One Month On...

[Strela]

Hi All,

I thought it appropriate to give you all an update on Panzer Battles, one month after releasing Kursk.

Firstly, Kursk has been the most successful release John Tiller has had since he decided to self publish. The Panzer Battles system has been generally well accepted with a good volume of feedback.

The pre-release information certainly helped to build momentum behind the title. We will look to repeat the approach with future titles, but using similar horizons; little information before a few months before release.

Generally, Kursk has been bug free. The title was getting new features right up to just before release and this may have skewed (negatively) some of the balancing in scenarios (particularly multi-player). This is probably the easiest area to fix and we will update a number of scenarios for the first patch. That said, we need to see playing results to make certain we aren't breaking things while fixing others.

As mentioned in another post we are going back and looking at tank vs tank engagements. We have a number of ideas but want to be careful in this particular area. We have the historical data for losses and in the main a lot of the play testing was not far removed from these actual benchmarks. Its easy to build an opinion after a couple of play-throughs but as Bayes has shown with his analysis the results after multiple engagements are in the realms of possibility. I'll keep you all updated on any changes that may be made to the system and we will continue to welcome further feedback.

John Tiller touched on new titles in the recent interview he gave. He also mentioned that there was a sister series to Panzer Battles called Armor battles which covers off post WWII engagements. There are now a number developers working on both series - more than we have ever had before. We are all in close contact and ensuring that all proposed enhancements to the game system will add value in all the situations we are working on. A lot of cool features are already being tested to give players a great range of gaming situations.

John mentioned that we were a fair way through the second Panzer Battles title. This was the title that went into hiatus back in 2009/2010. The original developers had done a ton of work; the map in particular is gorgeous & the OB was very extensive. We are in the process of bringing the graphics up to Kursk standard and working through both the current scenarios while determining what needs to be added to round out the scenario list. One of the original scenario designers is back and helping to build out this further content. We are also experimenting with a campaign system, like the one in the Civil War battles that will allow branching scenarios based upon options that players choose. There is a good chance that this new play type will be included with this title. Don't ask when it will be released (!), we have a good base but also a lot of work to do. I was able to dedicate my time full time to Kursk for ten months but I'm now back in the workforce and that is inevitably reducing the time I can dedicate to building titles.

We have other titles in the prototype stage as well as building assets that will allow future games to be built quicker. Two examples of this; graphics are now of sufficient quality to be reused without the need to create new imagery for each game, secondly, we are building reference orders of battle that can be used across multiple titles. Mike Avanzini has already built configurable OB's that allow us to create any German formation for the period 1940 - 1942. We will continue to expand our 'library' over time and ultimately speed up the time it takes us to build a game covering a particular period.

Finally, I'd like to know whether some of the features we have included with Kursk are worthwhile in future titles. All carry an overhead in releasing a game and if they aren't of value we may excluded them in future. Features I have in mind are the alternative (top down) graphics, all the documentation such as the Designers notes, Visual OB & map packs as well as the number of scenarios (dropping below the current sixty). Happy for your feedback.

Thanks to you all for supporting us.

David

[Compass Rose]

David,

Thank you for keeping us in the "know" as to what is going on and for also being very open and asking for feedback.

I am only in the early stages of learning this new series. I have completed one scenario and currently have two still being played, all by PBEM.

From my early observations, I feel that the Germans are unstoppable. I have come to that early conclusion as two out of my three games I have played as the Russians. Two of the scenarios, #0706_05 Pokrovka - Man vs. Tank and #0705_09 Butovo - The Gatekeepers of Cherkasskoye I played the Russians and I felt like I was equipped with bows and arrows and was firing at an enemy who were all in armor suits. The Germans appeared to be an unstoppable steam-roller. I am well aware that I need to play many more games to have a better opinion of this title however, I just wanted to express my "early" POV.

I know many gamers like to play these type of games in historical situations with historical OOB's however, it would be great if some of these scenarios were offered as a "balanced PBEM version" that were altered to provide a equal chance for either side. Or maybe some "fictional" scenarios could be created just for this purpose with no AI scripting, designed strictly for PBEM.

As for all of the extras that were included with PzB Kursk, they sure added a ton of extra value to this title however, for a guy like me who is a causal gamer, at best, there are items that were included that I honestly could care very little whether or not they were included in the game or in future title releases. These would include all of the heavy detail that went into the planning maps and scenario location maps. Yes, they are nice to have however, they are not a necessity. It was also really neat to see the visible OOB's with all of the units being displayed at once however, I also feel that this is a luxury item that could be omitted in the future, if need be.

As for the graphics, I really liked your idea of offering three different types. I have found that I really enjoy the images on the counters however, I like the images that have the vehicles shown in the top left or right corners when infantry images are displayed. I am also using you VP counters that are plain with no images inside them. The "top-down" view counters are my least favorite.

The designer notes you released are very well done and super informative. I think they would easily rank within the top 5 of all of the John Tiller titles to be released to date, HPS and JTS. I would hate to see those disappear in future releases however, I am also aware that it would be hard to maintain such high quality in detail and information if there are different guys besides yourself who are in charge of designing other titles, that you are not actively involved in.

Looking forward to the next update.

Thanks

[ComradeP]

Good to hear it's a successful release, success it certainly deserves.

Its easy to build an opinion after a couple of play-throughs but as Bayes has shown with his analysis the results after multiple engagements are in the realms of possibility.

I guess it's inevitable that we disagree here. Bayes has mostly ran fairly balanced tests, with fairly equal forces. However, the Germans could hold when outnumbered 3 to 1 or more in tanks, a situation which is unlikely to happen in the game. A full strength regular Tank brigade engaging a full strength elite Panzer company would be less likely to result in a Soviet victory than in the current game.

The lack of a mechanic for armour penetration dropping with range also means armour penetration values can be ahistorical, and that small units can inflict disproportionate casualties (or the other way around: that larger units don't necessarily inflict more casualties than smaller units during a turn).

The only time Dog Soldier's casualties went up to what I would call a more historical level was when I closed to 1 hex range, which nullified my range advantage as the range advantage doesn't work as well as it would historically. Overwatch operations with the distances suggested by Dog Soldier are also not historical in terms of distance between units and the maximum range for a likely successful penetration of a T-34's frontal armour by a Panzer IV. In essence, both of us were working around the limitations of the system by using strategies that we shouldn't be using.

This is a quickly escalating problem that can remove part of the fun from playing a scenario and it's similar to the Soviets using huge artillery concentrations in Moscow '42 to counter high German replacement rates, large units and overall resilience.

If anything is changed, a semi-hard cap with limited variability for when a unit with a certain hard attack value can still harm an enemy unit with a certain defence value would be appreciated. It would remove most of the freak results of single HQ units or Disrupted units inflicting more casualties than tank platoons, just because they got good rolls.

Maybe playing with the optional fire rule would improve results as well, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if it was or wasn't changed, but if the AA effectiveness formula is still the same as in PzC (which is what the manual suggests), than it is now 4 times less effective than before (because 1 hex is now 250 meters instead of 1 kilometre). That might also be worth looking at.

Artillery casualties can be spectacular, but it depends on the type and the number of available tubes or launchers. There are situations where the hex artillery fire limit won't prevent you from badly mauling a unit or stack in a turn. On the other hand, casualties from Katyusha's are very variable for some reason so that can counter the effects, but it can also mean a stack takes 100 casualties or more in a single turn.

As to the balance: as I've mentioned elsewhere, the benefits from defensive positions don't scale well so there's a big difference between a Soviet unit in a bunker (difficult to remove) and a Soviet unit in another type of cover (it's going to die, fast). That means that the Germans can plow through the Soviet lines in the later scenarios, but have significant difficulty with getting through bunker lines, also because that often depends on getting good Disruption die rolls.

A good example is State Farm: the D quality units are going to fold in a couple of turns and there's not much you can do about that. I'm guessing that for the moment a draw is the best I can do as the final objectives are difficult to capture for the Germans. On the other hand, visibility can have a big impact. Visibility in my game with Pijus Magnificus is 4. In another game, it was 12 so I couldn't place my units in good positions without exposing them to artillery fire.

In terms of scenario balance, bringing scenarios with and without bunkers for the defenders closer together in terms of the capabilities of the defender to resist the attacker might be a challenge, but would in my opinion improve the game further.

[Xaver]

Ummm i have a little idea of what we can expect in next PzB title... i think is going to be a west title with UK troops... with germans using Tigers... could be a Normandy title, maybe Race to Caen we are close to 100th aniversary (are other title covering this on the way for CC).

Armored battles could be a great serie, maybe with more historical titles.

When... well, looks like the arty is not now a problem but adapt the old work to new PzB... maybe this year we can see it, as i say there are some 100th aniversaries in 2014 until the last month hehehe.

Congratulations for the succes of PzB Kursk.

[Dog Soldier]

FWIW,

I do not think I ever have seen an artillery strike in PzB Kursk, even by Katusha rocket batteries inflict 100 casualties on any any deployed unit. Perhaps if a a stack of units in travel mode in non-armored vehicles were caught by a salvo in the opponent's turn, such a result is possible. An interesting thought.

As to my recent game with ComradeP, the result was a minor German victory. After battering away at the Soviet stack on the second 100 VP location with every indirect and direct fire possible by the German force, a final direct fire attack on the Soviet SMG unit occupying the second VP location on hill 214.8 disrupted the Soviet infantry unit allowing a last ditch assault by a decimated and previously isolated PzIVg unit to capture the 100 objective. A PzIIIm unit managed to reinforce the their comrades at the objective as the 12th German turn ended.
This occurred in the final German turn. The score was until then an minor German loss.

The Soviets rallied only one unit of Guards riflemen in their final turn. Artillery strikes were ineffective on the panzers. The Guardsmen charged and destroyed one PzIIIm. They did not disrupt and displace the PzIvg unit which held the objective. Thus ended our game of #0706_07 Nepkhaevo - The Meeting Engagement. It was a very close thing between minor German defeat and victory.
I would say the game demonstrated a very balanced scenario.

Dog Soldier

The final results are below.


Final troop positions of the two battered forces.

[ComradeP]

Against an over the stacking limit stack in T mode, numerous Katyusha's killing around 100 men is likely to happen, I've done it a couple of times in State Farm, but it's also possible to kill 100 men with above average rolls with 6 to 8 Katyusha units when they're deployed, as long as they start somewhat over the stacking limit.

As Dog Soldier has already posted a screenshot of the main battlefield area and the results, I'll post a screenshot of all unit dispositions at the end of the game and a breakdown of losses and their causes as far as I can determine them.

Note the scrapyard on top of the hill.



Vehicle losses from artillery fire:

German:

1 Wespe (counterbattery fire).
3 Panzer IV G's.

Soviet:

3 T-34's
1 T-70

Vehicle losses from breakdowns:

German:

1 SdKfz 222.

Soviet:

Unknown.

Vehicle losses from enemy direct fire and assaults:

German:

9 Panzer III M's.
17 Panzer IV G's.
6 Panzer IV F1's.

Soviet:

23 T-34's.
17 Churchill's.
1 T-70.

Remaining tank strength:

German:

14 Panzer IV G's out of 34.
15 Panzer III M's out of 24.
4 Panzer IV F1's out of 10.

Soviet:

4 T-34's out of 30.
3 Churchills out of 21.
19 T-70's out of 21.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Me personally, I'm not thrilled with hidden units not firing and not being discovered until you have to decide to assault or not. At times, I do, but find it hard to think all these Russian units have that kind of fire discipline. I wouldn't think the Germans would either. Recon hasn't gotten me anywhere yet. Quite often, arty seems to have little effect.

Kursk still wouldn't have been my first choice. Then again, I'm more a WF/Med fan. Looking forward to more as well as the modern stuff.

[Compass Rose]

One thing I would like to see adjusted is our ability to know which units on our side have not fired on the enemy and which ones have. It is very hard to execute a ambush or a "surprise" for the advancing enemy if you can not tell which units of yours has already fired and those who are still possibly hidden.

[Dog Soldier]

One thing I would like to see adjusted is our ability to know which units on our side have not fired on the enemy and which ones have. It is very hard to execute a ambush or a "surprise" for the advancing enemy if you can not tell which units of yours has already fired and those who are still possibly hidden.

We really wrestled with the subject of spotting hidden units during play testing. If the player sets the AOF for the hidden units to never, they will not fire. (see below)

The problem we ran into with the PzC 'binoculars' showing that your unit was spotted is that it works both ways. If I am certain my unit is spotted, then I can click on that hex, and turn on the LOS display to see what hexes I can see from that hex. If all the hexes I can see from by the 'known spotted unit' are empty, then I know there are hidden enemy units. A little clever positioning in the opening moves or in larger scenarios after the battle moves from the 'at start' positions can greatly reduce the effectiveness of hiding one's units on defense to ambush the enemy. In the screen shot below, There is an example where the attacker (German) will not know exactly where the Soviets are, but can make some reasonable guesses before exposing his troops.

It was decided by the design team that the use of certainty that someone had eyes on you was not realistic. How can one really be certain they were spotted?

In this image the German scout car does not have enough MP left to perform a recon spotting. I have highlighted the LOS for the hex the scout occupies. Note the difference that all the Soviet units are hidden in the first image. In the second image note the actual positions of the Soviet units hidden in the village.




Now I move a second German scout car to either of the two positions below. Note the differences in the LOS with the first scout car.




If I receive information from the game that the second German scout cars positioned in either hex are not 'spotted' but the first one in the field at the foot of the hill is 'spotted', I can deduce from process of elimination that the only places the hidden Soviet units could be is in the village hexes I can spot with the first scout car unit.

This clever use of knowing if your unit is spotted, can triangulate the LOS of two units , (neither has to recon capable I might add) to determine unfairly where the enemy is or is not thus defeating the whole purpose of persistent hidden concealment.

I think revealing that one's units are 'spotted' cuts both ways. It can help the defender know they were detected, when in reality how would they really know? Finger pointing?
Attacking forces can move units to different positions sequentially checking when they are spotted, then use a second unit to eliminate some positions as potential hexes the first unit was spotted from.

Since most successful ambushes in this game system occur in map choke points, such unfair triangulation would give the attackers and advantage they really should never have in the first place.

I hope this explanation better informs players why we decided not to let players know for certain their unit(s) are spotted or not.

Me personally, I'm not thrilled with hidden units not firing and not being discovered until you have to decide to assault or not. At times, I do, but find it hard to think all these Russian units have that kind of fire discipline. I wouldn't think the Germans would either. Recon hasn't gotten me anywhere yet. Quite often, arty seems to have little effect.

Kursk still wouldn't have been my first choice. Then again, I'm more a WF/Med fan. Looking forward to more as well as the modern stuff.

I know the idea that the troops with orders to hold fire should not be absolute is raised. On the surface I can agree with that assumption. If we introduced a random factor, however small, that the troops would break the fire discipline, would it not be seen more often than not as a bug than a feature?

In Squad Battles if commanded to hold fire, a unit does this absolutely to remain concealed. I do not recall any complaints on the Squad Battles forums about this aspect of the unit's behavior being too tightly controlled. (I know in Squad Battles it actually the weapon counter that is set to hold fire, but the point is the same.)

In PzB we have created the Assign Opportunity Fire (AOF) dialog which allows the player to determine under what circumstances the hidden units will break the hold fire order. There is a lot of flexibility in the AOF as to what type of unit the hidden unit will engage and at what range.


Dog Soldier

[Tide1]

As DS stated the AOF is critical in the game it can mean the difference between winning and loosing a PBEM game. You don't want those at-guns firing at some smg platoon at max range for instance. :)