PzcK vs CMBB

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Well, just put a sound file tag in unit and weapons xml descriptions and wait for fans to help you make them [;)]

Very good idea !! I second the motion.

[Titanwarrior89]

One good thing about the weapons fire, you could just about tell off camera what country was firing.  So if a German MMG fired up you knew to look or do a replay if your camera was away from the sound for the full minute.
 
This is one of the features I like in Cm.   Hopefully sometime in the future we may have something similiar for PcK

[Erik Rutins]

We actually do have different MG sounds for Germany vs. Russia but I guess they are not distinctive enough amidst the other battlefield noise.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89
One good thing about the weapons fire, you could just about tell off camera what country was firing.

Not only what country, but which of your tanks or anti-tank guns, etc. It is very cool.

[thewood1]

Here is a comparison of CMBB and PCK I did at gamesquad forums:

"OK, I've been playing for a couple of days and here is my feeling on PCK compared to CMBB and who should buy it. (keep in mind, I am still a noob to PCK and may have missed some things.)

Buy PCK if:

1) you are just plain tired of CMBB. There are people who have burned themselves out on CMBB after six years.

2) you like Steel Panthers-like campaigns that include promotions, medals, gaining experience, etc., no matter how unrealistic it may seem.

3) You really have always wanted ASL in 3D. That is the feel I get from PCK.

4) You think using real world armor data is too much or complicated and you want simpler to understand armor ratings. The words I keep hearing about PCK is it is probability-based armor combat. To me that isn't any different than the armor ratings in ASL. I think a lot of the people saying that don't realize CM used empirical, theoretical, and probability in its calculations.

5) You want the game to be completely moddable. Man, you got that.

6) You have never liked Steve or BFC's attitude towards its fans. OTOH, Erik is very outgoing and willing to act on suggestions. But it is early and JasonC hasn't shown up yet on the Matrix forums. Also, I think a lot of people have dismissed CM out of hand because of their dislike of the forums and developers.

7) You need random campaigns

8) You like handling the details, like ammo selection, stance, etc.

9) you want platoon orders with formations, stance, etc.

10) you want a HUD that includes event lists and unit lists (something CMer's have been screaming about for years)

11) you see future potential, including ongoing technical updates and support. BFC still somewhat supports CMBB, but they are not putting a penny into it since they see CM2 eventually being in this space. (edit)

Stick with CM if you want

1) a map editor and random map builder

2) a larger variety of units

3) a more engineering-oriented armor model

4) One developer controlled database that provides consistency, but prohibits modding

5) A much more fleshed out infantry model that takes into account a lot more factors and provides better support weapon models

6) Ammo tracking that forces conservation of ammo

7) flexible command delays, not static, regardless of year or situation

8) a much larger scenario development community (could eventually be moot)

9) a TacAI that handles a lot of stuff like ammo selection and unit preservation in action phase

10) a less complicated turn structure

11) hotseat play

12) operations that cover mutiple battles on the same map. For a tactical game, this is probably more realistic, but can be considered less immersive and fun.

13) unlimited map sizes

Overall PCK is fun and enjoyable. Unlike ToW and EYSA, it does not make want to go back and fire up CMBB after a game. As it stands right now, it is less than CMBB. But is starting out only a little behind it nad has so much more opportunity to grow. BFC has clearly stated CMBB is going no where, so PCK has no choice but to be the successor. In the end CMBB, IMO as a tactical combat wargame, has a better core engine. But PCK has an engine that is only slightly inferior, but is wrapped with so many other features that CMBB will never have, I think I will stick with it. I am not retiring CMBB. For now, if I want to see how a company of Soviet Gaurds can hold out against a company of Germen Pioneers on a hand built historical map, I will use CMBB. If I want to get that company of Gaurds through a series of battles from 1942 to 1944, PCK is the way to go."[/align]

[Erik Rutins]

[I posted this reply at GameSquad too, re-posting here]

Hi Wood,

Thanks very much for your review, I'm glad that you are enjoying Kharkov and I agree with much of what you wrote, we certainly do have plenty of work still to do but I feel like with the Kharkov release we've finally showed what Panzer Command can be, which our first tentative steps with Winterstorm did not.

A few comments/clarifications:

4) One developer controlled database that provides consistency, but prohibits modding

This is true, but I do want to note for those that play PBEM (since I've had a few discussions on this in the past) that although the data is open, the game will not allow "single side" modding. If someone equips their Panzer III with a 88mm gun and tries to play a PBEM against you and your standard Panzer III, the first time his shoots the game will stop and prevent further play.

From the design and modding side, I can certainly see the possibility for "total conversion" mods where a gamer adjusts the entire data set to what they feel is best, but in the case of head to head gaming you'd need to make sure that both had the same mod installed. For the purpose of expanding, adding new units that do not modify the "standard set" is the easy way to go as it doesn't affect the standard scenarios and campaigns while allowing as much growth in the available units as you could want.

So a designer who needs a new unit that's not in the other scenarios can distribute that unit's data file along with his scenario (and such units can be set to decide whether or not they will be visible to the random battle and campaign generators for random games) - so everyone who installs it will know they're getting a new unit but it also won't affect their play experience outside that scenario.

6) Ammo tracking that forces conservation of ammo

We currently don't track individual shells, but if you keep firing you will run out and rarer types will run out first, which in my experience does still encourage conservation of ammo. I'd like to improve this area, but I don't really want ammo counting at the company command/battalion command level. Perhaps some more detailed internal tracking combined with several reportable ammo levels (like Full, Low, Out) would help.

9) a TacAI that handles a lot of stuff like ammo selection and unit preservation in action phase

Just on the first point, if you just click on Engage -> Target and don't choose the weapon or ammo, the game will automatically make the best choice for the target type as it does when it auto-retargets.

Thanks again, I think that was a very fair and detailed review.

Regards,

- Erik

[Mobius]

thewood1, I can go along with most of your comments. Though I don't see the downside of some things.

Ammo tracking is not in PCK, but ammo depletion is. I don't think a remote FO would know how many shells his artillery battery would have. Remember "Fiend hort mit!"

It's true PCK does not as first resort use theoritical engineering formulas. In most cases it uses real data from military archives . If there is none to be found for a particular weapon is uses the same data that CM uses but puts it in tabular form.

[thewood1]

I am not saying there is an absolute downside, just there are different types of people looking for different things.  The questions were how are the games different.  I was just trying to compare.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: thewood1
I am not saying there is an absolute downside, just there are different types of people looking for different things.  The questions were how are the games different.  I was just trying to compare.

I think you did a great job of comparing. This should be a good help to folks who are asking the same question.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Buy PCK if:

1) you are just plain tired of CMBB. There are people who have burned themselves out on CMBB after six years.

2) you like Steel Panthers-like campaigns that include promotions, medals, gaining experience, etc., no matter how unrealistic it may seem.

3) You really have always wanted ASL in 3D. That is the feel I get from PCK.

4) You think using real world armor data is too much or complicated and you want simpler to understand armor ratings. The words I keep hearing about PCK is it is probability-based armor combat. To me that isn't any different than the armor ratings in ASL. I think a lot of the people saying that don't realize CM used empirical, theoretical, and probability in its calculations.

5) You want the game to be completely moddable. Man, you got that.

6) You have never liked Steve or BFC's attitude towards its fans. OTOH, Erik is very outgoing and willing to act on suggestions. But it is early and JasonC hasn't shown up yet on the Matrix forums. Also, I think a lot of people have dismissed CM out of hand because of their dislike of the forums and developers.

7) You need random campaigns

8) You like handling the details, like ammo selection, stance, etc.

9) you want platoon orders with formations, stance, etc.

8) you want a HUD that includes event lists and unit lists (something CMer's have been screaming about for years)

9) you see future potential

I wonder if you'd consider adding the following as a reason to buy PCK:

10) No Borg spotting and targeting.

The Borg-effect always bugged me, BTW, and PCK's handling strikes me as dramatically more "realistic."

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Melnibone]

Maybe

11) You run Vista [;)]

[thewood1]

Yeah, you could put that in there.  It could also be just be in general CMBB being a dead end.

[thewood1]

You could add borg spotting, but I never saw borg spotting as too big an issue. Maybe 10 on my top 10 issues with CMBB.Borg spotting sounds bad in theory, but play CMSF and have an red infantry squad not see an M2 IFV standing 20m away from it and you may rethink. I would rather have the CM1 spotting than a poorly implemented relative spotting system. Haven't played enough PCK to see how much of a difference it makes, but so far haven't noticed a lot.

[PDiFolco]

Mmm, I've been convinced by point 6 mostly [:D] !
Really Matrix and Koios are very open to suggestions/improvements, that's a good thing.

[marcusm]

Personally I wonder if it's ASL likeness isn't a bigger selling point than the likeness to CM series.

ASL is after all > CM series.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: marcusm
Personally I wonder if it's ASL likeness isn't a bigger selling point than the likeness to CM series.

We've had a lot of comments on that actually and I recognize where people are seeing similarities. I'd be delighted if Kharkov became well known within the ASL community, I think a lot of SL/ASL players ended up playing Steel Panthers and CM and hopefully now Panzer Command.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: marcusm
Personally I wonder if it's ASL likeness isn't a bigger selling point than the likeness to CM series.
ASL is after all > CM series.

If there are SL/ASL players maybe we can have a thread of PCK = ASL.

Actually I played SL (not ASL) and got a lot of the infantry ideas from it.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Mobius

ORIGINAL: marcusm
Personally I wonder if it's ASL likeness isn't a bigger selling point than the likeness to CM series.
ASL is after all > CM series.

If there are SL/ASL players maybe we can have a thread of PCK = ASL.

Actually I played SL (not ASL) and got a lot of the infantry ideas from it.

I played SL as well (along with Cross of Iron and I can't recall the third module but it had a nice blue box art) For a while they consumed a whole lot of my time (then the I lost my playing partner and while I did some solo playing - it faded). I still have the SQ box sitting pretty close - not sure why though. This was all well before even the C64 came out (I'm a bit of an old codger).

Rick

[marcusm]

Well. I played that too. Don't forget Panzer Leader as potential comparisons.

I still have a few ASL modules. Yanks, Last Hurrah, Airborne and erm the Eastern Front module.

This is the approach I want this series to take. Not the stupid "hey lets make totally incompatible editions" of a certain
other similar computer game .

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: marcusm
Well. I played that too. Don't forget Panzer Leader as potential comparisons.

Panzer Leader and Panzer Blitz were great. [8D]

This is the approach I want this series to take. Not the stupid "hey lets make totally incompatible editions" of a certain
other similar computer game .

We want to be able to continue to play all the previous content too - the goal is bigger and better with each release.