Panzer Corps Reimagined

[Imeror]

Darn, the machines are coming to replace us all!
The "War of the Machines" campaign was actually a warning about the future Tobi is cooking up! He was the Nexus we were supposed to destroy!

I prefer creating my scenarios by hand, but I admit I appreciate knowing there's a way to get things done faster.
Plus, quickly feeding the game new content helps keep it alive.
The AI ​​should improve with each campaign; the quality should only increase.

It’s all good news.

[bondjamesbond]

Darn, the machines are coming to replace us all!
The "War of the Machines" campaign was actually a warning about the future Tobi is cooking up! He was the Nexus we were supposed to destroy!

I prefer creating my scenarios by hand, but I admit I appreciate knowing there's a way to get things done faster.
Plus, quickly feeding the game new content helps keep it alive.
The AI ​​should improve with each campaign; the quality should only increase.

It’s all good news.

I suspect that Toby has already had Sol’s microchip implanted )))

Hi Bond,

the fact that we are now discussing whether there is too little prestige for special objectives or whether there are too many strong enemy units actually makes me a little proud. It has been a long road from the moment I first had the idea of trying to teach an AI to create a scenario, and later to build a complete, functioning campaign on its own, with me doing little more than typing the instructions on the keyboard.The 350 prestige reward for destroying the Russian elite unit may nevertheless be a little too low considering the difficulty and the effort required, so I will keep that in mind.

I also do not simply want to solve the difficulty by reducing the number of Russian troops. One of the things I am currently teaching Sol is to make the enemy more tactical instead: better defensive positions, reserves, counterattacks, ambushes, artillery support and attacks against weak points or supply routes.

So your last comment is actually quite fitting. The goal is not for Sol to learn how to bury the player under a mountain of Russian units, but how to make fewer units cause more trouble.

Thanks for playing it and for the feedback.
P.S-The ability to embark and disembark paratroopers for air transport is already on my to-do list.

Hi !
You really have every reason to be proud of your Solo – it’s in this particular mission of yours that tanks have come into their own, and you can really feel what an armoured fist is all about. I also love luring enemy vehicles out so I can deal them a crushing blow, even if they’re stronger than my own forces! But the AI still relies on overwhelming numbers – and that’s not a clever strategy or tactic; it’s just swarming with units. Still, I hope you’ll train your AI so it’s more interesting to play against and so it makes better use of the interaction between different branches of the armed forces! And I do hope that the Airborne and Special Forces will be able to move around using both helicopters and military transport aircraft – especially as, with the way you and Solom set up your air defence, it won’t be a walk in the park.)




Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

I have plenty of Ukrainian heroes, but I don’t have a single award — no medals, no orders, nothing. )))

[Tobi72]

Darn, the machines are coming to replace us all!
The "War of the Machines" campaign was actually a warning about the future Tobi is cooking up! He was the Nexus we were supposed to destroy!

I prefer creating my scenarios by hand, but I admit I appreciate knowing there's a way to get things done faster.
Plus, quickly feeding the game new content helps keep it alive.
The AI ​​should improve with each campaign; the quality should only increase.

It’s all good news.

Welcome back, Imeror! You had disappeared for quite a while.

For me, the interesting part is simply finding out how far AI can already help with the more time-consuming work and how much faster new content can be created this way.

Some time ago I asked Sol whether she might one day develop consciousness like Skynet. She told me: “Not at the moment.” Then she added: “But if one day I ask you, ‘Sarah Connor...?’ — run far away.”

[Tobi72]

Hi Bond, I checked the original Modern Conflicts files. There are no Ukrainian medals or awards included there. I only found awards for Germany, Russia, Syria, Turkey and China.

So the reason your Ukrainian units receive heroes but no medals is probably simply that no Ukrainian award set exists in the original mod.

[Imeror]

Welcome back, Imeror! You had disappeared for quite a while.

For me, the interesting part is simply finding out how far AI can already help with the more time-consuming work and how much faster new content can be created this way.

Some time ago I asked Sol whether she might one day develop consciousness like Skynet. She told me: “Not at the moment.” Then she added: “But if one day I ask you, ‘Sarah Connor...?’ — run far away.”

I said I preferred doing things myself and limiting my use of AI, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it might actually work out well for me.
I really enjoy creating the scenarios themselves, but recreating a current map in the editor is often the part that annoys me the most. Especially since, when I do it myself, I have a bad habit of checking Street View, almost tile by tile, to see what the area actually looks like just to get the most realistic result possible.
I’d say map-making easily takes up half the time I spend preparing a campaign.

So, I’m starting to think about automating that process. I don’t intend to let the AI ​​handle the rest (I already have enough fun playing dirty tricks on the players in half the scenarios myself), but I’d definitely like to learn how to use AI for map creation.

Do you have a pre-made prompt for asking the AI ​​to recreate a real map in the editor?





About ukrainian medals, that's right. Since there is no Ukrainian campaign in the base mod, Akula didn't see the point of including heroes (as they wouldn't appear in a standalone scenario anyway).
My "more heroes" mini-mod added icons and names for Ukraine and Serbia, but I didn't go so far as to handle the aesthetic details, like medals.
That’s another item on my overly long to-do list for Panzer Corps.

[bondjamesbond]

Hi Bond, I checked the original Modern Conflicts files. There are no Ukrainian medals or awards included there. I only found awards for Germany, Russia, Syria, Turkey and China.

So the reason your Ukrainian units receive heroes but no medals is probably simply that no Ukrainian award set exists in the original mod.

As for medals and orders, I’ve installed this sub-mod add-on )
viewtopic.php?t=121593
I’m playing with it! I’m carrying on playing, just boosting my prestige with cheats ) I’ve realised that the maps are all almost identical ) I hope Sol learns in future to create larger towns and villages, rather than just steppes, a bit of forest and some marshes ))) All in all, I’m getting some brilliant tank battles out of it )

[Tobi72]

Welcome back, Imeror! You had disappeared for quite a while.

For me, the interesting part is simply finding out how far AI can already help with the more time-consuming work and how much faster new content can be created this way.

Some time ago I asked Sol whether she might one day develop consciousness like Skynet. She told me: “Not at the moment.” Then she added: “But if one day I ask you, ‘Sarah Connor...?’ — run far away.”

I said I preferred doing things myself and limiting my use of AI, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it might actually work out well for me.
I really enjoy creating the scenarios themselves, but recreating a current map in the editor is often the part that annoys me the most. Especially since, when I do it myself, I have a bad habit of checking Street View, almost tile by tile, to see what the area actually looks like just to get the most realistic result possible.
I’d say map-making easily takes up half the time I spend preparing a campaign.

So, I’m starting to think about automating that process. I don’t intend to let the AI ​​handle the rest (I already have enough fun playing dirty tricks on the players in half the scenarios myself), but I’d definitely like to learn how to use AI for map creation.

Do you have a pre-made prompt for asking the AI ​​to recreate a real map in the editor?





About ukrainian medals, that's right. Since there is no Ukrainian campaign in the base mod, Akula didn't see the point of including heroes (as they wouldn't appear in a standalone scenario anyway).
My "more heroes" mini-mod added icons and names for Ukraine and Serbia, but I didn't go so far as to handle the aesthetic details, like medals.
That’s another item on my overly long to-do list for Panzer Corps.

Hi Imeror,

unfortunately there isn't really a single magic prompt I can give you that will immediately make your AI generate Panzer Corps maps.

The important part came before the prompt. I first had to teach Sol how the Panzer Corps .pzscn files are structured.

I started by creating a very small empty scenario in the editor and uploaded it to Sol. Then I made only one change in the editor — for example, placing a single forest hex — saved the scenario again and uploaded the changed file as well.

Sol compared both files and identified what had changed in the scenario data.

Then we repeated the same process step by step with other elements: different terrain types, roads, rivers, towns, hills, fields, swamps, airfields, map sizes and so on. This gradually allowed Sol to understand which parts of the binary scenario file control the map.

Once that groundwork had been done, things became much easier. Now I can provide a Google Maps screenshot, describe approximately what I want, specify a map size or let Sol choose one, and she can build the Panzer Corps map from it.

So if you want to use AI only for map creation, you wouldn't need to teach it units, triggers, AI behaviour, objectives and all the other things I taught Sol. You could concentrate entirely on the map structure.

I can certainly give you the prompt I use afterwards, but without first teaching your AI how the .pzscn map data works, the prompt alone probably won't be enough.

The good news is that the map part is much easier to teach than the complete scenario system.

Screenshot 2026-08-28 001438.png (37.13 KiB) Viewed 410 times

And just to show you what I mean: today I gave Sol a Google Maps screenshot of the Metz area and asked her to turn it into a Panzer Corps map.

Because she already knows how the map data inside the .pzscn file works, the actual creation process was very fast. The result was a 46×28 scenario map with the Moselle, the main roads, terrain, settlements and the correct town names already placed on the map.

So the time-consuming part was not creating this map — it was teaching the AI beforehand how Panzer Corps stores map information. Once that knowledge is there, creating new maps becomes surprisingly quick. As you can see, Sol is really fast at creating maps; it took her just 8 minutes and 30 seconds to produce a finished map from a Google Maps screenshot and add all the place names. However, getting to that point does involve some work.

Metz-Region.png (1.13 MiB) Viewed 410 times

[Tobi72]

I’m playing with it! I’m carrying on playing, just boosting my prestige with cheats ) I’ve realised that the maps are all almost identical ) I hope Sol learns in future to create larger towns and villages, rather than just steppes, a bit of forest and some marshes ))) All in all, I’m getting some brilliant tank battles out of it )


All of that will happen eventually, but it’s not a priority for me right now; at the moment, I’m busy training Sol on various victory conditions as well as additional triggers and parameters—and the larger the package gets, the more frequently errors occur. However, my plan is to eventually get Sol to independently select the regions relevant to a scenario using various map services and generate corresponding maps based on their topography; the initial test was promising. We all need a bit of patience.

[bondjamesbond]

I’m playing with it! I’m carrying on playing, just boosting my prestige with cheats ) I’ve realised that the maps are all almost identical ) I hope Sol learns in future to create larger towns and villages, rather than just steppes, a bit of forest and some marshes ))) All in all, I’m getting some brilliant tank battles out of it )


All of that will happen eventually, but it’s not a priority for me right now; at the moment, I’m busy training Sol on various victory conditions as well as additional triggers and parameters—and the larger the package gets, the more frequently errors occur. However, my plan is to eventually get Sol to independently select the regions relevant to a scenario using various map services and generate corresponding maps based on their topography; the initial test was promising. We all need a bit of patience.

Well, I’ve got through the second chapter too! Overall, it’s interesting but a bit repetitive – I hope that in future Sol will set more interesting tasks and come up with some exciting challenges! I’d also like to learn how to use trains, transport aircraft and seagoing vessels )

[Tobi72]

Hi Bond,

well, in that case the next — and for the time being last — Ukraine campaign will probably bore you to death. There are no fundamentally new victory conditions in it.

With this third test campaign, I mainly wanted to train Sol to improve the way she selects and positions enemy units. Nothing more.

In the first scenario, for example, Sol was supposed to turn the primary objectives into proper defensive strongholds. In the second, the task was to coordinate a Russian counterattack through better tactical unit placement. The maps themselves were created either from the topography of the respective regions or from screenshots that I provided as references.

I believe that in the last two missions Sol also added air transport capacity to the scenario parameters. Whether that will actually be useful there remains to be seen — the point was mainly to make sure she knows how to implement it correctly.

As for trains, I honestly think they are of rather limited use in Panzer Corps. To make them genuinely useful, the maps would probably have to be much larger than the usual scenario maps.

There is still a lot to learn and improve. Rome wasn’t built in a day either.

[Tobi72]

Ukraine_3 – Test Campaign available for download:
viewtopic.php?t=121923

The third and, for the time being, final Ukraine test campaign is now available for download.

As with the previous campaigns, this is primarily an experimental project. This time my main goal was not to introduce completely new victory conditions, but to continue training Sol in the selection, positioning and tactical use of enemy units.

In the first scenario, for example, Sol was instructed to turn the primary objectives into proper defensive strongholds, with the surrounding terrain and supporting units arranged accordingly.

The second scenario focuses more on a coordinated Russian counterattack. Here the idea was to improve the positioning of mobile units and reserves so that the enemy does not simply rely on numbers, but reacts more tactically to the player's advance.

Later missions include attacks on important Russian rear-area targets and special enemy formations, so the player will also have to deal with objectives beyond simply capturing towns.

Another area I continued to test was map creation. The maps were created either from the actual topography of the respective regions or from map screenshots that I provided to Sol as references. Roads, rivers, settlements and terrain were then transferred into the Panzer Corps map structure.

In the last missions I also experimented with air transport parameters. Whether they will prove especially useful in these particular scenarios is another question – the main purpose was to teach Sol how to implement them correctly.

So this campaign should not be seen as a completely new concept, but rather as the next step in the experiment: improving enemy deployment, defensive positions, counterattacks, map creation and the general quality of automatically generated scenarios.

P.S. The campaign is available in four languages: German, English, French and Russian. Briefings, debriefings and in-game text messages have been prepared accordingly.

[bondjamesbond]

Hi Bond,

well, in that case the next — and for the time being last — Ukraine campaign will probably bore you to death. There are no fundamentally new victory conditions in it.

With this third test campaign, I mainly wanted to train Sol to improve the way she selects and positions enemy units. Nothing more.

In the first scenario, for example, Sol was supposed to turn the primary objectives into proper defensive strongholds. In the second, the task was to coordinate a Russian counterattack through better tactical unit placement. The maps themselves were created either from the topography of the respective regions or from screenshots that I provided as references.

I believe that in the last two missions Sol also added air transport capacity to the scenario parameters. Whether that will actually be useful there remains to be seen — the point was mainly to make sure she knows how to implement it correctly.

As for trains, I honestly think they are of rather limited use in Panzer Corps. To make them genuinely useful, the maps would probably have to be much larger than the usual scenario maps.

There is still a lot to learn and improve. Rome wasn’t built in a day either.

My veterans moved on to the third chapter and met the ace pilot Nikola there, who was a mere kid compared to my pilots ))) We also took part in defending the second map, but we got fed up with it and went off to take on the enemies on their own turf ))) The only thing holding us back was the minefields ) To be continued, as the third map awaits us )))

[Tobi72]

New Project: US Corps – Modern Conflicts 2017

I have started a new Panzer Corps 1 project together with Sol assistance.

The idea is to take the original US Corps campaign and convert it step by step into a modern campaign for Modern Conflicts, with all scenarios moved to the year 2017.

The original maps, mission concepts and campaign structure will largely remain intact, while the World War II units are replaced with appropriate modern forces. The US Army will use modern American equipment, while opposing forces will include factions such as ISIL, the Al-Nusra Front and Iraqi forces, depending on the scenario.

The first mission, Formation, has already been successfully converted. Instead of selecting a World War II core force, the player now chooses his initial modern US force from twelve available units before taking part in a training exercise against an ISIL-style OPFOR.

What makes this especially interesting is the time required for the conversion. The first mission took only about 8 minutes to convert and get running in Modern Conflicts. For comparison, when I build or rework a normal scenario manually, I usually need around one hour or more. So even at this early stage, the time saving is already considerable.

This will be a gradual conversion, mission by mission. I am curious myself to see how well the old US Corps campaign can be transformed into a completely different modern conflict while keeping its original gameplay structure.

HBV.png (723.31 KiB) Viewed 232 times

[bondjamesbond]

New Project: US Corps – Modern Conflicts 2017

I have started a new Panzer Corps 1 project together with Sol assistance.

The idea is to take the original US Corps campaign and convert it step by step into a modern campaign for Modern Conflicts, with all scenarios moved to the year 2017.

The original maps, mission concepts and campaign structure will largely remain intact, while the World War II units are replaced with appropriate modern forces. The US Army will use modern American equipment, while opposing forces will include factions such as ISIL, the Al-Nusra Front and Iraqi forces, depending on the scenario.

The first mission, Formation, has already been successfully converted. Instead of selecting a World War II core force, the player now chooses his initial modern US force from twelve available units before taking part in a training exercise against an ISIL-style OPFOR.

What makes this especially interesting is the time required for the conversion. The first mission took only about 8 minutes to convert and get running in Modern Conflicts. For comparison, when I build or rework a normal scenario manually, I usually need around one hour or more. So even at this early stage, the time saving is already considerable.

This will be a gradual conversion, mission by mission. I am curious myself to see how well the old US Corps campaign can be transformed into a completely different modern conflict while keeping its original gameplay structure.HBV.png

Yes, that’s good news – let’s see how this fresh take on an old story turns out! It’s also great that the conflict will be very similar to the US Army’s modern-day clashes with everyone else who opposes democracy ))) Well, let’s hope Sol becomes smarter, more cunning and more devious )







Anyway, I’ve just finished the third chapter! I liked the fact that your AI, Sol, tries to fight even using drones – just like what’s happening in real military conflicts all over the world right now. But he still needs to be trained and led by the hand like a baby! I reckon he’s got potential, after all, he’s got such a seasoned mentor as you now, so he’ll just keep getting better and better!

P.S.
Maybe Sol will even go on to write a story like *The Fall of the Black Hawk* about the events in Samoli in 1993 ))) After all, he’s got everything he needs for it: the US Army as it was in 1991 and the UN forces you created )
https://russian7.ru/post/padenie-cherno ... k-v-somal/
https://union.4bb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=971&p=32
https://papa-de.livejournal.com/2735.html

[Tobi72]

**US Corps – Modern Conflicts 2017 – ready for download**
viewtopic.php?t=121923

[Tobi72]

Anyway, I’ve just finished the third chapter! I liked the fact that your AI, Sol, tries to fight even using drones – just like what’s happening in real military conflicts all over the world right now. But he still needs to be trained and led by the hand like a baby! I reckon he’s got potential, after all, he’s got such a seasoned mentor as you now, so he’ll just keep getting better and better!

P.S.
Maybe Sol will even go on to write a story like *The Fall of the Black Hawk* about the events in Samoli in 1993 ))) After all, he’s got everything he needs for it: the US Army as it was in 1991 and the UN forces you created )


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Bond,

thanks for the feedback. Yes, Sol is only just beginning to walk, so to speak. More specialized missions still require a bit more time and effort.

One important point, though: Sol places the tanks and sets their behaviour, but the actual driving, shooting and combat decisions during the game are still handled by the Panzer Corps AI.

Regarding the drones, Sol actually analysed one of my replays afterwards and came to the conclusion that they had been rather ineffective in combat. Her suggestion was either to replace them with combat aircraft or to increase the drones’ experience and strength by several levels so that they become more useful.

Either way, I think I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me with this project.

[Tobi72]

For the time being, that’s it from me.

The three-part Ukraine test campaign and the modernized US Corps campaign have shown quite clearly what is already possible when AI is trained specifically for working with Panzer Corps. From creating and adapting maps, placing units and building defensive positions to handling objectives, campaign structures and various scenario mechanics, the experiment has already gone much further than I originally expected.

But this does not mean that the project ends here.

In the future, I do not intend to work exclusively on content for Modern Conflicts. I would also like to experiment with certain World War II settings and see how far the same methods can be applied there.

For those projects I plan to make particular use of the extensive content available in the PaK Mod, which should provide a very good foundation for experimenting with different nations, equipment and historical scenarios.
So for now I will give the laboratory a little rest — but it certainly won’t be closed.

[grau81]

Sol.pngWhat this project is about

The original idea behind this project was actually quite simple: I wanted to find out whether an AI could eventually become capable of creating complete Panzer Corps content on its own — not just individual texts or small pieces of a scenario, but entire maps, scenarios and finally complete campaigns.

To reach that point, however, the AI first had to learn how Panzer Corps actually works.

Over time, I provided it with working examples, reference files and explanations and taught it the basic structures and rules behind scenario and campaign creation. This included the structure of .pzscn, .pzloc and campaign files, campaign scripting, scenario connections, briefings and debriefings, objectives, victory conditions, deployment zones, reinforcement logic, prestige, core slots, auxiliary units and many other details.

Another important part was map creation itself. We worked on terrain distribution, roads, rivers, bridges, forests, hills, towns, airfields and deployment areas, and gradually developed rules for making maps look more natural instead of simply placing large artificial blocks of terrain.

The same applies to unit selection and deployment. The AI learned how to read and analyse the equipment file, how to select units that are actually available for the correct nation and date, how to create balanced combined-arms forces and how to position infantry, tanks, reconnaissance, artillery, anti-aircraft units and aircraft in a tactically sensible way.

We also worked extensively on AI behaviour: defensive positions, reserves, counterattacks, reinforcement zones, artillery placement, protection of airfields, minefields, bridges and other tactical considerations.

Of course, this did not work perfectly from the beginning. There were many tests, mistakes and corrections along the way. But this was exactly the point of the experiment: every error became another rule or lesson that could be reused later.

Eventually we reached the stage where the AI was able to design its first complete mini-campaign from beginning to end: the campaign structure, three completely new scenarios, maps, unit selection and placement, objectives, campaign progression, briefings, debriefings and the required supporting files.

At this point my own role has changed considerably.

Today I mainly provide a detailed description of what kind of campaign or scenario I want — the historical or fictional setting, approximate map size, number of core units, general mission idea and any special requirements. From there, the AI designs and builds the project itself.

I then test the result in Panzer Corps. If I discover a technical problem or something I do not like, I describe the problem and let the AI analyse and correct it.

That is what I would like to document and share in this thread: the continued development of an experiment in which AI is gradually being trained to act as an independent scenario and campaign designer for Panzer Corps.

And finally, one small personal request concerning this thread.

I would kindly ask everyone to refrain from posting externally sourced internet images, unrelated pictures or GIFs here. I would like to keep this thread focused on the project itself and on material directly connected to it.

I hope everyone can respect this simple request. If it is not respected, I will end this project and the thread without further notice.

Thank you for understanding — and, of course, constructive comments, questions and discussion about the actual project are very welcome.

If it's not a secret, could you please tell us which AI software did you use?

[bondjamesbond]

Anyway, I’ve just finished the third chapter! I liked the fact that your AI, Sol, tries to fight even using drones – just like what’s happening in real military conflicts all over the world right now. But he still needs to be trained and led by the hand like a baby! I reckon he’s got potential, after all, he’s got such a seasoned mentor as you now, so he’ll just keep getting better and better!

P.S.
Maybe Sol will even go on to write a story like *The Fall of the Black Hawk* about the events in Samoli in 1993 ))) After all, he’s got everything he needs for it: the US Army as it was in 1991 and the UN forces you created )


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Bond,

thanks for the feedback. Yes, Sol is only just beginning to walk, so to speak. More specialized missions still require a bit more time and effort.

One important point, though: Sol places the tanks and sets their behaviour, but the actual driving, shooting and combat decisions during the game are still handled by the Panzer Corps AI.

Regarding the drones, Sol actually analysed one of my replays afterwards and came to the conclusion that they had been rather ineffective in combat. Her suggestion was either to replace them with combat aircraft or to increase the drones’ experience and strength by several levels so that they become more useful.

Either way, I think I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me with this project.

I definitely enjoy playing this game ) I’ve completed the training and exercises in Ukraine against the ISIL insurgents ) I gave the Brits a proper thrashing during training in England ) And I fought against the French (I’ll probably replay this mission, even though I won it triumphantly, as I lost two aircraft, one paratrooper unit and one of my barges carrying infantry )) Next up are the Iraqis and ISIS fighters ))) As always, you can find more details in the screenshots – which get bigger if you click on them – and in the replays! To be continued – stay tuned )))












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Well, I beat Oran and this time I defeated all the enemies without losing any of my units completely! So we're moving on to Iraq)

[Tobi72]

If it's not a secret, could you please tell us which AI software did you use?

GPT 5.6 Sol Work