Mannock's map pack for the Grand campaign

[Fritz]

... I did a map on that (orientated on the old pg3d map). you can get it here
viewtopic.php?t=26817

Thx. I will test it soon, after finishing my current campaign.

[Fritz]

One note to the Kharkov scenario. Its too easy.

The auxilary units are overstrength and the russian tanks don't even have full strength.
With a good core force you crush them very fast.

I played on General difficulty.

[MickMannock]

One note to the Kharkov scenario. Its too easy.

The auxilary units are overstrength and the russian tanks don't even have full strength.
With a good core force you crush them very fast.

I played on General difficulty.

It is intentional to be easy. You are supposed have a very good chance to come out with a decisive victory from that scenario, as that was the historical result.

[Fritz]

Ok. I was just wondering.

[borsook79]

One note to the Kharkov scenario. Its too easy.

The auxilary units are overstrength and the russian tanks don't even have full strength.
With a good core force you crush them very fast.

I played on General difficulty.

It is intentional to be easy. You are supposed have a very good chance to come out with a decisive victory from that scenario, as that was the historical result.

Still, how about a little more challenge? Historical outcome is nice, but where's the satisfaction if it's too easy? You just give all the russian units strength of 10, this should not be time consuming and would help a bit.

[MickMannock]

Still, how about a little more challenge? Historical outcome is nice, but where's the satisfaction if it's too easy? You just give all the russian units strength of 10, this should not be time consuming and would help a bit.

It's imopssible to cater to everyone's level of play. It was easy for you but the scenario can be difficult for someone else. But the point of the scenario is that it shouldn't be too hard to get a decisive victory.

[Ranta]

I had a look on the karkov scenario yesterday and want to share some criticism.

As was mentioned before, that wap is to easy. There is a thin front- of mostly one unit and then mostly ,a garnisoned unit or two in the victory hexes/cities. Though you aime for historical correctness, this is to easy, considering that the player will start withr oughly 25-30 experianced untis in the campaign.
On the other hand, I found the idear of showing the wore down ness of russians through understregthed units very appealing (as it is uniqe, in the current vilable scenarios). Please keep this, but add more units to increase difficulty.

Further cirticism adresses the prestige available. This map offeres much and costs few (see above). I think this can severely damage the campaigns prestige equilibrium. Though I am not sure, hoe to fix that, exept with huge effort (adapting the whole other campaign).

As a last point, I want to adress the tiles. In my eyes, this is another map with very few (or none) custom tiles, I feels just generical. Further, you could add the bigger rivers, bridges for rivers, railways and other terrain types (why not youse countryside 0o).
At last, I don't like the appearing of Kharkov. Seems a little big with 4 hexes (compare to stalingrad) and 2 airfields.


In my eyes, there is still much work to put into this map, nothing personal...

Best regards

Ranta

[MickMannock]

I had a look on the karkov scenario yesterday and want to share some criticism.

As was mentioned before, that wap is to easy. There is a thin front- of mostly one unit and then mostly ,a garnisoned unit or two in the victory hexes/cities. Though you aime for historical correctness, this is to easy, considering that the player will start withr oughly 25-30 experianced untis in the campaign.
On the other hand, I found the idear of showing the wore down ness of russians through understregthed units very appealing (as it is uniqe, in the current vilable scenarios). Please keep this, but add more units to increase difficulty.

I recreated the map pretty much exactly as it was in Panzer General. That was the intention for all the five maps i re-created. Maybe I will tweak it in the future when I expand the map pack. I will consider it.

Further cirticism adresses the prestige available. This map offeres much and costs few (see above). I think this can severely damage the campaigns prestige equilibrium. Though I am not sure, hoe to fix that, exept with huge effort (adapting the whole other campaign).

This is a very valid point. Creating the scenarios I was worried that the amount of prestige gained would screw up the balance. Hence I didn't have as many flags in the Sevastopol scenario as there were in the original in Panzer General for example.

And I think you might be right. Given how easy the scenario is, the reward shouldn't be too large.

As a last point, I want to adress the tiles. In my eyes, this is another map with very few (or none) custom tiles, I feels just generical. Further, you could add the bigger rivers, bridges for rivers, railways and other terrain types (why not youse countryside 0o).
At last, I don't like the appearing of Kharkov. Seems a little big with 4 hexes (compare to stalingrad) and 2 airfields.

As the scenario was a re-creation of the original scenario, I had all the tiles in the editor that I needed.

You can't really compare one scenario to another since they have different scope. Paris is a one-hex city in the invasion of France. The Sevastopol scenario, has the most tiles of all cities in the game. Different scope means different sizes of the cities.

In my eyes, there is still much work to put into this map, nothing personal...

Best regards

Ranta

Everything I create is made by me and no one else, so I always take every type of criticism personal. I don't really know any other way to take something.

However, I have a thick hide so don't worry about criticizing, I can take it.

[Fritz]

Ranta is right about the prestige. I play on General and have one last scenario to go (USA West Coast). Since I earned so much prestige I have full army (40+ units) at deploy, very experienced, all maximum overstrength and the best units available. And not enough I start West Coast with 14000 prestige. With so much prestige you can rush through every scenario (expect East Coast) like a thunderstorm.

But I really enjoy the campaign.
I hope you will expand it in the future.

[Ranta]

Well, nice to hear, that you know how to take criticism


All these things are based upon my personal view, and I am not experianced in mapmaking myselve (Spain scenario is the first, I ever created). So feel free to argue with me, especilly, feel free to refer to my own work to compare things etc and reflect my criticism back onte myselve again )

Conercing your argument on different scopes (Paris), I am not exactly happy with that. I'd like to have the same scope all over again, because your army, your heros etc do not "shrink" or "grow" (concerning numbers) if the scale does. I think I will work over the campaign (if I have time) and tweak cities like paris / warsaw or other.

Best regards

Ranta

[borsook79]

Well, nice to hear, that you know how to take criticism


All these things are based upon my personal view, and I am not experianced in mapmaking myselve (Spain scenario is the first, I ever created). So feel free to argue with me, especilly, feel free to refer to my own work to compare things etc and reflect my criticism back onte myselve again )

Conercing your argument on different scopes (Paris), I am not exactly happy with that. I'd like to have the same scope all over again, because your army, your heros etc do not "shrink" or "grow" (concerning numbers) if the scale does. I think I will work over the campaign (if I have time) and tweak cities like paris / warsaw or other.

Best regards

Ranta

Wouldn't it be easier to tweak the number of units available for each scenario? It could work as a reflection of scale of sorts.

[Eltare]

All found U-boat in Persia? "Submarine in the steppes of Persia died in unequal dogfight" )))

In my company it really was destroyed Me110 raids, and even dipped a few times (evade!)

[hexrem]

Hey Mr. M&M -- thank you for all your hard work -- I personally have not had the pleasure of executing the campaign with your maps -- but can fully appreciate the time/effort/and out right dedication it takes to put this kind of content together -- I will be downloading your maps.

As far as "city size/scope" issues -- these have always existed in the PG series -- a 10 pt infantry unit in Sevastapol is the same strength as the 10 pt infantry unit in Moscow '41 or France -- all the while covering vastly different volumes of terrain... nature of the beast.

Your current idea of a North/Central/South campaign is very interesting... love it. I'm wondering if there's a way to get "transfered" between fronts... i.e. you Decisive at some point and are moved to a "problem" area to get things moving... Interesting.

Anyway -- just had to compliment you on your work to date!

[MickMannock]

Hey Mr. M&M -- thank you for all your hard work -- I personally have not had the pleasure of executing the campaign with your maps -- but can fully appreciate the time/effort/and out right dedication it takes to put this kind of content together -- I will be downloading your maps.

As far as "city size/scope" issues -- these have always existed in the PG series -- a 10 pt infantry unit in Sevastapol is the same strength as the 10 pt infantry unit in Moscow '41 or France -- all the while covering vastly different volumes of terrain... nature of the beast.

Your current idea of a North/Central/South campaign is very interesting... love it. I'm wondering if there's a way to get "transfered" between fronts... i.e. you Decisive at some point and are moved to a "problem" area to get things moving... Interesting.

Anyway -- just had to compliment you on your work to date!

Thank you for the compliments. It's appreciated.

Regarding transfering between fronts, that is one of the things I am considering at the moment. In the current vanilla campaign you have two Russian scenarios before you get to the Moscow scenario in 41. So my first plan was to have two scenarios for each army group. I started out with AGN and I realized that the secend scenario would be quite dull (fighting through lots of swamp areas) and modelled towards a loss (or possibly a marginal victory). So instead, I was thinking of having the choice to switch front. That would feel a bit ahistorical though. So I am still undecided.

Any thoughts and input on the matter is welcome.

[hexrem]

MM --

Hum... thoughts 6 mins prior to a meeting I must attend...

Not sure how you've approached the entire N front... but theres some nice encirlements executed by the XLI (or XXXXI) and the LVI Panzer corps of the 4th Panzer Group (later Army) -- that should provide great scenarios -- four days fighting to destroy Russian resistance and a 300 tank counter attack -- then the rush to Lenningrad... almost 7 miles short....

As far as transfer and "a-historical" -- the 4th (and the 3rd too) "transfered" to help take Moscow -- so you could have Moscow '41 from the 4th perspective -- or from the 2nd (Guderians) in army group center -- no real transfer -- but a different map -- it was the 4th that actually got closest to Moscow -- again, almost...

You're inspiring me to research this stuff further and look into scale, engagements, etc. that would work --

From the Southern front -- there was some PZ General scenario that included Odessa - -was there not??

[MickMannock]

MM --

Hum... thoughts 6 mins prior to a meeting I must attend...

Not sure how you've approached the entire N front... but theres some nice encirlements executed by the XLI (or XXXXI) and the LVI Panzer corps of the 4th Panzer Group (later Army) -- that should provide great scenarios -- four days fighting to destroy Russian resistance and a 300 tank counter attack -- then the rush to Lenningrad... almost 7 miles short....

As far as transfer and "a-historical" -- the 4th (and the 3rd too) "transfered" to help take Moscow -- so you could have Moscow '41 from the 4th perspective -- or from the 2nd (Guderians) in army group center -- no real transfer -- but a different map -- it was the 4th that actually got closest to Moscow -- again, almost...

You're inspiring me to research this stuff further and look into scale, engagements, etc. that would work --

From the Southern front -- there was some PZ General scenario that included Odessa - -was there not??

The first scenario regarding AGN is centered around crossing the Daugava river and ultimately capturing the cities of Pskov and Tallinn. That was the initial objectives of AGN during the first phase of Barbarossa (maybe not Tallinn, but Pskov was atleast).

Going further with AGN would mean trying to encircle Leningrad, and not just the city but all the way up to the river Svir (and thus connecting yourself with the Finnish forces). Though such a scenario would mean fighting through swamps and thick forest. I'm not sure how much fun such a scenario would be.

Instead I suppose you could get the chance to go to the Kiev scenario.

As for Army Group South, I just have it scetched out in my head, but I am thinking of an initial scenario where the player has the ultimate objective of reaching the river Dniepr (and the gates of Kiev). After that, in a second scenario, you could either A: get to race for Rostov or B: fighting through the Kiev scenario from the south.

I don't remember any Odessa scenario in PG. I am quite sure there wasn't such a scenario.

[hexrem]

The "Odessa" scenario I think I remember -- LOL -- you had a lot of river lines and a choke point to the south end crossing a bridge -- Geman / Romanian forces were pre-deployed along west side of the rivers and you had a deployable area to the far north... I don't think the city of Odessa appeared on the map -- it was just the nearest major city I could think of... I couldn't tell you if this was PG, PG-2, or PG 3D...

The join up with the Finns around Lenningrad -- true enough a tough slog... but could be the decisive victory in the North -- that leads to the Archangle Scenario -- and dire consequences for Russia on other Fronts...

Whatever you choose to do -- It is all good! Thanks again.

[borsook79]

I don't remember any Odessa scenario in PG. I am quite sure there wasn't such a scenario.

Since I'm old enough to have played them all - Odessa was a user made scenario for Panzer General 2. I didn't play stock PG2 in many years, but I think it was not there too, only added by modders. There was no Odessa for PG1 for 100%.

[MickMannock]

I don't remember any Odessa scenario in PG. I am quite sure there wasn't such a scenario.

Since I'm old enough to have played them all - Odessa was a user made scenario for Panzer General 2. I didn't play stock PG2 in many years, but I think it was not there too, only added by modders. There was no Odessa for PG1 for 100%.

Yeah, I was speaking of the original Panzer General. The sequels didn't impress me and I didn't play them that much. PG I know by heart and there was no Odessa scenario in the vanilla campaign. So we can agree on that.

[jaggy]

MickMannock, if you are reading this, thanks for including these maps. Great fun to play. Hope you will continue with your project as I noticed its been 2 months since your last post.