you are using 4 artillery on the same unit in a single turn, that just seems like overkill and maybe you've already won at that point.
@@TheEdmon SO DOES THE 170. That's the point. The 170, in a counter battery role, is basically identical to the 210. It has the exact same traits. It's just cheaper. By the time you are combining a 2 slot strat bomber Like the second dornier (which is what you will have access to at the time you unlock rocket artillery), you are already spending an extra core slot and probably about 350 extra prestige. The wurfrahmen cannot be overkill when it's significantly cheaper. My typical results with a 150mm artillery with 1 star, which is when you are likely to get access to the wurfrahmen, is 1 kill 4 suppression, exactly, as that's what I am pulling off my combat log. I feel the sweet spot on artillery is 1 wurfrahmen, or probably about 1.5 150mm strikes. That's the point where you are rarely getting more than 4 points of wasted suppression, but you are routinely suppressing or killing 9-10 enemy steps. The problem is that that's WAY more than a DO 217E can put out. Obviously, 4 is hyperbole, but the number of Strat bombers I need is clearly not just 1. My Do 217 E, on it's last 2 attacks in my combat log, put out less than 5 suppression on each target (russian regulars, 58% accuracy). Which is nowhere near enough. And if you are carpet bombing, you don't want to hit something with a strat bomber AND a 150mm arty. The 150mm's attacks are wasted, as your win condition is depleting ammo anyways. I don't have all my artillery, by any stretch, as rocket artillery, but I am finding my rocket artillery to be routinely having the highest impact.
@@timmietimmins3780 I believe I already stated that I am using a zero slot hero on my 21cm gun, so the slot cost doesn't matter. Additionally, the hard attack values are 31 versus 26. 19.2% better. You also get an additional ground armour and soft attack point. So not identical. If you aren't paying for the slots, there is no sense in taking the 17cm. Even if you are, it's not that bad a trade. You also start with the 21cm unlocked, the 17cm doesn't turn up until much later in the campaign. The 15cm has an extra range over the rocket artillery, costs 1 less slot, is nearly half the price, has AT support and once again you start with it. I get that you like it, it's not something I would recommend though. But if you make it work that's great.
If I ever have the time and once they fix the stability issues... at the moment, I need to focus on growing the channel so that it's supporting me enough to continue working on it once I am out of school (I go to state-mandated norwegian school atm).
![ILLSLICK X YOUNGOHM - We're The same [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yUJNkobYR0E/mqdefault.jpg)
21 cm piece with heroes: double attack and lethal attack - city destroyer - on a hill top :). Add double support fire and counter battery as well (comes with)!
@Tuscani Whynot Yes indeed, Zero Slots and Overstrength too! What a monster!
I'm happy to see others arrive at the conclusion: 15cm is the best gun in the game :-D Mostly since the 10.5cm doesn't even TRY to shoot in AT mode. I had some suggestions regarding artillery balance in the beta, but you can't win them all. Keep up the good work Edmon!
Agree. Doesn't matter how good an artillery piece's stats are if it doesn't fire back.
I love these guides, thank you for taking the time to make it. I've been playing panzer General since the 90s and always can improve!
It is quite a different game to the previous ones.
Hello. I am here after losing badly in PC2 grand tournament round1, because I completely forgot how arty works and I expected it to work like in... wait for it... PG2. That is counterattack everything at max range. And because I played with replay at max speed, I didn't actually noticed the arty didn't shoot back lol. That is untill round 2, that has a lot of arty on the map, I noticed the tiny icons that explain arty gives support only to adiacent units. And then all the memories came back to me, because you see, I was a PC2 beta player. :)
So anyway, pardon the long introduction, I want to say great guide for new players! One thing I did't hear explained is that high ground gives arty 1 extra range. Especially good for 17cm and 21cm as they will punish any arty that dares to attack your frontline units. As others said, I find the 17cm better because of 1 less supply cost. Note I mostly play multiplayer so heroes are irrelelvant here.
One more point, antitanks punish more enemy tanks attacking frontline units. While on the other hand, enemy infantry won't do much against tanks in the open. So, unless you play a defense scenario, a better way to push the enemy is to have tanks in the frontline with antitanks in the 2nd row, instead of arty units. You will be on the move a lot of time, so towed arty will need 1 extra turn to deploy and be really usefull, so in this scenario mobile AT is way better. And you can have infantry and arty in the 3rd row, ready to attack the turn after your initial advance.
I converted all of my artillery to 15cm... so they would attack tanks and infantry :D.
Problem solved :D. The British don't really get a good AT gun... at least in round 2.
As for guy, who come from panzer general I would never guess there is such mechanic of artillery respond.Thanks for the video.
Glad it helped you :).
Thanks for the advice Ed. I can't say how important having that 2nd move is in the General's characteristics is for artillery (especially non self propelled. It never leaves artillery in their "truck", which makes ALL the diff.
In the early 70s I played SSI games with an army rotc student (i was Air Force) I played the soviet side and he played german. I always chewed him up with artillary. Sightlines and range are king.
Over 50% of all casualties in WW2 were caused by some form of artillery. Underestimate it at your peril.
Good brief, useful information, thanks for posting.
Great explaination. I came to the same conclusion. I have until Rostov, 3 15cm sFH and 2 21cm Mrs 18(each of these two with overstrength and a no slot hero). They get me often in the side where my AA-Gun were attacked, because of the arty don't suppressed all.
Glad to have helped.
Great video. It feels like the designers wanted to greatly increase the role of AT guns (well justified from a historical perspective). But by leaving these two arty units with the ability to hurt tanks, it both undercut the role of AT guns a bit AND made other arty units little more than novelties or super niche. IMO they should have just gone all the way and taken the ability to use arty against tanks entirely (also not totally realistic) - that way all arty would be even on that point, and AT guns would be given a much greater importance.
Just a thought, maybe a video on your end game corp/army build as unit composition, etc.? I do and have found your guides here quite informative and helpful and I thank you for the time you took to put them together. /salute Sir.
I can certainly put something together, but it does depend a lot on what traits you take and somewhat on the map your facing.
Likewise the difficulty level can force you to take generally good things instead of specializing for each mission, as prestige can be tight.
I will give it some thought.
I was making a mod to the units to where AT guns had infantry/arty support and Artillery had AT support. Because in real life they were used that way. AT guns had HE rounds ect.
Good luck with your mod.
well, the 15 cm and 10,5 cm was the main guns of the german army thru the war for a reason, this game is just being historically correct. Some guns are best for offensive and some are better for defense.
It does mean if you can get your hands on some, you can take "denied artillery" forever and just get free trait points.
It's almost as though ALL armies no mater their nationality used variations of 150mm -155mm as THE heavy artillery, while the weird arty was used for specific tasks and smaller formations had medium arty from 75mm - 105mm. ;-D
Joking aside, hard to argue with your conclusion. It would be ironic if the devs built it like this to "reflect reality" (all these guns existed) without necessarily thinking about the consequences.
There's also a danger of using "3 gazillion different units available" as a selling point when in fact standardisation is one of THE ideals when it comes to training, deployment and logistics in a nation's military.
If they bring changes designed to tweak balance and make more units viable, the danger there is you need to run a pool of tons of different units so you can always have at least a few of the "correct" ones for the current mission. Lots of models may look nice, but building a set of mechanics to try to make all of them genuinely viable can cause all sorts of unintended consequences.
My "30 second thought" is it would seem more reasonable to give ALL arty one of the two specials (AT or counter-battery) and then balance through juggling cost, slots, range, damage and the like.
The other thing that occurs to me is it's peculiar that this wasn't immediately apparent when the DEVS looked at the implications of restricting the AT/CB attributes, or at least their Alpha/in-house testers didn't tell them. Perhaps they did.
Very helpful info, thanks.
If they want the other artillery to actually be useful, it needs to have counter battery at the very least. The thing is, while bringing it to unpick city defenders is what most people think it's for... and all of the artillery is good for that purpose, the real reason to bring it along is to make sure you can't be easily counter attacked. Only the 15cm really serves this purpose. There is a special mention for the 21cm since the huge range and counter battery skill means it protects you from enemy artillery, but it's not got counter soft so it's vunerable to infantry, most recon cars, etc.
Correct me if I am wrong but 15cm gets an equal/slightly improved SPG variant around 1943? So mid-game-ish?
Hummel I think, extra mobility and defense.
I prefer to run x3 15/hummel and leave counter arty/at to tanks and dive bombers. If you don't roll the zero slot hero those larger guns are crazy expensive compared to active troops such as mid-game tanks that overstrength with air support can overrun 2-3 units per turn.
I believe your right, but that's not the midgame, the game is actually closer to over by that point (last 3rd).
@@TheEdmon true, so 15cm really is the mainstay of the army for the long haul :)
Noob question. So artillery doesn't have to be directly behind a unit taking fire to support it as long as it's in the artillery's range? I know I already posted on this but I'm still learning heh. I played Panzer General and LOVED it but PC2 has got a bit more to it which is awesome!
Artillery needs to be next to the unit it is supporting, with the exception of the "counter battery" ability, which is what the 21cm and one hero has. Then as long as the attacking enemy artillery is in range, you will fire on it.
Subbed.. thanks Ed
Thanks! I am glad you found it helpful.
The 21 does better for me than the 15 but I've gotten 2 double support hero's. With the extra range the hurt they put on artillary during just a 2 turn siege of a major city block is WAY more worth it, especially since entrenched infantry are less likely to come out into the open to fight and the counters are in my case more against armor... which it does WAY more dmg. But I will agree in open field the 15 is more well rounded.
Actually the Hummel does have artillery and AT support fire
That comes very late and is actually also a 15cm gun anyway :D.
@@TheEdmon I play the africa branch and it appears in the Sicily scenario
@@kevinlaw6191 That is currently under NDA is it not?
I have no problem with artillery not supporting against tanks, they do little or no damage to thing like T-34, leave alone heavy tanks.
Models which don’t support against soft are annoying to have through.
The 21cm and the 17cm don't support against soft, but they do own other artillery. So they definitely have their place.
Hi Edmon.... i have a doubt. Why sometimes Anti-aircraft gun and Anti-Tank guns don't fire even if they should fire supporting other units that are under attack? Do you know something about it? (They are unpacked of course).
AT units and fighters do not support each other, only other units. Artillery however, will support themselves.
@@TheEdmon thank you. In AT that was happened... an Anti-tank did not defend the Anti-aircraft when in AT mode. But what about Anti-Aircraft not firing against enemy bombers and fighters when attacking our units in their range? You know something about this?
@@ricardolemos8866 Anti-Aircraft will fire against any aircraft attacking a ground unit, in their effective range, as long as they are in the correct mode. They won't fire on units attacking another air unit, however.
@@TheEdmon Thank you. For sure it was that... i saw aircraft in range attacking my units (it should be planes by your explanation) and anti-air gun did not fire. Keep the good work
No sure about this game mechanic change from PC1. Very different strategies needed.
Yes. Sadly, I feel like I just wouldn't use any artillery that doesn't have both AT and AI support fire.
I think the logic used in this video is a little flawed.
The 10.5cm leFH 18 is half the core slot cost of the 21cm gun and only half the cost, and has 5 air defense instead of 1, meaning it's much less of a good target for air strikes (especially noticeable in MP or even skirmish/random maps). Even the 15cm only has 3 air defense. When you think about it, 5 air defense is only 4 less than the soft attack of a Ju-87B, and probably other ground support aircraft as well.
We even see that you only have about $1385 prestige to work with on that first mission after buying aircraft, meaning that one 21cm gun is going to take a LOT of your starting funds... 29% of your funds, to be exact!
This video also doesn't discuss the context in which you might want to use the lighter artillery; in campaign you want to start out with these units, build up some experience, then upgrade them when you have more core slots, since early on their soft and even hard attack is plenty for most targets they can shoot at, and you can justify the cost of a motorized transport on the lighter howitzers since they don't cost as much in the first place. With transports you can even use artillery to cap undefended cities and airfields if the situation calls for it.
Infantry never stop being a threat so something that deals with them is also quite strong. Cheaper howitzers have the added benefit of more map presence since you can afford more of them both in Prestige and and Core Slots, allowing you to engage on more fronts more efficiently to win scenarios within the turn limit.
So anyway, I think that saying that "no other artillery exists" is at least a partially if not fully invalid statement considering that air strikes and breaks in the line heavily favor the use of lighter field guns and artillery pieces compared to dumping your resources into one unit that can lose half its strength in a single turn to even some fighter craft.
Infantry have a defence of 6 to 9. With only 12 attack, the 7.5cm (the artillery that costs 120/2) will only damage 30% - 60% of the time / size.
The 10.5cm, which is 210/3 has an attack of 16, is much better, doing 100% - 70% / size. However, it is only 50 prestige and 1 slot cheaper than the 15cm, which does 18 damage, therefore doing 100% - 90% and also enjoys the benefit of 18 hard attack, +1 range and AT return fire.
Note: You won't see these numbers early because 0 star units have 50% accuracy. But the 15cm is objectively superior to the others. The 7.5cm is frankly, garbage.
The 21cm is very expensive and is a special case. It is the perfect place to use a zero slot hero as it is the only artillery that counter batteries other artillery. The best way to defend it is to simply over an aircraft over it (any will do) until all enemy fighters are destroyed.
Is this a good place to start with PCorps games? I've never played any of the others.
I think so, but if you have a weak computer, you can get the first game and all it's expansions very cheaply. The requirements are very low for the first game and it's a lot of fun IMO. This one is very sexy looking, has more features, but obviously is more expensive and really does require a monster PC due to the UT4 graphics engine.
@@TheEdmon Thanks yeah PC performance isn't an issue I was thinking more around is it pretty complex and does experience with the previous games help?
@@RocketMagnetUK Experence with the previous games isn't so important, as it plays quite differently.
I don't want to appear pointlessly argumentative, but while I am coming round to your view that 150mm is the way to go, for the reason you state (it alone has AT support), I think you are overstating your case.
I don't agree with the premise that artillery is mainly valuable for defensive fire. These PG games are nearly always about the player being on the offensive. Artillery is mainly useful to reduce entrenchments and to suppress the enemy. There are relatively few defensive scenarios.
Yes, sometimes the AI will attack you even with armour when you are the attacker. But you try to avoid that by preempting the attacks - using stukas or setting traps tc. If you are on the defensive, you prepare for that by putting infantry in cover and have an armored shield in the open. But armour is not very dangerous to infantry in good cover - you don't need AT support if you are infantry in a city.
I am not sure how good 150mm support is against hard targets. But in PzC, I found it underwhelming against heavy Soviet armor (it would cause may be a few points of suppression or loss - not nothing, but not much and not enough to protect infantry in the open.). PzC2 has added AT support - I suspect AT guns are more effective at keeping T-34s etc at bay than 150mm (of course, you could say "why not both?")
In PzC1, I would argue defensive fire was only really important against soft targets - those SMG units in Stalingrad GC scenarios, for example.
At the moment (Kharkov), I have 2x150mm, 2x105mm and 2xStugIIB in my core - largely because this feels roughly historically authentic. The 105 artillery has a lower core slot component, which is valuable. I like the Stugs for city busting - they are surprisingly survivable. I'd like to try the rockets and the long range artillery, but core slots are short.
As I say, I agree with you that if I had to pick one, I think I would go for the 150mm as it is well-rounded but I do think you are over-simplifying.
You can defend your offensive with the 15cm. I.E., if you end up putting your infantry next to theirs in a city, if they attack it, they will take the counterfire. The suppression and damage will persist into your turn, so you can take advantage and kill them. Likewise with the tank situation, if they attack you on their turn and the 15cm counterfires, the suppression will persist into your turn. You can then surround them for an easy surrender. Apparently, people are taking flexible command and tropies of war to especially take advantage of this as well.
You can get good AT support from your 88 flak and 21cm gun as well, so it's not just the 15cm doing all the donkey work. It's just a really flexible bit of kit that you don't need a magic ball to use. It'll always counterfire and that'll always prevent some damage.
I do feel the 150mm is a bit too strong, but honestly, If there was any decent AT gun around the time you are relying on it, It might be a choice, but after playing with all the early game AT, I am forced to conclude they are all just terrible. Not worth the vulnerability to still lose to a matilda, and when you can't scratch the paint, 10 initiative just doesn't matter.
I do feel that the 170mm gun is just better than the 210mm. It does basically the same thing for less core slots. Minor nitpick, but I just don't think that the extra hard attack on a unit without hard support is worth the investment, and as I will illustrate later, more soft attack is not useful after about 15ish, barring really unusual circumstances.
I think you are massively undervaluing the wurfrahmen 40. My general feeling that self propelled is just massively better than towed, and this thing is ridiculous. Move and fire is just amazing on artillery, and it's firepower is insane. against an 8 ground defense enemy (pretty typical), in a forest, It will typically kill a couple and do 8 or so suppression, meaning it's taking 2 thirds of a full health enemy out of action. It's hard to do much better, as you are already well into diminishing marginal returns on suppression at this point (if a suppressed step is suppressed again, it gets discounted), but it's also hard to do much worse.
But rapid fire on artillery is just way more impactful than strength. a 17 attack versus 8 defense is a 0% deflect/90% suppress/10% kill. (wurhfrahmen 40 against a soviet infantry).
Comparing that to a 170mm Artillery strike, 19 soft attack versus 6 defense (170mm artillery versus an enemy artillery piece), that only becomes 0%/88%/12%. An extra 4 points of strength relative to my opponent gives me a TWO percent chance to kill a unit I would have suppressed anyways. This is peanuts. More soft attack is not impactful.
Compare that to just rolling twice as many dice. It's not comparable. at all. Rolling more dice isn't a little bit better. It's WAY better. a wurfrahmen 40 doesn't have much ammo, but while the ammo holds, it is not even remotely comparable to conventional artillery. Suppressing two thirds of an infantry unit in cover is silly, and rolling more dice is going to be a lot less variance in the event that you are playing with a high level of randomness. This thing is crazy.
Also, there is a massive defensive advantage for being INSIDE the town shooting out, than outside the town shooting in. Being able to roll up and attack the same turn can be quite a big deal, and having your pioneers 2 tiles away, and your wurfrahmen 6, means you can fill the rest of the space with all the things you need to defend with on the prior turn, and consolidate your defense on your current turn. If you can reduce the unsuppressed strength to 5 before the fight even starts, it's not going to take much to finish that fight, which means by the time the enemy gets a turn, you are already in the town, with a fresh unit, which is basically immunity to tanks and probably a good 38% versus infantry. This is super useful for forcing river crossings too, as all the open ground minor river hexes are unlabeled vulnerable terrain (city hexes don't seem to be, for example, the river hexes inside paris don't seem to be vulnerable terrain). So if you have to attack from a river hex, you REALLY want to move a unit across the bridge the same turn, to protect your attacker who is now vulnerable. Move and fire is a big deal.
Also, I really feel that you DO know what's coming, due to how much the scout plane reveals. The scout plane covers a 9 hex wide path that is up to 17 hexes long. If you are getting ambushed by tanks, I think you are doing recon fundamentally wrong.
The 21cm has AT support? So your second paragraph doesn't make any sense.
One of the key points I was trying to make is that artillery, while nice for suppressing things for you to attack, is not really that important in that role. Helpful yes, but that's not why you deploy it.
You can get strat bombers to do the same thing for 1 core slot each and later you get get 3 slot ones that totally suppress most if not all of a target. You can also use mass attacks to prevent damage with lots of splits, etc.
The REAL purpose of artillery in my opinion is to prevent the enemy from attacking you and it is in this role that the 15cm excels. The 21cm, with it's AT/Counterbattery can be used to add additional defence against hard/artillery as needed. It's an excellent weapon with a zero slots hero, since the core slot cost can be totally mitigated this way. Both can also use a rapid fire hero to become outright better than anything else (things with a trait already, can't get it twice).
All the other kinds of artillery may be great at suppressing or killing infantry as well as some damage against hard in an offensive role, but offers inflexible and unwieldy defence (if any) and does not deter the A.I. from suiciding units at you to do prestige damage.
There are missions where hordes of very fast units come after you after a certain amount of turns. This is when artillery like the 15cm especially shines.
@@TheEdmon Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I meant soft support. Neither the 170 or the 210 have the full support suite, but they are functionally identical. the 170mm just has lower attack values but lower core slot cost.
Strat bombers are not even remotely comparable at the time the wurfrahmen 40 becomes available, because they don't scale: you can't strat bomb the same thing 4 times in the same turn, and Trying to attack a unit with 10 unsuppressed steps is just fundamentally different from trying to attack a unit with 5 unsuppressed steps. For one thing, you are likely to be taking more than twice as much damage damage, and secondly, the retreat is much less certain.
I use strat bombers all the time, and I like them, but they are fundamentally different from rocket artillery. They are great against heavy weapon infantry, as 2 carpet bombings on the same encircled unit run it completely out of ammo. And it's nice to have supplemental suppression.
But the wurfrahmen 40, is not even remotely comparable. It does literally twice the damage AND it has the soft support ability, AND it does twice as much anti infantry damage on defense as a 150mm Artillery piece.
I get your argument on the defensive merit of 150mm artillery pieces, and I do use them. but if you aren't going to be in the open, AT support is not useful. 100% more soft support is, and so is 100% more soft attack.
@@timmietimmins3780 I believe I said in the video that the key thing about the 21cm is that it has counter battery with massive range and that I use it to deal with enemy artillery at that massive range, the fact that it also serves as an anti-tank support weapon is a bonus that really adds to it's flexibility.
If you like the rocket artillery then more power to you, I think it's too specialised and requires too much babysitting in what may be a developing battlefield. Especially when you start reaching missions where you are on the defense and are going second in the turn order against waves of units rushing at you from all directions.
A 15cm for me typically delivers 1-2 kills and 5-7 suppression once you get past the very early game. A strat bomber can easily deliver the rest of what is required to allow a flame tank and/or engineers to do heavy damage with 1-2 losses at most. At this point, the Wurfrahmen just sounds like overkill for the task you can already achive with the 15cm + a strat bomber and without giving up your ability to counter hard.
If you are using 4 artillery on the same unit in a single turn, that just seems like overkill and maybe you've already won at that point.
@@TheEdmon SO DOES THE 170. That's the point. The 170, in a counter battery role, is basically identical to the 210. It has the exact same traits. It's just cheaper.
By the time you are combining a 2 slot strat bomber Like the second dornier (which is what you will have access to at the time you unlock rocket artillery), you are already spending an extra core slot and probably about 350 extra prestige. The wurfrahmen cannot be overkill when it's significantly cheaper.
My typical results with a 150mm artillery with 1 star, which is when you are likely to get access to the wurfrahmen, is 1 kill 4 suppression, exactly, as that's what I am pulling off my combat log.
I feel the sweet spot on artillery is 1 wurfrahmen, or probably about 1.5 150mm strikes. That's the point where you are rarely getting more than 4 points of wasted suppression, but you are routinely suppressing or killing 9-10 enemy steps.
The problem is that that's WAY more than a DO 217E can put out. Obviously, 4 is hyperbole, but the number of Strat bombers I need is clearly not just 1.
My Do 217 E, on it's last 2 attacks in my combat log, put out less than 5 suppression on each target (russian regulars, 58% accuracy). Which is nowhere near enough. And if you are carpet bombing, you don't want to hit something with a strat bomber AND a 150mm arty. The 150mm's attacks are wasted, as your win condition is depleting ammo anyways.
I don't have all my artillery, by any stretch, as rocket artillery, but I am finding my rocket artillery to be routinely having the highest impact.
@@timmietimmins3780 I believe I already stated that I am using a zero slot hero on my 21cm gun, so the slot cost doesn't matter.
Additionally, the hard attack values are 31 versus 26. 19.2% better. You also get an additional ground armour and soft attack point. So not identical. If you aren't paying for the slots, there is no sense in taking the 17cm. Even if you are, it's not that bad a trade.
You also start with the 21cm unlocked, the 17cm doesn't turn up until much later in the campaign.
The 15cm has an extra range over the rocket artillery, costs 1 less slot, is nearly half the price, has AT support and once again you start with it.
I get that you like it, it's not something I would recommend though. But if you make it work that's great.
I would like to play you in multiplayer if you're willing. Could be a fun time.
If I ever have the time and once they fix the stability issues... at the moment, I need to focus on growing the channel so that it's supporting me enough to continue working on it once I am out of school (I go to state-mandated norwegian school atm).
MRS18 in PG3 got range 5 lol
The 88 should be a much much better.
It's good against tanks, but difficult to use because it's so vunerable to infantry.
Artillery is one note. Tanks suck. Pioneers are only kind of non specialist infantry. This game kind of sucks... How sad!