Non german core units proposal

Mark50 · Post by **Mark50** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 3:21 pm

I`ve made a new thread for this so that it might get noticed. I`m basically looking for a point of view from one of the Panzer Corps developers.

Is there a technical reason for not being able to recruit non german units(in the axis campaign) as your core units to take them along with you? I`m hopping that it was an implementation that was simply done for "historical accuracy" reasons without anything drastic to hold it in place. My reasoning is that if it`s not something difficult to implement technically or that demands too much work it would be nice to see it implemented. Any purely "historical" considerations can be easily brushed aside because the non german units deployed in "unlikely" places is something that can only happen in a campaign and only on the side of the human player. So it does not restrict the originally designed gaming experience at all. If you allow - for example - the player to take a Bulgarian infantry with him after playing the Greece mission it doesn`t mean the player must actually do that. It`s entirely up to him. So basically anyone who wants to take only german units along can still do this without any headache while someone who wants to have non german units too is also free too.

Longasc · Post by **Longasc** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 4:07 pm

Maybe it is enough for you that you can capture foreign units like a Char B1, T-34, Matildas, KV's and so on in the DLCs. Mostly tanks, not Infantry. It's more Germans taking the equipment rather than having an entire Bulgarian Infantry unit or something like that.

The smaller nations don't have that many units and upgrade paths, this might also be a reason why this is not possible.

Mark50 · Post by **Mark50** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 4:33 pm

Longasc wrote:Maybe it is enough for you that you can capture foreign units like a Char B1, T-34, Matildas, KV's and so on in the DLCs. Mostly tanks, not Infantry. It's more Germans taking the equipment rather than having an entire Bulgarian Infantry unit or something like that.

I was aware of that. PG3 also had a similar feature iirc. I see this as a different thing from(yet compatible with) what I was asking for though.

The smaller nations don't have that many units and upgrade paths, this might also be a reason why this is not possible.

Yes, but enforcing someone else` sense of fun in a game should not be a goal in itself.

What I`m saying is that if there`s no technical difficulty(including hours of work that can`t fit the schedule) the choice of what units to recruit could safely be left to the human player as it can`t hurt anyone`s gaming strategy. People who want non german units or weaker units can go that road and people who don`t can continue as before. That`s my reasoning at least.

Anyway, hopefully we can get an official stand on why it hasn`t been done and on whether it might or might not be implemented later.

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 9:17 pm

This can easily be done now - there is no design restriction on having any available unit made into a core unit for the player. However, the restrictions (that readily come to mind and there are sure to be others) are - historical reasons, as you mention, and the core slot restriction. Unless the Bulgarian infantry, for example, are given stats comparable to German units they will simply be disbanded - if you want a strong core. Historically, the national units were used in politically expedient ways so the Germans could keep allies - not so much for offensive fighting strength. Yes, historical accuracy can be flipped but it's one more thing that hinders immersion for those who like historical accuracy.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 9:29 pm

What are the historical reasons? Italians Romanians Hungarians had ALOT of men in Russia, the Spanish had the Blue Division etc. I think the only limitation would/should be that the scenario designer would have to set up a campaign scenario with at least one objective city/airfiled owned by the Axis minor, and then the player would be able to purchase those nations units into his corp if he so desires.

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 9:35 pm

Yes, there were many allies in Russia - but not so many in the west later (there were some there, too). The historical issue is that they become vassals of the Germans rather than allies and can be used wherever and however the German wants - not completely historical. Just saying. If guys want them, fine - I would disband them immediately.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 9:41 pm

El_Condoro wrote:Yes, there were many allies in Russia - but not so many in the west later (there were some there, too). The historical issue is that they become vassals of the Germans rather than allies and can be used wherever and however the German wants - not completely historical. Just saying. If guys want them, fine - I would disband them immediately.

Well, we're invading the USA with hypotheitical Jet bombers so might as well be dragging 5 star Slovak infantry units and Italian cavalry nurtured for 12 battles with us as well

I see you point and I doudt there are any minor nations units that would be cost wise to want to take up a core slot , at least over the course of the entire campaign, but would still be fun to have the option. Actually the Honved had quite a few Stugs and even some Mark IV's / Tigers later in the war. At the least you'd have some units with different paint jobs.

Vaughn · Post by **Vaughn** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 9:45 pm

I remember playing PG on the playstation so often that towards the end I would take minor axis units into my core just to handicap myself. I didn't take much. One or two units from each minor axis nation I was able to. Just enough for pepper and flavor. It was fun.

Rudankort · Post by **Rudankort** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 9:49 pm

Some people might keep secondary nations in the core just for the fun of it, and never deploy them - in this case, you do not lose the slot, but you still have them.

But all this is a quite exotic use case in my opinion. Early on we decided that having secondary nations as auxiliaries was enough for flavor reasons.

Zhivago · Post by **Zhivago** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:11 pm

Some of the secondary axis countries have some cool weaponry that would be great to add to the core in the DLCs. The Italian Piaggo strategic bomber, and the M41M would be nice additions to the core (when DLC 43 is released). Some of the Italian fighters are actually pretty decent too.

Mark50 · Post by **Mark50** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 12:25 am

Wow, this actually attracted more attention than I would have thought.

Anyway, I want to make some points again as I think they were not understood the first time around:

1. about the worry that taking foreign units with you in a campaign is not historical. Well, first of all that`s wholly debatable, but let`s not go down that road at all. We don`t need to. If I will take a Slovakian infantry with me to fight in Russia it will be my little secret.

Nobody else on this board or among the developers needs to know. I won`t tell. Just have a bit more of personal fun. I don`t think it can affect anyone else. After all, someone imaginative can find many ways to not play historically with the game as it is now(what does that mean btw in a game that aims to change history anyway?).

2. about the worry that it will ruin immersion to have non german core units. You`ve misunderstood me. I am not proposing that the player starts any campaign with non german units as core units. I am proposing that the player is able to disband some of his german units and recruit non german units instead or simply, if extra core slots are available, to recruit non germans in the first place. Basically this means that there would not be any changes done to the existing campaigns or scenarios regarding the player`s starting units. It would just be an extra option which for the strictly german unit buyers can remain wholly unobserved. Nobody in this camp will be affected by this feature as they can simply ignore it. So my conclusion is this is a very liberal proposal of a feature that makes some people happy(anyone wanting to take non german units along) and does not make anyone else unhappy. So, how about it?

EDIT: btw, if the problem is the perceived need to edit the campaign maps that have so far been released so that they have non german axis bases from where to recruit these foreign units I think it can be overcome by simply allowing the non german units to be recruited in enemy bases conquered by their co-nationals. For example on a map where you have romanian units but no romanian bases at the start you can conquer one of the enemy bases with one of the starting romanian units and thus obtain a base where to place extra romanian units if you want to. Iirc it is something that occurred in the original PG.

Durin1978 · Post by **Durin1978** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 3:49 am

To go semi off topic. What about the option for the player to recruit a support unit he had with him in a scenario? A bit like "this officer and his troops impressed me, i would like to add him and his soldiers to my combat group"

Linai · Post by **Linai** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:11 am

lol lets spend time makin a feature that takes time to develop, implement, test, and balance just to see it get ignored because german units are always better than any other axis units. that sounds like an awesome use of development time and effort!

macattack · Post by **macattack** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:12 am

Vaughn wrote:I remember playing PG on the playstation so often that towards the end I would take minor axis units into my core just to handicap myself. I didn't take much. One or two units from each minor axis nation I was able to. Just enough for pepper and flavor. It was fun.

You played PG on a playstation. Wasn't that handicap enough?

My goodness that was miserably slow on the PS.

Kerensky · Post by **Kerensky** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:16 am

I remember in the playstation you could upgrade ANY unit to ANY class of unit because of a bug on the upgrade menu. Gave you an awesome head start for prestige. You could buy all PZ IA for like 12 or 24 or whatever they cost, and upgrade them into 109s and stukas for Warsaw super cheap.

Mark50 · Post by **Mark50** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 1:59 pm

Linai wrote:lol lets spend time makin a feature that takes time to develop, implement, test, and balance just to see it get ignored because german units are always better than any other axis units. that sounds like an awesome use of development time and effort!

Suggestions are obviously encouraged around these forums by the game`s developers and it`s really up to them to decide what is worth their while and what isn`t. Which is not to say that I think sarcasm per se doesn`t have a place btw, but I doubt this is it.

Vaughn · Post by **Vaughn** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:48 pm

PG on the playstation was slow, but I didn't know any better. I was happy enough with it.

gaaust · Post by **gaaust** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:42 pm

I agree with Mark50 argumentation.

flakfernrohr · Post by **flakfernrohr** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 7:48 pm

If you want to make foreign units of equal strength, intiative, weapons, etc., all you have to do is go to the Equipment Editor and put a suitable German unit in and clone it, rename it and put the appropriate icon on the newly created unit. Then you can go into the game and modify your core units and they will be equal to any German unit. Conversely you can alter the number of core units in the cheat codes, Scenario Editor, etc.
The unit graphics for the DMP Afrika Korps mod have some differently styled uniforms that look good and so does Rezaf's Spanish Civil War mod. In fact I found one cavalry unit with blue pants and yellow stripes so made them German Cossacks. (Cossacks had Red Stripes on thier pants, but what the heck).

WhiteRook · Post by **WhiteRook** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:54 pm

Durin1978 wrote:To go semi off topic. What about the option for the player to recruit a support unit he had with him in a scenario? A bit like "this officer and his troops impressed me, i would like to add him and his soldiers to my combat group"

Now I like that idea and it seems reasonable - I would love that kind of option in most games of this flavor!