Edward-O
commented
4 years ago Close Combat - I feel like it's almost always disadvantageous for the player in the Patton campaign and all the early campaigns (Poland, Winter War), although you can get away with it in Battle for France(French). I haven't played British yet. Battle of France having an advantage seems okay, because they are infantry tanks after all and it's otherwise has more drawn out battles because of having no direct/fire due to gunner/commander being done by the same crewman. I think it's peculiar in that the enemy initating close combat is extremely rare, more often the risk is the player greedily choosing to do it. On one hand increased aggression could swing into making the infantry too dangerous, but it could be interesting - I think the tradeoff is making an infantry+truck battle more interesting is good, but also buffing them in a 2 infantry + 2 StuG or Infantry + Pak 37 battle would be overwhelming.
Allies - I kind of like allies being treated "blobber" style. They seem much more useful and accurate in Poland and Winter War than everywhere else, and in particular, the US and Canada ones are really bad. I think that it's down to -1: Allies hate shooting at long range 2: They absolutely refuse to attack forified infantry, even if a player tank could break the fortifications with a couple turns of HE. 3: If they have smoke rounds available they prefer it to other things - It can be nice if they are actually using it on a Jpazner 4, but when they smoke up most of the other enemies it feels like they help the enemy more than you. The
Pivot vs Turret rotation - only noticed this recently, and it's really interesting to play with but uncertain. IN some situations Pivot has less of a firing penalty than Turret rotation and in others it's higher? I know that ground state affects this (dry/wet/muddy/snow) but does the amount of rotation facings also affect this? It is used more by the enemy than the player, but I found that flanking some armored tanks with low caliber guns to work better with this to get acceptable accuracy on same turn I turned as opposed to moving with turret pre-rotated and firing on the movement turn.
Also want to confirm that reverse movement has a lower chance of success than forward.
sudasana
So, I'll say that Armored Commander 2 is already a pretty good game as it currently stands. It is pretty unique both in the world of games in general and roguelikes in particular, and has an engaging set of mechanics already. Still, there is clearly a lot of room for improvement as well, and I would say that there are currently three main directions to achieve that.
Direction 1 is Historical Expansion. The process of adding on more WW2 campaigns + making the existing campaigns feel more historically authentic (both through unit composition changes and more specific scripted texts, events, etc.) While I think some campaigns are more important than others (i.e. implementing at least one North Africa and Soviet vs. Nazi campaign should be ahead of the Pacific front tank battles), this is basically self-explanatory on the whole.
Direction 2 is the Tactical Layer. The battles on that hexagonal map, and the associated mechanics. I think that currently the main issues are with the AI behavior. It's decent, but it still often raises questions, and the most important one is the way some units unpredictably flee, and the others stay on when it's pointless. This goes both for the random, unpredictable withdrawals of allied tanks that don't appear connected to the actual threat level (I had an ally withdraw while simply we were simply taking on an HMG team), and for the enemies, including the strange persistence of Trucks. Funniest example was probably when I encountered a Supplies-transporting Truck and a Pz. IV in the Canadian campaign recently: the Pz. IV fled immediately, but the truck stayed on for no reason.
I think that in general, the Withdrawal command should be removed outright; leaving combat (outside of Abandon Tank command) should only be achievable through moving to the respective edge of the screen, for both the player and the enemies. Allies that Withdraw will appear on the map as separate, uncontrollable units and start moving towards the screen's edge: enemies will be able to withdraw once they get to their edge of the screen. Trucks should be both more frequent, yet also stay on the battlefield much less often. Essentially, as soon as the player shows up, Trucks should begin moving towards their edge. Enemy vehicles that have little-to-no chance of actually damaging the player's tank (i.e. German motorcycle teams, or Polish MG-equipped armored cars) should do the same: perhaps not always, but more often than not.
To make this more interesting, terrain should play a greater role. Currently, each combat map appears to have all tiles of the same uniform green/white color until a unit actually gets there, and then it's determined whether that occupied tile is Open Ground or something more special. I think it's obvious that randomized generation of terrain across the entire combat map is more interesting. Most importantly, it would allow for the addition of roads (mostly dirt, with asphalt only present on the "road" tiles) running through the entire hexagon, with the Trucks in particular automatically generated only on top of these dirt road tiles, and being forced to flee from your tank based on whatever curve the road was generated with, as opposed to just taking the shortest straight line towards the edge of the screen every time.
The second area in need of improvement is the FP system. It's acceptable as it is right now, but it should become more gradual than the current calculation that's often all-or-nothing, bar the occasional Pinning. In particular, there's a frustrating asymmetry next to AP fire; whereas a critical hit with an AP shell basically guarantees penetration and instant destruction of the opponent, a critical MG/HE hit can still often leave "No effect," which is just frustrating. For Riflemen at least, I think a solution is to make the squads stronger by giving them more actions per turn by default: i.e. each Infantry squad will fire both Rifles (specifically in order to target anyone in open hatches, of course) and an AT rifle within their combat phase by default, and they'll lose that capability only after one or two good hits goes through. I suppose that for HMG/artillery, there should be a more explicit "stun" status that disables them from firing this turn or the next. As it is, it feels pretty random when they decide not to fire at you/your squad during some turns, and introducing such an effect will make it feel more tactical.
Lastly, certain tank models possess Radio Operators, and suffer from them being essentially useless. They can only Spot and give First Aid, and never have hatches to be effective at the former, so they only ever help if a spotting crewmember got unlucky enough to be wounded. I think it would be great if having a Radio Operator made coordination with the allied tanks possible; i.e. during the Crew Action phase, you would be able to know what they are planning to do next turn; you would find out if, say, their main gun broke down and they are going to withdraw, allowing the Commander to order them to stay, if needed. This would also address the moments when the allies just go quiet during some turns for what seem like random reasons.
Direction 3 is the Strategic Layer. Again, the current approach is often atmospheric (I really like the distinct feelings invoked by Spearhead and Counterattack missions in particular), but can be done better. During the "default" Advance missions in particular, it just doesn't really seem to matter how exactly you are advancing relative to your allies, so long as you just keep hitting the enemy tiles with every turn. The simplest addition is probably to provide a VP bonus for when you manage to cut off and encircle enemy tiles behind your advances, and to ensure that the "Target of Opportunity" tiles are never generated empty of opposition.
The most ambitious approach, though, is to have a much more dynamic frontline simulation. Basically, you will be shown the numerical strength of all the allied tiles on the frontline (and getting promoted may make that information more detailed), and based on that, you can (and should) plan as to whether that tile can deal with the enemies in front of them on their own, or whether they need you to clear away the opposition. Miscalculating this could mean that an enemy tile you behind as you chose to push forward, Spearhead-style, would suddenly send out troops to retake all the territory you had just captured, losing you those VP, (since by default, the captured tiles you just left would have strength of 1 at first, with more troops pulling in later in the day; similar calculations would apply to enemy advances in Counterattack missions.) Enemies retaking territory does automatically inform you of their strength on that tile (or at least, has a good chance to), and likewise, allied assaults failing to take over a tile can/will give you recon information.
I understand that implementing this is likely to be quite complex to say the least, but the pay-off will consist of much more engaging strategic gameplay turn-by-turn. Another way to do that could be to introduce limited fuel and MG ammo/smoke grenades to make resupplying more important (and to make it a distinct possibility that you have advanced too far, then and a sudden enemy counter-attack ends up striking either right where you are, or the tile directly behind you, cutting you off from Resupply until you manage to deal with them and get back to where the allied frontline is firmer.
Anyway, these are just my current thoughts on the game.