Panzer Battles Demo - Released!

[ComradeP]

The updated graphics are a lot less vintage than the original graphics, which helps quite a bit.

I'm not a fan of the look of the new UI yet, mostly because I'm used to the old one. Yes, it's very Windows 3.1, but that's the kind of UI I've used to play some wargames in the last 2 decades or so.

As long as it's clear what everything does, and the graphic itself is clear, it doesn't need to be fancy. To me, functionality is more important than the look of the UI.

A full UI redesign would require an engine redesign as well, as functionalities would need to change too if you have right click menu's or clickable icons on the map or something like that.

The choice between more content or a radical redesign which some people will always dislike isn't that difficult. The people that don't understand the limited means involved in this kind of work might need a reality check. This is parttime hobbyism mostly in terms of the investment/gain balance.

I have some issues with no longer being able to use basic functions with 1 shortcut key as it's counterintuitive that less used functions require 1 key now whilst things you use in each game like T-mode require 2, but I'll learn to live with it.

Modifications to the combat engine to make full use of improved CPU power would in my opinion add more to the game than continued UI redesign.

Improvements to the way vehicle/gun/aircraft losses are handled, how Disruptions are handled or how quality and terrain adjusts HA/SA values, to name a few potential areas of improvement.

The combat system is simplified now in the sense that losses are determined as (relative) losses in men, and all bonuses and penalties are added and substracted instead of multiplied and divided.

To give an example of the last part: a unit with an adjusted quality fire modifier of 50% firing into a hex giving a penalty of -50% has an adjusted total of 0 instead of having its value multiplied by 1.5 and then divided by 2. This gives high quality units more of an advantage they should have.

Taking an A quality mechanized PzG unit with a SA of 12 as an example: its adjusted SA is now 12 (12 + 50% - 50%) instead of 12x1.5=18 divided by 2= 9. This makes A quality units very deadly even in difficult terrain, which creates some problems in Normandy.