Slitherine

Hi all

My name is Andy.
I ve been playing PG since 1996 and played all of the Panzer General Series with the exception of
Operation Barbarossa and Fantasy General.
Also did some intensive modding to Pacific General,medium modding on PG2 and minor modding of
all the others with the exception of PG-Western Assult.

OK im gonna start with just some quick first impressions.
Some things have already been mentioned by others in this forum so ill try to keep it as brief as possible.

I have played the the first two scenarios of the 39 campaign two times ,once in normal and once in hard mode.
I have Windows Vista 32bit,
an Intel core2 Quad CP with 2,4ghz
and i play on a 27" Display with 1920x1200 resolution.

The game seems to be a solid PG1 "Clone"but with new graphics ofc.

--The size of the hexes is ok,perhaps a bit to big,i can see 10 hexes at a time
from top to bottom of the screen without scrolling.12-14 hexes would be perfect.

--The Zoom Feature is basicly a very good idea but not good executed (no offense)for two reason.
1.Zoomed out,one can see about 75% of the entire map and one can see over 25 hexes from top to bottom.
With such a big zoom factor one can't play the game because one can't see strenght numbers and
small vehicles,gun's and infantry units can only be guessed.
2.On the other hand the zoomed out view factor is not big enough to serve as a "poor man's"-strategic map view because it only shows 75% of the map.

So at least on a screen with 1920x1200 resolution the zoomed out view is kinda useless one way or the other.
But if the zoom factor would be reduced to a value which would show u say 14-15 hexes from top to bottom it would be awesome.

--The strategic map is ok but i would prefer having nation symbols instead of those unitclass symbols.But i think this could be modded easely.

--The menu fonts and also buttons are too small.

--The unit strentgh information underneath every unit is too small.

--The red slash on the unit strenght information,when a unit has moved and firered ,is very bad because one can hardly see
the units strenght points anymore.

--Also i m having trouble to see important unit information such as entrenchment and supression.

--The battle outcome prediction is also a bit too small.

--Battle events like rugged defense,retreat,surrender,supressed etc are hard to notice and
one should be informed with a short pop up message over the unit when events happen.

--The speed of the game is ok,but i would like to have an option to see the units
move a bit slower ,but it should be switchable because some people like that fast movement style of PG2,i think.

--Battle Animations are cool,i think alot of posibillities on those for modders,very nice.

--I couldn't find out a way to tell core and auxillary units appart so far,so i just have to guess.
If theres an auxillary nation like slovakia in the poland scenario its easy but what about german aux units in germany only scenarios?

--A unit can only be renamed by ALT-N command right?Shouldn't it possible to rename a unit by double-clicking into the frame with its name?

--I could get used to fact that u have to right click in order to move a unit and attack,but i think the right click could be used for better things.
In Pacific General if one right clicks a unit it will pop up a large window with all of the units stats,status and basicly everything one needs to know.It was perfect.

--Expirience
Just as bad as the all the original PG Series,way to fast XP gain for units.

Most of these things i mentioned so far could be changed by a modder ,but still i recommend to take a close look at Pacific Generals menu
which has the best menu of all the Panzer General Series imo.
Btw. i recommend to take a closer look at Pacific General about almost every aspect.
No need to reinvent the wheel in this matter i think.

--Scenario/map Editor seems to be crude but should get the job done,but i only had a quick look at it.
I will go into that at a later time when i have more expirience with it.For the moment im just very glad that there
is an scenario editor.

--Hardmode/Normalmode.
Is far i can tell the difference between those are just the AI having more prestidge points.
This makes the game harder alright but it may also render a custom historic scenario very unhistoric because
the AI has a large amount of units which were not there historicly in that scenario.
In PG1 there was a option how to make a scenario harder by either allowing the AI buy expirienced ,
having more prestidge available or both.
I would miss that feature.

--The AI.
It seems to me that AI units dont retreat so fast as they did in PG2 and especially in Pacific General,very good.
On the other hand though ,i ve seen an AI Infantry Unit leaving a city hex (not a victory hex but still...)only to attack one of my weak unit while the city was almost surounded by full strenght units of mine which could enter the city on the next turn without a fight.
OK this is just a minor thing.

--Railroad tracks
Im not sure if they are only good for moving railroad guns back and fourth ,but there are way too many of them on the maps for my taste.
Especially in scenarios where no railroad guns where involved.
Unless they have also an effect on the way how good one can supply your units on the front and can be detroyed by partisans they are some kinda irretating.
They can add some flavour in a handfull of scenarios though.But less is more i think.

OK these were my first impressions of PC,i tried to stay brief but i kinda failed at that as allways when talking bout panzergeneral:)
I may have reported some "missing features" which are in the Game alright but have been overseen or not figured out by me yet.
In that case sorry and nevermind.

Some personal comments.
I'm not sure if creatiing a simple PG1 Clone is the goal of the PC Dev-Team.
I think Slitherine has the oppotunity to create a milestone for the next 10 years in round based WW2 gaming.
But creating a simple PG1 Clone with some new/different grafics (the grafics ecxept for the battle animation are not better or worse than PG1,just different)won't be enough for a milestone game.
PC won't be able to "lure" PG2,Pacific General and Peoples General enthusiasts over to PC,they will check the game out alright but then go quickly back to their beloved game.
Currently PC has not enough new features to offer for modders and campaign designers and most of all the players in order to make those people stay.
If im not mistaken it's planned the bring in new campaigns and terrain (for example the desert) as an expansion,well i'm not sure if this is the right aproach for PC.
For a game like world of warcraft it makes sense to sell people new terrains,areas and units since they can't be modded for those games.But for a Panzer General clone u don't wann sell people things they can (and will do with great pleasure) themselves.
New features is what we need and hope for,or at least a "best of all Panzergeneral" kinda game,"hardcoded" stuff we can't do ourselfs.

I honestly hate to sound negative about PC but this is the way i see things.


See
ya

andy

Panzer3L wrote: Some personal comments.
I'm not sure if creatiing a simple PG1 Clone is the goal of the PC Dev-Team.
I think Slitherine has the oppotunity to create a milestone for the next 10 years in round based WW2 gaming.
But creating a simple PG1 Clone with some new/different grafics (the grafics ecxept for the battle animation are not better or worse than PG1,just different)won't be enough for a milestone game.
PC won't be able to "lure" PG2,Pacific General and Peoples General enthusiasts over to PC,they will check the game out alright but then go quickly back to their beloved game.
Currently PC has not enough new features to offer for modders and campaign designers and most of all the players in order to make those people stay.
If im not mistaken it's planned the bring in new campaigns and terrain (for example the desert) as an expansion,well i'm not sure if this is the right aproach for PC.
For a game like world of warcraft it makes sense to sell people new terrains,areas and units since they can't be modded for those games.But for a Panzer General clone u don't wann sell people things they can (and will do with great pleasure) themselves.
New features is what we need and hope for,or at least a "best of all Panzergeneral" kinda game,"hardcoded" stuff we can't do ourselfs.

I honestly hate to sound negative about PC but this is the way i see things.

I won't address your entire post, because some of the issues you bring up have already been addressed and will be ready for next BETA, and some other topics I don't have answers for (not my area of development), but this last paragraph deserves some attention.

A lot of your concerns mirror thoughts I've been having. Currently, PzC is a upgrade over PG. However, it's not 'better' and it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The entire focus of the game so far has been to create the foundation, and seemingly very little has been devoted to expanding and growing beyond a PG clone. The entire point of the game is to be a modern version of PG, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. There is going to be a lot of people who never played PG who will pick up PzC and experience "Panzer General" for the first time, and PzC needs to be true to those people.

However, note that I said 'seemingly'. I personally, among others, been pushing for a lot of additions to allow PzC to be a good upgrade of PG, but also to become much more while not trampling over the PG style. One of the most important additions will hopefully be ready soon, and that is the unveiling of actual 'scenarios' supported through the editor trigger system.

Instead of the PG model of one side offense, one side defense, PzC should have the ability for true diversity.
A VIP scenario, where protection of a special unit is the goal of the scenario. There are no 'victory hexes' at all.
A Battle of Britain scenario where victory is based on the amount of British airfields that have been bombed into 'neutralization' by level bombers.
A battle where both sides are on the offensive, and neither side is the defender, and both players need to capture a majority of VHes spread across the map to achieve victory.
Actual multiplayer campaigns where both sides manage their cores between battles.

The problem is, all these ideas can't be implemented until the core foundation and mechanics of the game are in place first. Once this is done (and it's still not done), then with a few interesting 'custom games' Panzer Corps will have the ability to not only match classic Panzer General, but also truly enter it's own element to explore game play that moves well beyond the simple Panzer General formula of Steamroll all enemies in your path before the clock runs out.

Definitely agree that we should be allowed to set bot sides as attack. At least in the editor.

A VIP scenario, where protection of a special unit is the goal of the scenario. There are no 'victory hexes' at all.
A Battle of Britain scenario where victory is based on the amount of British airfields that have been bombed into 'neutralization' by level bombers.
A battle where both sides are on the offensive, and neither side is the defender, and both players need to capture a majority of VHes spread across the map to achieve victory.
Actual multiplayer campaigns where both sides manage their cores between battles.

Wow. I would love to see ALL of those features in PzC. Especially the Battle of Britain scenario, which would be a great way to see if a "Sea Lion" scenario was going to happen or not. Perhaps another scenario idea could be a "Bismarck" scenario where an Allied player has a set number of turns to find and sink the Bismarck (or, as the German player, to stay alive for the duration of the scenario). I hope these features get some serious consideration.

Hi Andy! Please don't be afraid to sound too negative, the whole point of this beta is to identify problems, not praise us developers. I do agree with much of what you are saying. Some questions/comments.

Panzer3L wrote: --The size of the hexes is ok,perhaps a bit to big,i can see 10 hexes at a time
from top to bottom of the screen without scrolling.12-14 hexes would be perfect.

Most PG titles had less than 10 hexes visible on the screen vertically. How did you arrive at the 12-14 hexes estimation? Why not 10 and not 15? (Just curious)

Panzer3L wrote: --The Zoom Feature is basicly a very good idea but not good executed (no offense)for two reason.
<skip>
So at least on a screen with 1920x1200 resolution the zoomed out view is kinda useless one way or the other.
But if the zoom factor would be reduced to a value which would show u say 14-15 hexes from top to bottom it would be awesome.

Perhaps you, as a veteran graphics designer, can give me some ideas how to scale tiles by a fractional factor and have them still fitting perfectly? I may be able to spend more time on researching this later, but for now any ideas are most welcome.

Panzer3L wrote: --The strategic map is ok but i would prefer having nation symbols instead of those unitclass symbols.But i think this could be modded easely.

Not so easily in its current form, although I may be able to improve this aspect. Why do you think nations are more useful? I rarely care about them at all, as long as I know what side a unit fights for...

Panzer3L wrote: --The menu fonts and also buttons are too small.
--The unit strentgh information underneath every unit is too small.
--The battle outcome prediction is also a bit too small.

What optimal size for them would you suggest?

Panzer3L wrote: --Also i m having trouble to see important unit information such as entrenchment and supression.

Is it a problem because of font size, or it is difficult to find this information, or both? Entrenchment and suppression are shown in the sidebar, next to unit name, flag, experience etc.

Panzer3L wrote: --The speed of the game is ok,but i would like to have an option to see the units
move a bit slower ,but it should be switchable because some people like that fast movement style of PG2,i think.

You mean, the units should slide from source hex to destination, like in PG2?

Panzer3L wrote: --I couldn't find out a way to tell core and auxillary units appart so far,so i just have to guess.
If theres an auxillary nation like slovakia in the poland scenario its easy but what about german aux units in germany only scenarios?

They differ by glod/silver strength plate borders.

Panzer3L wrote: Most of these things i mentioned so far could be changed by a modder ,but still i recommend to take a close look at Pacific Generals menu
which has the best menu of all the Panzer General Series imo.
Btw. i recommend to take a closer look at Pacific General about almost every aspect.
No need to reinvent the wheel in this matter i think.

I won't pretend to know PacGen as well as I know PG, but I did read its manual carefully when I was working on game rules and formulas for PzC. So, could you please be a bit more specific here? What PacGen features exactly do you miss in PzC?

Panzer3L wrote: --Scenario/map Editor seems to be crude but should get the job done,but i only had a quick look at it.
I will go into that at a later time when i have more expirience with it.For the moment im just very glad that there
is an scenario editor.

Looking forward to hear more feedback on this one.

Panzer3L wrote: --Railroad tracks
Im not sure if they are only good for moving railroad guns back and fourth...

You can embark any ground unit on a train transport in any city connected to the RR network.

Panzer3L wrote: I'm not sure if creatiing a simple PG1 Clone is the goal of the PC Dev-Team.
I think Slitherine has the oppotunity to create a milestone for the next 10 years in round based WW2 gaming.
But creating a simple PG1 Clone with some new/different grafics (the grafics ecxept for the battle animation are not better or worse than PG1,just different)won't be enough for a milestone game.
PC won't be able to "lure" PG2,Pacific General and Peoples General enthusiasts over to PC,they will check the game out alright but then go quickly back to their beloved game.
Currently PC has not enough new features to offer for modders and campaign designers and most of all the players in order to make those people stay.

To be quite frank, I seriously doubt that PzC will lure a lot of PG/PG2 modders even if it has much more features than now. Primary reason why they won't want to switch is because they have already invested years of work into their custom e-files, scenarios etc., and redoing all this work in new engine, with different rules and formulas, is something they will not want.

Having said that, I would appreciate it very much if you could be more specific. What features exactly, in your opinion, are needed for modders, campaign designers and players? What should be our top priority to add?

Panzer3L wrote: If im not mistaken it's planned the bring in new campaigns and terrain (for example the desert) as an expansion,well i'm not sure if this is the right aproach for PC.
For a game like world of warcraft it makes sense to sell people new terrains,areas and units since they can't be modded for those games.But for a Panzer General clone u don't wann sell people things they can (and will do with great pleasure) themselves.
New features is what we need and hope for,or at least a "best of all Panzergeneral" kinda game,"hardcoded" stuff we can't do ourselfs.

Of course, we will be adding more tiles, more units and more scenarios in the future updates. I don't really think that these features are not needed because they can be created by modders. A lot of players will never play anything except "official" game, but they still want desert campaigns, more interesting MP maps etc. However, we by no means plan to limit future updates to tiles, units and scenarios. The code will constantly evolve as well. New features will be added, AI tweaked, multiplayer mode improved. And we can be able to come up with better graphics too. For example, we have 3D models for all units, so in the future we can rerender them in a different way, add more unit facings/orientations or even migrate to a true 3D mode. Now that we are getting more experience with the game, our vision of how the graphics should work is constantly evolving.

Think of it this way. In version 1.0 we had to do A LOT of stuff which is taken for granted, but which takes a huge amount of work. Now that we have laid the foundation, we can invest a lot more effort into new stuff, something which no game in PG series ever had. And so, specific suggestion for future directions of development are very much welcome.

Kerensky wrote:The problem is, all these ideas can't be implemented until the core foundation and mechanics of the game are in place first. Once this is done (and it's still not done), then with a few interesting 'custom games' Panzer Corps will have the ability to not only match classic Panzer General, but also truly enter it's own element to explore game play that moves well beyond the simple Panzer General formula of Steamroll all enemies in your path before the clock runs out.

Hi

Ok makes perfect sense and sounds promising,like i said i wasn't sure what your plan's with PC are.

Thanks for this info.

See ya

andy

Hi Alex

I ve already started to gather and write down all my thoughts,wishes and sugestions on feature's which i think should be
in PC(or at least in the expansion),but haven't finnished that list yet,its gonna be quite a large post though:)

I also need to get my Photobucket account up again in order to post screenshots.Some of your questions can be better
answered by posting some sceenshots than with lots of explanaition.

So in 1-2 days i should be ready to answer all your questions.

Thank u

See ya

andy

I couldn't find out a way to tell core and auxillary units appart so far,so i just have to guess. .... They differ by glod/silver strength plate borders.

Can the borders be made darker/thicker? Right now they are so thin I have a hard time telling which is which.

After you start click on system button for options.

He wasn't talking about Hex contrast Razz, he was talking about the difference between Core and Aux forces. Nice to see more and more people bringing this issue up lately. I've only been nagging at them since... oh February.
viewtopic.php?t=22201&highlight=auxiliary

Razz, thanks for the response. Actually the hexes were too light when I first started playing, so that was one of the first options I changed.

Kerensky, like you I hope the core/aux border is improved. These old eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be!

♪Making a list...♪
♪Checking it twice...♪

dshaw62197 wrote:

I couldn't find out a way to tell core and auxillary units appart so far,so i just have to guess. .... They differ by glod/silver strength plate borders.

Can the borders be made darker/thicker? Right now they are so thin I have a hard time telling which is which.

I've mentioned before it's quite hard for me also to tell the difference between core & aux.

I thought the old-school way of changing the strength BACKGROUND was easy enough to distinguish.

Rudankort wrote: Most PG titles had less than 10 hexes visible on the screen vertically. How did you arrive at the 12-14 hexes estimation? Why not 10 and not 15? (Just curious)
Perhaps you, as a veteran graphics designer, can give me some ideas how to scale tiles by a fractional factor and have them still fitting perfectly? I may be able to spend more time on researching this later, but for now any ideas are most welcome.

Yes but SSI Games were made in times when people were having crt display's with 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution display's.Almost no one had a 1920x1200 resolution display back in 1994-98.
Today even most 17" Notebooks have full HD resolution or at least 1680x1050 for 15" Labtop's.If i remember correctly only Peoples General was made for 800x600 resolution and perhaps western assult and operation barbarossa.
All the others were running only in 640x480,thats why there's a 1024x768 custom patch for Pacific General.

It was you who helped me finding out the proper hex size remember?I was asking you to make a PGF version with 2 times bigger hexes,then u were kind enough to answer my request for 1,5 times version of PGF which was the perfect size.
The original PGF version show's about 24 hexes(one hex was 60x50pixels) from top to bottom,the version u did form which was having hexes 2 times as big (120x100) did show about 12 hexes from top to bottom and
the version final version u did for me with 1,5times bigger hexes was showing bout 18 hexes.
Now the goal is of course to be able to see as much of the front line as possible(without having to scrool the map) but still be able to see the units and its strenght numbers clearly.

PC 's hexes are bout 150x120 pixels big,(more than 2 times bigger than most of the SSI games hexes 60x50),which is basicly very good because one can add much more grafic details in 150x120 hexes as u can in 60x50 hexes.
I hope u can follow me but to make a long story short.
There is not a perfect value of hexes from top to bottom but a range from 12-18 hexes.
With 12 one can see more details clearly on units and terrain (small things such as an radio antenna or strenght numbers) and with 18 one could see more of the frontline without scrolling but grafic details would be harder to see but still acceptable.

About the Zoom factor/feature.
Atm the normal view shows about 20-25% of a 50x50 scenario/map.
I'm not sure if it would be possible to have more than just two factors,if yes then i'd make them 20%,25% 30% and 100% ,or 25%,30%,35% and 100% (cant be precise without some testing).
In the 100 % zoom factor it would be great if this view would switch automaticly to the strategic map,but the 100% zoom factor would be only a "nice to have" thing.

Panzer3L wrote: --The strategic map is ok but i would prefer having nation symbols instead of those unitclass symbols.But i think this could be modded easely.

Rudankort wrote:Not so easily in its current form, although I may be able to improve this aspect. Why do you think nations are more useful? I rarely care about them at all, as long as I know what side a unit fights for...

I feel the same way and a nation flag is the easiest way to tell for who a unit is fighting for.This is just a personal preference,i think those SSI games had many flaws but the strategic map was never one of them so why change it.
Only a very minor thing tbh,not worth of hours reprogramming.

Panzer3L wrote: --The menu fonts and also buttons are too small.
--The unit strentgh information underneath every unit is too small.
--The battle outcome prediction is also a bit too small.

Rudankort wrote:What optimal size for them would you suggest?

Well i can't give u a precise figure on the font size without some testing but i'd say try 150% for a start.

As for the Unit strenght numbers and also the status information next to the unit,such as moved and fired,i made some screenshots.

This is how things look currently (no unit has moved and fired)


And this is how i would modifiy it.


The Panther in this screenshot has moved and fired (no red arrow and no red dot ).
The Arty in this screen has not moved and not fired yet (so it still has a red dot and the red arrow to the right of its strenght number).
The Panzer3 has fired but not moved.Furthermore u can see that the Panzer3 is an Aux unit by its grey instead of a white strenghtnumber-
background color,just as in the original game.

So basicly the red arrow means a unit has movement points left and the red dot means the unit can still fire.

Panzer3L wrote: --Also i m having trouble to see important unit information such as entrenchment and supression.

Rudankort wrote:Is it a problem because of font size, or it is difficult to find this information, or both? Entrenchment and suppression are shown in the sidebar, next to unit name, flag, experience etc.

I prefer to see important information in the middle on top of the screen.

Just take a look at this Pacific General menu screenshot.
To left is Prestidge and in the middle is the hex information like location city name and victory points. When in combat ,this is the place where battle events like say rugged defense,is shown only for about 1-2seconds then it will go back to showing the hex information again.
To the right is the turn count.
Above the turn count is a small window with the current weather situation.(btw this is another point where PC has much room for improvement)
Most of all, theres the display for the unit which is selected (in this screenshot its empty) and the information for the unit which
the mouse is currently on.
Unitname,Class,Ammo,Fuel and Entrenchment and of course Expirience.These are the most important things u wanna see very quickly.

Panzer3L wrote: --The speed of the game is ok,but i would like to have an option to see the units
move a bit slower ,but it should be switchable because some people like that fast movement style of PG2,i think.

Rudankort wrote:You mean, the units should slide from source hex to destination, like in PG2?

Yes i mean the time one can see the unit moveing,driving or traveling from hex to hex.In Pacifc General one could choose between either the units arrive almost instantly (PG2 is very fast also),or
having them Travel nice and slow to the tergeted hex (be sure to not make it to slow like in PG Western assult).

Panzer3L wrote: Most of these things i mentioned so far could be changed by a modder ,but still i recommend to take a close look at Pacific Generals menu
which has the best menu of all the Panzer General Series imo.
Btw. i recommend to take a closer look at Pacific General about almost every aspect.
No need to reinvent the wheel in this matter i think.

Rudankort wrote: So, could you please be a bit more specific here? What PacGen features exactly do you miss in PzC?
What features exactly, in your opinion, are needed for modders, campaign designers and players? What should be our top priority to add?

I will go into that in a seperate post soon,would be way too long in this thread:)

Rudankort wrote:To be quite frank, I seriously doubt that PzC will lure a lot of PG/PG2 modders even if it has much more features than now. Primary reason why they won't want to switch is because they have already invested years of work into their custom e-files, scenarios etc., and redoing all this work in new engine, with different rules and formulas, is something they will not want.

Agrreed.U won't be able to get all of the hardcore ssi player's and modder's but PC's goal should be to at least as much as possible of them.
Its like in politics,how good is it for say the democrats in the USA to get some vote's from the republican's if they don't get the vote's from their own basis or vice versa?
So technically it would mean to offer some kind of import feature for those people.I'm well aware this is asking alot and would mean a great deal of work,in some case the feature will be crude but at least it would help people getting started.
There would be also benefits for the PC Team i think.

SSI games didn't survive 10-15 years bacause the official SSi support and patch update was so good but because there was large basis of players and modders in the forum making it last that long.
I once wrote an email to SSI in early 1998,never got any response so far...so everything i've learned and know about Panzer general is from other players and enthusiasts.
So the Game community will make most of the support work for u and it will make the game last longer by providing new campaigns and mods,think of them as workers which u don't have to pay...just some thoughts...

Rudankort wrote:Of course, we will be adding more tiles, more units and more scenarios in the future updates. I don't really think that these features are not needed because they can be created by modders. A lot of players will never play anything except "official" game, but they still want desert campaigns, more interesting MP maps etc. However, we by no means plan to limit future updates to tiles, units and scenarios. The code will constantly evolve as well. New features will be added, AI tweaked, multiplayer mode improved. And we can be able to come up with better graphics too. For example, we have 3D models for all units, so in the future we can rerender them in a different way, add more unit facings/orientations or even migrate to a true 3D mode. Now that we are getting more experience with the game, our vision of how the graphics should work is constantly evolving.
Think of it this way. In version 1.0 we had to do A LOT of stuff which is taken for granted, but which takes a huge amount of work. Now that we have laid the foundation, we can invest a lot more effort into new stuff, something which no game in PG series ever had. And so, specific suggestion for future directions of development are very much welcome.

Sounds good but i ve seen my share of WW2 Games where alot of future development have been promised by the developers but never happend because the intitial game wasn't selling good enough.

You will have trouble finding any kind of game outhere which has expansions out where the first game wasn't a good seller.
I admit i don't know how much "headroom" slitherine has on PC,but for most games everything stands and falls with the first release.
I may not like it but thats the way the gaming industrie works for the most part...just a feeling...hope i m completly wrong:)

See ya
andy

Hi Andy!

Panzer3L wrote: PC 's hexes are bout 150x120 pixels big,(more than 2 times bigger than most of the SSI games hexes 60x50),which is basicly very good because one can add much more grafic details in 150x120 hexes as u can in 60x50 hexes.
I hope u can follow me but to make a long story short.
There is not a perfect value of hexes from top to bottom but a range from 12-18 hexes.
With 12 one can see more details clearly on units and terrain (small things such as an radio antenna or strenght numbers) and with 18 one could see more of the frontline without scrolling but grafic details would be harder to see but still acceptable.

In PzC hex size is 112x128 to be precise. Tiles and units are bigger though because they can overflow into neighboring hexes.

Anyway, I see your point and agree that ideal solution would be more intermediate usable zoom levels. The problem with this is not ideological (we are willing to have that), but purely technical. My approach to zoom levels now is, I scale down tileset first, and then I use it like original one. However, if I scale all tiles down by 75%, they no longer fit well together. Hence my question. Do you know a good way to scale hexagonal tiles so that they still fit perfectly?

Panzer3L wrote: I feel the same way and a nation flag is the easiest way to tell for who a unit is fighting for.This is just a personal preference,i think those SSI games had many flaws but the strategic map was never one of them so why change it.
Only a very minor thing tbh,not worth of hours reprogramming.

Well, frankly, I think that color code like what we have now is more efficient in communicating unit side than flags. When minor nations are involved, it is easier to check color than remember their flags. I remember it was a problem for me on a couple of occasions. And in addition to this, I think that seeing unit classes on strategic map (instead of, say, crosses and stars like in PG) is a nice bonus, because often unit class is important enough.

That is how we arrived at our current scheme.

Panzer3L wrote: Well i can't give u a precise figure on the font size without some testing but i'd say try 150% for a start.

The problem is, the game is supposed to work on a wide array of screen sizes and resolutions, starting from netbooks (1024x600) and ending with big monitors like the one you have. So if we are to increase fonts and buttons by 150%, this can only mean one thing - we'll have to use several sizes depending on the screen. On 1920x1080 150% is fine, but on a netbook what we have now is a maximum I would say.

Panzer3L wrote: As for the Unit strenght numbers and also the status information next to the unit,such as moved and fired,i made some screenshots.

Thanks for that. Moved/fired visualization in particular is an interesting topic. You may want to check out our discussion on this:
viewtopic.php?t=22108

In short, some people were against icons because it adds to visual clutter when there are many units, and also because in this case icons do not attract enough attention. As we are working on other things, we are still looking for a perfect solution for this particular problem.

As for strength labels, we plan to use strength number color to indicate suppression. This limits our freedom with using the same for core/aux indication.

Panzer3L wrote: I prefer to see important information in the middle on top of the screen.

I agree that top-middle pos has its advantages, but we felt that on wide screens such data organization would take too much space and the map would become too "long and narrow". Hence our decision to place the UI on the right. We are also thinking about more visual indications directly on the map, because on big screens even top-middle position requires you to move eyes quite a bit. Things like "ambush" will definitely be shown directly on the map, not in the UI. Not sure about things like experience, we still need to avoid visual clutter.

Panzer3L wrote:

Rudankort wrote:To be quite frank, I seriously doubt that PzC will lure a lot of PG/PG2 modders even if it has much more features than now. Primary reason why they won't want to switch is because they have already invested years of work into their custom e-files, scenarios etc., and redoing all this work in new engine, with different rules and formulas, is something they will not want.

Agrreed.U won't be able to get all of the hardcore ssi player's and modder's but PC's goal should be to at least as much as possible of them.
Its like in politics,how good is it for say the democrats in the USA to get some vote's from the republican's if they don't get the vote's from their own basis or vice versa?
So technically it would mean to offer some kind of import feature for those people.I'm well aware this is asking alot and would mean a great deal of work,in some case the feature will be crude but at least it would help people getting started.
There would be also benefits for the PC Team i think.

SSI games didn't survive 10-15 years bacause the official SSi support and patch update was so good but because there was large basis of players and modders in the forum making it last that long.
I once wrote an email to SSI in early 1998,never got any response so far...so everything i've learned and know about Panzer general is from other players and enthusiasts.
So the Game community will make most of the support work for u and it will make the game last longer by providing new campaigns and mods,think of them as workers which u don't have to pay...just some thoughts...

Well it is clear that community is important. My point is, PzC will have its own community of mostly new people, not the guys who are still modding PG. You know I'm very attached to PG modding community and I would love to see people migrating to PzC, but let's be realistic here - they are unlikely to migrate.

For a new person, on the other hand, PzC has enough advantages compared to "old stuff".

Panzer3L wrote: Sounds good but i ve seen my share of WW2 Games where alot of future development have been promised by the developers but never happend because the intitial game wasn't selling good enough.

You will have trouble finding any kind of game outhere which has expansions out where the first game wasn't a good seller.
I admit i don't know how much "headroom" slitherine has on PC,but for most games everything stands and falls with the first release.
I may not like it but thats the way the gaming industrie works for the most part...just a feeling...hope i m completly wrong:)

Well, we were discussing what exactly expansion should and should not include, weren't we? In particular, your phrase: "But for a Panzer General clone u don't wann sell people things they can (and will do with great pleasure) themselves. "

Of course, the first release should be good enough to warrant sequels, or there is nothing to talk about. But if it IS good enough, we'll take the approach which I'll described - improvements in the engine will be complemented by new contant, like new scenarios, tiles and units. I don't really see what is wrong with this.

Rudankort wrote:[
Anyway, I see your point and agree that ideal solution would be more intermediate usable zoom levels. The problem with this is not ideological (we are willing to have that), but purely technical. My approach to zoom levels now is, I scale down tileset first, and then I use it like original one. However, if I scale all tiles down by 75%, they no longer fit well together. Hence my question. Do you know a good way to scale hexagonal tiles so that they still fit perfectly?

Hi Alex

I can just think of two possibilities atm.
1.Working with vector grafics would be a solution.But that would be a very hard to implement.
2. Finding a value which the hexes will fit , 80% perhaps.

U don't realy need to change it (perhaps some people are happy the way it is currently)as long there's a zoom factor available which shows something between 12-18 hexes from top to bottom.
So then i and other people with full HD screens would play at that zoom factor and the others on normal zoom factor.


There's nothing wrong with anything as long as it works

See ya
andy