Time to make the MEGA campaign a priority.

[tdev]

Let's get all the DLC from '39 to '45 finished so we can play the entire campaign. No more holiday stuff, pacific, or side tracked projects. I don't want to wait 2 more years to be able to play a campaign all the way through..........

[Retributarr]

Let's get all the DLC from '39 to '45 finished so we can play the entire campaign. No more holiday stuff, pacific, or side tracked projects. I don't want to wait 2 more years to be able to play a campaign all the way through..........

Yes!... Of Course...we would all like that!... however!... how disappointing to you that this may be... the truth is... is that I do not think that we are living in an "Alternate-Reality-Universe"..". where 'Just-Because' we 'WANT-IT"... that it must then be so... or just going to be!... because we say-so!.

This 'PzC2'... is a 'Very-Complex"... and difficult Game to manage... to develop & it takes lots of 'TIME'... so!... do try to exercise some extreme patience... as most of the rest of us are trying to do!... and patiently wait for it to all come together.

[terminator]

I want something new for the new year, I want Pacific Corps !

pngtree-japanese-new-year-2022-tiger-year-png-image_4043120.png (157.08 KiB) Viewed 2516 times

[tdev]

Let's get all the DLC from '39 to '45 finished so we can play the entire campaign. No more holiday stuff, pacific, or side tracked projects. I don't want to wait 2 more years to be able to play a campaign all the way through..........

Yes!... Of Course...we would all like that!... however!... how disappointing to you that this may be... the truth is... is that I do not think that we are living in an "Alternate-Reality-Universe"..". where 'Just-Because' we 'WANT-IT"... that it must then be so... or just going to be!... because we say-so!.

This 'PzC2'... is a 'Very-Complex"... and difficult Game to manage... to develop & it takes lots of 'TIME'... so!... do try to exercise some extreme patience... as most of the rest of us are trying to do!... and patiently wait for it to all come together.

This is why it is called "make it a priority". I can not think of anyone that wants or is ok with waiting 3-4 years to get a complete MEGA campaign. I am just requesting they try to speed it up, and you can cut the snide remarks.

[Edmon]

The Grand Campaign team and the Pacific team are separate teams.

One does not delay the other. '43 is taking a lot of extra time because it is where the war splits into historical and a-historical routes.

That's all, well there was also the holidays and it all adds up.

[gunny]

What about my grandmother's birthday that may have delayed it too.

[GUNDOBALDO08]

The Grand Campaign team and the Pacific team are separate teams.

One does not delay the other. '43 is taking a lot of extra time because it is where the war splits into historical and a-historical routes.

That's all, well there was also the holidays and it all adds up.

So, calculating average developement time of previous dlc and reasonably delay because splitting and holidays, we can expect AO43 announcement very soon, next month at maximum!?!

[Kerensky]

It's nice to read people are eager to continue the Axis Operations Grand Campaign.

As stated by Edmon, a lot more time has been needed to plan, and execute, the concept of a split timeline. There's a lot of groundbreaking to take content that is usually added as a fun bonus with no reasonable connections or lingering affects, and instead integrating that in a campaign that is ongoing.

For example in the original Grand Campaign, it was a pretty brisk series of events that lead from victory at the Battle of the Bulge to launching Sea Lion in 45. That was really cool to do, but it was an absolute flight of fancy. No reasonable stretch of any kinds of victories would enable those events to take place, given the state of the war at that time.

But now changing history so much sooner, it has a ripple effect. As one outcome changes, it may cause the reason for certain battles to never come to pass. 1943 probably has the most text of any DLC ever, because it has to carve its own history, and that requires so much more explanation than reviewing the course of the war as we are familiar with it.

On top of that, the historical branch can be treated with much more... well history. We can uncouple the needs of being a 'game' from that campaign. That will solve the ever present problem Panzer General type games have always suffered from: The 'I won the battle why am I losing the war' paradox. By focusing on history, there will be no more 'I won the battle' going on in the content, only a desperate struggle to survive against the overwhelming Allied superiority that marked the closing years of World War II.

It's gonna be crazy, and we can't wait to show it to all of you when the time comes.

[adiekmann]

It's nice to read people are eager to continue the Axis Operations Grand Campaign.

As stated by Edmon, a lot more time has been needed to plan, and execute, the concept of a split timeline. There's a lot of groundbreaking to take content that is usually added as a fun bonus with no reasonable connections or lingering affects, and instead integrating that in a campaign that is ongoing.

For example in the original Grand Campaign, it was a pretty brisk series of events that lead from victory at the Battle of the Bulge to launching Sea Lion in 45. That was really cool to do, but it was an absolute flight of fancy. No reasonable stretch of any kinds of victories would enable those events to take place, given the state of the war at that time.

But now changing history so much sooner, it has a ripple effect. As one outcome changes, it may cause the reason for certain battles to never come to pass. 1943 probably has the most text of any DLC ever, because it has to carve its own history, and that requires so much more explanation than reviewing the course of the war as we are familiar with it.

On top of that, the historical branch can be treated with much more... well history. We can uncouple the needs of being a 'game' from that campaign. That will solve the ever present problem Panzer General type games have always suffered from: The 'I won the battle why am I losing the war' paradox. By focusing on history, there will be no more 'I won the battle' going on in the content, only a desperate struggle to survive against the overwhelming Allied superiority that marked the closing years of World War II.

It's gonna be crazy, and we can't wait to show it to all of you when the time comes.

Thank you for this, Kerensky. This is the kind of "communication" that many of us here have been asking/complaining about being missing. Pat (or others) have already alluded to what you said, but you really spelled it out clearly without compromising anything so specific that it can come and bite you in the ass.

Eh...can we expect it before summer? (Like a reporter, can't begrudge us from from trying to squeeze something "extra" out of you! )

[Tassadar]

By focusing on history, there will be no more 'I won the battle' going on in the content, only a desperate struggle to survive against the overwhelming Allied superiority that marked the closing years of World War II.

I always thought that the 1944 and 1945 scenario in Grand Campaign East in PzC 1 were getting a bit tedious at times by the end due to the sheer size and length of the individual encounters. A part of this most certainly comes from the fact that PzC 1 engine compared to PzC 2 made the 1 v 1 combat more repetitive and less exciting (yay for Unreal Engine here). Another thing were also the waves appearing out on nowhere, now in PzC 2 better resolved with bunker-gated deployment zones and the fact that hard target support fire was less important. All of this being solved in Pzc 2 should give the AO series a much better head start in terms of creating interesting missions, not to mention use of enemy heroes, army core slot sizes and other ways to make it feel more real.

Another interesting idea is that even if the player has an unstoppable force a good way is to use auxiliary sub-faction like the Romanian faction in the Second Battle of Kharkov or Assault on Stalingrad missions, that get overwhelmed on the the rest of the map. Perhaps a wide front missions where the player's elite force is the last stand against the enemy waves with Volkssturm and some other less experienced German forces on both flanks getting pushed back effortlessly by the allies. This way even a local victory does not feel like a win at all.

[adiekmann]

By focusing on history, there will be no more 'I won the battle' going on in the content, only a desperate struggle to survive against the overwhelming Allied superiority that marked the closing years of World War II.

Another interesting idea is that even if the player has an unstoppable force a good way is to use auxiliary sub-faction like the Romanian faction in the Second Battle of Kharkov or Assault on Stalingrad missions, that get overwhelmed on the the rest of the map. Perhaps a wide front missions where the player's elite force is the last stand against the enemy waves with Volkssturm and some other less experienced German forces on both flanks getting pushed back effortlessly by the allies. This way even a local victory does not feel like a win at all.

When the topic of what to do with all of that inferior equipment that you captured during all the early DLCs came up, I for a long time thought that instead of using preset auxiliary forces (or at least exclusively) for the cannon fodder that would be overrun like in so many late war scenarios in GC EAST, it would be a cool idea to force, or at least allow, the player to form some of the auxiliary forces from their extensive pool of captured (and obsolete) equipment. I am not sure if you even can purchase a minor nation's auxiliary unit from your own captured equipment... For example, instead of using the Hungarian or Romanian tanks you can equipment them with a Matilda II. This would give a purpose for all that stock and would be somewhat historical too.

[Kerensky]

Thank you for this, Kerensky. This is the kind of "communication" that many of us here have been asking/complaining about being missing. Pat (or others) have already alluded to what you said, but you really spelled it out clearly without compromising anything so specific that it can come and bite you in the ass.

Eh...can we expect it before summer? (Like a reporter, can't begrudge us from from trying to squeeze something "extra" out of you! )

Unfortunately I can't really say much more at this time. We'll just have to watch for Slitherine published news updates and see how that plays out.

I will say that this very long break between DLC is something that is I'm definitely working to make sure doesn't become the new standard for content roll outs. All the extra time is really helpful to be more thoughtful and less 'assembly line' with the content, and even allows nice breathing room to maybe even get ahead of the timetable.

[the_zek]

Even us not so regular posters very much like the update and status, Big K. Cant wait for more DLC's

[FunPolice749]

On top of that, the historical branch can be treated with much more... well history. We can uncouple the needs of being a 'game' from that campaign. That will solve the ever present problem Panzer General type games have always suffered from: The 'I won the battle why am I losing the war' paradox. By focusing on history, there will be no more 'I won the battle' going on in the content, only a desperate struggle to survive against the overwhelming Allied superiority that marked the closing years of World War II.

It's gonna be crazy, and we can't wait to show it to all of you when the time comes.

Oh this has got me excited! I love the idea of having a drag out brawl that just wears your army down as it did historically. I know I'm probably in a minority but I hope maybe in Belin 1945 there will be a choice to try to break out west or defend berlin. The latter seeing all prestige sucked away and you face simply OP hordes of soviets troops that destroys your forces entirely. An "endless" scenario where the only objective is desperate struggle. That's a long way off but I'm excited to hear there won't be this "I beat operation bagration entirely without losing a single objective" sorta gameplay.

[Retributarr]

the ever present problem Panzer General type games have always suffered from: The 'I won the battle why am I losing the war' paradox.

Oh this has got me excited! I love the idea of having a drag out brawl that just wears your army down as it did historically. An "endless" scenario where the only objective is desperate struggle.

You may just be "Masochistic"_"FunPolice749"... Definition: Masochistic___ a person who enjoys an activity of 'Self-Inflicting' pain on ones-self!… 'IE:'__a glutton for punishment!" or a person who takes pleasure in pain and suffering.

[tkrysiak]

I gotta say that I loved the split of DLCs into west and east form PC1. It gave us two separate campaigns to play which is always good. Not sure how popular opinion that is as my "Grandest Campaigner" Steam achievement is still one of the top ones with only 0.4% of players able to achieve it. Can't say I blame them, Eastern Front in PC1 was (historically?) BRUTAL

[PaxusZero]

But now changing history so much sooner, it has a ripple effect. As one outcome changes, it may cause the reason for certain battles to never come to pass. 1943 probably has the most text of any DLC ever, because it has to carve its own history, and that requires so much more explanation than reviewing the course of the war as we are familiar with it.

Just a curiosity: Are you using any Alternate History Fiction as inspiration for the events that unfold?

[heinz1803]

Any information or maybe a teaser about some new battles or equipment would be a nice morale boost for all of us waiting to continue the battle.

Slowly, we can call the dlc break the "Phoney War"

[David Hansen]

In the meantime...I've been playing the PC2 mod of the original PC1 Grand Campaign...hats off to the author/modder!