Slitherine

I do not if there is already a thread like this. I was a Panzer General player at start and played most of the games and some of its "relatives" (like Peoples general). Here are my ratings (max is 10/10 points):

1. Panzer General - 8/10. It was the first one and there have been several improvements in scenario design and game mechanics. But it is still a good game and from time to time I play around. The worst thing is the predictable AI reinforcement pattern (bad especially in 1943-1945 secnarios). The best thing are for me the big map scenarios, like Balkans or the Moscow scenarios.

2. Allied General - 9/10. Since little was changed about the game play, it feels more like a huge expansion. The campaings and scenarios are even better than in PG. I also like how the russian campaign plays total different from the western campaing. Still, the american 1942-1945 campaign is one of my favorite ones in all of the games.

3. Pacific General - 8/10. Somehow an oddity, I think it had worse graphics but was the first one with a scenario editor. It was much shorter than the first two, otherwise I would have ranked it a 9. It was the first with different winning conditions than just taking objectives (you could also gather victory points), and it featured some air-sea only battles, what I liked a lot.

4. Fantasy General - no rating. A lot of people liked it and I played it, but I found the setting uninteresting and do not remember anything.

5. Panzer General III D 7/10. Though it was a beloved game, especially because of its editor and you could do online sessions, I do not care much about it today. It changed the original system a lot. One cool thing was that artillery would defend any targets in their range, not only the ones where they sit behind. Also, it was the first one, I think where your units could have heroes and special abilites. Some were uber-strong, like multiple attacks. And it probably had the most beautiful graphics of all of them. But I did not like how they put a standard size on the maps to make the distances realistic or what. But what I disliked most was that in my opinion a lot of the scenarios were somehow unappealing. A lot of the biggest and famous battles were skipped, and you never had huge battle formations conquer half of Russia and so on.

6. Peoples General 8/10. So far, the only take in these games for modern warfare. It used PG III Ds engine, but I liked it a lot more. Oh, was it tough. At least as I remember it, some of it was even with some of the harder Grand campaign scenarios. It had airstrikes instead of bombers flying around on the map, which is a bit more logical. Strangely most of the battles where set somewhere in Central Asia, maybe they did not wanted to get too political here.

7. PG IV Western Assault 3/10. The only game I really disliked it af oll them. It was an reboot of the series, and a radical one. The core was handled a lot different with assigning generals with different abilities to the units. The huge flaw of this game was that yours and the enemy forces were reduced enormously (so you had about 20 units max in a campaign) and you would drive your units over huge empty maps with just a few enemies sitting around cities. They also messed up the battle mechanics and, compared to the others, there was barely an interesting scenario design.

8. PG Forever (rating as PG/AG): what can I say, its the same game though you see immediately in Poland the AI changes. The WWI campaigns that come with it are a waste of time, but I am not too hard on them because I consider them as easter egg.

9. Panzer Corps 8/10. What can I say? Its an improved PG remake. I have not played its original campaign through, yet, because I was more interested in all the DLCs. I can say that some maps are better here (Poland), some in the original game (Norway).

10. Grand campaign 7/10. I am not done here yet, its huge and lets you feel for every core unit you have. Despite its fun so far, I rank it a bit lower because with so much scenarios there are the few great ones, there are the more good or average ones and some odd ones.

11. Afrika Korps 10/10. So far my favorite one. In my opinion the scenario design is great, and I like the scripted events a lot (the second half of the campaign could have had more of these).

12. Allied Corps - no rating. I feel I have not advanced far enough yet to give a rating (was stuck at Cobra, than took a break).

Why is not Panzer General II in the list? I really loved that game, and the hand drawn maps, a bit overpowered with the special upgrades though.

I never understood how people managed to over-look the problem that both Pacific General and Panzer General II had that, once you knew it was there, was game-breaking: the AI would not move the artillery. It almost never did, meaning that you would defeat the tank/infantry units only to find that the artillery had been left behind at its starting point. For both games that simply ruined them for me - I ended up taking Panzer General II back for a refund. SSI never patched this bug in either case.

Here's my ratings:

Panzer General - 9/10. I loved this game, it was the one that first really got me into war-gaming.

Panzer General II - 0/10. Un-fixed bugs.

Pacific General - 0/10. Ditto.

People's General - 9/10. Great game. The only game I've played so far that really made a modern-day (ish) WWIII scenario interesting.

Panzer Korps - 8/10. Nice re-hashing of the Panzer General model.

Pnzer Korps: Afrika Korps - 9/10. An improvement on the original.

I am speaking as a huge fan of Panzer General and Allied General. The originals that in terms of game mechanics were the best in my mind. Easy to learn difficult to master. The biggest problem was the predictability of the AI. This just cannot be avoided. I am enjoying the difficulty of the AI on the Field Marshall difficulty on the Grand Campaign. I am playing Blind and have been smacked down on some of the scenarios that I was not expecting. I am enjoying it and have not completed the campaign on the original mode as I did not like the speed of moving from Poland right to Norway. But all this is to lead into the greatest aspect of Panzer Corps that was not available on any of the other platforms that I was not aware of.

The MULTIPLAYER MODE!!!
I found this aspect a couple of days after purchase and I have not looked back. This is the greatest aspect of the game. It has connected me with people all over the world and I find chess aspect of many of the scenarios very thrilling. I love decimating the Axis in Poland, Norway, France, Greece, and Russia. I enjoy seeing the new tactics of various players and love coming up with new tactics to surprise and confound my opponents.

Nothing beats this aspect of this stellar game and why I will be playing this game for decades to come.

Challenge me I would love to show you the joy of Multiplayer.

My entire review can be summed up as 1 step forward, 1 or more steps back. PG had a huge impact on the computer wargaming scene because it was able to pack a surprising amount of historical *flavour* (as opposed to realism) into a slick and easy to learn interface and add a healthy dose of RPG on the side. In spite of legions of games that followed it, none have managed to achieve the same level of impact.

IttoOgami wrote:1. Panzer General - 8/10. It was the first one and there have been several improvements in scenario design and game mechanics. But it is still a good game and from time to time I play around. The worst thing is the predictable AI reinforcement pattern (bad especially in 1943-1945 secnarios). The best thing are for me the big map scenarios, like Balkans or the Moscow scenarios.

I would have gone 10/10. Although it had it's flaws, none of it's successors have had anywhere near the impact it did when it was released.

2. Allied General - 9/10. Since little was changed about the game play, it feels more like a huge expansion.

My vote would be 7/10 for being an expansion pack masquerading as a new game. Aside from windows support there was nothing new. The scenarios were more challenging due to better design, but I missed the scale of the original (AG cores being half as large)

3. Pacific General - 8/10. Somehow an oddity, I think it had worse graphics but was the first one with a scenario editor.

7/10 - I agree the graphics were worse. The scenario editor and some new rules were improvements but were let down by the failures in the AI. I was also unimpressed with the naval battles which remained little more than artillery trading shots with each other. Fine to add flavour to the original, but lame if you're going to make it the focus of the game.

4. Fantasy General - no rating. A lot of people liked it and I played it, but I found the setting uninteresting and do not remember anything.

8.5/10. I also didn't find the setting interesting but mechanically the changes introduced had big potential to actually improve the series as a whole.

5. Panzer General III D 7/10. Though it was a beloved game, especially because of its editor and you could do online sessions, I do not care much about it today. It changed the original system a lot.

8/10 Assuming this references PG2. 8/10. Stuck too closely to PG mechanics with some improvements (Recon movement and AT units not auto loosing to tanks) but also some flaws (overrun, random broken leaders, "limitless" core force). The maps were a mixed blessing - on their own they *looked* good - though part of the illusion was lost when the units appeared on top. The premade artwork also prevented the inclusion of a map editor that tiled base artwork would allow.

6. Peoples General 8/10... Oh, was it tough. At least as I remember it, some of it was even with some of the harder Grand campaign scenarios. It had airstrikes instead of bombers flying around on the map, which is a bit more logical.

8/10 Didn't care for the setting however rate it highly for the improvements to the system. For the scale of the maps the way airpower was handled made much more sense than the PG flying for weeks approach. For the GC scale of games would have loved to have seen a similar system, but calling in your own air units from off map to strike as opposed to generic planes. Having units only partially revealed was a another huge improvement. Lastly the inclusions of attachments - though not sufficiently developed - was potentially another major avenue of advancement as far as developing the RPG aspect of the game.

It could be harder, but it could also be broken easier - it was possible to win most of the scenarios in the later half of the campaign decisively on the 1st turn.

9. Panzer Corps 8/10. What can I say? Its an improved PG remake. I have not played its original campaign through, yet, because I was more interested in all the DLCs. I can say that some maps are better here (Poland), some in the original game (Norway).

~7/10 Was part of the original Beta team and IMO the game stuck too closely to the original PG conventions instead of exploring the possibility of fundamental changes that might have delivered something more than another clone with tweaks. In particular the retention of cumulative prestige/fixed core slots and premade scenarios conspire to prevent the inevitable snowball that was the bane of the series since the first. Also the extreme fragility of units and the retention of PGs perma death forced the designers NOT to improve the AI as doing so would make it more effective at picking off player units to the detriment of the RPG nature of the game. The campaign was smaller (both in # and size of scenarios than the original) and less well balanced.

OR

~10/10 - The Grand Campaign, cheat codes, the ability to mod, and the addition of custom difficulties and reform units, although still falling short IMO of the 12/10 the game COULD have been, has given players a fair amount of scope to modify the game to suit them.

I really liked reading your post and love your name.
boredatwork
Love it.
Do you play multiplayer?