That's exactly what I'm saying, more troops should be on foot coming from you deployment zone unless you use your transports to "ferry" them up a little faster, and even then there is great risk in this.
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Any division where the infantry had to walk from the spawn would be unplayable. Trust me. Now only 1/3 of the divisions are usable and the rest are a worse level of useless than airborne divisions in Red Dragon.
Secondly, as I already explained there's nothing unrealistic about leg divisions using divisional/corps/army transportation assets to reach the battlefield in the first place and then being left there.
Secondly, as I already explained there's nothing unrealistic about leg divisions using divisional/corps/army transportation assets to reach the battlefield in the first place and then being left there.
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There's nothing unrealistic about using divisional transportation assets, no, but there is a problem with realism when those assets just disappear and keep coming as you call in units. Simply give the battle group you are using a limited amount of transports and if you lose them during the battle you lose something of significance to the overall outcome of the battle. This fear of "cheese" tactics would simply be eliminated if you had a limit of transport "cards" to use. Let's say you get 8 of each jeeps and trucks to use, and as you call in infantry that use that card, it is removed until you return it to your deployment zone for it to go back to "base" (it drives off map for example like planes to refuel/rearm), they are going to have far more value to you and you will treat them with great respect and importance, even as far to dropping your troops off behind the front line and letting them walk into battle.
I get the historical argument, that trucks were not tactical combat units in WWII, and while I don't have enough historical knowledge to know if this is accurate, surely there must also have been cases where trucks were requisitioned to transport troops short distances.
Maybe a good compromise would be to allow the player to buy trucks with or without cloaking devices, paying extra for the ones that stick around after disembarking troops for the first time.
Maybe a good compromise would be to allow the player to buy trucks with or without cloaking devices, paying extra for the ones that stick around after disembarking troops for the first time.
Basically you want a feature in the game so bad that you are prepared to immediately make it useless just as long as it is in the game. No one will buy trucks. People buy things that go bang and explode enemy units.
Want proof? There were ATGM vehicles in Wargame. No one used them because it is cheaper to buy ATGM squad and stick it in cover instead of expensive vehicle that is easily spotted. Incidentally we were buying them in trucks if possible to reduce the cost and guess what we did with trucks them? No we didn't use them to relocate units across the battlefield. Because it makes more sense to buy new squad and push it to another part of the map, than bother with micro and play a subgame of transport tycoon.
If you don't want them used as suicide scouts, make them unable to influence or cross front line. If you don't want them in player control after deployment, either have ai drive them off map after deployment or give players incentive to return them.
We have said this over and over and over.
Trucks and low point transports were used as an exploitative recon/meat shield unit.
If trucks aren't going to disappear (which they will, for the best) then I think there should be some form of team-wide morale penalty for huge friendly vehicle losses in a short space of time to discourage exploitative mechanics like what was seen in the Wargame series.
But the trucks will disappear, which I think is the best, and most rational solution to this issue. I am quite willing to sacrifice some realism to prevent exploits.
The issue is more realistically, and more adequately, addressed in the ways outlined in my above post. Disappearing trucks is just lazy. There's no excuse.
Like we debunked your ideas over and over as well. Watch this I will debunk this new thing you just came up with. Trucks stopping at imaginary lines is just bad idea. What happens when those precious trucks get surrounded? Because this game does point out surrounding as one of more appealing features in gameplay. What will those surrounded trucks do? Pioneeresque wagon circle?
Keep them coming.
I think that many are not seeing this the right way. As stated earlier, a very easy way to prevent any form of exploitation is to give your battlegroup a limited amount of these transports that need to be returned to your deployment zone so they can drive off map like planes do to be used again, you could even give them the aspect of being cargo carriers that you use to rearm your troops. This would give them far more importance to your overall battle and a real asset that needs to be treated as so.
My biggest problem with this is that logistics are key to any battle no matter the scale of it and the option that was used in the stream (may not be the final option mind you) completely removes that from the game basically, which is very big concern to me. If we understand and agree that transport vehicles were not widespread in armies at the time and would be treated as a great asset, then why are they treated as an afterthought that every card in your battlegroup comes equipped with, it makes no sense.
My biggest problem with this is that logistics are key to any battle no matter the scale of it and the option that was used in the stream (may not be the final option mind you) completely removes that from the game basically, which is very big concern to me. If we understand and agree that transport vehicles were not widespread in armies at the time and would be treated as a great asset, then why are they treated as an afterthought that every card in your battlegroup comes equipped with, it makes no sense.
Your first suggestion leaves them open to exploit, since they will be deployed along the line as suicide recon. Second is needless work on the part of the development team, third is pointless micro which I'd happily dispense with.
The most rational solution is to have them removed from play when they are no longer of value to the meeting engagement, which is currently what happens.
I would only be happy if they stayed IF they could be used as transports again, but given that was so awkward to do and of such rare requirement in the wargame series I doubt it will be necessary here either.
Because learning from Act of Aggression spending half of your time to manage logistics and another half of your time keeping map control and keeping your units alive isn't fun at all.
Logistics would be a fair point if game would have extensive base building and bigger scope. Here it doesn't matter. Me as a semi fit person can run across the width of the map featured in the stream, meaning that if I can do it, people that were training to carry equipment can do it as well, rendering trucks useless.
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"I am able to see the logic behind the choices Eugen made, and accept that it's a compromise and it may or may not change in future builds of the game"
apparently means
"Laziness is okay".
Let me break it down to you, then.
- It's a compromise.
- In order to make all divisions playable and fun, and be able to participate in the fight equally in a reasonable amount of time, they've to have equal opportunities to transport. Mechanized forces of course get a (deserved) advantage in the sense that their transports double as a fighting vehicle, but that's about it. Motorised troops don't have this advantage, and neither should they. - It's an abstraction of divisional transport assets.
- For those of you that have an issue with everyone having access to transports, then you must have an issue with everyone having access to AT-guns, artillery, tanks, planes, etc. You've to forsake a portion of realism for balance. Eugen probably should've called the game "authentic" instead, but that wasn't viable for marketing purposes.
- It's authentic.
- In a game of this scale (platoon/company/battalion, depending on phase and lobby's income), you wouldn't see trucks driving around and moving single squads across the battlefield mid-engagement. The whole term "battlefield taxi" is a post-war invention. Majority of infantry in this time-period was non-motorised, and that is what this design choice reflects. Those that were motorised/mechanized, will have their transports as AFV's in the game, as it should be. - It's to reduce micro and/or pointless units.
- Think back on how many pointless transports you used to have lying around after any length of time in RD. - Transport trucks driving back and forth would add clutter.
- Not a lot, but still. However, the next point elaborates in what I mean; - It's almost entirely pointless.
- Much like with most graphical solutions in Wargame and SD, you'd wonder and marvel at the evacing trucks for maybe two or three games... then for the rest of the game's lifespan, actually play the game zoomed out as it is supposed to be played, and whether the trucks evac or disappear is irrelevant at that point. I think there's plenty of games in history where the emphasis was put on graphics and presentation, and not solid gameplay. This really isn't a core area or a "make or break" thing to focus on. - It's beta-footage, we may yet see them evac/be purchasable/any other solution. Or we may not.
- This whole thing is being blown way out of proportion and understandably so as there's little gameplay footage to dissect. As I said, it's basically a non-issue in terms of gameplay or the game's lifespan, and it's not even the final build of the game. I won't name-and-shame, but some of the posts in this thread come across trying to hold Eugen hostage, "make the trucks disappear or I won't give you my money". You've every right to not buy the game, of course, but if you want to be taken seriously, atleast try to word it constructively. Or, you know, focus on actual issues.
I'm willing to cut Eugen some slack here, and judge the game by it's gameplay, rather than how it looks.
Its not like you are handling an economy here, you are using transport vehicles to influence a battle.
It's not rocket science to figure out that you can just fast move the unit to a certain part of the map, unload your troops, and then fast move it back to your "safe/deployment" zone for it to go back to the home base for reuse.
Refer to the post above yours. Also, this game is clearly geared towards action and people getting their fix in terms of tactics. Not pushing trucks around.
Don't think you are understanding why grief with the current use of transports is. Not every unit should just get ferried to the front line and have a vehicle. Let's say you are saving up points for phase C and are able to call in 30 infantry units at once, there is no way that you should have access to that many transports at once. These are true assets to any battle and need to be treated as so as this was even more so during WWII. The current way feels way to fake and cheesy, a very over simplification of the game. Commanding a battle not only includes telling your troops where to be, but also how they get there.
Irrelevant since this game is about fighting not counting things. Imagine trucks being teleported to the FOB. How? Magic. Like uneducated people in warfare that are all of us magically get in command of divisions.
Pretty sure you need to count everything in the game; ammo, units deployed, units left to call in, etc. Making a game a little more complicated isn't a bad thing. If you are in command of everything else, you should have command of the transportation of your troops.
Except that would be a battalion-sized push, basically all the cards you would have in RD. There is also no way you can call in that many troops without your front collapsing. And you're not commanding an infantry battalion in-game. You're commanding a battlegroup that is roughly company sized, battalion at most if you count all units spread out over all three phases.
But let's assume it happens. You don't mention the issues that would bring with balance, as now you'd have to research how many transports which division had available, figure out how to portray that in-game. You'd also have to make it impossible for the enemy to destroy them or we'd get blind bombing runs and artillery strikes into the rear... and then you could well argue that it's unrealistic to have invincible trucks. And even if you do all that, now you've made a game where one division has a decisive advantage over another, as it can deploy reinforcements more quickly because its TO&E had more transport capacity available, while the other spends 10 minutes just walking his infantry across the map.
Not what I would call a fun and balanced match.
Maybe you don't have control over that? Fully motorised units were very uncommon WW2. Unless you're in command of an Armoured Division, those trucks are probably precious Corps, Army or even Army Group/Front-level assets that have been generously loaned to you for the purposes of transporting troops to the front and NOTHING ELSE. Once that task is complete Corps Headquarters would like them back, thank you very much.
The above goes double for the Germans, where Trucks were in perilously short supply throughout the war.
And I see no reason why they shouldn't just disappear. It's slightly immersion breaking, but so is having exploiters mass them and use them for suicide recon/meat shields.