Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps Release Date Nears!

[Turkeys!]

So if we have never played the Panzer Corp series of games do you think this is a good one to start off with? I mean is it accessible for someone new to it all?

[Lord Zimoa]

It is, but of course it is slightly more difficult compared to the original game though, we updated the AI and have added more dynamic scenarios, so mission objectives might change even during the course of your scenario.

There are also so many little tweaks and added gameplay features, after a year of feedback, we really tried to add as much as we could, based on all the ideas and requests from the Panzer Corps community.

You will still have access to the tutorial campaign of course.

[Erwin Rommel]

Finally. Afrika Korps.

I was first disappointed with Panzer Corps for not showing Afrika even though the main menu background gave me false hopes. Yeah 3 tiger tanks in the desert sand with palm trees on the side really gave hints it might show Afrika, then the next thing I knew I was cursing in the Eastern Front Campaign bogged down in Moscow when........no not General Winter happened, actually I was counting on it to make rivers passable, but it as the godawful mud. Lost momentum, my poor corps gets sent everywhere, vanguard in Kursk, delaying actions in Italy, defending actions in Normandy, then poof, in the infinite wisdom of High Command, sent me to capture something in Hungary, my poor corps, never fully replenished got mauled badly, not even properly refitted for the Gotterdammerung.

Lots of poor vets, racking up heroes and medals since Poland, killed in Lake Balaton.

[Lord Zimoa]

A Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps developer diary is up at Strategycore.

Enjoy,

Tim aka LZ

[Lord Zimoa]

For those who don`t like to link

Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps Developer Diary
July 31st, 2012

Panzer Corps brings war to the desert! The player takes on the role of Rommel in charge of the famed Deutsches Afrikakorps, leading its troops to become the stuff of legends.

The game introduces quite a number of novelties in all segments due to the change in the theatre of operations involved. There will be new terrain types and tiles, new units were added and there’s a new desert camouflage for the existing ones. The new art for the main menu is simply awesome, there’s new music, an intro trailer and the library has been extended with new illustrations and text entries regarding WW2 airplanes.

New unit-related features will have some equipment being specifically included or excluded depending on whether they’ll be operating on the European or African theatres, but the more interesting bit has to do with the changes in the transportation system, where the use of gliders has been instituted.

The player will thusly have the opportunity to protect his Me 323 Gigants as it delivers much needed supplies to Tunisia, or to deploy his Gebirgsjäger from a DFS 230 in the airborne invasion of Malta.

Among other novelties, some of the new units include the British Long Range Desert Groups and the Italian Saharan companies for encounters deep into the desert, Tobruk perimeter fortifications can be softened with flamethrower tanks, the rearguard organized with fast moving motorcycle infantry and, for added historical flavour, the player can even pull his mighty eighty-eight with a Sd.Kfz. 7 half-track.

The already powerful Panzer Corps Editor is fast becoming a real killer app. I’m sure modders will appreciate it and will enjoy using what it brings to the table. Beyond an assortment of smaller things, there are some really cool ones, like the ability to add Heroes to units, but its real power lies in the redesigned way of scripting and the considerably expanded list of AI behaviours.

The guiding principle behind all this was to create a more dynamic battlefield experience. The game now supports adding or removing victory objectives from the map during the course of a scenario, events can be linked in a chain, units randomly pre-deployed, and counterattacks can happen with a certain probability, so leading to an ever changing environment.

All this is supported with in-game messages and visual representation of the changed conditions on the map. The new AI scripting has also enabled the recreation of certain historical events like 8th Army’s flanking attack around the Mareth Line, the British and Commonwealth withdrawal from the Gazala Line when Tobruk was in jeopardy, the chase across Cyrenaica after Allied successes during Operation Crusader, and much more. In the vast open spaces of the Western Desert flanking is something to watch out for!

One of the main novelties about the Campaign is the support for multi-factional core units. So, alongside German units, the player will control Italian ones as part of his core force.

The Campaign consists of 24 scenarios and supports playing the historical campaign from Libya in 1941 to Tunisia in 1943, as well as fictional scenarios, ending with British India in 1944.

Designing the Campaign was not easy in terms of the choices we faced. We wanted a longer campaign with less branching so that the overall playing experience along a certain campaign path was better and more extensive.

We also wanted to maintain a good ratio between historical and fictional scenarios. All major operations from 1941-1943 are covered, and we provide the opportunity to change history, to conquer Middle East, and beyond.

The historical see-saw nature of the fights in the desert did not help us at all, but in the end we’ve come to the conclusion that the best option was to allow for change in history to happen in the year 1942, during the Alam el Halfa battle, and scenarios prior to that are linked historical ones connected with logical storytelling.

All the major historical events of the time are covered, from the offensive in Cyrenaica, the probing of Tobruk defences, Brevity, Battleaxe, all the way to the chaotic fights during crusader and the fighting withdrawal that turned into the Second offensive after it.

In the Gazala Line, for instance, there’s an epic feeling reinforced by historical order of battle, unit placement and unit naming, aspects which it shares with many other scenarios.

Among those, of course, there’s also one “what if” scenario, so after capturing Tobruk in 1942 the player is invited to choose for or against the invasion of Malta.

After conquering the Middle East further progress in the direction of the Caucasus is only to be expected, but we wanted to add something more and at the same time focus our conflict on the British.

This is where storytelling was made to take a leap, with a hypothetical British plan for a counterattack from the East African colonies with the aim to recapture the Suez Canal. After this, the story will pull us deeper into conflict and lead us On the Road to India.

British India is the final prize and grand finale in this hypothetical campaign of conquest. For those wishing to explore the last stand in Tunisia, not changing history, the Alam el Halfa battle is the way to go. Even if Monty’s 8th Army during battle of El Alamein is held it will not change much because a new threat is on the horizon as Operation Torch is on its way.

In scenario design great care was taken to include a variety of settings, changed conditions and some surprises. The player can start his mission with a limited reconnaissance force only to have things turn into a full blown offensive, then he can ignore Allied forces at Sidi Rezegh and dash to the Libyan-Egyptian border to destroy British supply dumps. Fighting withdrawals will be executed and turned into decisive blows when reinforcements arrive.

The player will fight against SAS raids in the rear, recover damaged enemy tanks from abandoned battlefields, perform rescue missions on remote locations, protect pipeline stations from destruction, cut Land Lease convoys into pieces, and much more.

The main focus of scenario design was to create a truly dynamic battlefield that will ensure a better playing experience. Objectives can be added or discarded during the course of a mission, events randomized so that a certain counterattack could come from any of several possible directions, making each scenario play out differently every time. The new AI scripting, for example, has brought greater flexibility in moving AI units on the field which has opened up new possibilities in terms of raids and unexpected flank attacks, and Exit Zones enable units to move to safety, out of the map, which can lead to a race to destroy them before they leave the area.

Some of the hit and run special missions can really keep adrenaline levels high and, between all that, there are also scenarios intended to change the pace during the campaign, relying on unusual tactics to be used, like fighting in mountainous terrain at Kasserine, or assaulting heavily fortified lines without air support.

I hope you’ll enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed creating it and don’t forget: watch your flank, Afrika Korps is coming!

Article written by: Kresimir Cuturic, Panzer Corps Development Team

[Lord Zimoa]

The game will release coming Monday the 6th of August, around 4pm BST (British Summer Time), price is set at 19.99 USD.

Just 5 more days and Rommel will be upon your doorstep!

[Lord Zimoa]

Here is the full changelog for the new v1.10 patch for Panzer Corps in preparation for the upcoming release of Afrika Korps!

Gameplay

• 20+ new units to be used in existing scenarios and also in user mods, including minefields, gliders, flamethrowing tanks and motorcycle infantry
• The game was extended with desert-related graphics and game rules, and is fully compatible with scenarios (both official and usernade) set in Africa theatre.
• New weather type: sandstorm.
• A new option to disable "Undo Move" command. Available in both single player and multiplayer.
• Embarking and immediately disembarking on the same hex is treated as undo and does not spend unit's move.
• Planes no longer see enemy units underneath in bad weather.

UI

• Heroes are now shown on the map as golden dots on unit's strength plates.
• In unit list it is now possible to hover hero portraits and see their bonuses in a tooltip.
• Unit info screen shows not only the number of kills the unit scored, but also the number of losses it took in the course of the game.
• Scenario briefing, as well as any messages that appear in course of a scenario (new feature, not used in old campaigns), are now included in Message log invoked via UI button of Ctrl+M shortcut.
• Library was extended with articles about the most prominent WW2 fighters and bombers.
• Added italian heroes and awards, and also 10 new german heroes.

AI

• Some general improvements in AI play logic.
• The AI can now use more unit orders, in particular drop paratroopers and switch multipurpose units.
• The AI supports a number of new settings available to modders via the new editor.

Multiplayer

• The patch updates the game to version 1.10 which is required to login into Multiplayer server after Afrika Korps release.
• The game is updated to be compatible with Afrika Korps engine, so that it is possible to accept challenges and play games against opponents using Afrika Korps.
• One more new MP scenario added: Spoils of War
• Corrected balance in Iron Cross Red Star map.

Equipment changes

• Series concept introduced for: Italy, Great Britain, United States, Soviet Union. So, these nations can now get proper discounted upgrades.
• 5 cm Pak 38 change availability date from 17.4.1941 to 23.3.1941.
• Berseglieri renamed to Bersaglieri.
• Wurfrahmen 40 changed movement type from tracked to half-tracked.
• Changed Italian equipment to disapear in 1946.
• Cromwell Mk.IV Previous In/HA/GD was 7/8/8 changed to 8/10/14.
• Cromwell Mk.VII Previous In/HA/GD was 7/8/14 changed to 8/12/16.
• Churchill Mk.VI Previous SA/HA was 8/8 changed to 9/9.
• Churchill Mk,VII Previous HA was 8 changed to 10.
• Piaggio P.108 price change from 406 to 426.
• Breda Ba.65 fuel change from 34 to 54.
• Bf 109K fuel change from 36 to 56.
• MC.205 Veltro availability date changed from 13.6.1943 to 19.4.1942
• M40 da 75/18 got "fortkiller" trait. Previous HA 4 changed to 6.

Bug fixes

• A number of fixes in unit icons and animations
• Movement heroes no longer affect units in sea/air/rail transports
• Fixed crash when using Mount and Supply hotkeys during deployment
• Fixed strategic bombers adding white flag when bombing cities with no flags on them.
• And much more

Editor

• More advanced scripting. Now it is possible to trigger not only single actions but also scripts which can consist of several actions. Each script can run one or several times, and also skip a few runs before it gets executed. Also, it is now possible to run scripts not only at the end of a turn, but immediately when the required condition is met (e. g. you capture a city - this triggers an event), and also at the beginning/end of axis/allies half-turn. There are new types of actions (display message, center on hex, mark or unmark certain hex as victory objective) and conditions. Setting and checking tags allow scripts to exchange information - a certain trigger could depend on one or several scripts running prior to its execution etc.
• A number of new AI orders. It is possible to give the units to move to a certain hex via a given trajectory, or to move to one of several hexes randomly; patrol area in different ways, or disembark on one of several given hexes randomly. Also, the AI action allows to assign all these new AI orders based on a certain trigger.
• Unit placement randomization. Both preplaced units and reinforcements can now appear at random location - within a given radius from their original hex, or in a given zone. This allows to do pretty tricky randomizations: for example, reinforcements could come from any location on the border of the map.
• Heroes configuration. Now it is possible to assign any heroes to any units on the map.
• Exit zones. Available via Special Hexes layer, separately for Axis and Allies. A unit which enters such a hex is removed from the map and is placed in Reserve. It is also possible to analyze units in reserve using map condition with "Where" set to "Reserve".
• It is now possible to set max strength on a per-unit individual basis.
• It is now possible to have several different transports of the same type in the same scenario (e. g. normal air transports and gliders at the same time). They are configured via Transports tab in Scenario Params.
• Theatre setting. Any scenario can be set in Europe or Africa. Depending on theatre setting the units will use appropriate camouflage.
• In addition to cloudy weather, rain and snow, it is not possible to specify probability of sandstorms in a given scenario.
• Share flags setting. If set, units of any nation can be purchased next to flags belonging to allied nations (e. g. german units near italian falgs if germany and italy belong to the same side).
• "Special" check box in unit params, allowing to mark mission-critical units (the ones you need to protect, escort, destroy) with a different strength plate.
• Generate Tiles command no longer overwrites any tiles set manually by the designer. It is possible to generate tiles on a per-layer basis.
• It is possible to change unit type without losing its stats - just select new type and click on the unit twice (first click will select the unit, second will change the type).
• Units should no longer lose transports after editing unit params.

Other

• French and Russian localizations included with this patch.
• It is now possible to reduce the game memory footprint by running it with a /nocache command line switch. This might be useful if you are using heavy mods, or simply have very little memory on your PC.
• In Data folder there is a new file called diff.pzdat. This file contains all settings for all difficulty levels. So it is now possible to customize difficulty as you want. Also, the modders can include a custom diff.pzdat with their campaigns, thus making difficulty levels which are more suited to their content.
• Movement tables can now use fractional movement costs (with one digit after decimal sign, e. g. 1.1 or 1.5, but not 1.25).
• New unit traits: minefield, minesweeper, minekiller, glider, nozoc, reconmove.
• It is now possible to configure which transports a unit can use, on a per-unit basis, and also create new transport subclasses within primary transport classes (land, sea, air and rail) in the equipment table.
• It is now possible to exclude any unit from any theatre of operation in the equipment table.
• Multiple nation campaigns are now supported - just list all nations separated with commas in the campaign.pzdat file.
• The game can now play voiceovers not only for pre-scenario, but also for post-scenario briefings.
• Switch command should now work between planes (i. e. switch ground to air and vice versa).
• Added "kills X" cheat. Allows to set any number of kills on a unit.
• Added "reform units" cheat. When this mode is active (entering the cheat code again deactivates it), all killed units move to reserve with zero strength and can be reformed before the next scen. Killed unit loses all experience, but preserves name, awards, heroes and battle history.
• "all eqp" cheat now also allows to purchase bonus and captured units.
• Removed "air", "sea' and "rail" cheats.

Get the update either through the auto-update in the game menu or directly here.

Note:

The servers are crumbling under the tens of thousands of downloads at the moment.

Here alternative mirror links:

Panzer_Corps_v1_10_Patch at Telefragged
Panzer_Corps_v1_10_Patch at Gamefront
Panzer_Corps_v1_10_Patch at Patches-Scrolls
Panzer_Corps_v1_10_Patch at Worthplaying
Panzer_Corps_v1_10_Patch at AtomicGamer

[Ballacraine]

Very pleased to see you guys here!

Balla.

[Lord Zimoa]

Interview with Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps Developer Alex Shargin Released!


Discover the new features and improvements put into the latest game in Panzer Corps series.


We are excited to release the interview with Alex Shargin, one of the core developers of the upcoming turn-based strategy game Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps, the latest stand-alone expansion for the award-winning and critically-acclaimed Panzer Corps.


In the interview, taken during the Home of Wargamers press event in Stresa, Italy, Alex goes into detail of the new features in Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps. He also goes into detail about the future of the Panzer Corps series, such as the upcoming Mac version and the much-anticipated iPad version. Wargamers can also be glad to know that they’ll have to keep their eyes open for more expansions with new scenarios on the horizon!


To view the interview, click here for the Slitherine YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to us to get the latest trailers, interviews, and more!


For more information on Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps, visit the official product page on the Slitherine or Matrix Games sites.

[Kissaki]

The download version of the game is only €14.99 Euro, I think that is a fair price.

At Matrix games it is listed in my local currency as 127.99 NOK for the download version, which is 17 Euro. But at Slitherine it is still listed as 29.99 USD (ex. VAT) for the download version, which is 24.21 Euro. And when going through the initial stages of purchase, I find that in neither case can I actually buy the original game - only the individual Grand Campaign sets are available - for 4,99 USD each at Matrix, and 4.31 Euro each at Slitherine. I forget how many of these were part of the original release of Panzer Corps, but all seven of them amount to roughly 27 Euro at Matrix, or 30 Euro at Slitherine.

I bought the boxed version, myself, when the game was first released. I think the price tag was exactly the same as it is now (which is listed as 39.99 USD ex. VAT).

[Lord Zimoa]

Just to be clear at Slitherine and Matrix the current prices in USD. (and ex. VAT or similar taxes that vary per country/region):


The digital download versions of the original Panzer Corps: Wehrmacht game are 29.99 USD.

http://slitherine.com/games/panzer_corps_pc


The digital download version of the Panzer Corps: Grand Campaigns DLC`s (`39, `40, `41, `42, `43 East, `44 East and `45 East) are 4,99 USD.

http://slitherine.com/pzc_extras


The digital download versions of the standalone expansion Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps are 19,99 USD.

http://slitherine.com/games/panzer_corps_ak

[Kissaki]

<snip>

[Lord Zimoa]

Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps is just two days away! To keep the weekend exciting, we are happy to show off five screenshots that give more sneak peeks into the game!

Below are some small preview slices of the screenshots:






To download the pack of screenshots, click here. Enjoy!

[AgentGB]

Ive never tryed Panzer korps, so keen to pick up this game and give it try! just looked at the zip files, look very impressive, do like my paradox games like Hearts of Iron 3, so am very curious to see how things work in this game! Also looking forward to more news on "panthers in the fog" !!

[Lord Zimoa]

Added the new Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps screenshots here direct at TWC.

[Lord Zimoa]

Panzer Corps: Afrika Korps releases tomorrow! What better way to prepare your desktop than a professionally-drawn and incredible wallpaper for it? With two different types in a multitude of sizes, your desktop wallpaper will say "I am ready."

To download the pack of wallpapers, click here!

[Kissaki]

It's time to play the music,
It's time to light the lights!

http://www.ingeb.org/Lieder/wirsinda.html