Slitherine

I'm long time Panzer General player, it was probably first game i ever modded. Since then, i spent a lot of time working on mods for Total War games, anyway after some time, that didnt satisfied me anymore, so i spent less and less time modding those games. Anyway to somehow occupy my new free time, i decided to start working on my own mod for Panzer Corps. Shame i couldn't find my old files for Panzer General, anyway i'll try to revive some of those approaches in this mod.

At first let me explain my main approach to unit stats, to answer you the question why it is worth trying this mod (once available) in comparation to others already released mods.
My long term goal for every game i modded so far was to adjust mechanics so game would give player a bit more realistic experience. While Panzer Corps is not primarily a "simulation" and hex based combat is far from it, game itself can be still adjusted for better realism, by adjusting the stats and mechanics to resemble real life situations, benefits and penalties of real life units. I'm not big fan of strict table numbers, even though i try to use them as a base, but they are not a dogma for me. Instead, i try to adjust the stats so they give player realistic penalties instead. For example, If you look at date sheets for early T34 tanks, they were stated to have combat range of 300km. yet, first batches of these tanks had huge mechanical issues, so a lot of them broke down the road. Yet, if you take TTD data as a norm, you will end up with tank with impressive range, but that was not what happened in reality with tanks breaking down on the road. Instead, fuel will also simulate the technical reliability of tanks. This will greatly increase value of reliable tanks, while it will decrease the value of tanks with technical issues. You could decide to upgrade your whole tank force to Panthers, but if you do, you will end up with tanks that will have limited strategic range. There was a reason why German tankers valued those PzIV instead of Panthers..

Another thing i would like to cover is related to fighters. In reality, there was a big difference between fighters optimized for fighting in medium height, and fighters optimized for high ceiling. Fighters that could get high would automatically have advantage over fighters that cannot get that high. Ceiling was something that allowed fighter to chose his fight, engage when he wanted or avoid combat if necessary. Because of this fact, service ceiling will be one of things impacting combat initiative for all fighters. Another very important stat for all planes was rate of climb. Fighters with high rate of climb could dictate the course of battle, so this would be another stat that will impact the initiative. one of most important factors for plane survivability was its speed.slower plane would have hard time to attack the faster plane, using speed was common tactics to avoid the combat.

So with these changes, in air battle you will have option to buy high performance fighters with high ceiling, so you will be able to engage other planes more effectively, but that would also limit your ability to scout the area (it was impossible to spot enemy units from 10km height). Plus these planes will be the best choice to attack heavy strategical bombers with high ceiling (high initiative), which were practically immune to planes that couldn't get that high - so technically you will be able to attack them but because of lower initiative, you will have to face their defensive HMGs that could damage you before you can hit them. There was a reason why Germans developed those high performance planes like Ta152H armed with heavy 30mm guns..

And of course infantry will also bring some changes. One of the biggest realism killers in all WW2 games is complete underestimation of German infantry. WW2 German infantry was equipped with the first GPMG in the world, General Purpose Machine Gun, that could cover roles of light and heavy MMG gave German infantry huge advantage over its adversaries. MG32 was practically the best weapon of the war, to some degree this MMG caused more casualties than any other german "wonder-weapon". German infantry tactics was heavily based on use of machine guns,while MG32 thanks to its design was capable providing heavy fire at long range,fast switching barrel, and ability to fire from bipod (as LMG) and tripod (HMG) for the same weapon. German stosstaktik involved heavy section to provide heavy fire while rifle platoons were supposed to flank the enemy while under cover. The only difference between 39' Infantry and 43' infantry was not in their firepower, as 43' used MG42 which was just simplified and cheaper to build version of MG32, but in more and more infantry anti tank weapons carried, practically, against soft targets, both 39' and 43' infantry should have very similar stats. Because of MG32 and stosstaktik, German infantry was the most effective force, which was practically never matched during war,yet their stats are far from it, and my mod will try to adjust that. but of course, dont expect them to be all destroying force, they will be effective, but they will be defeatable if used incorrectly. Goal here is to give German player infantry similar in capability to what they had in reality.


At this point, i'm sitll working on version 1.0 Once ready, i will post full list of changes, with explanation why some stats are the way they are. Right now, my main priority will be unit stats only,as im not a graphician, so i wont be doing any graphical adjustments for now, but of course it doesnt mean i wont be doing any changes in that area in the future.

some further update regarding Armor values for armoured vehicles.

One of the most problematic things in defining the armor values for vehicles is to measure their potential armor. One of typical mistakes is to only use the maximum armor value tank has, which is quite problematic, as max armor was usually only on front of the vehicle, while statistically majority of hits taken by armoured vehicles during WW2 was not to the front armor. About 75% of all hits Russian tanks took, was to the turret side, which after war, influenced Russian tank designers to create the typical turret design where maximum armor is not in the front but typically on front side of the turret.

Front armor of tanks was important, but usually side armor was the area that was hit the most. Tank on tank battles were not clashes between tanks fighting head on. Tank commanders used terrain to maneuver their unit to engage enemy formation from sides. If maximum armor is used to define the armor value of tank, then tanks with weak side armor would get the advantage they didnt had.

Because of these facts, i have decided for a simple armor formula, where i will divide the armor zones and give them percentages based on importance. front armor will get 45% of the whole value, side armor will get 25%, rear 20% and top armor will get 5%. These will be further divided between Turret and hull values (20+25 for front,15+10 for side,10+10 for rear and 5 for top) I plan to use RHAe values, with incline and armor material bonuses added.

example - usually if you compare Panther and Tiger, and you only use frontal armor, you will end up with the Panther having higher armor than Tiger, due to 120mm front armor on turret and 80mm FH armor inclined on 55 degrees on the hull (140mm RHAe), while Tiger would have just 100-110mm armor in the front (even though, Tiger turret had 110mm front armor and 100mm thick mantlet, with some areas where turret armor and mantlet were both covering some areas for maximum protection) Yet, If you look at side armor, Tiger with its 80-90mm armor was much superior to Panther with just 50mm, especially if facing typical antitank guns - Panther would be quite vulnerable for any hit that hits is from the front at angle over 30degrees hitting the side armor, while Tiger in same conditions would present practically uniform thickness (side armor of 80mm at 30 degrees would give 95-100 RHAe, while Panther's 50mm in the same conditions would give just 60mmRHAe - which means Panther would be destroyable practically by any antitank gun used in 1943, while Tiger would resist most of them in the same condition )
With these rules in place, Tiger would have higher armor rating than Panther, making it much harder opponent in tank fights. Panther would get its advantage due to gun but not due to armor.

Some info for Aircraft rebalance:

One of areas i think Panzer Corps could improve is the difference between fighters based on their typical combat ceiling. Certain aircraft were superior to other in lower ceiling, while others were supposed to fight at high altitudes. Because of this, i have decided to use switchable units to simulate different operational ceiling. Majority of planes will have option to flight low, or high.

Operational ceiling will influence base parameters. For high altitude, speed will be the main parameter, which will influence the initiative. Low altitude instead will have maneuverability as the main parameter, which will influence the air defense parameter. So superior low altitude fighter will have much greater defense than superior high altitude fighter, yet it will lack the initiative, as aircraft in higher altitude will be always able to pick the fight first. Yet, low altitude fighter will have higher chance to resist the damage from that attack by its superior maneuverability, and damage the high level attacker in its turn, facing much lower defense value of the high level attacker.

Another obvious advantage of low flying plane is the ability to attack ground targets,while high altitude planes will be not able to attack ground targets at all (both SA and HA will be set to 0). High altitude flying planes will be also more resistant to air defense fire, so keeping planes up will make them more survivable to ground fire. Which means all fighter bombers or tactical bombers will be automatically low altitude planes, while Level bombers will attack targets from medium/high altitudes. Because of higher ceiling, they will get initiative advantage over low altitude fighters, which means attacking B-17 or B-29 with low altitude fighters will be quite problematic, as your plane will have to face heavy defensive fire from these bombers first, besides the possible fighter escort.

But not all planes will be able to fly in high altitude. several types of Russian fighters were optimized for lower altitudes, for example Yak-3 fighters were excellent low altitude planes that could outmaneuver anything at lower ceiling. At some point, Luftwaffe forbid its fighters to operate at lower ceiling and get into turning fights with Yak-3s.

Similarly, some types of bomber planes will be capable of low altitude bombing as well as high altitude carpet bombing. Low altitude bombing will be much more effective, but will make plane much more vulnerable to ground fire. High altitude level bombing at the other side will be much less accurate (effect on target will be lower) but altitude will make such bomber less vulnerable to ground fire. Goal is to differentiate between tactical use of bomber planes. it will be not just about amount of bombs carried on board. 250kg bomb dropped off the dive bomber will have much greater effect (thanks to improved accuracy and much smaller dispersion) on target than 250kg bomb dropped off during normal bombing run, and even greater effect than multiple of 250kg bombs dropped off high altitude bomber performing carped bombing. Level bombing will be practically the least effective way how to bomb a target. But of course, dive bombing will be extremely dangerous thing, especially if any kind of AA is in the area, in such case, dive bombers will take huge casualties. Dive bombers will be also very effective against naval targets.

And to make situation even more interesting, there will be multiple aircraft planes with different modes of operation. BF110 for example, was initially used as a heavy fighters, yet because it was outclassed by smaller and more nimble Hurricanes and Spitfires, it was transferred to tactical bomber duty, while some were instead transferred to night fighter duty with main goal to hunt down level bombers. Because of this, BF110C will start as a medium altitude fighter (yet within tactical bomber tree), but it will be possible to switch it to low altitude ground support role and use it for strafing runs with guns. Later versions instead, will be either pure tactical bombers (D,F) or optimized for high altitude bomber hunting (G).

The aircraft variations sound interesting.

I have switchable Bf110 and 410 in my personal mod. The Tac bomber version has only passive defence but attacks ground units normally. The fighter has roughly 1/3 the ground and naval attack but has full fighter capability, but retains the standard (low) initiative. So far, it seems quite a good balance as the fighter version is handy for defending troops and aircraft and not bad for attacking undefended bombers but not very good against modern fighters, and the tac bomber version is as good as normal on ground targets but loses the ability to attack aircraft. The cost is increased a bit to cover the switching (I think about 20 prestige from memory, but maybe a percentage would be better).

Note that the +6ini +1A hero makes a good extra fighter in the first few years.

Im currently reworking the concept of initiative for armored vehicles. Main idea is to not just base it around the gun, but make it more about tank ability engage targets, which was s much more important than big gun. Technically, tank with good optics, large 3-man turret, and good turret speed would be much more efficient than tank with 2-man turret no matter what gun these tanks use. One of big advantages of German tanks was the fact they used 3-man turret from the start, which allowed them to develop proper tank tactics. Having tank commander searching for targets, gunner engaging those targets, while loader just loaded the gun, made such tank tactically very strong over tank where commander was also a gunner, therefore was forced to search for targets using gun optics.. And of course, open topped tanks and tank destroyers will get a small initiative bonus for having much better situational awareness than normal tanks.(yet turetless Tank destroyers will still be penalized for not having turret). This change will make all these Marders tank destroyers a bit more valuable than before.

Actual gun accuracy, will play secondary role, where i would like to differentiate guns/tanks based on effective range these weapons had, so tank gun that has effective range of 1500m will have an advantage over tank gun with effective range of 1000m,but having 2-man turret will put it into disadvantage.

I have also gathered a lot of data regarding gun penetration, multiple sources were crosschecked to put all weapons into perspective, anyway to not over-complicate it too much, i have only used penetration data for 500 and 1000m distances which defined close and normal engagement range during war. Certain guns will have penetration progression to portray improvement in ammo quality over the course of war ( whenever this will be happening i will be using cloned units with adjusted availability).

I have also reworked the soft attack values, which are now based on main gun HE capability (those tanks that didnt had HE rounds, will get soft attack values based on their coaxial MG).Values are based on HE weight, to better differentiate between various projectiles and gun concepts. Anyway, this also means that tanks and tank destroyers have similar soft attack ability, as number of machineguns is used a bit differently. Instead of increasing soft attack ability, machinegun count now impacts the close defense for all vehicles. yet, not all MGs have same importance. hull mounted BMGs are much less effective than coaxial MGs, or turret top mounted AAMGs. Overall, Close defense rating now depends on vehicle overall armor (to differentiate between light, medium and heavy tanks/vehicles), how that armor is distributed (tank destroyers with open topped gun mounting are very vulnerable to infantry attacks), how well tanks are protected against infantry weapons (shurzen screen) and of course already mentioned machineguns. (because overall CD is now a bit higher than before, infantry HA values were also increased, which means infantry will be a bit more effective against unprotected armor in close combat situation). This progression will actually give some tank and TD upgrades additional importance, as adding AAMG on a vehicle will improve its AA but also CD values. it also means that those heavy tank destroyers which originally didnt had any machineguns, will be now much more vulnerable to infantry close attacks.

I look forward to seeing and using this mod. I hope the good work continues.

Your ideas on CD make good sense - historic reports on the Ferdinands make it clear that some form of MG was pretty much essential for any armoured vehicle, no matter how thick the armour.

As I'm only looking at one limited period right now, I haven't developed a formal system and instead tweak stats when historic reports show a consistent theme. For example I have been trying out 1 spotting for French tanks with one man turrets (almost all of them). This seems to work quite well as the low spotting encourages more cautious behaviour, like sitting tight or advancing only slowly and waiting for an opportunity to counter attack. This fits quite well with the tone of the contemporary reports. I had thought about reducing initiative as well, but the spotting change has done the job well enough for the moment. But I have the advantage that I only need to keep one person (me) happy so I don't have to justify my decisions to a critical audience.

From my (very limited) experience of researching weapons and performance stats it can be quite a lot of work and I'm looking forwards to trying out your mod.

I'm actually thinking about doing something similar with the bombers.. all those defensive machine-guns main purpose was to increase the chance of survival of the plane, therefore they should instead increase air defense and not air attack. While ceiling will provide base value, amount of defensive guns will provide some bonus, especially for those heavily armed bombers, while type of weapons will also influence the passive air attack value.

yet one or two MGs in the rear turret wont improve air defense too much, i don't want to impact the balance between standard fighters and two-engine heavy fighters who might have rear firing MGs, like for example BF110. even with 2MG firing to the rear, their defense wont be enough to increase survival against high performance fighters like Spitfire..


Another change i'm working on, is for bombers and their loadout. previously i was thinking about Soft and Heavy attack values based on maximum loadout, while now im considering basing it on actual typical bomb caliber carried. certain types of bombers could carry one but heavy bomb which will have much higher damage potential than similar weight of smaller bombs especially vs resistant targets like ships, or tanks.( let say 250kg bomb vs 5x50kg bombs). even near miss from 250kg bomb might destroy a tank, while near miss from 5x50kg wont deal any damage..

This approach might allow for better differentiation between bombers based on their purpose - strategic bombers would carry large loadout of smaller bombs for area attacks, while tactical bombers would carry smaller amount of large caliber bombs for higher damage on target.

My good idea for the day (it's untested, so use with care).

Bomber A: Lots of light bombs so high ammo but low damage.
Bomber B: Same bomber but few heavy bombs. Low ammo high damage.

These are different models of the same bomber with the same price so when you are on an airfield you can "upgrade" from one load type to the other. For some bombers you could add in anti-naval versions, special mission versions (eg one-shot Tallboy or Dambuster bombs) or recon versions etc.

I have tried switchable 110 and 410 [switching between Tac Bomber and (not very good) Fighter] where the ammo count is the same and I see this as more a matter of altitude and mission rather than needing different equipment. However, using the switch button for changing bomb-loads doesn't seem right and the different ammo counts could cause some problems.

yeah, thats really good idea. This way even Fighters could be "upgradeable" between versions.. for example BF109G were flying as upgunned versions with additional cannons under wings, or could have additional droppable fuel tank, or could carry a bomb.. each version with its bonuses and penalties...