Kerensky First Impressions

[Kerensky]

- First impressions. What were your impression after 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 15 minutes and an hour. If you could write these down and post them to the forum it would be very useful.

After 30 seconds, I was surprised at the 22 MB file size. I figured it was just an extremely trim version of the game, and it is, no problem there just unexpected.
After 5 minutes, I was having a little trouble with the changes from how Pg2 does things, but I slowly got re-accustomed to standard PG style game play.
After 15 minutes, I got the hang of it pretty well, I could start to get things done fast rather than fumbling around.
After an hour, I see the game for exactly what it is trying to be, a direct upgrade over the original Panzer General.

- Performance. Is the game too slow on your PC? If yes, what problems exactly you experience, and what system configuration do you have?

No performance issues. 2.66Ghz Intel Processor, 2.75GB RAM, 896MB Video card.

- Map graphics: the terrain map and the units. What did you like or not like. What could be improved?

Terrain looks good, it's pretty obvious what terrain is what there is no confusion there. I did wonder about some of the new types of terrain, such as 'countryside'.
The units look good, but I have some issues with their status visuals. I read a few other posts from other people that had similar issue, so I won't go into it too much just the most obvious problems to me.

1. Unit has moved or fired appears the same as a unit that has not done anything. There is no good visual indicator if a unit can still fire or not. This mostly annoyed me with artillery unit. I would select it, fire with it, leave it alone and go move other units. After a while I'd come back, and looking at the board I can't tell which artillery unit has fired and which have not without actually clicking on the unit and seeing if it can still fire.
2. Unit that has moved and fired has the red line through their unit strength. This made seeing unit strengths at a glance difficult if not impossible, and to me symbolizes something more like disruption instead of simply 'I'm done with my actions'
3. Unit descriptions need help. In PG, pioneers ignored entrenchment, but it doesn't say it anywhere in the game, you just had to know. Does this game suffer from the same problem? I couldn't really tell if buckenpioneer ignored entrenchments or not, there were never any 'rugged defense' messages popping up on any kind of assault against an entrenched unit. I know for a fact the 'mountain' unit suffers from this problem, the Gebirgsjager. No where does it say the unit can easily traverse mountainous terrain without movement penalties, it just does. The buckenpioneer also suffers from this with his 'bridging' ability. No where on the unit or in any information panel does it say 'this unit sitting on a river acts like a bridge' it just does. Same problem with recon units. Their staggered movement feels clunky and VERY automatic right now, but no where does it say 'this is how recon units behave' They simply do. In this case, I refer to how if they see a unit, they immediately stop, but can continue moving. However if you choose to move a recon unit a little at a time, say to move, capture a hex, and continue moving, the recon unit simply finishes it's move after the first action because it didn't spot an enemy unit. I'm hoping this is just a feature that hasn't been implemented yet. If you are aware of the Latin General's equipment modification for PG2, they have a very good answer to this problem. If you don't know what that is, and are curious about their solution, I'll be happy to discuss further.

I also encountered a bug with disappearing units. It's happened a few times, but I'm not sure what causes it. A unit is impossible to select by clicking on the map, but it can still be accessed through the 'next unit' button.
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/1368/bugca.jpg

- Usability and UI of the main screen. Is it intuitively clear how to control the game? Is the UI convenient? Do you like the existing mouse interface, or would you prefer a different one? What useful information do you miss in the UI sidebar or the main map view?

It may just be the resolution I run at 1680x1050(which doesn't seem to be configurable other than changing my monitor resolution?) but unit stats numbers seem to be out of alignment on the purchase screen.
The 'battle result preview' seems to be backwards to me. Predicted enemy losses on the left, my predicted unit losses on the right feels very awkward.
There is no indication of what artillery units are doing or how effective they are, with regards to defensive fire support.

- Game rules. Please note that at this point game rules are not final. We are still thinking about some aspects, and we'll change and tweak some things as we test the game. However, any opinions on what you see in the game now, and what could be improved, are very much welcome.

Personally, I was hoping to see a marriage between the best aspects of Panzer General (the style of play, weather, supply, all the basics) , Panzer General 2 (leaders, overrun, recon movement, supply hexes instead of purchasing from ANY city), and Panzer General 3D (absolutely nothing at all from this game).
You got the Panzer General part right, this game seems to be 'what if PG had been made in the 2000s instead of being made in the 1990s'.
You got the Panzer General 3d part right, and completely skipped anything that game 'added' to how Panzer General worked.
But you also skipped Panzer General 2, which left me feeling very underwhelmed. There were some fantastic additions in Pg2, and I was hoping to see those return in Panzer Corp. I don't know if you are open to implementing them, or simply haven't yet, or are adamant in staying true to more of a 'pure' Panzer General, so I reserve comment on this topic for the time being.

I was hoping that with Panzer Corps, I could replace both Panzer General and Panzer General 2. Right now, I feel like with Panzer Corps, I can uninstall original Panzer General from my computer, no question about that, but I feel that I still need Panzer General 2 because of what that game brings to the table.

- Tutorial campaign. The first beta only includes the six tutorial scenarios and the tutorial campaign. When complete this will have prompts to aid the user but it would be good if we knew which areas of the game needed the most helpers and prompts so can you tell us which parts you did not understand so we can focus on explaining those.

The tutorial was good enough to explain when special units have special abilities on the mission screen, but there really needs to be a different, separate place for this type of information (library section?). Other than that, it was a pretty standard tutorial, it does it's job for people familiar with the genre. I might go a few steps further though, for people completely unfamiliar with Panzer General, for example going into detail about the merits of why you attacked entrenched places with infantry and not tanks, why it's important to soften entrenchment with artillery, and other seemingly 'obvious' things like that that may not be obvious for a brand new strategy gamer today.

And finally, if any of you is interested in game modding, we would love to hear your opinion on the Scenario Editor. This can be found in the folder you installed the game to. Is it efficient and easy to use enough for you? Would you want to make new scenarios using such a tool? What additional features could be useful in it?

I took a look at the scenario editor briefly and it appears sufficient for the most part...
Problems:
1. The gigantic unit list as a scroll bar. Not that bad because you did include a unit filter, and you can stretch the window to get more than single file organization... but the 'show only units available in this scenario' needs improvement. Namely, where is all the information for the units you are placing? What is the starting available date for a Panzer IIIE, when does it become obsolete? What are the statistics for this unit I'm placing? I know historical a T-34/43 is faster than a Tiger I, but has a weaker gun and weaker armor. That doesn't really help me in this game though, if I want to make a balanced scenario, I need to see what values this game gives a T-34/43 or the values of a Tiger I so I can make decisions of where and how many of these units I place.
2. I figured out the Tank/airplane icon is the toggle between air and ground mode, but it would be nice if mousing over the button provided with this information instead of having to figure it out by pressing it and seeing what happens. Which brings me to the truck toggle, which is something I still have no clue about.
3. Tools/options doesn't do anything? I hope this is for setting up units more uniquely (setting up entrenchment value of a unit at the start of a scenario, being able to set a unit to a strength other than '10' and experience other than the default)... which is also currently unknown. What is the default experience of a unit you place? Can it be modified? Can the unit's strength be modified?
4. Is this scenario editor capable of simple triggers? I don't see anything along those lines, for example: Turn 5 team X gains Y prestige bonus. Turn 10 Team X receives A B and C units in Hex R T S, as 'reinforcements'.
5. Is this scenario editor capable of stringing scenarios together to create custom campaigns?
6. Where are the prestige settings, for
a. Individual turns of a scenario.
b. Accomplishing tasks, such as destroying a unit or capturing a city, or capturing a victory hex.
c. End scenario bonus prestige.
7. There needs to be a way to set up deployment hexes in future campaign scenarios.

That's off the top of my head, I'm certain there's more, but I'd like to hear what your plans and intentions are.

[Kerensky]

One more thing that would be nice to see in the tutorial: effects of terrain on units.

Units in a river hex obviously attack weakly and are more vulnerable to being attacked. Quantify this for new people, hell quantify it for me too. When a unit stands in the clear, all their values are unaffected. When they are on a river hex, what exactly happens? Are their defense values halved? Or do they take double damage? It sounds like the same thing, but it really isn't. This might be good to demonstrate in the tutorial, but also I hope to see this explained in detail in the 'library'.

Also explaining what effects entrenchment has and what levels of entrenchment do wouldn't be bad for a first time player who actually needs to play a tutorial.

[Kerensky]

Another item that Needs Improvement.

Unit Experience. There's no way to find out how much experience a unit has. You only have a little star that has slight appearance changes to indicate unit experience. The only time you ever actually see the exact experience number is... when you mouse over replacements or elite replacements. You see the exact experience, how much you may lose, and exact cost of replacements. That's fantastic by the way, that kind of information for replacements, but I feel there needs to be somewhere else you can see a unit's experience level if for the obvious reason of you can't see the experience level of full strength unit.

When you hit the system button, you have three choices. SAVE, MAIN MENU, EXIT GAME. Shouldn't there be a LOAD button in there, instead of having to go back to MAIN MENU first, then LOAD?
Also, any plans for hotkeys? Not just quick save and quick load, but also for things such as supply, mount/dismount, toggle air/ground, et cetera?

[Kerensky]

More Needs Improvement.

Settings are not saved, for example if you open the expanded unit information panel "Toggle Stats Panel" button, and leave it open, the game defaults back to turning it off when you move on to a new scenario.

Other toggles do not display status. Namely, toggle air/ground and toggle normal/strategic map.

[Rudankort]

This is one more great feedback thread, thanks! I was slow to answer, because I had to do a few catch ups in the game itself, but I'll try to respond to all points now.

1. Unit has moved or fired appears the same as a unit that has not done anything. There is no good visual indicator if a unit can still fire or not. This mostly annoyed me with artillery unit. I would select it, fire with it, leave it alone and go move other units. After a while I'd come back, and looking at the board I can't tell which artillery unit has fired and which have not without actually clicking on the unit and seeing if it can still fire.

I tend to agree that showing available move and attack actions separately would be better, but we would need to come up with some great, easy and intuitive indication. Any suggestions here? AFAIR, PG2 used strength color for moved action, and a separate golden circle for attack, and neither was obvious or looked nice.

2. Unit that has moved and fired has the red line through their unit strength. This made seeing unit strengths at a glance difficult if not impossible, and to me symbolizes something more like disruption instead of simply 'I'm done with my actions'

I agree, we'll have to come up with something else. This is closely related to the previous point.

3. Unit descriptions need help. In PG, pioneers ignored entrenchment, but it doesn't say it anywhere in the game, you just had to know. Does this game suffer from the same problem? I couldn't really tell if buckenpioneer ignored entrenchments or not, there were never any 'rugged defense' messages popping up on any kind of assault against an entrenched unit. I know for a fact the 'mountain' unit suffers from this problem, the Gebirgsjager. No where does it say the unit can easily traverse mountainous terrain without movement penalties, it just does. The buckenpioneer also suffers from this with his 'bridging' ability. No where on the unit or in any information panel does it say 'this unit sitting on a river acts like a bridge' it just does. Same problem with recon units. Their staggered movement feels clunky and VERY automatic right now, but no where does it say 'this is how recon units behave' They simply do. In this case, I refer to how if they see a unit, they immediately stop, but can continue moving. However if you choose to move a recon unit a little at a time, say to move, capture a hex, and continue moving, the recon unit simply finishes it's move after the first action because it didn't spot an enemy unit. I'm hoping this is just a feature that hasn't been implemented yet. If you are aware of the Latin General's equipment modification for PG2, they have a very good answer to this problem. If you don't know what that is, and are curious about their solution, I'll be happy to discuss further.

My plan is just to show all special abilities at the end of the list of unit stats, in the form of icons which you can hover with the mouse and see a detailed description of each ability. These icons will be shown throughout the UI: in main screen, purchase screen, "new equipment available" screen etc.

I also encountered a bug with disappearing units. It's happened a few times, but I'm not sure what causes it. A unit is impossible to select by clicking on the map, but it can still be accessed through the 'next unit' button.
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/1368/bugca.jpg

Yes, this bug is a source of some concern, because you cannot send me a save with the problem - reloading fixes it! I'll think how to approach this problem.

It may just be the resolution I run at 1680x1050(which doesn't seem to be configurable other than changing my monitor resolution?) but unit stats numbers seem to be out of alignment on the purchase screen.

It is a bug, confirmed. Will fix.

The 'battle result preview' seems to be backwards to me. Predicted enemy losses on the left, my predicted unit losses on the right feels very awkward.
There is no indication of what artillery units are doing or how effective they are, with regards to defensive fire support.

Here I really want to hear an opinion from as many people as possible. The idea behind the scheme we use now is that we don't show casualties, we show damage. In other words, we don't show how bad things are, but how good they are. Left number is damage done by the player, the more the number - the better. Right number is damage done by the opponent, and the bigger the number - the worse. So, what do you guys think? Which approach is more intuitive, especially for players who don't remember exactly how PG did this?

Personally, I was hoping to see a marriage between the best aspects of Panzer General (the style of play, weather, supply, all the basics) , Panzer General 2 (leaders, overrun, recon movement, supply hexes instead of purchasing from ANY city), and Panzer General 3D (absolutely nothing at all from this game).
You got the Panzer General part right, this game seems to be 'what if PG had been made in the 2000s instead of being made in the 1990s'.
You got the Panzer General 3d part right, and completely skipped anything that game 'added' to how Panzer General worked.
But you also skipped Panzer General 2, which left me feeling very underwhelmed. There were some fantastic additions in Pg2, and I was hoping to see those return in Panzer Corp. I don't know if you are open to implementing them, or simply haven't yet, or are adamant in staying true to more of a 'pure' Panzer General, so I reserve comment on this topic for the time being.

I was hoping that with Panzer Corps, I could replace both Panzer General and Panzer General 2. Right now, I feel like with Panzer Corps, I can uninstall original Panzer General from my computer, no question about that, but I feel that I still need Panzer General 2 because of what that game brings to the table.

It is a broad topic, so I'll give you a broad answer. As a game designer, I want to find a perfect blend of rules for our new game. Some rules will be adopted from the original PG, some rules - from other games in the series, some rules will be new.

It is not true that I completely skipped PG2. There are quite some rules adopted from that game, from obvious ones (like separate move/attack actions) to more minor things (like no ZOC for planes). Some features which people tend to like in PG2, like leaders, will be implemented in PzC in a slightly different form (aces/heroes/etc.). As for the other features present in PG2, I did consider many of them, but was not convinved that adopting them was the right thing.

For example, there is a hits system in PG2, which causes even the toughest unit to break down eventually. I keep this idea in mind, and if we need it to balance the game - I'll add it. But for now I think that there should not be "invincible" units in the game in the first place, even the strongest ones should take some casualties from time to time as they fight. And then the hits system may not be needed.

Another example. I'm often asked if there will be units with direct ranged attack. The answer is, most likely there will not. On the first glance, this feature looks nice: a big, powerful gun can hit enemy unit before it can even come in range. But in practice this feature means that you can attack safely and bypass all kinds of game rules intended to balance the game. For example, tanks are supposed to fear infantry in close terrain, but now you can attack infantry entrenched in a city from a safe distance, without fearing a counterattack. I don't think that this is really good for gameplay, and this is not realistic either (on PzC scale).

But what about those powerful, long-range guns? Should not they have an advantage, compared to shorter range units? Yes they should, and to model this, I revamped the initiative concept a little bit. In fact, in PG initiative was a measure of gun range, but the rules were too crude: you can have initiative advantage of 1, or 10, but the effect is exactly the same: 100% of your strength fires first. In PzC, each point of initiative advantage gives you 20% of strength firing first (we may tweak this number in the future). So, only really powerful guns will have enough advantage to fire 100% before the opponent can react. But even in this case the attacker cannot be sure he will get away unscathed, he still runs the risk of counterattack if he did not kill/suppress enough of enemy's strength with his first shot.

I'm still undecided about overruns, I'll watch out how tanks perform on their own, and if they really need this additional bonus. Tank is already a very versatile, mobile and well-protected unit. So, we shall see.

As you can see, I'm open to suggestions, and at this point it is not yet too late to change and tweak game rules. Not dramatically of course, converting PzC to RTS is not really an option but minor things like overruns, hits etc. are easy enough to add. On the other hand, I do want to keep things as easy as possible, so if we can balance the game without intruducing new concepts, unit stats, special abilities etc. - this solution is preferred.

The tutorial was good enough to explain when special units have special abilities on the mission screen, but there really needs to be a different, separate place for this type of information (library section?). Other than that, it was a pretty standard tutorial, it does it's job for people familiar with the genre. I might go a few steps further though, for people completely unfamiliar with Panzer General, for example going into detail about the merits of why you attacked entrenched places with infantry and not tanks, why it's important to soften entrenchment with artillery, and other seemingly 'obvious' things like that that may not be obvious for a brand new strategy gamer today.

Well, I did mention something about entrenchment, softening enemies with arty etc. in the second tutorial, but this may not be enough. Explaning the concept of close terrain is surely important enough for the tutorial.

1. The gigantic unit list as a scroll bar. Not that bad because you did include a unit filter, and you can stretch the window to get more than single file organization... but the 'show only units available in this scenario' needs improvement. Namely, where is all the information for the units you are placing? What is the starting available date for a Panzer IIIE, when does it become obsolete? What are the statistics for this unit I'm placing? I know historical a T-34/43 is faster than a Tiger I, but has a weaker gun and weaker armor. That doesn't really help me in this game though, if I want to make a balanced scenario, I need to see what values this game gives a T-34/43 or the values of a Tiger I so I can make decisions of where and how many of these units I place.

So your point is, you need unit stats in the editor, is that it?

2. I figured out the Tank/airplane icon is the toggle between air and ground mode, but it would be nice if mousing over the button provided with this information instead of having to figure it out by pressing it and seeing what happens. Which brings me to the truck toggle, which is something I still have no clue about.

Truck toggle shows all units which have transport mounted or unmounted, so you can quickly see which units have transports and which have not.

3. Tools/options doesn't do anything? I hope this is for setting up units more uniquely (setting up entrenchment value of a unit at the start of a scenario, being able to set a unit to a strength other than '10' and experience other than the default)... which is also currently unknown. What is the default experience of a unit you place? Can it be modified? Can the unit's strength be modified?

Unit params can be configured - Ctrl+click a unit to bring up its params dialog box.

4. Is this scenario editor capable of simple triggers? I don't see anything along those lines, for example: Turn 5 team X gains Y prestige bonus. Turn 10 Team X receives A B and C units in Hex R T S, as 'reinforcements'.

Not yet, but I'm working on a trigger system from the game right now.

5. Is this scenario editor capable of stringing scenarios together to create custom campaigns?

No, scenario editor deals with separate scenarios. To edit the campaign, you need to modify campaign data file (Data/campaign.pzdat)

6. Where are the prestige settings, for
a. Individual turns of a scenario.
b. Accomplishing tasks, such as destroying a unit or capturing a city, or capturing a victory hex.
c. End scenario bonus prestige.

Some of these controls are not available yet, but will be included in the next release. Campaign-related prestige settings are contained in campaign data file.

7. There needs to be a way to set up deployment hexes in future campaign scenarios.

This is done via Special hexes layer. Deployment hexes are configured separately for ground and air.

[Rudankort]

One more thing that would be nice to see in the tutorial: effects of terrain on units.

Units in a river hex obviously attack weakly and are more vulnerable to being attacked. Quantify this for new people, hell quantify it for me too. When a unit stands in the clear, all their values are unaffected. When they are on a river hex, what exactly happens? Are their defense values halved? Or do they take double damage? It sounds like the same thing, but it really isn't. This might be good to demonstrate in the tutorial, but also I hope to see this explained in detail in the 'library'.

Also explaining what effects entrenchment has and what levels of entrenchment do wouldn't be bad for a first time player who actually needs to play a tutorial.

Information like this will be present in different places. On one hand, the Library will have it. On the other hand, it is shown in the after-combat log. Hit L after attacking or defending on a river, and you'll have your answer.

I 100% agree that you have touched some more good topics to cover in tutorial texts.

[Rudankort]

Unit Experience. There's no way to find out how much experience a unit has. You only have a little star that has slight appearance changes to indicate unit experience. The only time you ever actually see the exact experience number is... when you mouse over replacements or elite replacements. You see the exact experience, how much you may lose, and exact cost of replacements. That's fantastic by the way, that kind of information for replacements, but I feel there needs to be somewhere else you can see a unit's experience level if for the obvious reason of you can't see the experience level of full strength unit.

Agreed.

When you hit the system button, you have three choices. SAVE, MAIN MENU, EXIT GAME. Shouldn't there be a LOAD button in there, instead of having to go back to MAIN MENU first, then LOAD?

I could add it if there is enough demand, but then for consistency we should probably add "New Game" and "Multiplayer" there as well.

Also, any plans for hotkeys? Not just quick save and quick load, but also for things such as supply, mount/dismount, toggle air/ground, et cetera?

There are many hot keys in the game already, just no documentation on them yet.

Here is a quick list:

Esc Undo move
E Embark/disembark
M Mount/unmount
S Supply
R Replacements
Shift+R Elite replacements
U Upgrade
Z Sleep one turn*
Shift+Z Sleep always*
Alt+N Rename
Ctrl+Click Extended combat prediction
Tab Toggle ground/air mode
N Next unit
P Purchase unit
Alt+E End turn
F Toggle fullscreen mode
L Last combat log

*Excludes the unit from the 'Next unit' sequence

[Rudankort]

More Needs Improvement.

Settings are not saved, for example if you open the expanded unit information panel "Toggle Stats Panel" button, and leave it open, the game defaults back to turning it off when you move on to a new scenario.

Other toggles do not display status. Namely, toggle air/ground and toggle normal/strategic map.

Good points, will fix.

[boredatwork]

Alt+N Rename

Happy, happy day!

[Kerensky]

I tend to agree that showing available move and attack actions separately would be better, but we would need to come up with some great, easy and intuitive indication. Any suggestions here? AFAIR, PG2 used strength color for moved action, and a separate golden circle for attack, and neither was obvious or looked nice.

I agree the orb in PG2 wasn't very effective or obvious. The changed color scheme was effective though, but you had to know what it meant. Plus there was an issue where tapped (units that finished moving and attacking) had the same color scheme regardless if they were a CORE unit or AUXILIARY unit. Every game has a different solution, but if I had to suggest something it would look like this (forgive the rushed photoshop job):

Legend:
Green Border: Unit can move and shoot
Orange Border: Unit can shoot
Red Border: Unit can move
Black Border: Unit cannot move and cannot shoot


You will also notice the Black Border unit has been color tinted to be darker. This could be tricky though, because different looking units will respond differently to being subject to a color tint, so this would be something for your art department to consider. They have to
1. Make the tint dark enough to be very visible and obviously apparent.
2. Not make it so dark that the unit loses it's appearance (black lines that define the unit start to bleed or disappear)

That unit color tinting is secondary though, the simple color coded border is what I think would be good for unit status differentiating. Some people might say red should mean fully done, so what the actually colors are will be up to your art people. Suffice to say you need four.

Also, if you use a color coded method such as this, you will run into the inevitable "I'm colorblind, why does your game hate me" crowd. In that case, and I didn't demonstrate it here, I suggest adding designs to the color border. Just as some examples... Solid color means move and shoot, vertical lines mixed in the coloring means unit can move, diagonal lines means unit can shoot.

Or, and as a probably better and more visually appealing idea, use the four corners of the colored border as indicators. If there's a dot in a certain corner, it signifies one of the 4 above mentioned specific states. I'll make more and better mock ups if you want to see, but it might also to get some more ideas from people.

My plan is just to show all special abilities at the end of the list of unit stats, in the form of icons which you can hover with the mouse and see a detailed description of each ability. These icons will be shown throughout the UI: in main screen, purchase screen, "new equipment available" screen etc.

Sounds good to me, that's pretty much what LG had, but they just used letters, and you referenced the letter in a word document or somewhere outside the game.

Here I really want to hear an opinion from as many people as possible. The idea behind the scheme we use now is that we don't show casualties, we show damage. In other words, we don't show how bad things are, but how good they are. Left number is damage done by the player, the more the number - the better. Right number is damage done by the opponent, and the bigger the number - the worse. So, what do you guys think? Which approach is more intuitive, especially for players who don't remember exactly how PG did this?

Sorry, this scheme is just too backwards. Even speaking in non-Panzer General terms, home team comes first, agreed?. In our Western society, we read left to right, yes?. Therefore, the status of my unit, or something that will affect the status of my unit should appear first (on the left), while something that effects the status of my opponent or enemy has to come second (on the right).
Although upon re-reading exactly what you wrote, my argument actually supports what you are saying, because you are talking about damage done TO player, then damage done TO enemy.
Personally, I would still prefer the standard Panzer General way of damage taken information, not damage done information.
If you are adamant about keeping it in terms of damage DONE instead of damage TAKEN, then I would suggest, once again, Panzer General 2's answer. When you mouse over an enemy unit, you get the little nationality flags showing up. You see the little flag, and under the flag is a number. That number means 'expected casualties' If you organize it your unit left, enemy right, it's showing damage taken. If you organize it your unit right, enemy left, you are organizing in priority of 'damage done'.

Either way it's the same thing, just the priority changes, and if you add a little flag icon next to the number, there shouldn't be any confusion either way you pick.

Basically, add a little flag to designate which number belongs to which side, and it shouldn't matter anymore.

It is not true that I completely skipped PG2. There are quite some rules adopted from that game, from obvious ones (like separate move/attack actions) to more minor things (like no ZOC for planes). Some features which people tend to like in PG2, like leaders, will be implemented in PzC in a slightly different form (aces/heroes/etc.). As for the other features present in PG2, I did consider many of them, but was not convinved that adopting them was the right thing.

I'm glad to hear leaders will be making an appearance, I was REALLY worried if they weren't going to exist at all. I still lean heavily in favor of many PG2 mechanics over original PG, but you're right, it is a very broad topic. As each particular mechanic is addressed in the beta, I'll probably go further into this. Suffice to say, in my opinion, PzC the way it feels right now needs a few more Pg2 mechanics in it, but then we haven't exactly seen much of it yet, have we?

Although I have to say this much:
In light of:
Iain McNeil, director of Development at Slitherine said:

"With this game we are trying to bring the golden age of strategy gaming back to its roots. This game is Slitherine's homage to one of the greatest strategy titles of all time and we are working hard to ensure we capture the flavor of that masterpiece, yet update it with features and a graphical style that will appeal to a modern strategy gamer".

and because of pictures such as:


I hope that in the final release of the game, units will actually interact and look at each other when they fire (like PG2) and not just be completely static and simply face either left or right (Like PG). I mean, even free games these days have units that look at each other and have animations and interactions. For example, Wesnoth.

So your point is, you need unit stats in the editor, is that it?

Yes.

I could add it if there is enough demand, but then for consistency we should probably add "New Game" and "Multiplayer" there as well.

I disagree with 'multiplayer' but I'm neutral about "New Game"
Original Panzer General, the system button gave you five options: SAVE, LOAD, NEW CAMPAIGN, NEW SCENARIO, QUIT.
Panzer General 2, the system button gave you four options: SAVE, LOAD, MAIN MENU, QUIT. Main menu is basically new campaign and new scenario put together, plus PG2 main menu had other stuff, like multiplayer and the scenario editor link and dossier and what not. My point is, you have a main menu button to cover all of those options, but PzC is missing the load button. You need an extra step before you get to load in PzC, and that bothers me.
True I am slightly prone to loading and that's why it annoys me, but sometimes I do like to play iron man mode too. By the way, if as an added campaign difficulty you could add an 'iron man' option, that would be fantastic.
Just a little check box when you start a new campaign that basically does the following. Whenever you save the game, it automatically takes you back to the main menu. Whenever you load an 'iron man' campaign, it deletes the save file you just loaded.

Think of it this way.
During a scenario, you might save several times, or have a leapfrog save system. When you hit the menu button to access a save function, you remain in the scenario.
During a scenario, you might want to load a few turns back, or take back a miss-clicked unit that you cannot un-move due to enemy sighted rules. When you hit the menu button to access this load function, you remain in the scenario.
On the other hand, if you choose MAIN MENU, or you choose MULTIPLAYER, or you choose EDITOR, you are making a choice that exits you from your current scenario. Main menu exits you from the scenario, and opens up all of these other options that also will exit you from the scenario. It's redundant, because they are all exiting you from the scenario, and they are all one time uses because of that. While playing a scenario, you may save several times. While playing a scenario, you may load several times. Are you really going to start multiplayer, or a new campaign, in the middle of your scenario? Multiple times in that scenario?

That's my reasoning behind adding a LOAD button, but not other ones because instead of being consistent, the other buttons become redundant with MAIN MENU in that they are all options that effectively cease your involvement with the scenario you are in.

There are many hot keys in the game already, just no documentation on them yet.

Awesome, hot keys are most welcome. One question about sleeping units, do they automatically supply themselves? Like in PG, if you just ignored a unit, it would automatically select the 'supply' option for itself. Is that still true for sleeping units, do they initiate a supply order at the end of every turn they are asleep? If not, they should.

[boredatwork]

I tend to agree that showing available move and attack actions separately would be better, but we would need to come up with some great, easy and intuitive indication. Any suggestions here? AFAIR, PG2 used strength color for moved action, and a separate golden circle for attack, and neither was obvious or looked nice.

I agree the orb in PG2 wasn't very effective or obvious. The changed color scheme was effective though, but you had to know what it meant. Plus there was an issue where tapped (units that finished moving and attacking) had the same color scheme regardless if they were a CORE unit or AUXILIARY unit. Every game has a different solution, but if I had to suggest something it would look like this (forgive the rushed photoshop job):

I'm not sure what you two mean when you say the orb wasn't "obvious?" I thought it was fairly functional, though somewhat flat compared to the units above it.

Whatever is chosen should have **just** sufficient contrast that when you're actually looking for units that haven't moved/fired you can pick them out easily but not be so overpowering that when you're "standing back to admire the view" the effect of a mass of units isn't drowned out by the status indicators.

For that reason I'm not overly keen on alot of different colours, nor altering the unit colours themselves which IMO might take away from the visual effect of the game.

I would be happy with:

- A similar system to PG2 with slightly finer, less distracting circles.

OR

- Blinky white pixels a la PG to denote unfired, strength color change to denote moved. This would have an advantage on the strategic map that symbols could be greyed out while still having blinking pixels.

OR

- use 2 symbols a la PG2 Orb for both movement AND fire that way the strength number could stay constant colour




On a slightly related note does the Core/Aux difference need to be so bold? I know that was the convention in PG but the auxilliary units stick out like a sore thumb - indeed the difference between core/aux is far greater from a contrast POV then the difference between friendly core/enemy.

I would suggest have German strength plates as all Black on Grey, with a gold border for Core, and a Silver border for Auxilliary units. Maybe add a bit of extra flourish on the border so it's easier see the difference between them. The allies could all be White on dark Green(?).

[Rudankort]

I'm not sure what you two mean when you say the orb wasn't "obvious?" I thought it was fairly functional, though somewhat flat compared to the units above it.

By "obvious" I mean that the meaning of the indication should ideally be clear from its appearance. The orb was not good in this respect, but some of the indicators you offered are.

I agree that color codes, while quite effective in communicating the idea, are not "obvious" and what's worse, "spoil" the look of the game.

We'll try to come up with something by the next update.

[Rudankort]

One question about sleeping units, do they automatically supply themselves? Like in PG, if you just ignored a unit, it would automatically select the 'supply' option for itself. Is that still true for sleeping units, do they initiate a supply order at the end of every turn they are asleep? If not, they should.

Sleep commands effectively exclude the units from "next unit" sequence. This means, they do not change any other game rules. If the unit did not move, it gets automatic resupply.