ORIGINAL: Capitaine
But PZK attracted me because - (c) the terrain is NOT artificially concentrated like board games (Panzerblitz, ASL, etc.) and some computer games but is actual, historic and in-scale;
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The presentation of the game is well done and very professional. It seems to exude quality. I find that the graphic style is very accurate and gives the impression of a first-class game. The maps convey the actual lay of the land and make me feel like it's really Russia from the photos and movies I've seen, not an amateur model train set crammed full of contrasting terrain. And weighing in on another debated point, I like the "coins" used to ID units. They work very well for me and don't interfere with the art of the unit itself. (VERY well done bases could work for me, but honestly I haven't seen a fully 3-D game yet that has done that effectively.)
Very, very glad you like the maps!
As someone who worked on them, I tried real hard to make maps as faithful to the real terrain as possible and in 1x1 km, the temptation was strong to cram more into them (It's still possible to edit everything on the maps except the terrain relief and still cram more into them). Basically, historical and modern topo maps and pictures of various places in the area were used as well as Google Earth, which is quite useful for such a task. Also, reading works on the subject, it was a matter of locating where this or that action took place and trying to portray the terrain in the best way possible.
Actually, I was worried about reactions about the more 1:1 representation and general openness of the maps. But two critical features allowed for more open terrain and generally more representative terrain: smoke and entrenchments. Also, you have maps where the terrain is rolling or hilly, so you can use that for cover.
Anyway, it's just that I played games where the objectives of historical scenarios were "take village" (or take hill) and the village was represented by 10 closely spaced houses and a church at the center you had to capture, but when you looked at a real map, the same village was suppposed to have something like 20,000 inhabitants... then I always feel like something's wrong. I understand why it's done, but I think there is a way to make the maps playable but still keep close to the real lay of the land, particularly in historical scenarios. So that's what we tried to do with Kharkov (and hope we succeeded!)
Still, I can't wait for the moment bigger maps will be possible! It will truly shine!
I prefer the probability-based combat computations of PCK to a supposedly "accurate ballistics" method. I feel it games better and is just as realistic, if not more, as trying to model ballistics in a computer model. I don't feel all the factors of real life combat on ballistics can be accounted for. So I'm very pleased in this respect too.
Yeah, I also think it's easier to get it right in the way PCK does it. Way better also for making right what people felt was wrong. I think this is one of PCK strong points: almost everything can be changed, streamlined, perfected, etc. by the community.
I'd like to commend Koios for embracing historical maps and actions as the basis for their game. I'd like to see more such maps in the future and, especially, the larger ones that've been promised.
Me too, me too!!! [:)]
OK, my second quibble would be a lack of destructible things, but Erik says that's coming later, and in any case it would just be icing on an already tasty cake.
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