Panzer Command FAQ

[benpark]

VERY cool!

[JSS]

This looks awesome!

[ravinhood]

Will this have a "random battle generator"?? And/or Buy point system for setting up random battles?

Also how many years do we have to wait on this one? Another Combat Leader?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Arckon
In the second screenshot AP,APCR and HE buttons are?

Those are different ammo types available for that particular gun/tank.

Is it possible to give a brief outline of how a turn may play out, length of time to play a turn, etc?

Sure - it's WEGO, so both sides enter their orders at the start of the first phase. If you've already given units orders on previous turns and you just want them to keep doing that, that's fine too. Once orders are in, the game calculates the results and plays them for you for the next 40 seconds. At that point, you can rewind and watch it from different angles, at different speeds, etc. During the replay, you can click on events as they happen to zoom in on them (there's a small clickable event list on the right) and there's also a "kill cam" that can be turned on or off so you don't miss the action (it zooms to the event and goes into "bullet time").

At the 40 second mark, you hit the reaction phase. If you're happy with how things are going, you can just click to have it calculate another 40 seconds until the next orders phase, or you can adjust things a bit. The most you can do in the Reaction phase is tell a moving unit to halt and change targeting orders, you can't make more changes than that - it's basically a chance to react to new sightings or situations in a limited way. Once the next 40 seconds are done, you get to another Orders phase and so on until one side or another has won the scenario.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
Will this have a "random battle generator"?? And/or Buy point system for setting up random battles?

It has a point buy system and a skirmish level which allows you to pick and choose from all the units in the game. With that said, taking any of the existing maps and modifying the forces or changing their deployments is a matter of just editing the XML (basically text files).

Also how many years do we have to wait on this one? Another Combat Leader?

I'd say less than three months. Most likely April.

Regards,

- Erik

[benpark]

Erik, is there a map editor that will be released with the game? How is the infantry combat done?

Also, I'd love a shot of the infantry...

[Erik Rutins]

Ben,

ORIGINAL: benpark
Erik, is there a map editor that will be released with the game?

Nope, since these maps are done by hand down to each pixel. We track terrain and elevation down to each meter. With that said, using any of the maps in the game and making a new scenario on them from the available units, which are intended to provide good coverage of mid-late 42 Eastern Front combat is not hard at all. Just XML files.

Now, we WANT to do a full set of editing tools that would allow players to make their own maps and so on, but we won't be doing that for the initial release. This is intended to be a series and we will be looking at the sales of the first title with great interest. If the sales meet our expectations, we will be happy to build full editing tools and a lot of other stuff as the series continues on other WWII campaigns. [8D]

How is the infantry combat done?

Also, I'd love a shot of the infantry...

I have to keep a few things to discuss later. Seriously though, just out of time for now. I'll post more on this soon.

Regards,

- Erik

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: benpark


Also, I'd love a shot of the infantry...

You can see infantyr on one f the screenshots.

Three men to a squad:(

They can make an option to increase that. So see my vote thread.

[ioticus]

Great news. Hopefully, with Koios at the helm, the strategic AI will be much better than Combat Mission, which was really bad and soured me on that game.

[bradfordkay]

If you can, could you also show a screenshot of hilly terrain? Thanks...

[Custer1961]

Any idea on System Requirements for the game?

[Arckon]

Erik said:
At the 40 second mark, you hit the reaction phase. If you're happy with how things are going, you can just click to have it calculate another 40 seconds until the next orders phase, or you can adjust things a bit. The most you can do in the Reaction phase is tell a moving unit to halt and change targeting orders, you can't make more changes than that - it's basically a chance to react to new sightings or situations in a limited way. Once the next 40 seconds are done, you get to another Orders phase and so on until one side or another has won the scenario.

Thanks Erik, appreciated.

A couple more question if I may.

1/ For PBEM does it therefore mean 1 turn will take 2 email exchanges, 1 for your initial orders and then 1 for your reaction phase?

2/ Aprox how long does the giving orders phase take? I realise it may differ as to the size of the scenario you are playing but anyway to give a rough idea?

[Iron Duke]

Hi,

any screenshots of built up areas - villages , towns or cities ?

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Iron Duke

Hi,

any screenshots of built up areas - villages , towns or cities ?

Are there any? The nearest significant city would presumably have been Stalingrad. I found some campaign maps with a few place-names, but I've no idea if they wereany larger than villages or not.

[Iron Duke]

Hi

Must be villages and Towns at least , southern Russia wasn't a waste land ?

Also when [ 19?? - 19?? ] is the game set ?

[Arckon]

Hi,

any screenshots of built up areas - villages , towns or cities ?

[:D] C'mon Ironduke can't you play after combined is out. [;)]

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Iron Duke

Also when [ 19?? - 19?? ] is the game set ?

"Winter Storm" was the attempt to relieve 6th Army at Stalingrad. I'd assume that the campaign at least would be limited to December 1942?

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, at present the German campaign starts on December 12th and the Soviet campaign ends on December 29th, IIRC.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

Brad,

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
If you can, could you also show a screenshot of hilly terrain? Thanks...

Not a lot of that in this campaign, I'll see what I can find.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Custer
Any idea on System Requirements for the game?

The only thing I can say for sure at this point would be that while it plays on as little as a 32Mb video card, we're going to recommend a 64Mb as the minimum acceptable performance level and I think a good 128Mb+ card will really be ideal. A good CPU won't hurt as some of the graphics work is handled in software for compatibilty, but it's not required. Since this is a modern 3D engine with a variety of effects, it can pretty much take as much hardware as you throw at it. We allow you to set resolution, texture quality, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering when you launch the game. Shadows can also be set and the game auto-chooses the defaults based on a quick evaluation of your system. If you've played previous Koios Works games, if your system can run Julius Caesar well, it should work fine with this though it's a bit more demanding.

Regards,

- Erik