Because this game deserves its own thread (the other thread is really about Panzer General Forever).
What it is: A turn-based, “beer & pretzels” WWII wargame in which you play the Germans. Basically a reboot of Panzer General, complete with persistent armies that you improve and customize over the course of the campaign, a campaign with branching paths based on mission performance, and tanks (“You’re welcome!”). It also has some significant new mechanics and features, like heroes and awards for units, flanking bonuses, and the ability to move and fight with each unit as discreet actions, in any order. To wit…
Yeah, I also really like this change. It makes coordinated attacks a lot easier to set up, but at the same time comes with a cost (I’ve had numerous instances where I move a bunch of units around a city for the flanking bonus, but then can’t take the city that turn because everyone has already moved. Which can be an acceptable trade-off, of course.
I also like that you have to buy elite replacements between missions. You can fill units to full for free, but only with green troops, which is a bad idea unless the unit itself is green. It really makes you think twice about whether or not you want to decimate your army taking that last objective a turn or two earlier.
It’s a great risk/reward mechanic. You can take the green troops now and take that objective, but you’re definitely going to feel it later.
I wish the refrence library in the game were more comprehensive. The game claims to have 400 units, but you only get a handful of the beautiful entries like the one Tom posted on the front page. I’m greedy. I want everything profiled.
It’s killing me that I’m away from my PC until September! I’ve been looking forward to this game for a long time and it would really hit the spot right now. Glad to hear it is meeting peoples’ expectations!
The most important question: did they get the hilarious German accent guy from the 1990s to do the briefings again? I need to make MP3s of the wow-that’s-racist Pacific General ones.
The briefing voiceovers are actually worse than the originals.
I’m only a few scenarios in, but PC is a great game so far. Like I said in the other thread (and Ben quoted above), the actual gameplay ends up being only sort-of like Panzer General because of a couple of key changes here, most importantly the separation of movement and shooting. It’s a great system with lots of options and tradeoffs – the more guys you commit without knowing the outcome, the better the outcome will be…but of course, they’re now committed to that attack and can’t be used against another target, etc. It’s hard to explain but very cool in practice. Artillery now works quite differently, too.
My only complaint is that there isn’t enough tooltip stuff. There are many different sorts of movements modeled, but I can’t find any easy way to tell what the differences are or even what some of those symbols are supposed to be. I also don’t see any place to check whether a unit has any special abilities. Do bridging units still get the “Immune to Rugged Defense” ability they had in PG? I have no idea.
But that is not a huge thing, and in any case it ceases to become an issue once you’ve played the game enough. The tactical system is great and so far the scenario design has been excellent as well. It looks great too. Big thumbs-up. Better than the original, so far.
Also: they are discrete actions. They are not at all discreet.
Wow… I just noticed there are scenarios for US East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast. And I’m guessing, or at least hoping, those are tied into the campaign.
I found that the weird symbols by a lot of the stats for units do in fact trigger tooltips but only after a longish delay. Once I read them they began to make sense.
I did the tutorial then tried the first campaign…got through Poland fine but Norway kicked my ass.
Mine are discreet. You won’t even know my Panzers are coming until they are parked in your driveway.
I’ll let Kalle speak for himself, but I hated Fantasy Wars (and didn’t play Elven Legacy, mainly because I hated Fantasy Wars). So I don’t consider it a acceptable modern replacement for Fantasy General. (Which I still play, actually, via DOSbox). Fantasy General in the Panzer Corps engine, though… I’d play that.
I’m really interested in seeing how artillery plays out the further into the game I get. It seems to have been given a big buff. In particular, artillery units can now move and shoot, where in Panzer General you could only do one or the other. Additionally, the suppression inflicted sticks around for one melee battle (and stacks with other artillery). The combination of these two changes seems like it’d be a pretty deadly combo (my n00b impression only 2 missions in!).
My recollection of Panzer General was that you couldn’t buy veteran replacements at all, which meant you were always taking two steps forward and one step back when it was time to reinforce. Or maybe they reinforced for free between missions?
I also seem to remember that suppression lasted for the entire turn, which usually meant bombing/shelling those entrenched defenders to strip away the defense bonuses before rolling in with pionieres and armor.
The old PG artillery system meant it was always a good idea to stock up on a couple of extra artillery units, so that on any given turn, half could move while the other half were shooting.
You could always buy Elite Replacements. They were expensive, but they were there. You’d always heal up after a mission though, so a lot of times it wasn’t worthwhile. I know I nearly always flung my non-overstrength units into the fray in the last couple turns when I knew they wouldn’t die, just to get them a little more experience. I appreciate that that gaminess was removed.
Suppression from Level (“Strategic”) Bombers lasted a full turn, but no other unit had that ability. Artillery only did damage and reduced the entrenchment level of units. Still was really powerful, but seems to be even more so now.
They replenished/healed for free between missions, so people would almost always hold back a low strength unit so they could get a full unit at the start of the next mission. On the official forums, there’s a bit of a dust-up over this change, but I think it’s a good one.
I like the change from Panzer General that units can now shoot and move independently of one another. That’s the way it’s done in Panzer General II, another old favorite of mine.
The new briefing voiceovers aren’t as well done as those in Panzer General.
I preferred the Panzer General method of automatically reinforcing the survivors of a mission with free elite replacements after the mission was completed. The prestige points the player saved made it possible to purchase vehicle upgrades and additional units. I will have to use green replacements in Panzer Corps to offset the change.
But all in all, Panzer Corps looks good so far.
For what it’s worth, Fantasy General had research in it and Fantasy Wars did not. So doing a Fantasy Corps would be more like the latter than the former.
How much variability is there when you replay a battle? I.e. does the opposition always have the same units, same number of units, deployed in the same locations?
It may be my imagination, but I think artillery might do a bit less damage than they did in PG, probably to help balance out that suppression ability. I haven’t checked the stats or anything–just my impression from playing through the tutorial campaign (I did play PG pretty recently, though). They are still more powerful than they were, though, because that suppression ability is awesome.
Also, while they can move and attack, they can only move one hex. Any farther than that and you have to truck them, which negates the ability to attack that turn.
