why imo Penal are flawed by design.

The design is similar, but all the values like pop, cost and arrival time are smaller just becouse they are less effective in each role, especially the AT one.

Summed it up nicely.


However let's not ignore the fact that they arrive quite earlier, are cheaper, have a longer early staying potential and their AI wasn't touched that much.

Invissed two posts. It's a game, play nicely please.

I think the main reason why Penals are so difficult to balance/design properly comes down to trying to balance an "Elite" squad than can potentially come in the first 30 seconds due to non-linear teching.

I think the main reason why Penals are so difficult to balance/design properly comes down to trying to balance an "Elite" squad than can potentially come in the first 30 seconds due to non-linear teching.

Yeah but why give this powerful unit so much utility? They can now counter garrisons,light vehicles and infantry. They are no brainers...

Why do penals need this? Aren't they supposed to be an AI unit? Cons have at nades and t2 has an at gun. Now t1 can counter light vehicles too..

I think the main reason why Penals are so difficult to balance/design properly comes down to trying to balance an "Elite" squad than can potentially come in the first 30 seconds due to non-linear teching.

That is why I have suggested to turn them into cheap reverse (offensive instead of defensive) osttruppen infantry.

If ones chooses the path of making powerful they need to be delayed like PGs. Maybe requiring a second building.

Shocks and Guards where a disaster when moved to Cp 1.

Dirlewanger's squad is the first that comes to my mind. One could argue they were "cannon fodder" as they lost huge amounts of men in some operations, but on the other hand they were always well equipped and were deployed in crucial places during operations they took part in. Command always knew that whatever the mission is, this unit is always going to success.

The only 2 instances of penal units I've seen I think are in Enemy at the Gates and Generation War, and neither were regarded as "Elite" units, better equipped than their ordinary counterparts.

Yeah but why give this powerful unit so much utility? They can now counter garrisons,light vehicles and infantry. They are no brainers...

Why do penals need this? Aren't they supposed to be an AI unit? Cons have at nades and t2 has an at gun. Now t1 can counter light vehicles too..

Penals are no where near as good in as you make them out to be in theory. Penals will get hard countered by Panzer Grenadiers, which also now vet up easier, and HMG teams since Penals have no longer have oorah.

If you are finding Penals are overpowered in your WBP games, please post us the replays so I can take a look.

The only 2 instances of penal units I've seen I think are in Enemy at the Gates and Generation War, and neither were regarded as "Elite" units, better equipped than their ordinary counterparts.

Haven't seen second one (Generation War, but i will do it), but "Enemy at the Gates" is not the best choice to prove your point of view. Much better to read Grossman's "Life and Fate".
P.S. Ooops, offtop. I am sorry

The only 2 instances of penal units I've seen I think are in Enemy at the Gates and Generation War, and neither were regarded as "Elite" units, better equipped than their ordinary counterparts.

It is not the elite in the sense of guards when you have some kind of traditions and so on. It is the elite in the sense that your enemies fear you and your commander know that you will do whatever they tell you and if you die you will take enemy soldiers with you. But in the end it tips the ballance of battle in the same way.

As for the movies you are talking about, these are so propaganda packed I don't think you can take any useful historical information out of them. One of them (Generation War) even coused protests in my country when it got transmited on tv for the first time just becouse of how nonsensical it was historic wise.

1% of all the soldiers of the USSR and Germany were penal. But stupid stereotypes and propoganda. I always ask myself: where the German penal? Why show only USSR penal battalions? German penal were even in worse conditions than the Soviet. The Soviet penal have chance after four months. German penal be judged on the year.

Can you show me an example of penal units being regarded as "elite"?

Every instance of a penal unit I've read, they have always been treated as cannon fodder and nothing more, but never "elite".

Plus, why would the "Elite" redeem themselves with either their enemy's blood or THEIR OWN? Isn't that wasting the potential of an "Elite" unit?

The only 2 instances of penal units I've seen I think are in Enemy at the Gates and Generation War, and neither were regarded as "Elite" units, better equipped than their ordinary counterparts.

You'll better stop. You are embarasing yourself.

Penals, as their names suggest, if you ask me, should be cheap throwaway infantry that could be spammed a lot.

I mean, why in the hell would you give better weapons to infantry who are serving in labor units basically because of crimes they've committed than to give those same better weapons to the Conscripts or Streltsy or whatever?

This!
100 x this!

While conscripts were given crap gear, it never ceases to baffle me how a unit of prisoners is given access to better equipment than the rest.

Guards division wasn't equipped better than a normal division, they just got twice soldier's pay and "honorablue" signs. Best equipment had Shock's division - they were "designed" to break enemy's lines.

Penals batalions worked such on the same way as in wehrmacht - propably the same role as normal infantry division but with iron discipline. Not sure, need to check up that one

The only 2 instances of penal units I've seen I think are in Enemy at the Gates and Generation War, and neither were regarded as "Elite" units, better equipped than their ordinary counterparts.

Copypaste of an older post:

Show Spoiler
TL;DR: you have 2 versions of Penal troops. Officers-commissars on one side (battalion), NCO-common soldiers-prisoners (companies) on the other.

I think the main reason why Penals are so difficult to balance/design properly comes down to trying to balance an "Elite" squad than can potentially come in the first 30 seconds due to non-linear teching.

We can always increase build/reinforce time.
The problem IMO is having a sustainable army composed of 3+ Penals.

That is why I have suggested to turn them into cheap reverse (offensive instead of defensive) osttruppen infantry.
If ones chooses the path of making powerful they need to be delayed like PGs. Maybe requiring a second building.
Shocks and Guards where a disaster when moved to Cp 1.

What are conscripts then?
Flamer/Satchel charges could be gated behind both HQ upgrades respectively. If Penals takes longer to build n reinforce, then getting a slightly stronger unit concedes map presence early on and allows for more of 2v1 or "1.5v1" situations.

What are conscripts then?
Flamer/Satchel charges could be gated behind both HQ upgrades respectively. If Penals takes longer to build n reinforce, then getting a slightly stronger unit concedes map presence early on and allows for more of 2v1 or "1.5v1" situations.

Conscripts would be the defensive infantry. (I can give you a link to the complete suggestion)

The problem with reinforcement time is that merge simply bypasses that issue and any cost issue.

Early Penal access means that they can be the core infantry which is bad for a semi elite infantry...the only way to model Penal after Pg effectively is if they arrive at around the same time.That can only work either by delaying Penal or by moving Pgs are also in T1.

Haven't seen second one (Generation War, but i will do it), but "Enemy at the Gates" is not the best choice to prove your point of view. Much better to read Grossman's "Life and Fate".
P.S. Ooops, offtop. I am sorry

Well it's the only instances of Penal units I've seen, sorry if I can't provide any more or better examples.

But yeah, you should check out Generation War, it's one of the few pieces of media that portray the war from the German side, albeit of course not down to the nail realistic but still, better than most Hollywood bullshit, apart from Saving Private Ryan, BoB, and Fury in terms of realistic combat portrayal.

And yes I know I know, but both SPR and Fury are still realistic in their combat sense, if not based on actual real war stories.

It is not the elite in the sense of guards when you have some kind of traditions and so on. It is the elite in the sense that your enemies fear you and your commander know that you will do whatever they tell you and if you die you will take enemy soldiers with you. But in the end it tips the ballance of battle in the same way.

As for the movies you are talking about, these are so propaganda packed I don't think you can take any useful historical information out of them. One of them (Generation War) even coused protests in my country when it got transmited on tv for the first time just becouse of how nonsensical it was historic wise.

To be honest I'd still wouldn't even wink at unarmed or badly armed and running low on ammo guys with soft caps running towards me, ex commissars or not.

No idea what you're talking about Generation War, the series was brilliant if you ask me, but maybe because of how Poland was treated by both sides during the war, you're people don't like it so much.

You'll better stop. You are embarasing yourself.

Go to sleep Private Memengton, it's past your bed time.

Copypaste of an older post:

Show Spoiler

TL;DR: you have 2 versions of Penal troops. Officers-commissars on one side (battalion), NCO-common soldiers-prisoners (companies) on the other.


We can always increase build/reinforce time.
The problem IMO is having a sustainable army composed of 3+ Penals.



What are conscripts then?
Flamer/Satchel charges could be gated behind both HQ upgrades respectively. If Penals takes longer to build n reinforce, then getting a slightly stronger unit concedes map presence early on and allows for more of 2v1 or "1.5v1" situations.

Doesn't really make much of a difference to me, many people that are currently serving can clarify on the NCOs being the leadership hand in the entire chain of command, down on the field they're the guys that do the heavy fighting alongside their men and commanding while any higher ranking officer can choose to be far out back.

So again, even if the "Penal Battalions" were made up out of ex commissars and/or officers I still wouldn't see the difference, they're still soft cap guys running towards you with barely any rifles or ammo.

But an upgrade that locks out close quarter assault packages sounds good to me, sort of.

Conscripts would be the defensive infantry. (I can give you a link to the complete suggestion)
The problem with reinforcement time is that merge simply bypasses that issue and any cost issue.
Early Penal access means that they can be the core infantry which is bad for a semi elite infantry...the only way to model Penal after Pg effectively is if they arrive at around the same time.That can only work either by delaying Penal or by moving Pgs are also in T1.

1- Then instead of having to adjust a single unit, now you are messing with 2 units, changing their role, performance, balance against other units, etc. AND i'ts out of scope

2- Merge isn't equal to reinforce as you still have a squad which is gonna be low on models, conscript models are still gonna have RA, micro and cost opportunity. You won't always have conscripts along Penals. Every time merge has been mentioned as a balance issue, reality show us that it didn't made balance concern.

3- WTF has PG to do with Penals? At the moment they are more of Assault grens lite than PG. Increase build time/reinforce time to.
If wilds ideas have to be taken into account, you could also try making them a 5 model squad instead of 6.

Doesn't really make much of a difference to me, many people that are currently serving can clarify on the NCOs being the leadership hand in the entire chain of command, down on the field they're the guys that do the heavy fighting alongside their men and commanding while any higher ranking officer can choose to be far out back.

So again, even if the "Penal Battalions" were made up out of ex commissars and/or officers I still wouldn't see the difference, they're still soft cap guys running towards you with barely any rifles or ammo.

But an upgrade that locks out close quarter assault packages sounds good to me, sort of.

Well, at least that discard the part of "they are civilians who barely know how to use a rifle".
Also the human wave attack style without munition/rifles was either as an attempt to break the german encirclement early on during the war when supply lines broke and divisions were scattered (so this is a general thing not Penal) or the example provided on the quote of workers and civilians "conscripted" into fighting on Stalingrad.

Assuming survival, someone thus sentenced could be restored to good standing, and even if killed, dying at the front instead of in the gulag or against a wall at least cleared a soldier’s record, allowing their family to collect their pension as due any other fallen soldier32 . This was an improvement, however slight, on the situation under Order 270 from 1941, which not only offered little alternative to a death sentence but also punished the families of the “traitors”33 .
Thus, there was an amount of incentive for soldiers serving to do well, and in the case of the shtrafbat, made up of officers, some even took a ‘perverse pride’ in their role, since they were under direction of the front level command, and generally used for missions with the greatest risk-reward34 . Especially later in the war, this became more true, as the strength of the penal units increased with augmentation to include better anti-tank capabilities and reconnaissance platoons35

Did they have higher rate of mortality than other divisions? Yes.
Were they unarmed? No more than any other normal infantry division. If you took the time to read the quote, you'll realise that the case of shortage of weapon/munition was: a general army issue during Operation Barbarrosa, a single Guard division during Stalingrad or the levies/civilians.

Guards division wasn't equipped better than a normal division, they just got twice soldier's pay and "honorablue" signs. Best equipment had Shock's division - they were "designed" to break enemy's lines.

Penals batalions worked such on the same way as in wehrmacht - propably the same role as normal infantry division but with iron discipline. Not sure, need to check up that one

Guards Rifle Division - had more SVT than usual Infantry Division. Shock Division had double number of artillery. And yes - the Penalty division was armed like Rifle Division.

1- Then instead of having to adjust a single unit, now you are messing with 2 units, changing their role, performance, balance against other units, etc. AND i'ts out of scope

2- Merge isn't equal to reinforce as you still have a squad which is gonna be low on models, conscript models are still gonna have RA, micro and cost opportunity. You won't always have conscripts along Penals. Every time merge has been mentioned as a balance issue, reality show us that it didn't made balance concern.

3- WTF has PG to do with Penals? At the moment they are more of Assault grens lite than PG. Increase build time/reinforce time to.
If wilds ideas have to be taken into account, you could also try making them a 5 model squad instead of 6.

1) If one wants both units to be used they have to adjust both, else only one of the will be built. Each units need to have something to bring to table, a different role or utility and ideally they perform better together. So a defensive conscripts and an offensive Penal seems to be a change to right direction.

2) The target size of conscripts 1.087 while the difference in cost and time is around 25% merge works. I always leave conscript with 2-1 models in base and use it to reinforce Penal when they retreat.

3) Penal according to the balancing team are modeled after Pg. They where also mirror units in the early stage of the game. They are both semi elite stock infantry.

Penal are nothing like assault Grenadiers, assault grenadier need to close to gain an advantage Penal will beat grenadier and VG at long and at any range. And that is one of their major issue, contrary to other core infantry they are not balanced in respect to enemy infantry as it was done in September 9th, 2014 patch for every core infantry...

The only 2 instances of penal units I've seen I think are in Enemy at the Gates and Generation War, and neither were regarded as "Elite" units, better equipped than their ordinary counterparts.

Enemy at the Gates was a fictional movie, not a factual documentary. Everything you saw there was made up with the exception of a few names.

Do you really feel that a movie is basis for factual debate? You're like the girl who said "I watched a documentary about Titanic but they got it all wrong, they didn't even mention Rose and Jack!"