Upcoming Feature:
Battle Generator — Create Your Own Battles in Classic General
One of the largest additions to Classic General is the Battle Generator.
Instead of replaying only the stock campaigns and custom scenarios, the Battle Generator allows you to create a completely new battlefield from scratch and immediately fight it.
You choose the basic battle setup, and the game generates the map, objectives, deployment zones, forces, terrain, weather region and mission conditions.
The system is designed to create battles that still feel like Panzer General, rather than a generic random skirmish mode.
Battle setup
The Battle Generator allows you to define:
map size
date
location / theater
nations for both sides
force size
deployment style
number of airfields
scenario length from 1 to 99 turns
equipment set
victory condition for Side A
victory condition for Side B
Both sides can have completely different missions.
For example:
Side A: Breakthrough
Side B: Capture the Flag
Or:
Side A: Majority Control
Side B: Hold the Line
This means generated battles do not have to use the traditional attacker-versus-defender victory structure.
Victory conditions
The Battle Generator currently supports eight victory-condition types:
Turn Based
All or Nothing
Majority Control
Key Objective
Breakthrough
Hold the Line
Objective Count
Capture the Flag
Each condition has its own parameters.
For example, a Breakthrough mission can require a certain number of ground units to reach a marked exit zone before a deadline, while Hold the Line can require the defender to retain a specific number of objectives.
The opposing AI also understands these mission types. It does not simply attack the nearest objective regardless of its assigned task.
Location and terrain
Generated maps use the same broad weather regions as Panzer General:
Africa / Desert
Southern Europe
Northern Europe
Eastern Europe
The selected location affects both weather and terrain generation.
An African battlefield will be dominated by desert, rough desert and other arid terrain, while European maps can contain forests, mountains, swamps, farmland and Bocage.
Recent development has also expanded the desert terrain pool with:
Oasis terrain
Salt Lakes and Salt Pans
additional Rough Desert variations
Roads, rivers and bridges
The map generator does more than scatter random terrain.
Roads, rivers and bridges are generated as connected systems.
Where roads approach a suitable river crossing from both banks, the generator prefers to create a proper bridge rather than leaving two roads ending awkwardly at the river.
River Crossing battles can also generate battlefield layouts specifically suited to crossing operations.
Generated armies
Both sides receive generated armies based on:
nationality
scenario date
available equipment
Prestige
selected equipment database
terrain and battlefield requirements
The generator uses the same equipment and transport rules as the rest of Classic General.
Eligible units can receive appropriate organic ground transport, while units such as cavalry remain untransported. Ground transports are free and automatically assigned when the armies are generated.
Paratroopers are also handled specially and may be staged near friendly airfields.
Equipment sets
Generated battles are not restricted to one equipment database.
Different equipment profiles can be selected, including several of the equipment sets already integrated into Classic General.
This means a generated battle can use the normal unified Classic General equipment or one of the supported campaign-specific equipment profiles.
The selected equipment set remains isolated from the global database, so campaign-specific equipment does not overwrite or contaminate the main equipment file.
Deployment
Generated forces are deployed according to the battlefield situation.
The generator supports different deployment styles, including more concentrated or more dispersed army layouts.
Deployment areas can expand automatically if the generated force is too large for the original deployment zone.
Neutral objectives are protected from starting-unit placement, so a battle should no longer begin with a supposedly neutral victory hex already occupied by one side.
Mission markers
Special missions receive their own battlefield markings.
For example:
Key Objectives use a distinctive special objective border.
Breakthrough missions use marked exit zones.
Capture the Flag uses dedicated mission locations.
These markers are intended to look like tactical-map annotations rather than modern interface elements, keeping them visually consistent with the Panzer General style.
AI behavior
The AI is mission-aware.
It takes both its own victory condition and the enemy victory condition into account.
The one caveat is that this is still heuristic AI, not a perfect adversarial planner. It understands the mission structure and creates counter-goals, but it can still make imperfect tactical choices depending on force balance, terrain, visibility, and local opportunities.
Examples include:
defending several objectives during an All-or-Nothing defense
consolidating once a Majority Control threshold has been reached
concentrating on required Key Objectives
driving mobile units toward Breakthrough zones
blocking enemy Breakthrough routes
selecting the most defensible objectives for Hold the Line
increasing urgency as timed missions approach their deadline
escorting or intercepting flag carriers in Capture the Flag battles
The intention is that two generated battles with different mission combinations should actually play differently.
Battle Generator saves
Battle Generator saves use their own save area:
Saved Games\BattleGenerator\
They are kept separate from campaign and normal scenario saves.
Generated-battle saves preserve the generated map, forces, mission conditions, victory parameters and other battlefield state so the battle can be continued normally.
The goal
The Battle Generator is not intended to replace the campaigns.
It is there to give Classic General something the original Panzer General never really had: a way to create an almost unlimited number of battles while still using the same equipment, terrain, combat rules and AI systems as the main game.
You can generate a small desert clash, a large Eastern Front battle, a Bocage-heavy fight in Northern Europe, a river crossing, a breakthrough operation, or two sides with completely different objectives.
And because the system uses the normal Classic General rules underneath, generated battles are not a separate arcade mode.
They are full Classic General battles.
The Battle Generator lays the foundation for future additions like the scenario designer and the campaign designer (as in Steel Panthers).
Meanwhile more custom campaigns were added; including, as a test case, the British Campaign from Panzer General Forever.
Comments and suggestions are welcome.
