Panzer Corps 2: War Stories - Fall of Poland | Announcement

[MarcoT.]

Panzer Corps 2: War Stories - Fall of Poland

Greetings once again to our awesome Panzer Corps 2 Community!

We have some extra special news to share with you today. Over the past several months, we’ve taken stock on the reception to the epic nine part Axis Operations series, and we are continually humbled and appreciative of the thousands of Panzer Corps 2 players who have embarked on so many campaigns in our game.

But I could interrupt very quickly with an amusing story; there was a very strange coincidence that happened while we were preparing to roll out this announcement. As we were preparing the game files for asset integration, this happened...

And I swear, we did definitely not individually count this batch of files for updating to exactly get that ‘1939’ number! Those with even passing familiarity with World War II will recognize that fateful number as being very special, but even more so beyond that and what makes this an extraordinary coincidence...

First and foremost, we have a meaty new campaign to reveal! As with the Axis Operations series, we’ve done our very best to make sure we’re really making campaigns our players are excited for, and we’re hoping you’ll love what we’ve cooked up this time too.

Without further ado, we are excited to announce....

Fall of Poland, a War Stories Campaign

Right away, we’ve got quite a few things to unpack here. Yes, we've seen Poland 1939 played from Germany’s perspective in Panzer General, Panzer General II, Panzer Corps, Panzer Corps Grand Campaign DLC, Panzer Corps 2, Panzer Corps 2 Axis Operations DLC, and in practically in every other Panzer General-type game you can name. But this time, Panzer Corps 2 is offering something different once again, and we’re offering up a campaign about the defense of Poland. This is Allied campaign content starting right at the very beginning of World War II, on that fateful day of September 1st, 1939!
We’ll reveal a lot more information about this new campaign in the days ahead, but for now you can check out this link for some more details and screenshots:
PANZER CORPS 2: WAR STORIES - FALL OF POLAND

War Story?
But wait, you might be asking, what is a ‘War Stories’ campaign? Don’t worry, we promise it’ll still have all of that satisfying strategy gameplay our players know and love from Panzer Corps 2. But as an extra twist, we’re hoping to inject some more humanity into that award-winning gameplay formula. We’ve changed the nature of the game’s characters, how they exist in a campaign, and also how information is presented during briefings and scenario events.

As with the Fall of Poland campaign itself, we’ll have more information for you coming in the days ahead, but to give a quick summary, we’re going to put the fate of any campaign characters more directly into your player hands. Their survival, or even their downfall, will stem directly from your gameplay. No more unalterable fates written in stone, this campaign will be your War Story to write based on how you play it out!
We know the first question on many people’s minds will be ‘when is this all coming’, and while we don’t want to make promises we can’t keep, we’re absolutely aiming for a Summer 2024 release. And speaking of which...

Panzer Corps Day
The Panzer Corps game series is approaching its 13th anniversary. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude for the incredible support you, our dedicated community and playerbase, have provided over the years. Without you, we couldn't have achieved this milestone. To celebrate, we're planning a special event and will share more details as soon as possible.

[Tassadar]

Absolute madlads, you made my day. The announcement looks very intriguing, and screens on the page show good level of research.

If regarding equipment, events, places or people you'd like to check anything in Polish book sources I'd be happy to assist.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

I have to say that I got hyped for this announcement. For the first time the minor factions have got a campaign of their own, and there could be more in the future for the other countries!

Now let's talk about a Finnish campaign that I believe a lot of guys here had been longing for for a long time...

[GUNDOBALDO08]

let me dream: this is not a standalone campaign, but it is the first part of the great allied campaign, so some units and heroes can be transferred to the next dlc, which will be... presumably the French campaign... tell me that I guessed!!!

[terminator]

It would now be possible to place images in pop-up messages ?

[wecker]

Well that sounds now interesting

So there is a difference in the concept between "Frontlines" and "War Stories".

A "minor" nation from the allied perspective, 14 scenarios, upgradable core units, new vehicles and dying heroes - that sounds very promising.

I`m an evil person - thank god no atomic bombs.

May this revive my interest in the game again.

Could this open theoretically the way for a real polish campaign from North Africa, Monte Cassino to Arnheim? Wow.

And may it open the way to similar campaigns of "small" nations like Finland, Hungary or Romania?

Still Italy from Abessinia - you got me dreaming again..

[Bee1976]

NICE!

/wishlisted of course!

Seems Kerensky is ruining the next office chair

Pls tell me that this wont be a single campaign, pls tell me its the start of a long campaign series.

[RVallant]

Excellent, always wanted a Poland Allied start.

Will these war stories be potentially linked with other stories in the future or will they be standalone in entirety?

[Tassadar]

I read some Steam comments on this DLC and it seems that renaming it from "The Fall of Poland" to something akin to "Polish Defensive War" might be a consideration worth having. Looks like a lot of users are getting a bit confused about which side is playable in this DLC. I know it's because reading and understanding text is an ability seemingly dying out in mankind, so a question then appears, if it's worth accounting for it in the naming...

Now let's talk about a Finnish campaign that I believe a lot of guys here had been longing for for a long time...

I'm quite sure adding Finnish units or a Finnish campaign is a running forum gag at this point, but a man can dream.

let me dream: this is not a standalone campaign, but it is the first part of the great allied campaign, so some units and heroes can be transferred to the next dlc, which will be... presumably the French campaign... tell me that I guessed!!!

Here's the thing, a multi-nation campaign works perfectly fine from a technical standpoint (the only issue it causes is if you try to remove a previous nation from the roster, as it then reassigns existing units of that nation to another) and there is technically no issue starting with Poles in 1939, adding the French and the British in 1940 and Americans in 1942, combining them all under a linked core. That said, since Panzer Corps 2: War Stories - Fall of Poland is said to have basically no auxiliary units and also any unit on the map is essentially a core one, this would lead to an overabundance of experienced units transferred to a 1940 campaign. There's also the fact that using Polish vehicles from 1939 in 1940 would make little sense. As such, I think that rather than doing so for such a linking of campaigns, at least between 1939 and 1940, and then also 1940 and 1941, a better way to do this would be to transfer just some of the unique heroes using a special script (provided the player manages to keep them alive). Also, you could still give the player the option to have a multi-nation core, but adjust unit availability to not allow for 1939 Polish units to appear in 1940. Furthermore the next DLC could either begin with a training mission where the player can deploy 3 units (1 air and 2 ground ones), to train them up to 1 star, or have 3 such units pre-deployed in the first mission. I doubt the scripts would easily allow to select what you can import, only real workaround I can think of is ending the last 1939 scenario with an objective asking you to evacuate those 3 units (I am using this arbitrary number since it seems the most logical to not interfere with composition of the core in 1940 and to slow down the power spike of the player's core compared to AO series), while the rest get destroyed and cannot be imported. That could lead to some tough choices, but still give that bit of satisfaction of getting these units still fight on in future campaigns and would be more elegant, since such units could transfer awards like Steamroller.

Of course, that is purely speculative assuming any such campaigns would be linked at all. I'd love to see such a feature, but for now we will need to patiently wait for rather announcements.

Bonus bit of observations - screenshot analysis for new Polish units:

TKS 20mm - from the unit management screen. These actually were used in combat, as a rearmament program started for obsolete tankettes to lengthen their usage due to lack of immediate options to procure better tanks. Just about 20-30% of vehicles were rearmed before the war started, but the 20mm autocannon proved effective against all German tanks of the period.

7TP mod 1939 - from the unit management screen. Possibly the best Vickers E based development variant (so in a way similar to Soviet T-26 for example). However this supposed "mod 1939" probably refers to 9TP - a upgrade variant with thicker armor and a smaller, yet equally powerful engine, designed and were to about to be scheduled for production, but never actually entered service in time.

TKD - from the 2nd screenshot. An attempt at getting a self-propelled gun on a tankette chassis. 4 were converted and used, but as the gun was poor and chassis not really suitable for such a vehicle, this never got more commonly produced. The four machines were probably used in combat, but interestingly, as these were test vehicles, their "armor" was made out of regular steel, not reinforced, so would have close to zero protection value.

Polish wz. 34 half-track - from the 2nd screenshot, top right corner. I assume this is the vehicle shown there, it was a half-track built based on a Polish license of a wheeled Fiat 621. A transport/towing vehicle/ambulance etc., multi-purpose vehicle similar to ones other nations of the time used that also were half-tracks.

C7P - from the announcement screenshot. It was a tracked artillery tractor for towing some of the bigger guns like the Škoda 220 mm howitzer, or being a recovery vehicle. Built on a largely similar chassis as that of the 7TP.

PZL.46 Sum (sheatfish) - from the announcement screenshot. Recon/bomber plane that was a replacement of the PZL.23 Karaś (crucian carp). It was ordered into production, but aside from 3 prototypes none were completed in time before the war. As proven by the Fairey Battle, this type of aircraft were outdated in WW2 overall, but it would still be a solid upgrade over the earlier model especially since it would be quite heavily armed for a plane of this type.

PZL.50 Jastrząb (hawk) - from the announcement screenshot. A fighter plane meant to replace the P.11. Similar to PZL.46 it was ordered into production, but aside from prototypes, none were fully completed. It was a standard type design for the era, but the A variant was plagued with an underpowered engine. There was work on a B version with a much more powerful power unit, but it was not decided as possible options were either not yet available, or were having development issues.

PZL.38 Wilk (wolf) - from the announcement screenshot. A heavy fighter/multirole plane, that was ultimately scrapped due to being too heavy and with too underpowered engines. It lead to development of PZL.48 Lampart (leopard) plane design, but that did not have its prototype fully completed.

As for German units, aside from the Panzer IID mentioned in the announcement post, I think I saw a Kfz. 13 and a Kfz. 14 recon car on the last Steam screen, nice to see some new options for Germans also, since as things like this pile up, they might nicely refresh the base campaign or Axis Operations series after a few years.

Now a question that comes into mind looking at all this news stuff - will some of the Polish units be properly renamed/updated as well? In the original units file there are some commonly repeated issues form most games referring to the planes as PZL P.xx, while the P. naming was reserved to fighter aircraft designed specifically by engineer Zygmunt Puławski. There are a few other bits like this also, so it would be a good chance to do some fixes given the chance.

[Patrick Ward]

7TP mod 1939 - from the unit management screen. Possibly the best Vickers E based development variant (so in a way similar to Soviet T-26 for example). However this supposed "mod 1939" probably refers to 9TP - a upgrade variant with thicker armor and a smaller, yet equally powerful engine, designed and were to about to be scheduled for production, but never actually entered service in time.

No, the name is correct.
It's the design proposed by the design team of the Państwowe Zakłady Inżynierii, not the one by the Technical Research Bureau of Armoured Forces team.

The former was a simpler, incremental modification of the 7TP that replaced the engine and much of the bolted armour with welded, and is the most likely to of comprised the 11 known to of been built.
The later design, which would likely of been called a 9TP as it had more significant changes, would of had a different engine and, less favourably, a slightly lower superstructure. This would of slowed development and production compared to a modified/reinforced 7TP.

Of course theres no paper trail so its mostly conjecture.

P

[Tassadar]

The former was a simpler, incremental modification of the 7TP that replaced the engine and much of the bolted armour with welded, and is the most likely to of comprised the 11 known to of been built.
The later design, which would likely of been called a 9TP as it had more significant changes, would of had a different engine and, less favourably, a slightly lower superstructure. This would of slowed development and production compared to a modified/reinforced 7TP.

Of course theres no paper trail so its mostly conjecture.

P

Thanks for the additional reasoning behind the naming. Yes, there were indeed two separate designs like that, but since all the literature I have never really referred to the BBTBP design as a separately named variant, I assumed the game was simply mentioning the 9TP one. All clear and it makes sense not to include the 9TP (as well as things like the 14TP tank or the PZL.48 plane), as this would be going into a bit too much science-fiction territory. With the few units shown here it seems much more grounded reality, as the prototypes and pre-production series could have been used in combat out of desperation or circumstances.

Also, the announcement mentions 21 new units - that's quite the amount, probably one of the largest drop of updates so far since SCW. Even including all the 8 Polish ones and 3 German ones I spotted on screens (plus probably the additional Polish cavalry unit), that still leaves 9 more that remain a mystery.

[adiekmann]

Until someone responds with an official answer, my gut tells me this is NOT a linked campaign. But I hope I'm wrong.

[DefiantXYX]

Until someone responds with an official answer, my gut tells me this is NOT a linked campaign. But I hope I'm wrong.

Yes, indeed that is the question. I wont buy some stand alone stuff, that is just not the reason I play this game.

Her' theing, a multi-nation campaign works perfectly fine from a technical standpoint (the only issue it causes is if you try to remove a previous nation from the roster, as it then reassigns existing units of that nation to another) and there is technically no issue starting with Poles in 1939, adding the French and the British in 1940 and Americans in 1942, combining them all under a linked core. That said, since Panzer Corps 2: War Stories - Fall of Poland is said to have basically no auxiliary units and also any unit on the map is essentially a core one, this would lead to an overabundance of experienced units transferred to a 1940 campaign. There's also the fact that using Polish vehicles from 1939 in 1940 would make little sense.

There are easy solutions to the problems.
You dont have to run polish vehicles on 1940. I guess in this campaign poland will lose the also war so your core units dont escape with their tanks, the soldiers just get shipped out. Like in dunkirchen. When you start 1940 you just put them in new equipment.
And an overabundance should not be the problem. First of all I hope the scenarios are hard and you wont start with 10 core units and finish the scenario with 10 core units. If not you could simply decide at the end of the campaign which units you want to rescue. The war is lot, you get the chance to escape with 5 of your best units. Problem solved.

Like I said, if its not linked I dont need it.

[RVallant]

Until someone responds with an official answer, my gut tells me this is NOT a linked campaign. But I hope I'm wrong.

Yes, indeed that is the question. I wont buy some stand alone stuff, that is just not the reason I play this game.

Her' theing, a multi-nation campaign works perfectly fine from a technical standpoint (the only issue it causes is if you try to remove a previous nation from the roster, as it then reassigns existing units of that nation to another) and there is technically no issue starting with Poles in 1939, adding the French and the British in 1940 and Americans in 1942, combining them all under a linked core. That said, since Panzer Corps 2: War Stories - Fall of Poland is said to have basically no auxiliary units and also any unit on the map is essentially a core one, this would lead to an overabundance of experienced units transferred to a 1940 campaign. There's also the fact that using Polish vehicles from 1939 in 1940 would make little sense.

There are easy solutions to the problems.
You dont have to run polish vehicles on 1940. I guess in this campaign poland will lose the also war so your core units dont escape with their tanks, the soldiers just get shipped out. Like in dunkirchen. When you start 1940 you just put them in new equipment.
And an overabundance should not be the problem. First of all I hope the scenarios are hard and you wont start with 10 core units and finish the scenario with 10 core units. If not you could simply decide at the end of the campaign which units you want to rescue. The war is lot, you get the chance to escape with 5 of your best units. Problem solved.

Like I said, if its not linked I dont need it.

The easy solution is to have Poland merge into the Allies tech tree anyway.

Polish Infantry - isn't an issue, just restrict it by number to the one with highest experience I guess and disband all others. Have it operate similar to the Azul units? Suggest it is this way because of the limited amount of Polish men that were able to escape, tbh.

Polish Tanks - just have them be Polish Free Corps (The Allies had the Polish Armoured Division created in 1942, under the polish I Corps, I know they basically defended the Scottish coast until Normandy, but even so, there's precedent.) Could even just disband the entire force and then re-introduce it in 1942 as a special heroic unit to represent this event?

They also were handy as a special unit of air perhaps too, I think they were active as Polish fliers etc, but this might be an argument to have them as Heroes rather than units.

Artillery/anti-tanks etc can simply be abandoned/disbanded and provided by the British/French, as they'd have the superior equipment and manpower (until Dunkirk anyway).

So, basically, they have methods to get around potential restrictions.

[wecker]

Hi all,

regarding the Fall of Poland I can see where it could lead to:

A lot of polish soldiers went into german or soviet captivity.

What is often forgotten: a part of the polish forces succeeded in retreating to Romania.

A part of these men captured by the Soviets formed the so called Anders -Army and went over Iran to the western Allies.

Some time later the Soviets organized for themselves the so called Berling Army.

Both were considerable forces - so that you as a player could eventually decide to join different sides - maybe a detour in a following War Story.

One could imagine...

[Tassadar]

The war is lot, you get the chance to escape with 5 of your best units. Problem solved.

What is often forgotten: a part of the polish forces succeeded in retreating to Romania.

A part of these men captured by the Soviets formed the so called Anders -Army and went over Iran to the western Allies.

There is one element that seems to suggest we might be getting some link, and that is the Cernauti 1939 scenario on the store page. Why have a scenario named after a town that was then part of Romania, if not to represent the evacuation to the Romanian Bridgehead? Sure, it could be narrative but as we saw the DLC news mention:

"All ‘briefing characters’ have been removed from your briefings! Briefings have been overhauled significantly, and all characters have been removed from them in Fall of Poland.
So where have the characters gone? They are now the most important auxiliaries on the battlefield. Through Panzer Corps 2’s powerful script system we’ve been able to place these characters in the heat of the conflict. But make no mistake, they are not immortal, but neither will their demise block your campaign progression.
It will be up to you to keep a cadre of Key Characters alive as war rages all around them and threatens to consume Poland whole. You will prevail, but at what cost, and who will be left standing with you at the end?"

It would seem strange to go through all the trouble to add a Cernauti scenario just to do a campaign debriefing. That would not make much sense, this can be just as easily done in the second last scenario debriefing instead. It does seem to be something set up to have some units and/or heroes possible to transfer. In fact the whole Key Characters concept screams like a feature designed for this exact purpose...

[adiekmann]

If this does become a linked campaign, I wonder if other occupied "free" forces will ultimately join your core, like the Free French forces that fought against Rommel in North Africa would be a prime example. But Free Polish troops also distinguished themselves in the Italy Campaign too. More could be made of it all if one's willing to stretch history a bit.

[DefiantXYX]

Why make it so complicated?
Its just a game and core units are just units. Who cares if some polish men escaped to romania or somewhere else? You just need a small storyline to let some of your units escape and if you upgrade polish tanks to french tanks, so be it.

[Tassadar]

Why make it so complicated?
Its just a game and core units are just units. Who cares if some polish men escaped to romania or somewhere else? You just need a small storyline to let some of your units escape and if you upgrade polish tanks to french tanks, so be it.

It's just forum theorycrafting for the sake of how the game and engine can be pushed, that's one reason. Each DLC is something different after the base game came out and a multi-nation core is something well within the capability of the series. Heck, PzC 1 did it with Arika Korps addon, just didn't utilize the potential of the concept.

Secondly, it fits into the whole "uniting against the Axis" idea. Having a core where you mostly play as the British and Americans for most of the campaign, but have that small support of Free French, Poles, perhaps even a Dutch of Belgian unit like the Brigade Piron add a bit of flavor for history nerds. Added bonus if you're from one of those countries that it gives you a small nod from the devs, always something that can be appreciated. Similarly in how a purely Commonwealth campaign would benefit from having Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders or India troops, even if just as occasional bonus infantry units.

Thirdly, it allows to clean up and organize the Units file, which always has entries that could be refreshed, fixed and expanded upon, being just for the sake of single player, but also for expanding multiplayer factions, if anyone is into that.

And finally, it's because a long campaign that is connected and meaningful works better than just separate smaller campaigns and has more potential to draw people in (while being balanced to be able to play as standalone, which I guess would be a good marketing reason to not name DLC after specific years, even if they are linked). Most players grow to appreciate the units they use. If given the chance, they customize camouflage, assign heroes, add custom names etc. So transferring if not a unit, then at least a hero and making it a flavorful process is something that speaks to the player base.

Granted, all of the above is with the note that I agree with you to not make the process complicated. If this would require too much work or trouble, scrap the idea, stick to a good campaign itself as efforts are better put elsewhere. It's just that there are already ways to do some of this with minimal coding and if time was given to a new hero management and survival system, it sparks interest about what it can do.

[RVallant]

They can fit as 'gift units', or even just heroes anyway.

Mind you, Allied Corps games tend to really neglect the availability of the ANZAC and Indian forces, which is a massive shame.