John Tiller's Latest; Panzer Battles 2 - Normandy released

[Rayfer]

Strela/David....thanks for your comprehensive post. I was hoping it wasn't just a redo of Panzer Campaigns. I look forward to giving it a go.

[Richie61]

Congratulations to David on a new game! You are a hard worker Sir!

Kursk was good, but this title is GREAT!  :D

[jomni]

Strela/David....thanks for your comprehensive post. I was hoping it wasn't just a redo of Panzer Campaigns. I look forward to giving it a go.

Different scale. It pretty similar to Campaign series in scale.

[Al]

Congrats Dave.  Looks good!  O0

[Strela]

How do the campaigns work?  Do units carry over?   Does it branch or is it a linear progression?

Smittyohio,

This is the first version of the campaign engine. That said it is pretty powerful. It's based off the engine that has been used in Tiller's Squad Battles, American Civil War and the Napoleonic titles. Units can carry over, but losses etc do not - that is an enhancement we're currently looking at. Keep in mind, losses carrying over is only relevant if scenarios are pretty much contiguous in time.

It can do both linear and branching progression. We have a purely linear introductory campaign based of the British armour regiment - Royal Dragoon Guards which has five linked scenarios. The US 2nd Armored Division campaign is a branching campaign with both sides having a variety of strategies to chose from. Most rounds have two possible selections which then generates one of four possible scenarios based on those choices. If both sides has three possible choices then nine potential scenarios are created. Based upon the performance in the selected scenario then next scenario or strategy choice is determined with appropriate branching.

I put up quite a long post here ; http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/showthread.php?tid=68266&pid=406147#pid406147   which should graphically show what I'm talking about and the kind of choices players get during campaign play.

Any further questions, please ask.

David

[jomni]

Campaign sounds nice. Better than Kursk.

[Strela]

Campaign sounds nice. Better than Kursk.

The engine was actually available for Kursk, but the content wasn't. We had content ready for Normandy, but even then we had to curtail the amount of time we spent on creating new campaigns due to the sheer number of engagements that occurred over three months in Normandy. The engine will work with Kursk, someone just has to create the campaign...

David

[smittyohio]

How do the campaigns work?  Do units carry over?   Does it branch or is it a linear progression?

Smittyohio,

This is the first version of the campaign engine. That said it is pretty powerful. It's based off the engine that has been used in Tiller's Squad Battles, American Civil War and the Napoleonic titles. Units can carry over, but losses etc do not - that is an enhancement we're currently looking at. Keep in mind, losses carrying over is only relevant if scenarios are pretty much contiguous in time.

It can do both linear and branching progression. We have a purely linear introductory campaign based of the British armour regiment - Royal Dragoon Guards which has five linked scenarios. The US 2nd Armored Division campaign is a branching campaign with both sides having a variety of strategies to chose from. Most rounds have two possible selections which then generates one of four possible scenarios based on those choices. If both sides has three possible choices then nine potential scenarios are created. Based upon the performance in the selected scenario then next scenario or strategy choice is determined with appropriate branching.

I put up quite a long post here ; http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/showthread.php?tid=68266&pid=406147#pid406147   which should graphically show what I'm talking about and the kind of choices players get during campaign play.

Any further questions, please ask.

David

Thanks for the reply!  Sounds really good, and the price is very reasonable.   I'll be taking a look at this during the holidays!

[Compass Rose]

I have not had a chance to go through everything yet however, from what I have gone through and seen so far, I think that this title has to be the best looking and well put together HPS/JTS game I have seen and owned to date, and I own 64 HPS/JTS titles!!

Just based on the info that is included in the Notes PDF, it is amazing to see how much detail and effort went into it.  I also was very excited to see all of these real WWII pictures in which 95% of them I had never seen before.

I can't wait to play through the Getting Started scenarios and start playing some PBEM again.

I also love the fact that you guys offer so many different unit graphic options so players can easily customize their game to the way they like to view it.

Best of all, it is all stock!

You guys sure have set a very high benchmark that hopefully future JTS releases will follow!

Very, Very Impressive!



Thanks

[-budd-]

anyway a unit count for each scenario could be posted.

[Strela]

anyway a unit count for each scenario could be posted.

What do you mean budd?

Each scenario is rated for size (battalion, regiment, division etc) and all those details are available in the designers notes for free. If you want to know the approximate number of units for each of these just let me know and I'll post here.

David

[-budd-]

Yes please, number of units in the scenarios.

[Grim.Reaper]

Any impressions for those who bought the game?  Might be my first tiller purchase in a long time.

[panzerde]

Any impressions for those who bought the game?  Might be my first tiller purchase in a long time.

I just wrote up an AAR of a smaller, but interesting scenario: http://panzerde.blogspot.com/2015/12/candian-armour-le-mesnil-patry.html

[Grim.Reaper]

Any impressions for those who bought the game?  Might be my first tiller purchase in a long time.

I just wrote up an AAR of a smaller, but interesting scenario: http://panzerde.blogspot.com/2015/12/candian-armour-le-mesnil-patry.html

Great! I will head over to read now...