All purpose Panzer General thread

[ErikM]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Intro text mentions marx and lenin, army of workers and peasants, etc. I really doubt Soviet officers of the time used that rhetoric when giving battle instructions. Detracts a bit from the atmosphere.

The game was designed with Western audiences in mind. I guess designers thought that's how Soviet propaganda should look like to ring a bell with their consumers.

2. What the heck do they mean by "Saturn"? The USSR eating its children??? Makes no sense.

It was the official code name of the operation. Some Soviet operations in '42 were code-named after planets. There was also "Mars" and "Uranus".

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by ErikM


The game was designed with Western audiences in mind. I guess designers thought that's how Soviet propaganda should look like to ring a bell with their consumers.

yeah, thats what i figured. Guess i'll have to play a more grognard game to avoid stuff like that.

It was the official code name of the operation. Some Soviet operations in '42 were code-named after planets. There was also "Mars" and "Uranus".

Didnt know that. Thanks for the info.

[Garth Vader]

The older general games handled artillery differently right?

I seem to remember in PG1 that you have to fire, then move right away.

In AG and I think Pac Gen you had to fire first, but then could move later in the turn.

Or was that just PG2 that you could do that? Now I am playing Peoples Gen and there you can move then fire or any combo you want.

Does anybody remember how that evolved?

I know PG2 introduced the overrun, which I would really miss if I played the older ones again.

[GePap]

I liked the People's General engine, and the game itself was good, though not that hard-I had fun making scenerios though, like the modern version of Stalingrad, as Germnas forces tried to break through Russian forces defending Volgograd...

As for AG, I generally played as the Russians-the final assault on Berlin is tough given all the AAA guns.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Garth Vader
The older general games handled artillery differently right?

I seem to remember in PG1 that you have to fire, then move right away.

In AG and I think Pac Gen you had to fire first, but then could move later in the turn.

Or was that just PG2 that you could do that? Now I am playing Peoples Gen and there you can move then fire or any combo you want.

Does anybody remember how that evolved?

I know PG2 introduced the overrun, which I would really miss if I played the older ones again.

I know in PG2 artillery fires, and can then move at any subsequent time. So you can fire at say an entrenched infantry unit in a town, let a tank or infantry finish it off, then move your artillery into or through the town.

[Tamerlin]

Saturn is the equivalent of Cronos in the Greek mythology. In the Roman mythology Saturn protected the sowings and represented the golden age before the coming of the Olympian gods.

Son of Ouranos and Gaia (the sky and the earth), Cronos fought against his own father in order to free his brothers. Afraid that his own sons act the same way he devoured them just after their birth.

Fortunately, Zeus escaped and with the help of his mother Rhea freed all his brothers previously swallowed by Saturn. The two generations fought each others until Cronos was forever sent to Hades' kingdom.

Saturn thus represents an end (the expected fall of the Sixth Army and then of the Third Reich) and a beginning (the triumph of the communism), he represents the sequence of reigns as well as seasons.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by GePap
I liked the People's General engine, and the game itself was good, though not that hard-I had fun making scenerios though, like the modern version of Stalingrad, as Germnas forces tried to break through Russian forces defending Volgograd...

You can find a conversion of all the PG2 scenarios to the People's General engine in the People's General section of this web site:

http://www.peachmountain.com/5star/

[BeBMan]

I'm thinking of dl-ing this. Just a question: can I still play the original Peoples General after this conversion, or do I have to re-install then?

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by BeBro
I'm thinking of dl-ing this. Just a question: can I still play the original Peoples General after this conversion, or do I have to re-install then?

No you won't be able to play PeG after the mod is installed. You thus have to make a copy of your original People's General folder, to rename it to and install the mod in the new directory.

[CerberusIV]

Allied General and PG1 are exactly the same engine and everything else. The only difference is which side you play. In both games artillery fires then moves. Once you have moved a unit that's it. Unlike PG2 you can't go back to it later.

After a good run through the Blitz campaign in PG2 I mentioned earlier in this thread I have just been stopped in my tracks playing AG. Allied General was the game I first started with. This time I played as the British from Sidi Barrani to Germany without any real problems. The British are the easiest of the three as they have arguably the best tanks of the allies and only their tac bombers are not good, but artillery and level bombers can make up for that.

I then tried the Russian campaign. I had forgotten how tough it is. After scraping a victory in Finland, Pskov and Leningrad went OK. Vyazma was close but then I lost at Stalingrad. Having to drag your artillery around with trucks and cover them with AD units, also in trucks, is a real pain and the early Soviet infantry are unbelievably weak. Even the Russian tanks aren't that good until the KV85 comes along. Part of the reason I lost Stalingrad was having to hit each German tank with 4 or 5 Russian ones in order to destroy it which takes time when there is a lot of German armour to destroy.

Of all the PG1, AG and PG2 campaigns I think this is the hardest, at least in the early stages.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
I then tried the Russian campaign. I had forgotten how tough it is. After scraping a victory in Finland, Pskov and Leningrad went OK. Vyazma was close but then I lost at Stalingrad. Having to drag your artillery around with trucks and cover them with AD units, also in trucks, is a real pain and the early Soviet infantry are unbelievably weak. Even the Russian tanks aren't that good until the KV85 comes along. Part of the reason I lost Stalingrad was having to hit each German tank with 4 or 5 Russian ones in order to destroy it which takes time when there is a lot of German armour to destroy.

Of all the PG1, AG and PG2 campaigns I think this is the hardest, at least in the early stages.

Oh yeah, I can only agree. It was also extemely difficult to get a good air force there, since the Luftwaffe kills the early Russian fighters without much problems. It was cool later to have at least two or three experienced Yak9s or later La7s. But in the beginning you had to combine them with lots of ADs , and even then your planes could have heavy losses.

[BeBMan]

Oh, and just a note about PGI - while I still like it a lot, and think it is a great game, I'm a bit disappointed by the campaign "paths". All four campaigns should be more different IMO. Now there's a good chance that - when you play all campaigns - you often have the same scns over and over again (for example Moscow '41 or '43). Especially the campaigns starting later (both '43 campaigns) differ only in the first scns, then they become quite similar. The campaigns in AG were much more different, of course, since here you played different nations, but I think they could have made a better job in PGI too in this aspect.

[Boco]

BeBro, you may have some luck finding a better campaign at Herr General

Btw, the English version of this site crashes my Opera v7.

[Edit - added a new link]
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[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by BeBro
The campaigns in AG were much more different, of course, since here you played different nations, but I think they could have made a better job in PGI too in this aspect.

True. Even playing the Western Europe campaigns in AG as the British and Americans (I'm now commanding the Yanks, I'll go back to the Russians later!) are different as whichever one you take, the other is relatively weak and has to be nursed through.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Boco
BeBro, you may have some luck finding a better campaign at Herr General

Btw, the English version of this site crashes my Opera v7.

[Edit - added a new link]
Tortoise Page

I didn't knew this website...

But I can't access the various sections neither with Internet Explorer 6.