German Biased?

[Smersh]

steel panthers is not a german army only game. and it shouldn't be. I think people would perfer more variety than a focus on a single nation, which the polls shows.

[Mobhack]

There is a USSR based WW2 campaign in the game. It is the WW2 Long Campaign. In 41/45 the main theatre choice is the "Great Patriotic War", with the Finnish winter and other wars apearing as appropriate as front choices.

There is no user campaign as yet based on a Soviet core, perhaps because the WW2 LC does the job for most folks?. Or perhaps more likely because sources at the batallion/brigade level for the GPW are not that easy to find (works by Glantz etc are usually translations of entire operations like Kursk sourced from the Soviet military academy sources , at the front level with little fine detail at our game level POV, and also rather dry reading).

If the scenario designers feel there is something interesting to make an USSR based batallion level UC from, then one may appear, but my normal campaign as USSR is just to use the WW2 LC (sometimes starting in Poland, sometimes at the GPW date). Same for the British. The choices of front, and historic battle locations in there do the trick for me.

Cheers
Andy

[Smersh]

I guess your right,Mobhack. it could be the lack of very detailed battalion level information, but there are plenty of translated soviet materials, or at least enough information to estimate how battalions would have behaved during some of the more famous battles (most campaigns are probably not 100% historically accurate, but focus more on making it fun to play).

and there is a difference between generated battles and user created ones. If WW2 LC is so satisfactory why create any user made campaigns in the first place?

not trying to create hostility, SPWW2 is a great game, and u guys did amazing job with the conversion . But we should at least aknowledge deficiencies, and work to improve them. (develop scenarios and campigns for the other major players of WW2, I like what Pyros is doing)

[Pyros]

Smersh said:
steel panthers is not a german army only game. and it shouldn't be. I think people would perfer more variety than a focus on a single nation, which the polls shows.

Smersh,

If you can find me 4-5 Russians that are willing to work hard as historical researchers, map designers, scenarios designers and play-testers; then I will be happy to initiate a project concerning a Russian campaign.

So, what do you think?

cheers,
Pyros

[Mobhack]

It isn't a "German Only" game.

It is a fact though, that most WW2 type games originating in the USA from the 70's on whether cardboard-shuffling or computer tend to use German-related names. Like Panzerblitz, Cross of Iron, Tigers on the Prowl, Panthers in the Shadows, PanzerBlitz, Blitzkreig, Steel Panthers etc etc.

Here in the UK, we tended to avoid paper hex based games as wargamers, and concentrate on "proper" tabletop games with model soldiers and rules books. US imports were rather expensive (�30 for each module of Squad Leader, when I bought my first Honda 125 for about �370, which if I had bought all the modules, would be about equivalent ISTR !) Commercially available wargames rules here tended to the prosaic, like "Wargames Research Group Rules 1925-50" and about the only "snappy" titles were the late Bruce Rea-Taylor's "Firefly" (WW2) and "Challenger" (modern) from tabletop games, or "Cambrai To Sinai" in the 70s (1914-80s) by London Wargames Club (or was it Reading?). A book of rules cost about �3, enough troops for an army in 1/300 were a fiver, and the local wargames club provided the tables and terrain.

Perhaps from a USA-oriented "marketing" POV the Germanic-centred names in games titles were seen as "sexy" or "kewl" ? - who knows?. This side of the pond, certainly not.

Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

I second Pyros' post.

We could do with a user campaign from the Soviet POV, as well as maybe a British one. If I remember, I may borrow my dad's copy of "Bugles and a Tiger" and "The Road Past Mandalay (?)" from his John Masters collection. As well as being an author in the post war time, Masters was an officer in the Ghurkas, and commanded a column in the Chindit operations and these 2 books concern his Ghurka service.

But stuff like that is not easy to obtain in English for the USSR in the GPW. Maybe in Russian, there are histories available of batallion/regiment level stuff?.

Cheers
Andy

[Panzermeyer]

I will agree with Smersh regarding the fact that the long campaign of random battles is not nearly as interesting as a well designed campaign. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fun with long campaigns because they can cover much more time and geography than most designed campaigns will. But the random maps and VH placement is very generic, you sometimes feel like you are fighting the same battle over and over except with upgraded units. And any scenario will suffer if unit purchasing and deployment is left up to the AI.

I did not mean to imply that this is a one country game, just that it is natural that a game named after a German tank will favor the Germans.

[Double_Deuce]

Smersh said:If WW2 LC is so satisfactory why create any user made campaigns in the first place?

not trying to create hostility, SPWW2 is a great game, and u guys did amazing job with the conversion . But we should at least aknowledge deficiencies, and work to improve them. (develop scenarios and campigns for the other major players of WW2, I like what Pyros is doing)

One reason is probably because the vast majortiy if not all are "User Made". Anyone who has done one knows the amount of work it takes to do it right. You usually spend months on the maps, OOB's, creating the scenarios and linking them all together into a working campaign. And we won't even bring up the stacks of text files needs for the campaign. You need at least 6 per scenario and then the ones for the campaign introduction and any added instructions.

My little 7 scenario Mexican Drug War Campaign needed 44 text files. Nobody puts in those kinds of hours unless they have a personal interest in the campaign they are designing and committment to work on it long term.

Just my $0.02

[halstein]

Also, one shall remember that the Germans lost. It seems to me that the loosing side often are popular with wargamers, wanting to prove themselves. Atleast when it was a close figth.

Halstein

[DRG]

The reason there are more German based scenarios is because the primary sceanrio designer who contributed many of the scenarios early on as we developed the game over the past few years was interested in that aspect of the conflict. If he had been interested in the Pacific island battles we'd have an "imbalance" of USMC scenarios and I'm sure someone else would be complaining we have a "USA or USMC Bias".. As Double_Deuce pointed out the amount of hours required to build a decent sceanrio let alone a decent campaign is quite large and the only way anyone can get through that is if he's interested in the material he's working with. You cannot build a good sceanrio if you are not interested. Everyone who has contributed is a hobbyist with a limited amount of free time and his own personal interests in the second world conflict

As the game has evolved and more people who are qualified to create quality scenarios have shown an interest in producing and submitting them we have expanded the variety of nations that you can play as but that is primarily becasue different designers have different interests. As for scripted campaigns we have 10 at the moment. Five are played from the US side ( US Bias ?!? ) Three play from the German side, one from the Japanese and one primarily from the Polish perspective. Agreed. There are no Russian ones. ( or British ones ) If you think there should be....build one. I do not issue "orders" to the people who work hard to produce these things and neither will I tell them that because we may have more than an average number of German based ones that I will not accept any further scenarios from a German POV until we somehow re-address the "imbalance" in the game.

I'm Canadian. There are a number of "campaigns" that could be produced for this game based on Canadian participation in WW2 but I have never once asked anyone to build one and never will. Not because I don't want one. I would be happy to have one but anyone willing to put multiple hundreds of hours work in into a campaign must WANT to do it. When someone is inspired to do so they will and if it is any good I will gladly include it in the game. If YOU or anyone else feels there should be more Russian POV scenarios and campaigns in the game then please crack open a book, do some research and get to work and if you produce a good one I will be happy to include it in a future update of the game.

Don Goodbrand