Some early feedback, questions and suggestions

[econ21]

Just finished the Warsaw scenario and had a few more observations and questions on the game:

1. How do I stop scrolling being disorienting? The thread on avoiding blur worked for me in sharpening things up. But my lingering problem with the graphic is when I scroll, the whole screen moves sluggishly and it is like a drunk stagger around. It is quite disorienting and makes it hard to get a clear idea of what is going on. Any ideas of what settings to tweak? I turned the scroll way down, don't know if this was a good idea or not, otherwise I feared I would overshoot and move too far - I typically don't want to scroll far, but stay close to the selected units.

2. Any hints on how to select units? I feel it's a bit like fighting the game to select a unit, esp. wanting to select a ground unit when I am controlling an air unit. If the air unit can fly to the ground unit's hex, the game will do that rather than let me select the ground unit. So in that case, I use the [ or ] next unit keys, but that implies cycling randomly through my core which is inefficient. I could use the left menu for your units, but I find that part of the UI a bit big and cumbersome, so only use it in the deployment phase. I think this was always an issue with these kind of PG games, but with the 2D graphics, it is easier to identify and click on the unit you want.

3. Any chance of being able to play both the either/or scenario choices? I like the North vs South Poland etc branching scenario paths. But it does mean I only get to a part of the war. Eg at Norway, I'd really like to play both North and South as in earlier games. I wonder if the developers would consider a "long war" option for the campaign, where you play both alternatives in such cases? I am not sure how many either/or choices we get - if it is not many, my suggestion is not worth it. But if there are many, it would be nice. I am a sucker for long campaigns - PzC really came alive for me with the Grand Campaign (and Panzer General 2 with the Blizkrieg + user made campaign.)

4. Which units are most effective? The end scenario prestige screen where it ranks your core's performance by unit in terms of something like killed/prestige cost is fascinating. There is a nice series of YouTube videos of the GC analysing cost effectiveness where it is measured by [number of kills]/[unit prestige cost] due to data limitations, but measuring the prestige value of kills as the numerator makes more sense. Anyone noticing any interesting patterns? My stuka as the most cost-effective, which tends to be my experience in all these PG type early war battles. The ratings confirmed my view that infantry is underwhelming: even when I have lots of artillery, mass attacks etc, I still tend to get around 1-1 losses. Also pretty terrible was my Sturmpanzer. Despite only fighting Poles and parking it next to a 3.7AA unit all game, it was hammered by the Polish airforce so proved much less cost-effective than my towed artillery. I guess this rating is a bit distorted, as if I had not fielded a Sturmpanzer, the Poles would have killed my tanks or other units. But still, it is a feature of these games that mechanised artillery is rather vulnerable to air attack.

5. Fielding underdog units As I had so few core slots, I decided to field a 3.7 AT and a 3.7 AA unit because they only cost 1 core slot. They were not that stellar but served a reasonably function - protecting and bulking out my small core. I am not so sure about retaining the Panzer IB though - that seemed to be a punching bag for the Poles. I almost regretted no buying trucks for my infantry but given they took so many losses, that would have cut into my budget a lot and the could walk to the battle in time.

6. Elite replacements all the time? I noticed that replacements are not free after scenarios end, and generally the cost of elite replacements seemed only about double that of regular ones. So I decided to always buy elite, even though my green units don't really have any veterancy of note to preserve. One poster said unit experience is less valuable in PzC2 than PzC, so it may be a luxury expense. I did have very little prestige by throughout the Warsaw scenario - what I gained came mainly in the reward for finishing the scenario. What do other people do?

7. Can't distinguish Wehr and Pionieres People have said the Stuka and Me109 look too similar due to the yellow paint. But I was having a problem with distinguishing Wehr from Pionieres. I guess I will have to do what I did the planes and use the camo schemes. I bought an extra pioniere as Warsaw looked fortified but they were surprisingly vulnerable in the approach - the Polish infantry singled them out for attention, attaching at 1:1 odds.

8.Best unit class to give an Enveloper hero to? got this hero after Warsaw - enemy can't retreat, must surrender. It sounds very powerful. I guess it is best on a strong tank? I was thinking about a pioniere but by the time a pioniere has forced a unit to retreat, the fight is won.