Infantry in Panzer Command?

[gunny]

Ive read this thread and it left this question. If a 10 man smg squad had 2 guys killed, would the fire power of the squad now be reduced to reflect 8 smg's ?
 
If so then I don't see the problem. If not then infantry is simply treated as a special form of armoured vehicle, slow moving, resiliant, and having a turret with 10 smg's.
 
In the end the effect is the same. One a little more abstract than the other perhaps.

[ravinhood]

Think of the infantry units as a counter on a boardgame, they don't lose point vaule (well most of the games) if they don't get eliminated from the map board. A 4-4-4 is still a 4-4-4 for the next turn. You're thinking too much like Combat Mission and now I understand how this is not Combat Mission. It's more of a minatures/boardgame type make. It's not that difficult to use as long as you know the principles of it. The little men on the screen are merely for cosmetics instead of just placing a counter out there with 4-4-4 on it.

Erik has stated that they plan to implement individual modeling of infantry IN THE FUTURE. So, just give this one a chance/try as it is and then it will only get better from here just like the Combat Mission series did as it advanced to CMAK.

I really enjoy minature style playing and tactical. These guys make some great stuff. You should try Alexander and Caesar as well if you are into minatures and boardwargaming style on the computer.

@Erik
That's great about the point buy system for just skirmish games. But, I still hate making my own maps or really downloading others. I enjoy that some games just randomly make decent maps to play on themselves. Like CM and SPWAW series. I can wait, I'm sure you'll put some random map generator in some FUTURE edition.

[Yoozername]

ORIGINAL: gunny

Ive read this thread and it left this question. If a 10 man smg squad had 2 guys killed, would the fire power of the squad now be reduced to reflect 8 smg's ?

If so then I don't see the problem. If not then infantry is simply treated as a special form of armoured vehicle, slow moving, resiliant, and having a turret with 10 smg's.

In the end the effect is the same. One a little more abstract than the other perhaps.

Its the former, not the latter.

Actually, armored vehicles can be 'damaged' from firepower. The game models this. But infantry (and manned guns) are not 'damaged' after recovering from attacks.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

It's gonna be interesting to see where the game fits into the chasm between CM and CC. CC does infantry a lot better, IMO, while I've always thought CM was a tanker's game. In CC, the more tanks, the hokier the scenario was likely to become. Conversely, when I cook up a scenario for CM, I usually don't even bother with infantry, focusing instead on AFVs and AT-guns, with large, armour-friendly maps. Someday, I'd like to see a game integrate the two arms more satisfactorily, particularly over an IP connection. Oh, and no turns please!

PoE (aka Ivanmoe)

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, for now infantry is effectively one "stand" which gets removed if it fails to survive an attack. We're planning to add "steps" to add resolution to the combat results for infantry, but for now the end result feels pretty good in play. We absolutely did focus more on armor than infantry, largely because of the campaign. It made sense for the first release to spend most of our time there. We will definitely flesh out infantry more in future expansions, it's one of the top priorities in order to be able to model other campaigns.

Regards,

- Erik

[Txema]

But if the effectiveness of an infantry unit can be TEMPORARILY reduced due to supression or casualities, why don´t you model the PERMANENT reduction of effectiveness due to casualities? It sounds quite doable, even in a patch, and it would improve the infantry modelling enormeously !!!


Txema

[Erik Rutins]

It's definitely doable. I don't want to promise when it will be done, but it will be.

Regards,

- Erik

[ravinhood]

Give them cake and they still want milk Erik.

[Txema]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

It's definitely doable. I don't want to promise when it will be done, but it will be.

Regards,

- Erik

EXCELLENT !!!!

If it is done, I will buy this game for sure !!!


Txema

[Panzer Leader R.I.P.]

I understand that there are priorities, the first and foremost being to release a well-balanced, playable game, however, I tend to agree with the side requesting better modelled infantry (albeit before Ive even played thegame, lol)  I mean, we all come from backgrounds of wargaming here, and squad capability and deterioration thru combat are a pretty standard, straight-forward issue.

Of course, I have every intention of buying this game, and this is not a make-or-break issue, but I would HATE to have to wait for a sequel before we had advanced infantry modelling.  Maybe a thick patch with that and some new maps would be nice.

[ravinhood]

Now cmon guys you all know by now how "sequels" go, they add one or two little things that were wanted or needed in the first one so they can charge another $50 bucks to yah. Why should Matrixgames be any different? haha The Civ's have done it, the HOMM's have done it, the Paradox group has milked the EU engine to death doing the same thing. Mad Minute did it in the sequel to Bull Run. So, cmon cut em some slack, pay for this one then pay $50 again for the next one and the next. Thas how they get to wear suits and goto Origin conventions. Sorry Erik, but, the truth is the truth on this one. I'm still buy it though

[Yoozername]

Even ASL (board game) had a means for modeling this.  I find it absurd that effort would have been put into representing multi-man units graphically but the combat resolution model is so primitive.

[Panzer Leader R.I.P.]

Yer right Rav, but I dont see it as a 'feature' per say, but rather as a needed component.  And its not so much the money as the time lol... Maybe they could come out with an expansion in the first few weeks, lol?

(Again, this is all philosophical as I havent played the game yet.)

[Erik Rutins]

ravinhood,

ORIGINAL: ravinhood
Now cmon guys you all know by now how "sequels" go, they add one or two little things that were wanted or needed in the first one so they can charge another $50 bucks to yah. Why should Matrixgames be any different? haha The Civ's have done it, the HOMM's have done it, the Paradox group has milked the EU engine to death doing the same thing. Mad Minute did it in the sequel to Bull Run. So, cmon cut em some slack, pay for this one then pay $50 again for the next one and the next. Thas how they get to wear suits and goto Origin conventions. Sorry Erik, but, the truth is the truth on this one. I'm still buy it though

You have things sort of reversed, actually, though I understand how this would look right from a customer's perspective. Rather than deliberately avoid adding features in order to "save" them for the future, we stretched our budget to the absolute limit and beyond to add as many features as we possibly could to this release. We saved for future expansions and releases only those that, due to budget and priorities, we could not fit in.

Also, we are planning on a series of expansions to this release which will not be sold at full game price, but priced to make it affordable for owners of Panzer Command to add on new features, campaigns, units, etc. as we go.

Regards,

- Erik

[ravinhood]

My gawd tornados and hurricanes will be coming to America....expansions not at full retail price? lol Heh, I'ma consumer I'm always gonna goad you about making too much profit.

[Panzer Leader R.I.P.]

Erik that sounds great!  From what I've read, you need to have teams working on that constantly!

With the proper care, this game could be the next big thing!  Good work Koios and Matrix!

[sabre100]

Erik -
 
I am glad you guys will be working on expansions for the game once it is up.  Please add the Romanian armies as an expansion to this campaign you guys are missing that from the release. 
 
 
Thanks
 

[pipilongbeard]

The fact that you can mod the units in xml and change alot of their attributes is
very compelling. So the game has initial rough edges, the point is, it has potential to get
better and we at least have some say in how that happens by posting our ideas and thoughts.
 
   

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Bil H
1.  Number of visible men per squad.  IMO it would be a mistake to show more than the 3 or 5 men per squad.  This game sounds too abstracted to show up to 12 men per squad.. all you are really doing is showing a gaggle of infantry that has no real meaning and eating up available video resources.

Indeed. Some Italian infantry squads contained 20 men.

2.  Simplified infantry.  I understand that this is an armor heavy game, but there was a LOT of infantry in those "tank" battles.  Tank formations at this time (and even today) were not so heavily armored that you can realistically choose to just ignore the PBI (poor bloody infantry), they had a very important role, and were not so easily dispersed and over run by armor units.  Just ask the German tank heavy formations at Kursk. 

Just ask Stuart Hill, in his book "By Tank Through Normandy" he used his Sherman to blast the German infantry out of their slit trenches from close range. That being too slow he just drove over them and crushed them.

3.  Infantry as a unit (ie no internal casualties).  This I think is the biggest problem with your system.  It should be very tough to destroy an infantry unit, especially by armor, which has visibility problems.  There is a reason why you hold ground with infantry they are very resilient.  Better would be a system that reduces an infantry unit's capability by steps, 2 or 3 would do IMO for this game. 

If you get that far into the trees with ones and twosies of infantry you have to model the command of who is in charge of each reminant and model the shooting of each man or each MG team to spread out their fire from individual to individuals and not to units. Otherwise it would take as much firepower to eliminate only 2-3 men as it would 8-12.

[mbtanker]

Well after playing the first campaign mission here are a few notes on infantry:

1) Boy they move slowly. Once I dismounted about halfway through the game I think they only moved about two inches.

2) Sort of tough to figure out what state they are in. You have to click on the unit to see if they are supressed as there does not seem to be any indication on the infantry graphic itself. I saw a squad  lie down and realized they were dead not taking cover!

3) I'm still fighting off my Combat Mission habits so  I had trouble getting the infantry to do what I wanted. I  had them behind a railroad car and wanted them to shoot at enemy infantry on the other side. Couldn't seem to get them to move into position.

I've only done one mission though and I've barely read the manul so take all of that with a grain of salt.