New CS?

[Crossroads]

I had a look at the Squad Battles and Panzer Campaigns websites. I was assuming they would all be 2D games, but it seems the SB comes with a 3D view as well. although the graphics can't be compared to Campaign Series eye candy. See for yourself: http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/SB...y/RV-1.jpg

What I was assuming until that point was that the new Panzer Battles would come out as a 2D game, in the spirit of the original PB / PL card board games.

Why? First, it would be a huge task to get all the 3D graphics completed. Just look at the incredible amount of unit graphics this game has! It would take years to start from a scratch, wouldn't it?

Secondly, 2D is where the current JTCS is lacking as the NATO counters do not provide the level of information (on armoured units) necessary to play the game. (See http://gregpanzerblitz.com/Germans/2ndPanzerDec44.pdf)

If they should come out using the PB/PL type of counters, it would therefore provide the gaming market with something that was not there earlier, a nice 2D engine for those more accustomed for operational level interfaces.

As for the JTCS 1.05, I am definitively with Matrix guys in getting the Modern Wars out first. There are some glitches in 1.04, but they seem to be quite small ones, aren't they, no show stoppers there.

After that, say, in JTCS 2.0 it would be nice to see a more combined JTCS experience, with a single *.exe and combined OOBs, new tweaks to engine from MW etc... I would not mind if that game would have a price tag on it, hopefully with a discount for those owning a JTCS 1.x already.

So yes, interested to see if the new John Tiller title will recreate the Panzerblitz days, as such it would be a fun game to own. At the same time, JTCS has such a strong legacy, community, and an open interface for user mods I do not see it disappering any time soon?

What I would really really like to see would be to have the said PB/PL unit counter GUIs on top of JTCS 2D view. Could that be done as a user mod? As a community effort it could be possible, yes?

That would require of course that the copyrights would have expired for the old PB and PL card board games, if it would be part of the official JTCS experience. Nothing should stop us scanning those units ourselves, as a non-profit community mod? Jason, what you think?

I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there: e.g. http://gregpanzerblitz.com/