Panzer Battles 2 - The Official Teaser Thread

[Strela]

We're lucky you can give us these updates David, no need to apologize when they're a bit late.

As much as I like having a lot of scenarios, really short ones (<10 turns) are not my favorite due to how they can often be manipulated by the defender.

Though I've never played the game, advance to Cristot looks like a case where blocking units in difficult terrain can make it impossible to reach and attack Cristot on time. 6 turns is really not much to move ~12-15 hexes through difficult terrain. Volcano Man would call this speculation, but things like movement costs and the time it takes for an infantry attack to work in difficult terrain as I see it won't be too different from PB: Kursk. It's nearly the same engine, so you can predict likely results without playing a scenario based on an understanding of the system.

The difference between Cristot and Le Hamel looks a bit like State Farm compared to the full day July 10th Prokhorovka scenario: you have more units and in this case also a lot more time to reach more or less the same objectives.

I'd say the lost battalion scenario might be winnable, but the last two on the list look like they might cause "concentrate somewhere and make the attacker run out of time" issues. In Hill 285, there's a single objective for the Americans to hold, and they seem to have two reinforced companies facing two not full strength German PzG companies, so as the Americans you can move all units to the center and pour fire into the Germans, whilst as the Germans the outcome mostly depends on getting disruption rolls against what will be a large stack.

The Mortain Counterattack scenario requires the Germans to move at least 11 hexes against a ~two battalion force that again only need to hold a single objective. There is no incentive in those smaller scenarios for the defender to hold the line they start in: if they hold the one objective and don't take serious losses, they win, so the obvious thing to do is to move everything in the path of the Germans. That's the main problem with the small scenarios: there's usually only 1 or 2 objectives that decide the result, and the defender has no incentive to hold a realistic line. If his entire force ends up isolated in a hedgehog around the important objective(s), he wins.

Later on, I'll post an appeal to reduce the interdiction rate, but I need some more time to phrase it and point out what I see might be the problem with the rate of 15% on this scale.

ComradeP,

You make a couple of perceptive points. Quite a number of the scenarios shown here are new and need further testing. It's a long story on why 'old' scenarios from Glenn are now new, but that will be clearer in a few weeks time.

Let me tackle a few of your comments. Cristot is not long enough. I play tested the longer le Hamel and needed 12 to 14 turns. I will probably up the scenario to 12 turns for the next round of testing. Please note that taking Cristot is not necessary to win - it's score is the difference between a minor and major. It wasn't taken in real life and hence this distinction.

As far as the last two where it essentially rewards ahistorical play, I can see a few things I can do. For example in the Counterattack scenario, if I put a 25 point VP hex on both flanks (and not change the victory requirements) then the Allied player has to leave some defenders to cover them. I'll run a few tests and then get the testers to try.

The main reason Glenn built these short scenarios was that experience showed that players played these much more than the medium to long ones. It's good to include them, we just need to iron some kinks out.

Finally, the 15% air interdiction. I got a few emails from the testing team, commenting that they believed we had it right. What it really does is force you to decide when to risk fast movement and when not to. Some formations don't have a choice like limbered guns, but in the main interdiction rarely comes into play as a player has to weigh up losses vs speed. The impact is exactly as it was, do you as the German risk losses to redeploy quickly or do you use a more measured approach.

Happy to hear your commentary, but the current view is it works.

David

[Xaver]

Thanks for the update, better later than never 

Well, the small scens for me are interesting but i prefer medium scens, is not a question of number of units is more about turns, for example i feel playing more against clock with less room for mistakes or do something out of script, are a little more stressful for me than other scens... as Napoleon says "you can recover space but never time". 

Here one thing i like do is edit scens with room to have more fight and add extra turns in a long-time variant this is specially good when both sides can fight and there is not a weaker side.

A little question about the  interdiction rate, you never explore add a 1-2% for germans (with lower effect, 15-20%) to simulate friendly attacks from allied airforces to land units??? at least in bigger scens with more fluid situations and less static combats.

And well, looks like work is harder when timeline is arriving to the end 4-5 weeks to 

PD: how many scens are waiting the "Strela´s weekly report", enough for 2??? 

[ComradeP]

Xaver, as was mentioned in the previous weekly update:

There is also no German Interdiction value as there was no German aircraft - one thing that could be included is a low percentage (say 1%) to reflect Allied friendly fire. There are a number of documented cases of Allied aircraft shooting up their own ground vehicles. Happy for peoples thoughts on that?

I don't think it should be added, as carpet bombing strikes already have a scatter chance and representing friendly fire losses from strafing at this unit scale seems less suitable.

[Xaver]

Thanks ComradeP, i miss that point.

I think more in the opportunity attacks from fighter-bombers, from sky at high speed you can score a great hit over an enemy high command vehicle or you can hit your own troops... not all guys in land have the radio to talk with sky support.

Carpet bombing affect more the initial attack when they drop bombs to early... this is better representation over units status when scen start... damage+fatige AND maybe have the "attacked units" fixed and disrupted.

Other point is how effective were air attacks... maybe i think 25% could be a little high but lets see.

[Strela]

Guys,

In the interest of open dialogue, I wanted to let you know I have had a data issue while on the road.

The joys of working for an IT security company is that we try to be 'secure'. Unfortunately my hdd encryption has wiped my work laptop which had the last ten days worth of work on the game. Unfortunately with time away from home, I have had time in the evening as well as some long flights to do more than the usual amount of work on the game so this is a pretty significant loss. All the new scenarios shown last week are lost as well as a huge amount of work on graphics and map updates etc. I had planned to send the updated files out to the team yesterday but the drive failed an hour or so beforehand, so unfortunately it's all gone....

To say I'm gutted is an understatement, that said the actual day to day work lost (like email archives) is a magnitude beyond the game. And yes I have backups but nothing since I started travelling. It also means I'm without a PC for the remainder of the week and can't recover the game before the weekend at the earliest.

Will this impact the planned release date, possibly/probably. A lot of the lost work is required 'infrastructure' and has to be recreated before release - it's not like scenarios which are optional. I'll let you know if there are any material changes.

David

[Compass Rose]

I guess it could have been worse and you lost 1-3 months worth of work!    

Sorry to hear of your situation and thanks for letting us know.

Good things come to those who wait!  

[Volcano Man]

Ugh, good luck with the data loss Strela.

I FEEL YOUR PAIN. During France '14 development, I lost about a year of work myself to a data loss. F14 and FWWC almost never happened, but *somehow* I managed to restart and do it all again. It almost makes me cry thinking about it. 

[Xaver]

Well, shit happends and usually before you have work/info out of your HD , i think is a software installed in HDs capable of detect when can delete your info.... 

Could be worst, 10 days are only ... 2 weeks nothing that 7 days of 25 hours of work with coffe intravenous with some "spices" cant solve 

The only good thing is know what improve and how do it, for me maybe lose scens is the lowest problem because if you have problems with release time is possible skip scens to release game and add them later in a patch.

Only say sorry and keet it moving 

[Strela]

Ugh, good luck with the data loss Strela.

I FEEL YOUR PAIN. During France '14 development, I lost about a year of work myself to a data loss. F14 and FWWC almost never happened, but *somehow* I managed to restart and do it all again. It almost makes me cry thinking about it. 

Ed,

A year? Holy cr@p!

All, there probably won't be an update this week but we will see.

Some more positive news is that there is a chance that my data may be rescued. I'll know more soon.

David

[Xaver]

Well, we can survive one week with no info 

First is recover from Crash day.

Rescue data??? better call a profesional, somebody that can destroy Tigers with a colt and guts 


Saving the private HD.


Good luck in your mission i pray for you