Quick Reference Cards for PC?

[Ricky B]

Honestly, I think that it'd be a huge help if the developer (and that appears to entail the efforts of dozens of guys) would include a PDF with each patch that includes the following:
a) simple data that players will find useful in playing the games. In its absence, anyone who wants to play these games is going to have to look the items up and write it all down or put it in a text file for easy access.
b) an outline of rules that are unique to the game in question-of how its different from other games in the "Panzer Campaigns" series.
c) The change log that now appears in the patch README file.

Thoughts?

Well, I see folks heaping mass volumes of BS&T into these games. The work manifests itself all manner of product, art, scenarios, et cetera, moving small mountains to improve that which can be improved. And I'd note that it was the inclusion of the new 2-D view that has gotten me interested in Panzer Campaigns again. With that in mind, I'd suggest that fleshing out the documentation with some kind of "Quick Reference Card" PDF for the individual titles wouldn't clash with the hard-coding!;)

I figured one response might cover the rest of things, I removed points that seemed a bit redundant.

On your 3 points above:

1. I attached a sample file I created in about 2 min from the PDT in Kh'43. Does that follow what you are thinking of? Not sure something like it would be added, for EACH pdt that might come with the stock game, just trying to get a feel for what you think it needed. For me much less but picking out the parts from here would take more time, I was just trying to do a quick cut and paste showing anything possibly useful to players.

2. There are no rules "unique" to a single game, with the exception that a new game will have new rules until the older games are updated. The changes listed in the readme in #3 list the vast majority of those unique rules, until they get rolled back. So I am not sure if that covers what you mean, or I misunderstand?

3. There is already the changes file, are you suggesting 1 and 3 get combined into an improved changes list, or update, whether a pdf or a text file as an improvement? As long as there are accessible files, I would prefer something related to data, such as the PDT listing, be separate from the changes. And there is normally a link in the game shortcuts to the changes file.

As to user add-ons, we like those here, and like that the games allow it - they aren't always improvements, I look at them as nice alternatives, some of which I prefer, some I don't, and that is true of everyone. And alternate scenaros, or new ones, are okay, again some I like, some I don't, but having choices is good. I am thinking but am not sure that you aren't suggesting that HPS/Tiller Software track the user add-ons - we try to do that here at the Blitz where we have the files, but I don't know that there is a way for HPS to even know about add-ons, and there are some they can't legally touch, in particular some of the art, although scenarios could be packaged and tracked if players wanted, assuming HPS or Tiller Software were able to do so effectively.

Thanks for the discussion.
Rick