Panzer Corps?

[Gusington]

I have always liked both Panzer General and Panzer Corps games. Sometimes I do get frustrated with the beat the clock element but the amount of units and theaters usually outshines the frustration.

[JasonPratt]

I have some John Tiller games as well as Grigsby, they are great. I wouldn't want any more to their depth of complexity, I want something quite lightweight. I am definitely going to look at Germany At War.

Well, yeah, anything Grigsby level will be waaayyyybeyond JT's Campaign series, much moreso a PGish game. But there are Panzer Generalish games like GAW which are somewhat more detailed than PG usually is. (JTCS being one of those, and a true independent competitor to the Panzer General system.)

Let's see, other things more complex than PG but still built on the same kind of rules basically... I'll get back in a little bit.

[JasonPratt]

Okay, most PGish games (including in the original Panzer General line itself) are more complex updates of the original system to some degree. While they kind-of simulate situations, with some success (e.g. the Axis defense of various parts of Italy vs Allied invasion), I don't know how far any of them push into historical simulation per se. The last version of the original 5-Star series from SSI, People's General, still has a major fan-mod presence, and you can get a ton of interesting applications of things like the Vietnam War to the PG system. But being part of the original series, it isn't much more complex than the original PG.

Since you mentioned "historical" simulation, I will provisionally ignore the fantasy and sci-fant variations of Panzer General, although two or three really good such games exist, including Matrix's Warhammer 40K: Armageddon series. See my PanzOrc Corpz Generals AAR link in my sig for a very colorful traditional fantasy Panzer General-ish game (Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy). Both systems are available at Steam and elsewhere. SSI's own Fantasy General itself necessarily falls in this category, and can be found at GoG.

(... .... I suppose, being quite the baroque operator, I didn't ignore them after all...  :-[ ::) :P )


Commander: Europe At War from Matrix, not available on Steam (but available on several portable formats), takes the PG system with several upgrades and applies it to a WW2 Europe stategic level. My brother is a big PG fan, and loved this, although to me such games are a little too simple (NO STACKING OF UNITS??) for this scale. The game simulates some of the political and other strategic issues in dealing with the whole of European WW2.

Commander: the Great War from Matrix, available also on Steam, takes the original ComEurope game system, upgrades it again in several ways, and ports it to World War 1. Generally well liked even more than the original game. Still at heart a PGish game, but pushes the limits of what can be done with it (at the strategic level anyway).

Order of Battle: World War II from Matrix (sense a theme? ;), available also on Steam, was originally a major update and spiritual successor of Pacific General, but has now been expanded so that the core system is effectively a free demo (with an extensive campaign unique to the demo). Previously available content (starting with the Pacific War) has been re-integrated as DLC. We can expect a lot more content on the way, which has already started with Winter War, which ports the Russian/Finnish war prior to WW1 into this upgraded PG system. I'll be curious to what extent the OoB system will end up competing with Panzer Corps, since so far the earlier PC games have concentrated on European/Mediterranean fronts of WW2. The systems are quite distinct, though, with PC hewing a lot closer to the original Panzer General (albeit with a few update improvements).

I would be remiss not to mention again (since I wasn't sure from your comment, Flywheel, whether you'd actually played this or rather other JT games) John Tiller's Campaign Series, which is a true alternative competitor to the PG system, and more complex in several ways, although the scale is much smaller. Its detail is strong enough to push into being a true WW2 battle simulation -- unlike any adaptation of PG I know of, facing makes a significant difference for example -- but it doesn't have the overwhelming complexity of something like a Grigsby game. Campaign Series: Middle East 1948-1985 upgrades this system and, of course, ports it to the Palestinian area around Israel. How that game is not yet on Steam I have no idea (I presume worries about compatibility problems, and maybe some rights issues with JT, are why the former set isn't on Steam yet).

Getting away from Matrix (hard as that is to do!), Battlefront provides a similar offering at the strategic level in their Strategic Command series, comparable to the Commander series from Matrix. Their WW1 game, including its upgrade, offers both WW1 and WW2 campaigns in Europe, along with several interesting alternative operations and small war scenarios not normally simulated. Their Global Conflict edition of the same engine, and its updates, really push hard on how far a basic PGish system can go at the strategic level -- too far in some player estimates, but still very much worth of mention.

Wasteland Interactive doesn't usually publish games quite in the mold of PG, but they did do this one recently (available on Steam), The Campaign Series: Fall Weiss, which was clearly intended to be the start of a new system of games much along the line of Germany at War as a densely complex update to the Panzer General series; and like GAW, focused entirely on one early operation, namely the assault on Poland. It has some crashing issues, but you can ignore most of the negative Steam reviews who are simply complaining about the game being too dense (THEY HAVE TO READ THE MANUAL, AAAAHHHH!) I wish more could have been done with this system; maybe it will be someday. The game also notably draws clear comparisons to JTCS. It's cheap even when not on sale, and you can use the Steam refund if it doesn't work on your system or seems overly wonky. You can read the manual without buying fortunately, to see if it's maybe beyond what you're looking for; but it's only 32 pages, or less than that really, so it still isn't a monster game.

Going back to Matrix, the only other PGish games I can think of there are, arguably, the Battle Academy series, and definitely the Frontline series. But those probably count overall as being less complex than PG, although maybe a little moreso in some ways (with units having multiple abilities). They're both good, solid game systems in their own right, and BA2:Kursk is highly regarded around here.

[Crossroads]

Now that's what I call a thorough answer!  O0

Thanks for the mention! Per your question regarding Steam, it is all good here at Campaign Series Land. There's no other actual reason for shunning Steam at the moment apart the fact we just didn't want to do it yet. We feel there's still some catching up to do, as we're bringing the Series up to modern standards.

It certainly can be an option for a future sales channel, as we're preparing the next titles to be available as of the latter half 2017. It's a bit premature to consider or discuss any details just quite yet, I guess I basically just wanted to pop in and say nothing's holding us back, should we want to go there.  :)

[JasonPratt]

All yay to Crossroads and the CS (rebuild) team!

Do those plans include Matrix releasing JTCS to Steam, too? Not that I care, I've got my copy long, lonnng ago, but still. 

[berto]

Do those plans include Matrix releasing JTCS to Steam, too? Not that I care, I've got my copy long, lonnng ago, but still. 

For the JTCS, not that we care much either.

Without saying too much, or revealing details of licensing, compensation, etc., I'll just say:

It's complicated.  Releasing the older JTCS on Steam is more Matrix/Slitherine's concern than ours, we at the Campaign Series Legion (CSL) being the developers, but not the publishers, of the new Campaign Series (no "John Tiller" there) games, beginning with Campaign Series: Middle East.

To reiterate:  The older John Tiller Campaign Series bundle has been end-of-lifed.  The CSL will be doing no further updates or patches or bug fixes or releases of the older JTCS.

The newer CS (sans the "JT") is a different story, of course.

[Flywheel]

Thanks for the extensive post, Jason, there is a lot to absorb there. I'm not interested in the sci-fi or fantasy stuff, so glad you didn't feel a need for all that effort. You have made Order of Battle  much clearer to me, I couldn't understand how a game was free to play but you purchased the DLC, so thanks for that. I made up my mind and decided on two as I just couldn't swing 100% either way. So I have Panzer Corps on my machine and been testing out the tutorial most of today, and it's a lot better, even maybe deeper than I had envisioned, and it has quite complete details and info on the equipment, so I'm pleased with that. Maybe in a week or two I will be getting Germany At War Barbarossa fascinates me so that should be satisfactory. War in the East from Grigsby is a seriously major learning curve as you know, so it will be some time before I am fit to seize lebensraum in the East. These two games will be ideal until I can get down to some serious business.

[JasonPratt]

If you would like to try some larger scale Barbarossa action much simpler (to various degrees) than WitE, but with a lot more depth than Unity of Command: Turn Black (which is mostly about doing Barba in the UoC campaign engine), I definitely recommend Decisive Campaigns 3: Barbarossa. (On Steam, and from Matrix.) You can follow links in my sig to a multiplayer game on that, from its early release, between Bartheart and me.

Their tutorial videos are probably online somewhere, too, and are quite good. The prior 2 DC games are a little more complex in some ways (less so in German political details, which were heavily implemented for DC3 in order to better show that the Nazis themselves were their biggest enemies in curb-stomping the Soviets); but they still make fine gateway games into complex strategic hexing.  Some fans around here actually prefer them to Grigsby's WitE/W series! DC1 focuses on the initial German blitzkrieg on mainland western Europe, which is unusual and nice. (...um, y'know, in the sense of not being usually gamed, not in the sense of Nazis stomping their boots on faces.  :P ) DC2 picks up after Barbarossa (so DC3 is a prequel to DC2) with the first big Soviet counterattacks while Germany tries for the knockout punch down south in their '42 campaign.

[JasonPratt]

Btw, sorry, I keep forgetting you've had a lot of these recs from us before. Including from me in other threads. Just haven't seen you around enough yet to recognize I've seen "Flywheel" before -- that comes from me being terrible at remembering names, which now demonstrably includes remembering forum names!