air zone of control

[danhanegan]

I am a fan of original Panzer General, and can't help comparing Panzer Corps to the original. The developers have made numerous small changes to gameplay, and for the most part, I like the changes. But one issue, admittedly rather minor, bugs me.

Air units no longer have a zone of control. This is annoying. it used to be in PG I could place aircraft on either side of an enemy plane and it could only move a single hex, I could then finish it off next turn.

Now in PG, all air units exerted a zone of control, and I would agree that its rather cheesy for heavy bombers or stukas to be able to interfere with enemy air movement. But to me it seems a legitimate tactic that fighters, at least, should exert a zone of control.

In the Afrika Korps campaign I am playing now, I have a mix of Bf 109 fighters and Bf 110 fighter bombers, and I keep wondering why I have the 109s. The 110s have higher air attack values, if lower defense and initiative, and work just as well at killing enemy fighters and better at killing enemy bombers than the 109s. Then of course, when there are no air targets around, the 110s are far more effective a attacking ground targets. They also have to refuel less often than the 109s.

I keep gritting my teeth and promising myself I'll eventually get to replace the 109s with FW-190s. But it doesn't look like that will happen until the campaign is 75% complete.

Allowing the 109s the advantage of a zone of control would make them feel like less of a masochistic waste of a core slot.

It also seems terribly unhistoric for Bf 110s to perform so favorably compared to 109s. Everything I have read about 110s suggests they were rather pathetic as air to air platforms, at least compared to a first line fighter like the Bf 109.

[Razz1]

You will get use to it. ZOC gives the human too much of an advantage.

[Rood]

AFAIK, meaning I have never tested it myself, I think you can change how the ZOC works in the gamerules.pzdat file (located in your ..\Panzer Corps\Data folder).

[KeldorKatarn]

IMO it balances the AI in the air, and it's still possibly to defeat the enemy units easily. When you are at a disadvantage, like in Africa, you should try to initially use your air force defensively. Put them in posiion where they cover likely targets like artillery but are themselves out of spotting range for the AI. that way you'll get a lot of defensive fire action the next turn and you can finish off the already damaged planes and again retreat out of visual range. that way you cause massivelosses without giving the Ai a chance to strike back. Doesnt always work 100% but give it a try.

[Tarrak]

The balance issues aside Rood is right and you can easily enable or disable the Air ZoC simply by editing the gamerules.pzdat file.

The file "gamerules.pzdat" is located in the Panzer Corps directory in the subdirectory called "Data" and it's a simple text file. Just open it with the text editor of your choice for example notepad on windows.Do not use Office programs as they may want to try to save it in their own format. The first few lines of the file will look like this:

Code: Select all

# This file configures a number of options used by Panzer Corps game engine.	

FormatVersion	1

# *** Zone of Control (ZOC) rules	
# The following three options specify if the three main branches of units (ground, air or naval) are effected by ZOC created by enemy units. 1=yes, 0=no.	
GroundZOC	1
NavalZOC	1
AirZOC	0

Now just change the 0 to 1 behind the AirZoC line, save the file and here you go, you have Air Zone of Control like in the original PG. You may have to restart your current scenario tho before the rule change takes effect. Just loading a saved game may not be enough. I am not 100% sure about this so just try.

[Rood]

Thx Tarrak for sorting out the instructions how to do this, on a sidenote, I also noticed when I was about to check this that if you have any DLC (or any mod perhaps aswell) that they each have their own gamerules file and if someone wants to change this it should be changed in all those files aswell.

[danhanegan]

Thanks for the advice. I do wish I could set it so only fighters get a zone of control.

[robman]

I also came to PzC from PG, and I also was initially dismayed by my newfound inability to "pin" an enemy aircraft with a pair of fighters. After a while, though, I came to prefer the PzC system. Air combat in PG was often like shooting fish in a barrel. This is more challenging: kill one, or wound three? And I think the PzC system is more "realistic": after all, planes can move in three dimensions, while land unit cannot, thus giving them a greater chance to escape nearby enemy units, much as subs could do in PG.

[Rudankort]

Thanks for the advice. I do wish I could set it so only fighters get a zone of control.

This should be possible by turning on ZOC for air units (see above) and then assigning "nozoc" trait to all individual units which must not project ZOC (in this case bombers).

[DeathMutant]

I wonder how "Zone of Control" working more like "Opportunity Attacks" in tactical role-playing games (like D&D) would affect gameplay? For example, an enemy unit can enter an adjacent hex but, if it attempts to leave that hex in the same turn, it is subject to an "opportunity attack" (a free attack with no return fire) by the defending unit. Entering a ZoC would not "stop all movement" as it currently does against non-Recon units. Recon units would be exempted from OAs since they already pay a "movement penalty" to avoid it. The OA should consume no ammunition (like an "ambush attack"?) but it would only possible if the defender has at least 1 round remaining. Ground units can only take OAs against other ground units, naval units against other naval units, air units against other air units. Anyway, just an idea. . .