Slitherine

You probably won't like this or agree but IMO this game doesn't have much going for it in terms of reasonably accurate depictions of units and their capabilities, or lack of. What with the varied AI, dice and rule choices it seems like a confused mess. Good to have difficulty levels, sure, but otherwise the game's all over the place.

Having played Overlord and Italy it's pretty obvious that the Allied forces not only have overwhelming superiority in numbers but that their units are frequently superior too. Okay, attacking superiority is necessary for a major assault but the Axis resources to defend with are absolutely pitiful, while the sole affordable Panthers and Tigers present no match for 'humble' British/US infantry squads! Who conconcted a combat system whereby attacking infantry hammer entrenched defenders while themselves taking so few casualties? I suggest any developer reads up on D-Day before creating such scenarios, or if feeling lazy then at least view the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan to discover that taking Normandy wasn't a stroll in the park as portrayed in Panzer Corps. The reality is - was - that there were heavyweight defences that inflicted heavy casualties before the Allies could get a foothold. Where are the defences? Virtually non-existent! Meanwhile with massive air superiority getting troops and armour ashore is no problemo whatsoever!

I've won scenarios in Russia so I have the gist of the game - and I accept that it IS a game, only it would be useful to bestow some units with accurate levels (the 88 to start with) and downgrade several others, most noticably the Churchill, the 'miraculous' M8/M20 (ha-ha!) and all cavalry units everywhere that don't have a problem taking out heavy tanks.

It's a doddle playing the US/British and dead easy to win because I've repeated the same scenarios on their side and won with ease. Conversely, the Axis resources by comparison are pitiful. And one more thing, Allied ship bombardment of the entire breadth of Italy almost non-stop (including its mountainous regions) is patently ridiculous.

Must find a better game than this.... Shouldn't be difficult. I won't bother you all again you'll be glad to know.

Yeah...I think I speak for everybody on the forum by saying you are wrong and will not be missed.

Now THAT's what you call a statement
The game is still playable twenty years after release. Who can match it? Maybe earlier versions of the Civilization, Alpha Centauri most definitely included. And Master of Orion, part two. Too bad the franchise was killed, but second part is still good. Cannot come up with any other name, naturally. Probably it's a matter of taste, but still.
And you call it what, a joke? For the lack of "realism"? Does the concept of hexagonal world seem "realistic" to you? Turn based movement? Inability of several units to attack one target simultaneously? And these affect game-play much more dramatically than "improper defensive line" at Omaha beach.
"To read something about the Overlord"? The hubris of some people

I love it when people have no clue how the game works, don't have the patience to learn and then come to a forum and whine how bad the game is. Oh must be a really bad game that was so financially successful that it is has now so much additional concent you couldn't finish it all in a year while working a job at the same time. Man must such a game be crap...
Seriously, instead of coming here telling us how crap the game is, why not spend 15minutes on the forums actually going through the loads of helpful tips and tricks threads or asking what you're doing wrong.
But I guess these days if everything doesn't feel easy at first glance like COD it's not worth playing. Probably the sort of person that would call the Queen in chess a broken overpowered unit that needs to be nerfed.

OldFocker wrote: only it would be useful to bestow some units with accurate levels (the 88 to start with) and downgrade several others, most noticably the Churchill,

The 88 really was a tough beast. Why else would they have stuck it on the Tiger later? The fact that the 1939 switchable is only 2/3 the strength of the Tiger gun to me says it is too weak, not overpowered. I see the argument for game balance here.

Like the Matilda before it, the Churchill was hard to stick a shell into. 37mm AFAIK wouldn't hardly dent it, and the 50mm couldn't do much better. Decent AT guns weren't really prevalent on German tanks pre-1942. Why is this such a problem?

OldFocker wrote:Having played Overlord and Italy it's pretty obvious that the Allied forces not only have overwhelming superiority in numbers but that their units are frequently superior too. Okay, attacking superiority is necessary for a major assault but the Axis resources to defend with are absolutely pitiful, while the sole affordable Panthers and Tigers present no match for 'humble' British/US infantry squads! Who conconcted a combat system whereby attacking infantry hammer entrenched defenders while themselves taking so few casualties? I suggest any developer reads up on D-Day before creating such scenarios, or if feeling lazy then at least view the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan to discover that taking Normandy wasn't a stroll in the park as portrayed in Panzer Corps. The reality is - was - that there were heavyweight defences that inflicted heavy casualties before the Allies could get a foothold. Where are the defences? Virtually non-existent! Meanwhile with massive air superiority getting troops and armour ashore is no problemo whatsoever!

Pretty much all the good German equipment (Tigers, Elefants, Elite SS units etc.) was sent to the Eastern Front, and a Pz4 doesn't do much against a Firefly. I also remember hearing that the casualties for at least one of the beach landings at DDay (Utah??) were <1,000, and excepting Omaha, most weren't incredibly heavy, especially as the Allies expected 50% or so (78k). They only really took ~10% overall. Air Superiority was a similar deal: all the Luftflotten were at Russia, anything in the West had been blasted out of the skies long before June 6, 1944. Why else did the Bulge offensive happen in the winter: WITH SNOW?

Normandy wasn't defended nearly as well as West Front WWI, so why should there be a bunker every hex five miles deep into the map?

Don't forget there is a silly man asleep in Berlin with a strange mustache that would rather keep his Panzers in Calais.

OldFocker wrote: It's a doddle playing the US/British and dead easy to win because I've repeated the same scenarios on their side and won with ease. Conversely, the Axis resources by comparison are pitiful. And one more thing, Allied ship bombardment of the entire breadth of Italy almost non-stop (including its mountainous regions) is patently ridiculous.

German Navy in 1943:
1 BB (Tirpitz, in Norway)
0 BC (I think Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been sunk by then)
0 CV
0-3 Pocket BB
3? CA

US Navy 1943

8-10 modern BB (North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa)
10 or so modern CV (Essex)
25+ CVL
dozens of other ships.

With such superiority it makes sense that they can run amok everywhere.

OldFocker wrote: Must find a better game than this.... Shouldn't be difficult. I won't bother you all again you'll be glad to know.

It shouldn't be, but it actually is. The only other game I've sunk more hours into this year is Crusader Kings II.

OldFocker wrote:You probably won't like this

Actually, I did like it. I enjoy proving people wrong. I'm not stopping you from holding that opinion though.

- BNC

Well, everyone is allowed their opinion, positive or negative (I do appreciate it when people take time to motivate theirs) and if this game was perfect we wouldn't have a thriving modding section and repeated requests in the forum to 'fix' units.

OldFocker wrote:You probably won't like this or agree but IMO this game doesn't have much going for it in terms of reasonably accurate depictions of units and their capabilities, or lack of. What with the varied AI, dice and rule choices it seems like a confused mess. Good to have difficulty levels, sure, but otherwise the game's all over the place.

One of the main strengths/drawbacks of Panzer Corps is that it is easy to learn but hard to master, and luck always plays a big role. That is mostly because of the roots this game has. It's basically a modern but very faithful remake of a game from 1994. Hex-based, turn-based strategy games on this operational level cannot be real historical simulators, and this game is all about simplicity and scalability coupled with enough historical flavour to give a good, immersive expierence. Some units are quite a bit off, yes, and it can be a bit strange if you know a lot about their historical performance. But this is not a combat simulator.

In my opinion, the AI is actually somewhat predictable as shown by the common and reliable tactics used to 'bait' the AI into ambushes and other behaviour. There is a certain rock-paper-scissors system in place, and together with the randomness of combat results this can grate if you are expecting a 'certain' outcome. Actually, two extra advanced difficulty settings were added for people who don't like the randomness: Chess and Dice chess settings for the dice rolls. I'd recommend you to try them if you feel the combat is too random.

Having played Overlord and Italy it's pretty obvious that the Allied forces not only have overwhelming superiority in numbers but that their units are frequently superior too. Okay, attacking superiority is necessary for a major assault but the Axis resources to defend with are absolutely pitiful, while the sole affordable Panthers and Tigers present no match for 'humble' British/US infantry squads! Who conconcted a combat system whereby attacking infantry hammer entrenched defenders while themselves taking so few casualties?

In what terrain where these Panzers when they were attacked? Some terrain types (hills, forests, cities, see the in-game library) are considered 'Close terrain' and any tank caught in such terrain by infantry suffers huge combat penalties. In open terrain an infantry unit would easily be outmatched by the same tanks, but this is an example of a 'rock-paper-scissors' mechanism and understanding some of these is vital to fight effectively. This might explain what happened?

I suggest any developer reads up on D-Day before creating such scenarios, or if feeling lazy then at least view the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan to discover that taking Normandy wasn't a stroll in the park as portrayed in Panzer Corps. The reality is - was - that there were heavyweight defences that inflicted heavy casualties before the Allies could get a foothold. Where are the defences? Virtually non-existent! Meanwhile with massive air superiority getting troops and armour ashore is no problemo whatsoever!

Yeah, Overlord is a bit easy for the Allies, I think this is partly because this scenario is meant to be played in an Axis campaign and the AI is bad at amphibious assaults. Otherwise you could just block all landing hexes and slaughter everything piecemeal, where's the fun in that? Although the first hours on Omaha Beach is not really the best yardstick to set the difficulty, the other beaches had a much easier time getting ashore, and most casualties during Operation Overlord were after the beachhead was established: the fighting for Caen was much, much more costly and even around Cherbourg the casualties were not far below those on D-Day. The devs are aware of all that, I assure you.

I've won scenarios in Russia so I have the gist of the game - and I accept that it IS a game, only it would be useful to bestow some units with accurate levels (the 88 to start with) and downgrade several others, most noticably the Churchill, the 'miraculous' M8/M20 (ha-ha!) and all cavalry units everywhere that don't have a problem taking out heavy tanks.

What do you feel is inaccurate about the 88mm gun? There are some under/overpowered units, certainly, but the 88mm's performance in this game is actually pretty reasonable. They have a heavily embellished reputation.

It's a doddle playing the US/British and dead easy to win because I've repeated the same scenarios on their side and won with ease. Conversely, the Axis resources by comparison are pitiful. And one more thing, Allied ship bombardment of the entire breadth of Italy almost non-stop (including its mountainous regions) is patently ridiculous.

Like I mentioned I think this is partly because most scenarios are designed and meant to be played in an Axis campaign. The game is basically designed to play as the Germans and take an ever-growing army on repeated trips abroad without a tour guide.

Must find a better game than this.... Shouldn't be difficult. I won't bother you all again you'll be glad to know.

If the game is not to your liking, there is no point in playing it, and I do hope you find something you can enjoy, but why give advice about how to change a game to make it better if you made up your mind already? Why post this review?

Lagg3 wrote:The game is still playable twenty years after release.

So what? That doesn't mean it isn't flawed. People vote for idiots, don't they?

Lagg3 wrote: And you call it what, a joke? For the lack of "realism"? Does the concept of hexagonal world seem "realistic" to you? Turn based movement? Inability of several units to attack one target simultaneously?

Did I not say I accept it is a GAME? However, if you are supposedly recreating a theatre of war the least you can do is render ALL units historically accurate and, as far as possible, portray attack and defence close to how it actually was. Ah, but this is 'just a game' right? Best add a cautionary note on the box and download button that any similarity to historical scenarios is approximate at best and, more usually, pretty vague.

Lagg3 wrote: "To read something about the Overlord"? The hubris of some people

Ha ha...yes. Ridiculous to even consider simulating the kind of conflict that occurred in Overlord. Were you there? Doubt that. And don't ask.

KeldorKatarn wrote: I love it when people have no clue how the game works, don't have the patience to learn and then come to a forum and whine how bad the game is.

You love it? Well, you've been entertained then; while at the same time making wrong assumptions (no clue, no patience) based on your 'superior' knowledge no doubt... Did someone mention hubris?

KeldorKatarn wrote: Oh must be a really bad game that was so financially successful that it is has now so much additional concent you couldn't finish it all in a year while working a job at the same time.....

It's a mistake attributing financial success and popularity to inherent quality, but good luck with that outlook.

KeldorKatarn wrote: Seriously, instead of coming here telling us how crap the game is, why not spend 15minutes on the forums actually going through the loads of helpful tips and tricks threads or asking what you're doing wrong.

If I'm doing it so 'wrong' how it it that playing the western Allies I can hammer the Axis time after time? It's easy. Even playing the Axis I can frequently triumph against the Russians. Hmm, I must somehow be doing it all wrong though? You sure?

KeldorKatarn wrote: But I guess these days if everything doesn't feel easy at first glance like COD it's not worth playing.

You guess? Not a very good guess because my contentions are that the game is over-simplified, doesn't provide sensible combat options and many of the unit stats are way off. But I won't go into detail because I'm sure you'd like more ammunition.

goose_2 wrote: I think I speak for everybody on the forum by saying you are wrong and will not be missed.

I'm gratified to know that I won't be missed because I won't miss seeing entire nations being bombarded by warships and fresh infantry squads taking out much-feared and respected heavy armour like they were eating chocolate cake. You carry on playing soldiers and enjoy.

Ignored salient points of criticism noted.

The Gneisenau was sunk by the Germans in 1945.

Can we close this obvious leading-nowhere-whiny-bitch-troll thread please? I value the forum for it's usual nice tone and here is someone that's obviously looking for nothing but a fight. Same type as in every other forum. Coming in only to tell everybody how shit the game is, saying it will be his last post, then returning anyway to continue the bitching. I'd like THAT kind of crap to not start here also. We've so far managed quite well to avoid it.

But KeldorKatarn this is your tone:-

KeldorKatarn wrote: ...I love it when people have no clue how the game works...
...don't have the patience to learn
...come to a forum and whine how bad the game is...
...must be a really bad game that was so financially successful...
...must such a game be crap...
...instead of coming here telling us how crap the game is, why not spend 15minutes on the forums...
...if everything doesn't feel easy at first glance like COD it's not worth playing...
...Probably the sort of person that would call the Queen in chess a broken overpowered unit...

I don't see your tone as 'nice'. It's evident you cannot address the issues raised so instead attack the person with sarcasm then later complain about the resonance!

KeldorKatarn wrote: I value the forum for it's usual nice tone.

Really?? If some posts inflame you it's probably best to skip them if you're giving zero thought to points raised - however oblique and objectionable you find them.

I thank some contributors above for their considered replies. One improvement to play would be having entrenchment options for the player; two, curtail the nonsensical naval bombardment of whole countries; three, reduce the resistance of open-topped tanks to air attack - in the field, US tank crews created makeshift protection because of their vulnerability and game stats are way off on this; four, light AT guns are almost useless against infantry so a rugged defence is unfathomable; five, at say 1000-2000m a few 88s will comfortably take care of several T34s or Shermans before they can do much. Instead I see medium tanks closing in and annihilating entrenched 88s; six, the historic effectiveness of Stugs is not reflected in the game; seven, I experience an obvious, favourable Allied bias in several scenarios which could be adjusted for more balanced play.