Newb questions about iPad version... hrrmmm...

[aster]

I'm still learning the ropes of PzC, so apologies if these are really basic questions - for the life of me can't figure some of them out. In the various documentations (manual, tutorial messages, forum FAQ, etc) I keep seeing references to various features, but can't figure out how to implement them in-game. For example:

1. Mouse-over pre combat icon for detailed breakdown (this would be *very* helpful for learning how things interact). Have spent way too much time trying to get this to work.
2. Keep seeing references to customization options - randomness of dice, prestige sliders, etc. All I see are checkboxes for supply, weather, and one or two other things. Is the menu hidden away somewhere?
3. Also keep seeing references to game rules (terrain, etc) and such in the Library section, but mine only has vehicle info. Again, with the rather limited manual this would be extremely helpful.

I'm beginning to wonder if these features are simply not implemented for iPad. Hopefully I'm wrong there - with the 60-80$ price tag identical to PC I expected the same features, certainly there was nothing to indicate pre-purchase that it was limited in some ways. Again, disregard the above if I'm just stupidly not seeing these somewhere... it's happened before!

Certain other nuances I'm unclear about. Different unit abilities (Pioniere, etc) don't seem to be listed anywhere - when I check a given unit's info in the purchase screen all it lists is a table of stats with no text description or special characteristics listed. Is this is an iPad "feature" too, or is the same screen limited on PC?

And while I've observed mountain troops lose their terrain specialization when attached to transport vehicles, do Pionieres lose their bonuses when augmented by trucks too?

Thanks in advance.

[aster]

Ah, I did just come across the iPad thread below - looks like all those features are indeed missing. Very disappointing especially at the game's price point, and especially since this is conveniently omitted in any of the game's sales pages.

If any 'veteran' iPad PzC can take a moment or two to fill me in on exactly what is missing - I have no way of knowing only owning the limited version - I'd much appreciate it. Also, any chance of ever getting the PC version's Library stuff posted online or via PDF? That shouldn't be too hard, it's really just missing documentation that we iPad peasants have no other way of accessing. I'd wondered why so much info seemed to be left out of the manual....

[ThvN]

I don't own an iPad, but off the top of my head, some things missing are:

Advanced Difficulty settings (several methods to finetune difficulty and switch between old & new rulesets are left out)

Combat Log (reviewing the exact stats/dice rolls after a combat)

Library (which has movement cost, terrain bonuses, campaign paths etc.)


Some Library pages I posted up for iPad users:

Terrain table: viewtopic.php?f=121&t=47758#p450119

Movement tables (and weather influences): viewtopic.php?f=121&t=48240


I hope that the mising items will be added someday, there are some rumours about a patch in the future. I hope some moddability will be added as well, but that is dependant on Apple as I understand it.

[pipfromslitherine]

The moddability issue is mainly that the iPad version and PC version are not data-compatible. The HTML rendering approach on PC wasn't portable to iPad, and so it works in a very different way.

Cheers

Pip

[aster]

ThvN, many thanks for linking/posting those images of the PC "Library". This whole time I've been wondering how the hell I'm supposed to know certain stuff, like the terrain effects and campaign structures, etc. Looks like there's a bunch of other info that's been omitted too.

The mod stuff I understand, that kind of thing is often very difficult to port over on platforms like iOS.

But what irks me are that the other omissions are mostly just lazy. Manual entries that have already been implemented for the PC version? This is not a particularly time-consuming or difficult task. I've done end-user documentation both content and layout, and it's not hard when you've already got the library/docs framework in there. Apparently whoever ported PzC to iPad didn't think it was worth a few hours of their time to finish importing those entries. The other features are maybe slightly more involved, but that's the one that really strikes me as careless and where IMO the whole "We're a small company with few resources" excuse just doesn't hold water.

Again, this isn't advertised as a lower priced Panzer Corps Lite. For a game that will run over $60 for the full experience the developers can do us the courtesy of finishing the in-game manual at the very least. If they really ran out of time doing the Library entries, then sheesh, do right by your paying customers and take shorter lunch breaks for a week so it gets finished! I'm surprised I even have to say this regarding a company like Slitherine that's built their reputation on quality products and customer word of mouth.

[Forefall]

You are echoing previous players' concerns. The iPad port was well done but "lazy" does seem to be a good summary. And you aren't the first to complain about the lack of clarity between the two versions. Unfortunately no fix has been suggested as far as I've heard.

[ThvN]

Maybe I'm playing the Devil's Advocate, but I got the impression that there were a lot of unanticipated problems during porting/converting PzC. And since it was the first game to be ported, I can imagine the learning curve might have been steep. Fixing all these problems before release probably threatened other projects' timetables, so I can imagine it was a difficult decision.

To re-quote myself, these are the only two semi-official announcements I could find:

viewtopic.php?f=121&t=48272&p=463375#p463298

More recent:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.as ... =&#3632921

[aster]

If that second link is accurate, then it sounds like those features are coded and awaiting release any day - would be great news if that's the case!

Hopefully this is a Lesson Learned type thing for Slitherine. Again while I appreciate "unanticipated problems" during ports across hardware, stuff like incomplete manual entries (of key game mechanics, no less) is kinda off-putting to customers due to being *not* very difficult to implement. Considering the manual's already there and the entries exist on the PC version, it's one step above a cut & paste job at this point.

[ThorHa]

I agree with the critics and yet ... Actually PzC, on the PC a pretty light game, is one of the richest and deepest IPad games, where normally "strategy" games are a joke! So I can live with the missing content, because I looked at it anyway as a newborn Panzer General, which had nothing of this stuff.

The only thing I really don´t understand is the missing library - the content was already there, no good reason to leave it out.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Tarrak]

The only thing I really don´t understand is the missing library - the content was already there, no good reason to leave it out.

They posted there was a problem with the conversion from the 3rd party html library being used on the PC. It was either unavailable or not working correctly on IPad so that they had to find another solution. Possibly some of the formatting in the omitted part of the library was not doable in the new system and they had to totally rework it and simply run out of time.

[Emoni]

Really hope to see some of these features implemented. They are rather important to understanding the visible mechanics of the game.