Special units

[GUNDOBALDO08]

Given that I love the azul infantry, I would like if We could have other special units in the next dlc, such as the Scandinavian (viking), Flemish (Walloon) division or even the LSAH division.
It would also be wonderful to have a new class of infantry: waffen ss. I know it is politically sensitive, and I am the grandson of a partisan, but in terms of gameplay it will be great...
What about it Kerensky?

[GUNDOBALDO08]

I would add that for a level playing field the NKVD infantry should be added to the Soviets

[Tassadar]

Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish or Italian units obtained in a similar way to Azul Infanterie would be a nice addition and I hope that if we get more gift infantry units it will be something along these lines. It's a small step towards them getting separate DLC one day - or one may hope.

However NKVD or SS units are 99% out of the question - not worth provoking media screeching and writing hit pieces later just for some added historical accuracy. It's as you said a greatly sensitive political topic. Not even these days, games have always been under special scrutiny. The potential issues are just too great.

[Snake97644]

Yes other national units presented as one off gifts would be cool. In addition to the ones above you could also have the Arab and Indian legions. However those might fit better in a future Afrika Corps dlc, but would be an interesting addition.

[scott_mathieson]

cat believe ss thing still coes upback in the day a niche historical game coul dhave done this and stayed under the radar but not now, you can argue if it ever should have doen it but just no way ut would happen.

[GUNDOBALDO08]

Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish or Italian units obtained in a similar way to Azul Infanterie would be a nice addition and I hope that if we get more gift infantry units it will be something along these lines. It's a small step towards them getting separate DLC one day - or one may hope.

However NKVD or SS units are 99% out of the question - not worth provoking media screeching and writing hit pieces later just for some added historical accuracy. It's as you said a greatly sensitive political topic. Not even these days, games have always been under special scrutiny. The potential issues are just too great.

Yes, I understand, but to avoid problems a little malice on the name of the units would be enough, you don't need to call them SS, for example they could call them SE as initials of Special Edition ... as they did in PC1!

[Stormchaser]

Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish or Italian units obtained in a similar way to Azul Infanterie would be a nice addition and I hope that if we get more gift infantry units it will be something along these lines. It's a small step towards them getting separate DLC one day - or one may hope.

However NKVD or SS units are 99% out of the question - not worth provoking media screeching and writing hit pieces later just for some added historical accuracy. It's as you said a greatly sensitive political topic. Not even these days, games have always been under special scrutiny. The potential issues are just too great.

Yes, I understand, but to avoid problems a little malice on the name of the units would be enough, you don't need to call them SS, for example they could call them SE as initials of Special Edition ... as they did in PC1!

To be fair, when Panzer Corps 1 came out I don't think people were quite as obsessed with jumping on things like that and raising a fuss over it like they seem to in today's climate.
I mean, look at some of the flak a game like Ghost of Tsushima got for supposedly supporting Japanese Nationalism (as in WW2 style nationalism). Or when the author of My Hero Academia decided to make a villainous mad scientist share a name with an infamous Japanese war criminal and people lost their minds over that.
Panzer Corps 2 may not be as high profile as stuff like that, but there is still no reason to take the chance.

Plus, from what I understand Germany in general doesn't like portraying Hitler in games (In German copies of Hearts of Iron 4 his portrait is heavily shadowed to where you can't really see his face) and I would assume the SS is similarly touchy, so if you want to be able to sell copies in Germany then leaving them out is also probably wise.

And let's be honest, it's an easy addition through mods if you really want those types of units (I believe there is a Unit Overhaul mod in Scenario Design that does that already).

[Kerensky]

To be fair, when Panzer Corps 1 came out I don't think people were quite as obsessed with jumping on things like that and raising a fuss over it like they seem to in today's climate.
I mean, look at some of the flak a game like Ghost of Tsushima got for supposedly supporting Japanese Nationalism (as in WW2 style nationalism). Or when the author of My Hero Academia decided to make a villainous mad scientist share a name with an infamous Japanese war criminal and people lost their minds over that.
Panzer Corps 2 may not be as high profile as stuff like that, but there is still no reason to take the chance.

Plus, from what I understand Germany in general doesn't like portraying Hitler in games (In German copies of Hearts of Iron 4 his portrait is heavily shadowed to where you can't really see his face) and I would assume the SS is similarly touchy, so if you want to be able to sell copies in Germany then leaving them out is also probably wise.

And let's be honest, it's an easy addition through mods if you really want those types of units (I believe there is a Unit Overhaul mod in Scenario Design that does that already).

I just found out the other day Japan still uses it's Imperial War Flag.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56000531

And when looking into it further, sure enough it's stirred up some controversy, especially with (South) Korea.

And when we revealed Elsa Kloss, a bunch of people started to make a fuss, and Slitherine started locking all the discussion threads.

But I don't think this is a modern trend of people being hypersensitive. People have always been hypersensitive, and it's usually for a good personal reason. Lots of WW2 American vets pretty unfriendly towards the Japanese for a really long time, for a variety of reasons.

The only different between then and now is now a lot more people access to speak and also read about these things.

I'm sure some Americans who were POWs during the war had some pretty angry thoughts over Japanese products like Sony and Hondas showing up in the USA, but back then all they could do was talk to people in their hometown and in their limited social circles. Now if someone is angry, they have a platform that allows them to reach across around the world, especially if that message gets amplified by the right (wrong) people.

[DarkBlueInk]

I think history is out the window for PC2. There is loads of potential here, but it is undercut in almost every scenario - starting from the raid on Gibraltar in SCW. I just finished Abbeville where De Gaulle runs around in a white Char B1 that doesn't require supplies, cannot be suppressed, gets stronger as he loses HP, and does not surrender. Add to that waves of French armor and a completely inept Rommel's 7th Panzer division as your "allies". Meanwhile, I have 4 Consolidator heroes that I cannot possibly use and I am outnumbered easily 10-1 on the battle field. If the developers even read their own post-scenario summary, the French did not have enough equipment to face the Germans at Abbeville. I really like the base game, but each DLC seems to stray further and further from historical accuracy and layers gimmick upon gimmick.

[George_Parr]

To be fair, when Panzer Corps 1 came out I don't think people were quite as obsessed with jumping on things like that and raising a fuss over it like they seem to in today's climate.
I mean, look at some of the flak a game like Ghost of Tsushima got for supposedly supporting Japanese Nationalism (as in WW2 style nationalism). Or when the author of My Hero Academia decided to make a villainous mad scientist share a name with an infamous Japanese war criminal and people lost their minds over that.
Panzer Corps 2 may not be as high profile as stuff like that, but there is still no reason to take the chance.

Plus, from what I understand Germany in general doesn't like portraying Hitler in games (In German copies of Hearts of Iron 4 his portrait is heavily shadowed to where you can't really see his face) and I would assume the SS is similarly touchy, so if you want to be able to sell copies in Germany then leaving them out is also probably wise.

And let's be honest, it's an easy addition through mods if you really want those types of units (I believe there is a Unit Overhaul mod in Scenario Design that does that already).

I don't think that is true at all. If anything, things are getting a bit more relaxed on those matters. The one big difference to the past is that social media is getting bigger and bigger, so it is easier to create attention, and no company wants to be associated with specific topics.

There aren't any specific rules about the appearance of Hitler or his ilk in games either. When it comes to Hearts of Iron 4, Paradox simply did it out of precaution, not because they really had to. That's also true for past versions of the game, which didn't have pictures of the Nazi leaders either.
German laws were a bit tricky in that they could be read one way or the other. You are allowed to us banned symbols in art, but there had been old court cases in which games weren't considered as art. And since then nobody really tried again, they just assumed they couldn't use any banned symbols. This has changed recently, as decisions were made that games are indeed art, but no big game has made use of that yet. It gets decided on a case-by-case basis though.

Germany was very tough on what was allowed in games. If you look at the 90s or early 200s, many shooters were "banned" (technically you could buy them, but they wouldn't be easily accesible) and those that weren't had no blood, and in some cases people were replaced by robots. But since quite a few years, even rather violent presentations (slo-mos of deaths, blood everywhere) passes through the ratings just fine. They tend to get an 18+ rating, but that's understandable. In general, games have a far easier time nowadays in terms of getting a decent age-rating with little or no changes.

I think history is out the window for PC2. There is loads of potential here, but it is undercut in almost every scenario - starting from the raid on Gibraltar in SCW. I just finished Abbeville where De Gaulle runs around in a white Char B1 that doesn't require supplies, cannot be suppressed, gets stronger as he loses HP, and does not surrender. Add to that waves of French armor and a completely inept Rommel's 7th Panzer division as your "allies". Meanwhile, I have 4 Consolidator heroes that I cannot possibly use and I am outnumbered easily 10-1 on the battle field. If the developers even read their own post-scenario summary, the French did not have enough equipment to face the Germans at Abbeville. I really like the base game, but each DLC seems to stray further and further from historical accuracy and layers gimmick upon gimmick.

That seems a bit hyperbolic to me. The missions aren't really any less historic than in past versions.You can find similar instances in the DLCs of the predecessor. You have to take into consideration that games are just that, games, they will always include some content that exists for gameplay or balance reasons. I agree that the nemesis you can encounter do get a bit excessive at times, and that the French forces in certain scenarios were a bit stronger than they were historically, but then again, the player isn't exactly advancing with historic forces either, now is he?
E.g. the battle of Abbeville was mostly fought by German infantry, and they were in fact outnumbered, yet in the game you can run around with your whole tank corps. Just like in PC1, where in the later stages you could field an army that would consists of tons of Panthers, Tiger IIs and even the Maus. The game also saw you fight in Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium/France, even though all those advances happened mostly simultaneously and you couldn't possibly have gotten involved in all of them. In the end it is still just a game. A game which tries to add different ideas and concept to missions. I don't think that it is wrong to try and see what works and what doesn't. It's a whole lot better than just sticking to one thing. It's only an issue when there is something that doesn't really work, and you still use it again and again. And that obviously does include taking wishes for a more historic approach into account.

[scott_mathieson]

at the end of the day you need gameplay , if its was just historical the early dlcs would be a walk over and the later dlcs insanely difficult