Great game

[henri51]

I bought the game yesterday after hesitating somewhat.

The game surpasses my expectations which were based on the demo and the 2AARs available at this time. I played 2 of the scenarios (Kharkov1 as the Germans and I forgot which other one that I lost by one move when I failed to reach Veronezh in time). Someone should post an AAR with screen shots of one of the large scenarios like Kharkov.

I lost both scenarios, which you should expect to do also he first time because my Panzer General skills were rusty, but I had sore shoulders from the stress of hunching in front of my computer screen for five hours trying in the tense Kharkov scenario to compensate for the loss of my bombers in the first few moves because I forgot to protect them with adjacent fighters. Then my only fighter left could not reload because I did not have an airport and the Russians had 2. Losing my only tiger II to an entrenched 2-star T-34 didnt help either, and nor did sending my recon units into the teeth of the enemy instead of pulling them back, as well as sending out-of-ammo infantry adjacent to enemy tanks where they ran out of fuel. I finally got the upper hand late in the game, but it was too late.

Expect to play a few hours for a scenario (not the first few campaign maps), and to lose the first time due to lack of time. The second time around you pretty well know what to expect, and since you are smarter than the AI (you are arent you? [:D]) you should succeed.I will find out if this is true today... [:'(](Edit - Yep, I did win on my second try today with a few days to spare. But if the AI had used the few units it had left to rush one of my unoccupied cities, I could have lost again).

The best way to understand this game in case you are too young to remember Panzer General is that the maps are actually exercises in tactics, with a bit of strategy thrown in, but not much since the objectives are defined in advance for each scenario.

For example, the enemy is holding a lightly defended bridge that you need in order to reach a city objective defended by artillery,infantry and AA, probably with ambushes along the way. A competent player will send a recon unit to scout the bridge environs, then bring up air power (if there is no significant AA) and artillery to soften up the bridge defenders, then cross some infantry through the river (artillery and vehicles cant cross rivers except on bridges), and finally bring up engineers to repair the bridge so wheeled units can get across.

A recon unit will spot any ambushes along the road, as well as defenders around the city, running away from heavy battles if necessary.There are probably artillery, AA and AT units defending the objective if it is important, so you must use rock-scissors techniques to neutralize them before assaulting the city, which needs to be softened up by artillery and planes before the assault. The priority targets are the AA and the artillery. If possible take out the AA first with infantry (and maybe tanks, depending on whether the AA can be used against tanks), the AT units with infantry and the artillery with tanks and infantry.Once the AA is gone, planes can help destroy the AT and artillery as well as softening up the city.

In large scenarios there will be several such objectives, but not all will be protected so strongly. Especially in the Winter where off-road movement is sloooowww (like the first Kharkov scenario), major crossroads are likely to be strongly defended, perhaps with bunkers.

The Kharkov scenario has 28 moves, but if you get bogged down, time flies, and dont forget that you have to stop often to gas up and load up with ammo, not to mention upgrades.Time lost doing this is a major consideration in this game and managing this aspect of a scenario can make the difference between losing and winning.

Henri