New Panzer Campaigns Features & call for Manuals Updates

[Strela]

These three changes are excellent news and I applaud the design team and JTS for adding new tweaks to the engine to allow the simulation of more types of terrain and situations. 

However as someone who has tried and failed over the years to contain the spread of optional rules available to players, the addition of two more opt rules is (IMO) not great news, over the years I have been here the plethora of optional rules shown in the dialogue box (and their effects) has caused more debate and confusion than just about any other subject, so while I understand that the easiest/ simplest way to introduce them is to make them an optional rule, in the case of the opt amphibious/opt patrolling rules I would have preferred to have seen these great additions added to the main rules rather than the opt rules if that is at all possible.

Lets be honest, what player looking for a historical simulation would not want night fatigue, recon spotting, artillery setup included in the main rules and not an option?

What Aaron said....

We have a 'big' issue adding more rules without breaking previous games. If, for example we made the optional amphibious rule standard then players could be crossing the Volga etc when we actually don't want them to be able too. Many of the optional rules that were created, were for very specific situations in particular games. I'm not quite certain why, but the whole design approach for Normandy resulted in a plethora of different rules compares to Smolensk.

It's very hard to turn back the clock, standardise and potentially break Normandy for example.

That said, there are some rules that could become mainstream. Recon Spotting is a good example. I think counter battery fire is another as is possibly low visibility air effects and night fatigue. But this may break some of the earlier scenarios or at the very least invalidate their current VP targets. So its hard to stand here and be definitive.

The final point was what options players like. I was shocked when I started working with a player who wanted completely different settings to the norm. It turned out they thought there selection gave a much better game. We start standardising optional rules, then I can see this kind of player becoming incensed.

So net net, we will continue to add optional rules as necessary. Please think of these as more akin to parameter settings where a design decisions has been deliberately made to include a particular rule to simulate a particular feature. Ignore the rest and know that the designers will provide the recommended settings and why. All others are irrelevant for this particular game.

David