Why We Like PzC

[Aetius]

This is a great thread!

I must disagree with anyone that thinks that the historical research in these games is poor; in fact I believe it is one of the great strenghts of the series. Is there any other game out there in which the OoB or the map is more accurate than these?
Just a few examples out of memory: Battles in Normandy puts a whole division, the 319th, in Cherbourg at the time of the landings; V4V Velikye Luki has a game start date wrong by a whole week; some scenarios that are out of the box in TOAW III (Tunisia, for example) have units (divisions) that were not present there and other important ones missing. America Invades ... well, I could go on indefinitely. And many of these games do not go into the level of detail (battalion and company) that PzC does.
HPS research may not be 100% accurate, maybe not even 95%, but I think that they try not to make the kind of mistakes that could influence the historical result of a battle. They are not trying to make a Phd thesis.
I also have the experience that HPS, and Glenn particularly, try to correct mistakes whenever they find them: some years ago, when France'40 was out, I pointed out that the British 15th Infantry Bde should not be in the game because it was in Norway. Glenn immediatly corrected the scenario - I mean in the same day I posted this - provided a solution correcting it to whoever wanted it and then issued an official patch incorporating the needed changes. I have never seen this behaviour in any other wargame company.

All this gives these games an historical feel. That and the absolute reliability of the engine are their major strenghts.
How many times have I dedicated countless hours to a game (wargame or not) to reach a point where I had to ditch everything because of a bug or a serius design error? That never happened with PzC.

Rui