PzB North Africa 1941 - Feedback

[ComradeP]

Positive: the look and "feel" of desert combat and the Fallschirmjaeger nightmare of landing on Crete are right on the mark.

There's a surprising amount of variety in the scenarios and the kind of battles you're fighting, and a large number are suitable for vs. AI play.

The game really shines when it comes to representing the pros and cons of each army. Playing as the Italians is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back as their infantry is the worst I've ever seen in any PzC/PB game, but they have decent to good artillery and decent tanks.

The Commonwealth divisions are peculiar as they're either infantry-heavy or tank-heavy with little to no support weapons. The faults that would continue to haunt the Commonwealth forces, poor infantry-tank cooperation and infantry divisions lacking punch are represented well. Just what kind of difficulties you run into when your tanks have no HE shells also becomes painfully, but realistically, clear.

I wasn't aware CS tanks were indirect fire weapons, I thought they used direct fire like assault guns. As they can't fire after moving, it's somewhat difficult to use them.

The German and American armies are probably the most user friendly in PzC and PB games, but in this case the Germans require some getting used to. I had forgotten that the Afrika Panzer divisions were small, and it's challenging to use them without the wide array of support weapons that we're used to. The variation in German unit quality between C and A from scenario to scenario is also nice and feels better than the generic "everything has the same unit quality" approach that already became a thing of the past with Kursk and Normandy, where the smaller scale required a closer look at the quality of divisions as opposed to the largely one size fits all approach in PzC.

Negative: not much thus far really, when you're used to the things the program handles less well. As tanks are more evenly matched here, tank combat is much less frustrating than in Kursk where you sometimes couldn't kill T-34's fast enough.

Graphics issues: There are still some issues with counters showing the wrong kind of motorization, just like when the Panzer Battles graphics were ported over to PzC Gold titles and guns moved around by trucks showed half-track graphics and the other way around.

The counter for the PaK 38 shows wheels at the closest zoom level and in the unit information box, but it's actually moved around by half-tracks. The correct counter is displayed when you zoom out.

German infantry gun counters show wheeled movement in the unit information box and at the closest zoom level and nothing on the other two zoom levels. The correct counter would be half-track movement.

88's show wheeled movement in the unit information box and the closest zoom level, but the correct half-track counter at other zoom levels.

I remember reporting this issue for Moscow '42 Gold. I'm guessing the closest zoom level copies the unit information box as it's always incorrect like the unit information box, whereas the other zoom levels form a counter based on the information given by the database.

It might be worth checking the other PzC Gold upgrades to see if it's working correctly in those games. I don't recall seeing this problem in PB Kursk, but maybe it was in PB Normandy as well. I need to get in touch with JTS to get new installers before I can check that, as my installers were corrupted when ported to a back-up USB stick.

Other comments: like the previous titles, this title would also benefit from some revisions to the mechanics and/or the math behind them, but I know this was not the time to work on that.

The 25 pounder has a HA rating of 6, which seems high. I understand the need to show the dual role of the 25 pounder, but the artillery hard attack modifier is already x5, so even with a HA of 3 the HA value would be adjusted to 15. A HA rating of 6 even when shelling units is quite powerful.

Commonwealth AT/AA "Portee" units are usually not actually Portee: they are not vehicle units and can't move when not in T-mode. Doctrinally, guns would sometimes be dismounted and sometimes kept on the truck, but if a gun is only used in a dismounted manner a regular unit name might be more appropriate to avoid confusion as Portee usually refers to guns being used when mounted on a vehicle.

As promised earlier, more detailed feedback will follow after a few PBEM games, together with the feedback on the documentation.

In all honesty, I didn't think 1940-1941 battles in Africa were going to be this interesting. Most of my interest in the past went to Rommel's finest hour at Gazala, shrugging at the Italian performance during Compass and not that intrigued by Brevity, Battleaxe or Crusader. Crusader in particular is much more dynamic than I had expected. My Battleaxe PBEM's are also fun to play thus far.

NA '42, where all sides can use concentrated or at least full strength divisions will be a very different game, but I'm looking forward to seeing if I can make some good attacks with the Italians at Gazala, when the game is released...somewhere in the next decade :)

Some of the Operation Crusader scenarios might even be suitable for a tournament when played in sequence.