A few suggestions ... updated

[MrWhite]

After playing around with the game I came up a few questions and suggestions:

1. Why doesn´t the bridge engineers have any transport ? As far as I know the engineertroops allways are a highly mobile part of any army. perhaps only a bug, butr would be nice to take a look into it.

2. Why are there only such few variants of transports in the game? In history there were only about 15 to 20 % of all Wehrmacht troops motorizied and the rest were mostly horsedrawn(in 1941 Barbarossa there were 750.000 horses in use by the Wehrmacht) or sometime bicycle troops - I don´t say kick the out the trucks but make them more expensive and give the player a bigger variant of transports, e.g.:

- horses for artillery, anti tank and anti aircraft
- different cars and motorcycles, for infantry like "Horch" and even "Ford" with differnet stats and non motorizied variants like bicycle
- special transports for special troops like mules for the mountaintroops
- perhaps paraglider for the airborne troops

3. What about prototypes ? In PG 3d or PG II you got for reaching a great victory sometimes a random prototype unit which is a little bit in front of the timeline.

4. What about flying recon, e.g. the "fiesler storch" was an often used recon plane to get a picture of the frontline

5. As you posted earlyer you are no friend of the little battle cutscenes from PG1 but what about the spoken briefings( extremly nice with the Berlin accent) and the small movies taken from the original "Wochenschau" ? In my opinion it gave the game a little bit atmosphere...

6. I don´t know how familar you are to the mods which there are for PG II (or PG 3d) in germany, but there is one custom made campain, named world camapin, in which you start in with the invasion of Czechoslovakia and then go on to take part in the spanish civilwar, who about to implement these scenarios into your game as tutorial mini campain or even part of the big campain, because in spain the germans trained and experimented with new weapons an tactics...

7. Commanders would be nice - they must be random and with one or two traits which make your troops better.

8. Why can´t troops after naval or airborne landings do anything, that they can´t move is ok but that they can´t fire is a little bit frustrating.

[Kerensky]

#1 is in the bug thread.

#2 I partially agree with. I did enjoy seeing things like horse drawn or bicycle transports, but personally I could never bring myself to ever use or buy them.

#3 They said something about how Decisive victory should be its own reward, IE influencing course of the campaign. As it is, I almost never kept prototype units in past titles, because I could disband them for prestige. Even if they were a good unit, they would start at 0 experience where my core and most of the enemy are 3-5 stars.

#4 I personally think unit vision is too good in PzC, tanks with 3 spotting for example, and a recon aircraft would just make it worse. Besides, recon aircraft have recon movement in Pg2, they don't have recon movement in PzC anymore.

#5 Always good flavor, but I suspect the audio work for PzC hasn't even begun to be implemented yet. No music, all unit sound effects are straight copies of PG sound files, et cetera.

#6 Yea, the length and structure of the current PzC leaves me feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. I'm sure there will be plenty of custom campaigns out after release, but once I wish the stock campaign was actually better than the fan made stuff.

#7 They plan to have aces or something, but no details on that have emerged yet.

#8 I think it's annoying, but accurately reflects the vulnerability of amphibious assaults. I think the bigger problem is this model encourages landing heavy equipment first (tanks and well armored units) and then following up with infantry and artillery soft units, instead of the more historically accurate reverse.

[MrWhite]

#1 is in the bug thread.

Ah, ok thanks, didn´t saw it yesterday in the bug thread

#2 I partially agree with. I did enjoy seeing things like horse drawn or bicycle transports, but personally I could never bring myself to ever use or buy them.

Thats your opinion, I often used bicycles and horses, because they don´t need any fuel and are also fast enough to keep them in range, mostly in the early campains

#3 They said something about how Decisive victory should be its own reward, IE influencing course of the campaign. As it is, I almost never kept prototype units in past titles, because I could disband them for prestige. Even if they were a good unit, they would start at 0 experience where my core and most of the enemy are 3-5 stars.

Again, it´s your opinion, and to "train" a unit is not so complicated - but just to say it again, I only thougth it would be a nice reward

#4 I personally think unit vision is too good in PzC, tanks with 3 spotting for example, and a recon aircraft would just make it worse. Besides, recon aircraft have recon movement in Pg2, they don't have recon movement in PzC anymore.

Agreed, as long as a tank can watch three hex, recon doesn´t make sense

#5 Always good flavor, but I suspect the audio work for PzC hasn't even begun to be implemented yet. No music, all unit sound effects are straight copies of PG sound files, et cetera.

Agreed, I was just curious if there would be anything to give the game a little bit atmosphere

#6 Yea, the length and structure of the current PzC leaves me feeling underwhelmed and disappointed. I'm sure there will be plenty of custom campaigns out after release, but once I wish the stock campaign was actually better than the fan made stuff.

Then let´s hope and pray a good writen campain can make the difference between a hit or a fail in the tests of the game magazins and my No6 should only be a suggestion of what might be interesting.

#7 They plan to have aces or something, but no details on that have emerged yet.

Then let´s hope and see how the devs will handle this.

#8 I think it's annoying, but accurately reflects the vulnerability of amphibious assaults. I think the bigger problem is this model encourages landing heavy equipment first (tanks and well armored units) and then following up with infantry and artillery soft units, instead of the more historically accurate reverse.

Maybe it´s yust too complex to model these kinds of special operations or maybe it would be an option, that only special troops can fullfill these operations without penalty, e.g. a unit marinesturm can land, move one or two hex and fire, while an artillery or tank (if it´s not an amphibious) can´t move or fire, same for airborne assault: paratroopers can move a little bit and fire, while tanks, artillery or regular infantry units which came with paragliders have to wait one round to reorganize.

[adherbal]

Some personal thoughts from a player who didn't have any PG experience before starting on PzC.

2. Why are there only such few variants of transports in the game? In history there were only about 15 to 20 % of all Wehrmacht troops motorizied and the rest were mostly horsedrawn(in 1941 Barbarossa there were 750.000 horses in use by the Wehrmacht) or sometime bicycle troops - I don´t say kick the out the trucks but make them more expensive and give the player a bigger variant of transports, e.g.:

I agree it feels wrong that every single infantry unit is motorised. Like you said most weren't motorised at all, especially Halftracks were rare. It seems in PzC it's pointless to buy infantry without transports so I wonder why we even offer them without. They are so cheap there isn't really any choice involved.
IMO most infantry should come without transport, and rely on railroad transport for long distance movement. One of the reasons the Blitzkrieg strategy was risky is because the infantry could not keep up with the tanks. This is not represented in PzC at the moment.
More different transport types sounds interesting as well, but I still prefer them being more rare altogether.

3. What about prototypes ? In PG 3d or PG II you got for reaching a great victory sometimes a random prototype unit which is a little bit in front of the timeline.

Perhaps we could award the player with Waffen SS units, which would have higher morale than default units (not sure how to simulate that). For a game focusing on the German side I think it would be cool to have SS units in there. Soviets have Guard units too.

4. What about flying recon, e.g. the "fiesler storch" was an often used recon plane to get a picture of the frontline

I agree LOS seems a bit too high for ground units. Perhaps because I'm used to Commander The Great War, were they only see the adjacent hex and require air units to provide recon.

[Kerensky]

I agree it feels wrong that every single infantry unit is motorised. Like you said most weren't motorised at all, especially Halftracks were rare. It seems in PzC it's pointless to buy infantry without transports so I wonder why we even offer them without. They are so cheap there isn't really any choice involved.
IMO most infantry should come without transport, and rely on railroad transport for long distance movement. One of the reasons the Blitzkrieg strategy was risky is because the infantry could not keep up with the tanks. This is not represented in PzC at the moment.
More different transport types sounds interesting as well, but I still prefer them being more rare altogether.

From a game play perspective, if you take away the vast mobility that cheap transports provide, you can help deter offensive swarming tactics. Just keep in mind the reason offensive swarms are effective(perhaps even necessary) is because it is solution to combating defensive swarms. Other, more expensive alternatives simply cannot fight huge quantities of low quality units in the time allotted. So if you take away cheap and plentiful transport(something that typically is useful for offense), there needs to be a nerf to defender's capabilities.

Perhaps we could award the player with Waffen SS units, which would have higher morale than default units (not sure how to simulate that). For a game focusing on the German side I think it would be cool to have SS units in there. Soviets have Guard units too.

I like that idea a lot. Here's a few ideas:
1. Waffen SS look 'cooler' with actual camouflage skins.
Example:
Normal units on the board are:


An SS or prototype unit would be:


Maybe not the best example to use that camouflage coloring on a snow map, but you get the idea.

2. Increase stats of Waffen SS/Prototype units.
Example: Normal panther has 21/14 hard/soft attack. SS panther is 21+2/14+2. So even if you upgrade or change the unit, it retains the +2 no matter what equipment you give it. So your SS PZ IIIF is worth upgrading into a SS PZ IIIG and so on.

3. Increase resistance to 'kills' and 'suppression' to simulate high morale.
What would normally kill 2 and suppress 3 of a normal unit would only kill 1 and suppress 2 of an SS/prototype unit of the exact same type (SS PZ IA vs PZ IA).

[Kerensky]

I agree LOS seems a bit too high for ground units. Perhaps because I'm used to Commander The Great War, were they only see the adjacent hex and require air units to provide recon.

It's not even LOS in PzC, it's more like AOS, Area of Sight, because units can clearly see right through obstacles such as cities and thick forests and other units no problem.

I personally recommend across the board nerfs to unit sight.

1 Sight:
Tanks
ATG
Artillery

2 Sight:
Infantry
Air Defense

3 Sight:
Recon

As a standard not as a rule; obviously some tanks should have sight 2(but never three) and some infantry or ATG should be 1 or 2, respectively.

[uran21]

Spotting is actually more a capability to perform reconnaissance than line of sight or area of sight and other terrain is no obstacle because of that. Now you could tie movement to that but line should be drawn somewhere to keep it simple. On that basis we exploit spotting further and that is way light anti tanks have better spotting, to increase its usefulness.
Those tanks that have spotting of 3 are actually tanks that were used as recons when they become obsolete for first line combat duties. So that equipment value actually tries to depict one of their historical roles. For naval units it would be more useful if we would have sea spotting that does not affect spotting on land mass and change in air spotting was done to decrease visibility gain by planes and to make more need for recons.

[adherbal]

Those tanks that have spotting of 3 are actually tanks that were used as recons when they become obsolete for first line combat duties.

Still these tanks would have to get close up to spot enemies and take some casualties to do so. With big spotting range they can spot from a safe distance, unless the enemy sends forward some of his own units, but those would be exposed to counter attack next turn.

I'd prefer having to get closer with recon units, and have them retreat faster (less casualties) when attacked. This way recon is actualy a bit risky, instead of spotting the enemy from so far away without any repercussions.

[boredatwork]

- Transport: I have no problems with availability as is - in most of the potential scenarios your core forces represent that 15% of motorized troops anyways. Perhaps increase the cost of SPWs greatly and "German trucks" somewhat then add a "foreign truck" option with much lower fuel (to simulate the maintenance nightmare many german units faced trying to keep 100s of different vehicles types supplied with parts. A horse option could be added to give Aux Art a movement of 2 so they don't fall too far behind foot infantry advance.

- Spotting: My issue isn't so much with the spotting ranges as it is with the small scenario size which makes those ranges seem large. (And current recon movement still irritates the hell out of me)

- Aeriel Recon: As they are essentially unarmed I don't think Storchs or Uhus would make compelling core units. Where I might see a place for them would be if the PeG concept of attachments were added to the game - give a tank unit a Storch to increase it's spotting range or a Stuka a Uhu to reveal terrain as it flies.

- SS Units: (or Guards units in general) Not really in favour of this. The primary reason the Waffen SS were so effective late in the war was they received favoritism when it came to resources. It would deminish the value of your own core development if the allocation of resources was done by higher command - "Hey GREAT job! You rock! We have 100 brand new Tiger tanks but rather than give them to your favorite tank unit we are instead giving them to OUR OWN elite unit that has inbuilt bonuses ensuring it will eventually grow to surpass YOUR favorite unit. But hey we'll let you use it." It should be for the player, through earning prestige with high command, to decide where to show favoritism. If a player wants an elite SS core then let him rename a tank unit "1st SS PzDiv LAH" and decide to spend bucket loads of prestige to get/keep it at 5 star/15str.

A better approach would be a free prototype upgrade for a core unit.

[Kerensky]

Spotting is actually more a capability to perform reconnaissance than line of sight or area of sight and other terrain is no obstacle because of that. Now you could tie movement to that but line should be drawn somewhere to keep it simple. On that basis we exploit spotting further and that is way light anti tanks have better spotting, to increase its usefulness.
Those tanks that have spotting of 3 are actually tanks that were used as recons when they become obsolete for first line combat duties. So that equipment value actually tries to depict one of their historical roles. For naval units it would be more useful if we would have sea spotting that does not affect spotting on land mass and change in air spotting was done to decrease visibility gain by planes and to make more need for recons.

Yes, these tanks would be reduced to 2 spotting instead of the standard 1 spotting that a Panther or Tiger or Sherman Firefly or KV-85 would have.

- Spotting: My issue isn't so much with the spotting ranges as it is with the small scenario size which makes those ranges seem large. (And current recon movement still irritates the hell out of me)

I completely agree on both points. Scenario maps are too small currently, and PzC recon movement should be looked at and re-worked.

[adherbal]

The SS was a sort of competition for the Wehrmacht, so it kinda makes sense that it is not entirely under player control. With the game's focus on the German side I think it's much more interesting then just allowing the player to rename something to "SS Whatever" if he want to. On top of that recruiting procedures and requirements for SS units were also different than standard Wehrmacht units.

Perhaps we could allows the player to refuse the unit in exchange for more prestige (to invest in other units). Although even without such a feature he can always sell the unit (we have that option right?).

[Kerensky]

Currently any unit you disband returns zero prestige. I would say that makes good sense for mid scenario disbanding, otherwise people can disband AUX for more prestige, but during the 'intermission', when someone would receive such a Waffen SS unit, that disbanding units in this phase should return prestige.

[adherbal]

Since Tim is posting it across half the internet but not here

This is what we have in mind for displaying SS units:

[Kerensky]

You stole my idea! I demand credit or I'll see you in court!

Seriously though, that's perfect if you ask me.

[Rudankort]

- Spotting: My issue isn't so much with the spotting ranges as it is with the small scenario size which makes those ranges seem large. (And current recon movement still irritates the hell out of me)

Later scens will be somewhat larger than the first batch, so let us see if spotting is adequate for those maps. If not, we can consider reducing it.

[Rudankort]

Later scens will be somewhat larger than the first batch, so let us see if spotting is adequate for those maps. If not, we can consider reducing it.

New soviet scens in 0.91 should give the idea of an average scale later scens will use.

[Kerensky]

Okay, here's Kiev. Un-resized pictures so you can see the whole screen as I see it.
At the start of my turn.
http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/4205/start.jpg
And here's after moving a single 5 scout radius recon unit.
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/4839/finishu.jpg

Except for Kiev on the West there, my one unit single handily has revealed every other VH on the map, as well as the defenses surrounding the VHes.
He revealed so much terrain, I actually have to mouse wheel zoom out to give you a complete view of how much terrain has been revealed. That right there should send up a red flag.

The scout car encountered zero risk scouting all that terrain, and will possibly survive the enemy turn as well. Even if it doesn't, my opponent has two choices.
A: Try to shift approximately 14 units around in such a way that will nullify the information the scout gathered. Good luck, considering the defender probably didn't buy trucks for all those arty and AA units. Oh, and ruin any entrenchment he's gathered while shifting those forces around.
B: Accept that I pretty much know exactly what forces he has and where they are, and wait for the tanks to beeline to exposed artillery units and for aircraft to zoom directly to the places he doesn't have AA units.

[Easterner]

Change build mode, the one at a time is going to give carpal tunnel syndrome. I want to buy several at once, then deploy them at the same time. Too much clicking currently.

[MrWhite]

Ok, some new suggestions as of latest beta from 28.04.2011 :

- It would be nice, if you make the core un its more easiely to identify - perhaps you can change the unit(strengh) number to black instead of white for core units.

- A little wheel or something in the unitflag of infanty, antitank and artyunits would make it easier to identify wheter a unit is motorizied or not

- still would like to see more diffent transport types like horses bikes (motorbikes) etc. please think about it

- what about units like "Verfügungstruppe" (later Waffen SS) and "Marine Sturminfanterie" in the early scenarieos, maybe if not to buy as support troops ?

as of the rest nice animations, mostly nice sounds but the scenarios seem to have been made smaller than in the org. Panzer General game

[Razz1]

It's the auxillery units that are hard to identify. Make the border a little wider. I have see two requests for this in the last week.

I like horses! Bring them back... please.

If you read about the war you would know how important they are in the game.

Also, make them the same... exempt from Mud movement.

Movement is always three in every hex except Mountains.

Then we might have to increase the cost of trucks a little, 5?

While it would be nice to add one more truck type for each country.... I don't see the benefit in combat value.

And were they really that different for range of movement? No!

Exception would be USSR they should have the current truck movement reduced and cost and a new Lend lease American GMC or Studabaker truck available at regular cost.