Slitherine

Finally an article about Panzer Corps 2 on wargamer.
I will surely require some adjustment time to this "3D" environment.

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/panze ... verything/

I think it looks great

First thought is that it looks a lot like PG2. Since I played a LOT of PG2 I can live with that, although wasn't crazy about the map style. Of much more concern is the "dynamic map generation" combined with a later comment: "Doing historical battles is also a potential issue due to the dynamic maps". Wow. If this game has super-ultra authentic WWII units only to be played on "generic" maps what is the point? Sounds more like PzC 2: Arena or something. Implication is that any "historical" campaign, if it even exists, will be on somewhat randomized terrain. Just doesn't sound right, but it's early days yet. So are we going to get bocage in Russia? The Alps in England?

I think "Dynamic map generation" means that not all forests, cities or hill tiles will look the same and share identical graphics but they would be generated via an algorithm, so the maps would have the main features (important cities, rivers and such) in place but they have more visual variations.

units are too big on map.. i think same approach as Field of Glory II would be better, with single unit being represented by multiple entities.. even with dynamically portrayed unit strength..

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.

I wonder on what assumption is that based on? The Grand Campaign was, at least for me ,the sole reasons why I spent countless hours on PC. Starting from Poznan to the final battle of Berlin, added so much immersion, that every time one my core units did not make it, I died a little bit inside. It was a kind of immersion all the other series really lacked. I am not going to judge anything on a few screenshots and some paragraphs but still disappointed.

Looks great.

What can we see there?
There is definitely Tiger I, Pz IVH/J , 2 x M10 (US tank destroyers), Grant/Lee, Spitfire (?), and some towed AA/AT (probably Bofors 40mm)

JaM2013 wrote:units are too big on map.. i think same approach as Field of Glory II would be better, with single unit being represented by multiple entities.. even with dynamically portrayed unit strength..

Now that you said it... the size of the units make the cities look like a carpet tile. In the snow screenshot, you can almost miss them for countryside. There seems to be a new graphic sensibility, in tone with games like Wargame, where, realistically, cities will look tiny looked from high above.

But you can't simply enlarge the buildings to correct that, or it'll look cartoonish.

Like you said, representing the units with a group (instead of a single piece like the first game) will improve on this. But on the other hand, maybe it'll move away from the Panzercorps aesthetic...

kondi754 wrote:and some towed AA/AT (probably Bofors 40mm)

Do you suppose the 8.8 FlaK 41 in the left background?

The buttons are copied from original Panzergeneral.

Athanatos wrote:

kondi754 wrote:and some towed AA/AT (probably Bofors 40mm)

Do you suppose the 8.8 FlaK 41 in the left background?

The buttons are copied from original Panzergeneral.

This is definitely not Flak 41, compare with photos
But if it's that model, so the devs did sloppy work

Isn't it weird that there's a wargamer article, but nothing on Slitherine or Flashback websites? Some bits of the wargamer article read as though the author is assuming the reader has seen a longer post or description of some kind from devs.

Anyway, graphics are better than I had expected, bearing in mind it's an Alpha. Terrain is crisp and unobtrusive, unit models are good enough. I like the UI elements, the chevrons around the unit info in lower left is a nice touch. Graphics obviously need some further refinement - what jumped out at me most was the angular coastlines (too hex-ey) and the road and rail paths, which remind me of Civ and not in a good way. All those swoopy arcs... better would be some short curves, and longer stretches of straight lines.

Mechanics, as far as I can discern them from the wargamer piece:

1) air units tied to airfields, which can be disabled & repaired. Nice, should add a additional dimension to air battles - and if this means I'll never accidentally run a unit out of fuel again, I'm happy!
2) day/night cycle - hmmm. Feels wrong in what is meant to be an operational scale game. But dynamic weather is good.
3) "Overrun" and "Encirclement" - look forward to hearing more about how these work, but it's intriguing, and looks like a simple way of making supply more relevant and interesting without adding excessive detail. Unit breakdowns - good!
4) Maps - wait, are all maps procedurally generated?! No historical maps? There won't be historical battles, because that would require hand-drawn rather than "dynamic" maps? If I'm reading that right, this changes everything. The joy of PG and PC is being able to smash through to grab Tobruk or Sevastopol or whatever, not being able to smash through some abstract fictional place to grab some fictional objective. If there are really no historical battles, then this might be an interesting game with plenty of replayability, but it won't be WW2 and it's really not what I'm looking for.
5) tech progression - I like the idea of testing a prototype, and being able to influence the final design.
6) Naval game - I'm glad it's being spruced up, will look forward to the particulars. In general naval ops are the weakest part of games like these, in part because they lack the unit interactivity that characterises the land game. eg, units providing support to one another, artillery, disruption, engineers, etc. The naval game in PC was one-dimensional, and OoB gave it a better shot but the naval battles still feel wrong to me. If there are navy-only battles, I fear they will be the weak point in the game unless devs have really developed up naval units and combat to have the same complex interactions as the land battles.

In summary: looking good, a nice teaser with some good innovations - and one huge potential deal-breaker in the lack of historical maps and scenarios. But I just can't believe they would actually do that... so awaiting some detail from the game developers!

Sourdust wrote:
(...)
2) day/night cycle - hmmm. Feels wrong in what is meant to be an operational scale game. But dynamic weather is good. (...)

Panzer Corps isn't an operational scale game
It's nothing more than a puzzle game dressed in the realities of World War II (which I like very much, of course)
Let's not confuse checkers with chess

Looks very promising.

Resolute wrote:

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.

I wonder on what assumption is that based on? The Grand Campaign was, at least for me ,the sole reasons why I spent countless hours on PC. Starting from Poznan to the final battle of Berlin, added so much immersion, that every time one my core units did not make it, I died a little bit inside. It was a kind of immersion all the other series really lacked. I am not going to judge anything on a few screenshots and some paragraphs but still disappointed.

It's like the saying goes...you come to Panzer Corps to invade the USA but you stay to invade Khmelnytskyipinski


It's interesting that it mentions how they no longer have the degree of freedom of being 2D which allowed them to sort of shape their maps for gameplay benefit.

One thing I'm not a fan of though:

When units gain ‘hero’ status, you know get to choose a special ability to augment their performance. These can include things like extra attack power, enhanced defense or even command abilities.

I actually like the random variation for heroes, makes things more interesting and unique. SE units though I would love to see regularly given and fully choiced.


This I am a huge fan of:

Multiplayer will be live, not via Matrix’s staple PBEM system that most of their other games use.

Hell yes! That's the only way I like playing, keeping the battle in short-term memory. You can still essentially plan forever offline I Imagine, come up with deployment and contingencies.

Resolute wrote:

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.

I wonder on what assumption is that based on? The Grand Campaign was, at least for me ,the sole reasons why I spent countless hours on PC. Starting from Poznan to the final battle of Berlin, added so much immersion, that every time one my core units did not make it, I died a little bit inside. It was a kind of immersion all the other series really lacked. I am not going to judge anything on a few screenshots and some paragraphs but still disappointed.

I too am curious about this. But then the original Grand Campaign was designed as part of a direct response to something the main game lacked, an extremely meaty campaign. Base game sometimes had to cover an entire year of a 6 year war in a single scenario. I'm looking at you 1942 East Front.

I do agree that simply re-making the Grand Campaign 1:1 would have been a bad idea though. Plus I wouldn't want to just re-do all my work all over again, hell that'd be boring for me too.

So really it depends on what PzC II has built into it, and more importantly what isn't built into it, and then demand will determine how addon content will develop. Personally I look forward to not doing a Grand Campaign, but a GRANDER campaign!

It looks like there are some good features included.
On the down side, the graphics don't look anything special and the reduced clarity and contrast is a definite minus.

Also, what is a 'paradox model' of DLC?

Still, it looks much more like a PG2 remake rather than an enhanced PzC1. Don't know why, but I was expecting a mo' better version of PzC1. So I don't think we're going to be able to directly compare PzC1 to PzC2, any more than we could really compare PG1 to PG2. Similar but different games. Probably have the same issues with a "scale" that is never pinned down, etc. Wonder if some tanks will have range 2 like PG2... Could do worse than a PG2 remake I guess, we'll just have to wait and see.

Kerensky wrote:Also, what is a 'paradox model' of DLC?

One can only guess that they mean DLCs will come ala Crusader Kings 2 style

Finally Panzers Corps 2 = Order of battle updated and it's not developped by slitherine ...