Slitherine

Two new Grand Campaigns are joining the fray on the heels of near unanimous acclaim!

Slitherine, Matrix Games and The Lordz Games Studio (www.thelordzgamesstudio.com) are thrilled to announce that two new extra content packs are headed to their famed next generation strategy game, Panzer Corps. Selling as a download version only for $4.99 each, the extra content Grand Campaign ’39 and Grand Campaign ’40 brings loads of new scenarios and the ability to carry your armies from campaign to campaign. Ultimately, several other extra content packs will combine together to create a full Grand Campaign from 1939 to 1945 which will have around 70 scenarios!

Are you interested in getting an early look at the new content? Sign up to join our beta team and test out the new campaigns before anyone else! Sign up here.

Grand Campaign '39
September 1st, 1939.

Germany launches its military invasion of Poland, igniting World War 2. Take command of the Blitzkrieg’s spearhead as you battle your way to the heart of the Polish nation, the Capitol of Warsaw, and beyond. This DLC features 14 all new scenarios, improved artificial intelligence scripting, new campaign features, unique objectives such as protecting vital units, destroying enemy supply trains, and securing vital bridges, and the capacity to save your core force file for use in future campaigns!

The Grand Campaign’s are a series of expansions for Panzer Corps and require Panzer Corps. Each campaign can be started with the core force from the previous Grand Campaign, so you can continue Grand Campaign ’40 with your core force that completed Grand Campaign ’39. Alternatively players can start with a preset core force and play each campaign on its own, or jump in to the Grand Campaign at any year. This expansion starts your core from the very beginning of the war, allowing you maximum flexibility to choose and shape the forces that you will take through the next 6 years. The full Grand Campaign from 1939-1945 will have around 70 scenarios!

Scenario List:
Poznan, Danzig Corridor South, Danzig Corridor North, Lodz, Piatek, Wyszogrod, Kampinoska, Forest, Modlin, Warsaw South, Warsaw North, Spoils of War, Oslo, Lillehammer, Narvik


Grand Campaign '40
May 10th, 1940.

The Maginot Line, shield of France and the battleship on land, was supposed to be impenetrable, but the Germans have a secret and daring plan aimed to topple their old enemy! Import your experienced troops from the first campaign, or start with a pre-generated brand new core and lead your forces to victory. This DLC features 14 all new scenarios, recreating historical battles such as the epic of Eben-Emael and the tank battles of Arras and Stonne, improved artificial intelligence scripting, new campaign features, unique objectives such as capturing a French General and forcing the Dunkirk pocket to surrender, and the capacity to save your core force for use in future campaigns!

The Grand Campaign’s are a series of expansions for Panzer Corps and require Panzer Corps. Each campaign can be started with the core force from the previous Grand Campaign, so you can continue Grand Campaign ’40 with your core force that completed Grand Campaign ’39. Alternatively players can start with a preset core force and play each campaign on its own, or jump in to the Grand Campaign at any year.
Scenario List:
Eben-Emael, Albert Canal, The Hague, Sedan, Maubeuge, Arras, Calais, Stonne, Wassigny, Amiens, Dunkirk, Reims, Dijon, Maginot Line

Great news indeed. Signed up to help beta test again.

I do hope all changes are brought to the expansion-less game, so you don't have features that can only be used when you have GC40 installed or something. That'd be sad.
Also, I'm not sure about the nickel-and-diming.

It was always clear there were going to be expansions, but I'd hoped for Africa first, with not many more missions than in each of the announced GC packs, but with another theatre, desert terrain, loads of desert-camo and/or theatre-specific units ... stuff like that, maybe for $20ish.
If the scenarios are varied and competently made, and include details like voiced mission briefings and stuff, I'm sure $5 is justified, though.

I'll not sign up for beta, but remain cautiously optimistic.
Any plans about when to release these things?
_____
rezaf

It was always clear there were going to be expansions, but I'd hoped for Africa first, with not many more missions than in each of the announced GC packs, but with another theatre, desert terrain, loads of desert-camo and/or theatre-specific units ... stuff like that, maybe for $20ish.

The existing of one does not exclude the other.

looking forward to this. Have signed up for Beta as I tested the original game, so hope i am lucky enough to be selected again. great work at improving this game further so quickly

rezaf wrote:I do hope all changes are brought to the expansion-less game, so you don't have features that can only be used when you have GC40 installed or something. That'd be sad.
Also, I'm not sure about the nickel-and-diming.

It was always clear there were going to be expansions, but I'd hoped for Africa first, with not many more missions than in each of the announced GC packs, but with another theatre, desert terrain, loads of desert-camo and/or theatre-specific units ... stuff like that, maybe for $20ish.
If the scenarios are varied and competently made, and include details like voiced mission briefings and stuff, I'm sure $5 is justified, though.

I'll not sign up for beta, but remain cautiously optimistic.
Any plans about when to release these things?
_____
rezaf

I think we won't disappoint.

This has made my day!

Several other content packs huh? What I would love are more Ostfront battles. Like, I don't know, at least 30 scenarios there... And being outnumbered consistently...

I guess the question is, are these scenarios meant to be harder than the standard grand campaign, without having to use the bonus difficulties? I'd sure love to have a "veteran" field marshall level campaign that is as hard as the current bonus difficulties, and the truly insane can go for Manstein, etc.

Edit: Just out of curiosity, what exactly does Beta testing entail? I'd be happy to provide feedback on say the design of a level, its difficulty, etc., but I'm not so keen to stress test a scenario every which way and actively hunt for bugs.

rezaf wrote:I'll not sign up for beta, but remain cautiously optimistic.

I think you should. I'm sure you'd give good feedback.

deducter wrote:Edit: Just out of curiosity, what exactly does Beta testing entail? I'd be happy to provide feedback on say the design of a level, its difficulty, etc., but I'm not so keen to stress test a scenario every which way and actively hunt for bugs.

Usually this.

Is there a rough idea of when these campaigns will be available

Signed up for beta tester

Great news!! Got my credit card ready

airbornemongo101 wrote:Is there a rough idea of when these campaigns will be available

Signed up for beta tester

In the Slitherine's site, it's stating 20/10/2011 as the date of release.
But remember that these are only estimates. A lot depend of how the beta test evolves. It can easily be postpone, if things are not well balanced and bug free.

VPaulus wrote:

airbornemongo101 wrote:Is there a rough idea of when these campaigns will be available

Signed up for beta tester

In the Slitherine's site, it's stating 20/10/2011 as the date of release.
But remember that these are only estimates. A lot depend of how the beta test evolves. It can easily be postpone, if things are not well balanced and bug free.

10-4,,,good news ,,even if it's delayed

This is fantastic news! I really like the concept of giving each year its own campaign. And 28 scenarios at $10? Considering the original game had 26 scenarios and sells for $40, this is an incredible deal. I've signed up for the playtest... I participated in the original PzC playtest and it was a great experience. Regardless of whether or not I am fortunate enough to again participate, I will gladly purchase these new campaigns as soon as they are available.

Thanks to the PzC development team for this nice surprise. This bodes well for a future filled with PzC expansion goodness.

deducter wrote:Several other content packs huh? What I would love are more Ostfront battles. Like, I don't know, at least 30 scenarios there... And being outnumbered consistently...

I guess the question is, are these scenarios meant to be harder than the standard grand campaign, without having to use the bonus difficulties? I'd sure love to have a "veteran" field marshall level campaign that is as hard as the current bonus difficulties, and the truly insane can go for Manstein, etc.

Edit: Just out of curiosity, what exactly does Beta testing entail? I'd be happy to provide feedback on say the design of a level, its difficulty, etc., but I'm not so keen to stress test a scenario every which way and actively hunt for bugs.

Not to get ahead of ourselves, but with a very serious amount of attention being put into Soviet equipment, both tanks and aircraft especially, I would bet on content being steered in that direction. If it takes 28 scenarios to get from September 1939 to June 1940, I would think it would take a great deal more to get from June 1941 to May 1945.

I would say that on the standard difficulty setting, the new campaigns are roughly equal to the difficulty level that we currently have. For a well experienced and hardened player, the DLC campaigns should prove an entertaining and refreshing experience, but not a crushingly difficult one either. But that's why we have the extended difficulty modes for. When you encounter 15 strength Char Bs and 15 Strength Matilda IIs (Manstein of course) and the best German tank is the Panzer IIIF well that's a serious obstacle, and an obstacle that actually is not present in Manstein of the current campaign we have too. Infantry tactics in rough terrain, good use of 88s, and a few Stukas will really make the difference here.

As for what we expect from the BETA testing, VPaulus has the right idea.

Fu******** A oops I shouldn't say that I might offend the stingy twats that clearly whine like little brats with too little allowance to spend.

Kudos to the designers and to Slitherine for being able to deliver, and then deliver some more.

When I consider the majority of wargamers belong to my demographic, and likely start their day spending as much on a friggin start the day off coffee, well I simply don't feel like listening to your I hate DLC whining. Just pass on a couple of coffees if it hurts so damned much to buy something worth getting.
Either that or do what you say you always do, and get lost till next year when you MIGHT get a gold edition release.

God I hate stingy wargamers. You sound worse than cheap entitled feeling 13 year olds.

Oh and again, thanks for the DLC guys, I will be grabbing it when the wife lets me have my allowance

Looking over the screenshots of the two DLC campaigns brought a couple of questions to mind. First, is the unit scale and time scale consistent across the scenarios, or do they vary like the current base campaigns? Also, is the campaign structure rigid (i.e., every scenario has to be played in order) or are there variable outcomes based on the level of success?

dshaw62197 wrote:Looking over the screenshots of the two DLC campaigns brought a couple of questions to mind. First, is the unit scale and time scale consistent across the scenarios, or do they vary like the current base campaigns? Also, is the campaign structure rigid (i.e., every scenario has to be played in order) or are there variable outcomes based on the level of success?

Unit scale and time scales are near universally consistent. However the scale is somewhat zoomed in compared to what we have right now in Panzer Corps. For example the 2nd scenario of DLC 1940 is Eben-Emael and the second one is the German advance up the Albert Canal. Historically speaking, these two scenarios only took two or three days to complete, and so the amount of time that passes in game is a match to that. In other words, Turns per Day is quite heavily invoked (how else can we fit 14 scenarios, averaging about 16 turns per scenario, into a timeline of May 10th to June 25th? )

As for the campaign structure, it is only rigid in the fact that it follows a very historical path. While the current grand campaign is rather freewheeling, with Sealion, Moscow, and USA all possible to be subdued, the most likely plan for these DLCs is to follow history. That does not mean we won't ever see something like... DLC USA 1946, just not right away. Within each DLC there are alternate paths and choices the player can make, as well as possible bonus fictional scenarios that can be unlocked with a string of decisive victories.

This image should explain what I'm talking about, just keep in mind the briefing is subject to change in the final version.

Love it - the more you can offer varied mission objectives (rather than the classic race as fast as you can to capture these 4 cities), as well as defensive missions, the better.

Kerensky wrote:

dshaw62197 wrote:Looking over the screenshots of the two DLC campaigns brought a couple of questions to mind. First, is the unit scale and time scale consistent across the scenarios, or do they vary like the current base campaigns? Also, is the campaign structure rigid (i.e., every scenario has to be played in order) or are there variable outcomes based on the level of success?

Unit scale and time scales are near universally consistent. However the scale is somewhat zoomed in compared to what we have right now in Panzer Corps. For example the 2nd scenario of DLC 1940 is Eben-Emael and the second one is the German advance up the Albert Canal. Historically speaking, these two scenarios only took two or three days to complete, and so the amount of time that passes in game is a match to that. In other words, Turns per Day is quite heavily invoked (how else can we fit 14 scenarios, averaging about 16 turns per scenario, into a timeline of May 10th to June 25th? )

As for the campaign structure, it is only rigid in the fact that it follows a very historical path. While the current grand campaign is rather freewheeling, with Sealion, Moscow, and USA all possible to be subdued, the most likely plan for these DLCs is to follow history. That does not mean we won't ever see something like... DLC USA 1946, just not right away. Within each DLC there are alternate paths and choices the player can make, as well as possible bonus fictional scenarios that can be unlocked with a string of decisive victories.

This image should explain what I'm talking about, just keep in mind the briefing is subject to change in the final version.

Agreed. I hope Slitherine makes a $hitload off PCorps so we get many new versions of it.

DSWargamer wrote:Fu******** A oops I shouldn't say that I might offend the stingy twats that clearly whine like little brats with too little allowance to spend.

Kudos to the designers and to Slitherine for being able to deliver, and then deliver some more.

When I consider the majority of wargamers belong to my demographic, and likely start their day spending as much on a friggin start the day off coffee, well I simply don't feel like listening to your I hate DLC whining. Just pass on a couple of coffees if it hurts so damned much to buy something worth getting.
Either that or do what you say you always do, and get lost till next year when you MIGHT get a gold edition release.

God I hate stingy wargamers. You sound worse than cheap entitled feeling 13 year olds.

Oh and again, thanks for the DLC guys, I will be grabbing it when the wife lets me have my allowance