Are there going to be any new HPS and or John Tiller games?

[reapagan]

Just wondering...

[Cyrano]

Dr. T. no longer publishes through HPS so this has become a severable question.  I do not know what course HPS will take, but, if the last year or so be any judge, it will still release an occasional game.

As for Dr. T., yes, there are other games in the pipeline in a number of series -- some well known (Panzer Battles) and some less known that I, frankly, am not at liberty to discuss.

All the Tiller releases are very, very small operations and take time to come to fruition but the result has improved steadily over time.  I can't even begin to describe, for example, how excited I am for the World War I PzC franchise, with which I am in no way affiliated save as a fan, to move forward in history.

[Jarhead0331]

I would welcome new releases to thew PzC and Squad Battles series, but I'd like to see the systems advance and modernize. I'd appreciate updates to graphics, sound and UI at this point. These games have been around for a long time with little in the way of improvement.

[Cyrano]

I'm not hooked up to those crews, but my impression is that WWII PzC has run its course and development effort -- which certainly includes graphics if not vast UI changes -- is being shepherded into Panzer Battles.  I'd love to be wrong, but the PzC series already covers a whole lot of ground...both WWII and after.  I am a huge fan of the WWI series which has made its bones in the research, improved rule set, and, in an almost equal measure, the graphics upgrade at the hands of long-time modder JIlson...whose name I fear I have just misspelled...

SB is a wildly under appreciated series for all its graphic limitations -- I marvel at those who prefer paper and cardboard squad level games to it -- and I, too, am quite interested to see where it heads.  WWI and the free Grenada were both really good installments.

[Bison]

Not hearing much about upcoming releases from the Tiller games series is pretty par for the course.  I suspect there are several games being designed and developed at the moment.

[Strela]

Just wondering...

Hi,

As the guy behind the most recent couple of Panzer Campaigns and now Panzer Battles titles, I am probably the best person to answer...

The answer is emphatically yes. John has independent teams working on his titles (we all have day jobs) and he releases them when they're done. It takes a minimum of two years to get a game from genesis to out the door - the norm is usually significantly longer than that. John himself is pretty tied up with some long term commercial contracts and that limits the time he has to spend on the wargaming side. That said, some of these commercial contracts benefit us - the technology for Android and iPad ports came directly from one of these engagements. Ultimately, I expect improvements to UI's on PC's etc to flow through due to the advent of touch and zooming/scaling and other enhancements.

As far as new titles, we have been running a big thread over at the Blitz showcasing the next Panzer Battles - its now at the 350 post mark
http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/showthread.php?tid=68266


We're on track to justify some Christmas presents to the Tiller aficionado!!! 


We've also continued to do a lot of work on graphics and other aesthetics. A lot of what has been done in Panzer battles has been ported back into at least two Panzer Campaigns titles (Moscow '42 & Kharkov '43) via the latest patches.

We have also just put out a draft Visual Order of Battle for the upcoming title in this thread. http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/showthread.php?tid=68772
This really is a superb reference document created by Mike Avanzini.

This is available for free for all to download. The link to the 66 meg PDF download is in the first post.

It shows what we have done with the graphics and the overall presentation and additions with each title.





If you have any specific questions please let me know,

David

[Strela]

And for those that can't be bothered clicking through the links here is a sample page from the Visual Order of Battle. This is a couple of Regiments from the 1st Polish Division;



David

[Cyrano]

^^^

[Sir Slash]

Looking very HOT.  :-*

[Richie61]

I have had the honor to beta test this upcoming title. Not only is this new title beautiful, but it plays awesome too  ;) Panzer Battles Kursk was good, but this title moves the ball pass the goal line  :D

[Boggit]

I'm not hooked up to those crews, but my impression is that WWII PzC has run its course and development effort -- which certainly includes graphics if not vast UI changes -- is being shepherded into Panzer Battles.  I'd love to be wrong, but the PzC series already covers a whole lot of ground...both WWII and after.  I am a huge fan of the WWI series which has made its bones in the research, improved rule set, and, in an almost equal measure, the graphics upgrade at the hands of long-time modder JIlson...whose name I fear I have just misspelled...

SB is a wildly under appreciated series for all its graphic limitations -- I marvel at those who prefer paper and cardboard squad level games to it -- and I, too, am quite interested to see where it heads.  WWI and the free Grenada were both really good installments.

+1 I for one would like to see the Pz Battles game joined up as a linked campaign. The standalone scenarios, while very good for what they are, leave me a little cold when I think what could have been done as Korps campaigns and a Grand Campaign bringing it all together. I'm hoping this will be done in a future update with carry over of losses, replacements and resupply. IMO, it would turn Panzer Battles from good to excellent. FWIW, JTS has made a MAJOR improvement with the effort put into the graphics in PZB. I have not always been charitable towards Joe Amoral's artwork, taking a similar view to Jarhead's earlier post, but I must say he has excelled himself with the PZBattles Kursk game. I just hope he will do retroactive artwork packs for the other games. I'd happily pay for a big art update pack for all the JTS/Games if he does it to the same standard done for PzB:Kursk.

[Boggit]

@Strela :)

Fantastic news. I can hardly wait. O0 I do hope that the game will have a linked/dynamic campaign fro the reasons I mentioned in my above post.

A while back you hinted that you might so something to remedy the campaign deficit in PZB Kursk. Are you any further on, or has that been shelved :( (if so, hopefully temporarily) through pressure of RL and work?

[Strela]

+1 I for one would like to see the Pz Battles game joined up as a linked campaign. The standalone scenarios, while very good for what they are, leave me a little cold when I think what could have been done as Korps campaigns and a Grand Campaign bringing it all together. I'm hoping this will be done in a future update with carry over of losses, replacements and resupply. IMO, it would turn Panzer Battles from good to excellent. FWIW, JTS has made a MAJOR improvement with the effort put into the graphics in PZB. I have not always been charitable towards Joe Amoral's artwork, taking a similar view to Jarhead's earlier post, but I must say he has excelled himself with the PZBattles Kursk game. I just hope he will do retroactive artwork packs for the other games. I'd happily pay for a big art update pack for all the JTS/Games if he does it to the same standard done for PzB:Kursk.

Boggit,

Re. Campaign; Normandy has a couple of multi-day scenarios with Operation Bluecoat the biggest covering almost 5 days (144 turns). These longer scenarios feel very different to the average 20-30 turn scenario in Kursk. You feel the need to conserve forces and decide when to push and when to stop to recover.

That said, look out for the Blitz teaser thread at the end of this week - there will be an announcement that you might be happy with.

As far as Joe's latest art work - he started the ball rolling with the first iteration of Kursk. I have picked it all up from that point so most of what you see is my work. We have also retrofitted the new graphics style back into Panzer Campaigns Kharkov '43 and Moscow '42 in the latest patches. No need to pay for a graphics upgrade!

David

[ComradeP]

People asking for linked scenarios or carry over losses should realise that it's very difficult to balance, as you have to consider every eventuality and starting/ending positions for each scenario, and losses in wargames are nearly always ahistorically high.

For the Panzer Battles series, there's the specific handicap of having around 30 day turns instead of 6 to 8 which means there is no lull in the fighting that allows you to regain fatigue or establish new defensive positions. You can destroy a formation in that time.

As much as I would also really like to play linked scenarios with some losses carrying over, a true linked scenario campaign will be very challenging to balance, which is also why I was happy that the Cherbourg scenario for Panzer Battles Normandy is now less long than it was originally. Operation Bluecoat, based on its description, uses fixing and unfixing of units and a constant trickle of reinforcements, so that's also easier to balance. Balance usually goes out of the window when you have to use the same units over and over.

Variant scenarios based on a certain outcome in previous scenarios are easier to balance, however, so that might be an option. Like how Civil War Generals 2 handled its variants.

[Nefaro]

I would still be curious about new Tiller games but if they're only going to be sold with limited online activation DRM then I won't ever bother.