Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by koopanique »

I think the graphics look good. I just hope the map generator will be able to create interesting scenarios for player vs AI games.
And of course I hope traditional single player campaigns will have interesting handcrafted scenarios, and I hope these will be refreshing and a departure from the missions we've seen a million times in other games.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by IainMcNeil »

There will of course be hand crafted scenarios. There has never been any suggestion by us that there would not! I have seen others suggest it but no idea what it is based on.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by crisse88 »

IainMcNeil wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 12:20 pm There will of course be hand crafted scenarios. There has never been any suggestion by us that there would not! I have seen others suggest it but no idea what it is based on.
I guess people missinterpreted the interview article you did back in spring, even though the site later corrected their statement.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by proline »

IainMcNeil wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 12:20 pm There will of course be hand crafted scenarios. There has never been any suggestion by us that there would not! I have seen others suggest it but no idea what it is based on.
I never doubted there would be scenarios. At the same time, players are asked to trade in the rich variety of campaigns in PzC for a smaller, more impoverished set similar to the old SSI games. There has been no commitment whatsoever to produce the same total number of campaigns or scenarios, for example.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Retributarr »

proline wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:56 am
I never doubted there would be scenarios. At the same time, players are asked to trade in the rich variety of campaigns in PzC for a smaller, more impoverished set similar to the old SSI games. There has been no commitment whatsoever to produce the same total number of campaigns or scenarios, for example.

*** I for one, prefer the 'Grand Campaign' , I like lot's of depth in tackling an effort, not a superficial facimilie'. ***
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Rudankort »

proline wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:56 am I never doubted there would be scenarios. At the same time, players are asked to trade in the rich variety of campaigns in PzC for a smaller, more impoverished set similar to the old SSI games. There has been no commitment whatsoever to produce the same total number of campaigns or scenarios, for example.
There was no such commitment upon the release of Panzer Corps either. But there is no fundamental reason why the same (or even bigger) amount of content cannot be created for Panzer Corps 2 over time.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Rudankort »

ElCaballero wrote: Tue Aug 14, 2018 11:43 am Will there be ranked games in MP?
This is definitely on our radar. But this also depends on weather we can get server support.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by IainMcNeil »

People seem to think that because you can play a generated campaign there will not be hand crafted campaigns. There will!
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Sabot15 »

PG2 was my favorite of the original series, and I am looking forward to the new and improved version!

One thing that I enjoyed was the abilities feature; for example a unit gaining an ability such as the overwatch feature, among many others that were available on a class by class basis.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by proline »

Rudankort wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 9:10 am
proline wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:56 am I never doubted there would be scenarios. At the same time, players are asked to trade in the rich variety of campaigns in PzC for a smaller, more impoverished set similar to the old SSI games. There has been no commitment whatsoever to produce the same total number of campaigns or scenarios, for example.
there is no fundamental reason why the same (or even bigger) amount of content cannot be created for Panzer Corps 2 over time.
Actually there is, seeing as in your one and only official interview you told wargamer you weren't going down the DLC road even as far as to make a Grand Campaign, let alone the other wonderful campaigns. Perhaps you are suggesting that community members will make content for free? Sure, but that's not the same as taking responsibility for making polished first party content which is what PzC has (and yes I know some of the work was contracted out).

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/panze ... ease-date/
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Rudankort »

proline wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 10:39 pm Actually there is, seeing as in your one and only official interview you told wargamer you weren't going down the DLC road even as far as to make a Grand Campaign, let alone the other wonderful campaigns. Perhaps you are suggesting that community members will make content for free? Sure, but that's not the same as taking responsibility for making polished first party content which is what PzC has (and yes I know some of the work was contracted out).

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/panze ... ease-date/
The only direct stream of information from me to you guys is developer diaries (and forum posts).

Wargamer article is rather vague on this subject. I'm not a native english speaker, so I'm not sure what's going on here. They did not misinterpret my words per se, but people seem to be getting wrong impression from that article. Here is the exact text which got sent from me to press guys:
Q: How will the campaign be structured and will we re-do the whole Grand Campaign packs now that there will be a skirmish mode
A: We don't plan to repeat Grand Campaign exactly, because it already exists. Our goal in every campaign will be to give the players some new experience. But we do not exclude making a similar huge campaign in the future. This concept was popular with our players, and we believe that generated content cannot fully replace a carefully designed, tested and balanced human-made campaign.
As for the dev diaries, we don't want to focus our message on future content which people will need to buy for additional money. We want to focus on the base game and what people will get from it. However, even in the diaries there have been enough hints about possible additional content. For example:
A more advanced naval model will allow this series to branch out into any theatre of war in the future, including the “naval-heavy” Pacific, something which Panzer Corps never did.
Secondly, we are trying to give smaller factions some more substance, so that they are better represented in the game. It does not mean that these factions will be able to fight the “big four” (Germany, USA, Great Britain and USSR) on equal terms, but we hope that they will become interesting enough to get their own content (scenarios and campaigns) as the series progresses.
I don't want to make predictions and promises, because nobody knows how the game will be accepted. Maybe it's the biggest flop in the history of wargames, and we won't be able to produce any more content. :) But if all goes well, we will of course create it - a lot of it in fact. And we will create stuff that our players will want to play. You don't need to worry about that part.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by proline »

Rudankort wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:35 pm
Q: How will the campaign be structured and will we re-do the whole Grand Campaign packs now that there will be a skirmish mode
A: We don't plan to repeat Grand Campaign exactly, because it already exists. Our goal in every campaign will be to give the players some new experience. But we do not exclude making a similar huge campaign in the future. This concept was popular with our players, and we believe that generated content cannot fully replace a carefully designed, tested and balanced human-made campaign.
If what you claim you sent to them is true, then Wargamer badly distorted your words. If that were true, you would have been pissed off and demanded a correction, rather than letting the April 2018 Wargamer exclusive article stand as the one and only authoritative source of information on this game for an additional four months until the dev diaries started. Remember fans had been in the dark for a full year from the initial announcement to the Wargamer article, so surely you would have cared about the fans enough to ensure that the one piddly little article you did was accurate? Wouldn't you at least want to correct the Wargamer article that is still online and one of the main things that shows up when people Google this game? This claim doesn't make a ton of sense really. Typically exclusives are given only to trustworthy outlets.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Rudankort »

proline wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 5:44 am If what you claim you sent to them is true, then Wargamer badly distorted your words. If that were true, you would have been pissed off and demanded a correction, rather than letting the April 2018 Wargamer exclusive article stand as the one and only authoritative source of information on this game for an additional four months until the dev diaries started. Remember fans had been in the dark for a full year from the initial announcement to the Wargamer article, so surely you would have cared about the fans enough to ensure that the one piddly little article you did was accurate? Wouldn't you at least want to correct the Wargamer article that is still online and one of the main things that shows up when people Google this game? This claim doesn't make a ton of sense really. Typically exclusives are given only to trustworthy outlets.
You wanted to know the situation with content in Panzer Corps 2. I have explained it to you several times in different words. I hope that this is clear now and any misunderstanding is resolved? And yes, of course what I say is true. Do you really think that I've just come up with this stuff, and not copied the text from my email archive? This is getting ridiculous.

I've just reread the article again, but no, I don't see what is so wrong about it.

They mentioned they will be taking inspiration from the Paradox model.
I have no idea what "Paradox model" means. Paradox release a lot of DLCs, we did the same in Panzer Corps and hope to do the same in Panzer Corps 2, so I guess it is correct.

They mentioned they don’t want to simply replicate the ‘Grand Campaign’ model from Panzer Corps as that’s been done already and they doubt consumers would respond favourably to it.
This is what I said. Grand campaign already exists, releasing it again would look like "milking" our customers, so of course they would not respond favorably to it. We will need to come up with something fresh and sufficiently different.

(Speculation) Despite the random map generator, they may still consider historical scenario content as they are designing a full historical campaign for launch (above).
Again, this is correct. As I said, random generator does not replace hand-made campaigns. Yes, we are doing a historical campaign for the base game, and yes, more historical content is possible in the future. I've already explained why we don't promise it or talk about it much in the dev diaries.

Besides, our plans with Panzer Corps 2 did not change over night, and Slitherine are well aware of them. They are english, and if they think the article is ok, who am I to question that? Maybe after this discussion they will want to update the article, but it is up to them.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Rudankort »

Sabot15 wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:07 pm One thing that I enjoyed was the abilities feature; for example a unit gaining an ability such as the overwatch feature, among many others that were available on a class by class basis.
Hero abilities will be part of the new game. Besides overwatch, what other abilities were your favorites in PG2?
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by 13obo »

Rudankort wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:02 pm
Sabot15 wrote: Fri Aug 17, 2018 4:07 pm One thing that I enjoyed was the abilities feature; for example a unit gaining an ability such as the overwatch feature, among many others that were available on a class by class basis.
Hero abilities will be part of the new game. Besides overwatch, what other abilities were your favorites in PG2?
The whole concept of unit class-specific heroes was quite cool! In my view, there's no need to replicate the additional functionality they provided or make the units always get that hero, but heroes were definitely implemented very well in PG2.

Another element of PG2 that I liked is artillery that provides support fire from afar, and that different artilleries could provide various types of it. Ex, one could do support against regular attacks and those usually had short range (half strength support if artillery was not next to friendly unit it supports), longer range support artillery was against other artillery (counter-battery fire), and the longest range/heaviest artilleries were too heavy to provide any support. That way the player was forced to have a diverse core of artillery rather than sticking to a few types.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by Rudankort »

13obo wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 3:55 pm The whole concept of unit class-specific heroes was quite cool! In my view, there's no need to replicate the additional functionality they provided or make the units always get that hero, but heroes were definitely implemented very well in PG2.
Heroes will definitely be more rare in Panzer Corps 2, although this is also up to campaign designer, so we'll probably see variations in this area.
13obo wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 3:55 pm Another element of PG2 that I liked is artillery that provides support fire from afar, and that different artilleries could provide various types of it. Ex, one could do support against regular attacks and those usually had short range (half strength support if artillery was not next to friendly unit it supports), longer range support artillery was against other artillery (counter-battery fire), and the longest range/heaviest artilleries were too heavy to provide any support. That way the player was forced to have a diverse core of artillery rather than sticking to a few types.
I wonder where your information about counter-battery fire in PG2 comes from. Here is how it worked (quote from PG2 manual):
There are two types of support fire given
by artillery and air defense. Units which are directly adjacent to the supporting
unit receive close support fire; this means the artillery or air
defense uses its full strength against the attackers. Friendly units which are
not adjacent, but are attacked by enemy units who are within range of the
supporting unit, also receive support fire, but the power of the artillery or
air defense is halved.
The end result of this mechanic was that very often a siege turned into a meaningless fireworks of artillery firing at all your units, even if it did not cause much damage. I always thought this was redundant and not a good idea, so I don't plan to recreate PG2 system in PzC2.

However, I definitely plan to implement more variety in artillery class by using unit traits, and the ability to provide counter-battery fire is one of the things we are considering. Another idea (for heavier guns) is to reduce entrenchment at a faster rate than most other units can. Classic support fire will also remain, but most likely it will be split between artillery (against soft targets) and AT (against hard targets). The modders can still combine both traits on a single unit to get the classic support fire behavior (as in PzC).
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by ESPADATXI »

Hello everyone, first of all I wanted to ask for some understanding since I could not read all the thread and maybe something I'm going to say has already been said before.


I just read that the artillery cover fire is going to be maintained (in whatever form) in Pzc2 and that makes me happy because I think it's a good idea, but at the same time I want to talk about a related issue that I consider important.


In the natural dynamics of Pg and Pzc and other comparable games, the units attacked and forced to retreat continue to fight and never give up unless they have no space to retreat to. For starters it is very debatable that a friendly unit prevents you from retiring but I also want to make you see that this dynamic in which the units are always fighting and never surrender is unreal, surely what I am going to propose is utopian but it will be easier to understand me.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by ESPADATXI »

.... ust as there is a random dice of combat, there should be a die of surrender based on the following premises:
Any unit attacked and forced to withdraw should generate the random option of "surrender dice".
An attacked unit, forced to retreat that is adjacent to friendly units, should have 0 possibilities of surrender.
An attacked infantry unit forced to retreat to remain on clear terrain and:
-adjacent to an armored enemy = + possibility to surrender
-not adjacent to any friendly unit = + possibility to surrender
-adjacent to two enemy armor = more chance to surrender.
For those who sum up all the cases the possibility of surrendering would be very high, but in practice this would only be the case for infantry units (or other soft units) attacked, forced to retreat that were adjacent to enemy armored vehicles and in clear terrain. Naturally the lack of supplies would also be a penalty in this regard.

I do not want to extend much more to not complicate things, I thought it read that the tank overrun will also be implemented and I think it's a good idea but what I think I still find desirable.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by 13obo »

Rudankort wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 5:09 pm
I wonder where your information about counter-battery fire in PG2 comes from. Here is how it worked (quote from PG2 manual):
Whoops, that may have been a rule from an Open General mod (open source with tonnes of extra stuff based on Panzer General 2 game)I played rather than the classic PG2 campaign, sorry!

Glad you're considering different rules for unit support though! So far sounds great.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #2

Post by proline »

Rudankort wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 11:54 amYou wanted to know the situation with content in Panzer Corps 2. I have explained it to you several times in different words.Grand campaign already exists, releasing it again would look like "milking" our customers, so of course they would not respond favorably to it. We will need to come up with something fresh and sufficiently different.
Yeah, you've used different words alright.

1) Wargamer quotes you as saying no grand campaign, customers won't want it.
2) I point that out to you in this thread and you say actually there might be a "similar huge campaign"
3) I point out that 1 & 2 are diametrically opposite positions, unless you're just splitting hairs about "huge campaigns" and "grand campaigns" being different things, so you go back to position #1 which is no grand campaign, customers won't want it.

So again, the question is put, are you or are you not open to making a grand campaign (or huge campaign) for PzC2? In your words, this is getting ridiculous.
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