My personal review of the german campaign (spoiler)

[DeLaVega]

If I recall it right this campaign has only one mission without trenches (Villers Bocage) and especially in the beginning it got boring for me, because you always take them out in the same way. No tactics are needed/ supported.

And when you have to defend trenches the enemy shells you at almost 80% hit accuracy.

My favourite missions were "Citadel" and "Saint Lo". The tank encounter at "Citadel" and the nice hilly area of "Saint Lo", where you have to stop the american troops at long range were exactly what I had hoped for in ToW. Would be nice if they would have added some (at least bitmap) smoke clouds after the americans shell the german positions. The smoking hill would create a special kind of mood and atmosphere, which I missed a little due to extensive use of always the same sunny sky.

Sometimes the crew member switches from a Wehrmacht rank to an SS rank. That wouldn`t be so uncommon, but if only the commander of a tank turns then it`s not realistic, if the crew still belongs to the other "group".

Sometimes the crew changes positions within a battle. My gunners had points of 100 and at the end of the mission I found the driver on their seats or a few times the commander.

At the beginning of the campaign you are in need of AA support, because of the strafing IL-2`s and you have none. At the end of the campaign you can choose the Flak, but then there are no airstrikes anymore. Bad mission design.

I thought it might be the close range encounters of "Citadel", which let the T-34 just "swallow" the 8,8 cm shell, but it seems to be slightly unbalanced for the whole rest of the campaign. All other tanks mostly need more hits do get knocked out, while they can destroy you with one hit. Since even the high velocity gun of the Panther can destroy an IS-2 or an ISU-152 at moderate ranges, it`s really not amusing, if a Panther needs 3 hits to kill a Stuart.

Sometimes the tanks fire with HE shells on other tanks, although they have AP shells in store. And it`s not only the first round to clear the gun. They reload HE munition to knock out a tank.

In the "Last Frontier" mission I encountered the problem that they used up all AP munition and shot with HE round at the russian tanks ...for at least five minutes. Then the russian came into view of the last (but imobilized) german tank which had AP rounds left and got knocked out. Otherwise I would have to restart the map. :-(

For me it turned out that the "unit buy" screen before a battle is not implemented well, like in the CC series. So many units are offered which you never use. If three Tigers are available, why should I use a Pz III, let alone infantry. Even the Tigers don`t have much of a chance in the upcoming mission.

I awarded and promoted a few tankers, just to realize that the rest of all other "AI" crews have almost the same quality.

Why don`t you have to award anyone from just one XP point pool? That everyone can be promoted makes it boring and then you just press the automatic button. I also see that the campaign is too short for such a "reward system". Some guys would never raise in level, but this way it`s just not necessary.

So, what I liked in the german campaign were the tank units. From the screenshots I posted you can see that I really like the Tiger, although just a slow piece of steel. But the graphics of it are so nicely to watch. And the zooming possibilty gives you really a good impression of how big these tanks were. Also the IS-2 and King Tiger.

What I didn`t like so much were the relatively boring trench attack missions and, as I posted already, the triggered reinforcements, which mostly are directly involved in battle meaning being shot to pieces. Why there are so little meeting engagements?

And the weather in the german campaign is way too friendly (or should I say, way too ...same).

And finally, why can`t there be battles which lead through towns? I mean, even without entering buildings it could be nice to move through the streets.

In the mission editor I saw the mission "Bastogne" so I thought, hm, this will be a battle in and around the city.

When you get to that point in the campaign you have to realize that it`s not Bastogne, but Houffalize (both are in Belgium, but Bastogne had a much greater meaning).

Okay, I thought, even in Houffalize you could have a town engagement. Accidentially I have been there in 2005 and this is what it looked like:

Do you see the tiny detail in the back of the pic?

And this is what you get:

So, no town engagements here. :-(

[Stoppelhopser]

I've been to Houffalize in the nineties and shot lots of pics on the "tiny detail", the Panther G there as I'm a scale modeler, too .

[Cornfleek]

Been there 2 months ago, she's still there.

They pulled her out of the river where it ended up during battle by the way.

[SIO]

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"Sometimes the crew changes positions..."

The crew members change their seats depending on the situation, current command and members’ skills. If the crew is incomplete it also can change seats, especially in the battle.

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"I thought it might be the close range"

Damage system is quite complex, and the hit does not always mean the vehicle gets broken. Ricochet is possible, shell normalization can destroy the shell, partial penetration, cut-through penetration (no significant damage taken)

Also, the penetration depends on the distance and impact angle. It might be that no penetration occurred at this angle.

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"Sometimes the tanks fire with HE shells"

Tank shoots the other tank using shells of AP-types. Only if you click on the HE ammo type, and lock the target for your tank (select it yourself) your tank continues shooting HE shells.

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"I awarded and promoted a few tankers..."

That’s how the awards work now.

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"And finally, why can`t there be battles which lead through towns?"

The current version of the engine does not allow a lot of buildings in the game area. That’s why we had to cut the city battles, and that’s why the Bastogne is so small.

[seppDieter]

Originally posted by Cornfleek:

Been there 2 months ago, she's still there.

They pulled her out of the river where it ended up during battle by the way.

its not that far from where i live, when they pulled the panther G out of the river the crew was still inside :eek:

[DeLaVega]

SIO:

Thanks for your response.

Regarding changing of seats:

The Commander should have the highest Leadership level, the gunner the "gunner" level, the driver the driving level, etc. right?

So, I put the person with the highest points in each class to its particular station. And when the gunner has 100 in "gunning" and the driver only 10, then I expect that, in the heat of the battle, the gunner stays at his position. Of course only, when he is still alive. But I found the driver on the gunner`s place and vice versa. The commander handled the machine gun and the loader was commanding the tank. None of them kept their specific tasks and this was what annoyed me, since I paid attention to their level in their main task and of course put them to the right place before the mission started.

Damage model:

I`m quite aware of the fact that there are different ways of damage or penetration, it`s just strange that this happens especially often with tanks which have the "firepower" to destroy other tanks at long range with a single shot.

If the A.I. would have the same problems destroying the players tanks I wouldn`t mind it, but the way it is now it looks a little unbalanced for me. If the shell breaks it should be graphically displayed, because in reality you were able to see that, too.

Shooting AP is probably what they should do, but I have watched the opposite. Otherwise I wouldn`t have list it here. They have loaded HE, shot at another tank and the repeatedly big explosion kept my attention and I thought: "What`s he doing?" then I switched to AP manually and finally he could destroy the other tank.

Should it be Bastogne? The mission text is talking about Houffalize. I understand that big cities are not realizable because of the performance, ...although, what is this games` name which doesn`t reload although there`s a city in it? Could it be GTA San Andreas?

But that`s not the point. If there would be an infantry unit in this town or an AT gun you could get the atmosphere to get into a city and take them out. But in this particular mission everything happens around. There could be one lake or a pond, the result would be the same. Substract 4 buldings, widen the street a little, put a platoon inside this settlement and it will get a complete different atmosphere.

[K9crump]

Originally posted by DeLaVega:

I thought it might be the close range encounters of "Citadel", which let the T-34 just "swallow" the 8,8 cm shell, but it seems to be slightly unbalanced for the whole rest of the campaign. All other tanks mostly need more hits do get knocked out, while they can destroy you with one hit. Since even the high velocity gun of the Panther can destroy an IS-2 or an ISU-152 at moderate ranges, it`s really not amusing, if a Panther needs 3 hits to kill a Stuart.

Amen to that bro. It took me longer to kill that stupid Stuart than anything so far. Finally with combined effort and 2 rounds from a panzershrek...lol. Love the game, but some of these encounters leave me scratching my head(bald..lol). I am sure some of these matters will be addressed in the patches to come. Cant wait for the modding community to start making some better maps/balanced.

Later,

Mike