DLC 39 - Start of World War 2 IN Europe is not mentioned at all.

[RobotGeneral]

While playing DLC 39 I found something extremely jarring, there is no mention that the war has started after the invasion of Poland.

At the end of Checkslovakia, your briefing mentions that you are going to post to the remilitarising of the Rhineland, and then suddenly the next mission starts with the Saar offensive. I got so confused that I thought we were operating in Rhineland for the first mission. It was one of the historical scenarios (like the Finland ones later in the DLC) where fighting with the French happened during the remilitarisation!

I think it would have been made a point either with the objective complete text in Checkslovakia or even better with your officer mentioning it at the start of the very first Saar mission somehow.

Weird that the start of the war, a momentous event, is not mentioned at all!

[milliethedog]

Hi, if i remember right this was brought up either at the DLC beta testing or before. The reason was not to ignore the Polish fight but to give the player a different set of battles with the French rather than just repeat the same battles that were in the Grand series.
Martin

[VirgilInTheSKY]

The Saar offensive was brought in exactly because everyone talks about Poland when it comes to the beginning of WW2 and ignores the battles on western front.

[RobotGeneral]

I dont think people are reading my post slow enough or perhaps I did a bad job explaining what I meant.

I love the fact that PC2 shows more "obscure" battles like Saar or a whole campaign (!) for the SCW.


But there is no story segue from Checkslovakia's annexation mission to full-on World War, which we like to or not, properly started when Poland was invaded, so at least a mention is unavoidable.

Heck I would be happy if at the "minimum" the Nazi officer in the first Saar battle briefing just said something like:

"Mon General! The British and the French have declared war on us while our comrades are fighting in Poland! We will be deployed in the Saar region to slow down the French invasion until our forces in the east complete their objectives!".

Since they are trying to create in-game storylines with continuity between DLCs and such I found it extremely weird there is no mention of the new situation your characters find themselves into.

[milliethedog]

Hi, i believe you are overthinking this game, You are there to fight (or not fight in a few cases) the battles put in front of you. It was never planned to be a running commentary on WWII. There is no mention of Pearl Harbour, Burma or the whole Pacific war until you go into the fictional What if 1945 and 1946. There is no Africa Corps, No march up Italy, no operation torch, all of which i would like to play. This is only a game, a great one in my mind, but still only a game
Martin

[DefiantXYX]

Yeah, its just a game, not a history book.
Why should Wagner explain his generals think like that?

But I agree with you in that point, if someone is playing this game and doesnt know anything about ww2 he might be confused. My main point of criticism is the lack of maps before the battles. And sometimes some explanations between the missions. Like in 1944/1945 ahistoric, since the player cant know thats going on there is more explanation and sometimes even maps

[Retributarr]

Yeah, its just a game, not a history book.
Why should Wagner explain his generals think like that?

But I agree with you in that point, if someone is playing this game and doesnt know anything about ww2 he might be confused. My main point of criticism is the lack of maps before the battles. And sometimes some explanations between the missions. Like in 1944/1945 ahistoric, since the player cant know thats going on there is more explanation and sometimes even maps

I AGREE!: What is "Missing!!!"... is the implementation of the... "7-P's"...
P: Precise!
P: Perfect!
P: Planning!
P: Prevents!
P: Piss!
P: Poor!
P: Performance!

[RobotGeneral]

This is only a game, a great one in my mind, but still only a game

I am sorry Martin but the response "It's just a game" is pretty wide and particularly meaningless in the discussion I tried to open, hell you can use it in any critique and commentary to offhandedly shut them down, without engaging in any constructive dialog.

I never said this is not a game. Or that it is not a great one.

That doesn't mean it's not without faults or weaknesses, and debating about them is free of charge.

>

But I agree with you in that point, if someone is playing this game and doesnt know anything about ww2 he might be confused. My main point of criticism is the lack of maps before the battles. And sometimes some explanations between the missions. Like in 1944/1945 ahistoric, since the player cant know thats going on there is more explanation and sometimes even maps

I consider myself a decently learned layman in WW2 history and I still got confused a lot for the entire first Saar mission, particularly since there are non-historical missions in the game, so not recognizing where I was based on real history did not ring an alert in my brain to go back and check the briefings more closely.

The second part of your comment hits the nail on the head, they already added various and great in-game ways to explain stuff to the player ( which is not a real-life general, so indulging into a bit of "As You Know" is excused or even welcome), so not using them to put things in an understandable context is so baffling that caused me to come here and discuss it.

They spend time writing a multi-paragraph letter from the Spanish "Captain", but not adding at least 1-2 sentences about 2 Generals discussing the changed European geopolitical situation?

[Tassadar]

The second part of your comment hits the nail on the head, they already added various and great in-game ways to explain stuff to the player ( which is not a real-life general, so indulging into a bit of "As You Know" is excused or even welcome), so not using them to put things in an understandable context is so baffling that caused me to come here and discuss it.

They spend time writing a multi-paragraph letter from the Spanish "Captain", but not adding at least 1-2 sentences about 2 Generals discussing the changed European geopolitical situation?

I'll play devil's advocate here and note that AO 1939 was one of the first AO DLC released, which contrary to SCW, did not focus on just one region. I'd say this just got slipped under the radar in the briefing narratives as the focus was on the novelty of the Saar Offensive. Maps in general were underused, only then getting more common due to player feedback. Compare how War Stories: Fall of Poland uses the maps commonly and also provides additional exposition in them. Of course I need to then address the elephant in the room which is the missing briefings there, but the point is, that the game evolves when it comes to approach towards narratives. It's sometimes a hit, sometimes a miss, but the older DLC can only have it addressed by a major update, which would be some kind of "definitive" edition, otherwise it is just too costly and time consuming to rework. One thing that could and should be a lesson learned, is that both the briefings/debriefings as well as maps with context plus overview work in parallel. One does not really feel complete without the other, so I just hope they will be always used like this, without trying to revolutionize the basic set-up. It should make the experience complete both on a historical and storytelling level.

[RobotGeneral]

The second part of your comment hits the nail on the head, they already added various and great in-game ways to explain stuff to the player ( which is not a real-life general, so indulging into a bit of "As You Know" is excused or even welcome), so not using them to put things in an understandable context is so baffling that caused me to come here and discuss it.

They spend time writing a multi-paragraph letter from the Spanish "Captain", but not adding at least 1-2 sentences about 2 Generals discussing the changed European geopolitical situation?

I'll play devil's advocate here and note that AO 1939 was one of the first AO DLC released, which contrary to SCW, did not focus on just one region. I'd say this just got slipped under the radar in the briefing narratives as the focus was on the novelty of the Saar Offensive. Maps in general were underused, only then getting more common due to player feedback. Compare how War Stories: Fall of Poland uses the maps commonly and also provides additional exposition in them. Of course I need to then address the elephant in the room which is the missing briefings there, but the point is, that the game evolves when it comes to approach towards narratives. It's sometimes a hit, sometimes a miss, but the older DLC can only have it addressed by a major update, which would be some kind of "definitive" edition, otherwise it is just too costly and time consuming to rework. One thing that could and should be a lesson learned, is that both the briefings/debriefings as well as maps with context plus overview work in parallel. One does not really feel complete without the other, so I just hope they will be always used like this, without trying to revolutionize the basic set-up. It should make the experience complete both on a historical and storytelling level.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Of course not being easy to change at this point doesn't mean we shouldn't point it out, either for the Definite edition or for the following DLC/PC3 etc.

However the briefing text should be (relatively) easy to change, and I am not sure if this didn't happen before. "Capitana" Vargas is mentioned in this DLC, yet her character appears in SCW for the first time but the DLC got released in th opposite way. Was those mentions there from the beginning?

[Tassadar]

"Capitana" Vargas is mentioned in this DLC, yet her character appears in SCW for the first time but the DLC got released in th opposite way. Was those mentions there from the beginning?

SCW was the first Axis Operations DLC. All OK here, there is no mix-up in the narrative. I can only suspect that the release dates are wrong on some platform and that might have been misleading?

[RobotGeneral]

"Capitana" Vargas is mentioned in this DLC, yet her character appears in SCW for the first time but the DLC got released in th opposite way. Was those mentions there from the beginning?

SCW was the first Axis Operations DLC. All OK here, there is no mix-up in the narrative. I can only suspect that the release dates are wrong on some platform and that might have been misleading?

No, my mistake I got confused with your previous post a bit, no worries!