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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000 time: 00:34
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Now that ive gotten the patch installed, im having good fun with Panzer General 2. I'll try to post AAR's, comments etc. I bought the game as a jewel case and so dont have a manual (No PDF with the game, and the one i dled from a PG2 site didnt open in Acrobat) so i may have some questions, but for now im just trying things out.
Please post here your comments, questions, AARs, etc about any game in the 5 star general series - IE Panzer General, Panzer General2, Panzer General 3D, PG3 Scorched Earth, Pacific General, Allied General, etc.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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Never played PG2, so I can't compare it to PG3D. In PG3D (and PG3), a unit can do things as long as it has actions, and number of actions the unit has depends on the rank of the leader. Also, leaders can have two different sort of specials one is unique to his specialty (infantry, armour, etc.), and the other one is a bit random. Both are very helpful.
Leaders can be killed if his unit is destroyed, unless he has the Survivor special. Leaders increase in rank as you promote them, and number of promotions you get is somewhat influenced by the victory you get in the previous scenario.
In PG3D, a leader takes up more slots as he increases in rank, while in PG3, they all take up one slot. Other changes include: AA guns are weakened, second decoration (special) comes in at a random time, and armour leaders get a better special.
There are some types of actions a unit can't perform if the leader doesn't match unit (e.g. leader is anti-tank while unit is armour). Actually this is optional but I always turn it on.
Both are quite good, but PG3 is a definite improvement. It's too bad they haven't come out one for the Pacific theatre.
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VetLegion
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I've played PG3D and didn't manage to play more than two scenarios. An atrocious game.
Panzer General II on the other hand 
Some general tips about PG II:
0. The obvious. Never only wound/damage enemy units. Always kill. It is better to kill one unit than to damage three, even if you manage to heavily damage them.
1. It is surest to win if you develop a good airforce. While you can play with only one or two fighters, it can be very frustrating in later scenarios when enemy gets really strong planes. Dragging AA guns around is pretty impractical, and they are not very good at getting expirience either. With a good airforce, which means at least four modern fighters and if possible, more (buy in early scenarios to get them expirienced), you can have a control of the skies, which is invaluable.
2. Spend auxiliary units or get own units expirienced? Use auxiliary ones for recon and tricky advancing into unknown. But always use your own units to finish enemy units, because that brings most expirience.
3. Spend some prestige on overstrengthening your tanks. It does wonders for their overrun ability.
4. Never, if you can help it, buy replacements on the field. I never did it.
5. Infantry eats tanks in cities.
6. Tactical advice: destroy unit by unit. I often get carried by the moment and do something like when having four enemy infantry to kill, I decide I can take down three with a tank when I weaken them, so I first weaken all three (say, two with an artillery shot, one with a bomber) and then move in the tank only to have it fail to overrun first unit (kill without overrun, or fail to kill) which leaves two of his units alive and me slowed for at least a turn. So, the rule is: Move, than shoot immediately, and go for one at the time.
7. Do buy a recon unit or two. Playing a couple of turns just to explore the map, or reloading after getting ambushed, you cheat yourself of suspense which is a great part of the game. However, if having lost a unit with a commander, people generally do reload.
8. Stay focused on the objectives. In scenarios like France, don't go around capturing flags with your fighting units. Do try to capture as many flags as possible, but it pays off to buy a cheap recon unit or two just for this task.
9. Don't delay taking cities until you kill all the units around them. Go straight for the city flag tile and kill whatever is left afterwards. Each turn enemy possesses a city, it brings him prestige (which means he can sometimes buy a very tricky unit and slow you down even more)
10. Always kill the strongest enemy units first. Especially tanks. You can usually ignore infantry for longer, as they do not overrun. Killing an enemy tank with a commander can be quite tricky. Usually, it is best to use bombers for this (one more reason why you need a strong fighter airforce). But in case air support isn't available, this is a an exception to the move-shoot rule. You may want to surround the tank before firing a shot. When surrounded, unit can't retreat so if it has strength of 6 and you kill 2 and suppress 4, it is dead.
11. Usually objectives are apart and you will have to form two groups of units. I try to have two big artillery in each (for softening) and at least one good engineer infantry (for killing well entrenched enemy infantry in a hurry). Also one recon and the rest are tanks. I do most of the kills with overstrength tanks and I like to have at least two bombers since they are more mobile than artillery so they can be moved around to where needed.
12. I was never sure does it pay more expirience wise to go for brilliant victory, or to use the couple turns to tactical victory for mopping up and getting expirience and distant flags. Ofcourse, you can't get a prototype unit this way, but they are only useful if you get a god airplane. What do you think?
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
Primarily the leader system. In PG 1 and 2 it was the unit that mattered. If they were hardened veterans then they were solid troops and you prized them highly. In PG3d you could parachute a leader onto a new unit and turn it into the best unit you ever had. |
I don't think they are new units. They are units that are available to your HQ that you can choose. Besides, in PG3D, you rarely add new units. The only time that happened to me is when an existing leader dies and I need to fill that slot.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
I also hated the tension between unit numbers and leader quality. |
That was done mainly to balance the game.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
Any leader you used a lot got unfeasibly expensive. |
It may seem that way. However, a unit with a level 10 leader really are at least as good as 3 similar units with a low level leader - particularly for artillery.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
I am also a fan of being able to upgrade equipment, which was far more restricted. |
You can always drop your leaders into newer units.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
The 3d terrain I found hard to deal with. It was not obvious why certain tiles were extremely effective at blocking LOS. |
IIRC, the manual explains this. Also, certain units can camouflage, and you don't spot them until you are up close. At any rate, you can use terrain to your own advantage too.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
In PG3 it was far harder to tell but the scenarios were so time limited that you could not proceed with caution or afford to get continually ambushed. |
I suppose you mean PG3D? Usually, where the enemy puts hidden units are generally logical in a scenario. E.g. at a choke point, in a village or city, etc.
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Grumbold
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London, UK
Mar 2000 time: 05:34
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I don't think they are new units. They are units that are available to your HQ that you can choose. Besides, in PG3D, you rarely add new units. The only time that happened to me is when an existing leader dies and I need to fill that slot. |
true, but if Rommel moves from one unit to another, the former behaves like a bunch of rookies while the next magically becomes Elite. This applies across diverse unit types so it isnt just the same troops getting an equipment upgrade.
quote: That was done mainly to balance the game. |
Not in a way I like. Force pool strength and prestige balanced it nicely in the previous games while providing an advantage to those who had excelled in nurturing their troops.
quote: It may seem that way. However, a unit with a level 10 leader really are at least as good as 3 similar units with a low level leader - particularly for artillery. |
Possibly, although you needed a viable number of troops. Personally I *hated* going from one scenario to the next and actually fielding less units than before because my leaders had advanced faster than my maximum leader/force pool limit.
quote: You can always drop your leaders into newer units.
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You could not upgrade all your tanks if you had the prestige. You were limited to your equipment pool which was not improved by prestige. So you were being limited by equipment availability date, equipment availability in the pool, prestige AND leader mix. Too many mismatched limits imho. Tank units may have got fielded with bad leaders, but not with a pilot because no army personnel were available 
quote: IIRC, the manual explains this. Also, certain units can camouflage, and you don't spot them until you are up close. At any rate, you can use terrain to your own advantage too. |
It does, I just don't like it when you're pushed to move very fast and you can't reconnoiter in force like an army could. The 2d system was more elegant.
quote: I suppose you mean PG3D? Usually, where the enemy puts hidden units are generally logical in a scenario. E.g. at a choke point, in a village or city, etc. |
Um, yes. I pointed out I dont have PG3SE yet. Unit placing is logical at mission start and I'm not moaning about tearing into a town only to get shot to pieces. That is a dumb mistake anyone should be cured of in PG1 
With the turn by turn nature of the game units fall back out of visible range all too easily when an advancing army would normally remain in contact. In PG1&2 recon units etc can be relied upon. In 3d a unit can be one tile away and hidden. Recon view range isn't because they have bigger binoculars, it should be active patrol elements peering into these nooks and crannies 
A lot of this stuff is purely subjective but for *me* PG1 & 2 were lots more fun than PG 3d. I suggest you try them out since they're games I would heartily recommend. Changing the leader "weight" is enough of a change for me to be keen to try 3 SE and see how much I like it.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
true, but if Rommel moves from one unit to another, the former behaves like a bunch of rookies while the next magically becomes Elite. This applies across diverse unit types so it isnt just the same troops getting an equipment upgrade. |
As I pointed out, advanced options is not available to a leader if he changes to a different type of unit, IIRC. So Rommel can't make an arti unit to do Bombard, say.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
Not in a way I like. Force pool strength and prestige balanced it nicely in the previous games while providing an advantage to those who had excelled in nurturing their troops. |
I can't really comment on that. I know a few elite units can tear through the enemy defense much faster than a large number of normal units, simply because they have each have so many actions available.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
Possibly, although you needed a viable number of troops. Personally I *hated* going from one scenario to the next and actually fielding less units than before because my leaders had advanced faster than my maximum leader/force pool limit. |
I agree that's quite rude, though experience shows that increase in ranking outweighs having more units. For example, 3 units of artillery at rank 3 each vs 1 unit of artillery at rank 9. The 3 units at rank 3 can't do anything, can't even move at maximum without risking taking extra casualties. OTOH, the rank 9 piece can zip through the map, blast the heck out of a few enemy pieces, and still get actions left over for resupply.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
You could not upgrade all your tanks if you had the prestige. You were limited to your equipment pool which was not improved by prestige. So you were being limited by equipment availability date, equipment availability in the pool, prestige AND leader mix. |
That seems to be more realistic to me Anyway, usually you don't have the problem in PG3D as fewer and fewer units are under your command. In PG3, that generally do not matter much because high ranking leaders aren't that common. Also, generally there is sufficient hardware available for you, even if you don't get the most advanced equipment for all the units. Which makes sense because you're just leading one of the groups.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
Too many mismatched limits imho. Tank units may have got fielded with bad leaders, but not with a pilot because no army personnel were available |
Not sure what you are saying here. Though fighters and antitanks don't need matching leaders. Esp fighters. They just need loads of actions.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
It does, I just don't like it when you're pushed to move very fast and you can't reconnoiter in force like an army could. The 2d system was more elegant. |
Your group doesn't move very fast anyway, because artillery (towed) move got 3 movement max. And I am not going to go anywhere without the arti pieces 
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
That is a dumb mistake anyone should be cured of in PG1  |
Nof if they didn't start that way 
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
In PG1&2 recon units etc can be relied upon. In 3d a unit can be one tile away and hidden. Recon view range isn't because they have bigger binoculars, it should be active patrol elements peering into these nooks and crannies  |
Recon units still have a longer view range, and there's an action for you to send active patrol out that further increases your range. Besides, they get their first movement free.
quote: Originally posted by Grumbold
Changing the leader "weight" is enough of a change for me to be keen to try 3 SE and see how much I like it. |
SE is harder than PG3D because of the adjustments made. More of a challenge, though. 
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Grumbold
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London, UK
Mar 2000 time: 05:34
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger
As I pointed out, advanced options is not available to a leader if he changes to a different type of unit, IIRC. So Rommel can't make an arti unit to do Bombard, say.
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Advanced options, no, but they get all the benefits of multiple actions while the former unit loses them. So quality of the tropps under command counts for absolutely nothing, the leader is everything. In PG1/2 if the 15th Panzer excelled in Poland, Norway and France it would be veteran troops in the next mission no matter who led them or what tanks they were given to drive.
quote: Not sure what you are saying here. Though fighters and antitanks don't need matching leaders. Esp fighters. They just need loads of actions. |
A unit should be commanded by an appropriate commander, no matter how incompetent. You should never have to match up a pilot leader with an artillery brigade or have a tank commander flying a stuka because of mismatches in the force pool/leader pool.
All in all, its just that PG2 did this much better, so PG3d was actually change for the sake of change that made the gameplay and the historical accuracy worse. I'd rather feel like I'm driving on Moscow with a slightly strange army than that I'm playing toy soldiers in a sand pit. PG3d feels more like the latter 
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000 time: 00:34
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quote: Originally posted by VetLegion
I've played PG3D and didn't manage to play more than two scenarios. An atrocious game.
Panzer General II on the other hand 
Some general tips about PG II:
0. The obvious. Never only wound/damage enemy units. Always kill. It is better to kill one unit than to damage three, even if you manage to heavily damage them.
1. It is surest to win if you develop a good airforce. While you can play with only one or two fighters, it can be very frustrating in later scenarios when enemy gets really strong planes. Dragging AA guns around is pretty impractical, and they are not very good at getting expirience either. With a good airforce, which means at least four modern fighters and if possible, more (buy in early scenarios to get them expirienced), you can have a control of the skies, which is invaluable.
2. Spend auxiliary units or get own units expirienced? Use auxiliary ones for recon and tricky advancing into unknown. But always use your own units to finish enemy units, because that brings most expirience.
3. Spend some prestige on overstrengthening your tanks. It does wonders for their overrun ability.
4. Never, if you can help it, buy replacements on the field. I never did it.
5. Infantry eats tanks in cities.
6. Tactical advice: destroy unit by unit. I often get carried by the moment and do something like when having four enemy infantry to kill, I decide I can take down three with a tank when I weaken them, so I first weaken all three (say, two with an artillery shot, one with a bomber) and then move in the tank only to have it fail to overrun first unit (kill without overrun, or fail to kill) which leaves two of his units alive and me slowed for at least a turn. So, the rule is: Move, than shoot immediately, and go for one at the time.
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Zero - yeah, ive figured that out.
1 - hmm, 4 fighters? i dont want to overload on air - ive heard thats a bit of an exploit - or is that fixed in PG2? 4 fighters sounds reasonable, though
2. thats tricky, trying to use core units and NOT lose them - im still getting the hang of it.
3. Havent tried either overstrength or overrun yet.
4. Really??? Why not?
5. Yeah, Ive figured that out too.
6. Sounds right
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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000 time: 06:34
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I played Allied General and I think what you call PG2 (there's confusion since it was sold in Germany as PG3D, and the real 3D was sold as PG4 I believe). Also I played Peoples General which uses the same game engine and gfx style as PG2, but plays in modern times (I can only recommend it), and Pacific General which is similar to Allied general in graphical aspects.
I liked these games very much, esp. the concept of the core units which get experience and are used for a whole campaign.
To the air force discussion: yes, experienced fighters are a must, as well as good strike aircraft. In some cases (eg. British Mosquitos) they are quite capable in defending themselves against enemy fighters, so you can compromize here, and go perhaps for more of them instead of more fighters.
Something about anti-tank guns, but especially for tank destroyers in AlliedGen and PG2 (and clones): they are supposed to be used for defense, so move offensively, but fight defensively with them against enemy tanks unless they are very experienced. This goes esp. for US/UK TDs against later German tanks.
You might also think of having paras in your core forces for taking objectives far away - it can be tricky, since they must have a bit experience before they are effective, and there's a certain risk that you run into unknown resistance when dropping them far behind enemy lines, but OTOH they can be quite useful
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Tamerlin
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Toulouse (South-western France)
Apr 2002 time: 06:34
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Post edited in order to remove an unauthorized link...
Last edited by Tamerlin on 18-03-2004 at 00:32
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All times are GMT. The time now is 05:34. Apolyton Time is 00:34. |
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