Slitherine

While I've had the vanilla game since it came out, I've just recently completed the Eastern side of the megapack, and really enjoyed the experience on "Colonel" with some custom settings. I'm a "competent" player that just doesn't want to go all "uber difficulty" , but really appreciate how the game can fit just about anyone's play style. In particular, I like:
1) The advanced settings-- and the ability to change them between battles.
2) Unique objectives. I particularly enjoyed: the one where I had to "rescue" at least 8 aux units, and the one where I had to thump the renegade Romanians as well as the Russians.
3) The varied "heroes", and how they pop up in different scenarios. A pleasant surprise (at least the first time through). The only thing I would wish for is seeing their attributes as a mouseover/tooltip ON the battlefield. As it is, I have to rename those units if I want a quick reference (e.g., "Kohler A+3, S+2"). Not a major deal, but irritating.
4) Infantry has some REAL teeth. To be honest, I only used a couple each battle before in vanilla as it seemed they weren't really that necessary. Now I always take 5-6 as they are indispensable-- especially if they have worthwhile hero stats. In close terrain they are truly badass-- as they should be.
5) No bugs at all in my playthrough (at least not that I noticed). Didn't crash once during the entire series.

Sooooo, let's see: Interesting features, customizable gameplay, super-stable, active modding community. What's not to like?? For my money (umm, which you have), you guys nailed this one.

A truly worthy successor to Panzer General!

Yeah the game is quite magnificent as it is I agree

The only problems I have with it is that (which are completely subjective to my viewpoint):

1) AI is unbelievably predictable. Hence AI has to have lot more units and presumably lot more prestige then player to keep up, which in turn can make game a bit predictable in a long run, and especially on replays (scripts that trigger always at the same time).

2) Multiplayer is really not that played in this community (I think only a few people here play multiplayer - correct me if I'm wrong). Playing a turn by turn or waiting for opponent turn in few hours when he is available, or matching playing time is kind of a drag. Also having problems even finding players to play against (unless it is previously arranged by PMs or whatnot) is also a problem.

3) After 2 + years of more or less constant playing of all available scenarios, campaigns (PC, AK, AC), DLCs and even mods (GTPG, RV, AG, and now LoV), I'm at the point where I find playing this whole thing a bit boring or at least not as pleasurably as before. I think I have played more then 400 scenarios altogether. Especially I have problem if I have to restart campaign like I had to do 3 times in LoV to get a perfect core structure. Then I just lose motivation. The game is highly addicting though, and I think this saturation is the product of that addiction, where I played the game just too much, or I replayed the same scenarios too much. It will pass though hopefully...

I will be back in full force when PC hits Steam. I am planning to go through all DLCs once more.

Maybe some of my buddies will finally give it a try when it is on their oh so beloved Steam!
But then they will probably wait for the 50 Cent sale... sigh.

Sorry, I am ranting - maybe Slitherine has to think of a devious Firaxis-style scheme and sell the base game for few bucks and all patches/expansions for full price.
Na, not really. Just ranting more about pricing schemes on Steam...^^

Panzer Corps is better than Panzer General ever was.
The DLCs bring it to an even higher level.

I hope this game and the upcoming Warhammer will bring back many people to the glory of turn-based strategy. Instead of LoLing, you know.

Slitherine can let me know when they make the simple changes of having hero bonuses pop up when a unit is moused over and/or show the data when the unit is selected and right-clicked.
Right now a newly purchased unit appears as capable as a many-heroed/bonused unit.
Then, maybe I'll buy some more DLCs.

Wargovichr, while I agree it would be nice to have easier access to the hero display, you can rename your units to make the heroes more readily visible in play as well as during deployment and when planning upgrade.

There are several threads on this topic - with a variety of effective solutions along the lines of 3a for +3 attack hero, 1s for +1 Spotting and so on. While you can do this for all heroes, personally I only mark units with what I consider significant heroes - attack, defence and initiative 2 or better, and all range and movement. I usually mark spotting heroes, as they are useful for initial deployment, but if I get a big run on spotting heroes (I had close to 50% spotting heroes one time in AK, so I could see everything but without combat heroes I couldn't do anything about it) and especially if a lot of infantry or tanks have them I stop marking them.

So, not a perfect solution, but possibly enough to overcome your frustration.

I have a hard time accepting this as a "solution".
You can make do this way or another, but I find it highly embarrasing that the hero bonus issue was never fixed - and at this rate, probably never will be.
It's been discussed when the game was just out, and we're closing in on three years and it's been 20 patches (not all of which were public, iirc) since.

Still, I agree the game can be highly enjoyable - I particularly like it on the same merits that make Panzer General what it was: the relative simplicity compared to other wargames.
You can fire it up and jump in, and despite the simplicity you can get your butt handed to you if you ignore simple rules such as keeping tanks out of close terrain, keeping infantry IN close terrain, bringing a solid number of artillery, only using elite reinforcements between missions if at all possible and so on.
Once you learned these simple things, it's easy to play but rewarding, with enough options to adjust the game towards many a playstyle.

Even though I haven't played nearly as much as timek, I agree with the burnout syndrome issue though - I recently went through the eastern front DLCs and they made me lose my desire to play even one more mission for the time being.
So I'm taking some time off of playing, maybe I'll get the western DLCs after all.
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rezaf

rezaf wrote: Even though I haven't played nearly as much as timek, I agree with the burnout syndrome issue though - I recently went through the eastern front DLCs and they made me lose my desire to play even one more mission for the time being.
So I'm taking some time off of playing, maybe I'll get the western DLCs after all.
_____
rezaf

Hey rezaf,

As far as western DLCs go, I must say that they are quite different then eastern DLCs and IMO are good to have. They bring variety to the table, and very different tactics are needed to survive different scenarios that are thrown out at you. I would say try it out.

On your remark, yea I have been a bit burned out by the game. The problem is going through same or similar scenarios or countries over and over again, or taking same objectives over and over again. Playing with different sides helps out actually. AC gives a pretty different feel especially of fragility of allied armor and toughness of allied planes and infantry, as well as mods. Some mods give you a chance to play as Soviet and that can be interesting too. The bottom line is, there is no game that can be played all the time. And I hit a spot where I just overplayed PC. I started in August 2011 and have been playing it constantly on everyday basis ever since. I basically don't play anything else. I tried few shooters, but I'm 30 years old now, and somehow mindless games don't give me the pleasure they have been giving. Maybe GTA V will be interesting...

But the bottom line is that PC is really visceral and clever game (albeit really simplified in war mechanics - artillery is most important unit hands down). And with some clever scenario design PC can be diverse and non repetitive.

timek28 wrote:As far as western DLCs go, I must say that they are quite different then eastern DLCs and IMO are good to have. They bring variety to the table, and very different tactics are needed to survive different scenarios that are thrown out at you. I would say try it out.

Yeah, I gathered as much already, but the Eastern Front really grinded down my will to play. I guess all the "defeat 150 Soviet tanks and have your DV be in vain because you have to evacuate anyhow" missions are somewhat grounded in reality, but boy can they be annoying. Especially since basically ALL missions are like that, from mid-42 to 45.

I agree with your point about mods, though - especially bebro's IJA campaign feels VASTLY different from anything officially released until now, because you have completely novel units and sometimes even fight new enemies, and even if it's the old faces, war is different. For example, you face only a small number of good tanks.
The only thing bringing this outstanding mod down is the first two missions (which are a brutal slaughter against the USSR and about thrice as difficult as the rest of the campaign).
Well, and I think it'd be cool to have nice japanese-accented voices in the briefing, but I'll admit that's a bit much to ask. No voices are better than bad voices, such as those from DMPs campaigns.

timek28 wrote:Maybe GTA V will be interesting...

Heh, also waiting for the PC version? I hope Rockstar doesn't let us PC gamers down this time around.
_____
rezaf

rezaf wrote: Yeah, I gathered as much already, but the Eastern Front really grinded down my will to play. I guess all the "defeat 150 Soviet tanks and have your DV be in vain because you have to evacuate anyhow" missions are somewhat grounded in reality, but boy can they be annoying. Especially since basically ALL missions are like that, from mid-42 to 45.

Well yeah I know that feel. But somehow I was really happy to send all those tanks into oblivion and see what happens. Especially Berlin Redux is interesting scenario. I don't know I guess it was the first DLC and basically first thing besides original game so I had a lot of stamina.

rezaf wrote: I agree with your point about mods, though - especially bebro's IJA campaign feels VASTLY different from anything officially released until now, because you have completely novel units and sometimes even fight new enemies, and even if it's the old faces, war is different. For example, you face only a small number of good tanks.
The only thing bringing this outstanding mod down is the first two missions (which are a brutal slaughter against the USSR and about thrice as difficult as the rest of the campaign).
Well, and I think it'd be cool to have nice japanese-accented voices in the briefing, but I'll admit that's a bit much to ask. No voices are better than bad voices, such as those from DMPs campaigns.

I only tried Nikki's mods, and Bebro's inferno. But I think that is more then enough. There are too many ideas and mods roaming around to try everything out. And it would be unhealthy

I found Nikki's mods to be really great, I passed GTPG, RV, and AG conversion (some parts are still to be released). The man is unbelievable machine, and I can't believe how can he create mods at such pace that it is almost impossible to PLAY them at such pace! However I hit a brick wall with the latest LoV. It is a great mod, but definitely not for somebody saturated with game as me. Most scenarios have 30+ turns, WAST maps, dozens of objectives, and core of 50+ units. After a while I just find myself clicking at units and doing actions without any pleasure in it. Just killing time I guess...

rezaf wrote:
Heh, also waiting for the PC version? I hope Rockstar doesn't let us PC gamers down this time around.

rezaf

Yeah of course Actually, not of course, but where I live consoles are a rarity... I just bought a new rig, with R9 280x and it is kind of pity to waste it only on turn based strategies... Rockstar will probably deliver. Max Payne 3 was very good, as well as LA Noire, so hopefully they will have us in mind And to be honest other FPS that I played recently off the steam sale (like Metro Last Light) haven't caught my attention that much... I tried playing BF4 multiplayer but it is too hectic, and since I play on 42 inch TV from 3 meters away I cannot fire as accurately or as fast as somebody playing on close screen so I gave up on that too.

I really like this game as well.

With regards to the grand campaign eastern burnout, I found that the western scenarios temporarily solved my burnout.

First, there are different units. Then the time frame is different, you cover 42-43 in a single pack. Then the style is different (start out with French raids, then go to Italy, then back to France for D-Day). Also, the western scenarios are mostly defensive which is a bit easier than going on offense.

Another problem with the burnout though, is simply the number of units. You can have 40+ units in a 42/43 east scenario. The western 42/43 scenario is probably around 20 units.

Well nothing helps cure burnout, better them pausing from the game for long enough. Well at least pausing until you really want badly to play it again.

But I found out that PC eventually (as any game) has it's limits and it cannot be played forever. Pseudo historic conflicts help a bit though... As conquering France for the 10th time isn't that much fun anymore.

The fact that some folks reach burnout by playing through all the campaigns/branches (some multiple times) is about as strong a recommendation as I can imagine.
How many games I have that are played a few times then never touched again...