Review from 30 seconds to an hour

[patemartini]

Here's my feedback:

30 sec:
Wow, i know this game, it's published along time ago: Panzer General^^ Sry for this bad joke, but i feel myself at home in this game. Like the menu music very much
and i like the graphics, but i miss the options button and i don't like the little and not good looking buttons for "play" and "cancel". First introduction
in the tutorial campaign is fine, even i prefer spoken ones. (videos are not possible i think, but one video cut from old original WW2 stuff would be gread for each
campaign)

5 min:
First three tutorial missions played (2 finished): Intuitive control of units, balance is good, even i think these early panzers are even if they had been worse,
they are too worse ingame. Nice move: arty one field and attack! I like it, even if its historical not possible, but new strategy movements possible in attack,
but less defense tactics are needed, especcialy to protect oneself units with arty by having to decide the round before where to place it.
Sound is going in my head, still like it, hope it will be long and different. No technical problems until now, good performance.
I miss a few things now: No great "explosion" of destroyed units, much too fast "disappearing" of enenmy units, a buying list! (one list, all bought units in it,
then after having bought them, you can deploy them out of the list at the map; like at the beginning of every scenario; not like now: buy one unit, then deploy, than next unit, deploy etc)
Maybe too much prestige (i think so until now), not possible to spend everything, i do not have to care about reinforcements.

15 min: 2 more tutorial missions finished: Like them, even the introductury words. Nice battles, not too easy, reasonable fortifications, I need some time and a bit strategy to knock them out. Aircraft is well done, not too strong, the airborn units are a great favour, but the bridgepioniers have a terrible looking, please change it.
Also I have too much prestige yet. Two great things which are disturbing me very much: A unit which destroys another one and has left its movement "points"
move to the destroyed unit place, even if its a artillery; the arty was destroyed next round with in its car. Please make this an option to move in, but not an automatic move.
The other disturbing but easy to solve thing is: Units who have fought and moved (so you cannot do anything more in this turn) should have a different appearance:
I personally think of "outgreying" them or just put their number in red, orange or black color so that you can see: Oh i used this unit, no more action is possible.
Just a last thougt: Should tanks could cross a river that easy?; just one move more needed; what about only move over bridges or pioneers?

1 std: After few more missions i still like the game. But: enemys are moving too fast (i mean the speed of the animation) and its hard to see what unit is damaged.
What i like till now: Good maps, interesting but till now not too hard scenarios; any unit i like is in the game, its easy not too loose, but hard to win perfect.
What i don't like till now: too strong cavallerie, too weak tanks against anti aa, too weak anti aa against any type of aircraft (perhabs in this early phase its historical);
the "veteran" unit status is not displayed in the deploying list at the beginning of a game; i cannot see what advantages has my 3 stars inf to my 2 stars inf, exists there a screen, a comparable button or something else? Still too much prestige, but just a personal feeling.

Performance:
Very good, no lags, no loading mistakes, no crashes after round about 2 hours of playing.
My System is an Intel Q 9450, Ati 4870, 8gb RAM, Windows 7 64 Ultimate Version, 128 Gb SSD and 500GB HDD + Creative Soundcard (if you need more information i could send a dxdiag file or something like this to you)

Usability and UI of the main screen:
The main screen background is wonderful, good buttons, easy to read, but i think that after klicking the "load game" button there should be no windows explorer to choose out of savegames, but something in "ingame" appearance (i've made an little example). I miss the "options" button, where i can change video and sound settings etc., in the main screen.
The mouse interface is okai, but perhaps you could upgrade it to a special mouse pointer graphic fitting to the general atmosphere?
The only thing i miss in the UI sidebar is a counter how much units i have, perhaps sorted in infantry/armor/air/navy or something like that.

Bugs:
Just little stuff: <br><br> can be read at the "purchase unit" and the "embark/disembark" buttons.
Ähm, well this now is a special "german" bug: i am german (i think its obvious in the text) and when i read "bruckenpioniere" then is this a mistake, it should be either "brückenpioniere" but i know that this "ü" is sometimes not programmable and just a german singularity, or "brueckenpioniere" which is the replacement for "ü". There are also other words which need a german so called Umlaut like ü, ä, ö, and if this is interesting for you, i will correct them all in a .txt file for you.

General impression:
Nice game, really impressed how much fun it make.
I must say: I've played Panzer General and this game paralell and i like them both. I see the old one, still a gigantic milestone in strategy and
now this new project with great ideas, few very necessary improvements to the Panzer General Series and a lot of modding tools.
I think its worth to buy it once its published.

patemartini

PS: MP will be tested in the next days.
PSS: Is it possible to gain access to the closed beta forum?

[Rudankort]

Great feedback, thanks! Not much to comment, but I'll try to address most points you mention.

Two great things which are disturbing me very much: A unit which destroys another one and has left its movement "points"
move to the destroyed unit place, even if its a artillery; the arty was destroyed next round with in its car. Please make this an option to move in, but not an automatic move.

Not sure I understood this point.

Just a last thougt: Should tanks could cross a river that easy?; just one move more needed; what about only move over bridges or pioneers?

There are major rivers in some scens which behave as you describe: only bridges or pioneers.

Just little stuff: <br><br> can be read at the "purchase unit" and the "embark/disembark" buttons.
Ähm, well this now is a special "german" bug: i am german (i think its obvious in the text) and when i read "bruckenpioniere" then is this a mistake, it should be either "brückenpioniere" but i know that this "ü" is sometimes not programmable and just a german singularity, or "brueckenpioniere" which is the replacement for "ü". There are also other words which need a german so called Umlaut like ü, ä, ö, and if this is interesting for you, i will correct them all in a .txt file for you.

Probably we should be able to use special characters, it's all unicode these days.

PSS: Is it possible to gain access to the closed beta forum?

Yea, a bit later. Slitherine guys add new testers to a separate forum to get more "fresh impressions", and then they are given access to the other forum too.

[adherbal]

Two great things which are disturbing me very much: A unit which destroys another one and has left its movement "points"
move to the destroyed unit place, even if its a artillery; the arty was destroyed next round with in its car. Please make this an option to move in, but not an automatic move.

Not sure I understood this point.

I'm quite certain what he means is the option to move the attacking unit to its target's hex if the defender was destroyed or pushed back. Much like how it works in the Commander series.

[patemartini]

Two great things which are disturbing me very much: A unit which destroys another one and has left its movement "points"
move to the destroyed unit place, even if its a artillery; the arty was destroyed next round with in its car. Please make this an option to move in, but not an automatic move.

Not sure I understood this point.

I'm quite certain what he means is the option to move the attacking unit to its target's hex if the defender was destroyed or pushed back. Much like how it works in the Commander series.

Yes you are right. I attack with in my example an artillery an infantry unit. The infantry unit has only 1 man left. My artillery attacks and the infantry is destroyed. BUT now the artillery, which I hadn't moved yet, moves to the position of the destroyed infantry, of course in in its car. I cannot do anything against it, or return this action.
In the next turn of the enemy he kills my artillerie easily and without any resistance.
In every case this happen I had no choice, the unit is just moving. I would prefer a manuel move wherever i want to.

patemartini

[Rudankort]

Yes you are right. I attack with in my example an artillery an infantry unit. The infantry unit has only 1 man left. My artillery attacks and the infantry is destroyed. BUT now the artillery, which I hadn't moved yet, moves to the position of the destroyed infantry, of course in in its car. I cannot do anything against it, or return this action.

If I understood you correctly, what you describe sounds more like a bug. The units are not supposed to move automatically to their opponent's position, only if you specifically click that hex to move there after the opponent is finished off.

[Rudankort]

Ähm, well this now is a special "german" bug: i am german (i think its obvious in the text) and when i read "bruckenpioniere" then is this a mistake, it should be either "brückenpioniere" but i know that this "ü" is sometimes not programmable and just a german singularity, or "brueckenpioniere" which is the replacement for "ü". There are also other words which need a german so called Umlaut like ü, ä, ö, and if this is interesting for you, i will correct them all in a .txt file for you.

Update: I've checked this, and if umlauts are specified in the equipment file, they are shown by the game's UI correctly. So, if you could send me a list of corrections we need to make in german names, I would incorporate them in the next update.

Equipment table is located in game's installation folder (by default %Program Files%\Slitherine\Panzer Corps) - file is Data/equipment.pzdat. You can open it in Notepad, but the most convenient way is to open it in MS Excel. Then you will see all equipment in a big table. There are two columns containing unit names: column B (Short Name) and column Z (Full Name). Please let me know if anything is not clear with this file.

Thanks in advance!

[patemartini]

here my changelog

Fallshirmjager => Fallschirmjäger (a "c" and a "ä" needed here)
Gebirgsjager => Gebirgsjäger
Bruckenpioniere => Brückenpioniere
43 Fallshirmjager => 43 Fallschirmjäger(a "c" and a "ä" needed here)
43 Gebirgsjager => 43 Gebirgsjäger
SS Gebirgsjager => SS Gebirgsjäger
Panzerjager IB => Panzerjäger
Mobelwagen => Möbelwagen

The same changes at number 1359, 1360 and 1362 (i think this is the blue opponent?!)

And here the link to the corrected file: https://rapidshare.com/files/313599308/equipment.7z
pw is send per pm @ Rudankort
I delete the file if you wish.

The names are now correct, but they look very bad in the purchase menu... Think still something too change for you.

Greetings patemartini

[Rudankort]

Hey patemartini! Thanks for your help. We will integrate these changes into the game. Purchase screen is fixed too. Alas, I could not extract the file you've placed on rapidshare, no idea why. Maybe I have an old 7z. Could you please just send unzipped file to my email - rudankort@rsdn.ru? Thx!