Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Moderator: Slitherine Core
Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Before we begin, we just want to take a moment to thank all of our players for making Panzer Corps 2 the success it has been. Many thousands of you have helped make the past year an incredible time for our game. Thank you for your feedback, your cool screenshots, your awesome war stories documenting your campaign triumphs, and for supporting our game. Stay awesome, stay safe, and stay healthy out there!
Panzer Corps 2 development has not been idle, and we have the next DLC Campaign to preview to you today. We are aiming for another big year for Panzer Corps 2, and this is just the first content drop we will have for our players to look forward to.
First detailed look into Axis Operations 1941
With the conclusion of the campaigns of 1940, there is a huge question of where exactly the Axis Operations will explore next. As our historically minded players are probably well aware, many new fronts opened up in 1941, from Africa to the Balkans to Russia.
Ultimately, with the base game providing a well-developed Afrika Korps set of content, but omitting scenarios in the Balkans, Axis Operations 1941 is going East!
In our biggest DLC campaign yet, clocking in at a full 20 scenarios, Axis Operations 1941 has a ton of new content for players to dive into. In the fourth chapter of the Axis Operation Grand Campaign, we once again have more new, high quality unit models to showcase, a new utility vehicle, and a whole lot of Ostfront content to explore.
For starters, we have finally worked out the technical wizardry required to give the Commendation Point currency a permanent home in the UI! At long last, players can see their Commendation Point values at all times, instead of having to rely on temporary pop ups to keep them informed.
This feature is currently only available in Axis Operations 1941, but we will be working hard to retroactively apply it to the past Axis Operations DLC as soon as possible.
As always, our primary mission with ongoing Panzer Corps 2 content is to provide our players with more fresh and exciting twists to the gameplay that they already thoroughly enjoy.
Speaking of twists, one of the biggest ones will be a flipping of the presence of minor nations. In past DLC, there have been a huge number of nations opposing your Wehrmacht forces, from Poland to Denmark to Norway to France and more...
But after such a string of historical victories, the political landscape of Europe has changed dramatically. Many nations have begun to sign pacts with Germany, so instead of just fighting a new variety of enemies, your campaigns will begin to see a new variety of allies to help!
But not every nation has accepted a pact with Germany... Elements within Yugoslavia are plotting something, which is where your new campaign will begin.
Assaulting Greece will also be a huge scenario, stretching from Italians on the Albanian front to Bulgarians trying to break through the Greek Metaxas Line.
In additional to historical allies, prepare once again for powerful historical figures make their appearances known in many scenarios.
Another wave of new unit models
One big improvement we wanted to add to the game was a graphical overhaul of the various Soviet infantry types present in the game. Previously, Soviet regulars, guards, conscripts, mountain, and paratroopers all shared similar model assets. For such a huge variety of units, this lack of visual variety was a problem, especially given their unique abilities and stats.
So as part of the 1941 DLC, we have upgraded all of these special Soviet infantry units with new unit models!
• Soviet Guards
• Soviets Guards did not actually exist on the onset of Barbarossa. But as the operation began to take an enormous toll on the Red Army, the need to spotlight units that were fighting with at least limited success against the German Wehrmacht became apparent, at the very least for purposes of morale.
• These veterans were first established following the Soviet Yelnya Counteroffensive, and any time you encounter them in combat you should expect them to be well experienced and heavily supported in their efforts to halt your advance.
• Mountain
• Pay close attention to these units, as their alpine trait will have them hitting much harder than expected in hilly and mountainous terrains that you will occasionally fight across on the Eastern Front.
• Paratrooper
• While Soviet experiments with paratrooper operations arguably pioneered this type of warfare from the 1930s, large scale Soviet paratrooper operations are not a big part of the early stages of the War in the East. Later on, however, these units may indeed prove quite a thorn in the player's side as they execute deep insertions well behind the frontlines of the battlefield.
• Conscripts
• Overwhelming in fighting spirit and numbers, but underwhelming in equipment and training, the Soviet conscripts present a unique challenge as the only unit in Panzer Corps 2 with a base strength of 20. When isolated and unsupported, all of that strength is easily defeated thanks to their low combat values, but when fighting en masse in close terrain, conscript hordes can quickly cause terrifying amounts of damage to even mighty panzers as they swarm over the tanks to throw explosives down any loose hatch they can find.
• Romanian R1 AH-IV Tanks
• The Romanian R1 AH-IV is more tankette than tank, but it serves its role adequately with dual machine gun armament giving them an above average rate of fire and a very low slot deployment cost.
R1
• British Cruiser Mk II CS Artillery Tank
• An early model of what would be an extensive line of British Close Support vehicles, the Cruiser Mark II CS serves a much more traditionally minded infantry support role.
CCS
• Airfield Construction Vehicle
• The most unique new unit in terms of game mechanics, the Airfield Truck serves one very specific purpose. As the player advances across the vast Ukrainian Plain of the USSR, their logistics will be stretched to the limit as road networks and airbase infrastructure of Russia prove to be underdeveloped compared to Western Europe. Not only this, but soon the Soviets will enact their Scorched Earth policies to further deny access to usable airfields.
• To cushion against this historical reality, the Airfield Truck allows the player to deploy an airbase exactly where they need it most to continue to support the ongoing advances of their leading panzers.
• Just watch out, because Soviet counterattacks can and will destroy your temporary airbases, so it will be up to you to decide where exactly to deploy them best so that they can be protected but also are close enough to the front to serve as useful bases for your air fleets.
• Fighters, Tactical Bombers, and Strategic Bombers will all be able to use these constructed airfields as bases to operate from.
The Eagle of the Eastern Front Arrives
As our players have been noticing across the DLC campaigns, we have been dropping more than a few hints on a certain historical Stuka pilot. By the end of his career, he would have flown an unheard of 2,500 combat missions. This figure created quite a buzz in even the original Panzer Corps Grand Campaign, and we wanted to try and make such a legendary pilot even more interesting this time around. But this will be just the beginning of his career, and we are of course referring to Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
To this end, we have given Rudel extra special treatment that has never been seen before, even amongst other elite historical figures. Players will get an opportunity to do more than just recruit Rudel, you will have some influence in choosing his capabilities to best fit into your CORE force. This will make Hans-Ulrich Rudel the first ever customizable hero!
Barbarossa in the Axis Operations DLC
Of course after your stint across the Balkans comes the gigantic Operation Barbarossa, and we will have more details on that content alongside a complete scenario list coming soon.
As always though, our players can look forward to an extensive list of both familiar and perhaps some lesser known battles of the East Front to populate this latest DLC.
Your Feedback
As always, we are reading and listening to your feedback. Many thousands of posts and messages have greatly improved Panzer Corps 2 for its entire playerbase, and we encourage you to continue to share your thoughts and wants for the game into the future!
We hope you enjoyed this extended preview of the upcoming Axis Operations 1941 DLC and look forward to returning your army to combat soon.
Axis Operations: 1941 is currently finishing it's testing phase and will be out soon.
Before we begin, we just want to take a moment to thank all of our players for making Panzer Corps 2 the success it has been. Many thousands of you have helped make the past year an incredible time for our game. Thank you for your feedback, your cool screenshots, your awesome war stories documenting your campaign triumphs, and for supporting our game. Stay awesome, stay safe, and stay healthy out there!
Panzer Corps 2 development has not been idle, and we have the next DLC Campaign to preview to you today. We are aiming for another big year for Panzer Corps 2, and this is just the first content drop we will have for our players to look forward to.
First detailed look into Axis Operations 1941
With the conclusion of the campaigns of 1940, there is a huge question of where exactly the Axis Operations will explore next. As our historically minded players are probably well aware, many new fronts opened up in 1941, from Africa to the Balkans to Russia.
Ultimately, with the base game providing a well-developed Afrika Korps set of content, but omitting scenarios in the Balkans, Axis Operations 1941 is going East!
In our biggest DLC campaign yet, clocking in at a full 20 scenarios, Axis Operations 1941 has a ton of new content for players to dive into. In the fourth chapter of the Axis Operation Grand Campaign, we once again have more new, high quality unit models to showcase, a new utility vehicle, and a whole lot of Ostfront content to explore.
For starters, we have finally worked out the technical wizardry required to give the Commendation Point currency a permanent home in the UI! At long last, players can see their Commendation Point values at all times, instead of having to rely on temporary pop ups to keep them informed.
This feature is currently only available in Axis Operations 1941, but we will be working hard to retroactively apply it to the past Axis Operations DLC as soon as possible.
As always, our primary mission with ongoing Panzer Corps 2 content is to provide our players with more fresh and exciting twists to the gameplay that they already thoroughly enjoy.
Speaking of twists, one of the biggest ones will be a flipping of the presence of minor nations. In past DLC, there have been a huge number of nations opposing your Wehrmacht forces, from Poland to Denmark to Norway to France and more...
But after such a string of historical victories, the political landscape of Europe has changed dramatically. Many nations have begun to sign pacts with Germany, so instead of just fighting a new variety of enemies, your campaigns will begin to see a new variety of allies to help!
But not every nation has accepted a pact with Germany... Elements within Yugoslavia are plotting something, which is where your new campaign will begin.
Assaulting Greece will also be a huge scenario, stretching from Italians on the Albanian front to Bulgarians trying to break through the Greek Metaxas Line.
In additional to historical allies, prepare once again for powerful historical figures make their appearances known in many scenarios.
Another wave of new unit models
One big improvement we wanted to add to the game was a graphical overhaul of the various Soviet infantry types present in the game. Previously, Soviet regulars, guards, conscripts, mountain, and paratroopers all shared similar model assets. For such a huge variety of units, this lack of visual variety was a problem, especially given their unique abilities and stats.
So as part of the 1941 DLC, we have upgraded all of these special Soviet infantry units with new unit models!
• Soviet Guards
• Soviets Guards did not actually exist on the onset of Barbarossa. But as the operation began to take an enormous toll on the Red Army, the need to spotlight units that were fighting with at least limited success against the German Wehrmacht became apparent, at the very least for purposes of morale.
• These veterans were first established following the Soviet Yelnya Counteroffensive, and any time you encounter them in combat you should expect them to be well experienced and heavily supported in their efforts to halt your advance.
• Mountain
• Pay close attention to these units, as their alpine trait will have them hitting much harder than expected in hilly and mountainous terrains that you will occasionally fight across on the Eastern Front.
• Paratrooper
• While Soviet experiments with paratrooper operations arguably pioneered this type of warfare from the 1930s, large scale Soviet paratrooper operations are not a big part of the early stages of the War in the East. Later on, however, these units may indeed prove quite a thorn in the player's side as they execute deep insertions well behind the frontlines of the battlefield.
• Conscripts
• Overwhelming in fighting spirit and numbers, but underwhelming in equipment and training, the Soviet conscripts present a unique challenge as the only unit in Panzer Corps 2 with a base strength of 20. When isolated and unsupported, all of that strength is easily defeated thanks to their low combat values, but when fighting en masse in close terrain, conscript hordes can quickly cause terrifying amounts of damage to even mighty panzers as they swarm over the tanks to throw explosives down any loose hatch they can find.
• Romanian R1 AH-IV Tanks
• The Romanian R1 AH-IV is more tankette than tank, but it serves its role adequately with dual machine gun armament giving them an above average rate of fire and a very low slot deployment cost.
R1
• British Cruiser Mk II CS Artillery Tank
• An early model of what would be an extensive line of British Close Support vehicles, the Cruiser Mark II CS serves a much more traditionally minded infantry support role.
CCS
• Airfield Construction Vehicle
• The most unique new unit in terms of game mechanics, the Airfield Truck serves one very specific purpose. As the player advances across the vast Ukrainian Plain of the USSR, their logistics will be stretched to the limit as road networks and airbase infrastructure of Russia prove to be underdeveloped compared to Western Europe. Not only this, but soon the Soviets will enact their Scorched Earth policies to further deny access to usable airfields.
• To cushion against this historical reality, the Airfield Truck allows the player to deploy an airbase exactly where they need it most to continue to support the ongoing advances of their leading panzers.
• Just watch out, because Soviet counterattacks can and will destroy your temporary airbases, so it will be up to you to decide where exactly to deploy them best so that they can be protected but also are close enough to the front to serve as useful bases for your air fleets.
• Fighters, Tactical Bombers, and Strategic Bombers will all be able to use these constructed airfields as bases to operate from.
The Eagle of the Eastern Front Arrives
As our players have been noticing across the DLC campaigns, we have been dropping more than a few hints on a certain historical Stuka pilot. By the end of his career, he would have flown an unheard of 2,500 combat missions. This figure created quite a buzz in even the original Panzer Corps Grand Campaign, and we wanted to try and make such a legendary pilot even more interesting this time around. But this will be just the beginning of his career, and we are of course referring to Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
To this end, we have given Rudel extra special treatment that has never been seen before, even amongst other elite historical figures. Players will get an opportunity to do more than just recruit Rudel, you will have some influence in choosing his capabilities to best fit into your CORE force. This will make Hans-Ulrich Rudel the first ever customizable hero!
Barbarossa in the Axis Operations DLC
Of course after your stint across the Balkans comes the gigantic Operation Barbarossa, and we will have more details on that content alongside a complete scenario list coming soon.
As always though, our players can look forward to an extensive list of both familiar and perhaps some lesser known battles of the East Front to populate this latest DLC.
Your Feedback
As always, we are reading and listening to your feedback. Many thousands of posts and messages have greatly improved Panzer Corps 2 for its entire playerbase, and we encourage you to continue to share your thoughts and wants for the game into the future!
We hope you enjoyed this extended preview of the upcoming Axis Operations 1941 DLC and look forward to returning your army to combat soon.
Axis Operations: 1941 is currently finishing it's testing phase and will be out soon.
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- Captain - Heavy Cruiser
- Posts: 930
- Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 8:52 pm
Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Looks really good, when will the Betas start? I am looking forward to this DLC.
Martin
Martin
Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Awesome! I am happy to see that the promise of each new DLC being better and better than the previous ones seems to be continuing.
Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Very excited for this, I really like the sound of the new mechanics and the alt-history hint at the end of the DD! Release date soon?
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- Master Sergeant - U-boat
- Posts: 502
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- Location: MICHIGAN,USA
Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
I like the new look for most of the units...lots of detail and colors...hoping it is released soon...
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- Field Marshal - Elefant
- Posts: 5848
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
The Airfield Construction Vehicle looks like a Cargo Truck, will there be a specific 3D model ?
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- Sergeant Major - Armoured Train
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
“ Speaking of twists, one of the biggest ones will be a flipping of the presence of minor nations”... great news!
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- Staff Sergeant - Kavallerie
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
I would still like to see a fleshing out of the Afrika Korps campaign, in the form of a DLC.
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- Staff Sergeant - Kavallerie
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
I think it is already closed.milliethedog wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:38 pm Looks really good, when will the Betas start? I am looking forward to this DLC.
Martin
I applied a couple of days ago & have received no acknowledgement.
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- Slitherine
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Yes. Its not ready yet.terminator wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 5:30 am The Airfield Construction Vehicle looks like a Cargo Truck, will there be a specific 3D model ?
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Pat a Pixel Pusher
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Pat a Pixel Pusher
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- 1st Lieutenant - 15 cm sFH 18
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Or it hasn’t started yet, who knows?Ballacraine wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:59 pmI think it is already closed.milliethedog wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:38 pm Looks really good, when will the Betas start? I am looking forward to this DLC.
Martin
I applied a couple of days ago & have received no acknowledgement.
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- 1st Lieutenant - 15 cm sFH 18
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Something like that, huh?Patrick Ward wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 2:21 pmYes. Its not ready yet.terminator wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 5:30 am The Airfield Construction Vehicle looks like a Cargo Truck, will there be a specific 3D model ?
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- Slitherine
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
You may think that, but I couldn't possibly say.jeannot le lapin wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 2:23 pmSomething like that, huh?Patrick Ward wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 2:21 pmYes. Its not ready yet.terminator wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 5:30 am The Airfield Construction Vehicle looks like a Cargo Truck, will there be a specific 3D model ?
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Pat a Pixel Pusher
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Pat a Pixel Pusher
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Toldi and other similar equipment appearing? I'm more than happy to see it - it's really reassuring to see small additions to the existing unit pool that build up options for any possible future content as well. I hope that with these extra units added the equipment file will be tweaked also in regards to giving those nations machines that already exist in the game, but assigned to other nations (PZL-37 in Romanian service or Ju-86 in Hungarian service).
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- Lieutenant Colonel - Panther D
- Posts: 1254
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
This looks AMAZING. Customizable heroes?! OMG, that is incredible. I love the Soviet infantry models and of course seeing Kalashnikov get a shout out.
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- Field Marshal - Elefant
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
What are those black spots on the red flag?
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- Sergeant - 7.5 cm FK 16 nA
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
I think they're supposed to be shadows of the fluttering flag
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- Field Marshal - Elefant
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
If so, the effect is too strong for me.Snake97644 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 07, 2021 4:58 pm I think they're supposed to be shadows of the fluttering flag
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- Slitherine
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
It's pre-production/proof of concept/coder art, same as the airfield truck. The realities of marketing means they often have to make public announcements before the game/DLC is finished.terminator wrote: ↑Sun Feb 07, 2021 10:30 am What are those black spots on the red flag?
77cc85ca7ef0134a6ef2a328c67dc3a6f15a50ec.jpg
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Pat a Pixel Pusher
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Pat a Pixel Pusher
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Re: Axis Operations 1941 Development Diary
Exciting news more axis nations and customizable heroes
Battlefield Europe get the most from Panzer Corps
Download the new 2.4 Mod here http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=147&t=47985
Download the new 2.4 Mod here http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=147&t=47985