Panzer Corps GC '42-'43 West and v1.11 Update Released!

[fliegenderstaub]

Is there a chance, that in a future patch "reform units" will become an option?

Having played the first scenario of the new DLC I am surprised about the new game experience. Very good work!

I "only" acquired a marginal victory, maybe because of the british destroyer exploding and damaging the dock. I don't know exactly, but it was fun playing anway!

[boredatwork]

Players can use their core force from previously-completed Grand Campaigns and continue to gain experience and upgraded equipment, giving the truly unique experience of raising and fielding an army from the start of World War II to the bitter end.

In case anyone else is curious before purchasing though, DLC 42/43 West will accept an imported core from a complete DLC41 campaign. In other words, any CORE that is eligible to start DLC42 is also eligible to start DLC 42/43 West.

I found this fairly misleading.

To clarify you CAN import an existing core into GC42-43W but you start only able to deploy EIGHT UNITS + FOUR SE units for a total of TWELVE. I don't know about other people but my DLC41 COREs came out to 45-50 units and now I can only deploy 1/4? Gradually it builds up to 20+4SE=24 compared to 37+5=42 in GC42 East. From 24-18 fewer units deployed.

The "Grand" Campaign West isn't IMO really all that Grand.

(Also the first impression I got from the briefing text ("You will only be able to IMPORT 8, and your prestige reset. The rest are considered to have been left behind on the eastern front") was that after I chose my 8+4 the rest of my CORE would be deleted. That led to a much angrier post, since deleted when I used the cheat code to move to the next scenario and discover the rest of my core was in fact safe.)


Personally I found the smaller campaign dissapointing for two missed opportunities:

a) The developers could have improved the replayability of all DLC content by combining it into a single multibranch entity had it been to the same scale (in terms of deployable CORE size) - ie DLC41W and DLC42W in Africa, DLC43W in Italy, DLC44W in Normandy, DLC45 along the west wall. The fact the east and west front were different in terms of scope is, IMO, irrelavent given that PzC has no fixed unit or ground scale. Being able to switch between fronts at various points would have reduced the linearity of the campaign and allowed players flexibility to play it a different way each time they played. Replacing hordes of T-34s with fewer, greater overstrength Shermans, along with more powerfull air units would have made the west "feel" different from the east despite the fact the German forces stay the "same" size.

OR

b) The developers used not obsoleting existing content as an excuse not to explore major improvements to the game - and yet new content (DLCWest/Afrika Corp) is not really compatible with existing content anyways so there should have been no reason not make new content a seperate module using it's own improved ruleset. Why not experiment with a quality based cap or modified combat mechanics to restore some of the dash to the game. (IMO the DLC east, while enjoyable feels more like I'm playing as the Allies than the Germans - a ponderous cautious advance because if the enemy so much as sneezes in the direction of anything but a Tiger my unit will drop dead before I can blink.)


I may reconsider once I see Goodwood & Market Garden screenshots but given that I couldn't stop playing GC39-GC45E from the moment I downloaded them, and yet I am completely unmotivated to play GC42-43W, I probably will not be buying any additional GCW content.

[lordzimoa]

The main reason is basically because we decided early on we wanted to use smaller Corps that could offer different play styles in the Western Grand Campaign, especially in the earlier years the sort of commando raid type of scenarios as Narvik, Dieppe, etc... This offered the scenario designers to experiment with some cool new options. On the Western front the amount of troops were generally taken smaller, they will grow though in the next editions to larger amounts again when the bigger Western offensives as eg. Market garden will appear.

I believe it was a good decision as the total series of a perfect mix, for those who like historical, alternative historical, big maps, small maps, big corps, small corps, scripted, non-scripted... there is a lot of variation.

You will disagree, others will agree...

[deducter]

To clarify you CAN import an existing core into GC42-43W but you start only able to deploy EIGHT UNITS + FOUR SE units for a total of TWELVE. I don't know about other people but my DLC41 COREs came out to 45-50 units and now I can only deploy 1/4? Gradually it builds up to 20+4SE=24 compared to 37+5=42 in GC42 East. From 24-18 fewer units deployed.

The "Grand" Campaign West isn't IMO really all that Grand.

(Also the first impression I got from the briefing text ("You will only be able to IMPORT 8, and your prestige reset. The rest are considered to have been left behind on the eastern front") was that after I chose my 8+4 the rest of my CORE would be deleted. That led to a much angrier post, since deleted when I used the cheat code to move to the next scenario and discover the rest of my core was in fact safe.)

I actually find it refreshing to command a much smaller core of units rather than the 40+ unit behemoth battles of the Eastern Front. Not everyone wants to fight those titantic battles all the time. I get rather exhausted commanding so many units in every single battle. It gives a different flavor to the game.

Personally I found the smaller campaign dissapointing for two missed opportunities:

a) The developers could have improved the replayability of all DLC content by combining it into a single multibranch entity had it been to the same scale (in terms of deployable CORE size) - ie DLC41W and DLC42W in Africa, DLC43W in Italy, DLC44W in Normandy, DLC45 along the west wall. The fact the east and west front were different in terms of scope is, IMO, irrelavent given that PzC has no fixed unit or ground scale. Being able to switch between fronts at various points would have reduced the linearity of the campaign and allowed players flexibility to play it a different way each time they played. Replacing hordes of T-34s with fewer, greater overstrength Shermans, along with more powerfull air units would have made the west "feel" different from the east despite the fact the German forces stay the "same" size.

I'm not inclined to agree that this is a good idea. Allowing the player to mod the saved core file is a more reasonable request.

I really don't see how you can make the AI remotely challenging if you allow a 40+ core unit without resorting to the 150+ AI units of GCEast. To make the USAF competitive, for instance, you'd probably have to add 10 P-47 a scenario in 1943 alone, and even then they would be swatted out of the skies with ease given the 4-star FW 190A that you would easily be able to bring to bear. During Normandy, I think you'll see every player facing the exact opposite of the historical air war: instead of complete Allied air superiority, it'd be a 10 Fw 190s shooting down every single Allied plane with impunity.

I think a smaller core size is not too relevant to increasing core diversity. There are too many factors that go into core diversity: the quantity and type of Allied opposition, a defensive/offensive mentality, the relative cost of the German units.

The current eqp file is optimized around a short campaign (like stock campaign) and also MP play. I think while there's room for improvement, MP has a more diverse selection of viable units, with a large variety of viable strategies. I prefer a blitzkrieg-style attack, pushing my units relentlessly forward into the enemy's rear. Sometimes this is successful and I encircle masses of troops, but sometimes this is foiled by a skilled counterattack.Some of my opponents prefer a cautious advance, trying to arrange their units in perfect formation and advancing slowly, but others prefer an all-out attack with fast troops. Some prefer to take command of the skies, and some ignore air units and go for FlaK. Some prefer all heavy tanks, while others prefer to go for a mix of heavy/medium tanks. Towed AT and towed AA are both useful. Losses are inevitable and come fast; there's no sense in trying to end a fight with as few casualties as possible, as long as you take the objectives. It's a very different game from SP and can be highly enjoyable.

b) The developers used not obsoleting existing content as an excuse not to explore major improvements to the game - and yet new content (DLCWest/Afrika Corp) is not really compatible with existing content anyways so there should have been no reason not make new content a seperate module using it's own improved ruleset. Why not experiment with a quality based cap or modified combat mechanics to restore some of the dash to the game. (IMO the DLC east, while enjoyable feels more like I'm playing as the Allies than the Germans - a ponderous cautious advance because if the enemy so much as sneezes in the direction of anything but a Tiger my unit will drop dead before I can blink.)

I do agree with this. Exploring options for a more diverse ruleset/eqp file and modified combat mechanics can make the game more interesting.

[Rudankort]

I was waiting for someone to complain about the decision we've made regarding the transfer of the core from '41 to '42 West. For the record, during the beta testing this decision was accepted quite well, or we might reconsider it. But more opinions on this are always welcome.

Personally, I don't think that the opportunities you listed were "missed' at all. Making East and West the same scale and the core transferable would make the GC more replayable in theory. But in practice, it would mean "more of the same content". Scenarios of the same size and using the same units would feel very similar, and I doubt that many people would fancy replaying these paths in different combinations. Besides, many people complained that the battles in the late DLCs became too big and tedious to fight through. So, we decided to take a different approach. New campaign is different in size, it will require a different core composition (for example, allies will have less tanks, but stronger air power), and DLC '42-43 is the first campaign in PzC where you play a mixed green+elite core force. This, combined with extensive use of new features introduced in AK, should make the new campaign different enough and interesting to people. And speaking of replayability, just imagine how many new interesting options you have with new core transfer scheme. You could try to go with elite planes but green tanks, or vice versa, or take elite artillery and green everything else, and the campaign will feel differently every time.

As for the second opportunity, AK did introduce a number of gameplay changes. Maybe more changes will be introduced in the future. But at the same time, our goal is to keep game rules consistent across the series. We cannot possibly use different combat mechanics in different campaigns, this would totally confuse 90% of the players. I know that for modders and hardcore players rules variations are not a problem to grasp, but for the rest of the folks out there we are determined to keep same rules, same units with same stats etc. across all content we create.

[robman]

Having played the first scenario of the new DLC I am surprised about the new game experience. Very good work!

I "only" acquired a marginal victory, maybe because of the british destroyer exploding and damaging the dock. I don't know exactly, but it was fun playing anway!

I agree, this one was a blast (grooaaaan). In my playthrough the Campbeltown did not blow up, even though I failed to destroy it with air bombardment. What triggers its detonation? Allied capture of one or more of the dry dock hexes?

[deducter]

As for the second opportunity, AK did introduce a number of gameplay changes. Maybe more changes will be introduced in the future. But at the same time, our goal is to keep game rules consistent across the series. We cannot possibly use different combat mechanics in different campaigns, this would totally confuse 90% of the players. I know that for modders and hardcore players rules variations are not a problem to grasp, but for the rest of the folks out there we are determined to keep same rules, same units with same stats etc. across all content we create.

Implementing new rules at higher difficulty levels is common in strategy games. A basic ruleset common across all campaigns can appeal to most players, and after they can comfortable with that, they can try out the more advanced ruleset, which can be campaign-specific.

As for combat mechanics, this game is transparent when compared with many wargames. With some effort, the average player can understand all aspects of how combat works. I only wish this could be clearly explained in an appendix of the manual, so anyone who wants to know can read about it rather than having to gather the information from a dozen different sources on the forums.

[Rudankort]

Implementing new rules at higher difficulty levels is common in strategy games. A basic ruleset common across all campaigns can appeal to most players, and after they can comfortable with that, they can try out the more advanced ruleset, which can be campaign-specific.

If the new rules on higher difficulty make the game more difficult/complex, I can understand that. But if the rules are just different, it is much harder to justify in my opinion. It will create a whole lot of mess.

[orlinos]

As for combat mechanics, this game is transparent when compared with many wargames. With some effort, the average player can understand all aspects of how combat works. I only wish this could be clearly explained in an appendix of the manual, so anyone who wants to know can read about it rather than having to gather the information from a dozen different sources on the forums.

When I stop having bouts of writer's block and come back to my guide, I definitely hope to put all the information missing from the manual into it. There is much work to be done - for example, only lately did I learn, that bad weather is the best time to attack artillery, since units get defense bonus at such time.

At this moment I still hope to squeeze some more "very basic tactics tutorials" from myself, especially that I think all analyzing also helps my own play. I am not very satisfied with my bit on spotting and trapping (although I loved the discussion that followed) - but I did realize, how AI units almost always try to attack from the flank, when possible. Lesson learned.

After my imagination burns out, I want to gather much of the data already in the FAQ, forums etc. This should provide a nice informal appendix (after some heavy editing, since I like to write. A. Lot.).

[deducter]

Implementing new rules at higher difficulty levels is common in strategy games. A basic ruleset common across all campaigns can appeal to most players, and after they can comfortable with that, they can try out the more advanced ruleset, which can be campaign-specific.

If the new rules on higher difficulty make the game more difficult/complex, I can understand that. But if the rules are just different, it is much harder to justify in my opinion. It will create a whole lot of mess.

Right, any new rules should make the game not only more challenging, but also more interesting/complex. I played this little wargame called "Hannibal, Rome and Carthage." It is a very small game with just one scenario and 3 difficulties, but each difficulty doesn't just give the AI some extra bonuses, but rather activates not only better AI scripts (sidenote: the AI scripts are really, really good) but additional game rules. On the highest difficulty, for instance, you have to deal with the Carthaginian Senate, something completely absent from the two lower difficulties. I thought it made the game more challenging in a realistic way, which made it more fun for me. This is the sort of difficulty slider I'd like to have, where each new level adds new elements to the game.

[Casaubon]

looking forward a smaller core. I enjoyed the early years DLCs the most btw. the russian permanent onslought was kind of tiring.

[4kEY]

The current eqp file is optimized around a short campaign (like stock campaign) and also MP play. I think while there's room for improvement, MP has a more diverse selection of viable units, with a large variety of viable strategies. I prefer a blitzkrieg-style attack, pushing my units relentlessly forward into the enemy's rear. Sometimes this is successful and I encircle masses of troops, but sometimes this is foiled by a skilled counterattack.Some of my opponents prefer a cautious advance, trying to arrange their units in perfect formation and advancing slowly, but others prefer an all-out attack with fast troops. Some prefer to take command of the skies, and some ignore air units and go for FlaK. Some prefer all heavy tanks, while others prefer to go for a mix of heavy/medium tanks. Towed AT and towed AA are both useful. Losses are inevitable and come fast; there's no sense in trying to end a fight with as few casualties as possible, as long as you take the objectives. It's a very different game from SP and can be highly enjoyable.

How much bandwidth does a Panzer Corps multiplayer game generally use?

[Zhivago]

Players can use their core force from previously-completed Grand Campaigns and continue to gain experience and upgraded equipment, giving the truly unique experience of raising and fielding an army from the start of World War II to the bitter end.

In case anyone else is curious before purchasing though, DLC 42/43 West will accept an imported core from a complete DLC41 campaign. In other words, any CORE that is eligible to start DLC42 is also eligible to start DLC 42/43 West.

I found this fairly misleading.

To clarify you CAN import an existing core into GC42-43W but you start only able to deploy EIGHT UNITS + FOUR SE units for a total of TWELVE. I don't know about other people but my DLC41 COREs came out to 45-50 units and now I can only deploy 1/4? Gradually it builds up to 20+4SE=24 compared to 37+5=42 in GC42 East. From 24-18 fewer units deployed.

The "Grand" Campaign West isn't IMO really all that Grand.

(Also the first impression I got from the briefing text ("You will only be able to IMPORT 8, and your prestige reset. The rest are considered to have been left behind on the eastern front") was that after I chose my 8+4 the rest of my CORE would be deleted. That led to a much angrier post, since deleted when I used the cheat code to move to the next scenario and discover the rest of my core was in fact safe.)


Personally I found the smaller campaign dissapointing for two missed opportunities:

a) The developers could have improved the replayability of all DLC content by combining it into a single multibranch entity had it been to the same scale (in terms of deployable CORE size) - ie DLC41W and DLC42W in Africa, DLC43W in Italy, DLC44W in Normandy, DLC45 along the west wall. The fact the east and west front were different in terms of scope is, IMO, irrelavent given that PzC has no fixed unit or ground scale. Being able to switch between fronts at various points would have reduced the linearity of the campaign and allowed players flexibility to play it a different way each time they played. Replacing hordes of T-34s with fewer, greater overstrength Shermans, along with more powerfull air units would have made the west "feel" different from the east despite the fact the German forces stay the "same" size.

OR

b) The developers used not obsoleting existing content as an excuse not to explore major improvements to the game - and yet new content (DLCWest/Afrika Corp) is not really compatible with existing content anyways so there should have been no reason not make new content a seperate module using it's own improved ruleset. Why not experiment with a quality based cap or modified combat mechanics to restore some of the dash to the game. (IMO the DLC east, while enjoyable feels more like I'm playing as the Allies than the Germans - a ponderous cautious advance because if the enemy so much as sneezes in the direction of anything but a Tiger my unit will drop dead before I can blink.)


I may reconsider once I see Goodwood & Market Garden screenshots but given that I couldn't stop playing GC39-GC45E from the moment I downloaded them, and yet I am completely unmotivated to play GC42-43W, I probably will not be buying any additional GCW content.

I brought this issue of one "unified" Grand Campaign involving all European theaters up several months ago in this Forum, and the devs (to their credit) honestly answered that when they published the original Panzer Corps game, they did not really give a lot of thought to planning how to expand the game (and make everything work together in a linear fashion). I assume this was mostly the result of a business decision in that the devs were taking a risk publishing a re-make of Panzer General and they wanted to see if the game sold well before investing more money into future expansions. As a result, the Panzer Corps vanilla game is kind of an island unto itself--a "mini" version of the European theater that does not mesh into the East or West GCs. Conversely, the East and West DC campaigns force a player to continue through all of the battles on the East or West front despite getting decisive victories (whereas, for example, a DV at Moscow 1943 in the vanilla campaign (preceded by a Sealion DV) will skip the Germans straight to the 1946 invasion of the USA.

I believe that it would have been nice to have points in time during the European campaign where a player can make decisions to pull out of one theater of operations and go into another with a saved core. For example, when the Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 while the Battle of Kursk was raging on, the Germans pulled several divisions out of Kursk and off the Eastern Front and re-deployed them to Italy to counter the new Allied threat there.

Perhaps there will be a future update that "unifies" all of the campaigns into a Grand Campaign that gives a player more choices on where and when to fight, but it sounds like this might be nearly impossible from a programming stance.

[boredatwork]

I believe it was a good decision as the total series of a perfect mix, for those who like historical, alternative historical, big maps, small maps, big corps, small corps, scripted, non-scripted... there is a lot of variation.

You will disagree, others will agree...

I'm not expecting you to cater specifically to my tastes. If 5 people preffer the direction of GCWest to everyone who thinks like me then obviously it makes sense to do what is most commercially viable. I'm merely providing feedback that my purchase of GC42-43 was based upon the strength of GCEast, as opposed to approval of the direction the GC has taken.

I was waiting for someone to complain about the decision we've made regarding the transfer of the core from '41 to '42 West.

Glad I could be the first!

Personally, I don't think that the opportunities you listed were "missed' at all. Making East and West the same scale and the core transferable would make the GC more replayable in theory. But in practice, it would mean "more of the same content". Scenarios of the same size and using the same units would feel very similar, and I doubt that many people would fancy replaying these paths in different combinations.

Arguably the western and eastern paths of the original PG campaign felt fairly different - I'm sure scaled to match the GC Afrika Corps, mountain fighting in Italy, Bocage fighting in Normandy, and air heavy fighting in the west could have felt very different from the east.

Besides, many people complained that the battles in the late DLCs became too big and tedious to fight through. So, we decided to take a different approach.

A fairer criticism IMO - though arguably going to point b) this would have been justification for improving the rules/mechanics to improve the feel of the game a put more emphasis on maneuver instead of blasting through hordes of AI cannon fodder.

As for the second opportunity, AK did introduce a number of gameplay changes. Maybe more changes will be introduced in the future. But at the same time, our goal is to keep game rules consistent across the series. We cannot possibly use different combat mechanics in different campaigns, this would totally confuse 90% of the players.

Games change. Players adapt. PzC was not a carbon copy of PG - you made changes and improvements. At some point you'll abandon PzC and hopefully start work on similar games with improvement. You yourself have agreed there are things that could be improved:

On of the basic principles in core game design was that prestige is the primary limit on what units you can have in the core. And the effect of it is exactly as some people requested above: you can have 5 Tigers or 10 PzIVs, but not 10 Tigers for the same money. It is essentially the same idea. Naturally, when prestige is abundant and stops being a concern, this delicate mechanics breaks altogether. In retrospect, I think that this system works very well in the short term, but not so well in the long term.

...

Grand Campaign is especially tricky, because it is SO long, it is really pushing the limits of core game design. However, I'm not saying that the problem cannot be solved and that we should not try to improve things in the future. Admittedly it is getting hard to solve it in the existing game, because we have so much content released already, and any radical change can ruin this content. But in a new game system which will follow Panzer Corps at some point this particular issue will be one of our priorities. I have some ideas of my own, and I will consider some things used in other games too (like high-end units taking more slots than normals ones). So yeah, it is a useful discussion, and we keep our ears open wide. You can be sure about that.

While the first GC West Campaign - being the start of the campaign - is (probably) the equivalent of GC39/40 and thus fairly well balanced, assuming DLC west is 36-48 scenarios long by the time it ends won't it suffer from the same issues as DLC east? Hordes of Tiger IIs and Me262s deffending the Ruhr against swarms of allied cannon Fodder?

If Afrika and GC West had been fully interchangeable with GCEast then yes, I would agree it would be hard to make major improvements because it would be unrealistic to expect Karensky to volunteer his time to go back and rebalance DLC East to make use of the new changes. But you chose not to make them interchangeable. Therefore I don't see why Afrika/West was not an opportunity to tie off development of the original PzC and instead release the western branch as it's own quasi stand alone product. Not a totally new game. Not PzCorps 2.0. But building upon the exisisting product to explore changes that would improve additional content from that point on without having to worry about backwards compatibility.

I'm not inclined to agree that this is a good idea. Allowing the player to mod the saved core file is a more reasonable request.

I really don't see how you can make the AI remotely challenging if you allow a 40+ core unit without resorting to the 150+ AI units of GCEast. To make the USAF competitive, for instance, you'd probably have to add 10 P-47 a scenario in 1943 alone, and even then they would be swatted out of the skies with ease given the 4-star FW 190A that you would easily be able to bring to bear. During Normandy, I think you'll see every player facing the exact opposite of the historical air war: instead of complete Allied air superiority, it'd be a 10 Fw 190s shooting down every single Allied plane with impunity.

As I commented on in the Core losses thread if you make the penalty for core unit loss bareable for the average player by considering lost units as simply fatigued/in need of maintenance/out of equipment as opposed to being physically dead then it would be practical to make Mainstein like strength enhancements the norm. Because AIs tend to do better with vertical strength increases (stonger units) than horizontal ones (more units) you can give the AI fewer, tougher units - instead of 10x12str P-47s give the AI 6x20 str P-47s and it will do a better job at grinding your FWs down. If the penalty for death is a bareable -1 star experience and you lose a FW every scenario or two because the AI gangs up on it, gradually your airforce will decline as it did historically without excessively impacting player enjoyment of being on the defensive in the last couple of years.

[mulleto22]

I think that the approach taken for GC42/43West has been a good decision. I enjoyed the gameply more than with the late eastern GCs. AS with them, I played this GC on Rommel, but unlike in the East, Prestige was a very limiting factor so far. So, unlike in the East, where I could easily afford all Tiger II and Me262 in 1944, I had to play with a much more historical core - less tanks, more infantry, only one Tiger and Pz. III/IV. I was even glad I had extracted some of them Italian Tropps at Syracuse. All in all, this was an all new gaming experience with PzC, and I liked it. Actually, while not having been disappointed by GC 44 and 45 East, leading tank battles with epic sizes has worn off a little bit. Lets not forget that everyone has their different taste, and I believe the direction taken is a good step to a bit more variety in gameplay.

[Rudankort]

Arguably the western and eastern paths of the original PG campaign felt fairly different - I'm sure scaled to match the GC Afrika Corps, mountain fighting in Italy, Bocage fighting in Normandy, and air heavy fighting in the west could have felt very different from the east.

Well, original PG campaign was different. When you have only a couple of scenario on eastern and wester front each year, jumping between them might be a good idea, but in GC, where each year is 10+ scenarios, I doubt such jumping would give you much variety. Playing the next DLC campaign with your favorite veterans is one thing, but replaying 42-45 campaigns in various East/West combinations would be a time-consuming and not very fun task. Different cores you import would not give you enough variety to justify replaying 10 scenarios again and again.

Besides, many people complained that the battles in the late DLCs became too big and tedious to fight through. So, we decided to take a different approach.

A fairer criticism IMO - though arguably going to point b) this would have been justification for improving the rules/mechanics to improve the feel of the game a put more emphasis on maneuver instead of blasting through hordes of AI cannon fodder.

I don't see any changes in rules/mechanics, even big ones, which would suddenly make moving ~50 units manually on every turn and fighting 100s of enemies much more fun than it is now. Some players just like it this way, many others don't, but you can hardly satisfy the latter group by changing game rules alone. You need to give them smaller battles. We are doing our best to cater for both groups, but we cannot possibly satisfy every one in every single campaign we make.

Games change. Players adapt. PzC was not a carbon copy of PG - you made changes and improvements. At some point you'll abandon PzC and hopefully start work on similar games with improvement. You yourself have agreed there are things that could be improved:
...
While the first GC West Campaign - being the start of the campaign - is (probably) the equivalent of GC39/40 and thus fairly well balanced, assuming DLC west is 36-48 scenarios long by the time it ends won't it suffer from the same issues as DLC east? Hordes of Tiger IIs and Me262s deffending the Ruhr against swarms of allied cannon Fodder?

Well, western campaign, which gets a kind of "reset" in 42-43, will be much shorter (we only have 2 DLCs left), so it should not suffer as much as the campaign played from 39 till 45 (3 DLCs instead of 7!).

If Afrika and GC West had been fully interchangeable with GCEast then yes, I would agree it would be hard to make major improvements because it would be unrealistic to expect Karensky to volunteer his time to go back and rebalance DLC East to make use of the new changes. But you chose not to make them interchangeable. Therefore I don't see why Afrika/West was not an opportunity to tie off development of the original PzC and instead release the western branch as it's own quasi stand alone product. Not a totally new game. Not PzCorps 2.0. But building upon the exisisting product to explore changes that would improve additional content from that point on without having to worry about backwards compatibility.

Well, when games exist under the same roof (PzC/AK/GC is a single package, and GC East and West are in the same list), people expect them to be similar. Changing the rules is one thing, but often changed rules require some stats tweaks, and this, considering the number of units in the game, would be very difficult to track and remember.

Making the next game (Allied) completely standalone, with separate install folder, separate shortcut and separate UI, is an option, but I'm not sure if this will be popular with our players or not. More opinions on this are certainly welcome.

But there is one more problem here in any case: I believe now that PzC gameplay cannot be significantly improved without some very significant redesign. Cosmetic changes will not help it much.

[robman]

But there is one more problem here in any case: I believe now that PzC gameplay cannot be significantly improved without some very significant redesign. Cosmetic changes will not help it much.

By all means, undertake that redesign for Allied Corps, or at least as much as possible. Speaking only for myself, I would love to see some radical changes, having played the existing engine now for uncounted hours; and given the quality of what you guys have done so far, I have no reason to fear further change. I agree, however, that the DLCs are not the place to undertake significant changes to gameplay.

[boredatwork]

Well, original PG campaign was different. When you have only a couple of scenario on eastern and wester front each year, jumping between them might be a good idea, but in GC, where each year is 10+ scenarios, I doubt such jumping would give you much variety. Playing the next DLC campaign with your favorite veterans is one thing, but replaying 42-45 campaigns in various East/West combinations would be a time-consuming and not very fun task. Different cores you import would not give you enough variety to justify replaying 10 scenarios again and again.

Once the complete content was completed I would have tacked on an additional campaign structure to treat all the DLC as a single campaign and provided multiple convenient crossover points - ex before and after Kursk/Sicily, not just before and after DLC 43 so transfers could have happened every 3-4 scenarios.

Well, when games exist under the same roof (PzC/AK/GC is a single package, and GC East and West are in the same list), people expect them to be similar.

... when GC East and West and AK are in the same list people (me) expect them to be similar and yet...

Scenarios of the same size and using the same units would feel very similar...

So, we decided to take a different approach. New campaign is different in size, it will require a different core composition (for example, allies will have less tanks, but stronger air power),

This, combined with extensive use of new features introduced in AK, should make the new campaign different enough and interesting to people.

You could try to go with elite planes but green tanks, or vice versa, or take elite artillery and green everything else, and the campaign will feel differently every time.

Regardless I'll not waste your time and mine further debating what might have been since there is now 0 chance it will be changed to what it could have been.

Making the next game (Allied) completely standalone, with separate install folder, separate shortcut and separate UI, is an option, but I'm not sure if this will be popular with our players or not. More opinions on this are certainly welcome.

But there is one more problem here in any case: I believe now that PzC gameplay cannot be significantly improved without some very significant redesign. Cosmetic changes will not help it much.

I don't see any changes in rules/mechanics, even big ones, which would suddenly make moving ~50 units manually on every turn and fighting 100s of enemies much more fun than it is now.

See the "losing core units" thread - if the penalty for losing core units was less than perma death - on the assumption that lost units were merely so fatigued and dissorganised they had to be withdrawn to rest for the remainder of the scenario - it would be possible to accept a much higher player casualty rates during the scenario by using fewer, stronger, AI units. A player might start the scenario with 50 units but might end it with ~35. There would be less need for AI hordes if instead dozen of weak units the AI deployed fewer, much stronger units (18+ str) since you no longer need to be worried about whether such powerfull units will be too lethal. Similarly smaller player cores at the end of the scenario would reduce the need for spam spawn. Less penalty for death combined with fewer turns to achive objectives means more incentive to gamble instead of lining up from one side of the map to another. If a player suffers a particularly bad scenario loss instead of a decimated core and quitting out of frustration he can proceed to the next scenario in reasonable shape.

This is not a major change ruleswise or from a coding PoV but arguably it would have a major impact on the game.


When you start planning the path you plan to take with the Allied game, please, please, please try experimenting with a quality based scenario cap before you commit to the current prestige + core slots one. The change is easy enough to implement because you don't have to worry about existing content and it has 0 impact on the actual game combat mechanics and AI coding, but IMO it would improve game difficulty scaling and unit viability as well as make campaign balancing *much* easier since you kill the snowball.

[Rudankort]

Regardless I'll not waste your time and mine further debating what might have been since there is now 0 chance it will be changed to what it could have been.

Thanks. I think that you understood very well what I was trying to say, even if you pretend that you see contradictions in my words.

See the "losing core units" thread - if the penalty for losing core units was less than perma death - on the assumption that lost units were merely so fatigued and dissorganised they had to be withdrawn to rest for the remainder of the scenario - it would be possible to accept a much higher player casualty rates during the scenario by using fewer, stronger, AI units. A player might start the scenario with 50 units but might end it with ~35. There would be less need for AI hordes if instead dozen of weak units the AI deployed fewer, much stronger units (18+ str) since you no longer need to be worried about whether such powerfull units will be too lethal. Similarly smaller player cores at the end of the scenario would reduce the need for spam spawn. Less penalty for death combined with fewer turns to achive objectives means more incentive to gamble instead of lining up from one side of the map to another. If a player suffers a particularly bad scenario loss instead of a decimated core and quitting out of frustration he can proceed to the next scenario in reasonable shape.

I can tell you that on the first glace this is a very questionable idea. But I promise to read that thread and give it more thought.