Slitherine

Hi, I have some quick questions:

1) How can I change the keyboard shortcut for End Turn? Alt-E doesn't feel natural; I'd rather use ctrl-return or even ctrl-E.

2) How important is it to get Decisive Victory, in terms of access to game content? Is there a list of scenarios where DV is required in order to unlock a specific scenarios? And how cool are the DV-only scenarios?

3) Will playing on the easiest difficulty make the game too easy to be enjoyable later on (as our core army gets built up)? My goal is get through the content with a minimum of save/restore. I would rather not have to repeat maps. I remember one frustration of the original Panzer General was getting almost to the end of the map, only to run out of time, and then realizing I had to restart the map all over again in order to make the turn deadline. I'd rather not have to invest a lot of time in a map only to find it "unwinnable", so if the easiest difficulty can help prevent that frustration, then I'd like to go that route, as long as the game doesn't become overly easy/predictable later on in the campaign.

4) Does the music ever change, for different maps or eras? Or is it the same throughout (in which case we can turn it off and not miss anything)?

5) Are there any must-have mods for improving the display/GUI (without changing the actual game mechanics)?

6) Is it better to replace losses at the end of a map (assuming we have turns left) or save prestige for the deployment phase?

7) In general, should we opt for elite replacements? Or is it better to have a large [core] army? Does the game favor the "elite few" approach, or the spam approach?

8) Does a unit get bonus XP for killing off an enemy? How about special "critical" events, like rugged defence? Or is XP purely based on damage inflicted?

9) Is there any advantage to replacing strength in non-core units at the end of a map? Or is that a waste, since those units will vanish anyway?

10) Is there a way to see the detailed stats on battles, ideally in a log (or message buffer) format? For example, how can we see how much XP a unit earned in the last few attacks? How can we see how much it suppressed the enemy? Or do we have to keep track of XP and suppression changes ourselves?

11) Are there any benefits to garrisoning (keeping a unit inside) a victory hex aside from (a) ability to defend the hex and (b) ability to upgrade the unit? For example, do we gain more prestige by physically occupying a victory hex?

12) Is there a way to reduce the tool tip delay?

Thanks!

I don't know all the anwsers I'll try to anwser the ones I do know.

1) I don't think it's possibible at all to change the keyboard shortcuts
2) for the vanilla PzC campaign it can be important if you want to invade and conquer the USA, check the Library for the exact path on how to get there (there's quite a few possible ways but you do have to beat the English and the Russians)
3) I think Colonel difficulty is good for experienced players without having to much of a challenge
4) I never play with the ingame music, in most games I don't play with sound, I prefer some metal blasting away!
5) Never saw a mod for the GUI only, not sure if it's even possible, there are however a few graphics you can change such as a darker background for undiscovered/visible hexes
6) when playing a campaign try to replace losses between the battles/scenarios, they are cheaper than on the battlefield
7) since there is a maximum limit for the amount of core units it's better to go for overstrength/elite units
a unit gets xp for each combat (which slows down the more experienced a unit becomes), not sure about how exactly xp is calculated, I do believe the better the result (i.e. kills inflicted) the more xp a unit gets (note you don't get prestige for killing units)
9) only if you want to keep a auxiliary unit alive, but if the battle is almost done it's no use
10) nothing like that, there's no combat log, there are kill statistics though in the unit window
11) no prestige gain by occupying
12) yeah I think so, damned if I know how
Edit: I tried to find out how to do this, but for me the tooltip is instant.

tripecac wrote: 1) How can I change the keyboard shortcut for End Turn? Alt-E doesn't feel natural; I'd rather use ctrl-return or even ctrl-E.

I don't think there is a way.

2) How important is it to get Decisive Victory, in terms of access to game content? Is there a list of scenarios where DV is required in order to unlock a specific scenarios? And how cool are the DV-only scenarios?

All the campaign trees for the vanilla campaign, DLCs, Africa Corps can be found in this forum. google a bit. The vanilla campaign path is also in the ingame library. There you can see where you need a DV to go further. In general it is best to get a DV always to get to most scenarios. In the vanilla campaign you migth want to get a minor victory in Moscow 41 though and save the DV for 43, otherwise you advance too quickly and don't gain enough XP and prestige for the US invasion. But as I said, check the campaign trees.

3) Will playing on the easiest difficulty make the game too easy to be enjoyable later on (as our core army gets built up)? My goal is get through the content with a minimum of save/restore. I would rather not have to repeat maps. I remember one frustration of the original Panzer General was getting almost to the end of the map, only to run out of time, and then realizing I had to restart the map all over again in order to make the turn deadline. I'd rather not have to invest a lot of time in a map only to find it "unwinnable", so if the easiest difficulty can help prevent that frustration, then I'd like to go that route, as long as the game doesn't become overly easy/predictable later on in the campaign.

I'd suggest Colonel then. However especially with the new patch you can customize the difficulty settings a lot, so I suggest you read up on those new abilities and also read up on what exactly the difficulty settings do (can be found in this forum)

4) Does the music ever change, for different maps or eras? Or is it the same throughout (in which case we can turn it off and not miss anything)?

There's a limited soundtrack for the campaigns but each campaign (vanilla, Afrika, Allied) have different soundtracks. But as someone already mentioned, you can always have an mp3 player run in the background and simple turn off the music.

5) Are there any must-have mods for improving the display/GUI (without changing the actual game mechanics)?

Not really. if you like having historical look and don't mind the swastica there's a mod that corrects the medals and the UI to show the historical insignia and also changes a few flags. but aside from that, nobody has seen the need for major UI changes. There are a few mods however who change the look of the terrain hexes. You might want to look into those maybe.

6) Is it better to replace losses at the end of a map (assuming we have turns left) or save prestige for the deployment phase?

Not at the end of the map. You can replace them in the deployment phase of the next scenario. And that's where you should do it since that's where it is a LOT cheaper than during a scenario. So unless not replacing losses might put a unit into grave danger just withdraw badly damaged units to a save location for the rest of the scenario and wait for the next one to repair them during deployment. In general you should try to avoid heavy losses and using replacements during a scenario. use artillery and supression mechanics to try and avoid losses whereever you can and only boy replacements during deployment or in emergencies. That's the best way to save a lot of prestige.

7) In general, should we opt for elite replacements? Or is it better to have a large [core] army? Does the game favor the "elite few" approach, or the spam approach?

Yes elite always (except maybe in the first two scenarios where not much XP is to be lost anyway. In the long run you should always go for elite though, but try to only do that in deployment unless absolutely necessary during the scenario, since during the scenario it is expensive. But normal replacements are simply not worth it unless you cannot afford elite and NEED to replace, since you just lose too much XP on the unit.

Does a unit get bonus XP for killing off an enemy? How about special "critical" events, like rugged defence? Or is XP purely based on damage inflicted?

Not sure about this one.

9) Is there any advantage to replacing strength in non-core units at the end of a map? Or is that a waste, since those units will vanish anyway?

No, none whatsoever. You should in general try to avoid replacements on those units at all because its a waste. if you really need the unit, go ahead, but even then I'd use normal replacements, not elite ones. But yeah, in general its a waste of prestige since you never see those units again.

10) Is there a way to see the detailed stats on battles, ideally in a log (or message buffer) format? For example, how can we see how much XP a unit earned in the last few attacks? How can we see how much it suppressed the enemy? Or do we have to keep track of XP and suppression changes ourselves?

if you press L you can see the log of the last attack, but I'm not sure whether it shows how much XP a unit gained. It can be used to find out how the game calculated the result of that attack though.

11) Are there any benefits to garrisoning (keeping a unit inside) a victory hex aside from (a) ability to defend the hex and (b) ability to upgrade the unit? For example, do we gain more prestige by physically occupying a victory hex?

No. The only benefit is being able to defend it. but I never do that. Your priority should be to form a solid front using Zone of Control wisely to cover everything, therefore denying the enemy the opportinity to slip past you. Usually you need every unit you have and cannot afford to leave units behind for garrison duty. Exceptions may be units that are still operable but took too much damage for front line duty or auxiliaries, but in general the rule is: if a unit slips though, you've done something wrong already.

12) Is there a way to reduce the tool tip delay?

Not sure but I think no. Maybe you can do that in some settings file, a dev might be able to answer that one. You cannot adjust it in the ingame UI however.

tripecac wrote:Hi, I have some quick questions:

1) How can I change the keyboard shortcut for End Turn? Alt-E doesn't feel natural; I'd rather use ctrl-return or even ctrl-E.

Not possible ingame, but if it helps, there is a free program you can use to remap keys, Autohotkey. It has nothing to do with Panzer Corps, but if you run its executable, it will change one key press to another key press or even a series of presses.

Such key remapping generally works in all programs (until you terminate the Autohotkey executable), but it is possible to make it only remap keys when running a certain program, so for example for it to make "Enter" key send "ALT-E" - only when running Panzer Corps.

If anyone is interested, I can compile and upload an executable to "change" any hotkeys or give instructions how to do it.

For example, the following code would press "ALT-E" keys when you press Enter or CTRL+E or CTRL+Enter - but only when playing Panzer Corps. (The ^ sign meaning CTRL and ! meaning ALT).

Thanks for the answers!

I have some follow-up questions:

5) Is there a mod that can make the axis-vs-allies colors more different? For example, instead of grey vs green it would be easier to see red-vs-blue. Especially on the mini-map!

7) What is the difference in replacement cost in the scenarios vs during deployment?

tripecac wrote:7) What is the difference in replacement cost in the scenarios vs during deployment?

This is from the gamerules.pzdat file

# The following 4 parameters specify replacement costs in percent of a new unit cost. The first two parameters are used during a scenario (for normal and elite replacements respectively). Second two parameters are used between scenarios in a campaign.
ScnReplaceCost 25
ScnEReplaceCost 100
CamReplaceCost 0
CamEReplaceCost 50

So on the battlefield a normal replacement costs 25% of the unit cost and a elite replacement costs 100%.
When you are on the deployment screen a normal replacement is free and a elite replacement is 50%.

And though I haven't tested this it's probably per point you replace.
Note that the cost for overstrength is different (and this was changed with the new 1.20 gamerules aswell)

tripecac wrote:5) Is there a mod that can make the axis-vs-allies colors more different? For example, instead of grey vs green it would be easier to see red-vs-blue. Especially on the mini-map!

I think this is possible (I looked at the images in the ..\Panzer Corps\Graphics\MiniMap folder). Not sure if anyone has already done this. If you want to change anything there please make sure to make a backup first!

It would be great to see victory point locations marks red/blue, and also units.

Should I create a separate topic to discuss colors? Or has this been addressed in the past?

Check the Scenario Design section of this forum and when I quickly scanned the topics I didn't see anything about changing the colors, so you probably need to ask.