All purpose Panzer General thread

[CerberusIV]

Re: PG2 update

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Well, having done great playing the American campaign at 125% prestige, i figured I was ready to play fair, and went for Soviet campaign at 100%. Did ok with Saturn, but then ran unprepared into rather hard Prokhrovka (Kursk) scen. Even tried playing Saturn over again to be better prepared, no luck.

So Im taking baby steps, playing the Blitz campaign at 125%. Its a good bit harder now.

I would seriously advise you to stick at 100% prestige and persevere at learning how to maximise the prestige you get, use as little as possible and avoid damage. Otherwise there is a temptation to get sloppy about how you use it and you will struggle in harder campaigns.

Do you use recon units? Knowing where the enemy units, particularly artillery and AD, are is crucial to keep the damage to your units down.

If a unit gets light damage of 1 or 2 points then put off reinforcing it if you can. If it takes heavy damage, particularly expensive units like aircraft, artillery or engineers, then consider if you can complete the scenario without building it back up again. Everything goes up to 10 strength for free between scenarios so don't take reinforcements during a scenario unless necessary.

In the Blitz campaign you should be taking virtually every flag on the map and destroying as many enemy units as possible to get the maximum prestige during a scenario.

[lord of the mark]

Re: Re: PG2 update

Originally posted by CerberusIV


I would seriously advise you to stick at 100% prestige and persevere at learning how to maximise the prestige you get, use as little as possible and avoid damage. Otherwise there is a temptation to get sloppy about how you use it and you will struggle in harder campaigns.

Do you use recon units? Knowing where the enemy units, particularly artillery and AD, are is crucial to keep the damage to your units down.

I use the one im given, but dont usually build more. Probably should.

If a unit gets light damage of 1 or 2 points then put off reinforcing it if you can.

yeah, ive gotten better about doing this.

If it takes heavy damage, particularly expensive units like aircraft, artillery or engineers, then consider if you can complete the scenario without building it back up again. Everything goes up to 10 strength for free between scenarios so don't take reinforcements during a scenario unless necessary.

yeah ive been doing this, although its frustrating to have an expensive aircraft unit just sitting around the airfield

In the Blitz campaign you should be taking virtually every flag on the map and destroying as many enemy units as possible to get the maximum prestige during a scenario.

OK.

My Madrid scen got a little sloppy, so i suppose i'll just go back and try again at 100 prestige.

[Main_Brain]

Ah thank you very much :=)
Had to remove write protection and now it works, i even found some old savegame of the China Champaign

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Main_Brain
Ah thank you very much :=)
Had to remove write protection and now it works...

Oooops, I forgot to mention you had to.

[CerberusIV]

Re: Re: Re: PG2 update

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I use the one im given, but dont usually build more. Probably should.

For Blitz I upgrade the starting Ps222 to a Ps231 for Poland, buy another for Suomussalmi and a third one at Sedan. Recon are very useful for finishing off damaged units and can save you having to allocate a main unit to the job. Also for infiltrating to finish off damaged enemy artillery. At Sedan, Dunkirk, Kishinev and Volokolamsk they are very useful for grabbing undefended flags. Each small flag is 25 prestige at 100% - the amount you can grab at Sedan is enough to buy several units!

yeah ive been doing this, although its frustrating to have an expensive aircraft unit just sitting around the airfield

Even at strength 5 or 6 they can be used carefully against enemy ground units with no air attack and where your recon shows there are no AD units. Even if they do no damage they still reduce entrenchment levels. It is essential to have destroyed all the enemy fighters first though. The PG2 AI doesn't seem to buy air units and only gets air reinforcements at Windsor and Savannah in the Blitz campaign.

[CerberusIV]

...Caen - I found out why all that prestige. This was harder than I expected as the AI has a lot of armour. I actually made such a mess of the first 3 turns that I had to restart.

In the west any attempt to move forwards exposes your artillery and the 10.5's keep damaging your infantry but if they aren't given reinforcements they are slowly weakened to the point a tank can destroy them.

At Caen and in the east I went for attrition. Started by taking out the German artillery with my own and my tac bombers. This scenario really requires the one thing the British don't have - really powerful tac bombers. An A26 would have made so much difference . At Caen I settled for artillery and airstrikes against the infantry on the victory hex and then destroyed it with engineers. I didn't occupy the hex though. So the AI fed another infantry unit in to be destroyed the same way. I was slowly wearing down the armour by picking off the strength 5 units and then the PzIV's but it took airstrikes, artillery and tanks to do it. I was only able to take the strength 10 Panther when the AI ran out of infantry and moved it into Caen where repeated infantry attacks killed it.

The chance of a BV slipped by. The Me109K was a problem and one of my Spitfires got beaten up before the other shot the Messerschmidt down. I was pressing to take the German supply hex at Vimont and the AI pulled the trick I hate. I had moved my artillery close enough to hit the flak south of the town but didn't have units in place to form a solid screen. So the AI teleported in a King Tiger and nearly took out a 7.2" gun . With no experience it was surprisingly easy prey for my Sherman Fireflies next turn.

I actually used one of the paratroops supplied to drop onto the German airfield. Assisted by a recon unit that was enough to drive off the German recon occupying the hex and secure the airfield.

Eventually the AI ran out of units in the east and I was able to switch to the west and concentrate my artillery and airpower to overrun the last enemy units. A victory.

Going into Arracourt I had about 1800 prestige. Enough for another Spitfire, a couple of Achilles tank destroyers and another AEC III recon. Played the first turn and it looks worryingly easy.......

[BeBMan]

A word to the recon units: In Peoples General, which has a similar but not identical engine to PG2 those recon units do not only reveal enemy units, they also "hide" friendly units nearby (but not the recon unit itself). I'm not sure, but IIRC it is the same in PG2, so recon units are a must IMO. You can set up good ambushes buy moving forward a recon vehicle, then positioning strong units (tanks, anti tank guns, TDs) in front of it. The AI can spot the recon unit, but not neccessarily the surrounding units, and so it will run into an ambsuh when trying to attack the recon unit directly (without making own efforts to scan the area before).

[Leonidas]

Just wanted to mention that Battlefront has released details about a new upcoming stratgeic wargame.

It will only be available through on-line sales, so people won't be able to buy it in stores, which is quite odd.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Leonidas
Just wanted to mention that Battlefront has released details about a new upcoming stratgeic wargame set in Europe called Strategic Command 2 BlitzKrieg. It's due out at the end of this year.

This is an excellent news though I would have preferred a "Rising Sun" theater of operation first. Especially if the two games could be combined into a global WW2 simulation.

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by Tamerlin


This is an excellent news though I would have preferred a "Rising Sun" theater of operation first. Especially if the two games could be combined into a global WW2 simulation.

It will be fully customizable. You can create new maps, so a Pacific War scenario would be very possible.

It will come with several editors, including an event editor (which is a first for a wargame).

It will have an isometric view, similar to CivII, so CivII scenario designers will be right at home. . .

Cheers!

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Leonidas


It will be fully customizable. You can create new maps, so a Pacific War scenario would be very possible.

It will come with several editors, including an event editor (which is a first for a wargame).

It will have an isometric view, similar to CivII, so CivII scenario designers will be right at home. . .

Cheers!

Sounds very interesting.

It's great to see that some companies are keeping the flame of the TBS games alive when the RTS and first person shooters are heavily dominating the market.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Leonidas


It will be fully customizable. You can create new maps, so a Pacific War scenario would be very possible.

It will come with several editors, including an event editor (which is a first for a wargame).

It will have an isometric view, similar to CivII, so CivII scenario designers will be right at home. . .

Cheers!

I thought TOAW had an event editor ????

In any case this is great news, a new wargame emphasizing modability - the model for the last few years has been the Tiller one of pay full price for a scenario, no editor, etc. TOAW, was, IIUC, the last successful toolkit game.
And of course that was able to get retail shelfspace.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Tamerlin


Sounds very interesting.

It's great to see that some companies are keeping the flame of the TBS games alive when the RTS and first person shooters are heavily dominating the market.

Battlefront is the publisher of the award winning Combat Mission series, which IIUC is turn based using simultaneous turns.

[lord of the mark]

PG2 update

Ok, i took your advice and restarted blitz at 100%.

Won Madrid, but barely missed a BV. Also used some prestige for replacements.

Going into Poland, ive got just under 1500 prestige points. Ive got all my original Madrid core units, plus another armor unit and a bomber I bought. Unfortunately only a couple of my units have experience, and none have leaders - in the course of winning the scen, and getting as many vict hexes etc i didnt always focus on letting my core units kill the defender.

My inclination here would be to upgrade the two experienced reg inf to pioneers or engineers, to upgrade all the tank units, and to buy a fighter.

Based on your above post, i think i should upgrade the recon unit. Im also tempted to get a bridge unit - probably by upgrade, since i dont think i need more infantry (i'll have three, plus all the aux infantry, in relatively open country) I dont usually overstrength, but many folks do - should I here, and if so which units?

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Battlefront is the publisher of the award winning Combat Mission series, which IIUC is turn based using simultaneous turns.

I know, I already have the two firsts and I will soon buy the latest about the Desert War...

More generally I was thanking companies like Shrapnel Games, Matrix Games, Battlefront and 2by3...