Panzer Battles 2 - The Official Teaser Thread

[Al]

The Cotenin Coast scenario sounds good. Thanks for the screen shots. First day buy for me.

[Xaver]

Ummm still is not hunted the new feature... but is if as you say engine has more than 1 new feature.

1-diferent type of water hexes
2-random reinforcements arrival (time and area)
3-water obstacles
4-depots on water hexes... well this is related with point 1
5-baywatch... 

[ComradeP]

For water obstacles, yes these are the equivalent to mines and obstacles. Not a lot of fun when you run a fully laden landing craft onto one under the barrel of an 88. Like on land mines and obstacles these are hidden until found.

Can they be fully removed or are they like the obstacles in EP '14 which can only be penetrated but not removed? The average combat engineer unit would have only limited means to remove extensive obstacles covering a larger area. The obstacles in Kursk could be seen as blocking a certain approach path, but the various kinds of obstacles on the Normandy beaches took time to remove. It wasn't as simple as blowing up or cutting down wooden poles in the fields so gliders could land.

One issue with having larger minefields in PB compared to PzC is that they're removed significantly more quickly, in 1/4 the time. Obviously, placing them (and doing things like digging in) also happen faster, but the percentage chance for those things to occur can be adjusted in the parameter data file. Mines are always reduced by 1 full level per turn under the current rules. This makes it more difficult to truly pin a unit somewhere by using a minefield.

Maybe an additional roll, modified for quality, could be an option for engineer units below company level trying to reduce a level 2 or 3 minefield in size?

[Ricky B]

Taking Omaha as an example, I think the mines and obstacles work about as I would expect. It takes a period of time for an engineer to reach a mine in the water and do anything about it. And they weren't in depth mine fields, just a strip of obstacles with mines attached, and many of the mines, fortunately, didn't go off. Throw in the disruptions being caused and the feel just seems right, over time. They slowly get removed and the landings proceed without further issues.

Rick

[Strela]

Just to add my 2c.

The US beaches were completely dependent on (infantry) engineers to clear obstacles, unlike the British who employed engineering vehicles/tanks. This was a conscious decision by the Americans as they felt the British Funny tanks were not proven sufficiently to be relied upon.

There were extensive plans for Omaha in particular for the engineers to have cleared paths through the obstacles/mines before the main landing and this all went south with both the weather, strong current and general inability to coordinate such a large landing against what was, a much more heavily defended beach.

The Omaha scenario follows the historical arrival schedule (as do all the beach landings). The ability to clear obstacles/mines will come down to how many engineers you can get unloaded and keep in a undisrupted status. Like Kursk, engineers will be a primary target for the defenders.

We have found that with the adjustments we have made things tend to follow a historical timeline.

David

[HeinzHarald]

Will it be possible to play the nighttime scenarios using daylight maps (even if by manually replacing map files)?

I play on a high resolution 12" screen so reduced visibility is bound to hurt my gameplay experience.

[ComradeP]

I'm not sure what you're referring to.

There's no FOW for the map, just for units. The colour of the hexes also doesn't change at night, at least not in previous titles.

[HeinzHarald]

Oh, seems I didn't read closely enough. Reading the AAR again I see that the darkness was due to ground conditions rather than the time of day as I had thought.

"Those tiles are actually grain and other agricultural fields. They stand out more here than on the default map as the ground condition is soft (darker) in this particular scenario and that accentuates the lighter fields. It looks a lot more natural on a 'normal' map."

http://kriegsimulation.blogspot.se/2015/...art-2.html

Edit: I'm new to JT games. Just bought PB Kursk after buying and liking Middle East quite a bit (in 2D at least), and convincing myself I couldn't wait for Normandy which is a theater I'm more interested in.

[Strela]

Oh, seems I didn't read closely enough. Reading the AAR again I see that the darkness was due to ground conditions rather than the time of day as I had thought.

"Those tiles are actually grain and other agricultural fields. They stand out more here than on the default map as the ground condition is soft (darker) in this particular scenario and that accentuates the lighter fields. It looks a lot more natural on a 'normal' map."

http://kriegsimulation.blogspot.se/2015/...art-2.html

Edit: I'm new to JT games. Just bought PB Kursk after buying and liking Middle East quite a bit (in 2D at least), and convincing myself I couldn't wait for Normandy which is a theater I'm more interested in.

HeinzHarald,

Firstly, welcome to the Blitz!!

It's really appreciated that you bought Kursk - it allows us to continue to bring further games out for everyone.

Secondly, yes the dark ground condition is due to two factors, soft (wet) ground condition and low altitude. We have colour graduation per height level and that sector is low and made worse by the soft.

If you saw the same map section without the soft condition I would be surprised if anyone would comment on the fields.

I went back as promised on JC's blog to check if the fields required tweaking and I'm ok with what we have.

The beauty is that JT games are very moddable and its not hard to tweak graphics to personal preferences.

David

[jimcrowley]

Speaking of new features, one I would like to see has been sparked by Strelas' comments regarding the Omaha Beach scenario; namely that it "follows the historical arrival schedule"

Whilst it is going to be great to re-enact the historical D-Day, it would also be nice to have some form of variability in scenarios such that, on re-plays, there may be some variations in timings, setups and perhaps even forces.

I am not referring to the types of alternative scenarios that I recall playing in the ACW games, where you picked the alterative you wanted to play but rather a random process where you as player do not know what variation you might get.

This could be achieved in various ways but a relatively simple way would be to retain the original 'default' scenario and simply make some small adjustments to it thus creating, for instance, version 'a'. Further and or different adjustments could be made to 'x' number of scenarios up to and including more dramatic changes. A player would have the choice of playing the default scenario or having one the others selected randomly.

The 'new' scenarios would be very easy to make to make and would give a huge boost to replayability since the FoW that is usually lost once a scenario is played would, to some extent at least, be restored.

Since these 'random' variations of the default scenarios could potentially be less well balanced, the player would have to accept that he is 'going off piste' when playing them. But that would make their production fairly painless since the same map and, for the most part, the same units would be used and the time consuming process of playtesting need not be applied either at all or very sparsely.

Imagine going back to a favourite scenario and replaying it with the knowledge that some parts of it might be slightly, or fundamentally, different than on first play. Almost a new scenario and a new challenge and without a lot of effort being expended to produce the variants.

Possibly of little use to ardents H2Headers but a boon to solo gamers, IMHO.

Cheers
Jim