Welcome to Allied Corps beta 2.
In this post I will describe what changes this beta includes, and what to look our for.Allied Campaign
In this beta Allied Campaign is complete. All scenarios are playable, both in campaign and scenario mode. Also, in this beta you have a choice of six different entry points:
- Desert 1940 (tutorial)
- Crete 1941
- El Alamein 1942
- Torch 1942
- Sicily 1943
- Normandy 1944
It will be better if you start a new campaign instead of continuing the one from beta 1. Many scenarios, prestige settings and game rules got tweaked, some bugs fixed, and the overall balance might work differently to beta 1. Feel free to skip the tutorial, or start at a late point in the campaign (e. g. from Italy or France) to avoid playing through the whole thing again.
So, what to look out for?
- As usual, please post any impressions about the individual scenarios in their respective topics.
- We have not yet had a chance to revisit unit stats, but we are still collecting any piece of feedback related to units in this thread. Please post any unit-related suggestions there.
- All briefings have been proofread. From this point on, any mistakes, grammar errors or typos will get into release, unless you report them!
Multiplayer maps
In beta 2 Multiplayer has been enabled, and we have added 4 new MP maps. You should be able to login into Multiplayer using your Slitherine forum login and password. The beta uses test PBEM server, so you will not see your "normal" MP games in the UI. New scenarios are:
- Battle of Britain
- Frozen Spring
- Sonnenblume 43
- Temporal
We are very much interested in your feedback. Battle of Britain and Temporal are especially unusual and interesting, but also quite complex scenarios which require a lot of testing. We hope that you will enjoy these and give us a lot of feedback too.
You can read more about the multiplayer aspect of this beta, and also post your feedback, in this thread.Engine 1.20
In addition to the new campaign, this beta allows you to play any past content which is installed on your PC. Wehrmacht campaign, Afrika campaign and all the DLCs are playable in this beta. Game engine has been upgraded to version 1.20, and a number of game rules were tweaked and changed. Compared to beta 1, beta 2 includes a number of changes in this department. Check out this thread for details.
Game Replays
Another major new feature in this beta is Game Replays. Every time a battle ends and you see the result screen, there is an additional option to save game replay. This option can be used in single scenario, campaign or multiplayer games. Saved replays can later be accessed via "Load Game" command in the main menu. Just switch to "Replays" tab, and you will see the list of all replays you have on your PC. You can copy replays from one PC to another and share them with your friends orover the Internet. They are located in %My Documents%\My Games\Panzer Corps\Replays folder.
Replays is a multi-faced feature, and it needs extensive testing. Many things could be improved there. So, any suggestion and feedback is very much welcome. To test this new feature thoroughly, and also help us better balance the campaign, please save replays of all games you play in this beta. It will be a good idea to post your replays together with your reports about any given scenario, so that we can watch any of your battles on our end if needed. Same goes for Multiplayer games.
Library
In this beta we have extended the Library with more equipment entries. Several entries were added to Tanks section (Crusader, Chaffee, Sherman Crab, Wolverine, M3 GMC), and the rest are in the new "Other equipment" section. Like briefings, all new Library texts have been proofread, so please report any issues which have sneaked through our proofreading process.
Note that big fullscreen images are only available in new entries added in 1.20. Big images of tanks and aircraft from the base Panzer Corps game and Afrika are not included in this beta, in order to reduce installer size.
Bug fixes and other changes
Beta 2 also includes a number of bug fixes and minor changes here and there. Here are the most important ones:
- Fixed "new equipment available" screen. Now it should show a perfect delta between the units purchasable in the previous scenario and the current one.
- Fixed SE unit - now you should not get US SE units until US joins the campaign.
- Purchase screen now includes a "Show All Nations" checkbox in the bottom-left corner. Use it to see all units in one big list and compare their stats between nations.
- Fixed the units with the gun firing backwards (like Deacon). Now such units should orient properly towards the enemy.
- Fixed 26:00 time in Border Raids.
- Tracked and All-terrain transports are now using more appropriate icons. Alas, we could not produce new icons.
- Fixed camo trait. Now units with this trait are reliably spotted if there is an enemy unit next to them.
What's NOT included yet
There are several things which are not in this beta. We will fill these gaps in the next betas. But for now, the following is missing:
- UI updates. The UI is beta 1 is not updated, but in the future we will add a whole new allied skin.
- New tiles and map visual polishing. While the maps are fully functional, no effort have been made yet to make them look pretty. This is a task for the future.
