Panzer Battles 2 - The Official Teaser Thread

[Strela]

Welcome to this week's update.

We're finally going to reveal the 'new feature' to be introduced with Panzer Battles Normandy. 

This will probably mean the biggest teaser post to date on the game.



The new feature is;






I'll try and cover off in the next 30 or so screenshots how this works and how its been implemented in game. Anyone that has used the Squad Battles campaign engine will see similarities, but there are differences.


We're shipping two campaigns and five variable scenarios with Panzer Battles Normandy. Huge credit here to Rick Bancroft who created the 2nd Armored Division Campaign, by far the biggest included with the initial release. Glenn Saunders created the Royal Dragoon Guards Campaign as an introductory series to the overall campaign system. We'll cover the variable scenarios later in this post, but most can be attributed to Rick.






To illustrate the campaign system I'll post up some of the screens from the 2nd Armored Division campaign. After selecting the campaign/scenario you want to play, you're greeted by the Situation Dialog. You select which side you want to play, whether it is vs the AI or head to head and at what point in the campaign you want to start;






Clicking continue gives you a Campaign Overview;






Continuing again, we get a more 'immediate' situation overview. In this case we will be fighting around Carentan on June 13th, 1944;






This screen is the 'meat' of the campaign engine. As the American player we have two choices on the tactics we want to use for this round of the campaign. Shown here is the historical option;






And if the other option is chosen we see a different briefing;






If we chose the first (historical) option and hit Continue, we get an immediate 'sitrep' and then enter the game;






We are now in the game engine and the Germans as the first player have already moved and started to attack our positions. Time to defend!!






Here is what happens if we took the second option rather than the historical situation.






The in game situation is now completely reversed. The Allied player is the first player and preparing to move out and attack the German positions. Note how 2nd Armored is further forward and ready to support the Airborne advance;






Let's now look at this same situation from the German perspective. If we selected Axis rather than Allied at the Situation Dialog;






After moving through the campaign briefing screens we find the Germans also have two options for this particular campaign round. The first one is the historical action;






The second choice covers a more defensive stance;






Selecting the first (historical) option, generates the immediate sitrep and launches the game;






The German's are the first player and ready to move out and recapture Carentan;






With the second option selected, the immediate briefing is different;






Here is the German starting positions with the Allies now as first player and moving out to attack. Also note the different placement of the defenders as this is later in the day;






How does this all work? Here is a shot from the campaign editor showing the various match-ups. Essentially this simple two choices a side creates four potentially different scenarios. Based upon the selections of each player (or AI) an appropriate scenario is selected (shown under outcomes). The permutations expand dramatically the more choices you make available to each player. For example allowing both sides to have three choice, may make it necessary to have nine different scenarios to cover all the permutations. Creating campaigns is not for the fainthearted!






Another feature of the Campaign engine is that you don't have to start a campaign at the first scenario. In the screen below, the campaign with start from the third scenario 'The Cobra Advance';






Lets now move onto the Variable Scenarios. Variable scenarios are stand alone scenarios with multiple options or setups. Four of the five variable scenarios are taken directly from the 2nd Armored Division campaign. Essentially, there is no requirement to play the campaign to access these scenarios.

The other variable scenario is Cherbourg Landfont authored by myself. To illustrate how we have used the campaign engine for this engagement, I'll share the following screens. Here you select the appropriate scenario;






Clicking through OK, we end up at the Situation Dialog. Both choices shown here are the same;






The strategic situation is covered in this screen;






And the scenario briefing is here;






Like the previous campaign scenario at Carentan, the American forces have two different choices. the first is the historical action;






The second includes an additional reinforcement by a Combat Command from the 2nd Armored Division. As mentioned in the briefing, selecting this option impacts the victory requirements;






Here is the Sitrep given if you choose to take the 2nd Armored Division reinforcements;






And now in game, the 2nd Armored reinforcements are confirmed to arrive at 18:00 hours;






Like the Americans, the Germans also have choices. They can choose the historical defense with Gruppe Schlieben;






Or choose to bolster the Cherbourg defenses with an additional Infanterie regiment. The 1050th had the option to retreat into Cherbourg but chose to breakout down the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula. It took heavy losses in the retreat to the south and this scenario option allows you to see what impact the additional regiment would have had if it had remained;






Here is the final briefing before starting the scenario;






This shot shows the (highlighted) units of the 1050th Infanterie Regiment. Unlike most of the German defenders, they start the scenario unfixed and available to reinforce wherever the German player thinks the defenses are most vulnerable;






Finally all of these scenarios and campaigns can be played head to head. This allows players to chose scenario options that suit their style and creates some uncertainty (at least initially) on what the battle situation may be;






This is the first iteration of the Campaign engine. We have not had as much time as we would have liked to create content specifically for it. Normandy has a large number of actions and we wanted to ensure we had representative scenarios of many of them. This by nature curtailed the amount of time we had to build 'alternative' scenarios and flesh out further campaigns.

We expect the next Panzer Battles title (number three) will utilise the campaign engine even more than Normandy. We also have a lot of ideas for enhancements, but we think what you get with the upcoming release is a very polished package.

The campaign engine also creates both challenges and opportunities for our scenario designers, but the big pay off is the variation and replay-ability of various situations. It's a great tool for the community to start using.

That's it for this week. I think this is the most screens I have ever posted...!

David