Repeat playability?

[dsvitak]

Hi all.

I have been following this game for quite awhile. It looks terrific!

I do have a couple of questions. First, about the gameplay.

Is this game primarily designed to be a multi-player game, or single player?

In the single player mode, will there be scripted missions, or will there be a randomization feature?

I accept that there won't be a true mission generator, at least at the beginning...but is there DLC, or perhaps an expansion that creates a random mission generation system? If so, I will purchase this immediately.

A game system that requires one to set up and place units just doesn't work for me. If I know that if I step around that Jeep, I will get shot, that loses some of the excitement.

Thanks!

[Xerkis]

Hi all.

I have been following this game for quite awhile. It looks terrific!

I do have a couple of questions. First, about the gameplay.

Welcome aboard.
As you might know already, I think this game is beyond terrific – it is awesome!
I’ll take a shot at your questions, but I’m sure Laxen (or someone else from Zeal) will as well.

Is this game primarily designed to be a multi-player game, or single player?

That’s hard for me to say. Believe it or not, I have only played one MP game. But that one game was intense and I can easily tell that MP games will be never ending in possibilities.
Single player games are a ton of fun as well, especially when you get in to building your own squads – or at least switching to use different per-made squads. I don’t know the details, but I do know that the AI is receiving more attention to make the single play even that much more intense.
By the way, you can use the squads you build in both single and MP.

In the single player mode, will there be scripted missions, or will there be a randomization feature?

The only thing that could be thought of as “scripted” might be the pre-made maps. After that, it’s anything goes. The basic idea from map to map might be somewhat the same depending on the options you pick at the start of the skirmish. But what squads you pick and your opponent picks (AI or MP) will greatly affect the flow of the game. And that puts a huge randomization to the game.

I accept that there won't be a true mission generator, at least at the beginning...but is there DLC, or perhaps an expansion that creates a random mission generation system? If so, I will purchase this immediately.

Someone from Zeal would obviously be better at answering this, but it is my understanding that there are many ideas flowing for DLC / later versions of the game. I certainly am looking forward to those as well.

A game system that requires one to set up and place units just doesn't work for me. If I know that if I step around that Jeep, I will get shot, that loses some of the excitement.

Thanks!

There are such dynamics in the game that you never know what will happen when you go around that corning. No matter how many times you play the same skirmish, the same corner can have different results.

[Laxen]

Very welcome DennisS. Fun to see some new faces around!

About single/multiplayer: The game was first deigned for being multiplayer primary, since many of us at the studio likes playing games competitively and we were very inspired by miniature wargames (which is hard to play in singleplayer). But some of us, like myself for example, also likes battling AIs, trying out new strategies and relaxing, instead of having to focus on the competitive aspects. The result is a focus on what is usually called Skirmish battles in games (so skirmish is not only the scale of the warfare in the game), where one chose a pre-made map and then tweak the game settings to whatever one wish to play with when it comes to victory conditions, resources, AI advantage, playable forces, reinforcements, game time etc. There is also a Force Builder in which the player can design the playable forces down to each single man and then to be used the the battles. This together opens up for customisable challenges in both single and multiplayer.

About scripted missions: Might have stepped over a bit into this subject on the previous answer. But no, we do not, as Xerkis said, have scripted nor randomised missions (except for some of the decisions the AI make at random). You pick a map and set up the game settings, creating your own scenario and then play it. It is much likely though that we add a scripted campaign later on if it keeps being requested by our player base

About random generator: We wanted to have a random generator for maps earlier on in the project, but we noticed that it was pretty hard to get random generated maps to both work and have some kind of coherent placement of the objects. We decided to skip it, focusing on other stuff, and instead include the level editor in the game so that players could build their own maps and share them. And as Xerkis have noticed, we have a lot of dreams for the future when it comes to DLC and squeals, and hopefully this is one of the things that might be added along our path.

About placing units. I'm not really sure I know what you mean? Do you mean like having a squad chose a direction, in which it is ready to fire on anything that enters their field of view? And that that makes it less exciting? IF that is what you mean, then you can be glad that we had that feature long a go, but we removed it because it made the game less smooth to play and benefited defensive play too much to be fun (and for us gameplay always trumps), especially in multiplayer games.

I hope this answered a few of your questions. Thank you for letting us know what you think/hope!

[Xerkis]

...... And if you haven’t already, check out the website and forum here for more info and great game screen pics.

[teamgene]

I like how players will be able to add maps and stuff.

[stormbringer3]

I would love to see a Steel Panthers (one of my all time favorites) style campaign in the future.
Thanks.

[Laxen]

Haven't played it. Care to share how they structured it and what you liked about it?

[Xerkis]

Haven't played it. Care to share how they structured it and what you liked about it?

My thoughts as well. Always hear it mentioned on the forums but I’ve never played it or know much about it.

[teamgene]

I played it but it was so long ago I don't remember. I was disappointed with steel panthers since I was a big kampfgruppe fan. Steel panthers taught the wrong lessons. In Kampfgruppe you needed infantry and in steel panthers it was the typical infantry die quick to tanks even if entrenched. An infantry platoon should be the hardest thing on the battlefield to kill, in games its the easiest. In kampfgruppe you pretty much had to overrun the trench to take the infantry out(was first game I had to handle a t34 with a pz III too!), very dangerous for both infantry and tank and too me very realistic. In steel panthers you had the tanks stand off and machinegun/shell the infantry to death as in most games.

[teamgene]

Sorry got my juices going....Kampfgruppe's Meeting engagement east of Bryansk is probably the best pre-made scenario I have ever played. Problem was the game had very few pre-made scenarios and in the make your own scenarios the AI would come right at you every time.

[Laxen]

Well. Haven't played either of them, but I guess you can both agree on that Gary Grigsby is a great game designer then. Maybe I should give him a call ;D

[stormbringer3]

Laxen, Xerkis,
Steel Panthers is a game that has a huge amount of historical scenarios or a campaign game that lets you play the military forces of all the major countries and also, many of the minor countries such as Bulgaria, Thailand etc. in the WWII era. The unit organization and equiptment are modeled as precisely as possible. The scale is squad and individual AFV. You start the campaign game with an amount of points to buy units. You can construct your core force in any way that you desire. The campaign will consist of linked scenarios, and at the end of each scenario you will receive an amount of points depending on your victory level. You can use these points to add more units to your core force or have equiptment upgrades as they are historically available. The core force units continue from each campaign scenario to the next, and if they are not KIA, your units will gain experience points and will gradually go from green to elite with corresponding combat bonuses. Because of this, you really try to keep your units from being KIA because it takes a long time for them to progress from one experience level to another.
Matrix Games has a version of this game and Shrapnel Games has another. The Shrapnel Games version is been upgraded for Win7 and has the most active forum. This game is considered by many as one of wargaming's greatest games. I would recommend that you check out one of the two versions and though the scale is different than your game, the research that has gone into the unit organizations of the individual countries and the statistics of the weapons involved is amazing.
I hope that this helps.

[Xerkis]

Thanks for the info.

By your description, it sounds very similar to Panzer Corps. If you know much about Panzer corps; how would you say they are the same / different?

[stormbringer3]

I have both. Steel Panthers is a lot more complex and realistic. The scale is a big difference. For example, you can hide an infantry unit in a woods terrain hex or behind a hill, set opportunity fire range to 1 and if an AFV enters an adjacent hex the infantry unit will attack using their anti tank weapons. If the AFV is two hexes away, the unit doesn't fire and will probably stay hidden depending on the movement speed of the AFV. Later in the war, do I want to use my panzerfaust at a two hex range and have a greater chance of a miss or move adjacent and close assault? Another difference is the construction of the core force. You can spend a lot of time deciding what kind of units you want to use. The Italian Army probably has from 10-20 different infantry squads, engineers, and recon detachments that you can use, each with whatever weapons they were equipped with. Even though the game is titled Steel Panthers, I love the infantry part of this game. I often play a campaign with an almost all infantry force. For me, the immersion level in Steel Panthers is a lot higher.
Both are excellent games but Steel Panthers has a lot more depth.

[Xerkis]

Sorry for any typing mistakes in these posting – I’m beginning to drool on my keyboard.


The more detail the better for me.

I assume it is turn based – or is it RTS.

I think I should just find a demo to download.

[stormbringer3]

Turn based. When you play a campaign, you can pick your start and end date and also the number of scenarios it will include. You can start Japan in the early 30's and play until 1945. The style of scenarios are meeting engagement, delay, defend, advance and assault. The biggest drawback to the game is that it's an older AI and it will scale up the difficulty level by adding to the number of opposing force units you will face.

[Laxen]

Sounds like an awesome game. I love force customisation

[budd]

here's a link to the download of the version from matrix that a group of guys worked on for years to improve it after matrix stopped working on it....it's free Steel Panthers enhanced version http://enhanced.freeforums.org/enhanced ... -t736.html

Here's alink to the other version, there both built off different versions of the original steel panthers series engine. this is also a free down load, the free version is locked at 800x 600 , if you buy it you can play at higher resolutions. There free and worth the download.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Camo_Works ... _page.html

[steelwarrior]

Does it still run on Windows 7? I loved the old Steel Panthers

Yeah maybe you could do something like this for your game a really cool campaign - I am a single player mostly cause I work, when most people have time to play and vice versa...gave you my first feedback...maybe you can also include vehicles over time - but a good campaign lets say Allies and Axis would be great for the start - maybe just a 39 campaign and then adding every year like the PC DLCs

[stormbringer3]

The Shrapnel version which I have, has been completely updated for Win7. If you go for a copy, I highly recommend the CD version. It will support higher resolutions and has more game features. The forum on the Shrapnel site for this is still active and quite helpful.