Stats, Stats and more damned lies.

[Wiber]

Hey I was just wondering if anybody would like to access the data for PzC in a sensible way. My quest began when I became obsessed about series units being cheaply upgradable. I soon discovered that there is loads of information available within the game for anyone statistically obsessed. I am a novice at excel but managed to put together the equipment file in a way that allowed me to plan the whole war (mind you I am only on DLC '41 so this may be pre-emptive). The trouble is that it is what I would call a spoiler. If people are interested I don't mind publishing the data in whatever form you desire but be very aware that it is cheating. Rommel did not know that the Tiger1 was coming so he probably spent a lot more on PzIII and PzIV than he should have (mind you it is essential that you do). What I found is that you sell PzI & PzII units ASAP because they have a limited upgrade path and letting them acquire experience is therefore a wasted effort. The best infantry units are cavalry but you will upgrade them later on (when they have experience). StuG anti tank units are worth their weight in gold because they upgrade to the StuGIV which is a phenomenal unit. The 88 anti aircraft available in '39 is one of the best AT units in the game. Please note these are my own subjective judgements and you may come up with different ones. So Panzer Corps General, if you want to see the future you have only to ask. Please note that if any PzC Moderators/Veterans veto the idea then their wishes will be respected.

Wiber

[deducter]

Rommel did not know that the Tiger1 was coming so he probably spent a lot more on PzIII and PzIV than he should have (mind you it is essential that you do).

Wiber

Well, Guderian DID know the Tiger I was coming, but instead he actually wanted to build more Panzer IVs. Just fyi.

[Dragoon.]

Rommel did not know that the Tiger1 was coming so he probably spent a lot more on PzIII and PzIV than he should have (mind you it is essential that you do).

Wiber

Well, Guderian DID know the Tiger I was coming, but instead he actually wanted to build more Panzer IVs. Just fyi.

Did he not wanted just to copy & buildT-34's (of course with improved mechanics). Early T-34 were like early Tigers. Good tanks but never there were you needed them because they had constant mechanical failures.

[ThvN]

Hello Wiber, I think it is a very good idea to have additional documentation for those who are interested.

The recent discussion in the 'PzC goes greenlight' thread about fears of newbs flooding the forum reminded me it would be a good idea if people who are new to the game wouldn't have to re-invent the wheel and search for bits and pieces of info hidden among many threads. Orlinos has made a very nice strategy guide a while ago, but I believe he never finished it?

Anyway, as a supplement to your detailed statistic about the exact numbers (I'm very interested in them...), I would like to showcase my own little project, which is hopefully very 'newb-friendly', and very different in presentation from your work I guess? I'm not sure how you are going to showcase the data and how 'easy' it will be for inexperienced players to read the data. But our work may complement each other very nicely, so I hope you don't mind my little hijack:

Besides the people who want to know all the details, I think many new players would like to have access to data that is easy to interpret and is easily accesible. Since PzC doesn't have a wiki or similar, and the FAQ thread is already bulging with hyperlinks, I tried to do something similar to your idea, but very simple.
The idea came to me when a friend of mine asked about the upgrade families of the units, so he could better plan his core composition. While waiting for a phonecall a few weeks ago I started to put some ideas in a few files, and I have slowly been expanding it further.

EDIT: removed attachment, see download links below for the up-to-date file.

I will try to explain my logic behind my little project, since it will probably not be to everyone's taste. It is a simple flowchart that visualizes the upgrade paths in the game, and I've been trying to fit it all into a single 1920x1080 image. It shows which units belong to a 'family', and will give a very rough idea when they will become available. So far it seems to be a very tight fit to get everything in one image, and I may have to redo a lot of it (again!), and I have not even decided on a final 'look' yet.

And although I don't like posting WIP's, I can give a little preview of a small slice of my chart, containing only the tanks. I just put it on a temporary white background (the master image has a transparent background). Also, the arrows do not have any color yet, I haven't decided what to do with them yet. Any feedback is welcomed BTW, but keep in mind this is a newb-friendly visual aid, not a statistical analytical aid for the experienced player.

[airbornemongo101]

Nice ideas gentleman..both the stats and the upgrade flow chart

[Wiber]

Well here it is.

Panzer Corps V1.13 Unit Guide.zip

(62.9 KiB) Downloaded 422 times

Just a simple excel spreadsheet with tabs devoted to each unit class. I have moved relevant data together such as move and movement tpe, various attacks and rate of fire. I have removed some extraneous information or moved it out of the initial view (to the right). MP stands for multipurpose and if there is a 'Y' in this column and you click on it you will jump straight to the alternate unit. As well as being sorted into series and availability date, the series themselves are also sorted on availability date. I moved SE units to the end of their series as they cannot be purchased only upgraded (cheat codes excepted).

This data is based on the unmodified V1.13 equipment.pzeqp file. If yours is modified then you will need to modify this to reflect your changes (but if you are modding the pzeqp file you probably don't need this guide.)

Hope this helps.

ThvN, I think your visual representation is an even better idea than mine, but at heart I am a numbers man. I have left the icon information in and hopefully this will help you to realise your own project. Good Luck.

Wiber

[ThvN]

Very nice job Wiber! And I'm one of those who mod the equipment file, so I don't really need it like you said, but plenty of others will find this very useful... But still, I can definately use your sheet to keep track of changes in my modded file, so thanks a lot for sharing it.

I'm a numbers man myself as well, but I have some sort of strange compassion with the people who are more into a quick and simple picture to get to a particular type of information quickly. My graph came about as a 'first step' for the people who just want to know some basic stuff, while your sheet is a more advanced tool for those who want to go further in understanding the units, so they should complement each other nicely (if I ever finish it).

A small thing, though, the movement type of the 'Brückenpioniere' infantry in your sheet is set as 'Halftrack', actually for them it is a separate type known as 'Bridge', not the 'Halftrack' type shown in the sheet now.

The movement types run from 0 to 12, so 13 types in total, the 'Bridge' type is nr. 11. In the game 'Half-trk' is movement type 1. You can check the movement.pzdat file for details on the movement types. But that's the only critical comment I have, overall it is excellent.

[Wiber]

Thanks and corrected.

Wiber

[Magic1111]

Hope this helps.

Thx Wiber, nice!

[ThvN]

So, I finally made a 'beta' version of the unit upgrade chart. I am not completely happy yet, esp. about the recon section. I'll explain some of my design considerations, why it looks the way it does:

The units are only loosely positioned, I tried to show which units can be upgraded cheaply into others and which ones become available at what time, in relation to each other. So no exact dates are shown, keeping the clutter down. I used the small versions of the icons, and the ones facing left are not part of an upgrade family. I did not manage to group each unit type neatly together, unfortenately, but if I rescale things it can be done, but it will leave bigger empty spaces.

I did not add extra text yet or anything, but I can still add & change loads of things. The background is now just a very light grey, but I have a master with a transparent background layer, so it can be changed in practically anything.

So, any feedback, suggestions/wishes are welcomed.

EDIT: updated the file, new link is:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/gauu59

[case23]

Nice work! I found it intuitive to figure out what is going on.

Can Grenadiere (I assume you're intentionally using the German plural) be upgraded to '43 HW?

I guess you're putting the '42+ recon under infantry for space/layout reasons? Maybe switch the Wehrmacht Inf and Brueckenpioniere columns so that the shifted recon can be in the rightmost column?

-Case

[ThvN]

Nice work! I found it intuitive to figure out what is going on.

Can Grenadiere (I assume you're intentionally using the German plural) be upgraded to '43 HW?

I guess you're putting the '42+ recon under infantry for space/layout reasons? Maybe switch the Wehrmacht Inf and Brueckenpioniere columns so that the shifted recon can be in the rightmost column?

-Case

Thanks for the reply, I tried using the 'short names' as much as possible, I hadn't decided yet where to put the infantry/recon units, so I left the name as HW'43 for now. Some upgrade paths are a bit strange, and I agree there should be an arrow between the two Grenadiere too. I did not do that yet because I haven't completely decided on a final layout. I also abbreviated Fallschirmjäger to FJ and Gebirgsjäger to GJ, makes moving them around easier.

BTW, what do you think of the fighter/AAA section? The towed AAA has a really annoying upgrade 'path', since they are all in the same family (I just noticed the horizontal branch arrows still have some background showing through, I will fix that). I squeezed them all in with the fighters because the fitment was nice, and both are anti-air weapons. But I'm still not sure about that one either.

And yes, it might be better to switch those recon columns, I didn't do that because the Panzer II Luchs and SdKfz234/1 couldn't be put next to one another. But it might be better to just put those directly beneath each other, this will cause some inaccuracy with both, but recon is a very unimportant unit type (there is no upgrade family, not even between the SdKfz234 models or the other 8-wheeled type).

My idea for now is it might be easier just to scale down everything a few percent and reshuffle it a bit to give everything its own section, it will look neater but I must first decide on a layout and than do the calculations to get the best fitment. The font should remain readable if I don't overdo it, I chose a fairly large letter size early on for that reason. But it is easier to change the layout before I scale everything.

It's nice to hear you found the image intuitive, I was aiming for exactly that. It should be a purely visual aid to get a quick overview on unit availability and upgrade potential.

[Wiber]

So, any feedback, suggestions/wishes are welcomed. It's about 500Kb, to big to attach here, so here's the link:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/b1y6wh

That is a brilliant piece of work! It conveys the entire series concept simply and understandably. I wish I had this in the early days when I started realising there was a link but couldn't quite figure it out. This is absolutely essential information for new players of the game.

Wiber

[robman]

Here, here! Well done indeed, and many thanks for your hard work!

[ThvN]

Okay, this newer version took longer than expected, and I couldn't connect to the forum this afternoon, so somewhat late, here is my latest beta version. I want to thank everybody for the feedback so far, I made some changes and your opinions really helped. I changed the scale (somewhat smaller so I could use a new layout), so please let me know if it still readable.

I also added some eye candy, the background is now an old typewriter paper sheet. The master file still has a transparent background, so I can make different versions, for example a more printer friendly version or a solid color for better readability. File size is now a little over 2Mb.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/gauu59