First impressions...

[benpark]

So far, it's mixed for me. All in all, I'm finding the game enjoyable. It is not unlike a cousin to CM to me thus far, and this is a dissapointment as well as a plus. I was hoping for something more "tabletop" on the PC, given the devs past games.

I'm liking a few things quite a bit, there are some things that I'm sure I will get used to, and some things I dislike.

The likes:

-Moveable camera during computer calculations.

-The interesting custom terrain items (telephone poles, etc).

-The campaign system.

-AI seems to be clobbering me pretty well so far.

Things I will get used to(and maybe enjoy):

-The phase system-good and novel, but the phases are very short. I find myself clicking the "forward" button more than I want to.

-The abstract infantry system. I'd like to have a bit more specificity here.

Dislikes:

-The forests are impossible to find units in. If the trees were transparent when seen at close range, this would be alleviated greatly. Unit "bases" or highlighting would also help.

-The game seems choppy somehow. It's partly the same camera issues mentioned above, and partly due to the phase system.

-Some really long(2-3 minutes and above in one game) AI calculation times. (even in the biggest CM games, my computer is quick).

-I've started the game 3 times now, and the enemy has been in the same locations each time as far as I could tell. Can't this be randomized?

-The pathfinding needs help. Lots of pile ups so far.

-No waypoints for orders.

-No seperate targeting for MG and main guns for AFV's. Infantry units have impunity if a tank is engaged by another tank.

-No "place platoon" or drag and select for initial unit placement. This can be a bit tedious.

[FMRommel]

Pretty much agree with the above. Purchase and digital download was a breeze. Install went perfectly.

Graphics are nice. You get the feel of a winter battle. Telephone poles etc. add atmosphere. I realize that it was pretty sparce in real life, but a few more buildings etc.. would help. Graphics are a little better but not a lot better than CM IMHO. It must be a great challenge to have realistic simulated warfar AND 3D graphics.

Game is pretty easy to figure out. Fairly intuitive. Camera was easy to learn even without reading the manual. Without reading the manual, which is provided on the load page, you can play the game with little difficulty.

Loading and unloading troops is easy. Movement is also simple. Targeting a bit tougher so i need to read the manual on that one. Smoking/flaming tanks need to last a bit longer.

Early impression. Learning to play the game is easy. Learning to play well will be difficult.

[tc237]

Played the game for about 2 hours so this is a very brief first impression. The graphics are great and UI is very easy to use. Fast download and easy to install. Was up and playing a scenario about 40 minutes after purchase. (I've only played CM briefly, so I don't really know anything about that game.)
I like the "whole platoon" concept. It makes giving orders alot easier and is more historically accurate but it can get the player into trouble sometimes

Seems like the formations are too rigid and the platoon won't contract/expand the formation to take advantage of the terrain. Sometimes the left/right end wingmen tanks will get pushed out of favorable terrain.

My biggest peave is vehicle positions within the formation. The "Wedge" is ok with the platoon leader in the center and the others to the left/right side. But when the platoon moves into "Line" the other vehicles move to form up to the PL's right, causing the vehicles to cross in front of each other and mask gun tubes. They should just move forward and come on "Line" with the PL.

Overall I like the game, especially because of the "micro-management lite" method of issuing orders and moving units.

[FeurerKrieg]

You can give orders to each member of the platoon if the terrain is tight and you need them to move around in a specific way. Give the order to the platoon leader (Advance, Rush, whatever) and then you can give specific where-to-move orders to the individual tanks.


Just sat down and played this for like 4 hrs (didn't realize the time was going by so fast). Looks great, the armor models are very well done. I ended up with a minor loss in my first attempt, but that was with no manaul and a fair amount of 'messing around'. Now to fine tune my tactics....

I like just about everything about the game, feels like SPWAW in 3D which is what I was hoping for. Seems more like my cup of tea than CM.

I won't start pining for improvements until I read the manual and see what is in the game that I haven't even discovered yet, but graphically, some areas that could be improved would be the speed of wheels/tracks matching up with the rate a unit is actually moving. Trees could use some real texture depth work, at times the look like the 2d style used in the Total War games for the soldiers. It would be nice if things that were burning would stay burning. In a battle that is only 15 minutes long I wouldn't think a fire would have time to burn itself out. I'm just not good at looking at the little flame icon.

Great game! Thanks once again Matrix & Koios!

[mbtanker]

I've updated my initial comments below.

[FeurerKrieg]

Agree very much on the LOS thing. Would be nice if it was solid, and then went transparent at the point where LOS was blocked, similar to the way it was handled in Close Combat.

In my game, the AI did move some tank around. I had 4 PzIIIs firing on the a platoon of the Soviets, once I killed two tanks of the enemy platoon, the third tank start moving at fast clip toward the nearest clump of trees. Thankfully I got him before he got away.

WAYPOINTS ARE A MUST ADD FOR THE FIRST PATCH

[ahauschild]

Download and Install whent well.

Overall game graphics are good enough.

Briefings are a bit weak. They give no real indication as to who and what you are fighting, making force selection a bit of a gamble.

General explotion animation from shells are a ok for the guns, but lack the luster when watching the Stuka drop its bombs. Figured they should have bigger explotions and leave some crater.

Initial Placement of units is a bit of a pain. You must click on each tank or infantry seperate and move it. A Platoon move option should be added.
Also Placement phase should allow mounting of infantry, heck, they should be mounted allready by default if they have transportation in their company

The order and reaction phase work well.

The ability to give seperate orders to units in the platoon should be added. Currently if you give the Rush order to the leader you will only be able to add seperate rush orders to the other platoon members. I know that this is a real pain.
Also there should be a SEE ALL MOVEMENT button somewhere.

It would be nice if they managed to add a visibility check, something that added a darker shade to the non visible terrain if you had a tank selected and clicked a Visible button. Currently it is very hard to see what you can see, and what you cant.

Movement AI needs a bit of improvement. It works pretty well if you move one platoon, but once you have two platoons crossing each other they often just sit there and bang at each other, neither making much headway. This is especialy true if you unmount infantry and try to move the tracks one way and the grunts the other. Often you will have one or two units sitting there for several turns, arguing over who gets to move first.

Verbos Messags - I would like to know who shot who. Currently you just get messages telling you that this unit was hit in the turret and bounced. It should tell me Tank1 hit Tank2 in the Turret. Pen = 4 Armor = 6. Bounce

Tank Turning AI - Tanks should react in defend order to receiving fire based on thread. (ignore small arms) If a tank is shot at from the side, and has defend, and no other armored target is in its front, it should turn to face the guy flanking him.

New Sightings Report - I would have expected in the text message window a New sighting report. If a previously hidden ATG pops up, you should get at least a message stating New ATG, or TANK, or Infantry Unit sigthted by Tank1. This could be even better if you had the voice over for it. think it would be kewl to move along in the order execution phase and heard, Enemy Tank Spoted.

Infantry is a bit abstract in some ways. They really dont threaden Armor, unless you move very close to them. They do block your grunts though, and you use them for long range spotting of ATG's.

Gun Accuracy, I think it is a bit unrealistic, but probl works for game balance and map size. I had Vet Pz4fs shooting at T34s at range 900 and pretty much 9 out of 10 shells seemed to miss. I know at this range with both targets standing still the hit rate should have been much higher.

Overall I like the game, and I am sure with some future tweaks and updates it will become great.

[mbtanker]

[[[It would be nice if they managed to add a visibility check, something that added a darker shade to the non visible terrain if you had a tank selected and clicked a Visible button. Currently it is very hard to see what you can see, and what you cant.]]]

I agree this would be great.


[[[  Tank Turning AI - Tanks should react in defend order to receiving fire based on thread. ]]]

Agreed. So far the friendly AI doesn't seem to respond so well.


[[[ New Sightings Report]]]

Agreed.

[mbtanker]

I've now played through the first campaign mission (as Germans) three times and have read the manual. But I would still take these comments as initial impressions.

-THIS IS NOT COMBAT MISSION! If you haven't played CM then you can ignore this comment. For those who have played CM let me say that again, THIS IS NOT COMBAT MISSION! We all assumed from the look of PG that it would be similar to CM. It is only similar in the most superficial ways. I found myself fighting my expectations of how things would/should work and getting a bit frustrated. This is no fault of the game so forget what you learned in CM and learn THIS game. After spending more time with the game and, especially, after reading the manual things are more comfortable and make much more sense but I still find myself assuming it is CM.

-The game plays in turns. Each turn has an Orders Phase and a Reaction phase. Each phase is 40 seconds of real time. During and at the end of each phase you can rewind and watch the action from any angle. The reaction phase allows you to slightly modify your orders from the previous Orders phase. This works well but seems to be a way to make up for poor friendly AI response.

Basically Panzer Command is much like a traditional tabletop miniature wargame including the use of ‘dice rolls’ and tables. As a mini gamer myself I don’t mind this at all but some ballistic diehards may quibble over certain routines. The manual does a good job of explaining how many of the game calculations work.

-The pre-mission brief gives you almost no indication of the forces you are to face so it makes picking initial forces for each mission a bit of a guess.

-You can't seem to start a mission with your infantry mounted. This gives you more units to move around during setup and means mounting has to be your first order.

-Someone mentioned you can't highlight units and they are hard to see. Actually, if you click a unit in the HUD it highlights each unit on the map. Also clicking any unit shows the lines to all units in the platoon. You can also hit N to cycle through each unit. But I do agree it would be nice to turn on some sort of highlight to get a nice overview although the mini map does do that. I also wish there was a way to see the movement routes for an entire platoon at once (or even everything at once).

-Ability to move the camera/map around is excellent. You can swing around, zoom in/out, move up/down, click around on the mini map, and more. All performs smoothly and easily. Well done. There is a very cool 'Binocular' view (tab-tab).

-The path finding is my biggest complaint so far. Having no waypoints is really annoying. The game seems to try to compensate for this by having short turns with two phases so units don't really move very far between orders but on rush orders halftracks can move 400m. It can be maddening to not have waypoints.

This issue is made worse by the poor path finding. For example, I had a platoon of halftracks move through a platoon of tanks. The tanks were widely spaced. Two of the halftracks got stuck behind two tanks while the third continued on up ahead. Units will literally run into another unit or terrain feature then ‘feel’ their way around. I hope this gets fixed.

In addition this all makes for more order giving and it defeats the platoon order concept. You give orders to a platoon but in certain situations you then have to really micromanage particular units within because of the path finding issues.

There is no 'pause' order so getting platoons or units coordinated can be tricky. It would be nice if the movement line indicated the furthest the unit would (theoretically) get that phase. Instead what you have to do is look at the speed of your units (in meters) then note the range on the movement line. This way you can tell generally where things will end up (assuming they don’t get stuck on a tree along the way).

-As mentioned, orders are given to PLATOONS. So, for example, you must give the entire platoon a move order. If you want one unit not to move you then need to change that one unit's assignment. At times this is really handy and at other times it is really annoying so I'll call it generally a wash. This does cause some frustration. I had a platoon in a good spot and then one tank got flanking fire. In order to just back that one tank up a tad to avoid the fire I had to give the entire platoon Withdraw orders then basically countermand them all for the four tanks and modify the reverse for just the one. The AI was not smart enough to just back up the one tank one little tank-length to avoid getting smacked in the side.

You also have a number of order options including 'Bound' where the AI will move half the platoon and overwatch the other half. You can't pick which as far as I can tell. There is also Advance, Rush, Defend and Regroup. I hope they add echelon left/right to the Regroup order. CM players should read the manual on these orders as they are not what you think. Also it is not clear from the interface that you do not need to drill down the menus. So you can give an Engage order without having to say what ammo to use.

-I may be misunderstanding what is going on at this point but the friendly AI doesn't seem to react well. Sometimes it does but mostly though the AI doesn’t do smart things and does not react well to a target being destroyed or other targets popping up. Units seem to maybe fire too much ammo at targets they are not hitting. This situation is helped somewhat by the short phases. I'll need to play more to get a better grasp of this.

-Picking targets is unclear. As you move the cursor/target line over a target it will say 'moderate chance to hit' or something (and indicates the range to the target) but exactly where you can/should let go is not clear (or it doesn't matter?). It doesn't 'snap' to a target like Combat Mission. HE seems to give you a target box to place. The manual does not really clarify this situation.

-The graphics are good. They are not so good compared to a modern FPS or RTS games but good for a wargame and at least as good as later CM games if not better in some respects. The 'Insert' key toggles a terrain view that makes it very easy to see where terrain features really are. I wish the map itself made it easier to tell when you are ‘in the woods’ but this view works just as good. I wish CM had this feature. Graphic performance was great with all options turned on at 1280x1024.

Sound is very good although the interface beeps and bops are a bit loud and annoying but that's a real nit. Main-gun fire is well done as are explosions but machinegun sounds are a bit wimpy. I do miss that CLANG! from CM when you get hit as well as the roasting chestnuts of a brew-up! Overall CM has a better 'immersion' effect with troops yelling orders and such during a turn. PC seems a bit more sterile.

-Line of site can be a real issue. The terrain is very varied but you have to get down close to tell most of the time. One thing I really miss from CM is the Line-of-Site tool. In Panzer Commander it is tough to tell what can see what. The Engage/Target line will go transparent when LOS is blocked but doesn't indicate WHERE it is being blocked. If a tree or building is in the way it is easy to figure out but if it is just some fold in the ground within a huge field it is a real pain. I lost a lot of units just because I didn't realize certain units could see certain things. Using the excellent Binocular view (tab-tab) sometimes helps. When you click on a unit yellow lines will run to any enemy units that are spotting that unit. This helps a little. I hope they add a better LOS tool/indicator.

-I got clobbered my first game and lost the second as well so the enemy AI isn't that bad. I still haven’t seen the AI perform much movement but others have seen it. The biggest problem seems to be that the enemy unit deployments are fixed. So each time you play the enemy is in the same spot. This is a real problem for replay ability. Perhaps folks can pass around setup mods.

-The manual is excellent. HttR and CotA have spoiled me rotten but PC does have a fine manual. It is 96 pages but only 55 of those are rules. The rest is info on units, history, mod tips, etc. It is detailed and well written. The manual outlines most of the mechanics of how things are calculated such as spotting, etc.

-Someone mentioned some long phase times. Mine all went quickly. The longest wait was maybe 15 seconds. I'm on a 3.2Ghz P4.

-TYPOS: Most folks probably know HUD means 'Head-Up Display' but this isn't mentioned. On the Hotkey Reference at the bottom 'throw' should be 'through'.

-Overall I'd say Panzer Commander is a good game and a good buy and will likely grow into a very good series. I think it does feel a bit like a first release with perhaps some issues to work out but I'll withhold final judgment on that until I play more. I suspect it will be a winner overall though. So far I’d say Panzer Commander is worth the $40 for sure.

[FNG]

Pathfinding definitely needs a bit of help...

Everything else is looking good so far!

[redwolf]

-Someone mentioned you can't highlight units and they are hard to see. Actually, if you click a unit in the HUD it highlights each unit on the map. Also clicking any unit shows the lines to all units in the platoon. You can also hit N to cycle through each unit. I do wish there was a way to see the movement routes for an entire platoon at once (or even everything at once).

The terrain view when you hit "insert" also helps a lot.

[FNG]

A few more turns in.... I like the way that infantry operate, even at though they are slightly abstracted - I'm sure that this will only improve as more detail is applied. AFV combat is shaping up well; the results seem to be internally consistent. All I can say so far is that this game captures the feel of commanding a strategic force really well. You give the orders and off they go.. I like it.

And before our resident 'hardcore wargamer' jumps in and says that the game is Wargame-Lite (TM) and will not appeal to the real manly hardcore wargamer, I play a wide variety of 'hardcore' wargames, both PC and tabletop, and I really like the niche that this falls into. It 'feels' right, without having to measure every angle, every range, check spotting, etc.

Top effort, Matrix & Koios. i have been looking forward to this for a while and have not been disappointed.

(In all fairness to Yoozername, if anyone ever develops his vision of the über-grognard WWII game, I *will* buy it... keep working on those social skills, Youz [;)])

[Erik Rutins]

Thanks for the feedback, we're reading and watching. [8D]

ORIGINAL: ahauschild
The ability to give seperate orders to units in the platoon should be added. Currently if you give the Rush order to the leader you will only be able to add seperate rush orders to the other platoon members. I know that this is a real pain.

One note is that this is by design. We want you to plan ahead for at least the 40 seconds in the Orders phase. You can always target as a Reaction to change your mind, but the platoon members will be governed by the Platoon order and Rushing when in combat is always a risk.

Tank Turning AI - Tanks should react in defend order to receiving fire based on thread. (ignore small arms) If a tank is shot at from the side, and has defend, and no other armored target is in its front, it should turn to face the guy flanking him.

In general, it should, unless it can't see who's shooting at it. If it's buttoned and the unit is out of its visible arc, it may not realize exactly where the fire is coming from.

Gun Accuracy, I think it is a bit unrealistic, but probl works for game balance and map size. I had Vet Pz4fs shooting at T34s at range 900 and pretty much 9 out of 10 shells seemed to miss. I know at this range with both targets standing still the hit rate should have been much higher.

We're continuing to look at this. In the meantime, note that all such data is editable and I'm guessing someone will adjust the defaults stats soon enough to match all tastes.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: FNG
A few more turns in.... I like the way that infantry operate, even at though they are slightly abstracted - I'm sure that this will only improve as more detail is applied. AFV combat is shaping up well; the results seem to be internally consistent. All I can say so far is that this game captures the feel of commanding a strategic force really well. You give the orders and off they go.. I like it.

And before our resident 'hardcore wargamer' jumps in and says that the game is Wargame-Lite (TM) and will not appeal the the real manly hardcore wargamer, I play a wide variety of 'hardcore' wargames, both PC and tabletop, and I really like the niche that this falls into. It 'feels' right, without having to measure every angle, every range, check spotting, etc.

Top effort, Matrix & Koios. i have been looking forward to this for a while and have not been disappointed.

Thanks!

[mbtanker]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Tank Turning AI - Tanks should react in defend order to receiving fire based on thread. (ignore small arms) If a tank is shot at from the side, and has defend, and no other armored target is in its front, it should turn to face the guy flanking him.

In general, it should, unless it can't see who's shooting at it. If it's buttoned and the unit is out of its visible arc, it may not realize exactly where the fire is coming from.

Ok here is an example that just happened to me. I set a PzIV to area fire at some woods to its front where I suspected there was an AT gun. The turn started and it started lighting up the woods. A new AT gun popped up on my left flank, fired, and HIT me three times (luckily it was just a 45mm!). My PzIV kept dutifily pumping HE rounds into the trees ignoring the AT gun trying to kill him the whole time. Seems the AI should have been smart enough to change actions here.

In general though I'm somewhat on the fence about the issue. Sometimes the AI is really stupid but sometimes it is not. With the reaction phase you can sometimes correct your actions although if you are under Advance in one direction and get hit from the side it seems you should be able to change direction into the enemy and not just stop or keep going. There is some balance here that isn't quite right.

But overall I'm enjoying it and just had a great gun battle!

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: ahauschild
Gun Accuracy, I think it is a bit unrealistic, but probl works for game balance and map size. I had Vet Pz4fs shooting at T34s at range 900 and pretty much 9 out of 10 shells seemed to miss. I know at this range with both targets standing still the hit rate should have been much higher.

ahauschild, could you look up the to-hit number at 900 for the gun 75mm/L48 on this tank for me? I don't have the game yet.

[ahauschild]

I think the first priority should be given to the movement AI. I can understand that tanks may get clogged up a bit moving, but when infantry passing standing tanks or other infantry holds up the movement, then it needs work.
 
I am somewhat confused on the save function. Seems I finish a battle and dont get a save option till i pick another force and then only during the setup through the menu function. Would have thought that after each battle it should prompt you to save before you move to the next one.
 
I do start to hate the 76 russian ATG guns. Damn things fire across the map and can penetrate any of the tanks with relative ease. And ussualy you cant even spot them, only the dreaded ? mark. Dumping 8 tanks with HE at the question mark does not seem to aid much. Its kewl,,but also a pain.
 
Line of sight seems to be calculated truly with each tree in mind. Several times now i had heavy woods bethween me and the ATGs, and they still manage to spot me through about 2 inches (guess 30 or 40 meters) of trees. Those russian gunners are ATG sharpshooters.
 
Infantry inside of Halftracks does not seem to be protected by small arm fire. I had a complete squad killed inside its halftrack by a rifle squad 300 meters away.
 
Multiple waypoints, its a must, often I want to rush then turn facing, but have to spend the rest of the turn with my side armor facing the wrong way.
 
Infantry seems to be a bit to nasty at close range to tanks. I can see Rifle squads taking out a tank at 30 meters, but to have a maxim do it, seems a bit streched.
 
Overall I am enjoying the game, and can only recommend it.

[ahauschild]

75L24 800m = 8 900m=9
75L43 750m = 7 900m=8 1200m=9
75L48 750m = 7 900m=8 1200m=9 Same as 75L43, defenitly needs to be adjusted, the L48 was a much more accurate gun
50L42 750m = 6 875m=7 1050m=8
50L60 800m=6 925m =7 1100m=8 Ok, differents from L42 to L60 is 50 meters better range, again, the L60 was way better then the L42
88L56 850m=6 1025m=7 1300m=8 1500m=9
88L71 800m=5 925=6 1100=7 1350=8 1500=9


For the to hit, the lower the better, also this does not inlcude situational modifiers, such as angle, crew rate, and such

Overall I think some carefull looking at this numbers will be needed. Also I have not found any Pz IVh, that would carry the 75L48, only the IVf2 with the 75L43, had to look into the files to get the above stats.

[PDiFolco]

Maybe the numbers can be discussed but they don't look too much out to me. Is shell type (AP-APCR) taken into account ? APCR was more powerful in penetrating power but more imprecise at long range also ...

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: ahauschild
75L43 750m = 7 900m=8 1200m=9

Um, I see what happened.

From the screens of the AAR I see it is a '10' at 900. But your game has an 8, interesting.

Don't change anything now, but I see those numbers may have to be adjusted.