Slitherine

Another thought I had while playing Pg2 custom campaigns... it would be nice to see variety in the scenarios.
Original panzer general and Pg2 was basically just steamroll the enemy as fast as you can to get that brilliant victory.
Even 'Defending the Reich' campaign in Pg2 was still almost all purely offensive actions.

If you could have objectives not be only turn based...
For example:
You have your normal scenario, win in X turns for brilliant victory, Y turns for normal victory, et cetera.
Wouldn't it be nice to add:
Defend all victory hexes for brilliant victory, defend X for normal victory, defend Y for tactical victory, defend 0 is defeat.
Destroy all enemy aircraft for brilliant victory, destroy X for normal, et cetera (Battle of Britain anyone? Instead of rushing super fast France to decide if you engage in Sea Lion, you have a Battle of Britain scenario. Your core air units + auxiliary air units vs the British air force and ground defenses. Create some victory units that sit on the British Air fields that you have to kill by bombing and there you go.)

Indeed, one of our goals is to make the campaign varied, and while it is a very broad topic, I can say that we SHALL have some defensive scenarios with objectives like you've described (hold X for BV, hold Y for V etc.)

As fun as PG was when every single mission was steamroll as fast as you can (sarcasm), I look forward to this new feature.

Well, it is not really new, didn't PG have defensive scenarios like Torch, D-Day, Cobra, Anzio?

Yes and no.

TLDR(Too Long Didn't Read) At the very bottom.

I don't recall for 100%, so you may be right about this, but I'm pretty certain that if you wanted a Brilliant Victory in say... the D-Day scenario, you had to occupy those 4 odd victory hexes available in lower England. Even in those scenarios, holding the line was just an Axis Victory, it wasn't a purely defensive scenario.

Taken from:
http://www.panzergeneral.org/PGtxt.txt

D-DAY
No. of Turns: 15

Battle Posture: Axis = Defense Allies = Attack

Per Turn Prestige Boosters: Axis = 0 Allies = 100

No.of Units Available for purchase: Axis = 1 Allies = 1

- The Allies only need three objectives to complete the
scenario and Caen is suspiciously close to the shoreline and is
capable of being shore bombarded by battleships. The most
difficult objective is Saint Lo in the south due to the rough
terrain in the box country and the difficulty in getting good
units to the position. Time is still on the side of the Allies
because of the low objective count.

No. of Objectives: 5 Axis: Hold 2 Objectives.
- Two objectives are in Great Britain and already guarded so
these are fairly secure. I suppose a German player can launch a
de facto Sealion but it is probably a waste. Caen is within
range of long range battleship guns and the hexes around it are
vulnerable to cruiser fire. Cherebourg is difficult only in its
remoteness. Saint Lo is the most difficult objective because of
the terrain surrounding it and the ease of its defense.

If you are just playing the D-Day scenario, it doesn't really matter if you have a victory, or a brilliant victory.
However, if you are playing a campaign and you are in the D-Day scenario, I believe that the difference between a victory and a brilliant one changes the path of the campaign.

D-DAY: LOSE/MINOR Cobra
MAJOR Anvil

My problem with PG was even in this 'defensive' scenario, you were still on the offensive if you wanted that brilliant victory. I'm not hung up on the word 'brilliant', I'm just pointing how out that type of victory influences the course of the campaign, and thus your play style as well.

Maybe this is just me, but if I would imagine a purely defensive scenario, it would be more like:
A scenario fighting on the banks of the Vistula River. Along the length of the river, there are bridges and other crossing points, each of which is a victory hex. A brilliant victory would be to have control of all these victory hexes at the end of the scenario. Normal victory if you lose one, tactical if you lose two, loss if you lose three or more. This is more of a purely defensive scenario, where previously it would be more like 'go on the offensive and capture some VH on the enemy's side of the river'.

Think of it like this.
If you have to capture 100% of all VH before a deadline for a brilliant victory, but you do not control all the VH at the start of the scenario, there is a need for offensive action. This means that there has to be a way for the player to go on the offensive, probably meaning the enemy is so weak with their offensive, that it allowed the player to go on the offensive.

If you have to hold all the VH you start with to earn a brilliant victory, it changes the entire course of the scenario. In the previous example, assuming you went on the offensive and captured the few VH you didn't start with, I would imagine the map at the end of the scenario would look very barren. A lot of your units spread over the map, but only a scattering of decimated enemy units. I picture a true defensive scenario where at the end of the battle, the map is still jam packed full of enemy units, but you successfully held off their attacked and bottled them up so completely that you earn a brilliant victory.

To me, even though this is a game, feels much more historic and realistic.
When Barbarossa was launched in 1941, did the Germans massacre every single Russian unit they came across? No, they outmaneuvered and pinned down huge pockets of soviet troops. The Soviets won the battle of Kursk, but did they win because the Germans were completely wiped out? I would like to see a little more of that sort of that in Panzer Corps, but maybe that's just my image. If it is, I guess I'll be glad there's a custom campaign editor with PzC, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kiev_%281941%29

The encirclement trapped 452,700 troops, 2,642 guns & mortars and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15,000 escaped from the encirclement by 2 October. Overall, the Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured, or missing during the month-long Battle for Kiev. As a result, four Soviet field armies (5th, 37th, 26th, & 21st) consisting of 43 divisions virtually ceased to exist. The 40th Army was badly affected as well. Like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated almost from scratch

To borrow from a different great strategy game, take a look at this image.


This, to me, is a true defensive scenario. The enemy is offense is so strong, and so vast, there is simply no way to go on the offensive.

Imagine that one red circle with the two crossed sword icons being a victory hex.

In Panzer General, if you wanted your brilliant victory, you would have to go on the offensive to reach that victory hex. Obviously, if there are THAT many enemy units and they are constantly being reinforced, you cannot reasonably reach that victory hex without some form of cheating. The solution is that the enemy would have to be thinned out considerably to make it reasonably possible for the player to have a chance at a limited offense to capture that victory hex in the allotted time.

On the other hand, if to achieve a brilliant victory, all you had to hold on to was.... let's say the four wooden outpost hexes southwest of the main stone fortress, you can have an enemy that vast and that strong and still reasonably manage a brilliant victory.

The point I'm making is from a gaming perspective; if you have an objective that influences the course of the game and the game play itself, it must be reasonably achievable.

You cannot expect someone to see the picture I posted above, and then tell them to win a brilliant victory they have to occupy that red circle in the forest in 6 turns, and then expect them to be able to achieve it.

Perhaps it is possible, for the top .5% of people who play the game, and through exploiting the AI, a lot of luck, and ridiculous amounts of saving and loading, someone could reach that hex in 6 turns. The point is that going to that above and beyond level should only reward bragging rights, and not have any bearing on the flow of the campaign.

That was a bit much, do you see where I'm coming from, and where I hope to see Panzer Corp maybe get to?

Basically, to TLDR everything:
I hope to see: Hard fought battles that are objective based.
What I do not want: I won a brilliant victory because my core of 5 star, 15/15 Panther Gs/King Tigers/Me262s/SS Pioneers/170mm Artillery guns steam rolled and 1 shot everything in their path in a defensive 'Battle for Berlin' scenario.

Rudankort wrote:Indeed, one of our goals is to make the campaign varied, and while it is a very broad topic, I can say that we SHALL have some defensive scenarios with objectives like you've described (hold X for BV, hold Y for V etc.)

That’s good to hear, what would be enjoyable would be to add the varied campaign goals throughout the ENTIRE campaign. For example most of the early years of the German campaign consist solely of attack, attack, and attack. Only later you had scenario in order to hold. It would be nice to have a scenario added into the French and early Russian campaigns where you have to stand off a counter attack. Or add hold objectives (that you clearly need to hold from a STRONG counter attack from newly introduced AI units into the scenario) to a scenario that the primary goal is to take cities x and y.

Kerensky wrote:Another thought I had while playing Pg2 custom campaigns... it would be nice to see variety in the scenarios.
Original panzer general and Pg2 was basically just steamroll the enemy as fast as you can to get that brilliant victory.
Even 'Defending the Reich' campaign in Pg2 was still almost all purely offensive actions.

If you could have objectives not be only turn based...
For example:
You have your normal scenario, win in X turns for brilliant victory, Y turns for normal victory, et cetera.
Wouldn't it be nice to add:
Defend all victory hexes for brilliant victory, defend X for normal victory, defend Y for tactical victory, defend 0 is defeat.
Destroy all enemy aircraft for brilliant victory, destroy X for normal, et cetera (Battle of Britain anyone? Instead of rushing super fast France to decide if you engage in Sea Lion, you have a Battle of Britain scenario. Your core air units + auxiliary air units vs the British air force and ground defenses. Create some victory units that sit on the British Air fields that you have to kill by bombing and there you go.)

I agree with Kerensky - all of the scenarios' victory conditions could certainly be more dynamic.

As far as scenarios go, why can't you introduce a little randomness into them, say by giving the enemy some late-game reinforcements in the form of a random prestige boost, if his side was losing big? In reality, if an army commander was attacking (and winning) on a front, I'm sure the enemy chiefs-of-staff would do everything they could do to prevent a major disaster for their side. (think, Battle of the Bulge and Stalingrad) Even a few reinforcements, if a rout was taking place, might just make a difference in the outcome. This would also give every game more replayability, as you would never know if the enemy might send reinforcements, or what they might be. And to be fair, the computer player would have to spend it on just a few strong units of equal experience, instead of buying a horde of cheap units, and they would have to arrive via offboard, and then move toward a defensive line, so a major victory might still be possible. Like it was stated elsewhere in this forum, you are only a commander operating on a narrow piece of the frontline. There are (assumed) other battles taking place all along the frontlines, and so if one side starts to rout the other, the opposing generals won't just sit idly by and watch their front line collapse, not if they can send some help to beef up the defenses.

Of course, this would have to be an option to turn off, for those players who wouldn't want it, and for tournament games. But I think it would be a simple and smart way of having to react to a new threats on the battlefield, provide lots of replayability, and allow the player to play those other scenarios if he only gets a minor victory. And just to keep some players from complaining about having a major victory stolen from them, I think a major victory should also be attainable for killing so many units, as well as capturing enough victory hexes for a minor. Afterall, if you're able to wipe out most of the enemy force on the battlefield, who cares if you walk into Paris on a Sunday or a Monday? And speaking of this, I hope the scenarios last longer than some did in PG & AG. Twelve turns is not enough fun for me, and certainly not enough time to plan a good strategy. Why zip through the scenarios that quickly? I know it's just my opinion, but all the scenarios really should have more depth to them - and more or different ways to win.