Teaser

[Strela]

Found this on the WDS site:

"The very talented Mike Prucha and Dave Michas have now moved on from their France ’40 Gold opus and are now working on a brand new, late war, Western front Panzer Campaigns title."

Ruhr 45 or Berlin 45?

Bill

I said elsewhere that Berlin would be considered on the Eastern Front. You are all free to speculate, but we won’t be sharing any more on the team’s work for the time being until it is further along in the development cycle.

David

[Xaver]

Well, is true, Berlin is more in east part... here a west what if puss to capture it before soviets is an extra and not the core of title.

Speculate, ask, try find behind every word a revelation for a new JTS title (like Fire and Ice fans) is part of the game before we even know whats the game 

But you need admit the survey help you find what are our more darker and nasty wargaming fantasies 

[beldurax]

Speculation here, but what if Mike Prucha & Dave Michas are now working on a retooling of Normandy 44 OR Market Garden 44 OR Bulge 44 ?

[wildb]

I think 45 is out, but, how about Lorraine 44?  It would be a complement to Market Garden 44.  You could also have a what if scenario of Patton getting priority on supplies.

Bill

[Plain Ian]

I guess we have to wait for the release notes to see some more details about the game. I'm curious about the morale ratings. I googled Japanese 25th Division which is rated A and wiki says...

The 25th Division was formed in Tonei (東寧), present day Mudanjiang, Manchukuo on 10 July 1940, out of two pre-existing infantry regiments and a number of miscellaneous units and placed under the 5th Army of the Kwantung Army as part of the final defenses of Manchukuo against the Soviet army.

In March 1945, it was withdrawn to Japan, and assigned to Kobayashi, Miyazaki as part of the final defense of the Japanese home islands against the projected American invasion (Operation Downfall). Overall, the 25th division has never seen any combat.

Will the 25th ratings be representative of most regular Japanese Army units? 

[ComradeP]

With C and D ratings, the Japanese would be pushovers.

In the PB demo, their deficiency in direct firepower compared to Marines is already quite pronounced, and it would be a lot worse in 1945.

Quality ratings in PzC tend to be a bit more generous than those in PB (where inexperienced, but trained divisions are either C or D), but it's also possible they received a quality bonus for their tenacity and defending their own homes, like the Landwehr in EP '14.

It's also possible that the 14th Regiment, or at least one of its battalion, did see action somewhere as the rest of the divisional units in the screenshots are B or C quality.

One downside to the current lack of flexibility in terms of setting conditions, is that amphibious losses and arrival states (not turns, as a % arrival chance can add quite a bit of variation) might lack variation. Kamikaze aircraft and suicide subs, divers, mines and guerrilla groups will have effect X with some variation, but no dramatic variation unless mechanics are changed.

As to the next title Prucha and Michas will work on: Dragoon might not be suitable in terms of divisions involved, so maybe Gothic line/Po Valley or indeed north-eastern France/south-western Germany as suggested earlier.

[Xaver]

Well, you can have low "combat letter" but units be hard to push back, for example in Napoleonic series you have rusian troops with the special atribute "fanatic" that made them less broken friendly and increase their ability to hold terrain even after suffer a punishment that routed "better" troops

I prefer to sow "fanatic" troops defending their homeland buff other units stats (if is not possible they have a special bonus like the one i commented in napoleonic series or a feature to cover their special situation), for example increasing the defensive value in trained troops, if you compare the relation firepower-defensive value in FWW and PzC series you can notice that killing by direct attacks is slower in PzC.

But we need have in consideration the time ago added "Fanatical nation" rule

"In certain games, one or more nations may be specified as being Fanatical. Units of Fanatical nations have two exceptions to the Assault rules. First, Fanatical units do not surrender when assaulted and thus do not suffer the additional losses units that could not retreat normally suffer. Second, Fanatical units do not retreat from Bunker and Pillbox hexes and when they lose as a result of being assaulted, remain in the hex with no additional losses."

This rule is going to made a pain in the ass try finish fast with a pocket of enemy units because you cant use the first lesson you learn in PzC to mantein an offensive working... "isolate, disrupt, assault" if you remove assault you are reduced to a "kill by fire" situation that made you burn a lot of time and enemy can perform a "last stand" defense for every hex with a decent option as defensive position.

For late war west title... we have Rhine crossing (Operation Plunder and other scens to cover the fight before and after cross the Rhine) or Lorraine campaign, Italy is interesting to... but only them know what is going to be and well, i am happy now if we learn more about Japan45/46 

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Japan 45/46 - Navy gone, AF nearly gone, raw materials, industry and infrastructure nearly gone. All those stranded and bypassed troops along the way, the armies in China and Manchuria/Korea are of no use since the Navy was gone and Russia had finally joined the Pacific War, like we needed there help....NOT!

Historically - Malaya/Singapore, Burma/India and Dutch East Indies could be one title, Philippines 42 and 44/45 could be another and Guadalcanal/Solomon Islands/New Guinea would be another. All the rest of the island hopping would be another or even split into a couple titles probably better suited for PBs instead.

[bwv]

"In certain games, one or more nations may be specified as being Fanatical. Units of Fanatical nations have two exceptions to the Assault rules. First, Fanatical units do not surrender when assaulted and thus do not suffer the additional losses units that could not retreat normally suffer. Second, Fanatical units do not retreat from Bunker and Pillbox hexes and when they lose as a result of being assaulted, remain in the hex with no additional losses."

The early East Front games would be more realistic if this rule applied some small random fraction of Soviet units

[Sgt_Rock]

Many of the island actions were covered in the Squad Battles series and really work better for that one.

Okinawa is probably best done as PB. It would be a HUGE Squad Battles title and too small for PzC.

Guadalcanal is best done as Squad Battles because the actions are disjointed and that scale best captures the drama of the Japanese banzai attacks.