Kaa303 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 7:13 pm
brumleek wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 7:06 pm
There is not a single map or scenario shared between them. It would be... ... difficult to sell to the players.
Obviously:) I rather meant same operations portrayed with different levels of detail - e.g. in PC1 you had Poland'39 both in vanilla and in grand campaign - while the formar had iirc 2 simple scenarios, the latter had several, on bigger maps amd with additional objectives like destroying supply convoys etc.
brumleek wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 7:06 pm
vanilla PC2 campaign an AO DLCs are both unique experience
Could you elaborate on this please?
I'll try to elaborate then.
Vanilla campaign main traits:
- Relatively fast ride (~20 - 25 scenarios) through WW2.
- Several war theatre forks / choices available (for example will you fight western allies in Africa or invade USSR? What path through USSR will you take etc.) - thus some (pretty good actually) campaign replay value.
- Campaign consists of notoriously known battles mainly.
- Due medium mission count nice heroes-to-units ratio when not modified by available settings. Keeps the game ballanced.
- Enough room to play with late war german tech (Tiger, König, Schwalbe...)
- Fast paced progression through available tech. You can play through the whole campaign without using several types of units (for example I tend to pass on ATs since it gain XP slowly and taks feels more versatile). Also captured enemy equipment may not be so important.
- Some kind of closure in knowing you reached the end of the campaign. Honestly don't keep your hopes up for epic ending(s) - it is the journey that counts.
AO campaign traits:
- Long run (~15 - 17 scenarios per DLC).
- Some player choices available (mostly about player participation in ahistorical operations) but it is hard to estimate the impact since we are in AO 1942 DLC now.
- Since developers did not want to remake original Panzer Corps DLCs to new graphics only, players encounter many lesser known battles but many of the most famous battlefields also.
- Due to high mission count (when saving and continuing army core throughout the DLCs) player will face the situation, when he has more heroes than can be accommodated by his fielded units. Plenty of heroes = a lot of insanely overpowered units. And I mean: "A LOT!". This may result in unballanced (but fun as hell) game. There are several ways to face it but I won't go through the details here.
- At this moment the latest AO DLC is 1942. We are just beginning to scratch the more interesting and famous WW2 tech.
- Really slow tech progression. Sounds like a bad thing but it made me think about all available units, their role and notice their stats and price more deeply, which is actually a great thing (oh I love my ATs in AO DLCs...) It also puts a great value on captured equipment since a lot of enemy units are far more advanced that german early war engineering.
- Throughout AO DLCs developers tried several gameplay concepts. Chances are you may not be comfortable with all of them. I did not come across any show stopper personally but there are a few mechanics I don't fancy very much.
To summarize:
- I really enjoy faster pace of the vanilla campaign. It is ballanced, fun, offer both (western and eastern) war theatres and it is a complete package.
- AO DLCs made me think about the game more deeply. Huge scale of this journey allows to try, fail and try again without the sour taste in the mouth that "I wasted 3 maps on some ill concept". AO is the ultimate journey, but it is not complete now. And I presume it will take a lot of time and development for it to come to an end.
- The main factors for the both campaings (vanilla and AO) are the campaign length (directly translates into unit XP), available hero count and tech progression speed. Those factors made my gameplay style for both campaigns quite different and unique. But PC2 has so much custom settings and general traits available, it is practically the ultimate sandbox no matter what campaign you play.
