Suggestions, wishlist and ideas for Panzer Corps 2 gameplay

[Musketeer]

Me be signing it too!

[MickMannock]

While I agree with most of the points, if THIS one comes, I'll go. I do NOT want to see crap like line of sight, armor facing and other stuff that might make sense on a tactical level but makes absolutely ZERO sense on the level of abstraction that Panzer Corps is at. Bataillons and Regiments don't have line of sight. They're spread out over kilometers. None of that makes any sense and if PzC2 is using 3D to act as if a Panzer on the map was really a Panzer while in reality it represents thousands of fighting men, then I'm not interested. it's nice to have units that look historical simply for the coolness factor but I do NOT want a TIger on the map act as if it was an individual Tiger. That's where I draw the line.

I also do NOT want to see low-res stuff for low end hardware. That is NOT ok. This game should look fine on everys single hardware it runs on. If that cannot be achieved, stay the hell away from 3D. It can't be that low end users pay the prize of crappy graphics just so high end users can enjoy flashy stuff that adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay. If that happens, I will also not be a buyer, despite having a high end PC. I do not want to see this happen. Strategy gamers are people who are not graphics crazy, who enjoy a historically accurate battlefield a lot more than flashy explosions and usually have lowe end stuff and want to be able to play a turn or two on their tablet while in a hotel or on vacation. If that can't be done without the Tiger looking like ass, give me well rendered sprites instead. Modern engines can run shaders and lighting on 2D sprites as well so I see absolutely no reason why this needs to be 3D if it can't be done on every hardware in the same way.

This is exactly what I fear will happen. Useless high poly crap that nobody needs, causes slowdowns or memory issues on low end hardware for zero advantage but flashy animations that everbody will turn off anyway after the first our of playing and never turn them on again because they take too much time and you've already seen them all. it's pointless. it's just for having something to show off in a video for a gaming conference and after that nobody gives a crap.

Stay true to what PzC is. It's a board game. it's high level abstraction and not World of Tanks.

Gotta agree with this.

To be honest, this whole 3D thing makes me nervous. It don't think this would be top priority to any member of the Panzer Corps/Panzer General community.

[Musketeer]

Proponents of 3D, name ONE game which turned with 3D for better, has better AI, has lower hardware requirements etc.?

[caca]

Proponents of 3D, name ONE game which turned with 3D for better, has better AI, has lower hardware requirements etc.?

This game will be the first!
Stop inflate 3D-phobia!
You better come here in a year and then criticize the game. This will be more reasoned.

[turn4441]

I don't see how they can possibly fit all these 'needs/wants' into a game. It is apparent there will be a lot of disappointed people (much like with PC) as you can't please all the people, all the time. If they try to cater to everyone's wishes, the game would be a bloated, confusing mess. If it ever got done at all.

[Musketeer]

3D = NOT easier MODability

[Ruggs225]

I love the idea of a global map or a continuous battle where each battle would determine the next.

I would love a different type of grand campaign. One in which you are the supreme commander. You can set up different corps for different regions. For example germany can have a corp for western europe, eastern, afrika, norway, middle east etc. the catch is that each corps is independent but the prestige is combined. So a player would have to pick where to build up units. The player can send units between corps but to do that the u it would be ineligible for action for a period of time determined by distance and unit type. So to go from middle east to wedtern front maybe it would take 2 months infantry but 4 months for tanks. Planes could take only a week.

So this way you can both command the overall direction of the game and then the actual battles. Game would sort of play like risk where on the operational level a player would get one or two attacks per turn and then defends against enemy attacks.

As for the game itself, i do not care for OOB supply lines as they are. Its too easy to cilut off supply.

Artillary needs to be toned down from PC but needs to be better than Oob. Maybe arty can attack and then make one supporting fire. At needs to be able to have supportingg fire as well. Maybe be able to attach towed AT units to infantry.

More classes of planes like OOB would be appreciated as well as naval action like OOB. Though submariens need a boost.

I do like the way u are forced to choose what types of units you use in OOB rather than a total number in PC so players dont get super units. I do like overstrength but to a point. Maybe only 4 or 5 units total.

Please keep SE units as well as capturable units.

Unit repairs: i dont like being able to fully repair unit in one turn. Maybe 5 points if unit is alone and 2 points if next to another unit. Also when in between missions we should be able to select 1 health point at a time ao we can mix and match between green and veteran replacements.

Also it would be nice to be able to combine units. So if u have two of the same units both at half strenght you can combine to one full strength unit. Both during and in between battles.

[Ruggs225]

Also forgot to mention that while i love the heroes, they do need to be refined. Please make them more unit specifice. Also make more different types. Such as +3 against armor or +3 against fighters instead of an overall +3. Or maybe both. Maybe make two overall enhancements and one specialty slot wtih a +5...

[Cerberus51]

Above all keep it simple.

Please do not introduce range 2 direct fire as in PG2, higher initiative shoots first is the way to represent a unit firing before the enemy is within range to shoot back.

A proper capability to mod naval scenarios would be great.

Recon units having a chance to retreat when attacked.

I'm sure this thread will get plenty more posts!

[uran21]

I'm sure this thread will get plenty more posts!

Just keep them coming

[anticorp]

Some sort of dynamic aspect might be nice.

For example, if you capture that far away rail station hex, enemy reinforcements are delayed by x number of turns in the next scenario. Or, perhaps after 3 continuous decisive victories, you get a global +1 initiative on your units in the next scenario. Or, with 3 continuous marginal victories a global -1 initiative in the next scenario. In '1944' and '1945' scenarios maybe the the Axis player starts with a global -1 initiative and/or -1 ammo and if the player performs well, they can start to 'turn the tide' and bring initiative and ammo back to neutral. There are tons of possibilities.

I hate 3D, but am hopeful...

[sn0wball]

The AI should be a little bit more unpredictable. Sometimes it should make a move outside its usual parameters.

Above all keep it simple.

Absolutely. Many a sequel was ruined by adding layers upon layers of options and micromanagement. There are enough games for that already.

I would not depart from the core scenario-approach to campaigns though you may want to play with the reverse approach to many games - for instance, make scenarios HARDER if the player is winning and EASIER if they are losing.

Such an approach would be great: "No player left behind."

[Yrfin]

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 82#p649682

[KdF]

Besides a little tweaking here and there of all the nice mentions above, the real change should be:

-Beautiful artwork of the maps/cities and units

-Animations of units attacking/movement (perhaps an option for a small zoom-in window showing a 2 second animation of the attacking/defending units)

-Smoke and/or destroyed unit debris

The game itself is great and tweaks, easy to implement. You've got all you need already. Now all you have to do is paint the picture to remind players they are actually on a battlefield.

Now if you throw in a battle cry sound file when moving out of an entrenched space and attacking, I'll be really impressed.

(pointing downfield and screaming in German emoticon not available)

[Yrfin]

-Animations of units attacking/movement (perhaps an option for a small zoom-in window showing a 2 second animation of the attacking/defending units)

-Smoke and/or destroyed unit debris

And the oh so cool unit animations that everybody loved in E3 presentations? Yeah everybody turned them off after 1 gameplay hour because they're repettitive, cost only time and slow down the gameplay. It's annoying, stupid once you've seen it 5 times and you'll turn it off (please make sure we can turn them off, I don't watch my Stuka make an attack run EVERY SINGLE TIME. It's annoying as fuck) Everybody loved the small 2D animations videos in the original Panzer General and EVERYBODY ended up turning them off because they took too much time.

I want Panzer Corps 2 to focus on AI, on historical accuracy, on constinstent scenario scale and better campaigns.

[grozny]

>Bataillons and Regiments don't have line of sight.

Not true. Of course they do. Their 'eyes' are recon patrols, hearing posts and photos from recon planes.

People have eyes on their faces, not on backs. Tanks drive forward faster and their forward armor is stronger. Try to rotate a howitzer 180 quickly. Recon patrols are advancing at the front and in flanks. All soft targets (vital for regiment and up) - ammo stores, food, fuel, C&C etc. are trailing combat-ready units in the back and in no way are as combat-worthy as units of the line. Enemy is expected from certain directions. Attacking from flanks or from behind are devastating whereas attacks from front with the same force could be repulsed easily.

These are the reasons why the whole strategy of WWII could be boiled down to "outmaneuver and outflank opposing force, cut thru front line and weak point and attack less protected flanks, smash soft behind". Read memoirs of army-level WWII commanders - they were obsessed with keeping flanks and trying to sniff out where the gaps in front lines are. Vital part of any offensive was to conceal units in hard-to-see places - therefore LOS metaphor for units is making total sense to me.

>They're spread out over kilometers.

That much is true, of course - but there are always clear flanks and behind, recon patrols (which is what ~LOS for units is) are going mostly to the front and less on flanks. Nobody sends recon teams to their behind (when it thought of as secured).

>Strategy gamers are people who are not graphics crazy

Yeah, but it became an excuse for gamedevs to stick with crappy 8-bit 2D graphics and 20-year old unwieldy interfaces. While I admit that nice graphics is tertiary (after AI+ gameplay and user-friendly interface) it's nice-to-have.
With modern HW you could have nice 3D on 4K even on weak Intel Iris. Responsive and nice-looking hex-board game in 3D would surely requires certain level of prowess in 3D programming and using stock 3D engine might not yield best possible perf, but I'd like to see the result before crying doom and gloom.

[StefanDK]

I forgot to mention the weather systems, but others have touched this. If there would be a more grand campaign/scenario take on the game, such as spanning whole of Europe or even more, then the weather system would need to be upgraded quite a bit.

Man, it must be difficult to be one of the developers and listen in on these conversations. There are possibly hundreds of suggestions, many contradict each other, and combined it would make the game completely impossible to absorp - it would be too complicated. However, it is quite fascinating to follow the thoughts of other players and there is so much good material to be found!

[Sourdust]

OK, I'm not going to talk about graphics or engine here because I've had my say elsewhere... this is an entirely constructive post, focusing on a few high-level design choices.

1) Campaign balance. One of theings that sort of annoys me about PC is that a campaign can quickly snowball against you if you have one really bad battle. In practice, a "loss" in a battle means "re-load and try again", not "forge ahead despite a setback". The scenarios are designed to still be challenging against a player who has a string of decisive victories with no core losses... so in practice you pretty much have to meet that standard or things just get worse and worse. Hence the "endless wall of JSII tanks" that the German faces in DLC 1945 East Front, rather than more interesting and nuanced scenarios.

Campaign design should have some auto-balancing mechanics to prevent a campaign snowballing either way - in favor of the player, or the AI. One way of doing this is to adopt some kind of scaling of AI forces according to how well the player is doing and what his/her accumulated prestige and force mix is.

Every game that has a persistent core running through scenarios faces this balancing challenge, and there is no perfect solution. Ultimate General: Civil War is using the "scaling" approach. In that game, it's not wholly satisfactory, because it feels wrong to get a clean sweep against Lee or Grant's army, only to face it reincarnated and even stronger in the next battle... but here that is much less of a problem. For instance, if a player has loads of prestige and tough units, add some units and additional prestige on to the OOB for the AI during the next battle. This keeps battles challenging, but still allows you to proceed if you're falling behind the power curve.

2) Equipment and units. Separate the two. Allow the player to have a pool of equipment and a pool of units, and allow the units to draw on equipment as you choose for individual battles. This would allow you, for instance, to swap out to Flammpanzers for an urban battle, then switch back to regular panzers afterwards. Or for the allies, switch a tank unit to flail tank for an amphibious landing, then switch to regular Cromwells or Shermans thereafter.

3) Air mechanics. I hate fuel for air units. I'm always forgetting about a unit and finding, a turn or two later, than it has run out of fuel and crashed. I also hate the "cat and mouse" game of trying to figure out where in fog of war a damaged enemy plane has run away too. I think the whole air movement system could be rethought. Perhaps air units should just be at airfields, and have a radius of attack determined by their range stat. Ditto with interceptors, I've always felt their area of coverage was too small, and they should instead sit at an airfield and be ordered to automatically move to and intercept any enemy air unit within their range. A far more dynamic system is needed here, not just IGO/UGO.

4) Unit interaction. The more interaction among adjacent units, the more strategic depth the game will have. Allowing AT guns to be support units is one example... aside from making AT guns more useful, it would dramatically improve the survivability of late-war infantry. Similarly, destroyers should be able to support other ships against sub attacks, possibly within a certain radius rather than just adjacent. And more modifiers... like, for instance, a tank that has an infantry unit next to it has a +1 on close defence. Or artillery units operating within x hexes of a recon plane get a +1 attack. Etc. etc. All of this would add to the combined arms flavor of the game, and would open up additional interestng options and tradeoffs in force composition. A real role for recon planes and recon units, etc.

5) Super units. I always felt there was too much incentive to max out all units with top equipment. The cost and prestige penalties never really seemed to be enough of a disincentive. Conversely, weaker units were just too useless. Did anyone ever actually have a Hetzer in their core force? I'd like to see a much more nuanced treatment here, with real pros and cons or other limits on top equipment. Perhaps a hard limit of, say, 2 Tigers in your core. Or more interestingly, perhaps a "maintenance" rating that determines how quickly you can reinforce that unit in game. So if Tigers have a "maintenance" rating of 2, you could only replace 2 steps of that unit per turn. Or maybe weaker units like Hetzers can find their place in the game through some other interesting mechanics or traits - perhaps tags like "if killed, this unit automatically rebuilds at 5 strength at the nearest friendly city once per scenario". Stuff like that.

6) Supply. Personally, I don't want to see supply lines in PC2. This is meant to be a wargame-lite, beer and pretzels, puzzle kind of a game. Keep logistics to a minimum, I'm not after an operational simulation here, but good clean fun, unburdened by supply lines!

7) Naval operations. If you're going to do them, do them with the same depth and nuance as the ground game. The PC naval game never really gripped me at all, it was always something that had to be endured in between the land and air bits. Many interesting units with differentiated abilities, combined arms, and interesting inter-unit interactions.

8) AI. Lots to say here, but I'll focus on AI goals. It PC, it always seemed to me that the AI prioritized getting unit kills against the player more than anything else, even more than winning the scenario or preserving its own forces. Personally I think that's a design flaw. The AI should be trying to win the battle, not destroy one of the player's core units at any cost.

9) Scenario setup. To increase replayability, I think each scenario should have several (or dozens!) of different possible AI setups and even strategies. So when you load up a new campaign, it's not the same old, same old, conquest of Poznan, but a genuinely different mix of enemy forces and dispositions every time. For example, maybe Poznan battle has 5 Polish "divisions" around the map - but the composition of each division, and it's placement, might be any one of five different possibilities. That's 3125 different potential start configurations!

[rubyjuno]

Great post, Sourdust, whilst I don'y necessarily agree 100% with every point it's very considered and thoughtful.

In principle, I'm against 3D graphics but accept that Slitherine need to engage new fans.

I agree wholeheartedly with point (6), in that PC is a wargame-lite, beer and pretzels game. It's vital to me that the spirit of PC remains, simple to pick up and play, no manual required. After trying and giving up on many other wargames, this is the main reason I persevered with PC. We don't need complicated supply, morale or armour facing rules - there are 100 other wargames out there for those who prefer an inch thick manual.

[David105]

First - I’ am very happy, that the idea of Global Comparing map is Loved by u guys too!)

Second – Side borders and surrounding troops system must have taken from Order of Battle (seems very nice there)

Third - Air – totally agree with @Sourdust – If u r out of fuel it is not means that you will disappeared or vanish from the map. I mean c’mon, it is WWII planes, they could landed without a fuel, suffer loses – sure! But not totally out from mission… (OoB system is not bad here too) Sorry)))))