TOAW vs. Panzer Campaigns

Fishkoff

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I own most of the Panzer Campaigns modules and find the system quite sophisticated; however, for many scenarios I found objectives ment very little. You can achieve overwhelming victories by just elimination of enemy troops and equipment. It kind of soured me on the system. I find TOAW much more realistic in that respect. Any views out there?

Fishkoff
 

Dr Zaius

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I have been playing TOAW for a while, but I only have Fulda Gap '85 so far.

I hate to make any direct comparisons because I have only messed with it a few times. I'm not sure I care for the interface. There seems to be an awful lot of mouse clicking. I also find the lack of information on the unit counters to be bothersome. true, I can get the information by clicking on the unit and the display pops up on the left, but that's a cumbersome way to do business. I can take in a lot more information at a glance with TOAW.

The system does seem to have some potential though, I just haven't had time to really dig into it yet.
 

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I own all Panzer Campaign games, except Smolensk and Korsun.

The focus of Panzer Campaigns is tactical, while TOAW is operational, as you can tell by the title - duh! :)

This means Panzer Campaigns usually have more "realistic" rules regarding movement and combat. A couple of examples of those tactical subtilities in PzC:

-the biggest units in PzC are usually regiments, no brigades or divisions.

-units can move in two formation modes in PzC: Travel or Regular, depending on what you want them to do and at what speed.

-units can do direct fire (firing into an adjacent hex without advancing into it), assault (advancing by force into an adjacent hex), or do indirect fire for units with that capability.

-Logistics are more complex with concepts such as Virtual Supply Trucks or Explicit Supply.

-Control & Command is more developed. You can reattach units to different Corps HQ at night. Command radius of HQ varies depending on their quality and other factors. Command is also an important factor in supply.

-Opportunity fire is quite extensive

-Concepts such as Fatigue are dealt independently from supply, as it is in TOAW where you have a color rating telling you the general state of your unit.

So basically, all factors that can make a difference tactically are more developed in PzC since this is the focus of the game. In TOAW, these factors are meaningless since the focus is "higher up" somewhere between tactics and strategy.

Where PzC isn't as good as TOAW, it is definitely on the graphical interface, which is less nicer than TOAW and also on things such as Theater Options in TOAW.

As Maddog pointed out, it's true that it's quite bothering at first to see that there are no values on counters, as it is traditionnally the case with other games. But I must say you get use to it after a couple of hours. Still, the interface could use a facelift.

All in all, I can't say really which wargame I prefer between TOAW and Panzer Campaigns. They are both professional games for serious wargamers. If you already like one or the other, there is a very good chance you won't regret buying the other one.

For tactical realism and historical accuracy, PzC is the better game. But I like TOAW for the incredible variety of historical scenarios it offers, and for the better integration it does of operational and strategic factors.
 

Fishkoff

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TZAR,

I realize Panzer Campaigns is more tactical, very detailed and sophisticated. The thrust of my post was that in TOAW objectives are paramount while in many Panzer Campaigns they hardly matter. For example, in one Smolensk 41 scenario, mid-way through, my opponent had an overwhelming victory by killing Soviet troops but had not taken a single objective. He then went into a defensive position and easily won an overhelming victory. While it was smart gaming on his part, to me, it was hardly realistic. At that stage in the war, the Soviets could care less about human losses. However, in TOAW if you don't achieve objectives, you probably wont win. :eek:

Fishkoff
 

Dr Zaius

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I have two main objections with the Panzer Campaigns/Modern Campaigns series.

1. The system is basically the sequel to the Campaign Series (John programmed that too), but the graphics and interface seem to have taken a step backwards. In the case of the graphics a big step backwards. Eye candy isn't everything, but if I'm going to stare at something for hours upon hours then it is a significant consideration. I believe John consistently underestimates the importance of the interface and graphics.

I heard a statement not that long ago (I don't remember whether it came from John, his staff, or someone at HPS) that the Panzer Campaigns/Modern Campaigns series currently have the best graphics of any wargame going. I had to wonder to myself what the price of crack is around that part of the country...

2. The system has purposely been hamstrung by limiting each release to a single battle. This is an intentional marketing gimmick to generate additional sales. I have said repeatedly that I believe this tactic is counter-productive in the long run. Wargamers want a system that gives them maximum flexibility and replay value. The Panzer Campaigns system was created to limit that freedom to a great extent. In my humble opinion its a real shame because the system is obviously very strong.

Now I do understand that HPS wants to turn a profit and I respect that. It's just that I believe the approach Talonsoft used with the Campaign Series was far superior. Instead of limiting each game to a single battle, limit it to a single front (i.e. East Front II, West Front). That still allows the designer to turn out many solid releases, while giving gamers the flexibility and replay value they crave.

These two issues are hamstringing this system and keeping it from being the success that the Campaign Series was. I have interviewed John Tiller twice and it is apparent that he doesn't wish to change this design philosophy. I keep hoping he will see the light of day and we'll someday get a version of this system that covers the whole Eastern Front and another for the Western Front. I'm not holding my breath.
 

Dr Zaius

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On a related note, I do understand that there are a lot of Panzer Campaigns/Modern Campaigns players out there. We have given serious consideration to hosting a ladder for this system, but unless there is a real demand from the membership for it it may not happen.
 

RhinoBones

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Originally posted by Fishkoff
. . . for many scenarios I found objectives ment very little. You can achieve overwhelming victories by just elimination of enemy troops and equipment. It kind of soured me on the system. I find TOAW much more realistic in that respect.
I’ve never seen Panzer Campaigns, but from my experience with TOAW, and a few other strategic games, I find elimination of the enemy forces to be the whole point of the exercise. Capturing an objective hex and being awarded X number of points is not my idea of realism. I would much rather see the point system done away with and instead, use the event editor to award the victorious player with the benefits of his campaign. As an example, by use of the event editor I would degrade a force’s ability to wage war by reducing supply and/or replacements and at the same time increase the victorious force with additional supply and/or replacements. TOAW has all the tools available to make these types of realistic rewards. I do, however, tend to think that the point system is so prevalent in the gaming community that it is difficult, if not impossible, to break with tradition.

In the few TOAW scenarios I have completed, and the few that are still on the drawing board, I have tried very hard to stay away from the point system. In addition to increasing/decreasing supply and replacements as mentioned above, I have also experimented with the desertion of armies after the commander is killed, change of army allegiance due to political considerations and military realities, and the upgrade of replacement equipment due to the capture of technology centers. Eventually one side becomes stronger than the opposing side and victory becomes inevitable. When a major city is captured I think that something tangible should go to the victors rather than a number of points.

Do you think that Europe Aflame would be played differently if the reward for capturing a supply locus, or technology center, was the reward of better war fighting material rather than the accumulation of points? What is the benefit for capturing the Rumanian oil fields? Do you need some points to continue the war or would you rather have some more oil to boost your force supply level?

Please do not get me wrong, I am only using EA as an example because it is possibly has the widest distribution of any TOAW scenario. EA is one of the scenarios which I believe to be the peak of scenario design achievement . . . my only point is that the victory conditions would benefit from a changes in focus.

Certainly all scenarios are not candidates for the type of scoring system I am proposing. There are many single battle scenarios in which the point system of scoring is superior to the tangible asset scoring that I endorse. I am looking at the larger “campaign” scale scenarios such as Europe Aflame, The Great War and Blitzkrieg. I think that these scenarios could benefit from a change in philosophy. Please keep this in mind when writing scenarios, and lets hear some other points of view.

Best Regards and Happy Holidays to All
 

Fishkoff

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Rhino,

Well, you should go out for Christmas and purchase all the modules for Panzer Campaigns - that is the system for you. Let me get this straight. By what you have posted: that elimination of enemy troops is the whole point. Therefore, let's say you are a commander of a corps and told by upper command to drive south and capture a number of key objectives and that your success is the cornerstone for the overall offensive. Okay, you go out and eliminate 40% of the enemy opposition but fail to take any of your stated objectives. You would probably lose your command. Yes, overall elimination the enemy is the point, but many times operationally it does not always make for good military logic. I agree, the examples you gave may be correct, but they seem more of strategic type goals for larger scenarios (The Strategic Art of War). A good example of what I mean, the Vietnam Conflict - how many of the enemy did the U.S. kill compared to U.S. losses and we were still beaten badly. BTY, the Soviets lost hundreds of thousands of troops in several large pockets alone in 1941 but it did not seem to deter them.

fishkoss
 

RhinoBones

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Originally posted by Fishkoff
By what you have posted: that elimination of enemy troops is the whole point . . . Okay, you go out and eliminate 40% of the enemy opposition but fail to take any of your stated objectives. You would probably lose your command . . . A good example of what I mean, the Vietnam Conflict - how many of the enemy did the U.S. kill compared to U.S. losses and we were still beaten badly. BTY, the Soviets lost hundreds of thousands of troops in several large pockets alone in 1941 but it did not seem to deter them.
I would like to buy all of the Panzer modules, but time is limited and I have enough interesting toys for the moment.

You make some good points, but I think the basis of my argument is still valid. There are many scenarios in which the scoring should be based on something other than victory points. Victory points are merely the relative value the designer places on a geographical point. The loss (or gain) of points in no way describes the enemy’s ability to conduct military operations.

The example of killing 40% of the enemy, not gaining the objective and losing your command seems to be a view point based primarily on the Soviet front (try applying the same logic to Desert Storm). Not only is this view point a bit limited, but I do not believe it reflects the mainstream military mentality. Also, I do not think that this holds true over all of the military time frames available to the TOAW scenario editor. Sure, you can design a scenario to do exactly what you suggest, but I believe that using tangible objectives over point orientated objectives is the preferred method of scoring scenarios.

Vietnam Conflict . . . I think this is a very good example that tangibles should be scored rather than victory points, i.e. your victory points = body counts. I do not understand how a Viet Nam scenario can be scored on a points system while the true win/loss was scored on the political scale. You can’t do this with points, you need to use the event editor. I was there for a little bit of it, and I can assure you that we were not adding up victory points.

As for the Soviets losing thousands of troops, well, the event editor can also put a value on the loss of armies to the enemy. What did the Germans gain by surrounding and capturing thousands of Russians? I’ll bet it wasn’t victory points. Maybe there was a reduction in Soviet replacement rates, maybe a loss of Soviet production, maybe a pestilence value, maybe a refugee effect, whatever . . . these are the things that should be associated with the gain or loss of an objective.

I can also say by experience, since I have spent more than half a year in Moscow, that the Russians did not count their victories in terms of victory points. It was by village, river, town and hill top . . . and even the children know the names of these places. I am also sure that the children in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic and many other places, have learned the names and places where the armies fought. None of these people will describe the battles in terms of victory points, instead they will speak of what was won or lost.

I do not think you can put point values on the wars people have made, only the tangible outcomes can be counted.

Regards & Happy Holidays To You And Family
 

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So, should I invest some bucks in Panzer Campaigns or not? It sounds like Steel Panthers, which I have grown completely bored with. I hate to throw down some greenage for a game system which basically sounds like something I can get for free.
 

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You might just want to hold off for a while until Matrix gets their Battlelines game on the shelf. It might be just what you are looking for . . . maybe.

Regards, RhinoBones
 

Fishkoff

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Major,

Despite what I have posted about victory conditions, Panzer Campaigns is a great system with more detail than TAOW as is it is a little more tactical in nature. I only have two reservations. One, for many scenarios, objectives are secondary compared to losses. Secondly, as stated, each game is tied to a single battle. Therefore, overall, is is much more restricted ands for as scenario generation.

Sincerely, Lew fisher
 

Tzar

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Fishkoff,

I understand your reservations about the points sytem in PzC. It is, indeed, heavily influenced by the losses you inflict on the enemy and/or the losses that you do not incur.

It bothered me also at first because I was not used to this. In TOAW, the loss ratio can be easily modified to influence or not victory points and in most scenarios, objective points really break it or make it.

However, I tend to agree with Steve that victory points granted because of taking a specific hex is not a very realistic mechanism. Although operational objectives can be important as you say, in most wars, if you don't at least inflict a severe loss of equipment and manpower to your enemy, the victory you think you are getting because you are occupying some village or bridge can be a short-lived one.

In wargames, the scenario is over after X turns. In real life, it doesn't end like that. You might attain your operational objectives through focused lightning attacks, but if the bulk of the enemy force is mostly intact, you might have a damn hard time holding on to them. In TOAW, how many times can you win a scenario but at the same time think: "my godness, it's just about time this game is finished, otherwise I would not have been able to resist the coming onslaught of my opponent!" This is because you focused on getting those hexes instead of manoeuvering to eliminate the opponent. In real life, the enemy would get back at you.

In any case, both systems (objective points and casualties points) have their shortcomings. Once you know it that PzC is heavily influenced by casualties, you get to learn to think and plan otherwise.
 

Fishkoff

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Stevo,

Actually, losses is one of the worst methods to determine victory. Ojectives are the best, and or commonally used by the military, to determine results. By your statment, the Soviet Union would not have made it past 1941 as they lost probably over a million men the first 6 months of the war. Look at the France 1940 campaign. France did not lose because of a losses. The Germans pushed past their front lines, took ojectives in various places that disrupted suppy and communication lines. Rommel and other divisions drove deep into France, they weren't looking for masses of the enemy to kill. They wanted to disrupt the enemy. Is not that what many ojectives represent in TAOW - communication and supply hubs, key cities, important ports or psycological objectives to demoralize the enemy? Again, if losses were all that important, we should have easily won in Vietnam. If losses were that important, Grant would have been removed from command. Linclon trusted Grant because, despite of his losses, he kept forcing the South to fight and evenually ground them down. Actually, many will sat the Union Blockade actually won the war. The blockade directly did not kill very many men, it just deprived them of the weapons and supplies to fight.

Sincerely, Lew Fisher
 

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Originally posted by Fishkoff
By your statment, the Soviet Union would not have made it past 1941 as they lost probably over a million men the first 6 months of the war... Again, if losses were all that important, we should have easily won in Vietnam.
Well, losing only one million men during six months was not a disaster for a human reservoir like the Soviet Union. Although in an absolute sense, one million men is a huge number, it's also relative to the number of potential conscripts you have access to. Losing one million men in six months would have been devastating for Germany, but for Russia...Stalin used to say, "one dead man is a tragedy, a million dead men are just a statistic"...He knew he had access to millions and millions more men.

The same can be pretty much said for Vietnam. Don't forget that in Vietnam, the U.S. ALWAYS dominated and controlled all key South Vietnam points (important cities and villages). American soldiers were controlling all the possible key objective "points" of this country. Still, in spite of this, the U.S. lost the war. Because of two reasons: the whole American nation slowly lost the will to fight and to support this war, making it politically unfeasible to maintain the U.S. commitment to Vietnam, and secondly the U.S. was never able to hurt North Vietnam sufficiently to make them lose their own will to fight (or at least consider taking a pause of a couple of years).

Although close to a million Vietcong and NVA soldiers were killed from 1965 to 1973 (against "only" 50 000 U.S. soldiers), a million more, or two million more NVA to kill would probably have been necessary for the U.S. to get Hanoi seriously consider an honest ceasefire. Clearly the body count wasn't high enough on the Communist side to have them stop the war.


Originally posted by Fishkoff
Actually, losses is one of the worst methods to determine victory. Ojectives are the best, and or commonally used by the military, to determine results.
I did not explain myself properly. When I say losses, I don't actually means soldiers killed or badly wounded, I mean soldiers effectively put out of combat by whatever means. And these means include for example encirclement and being out-of-supply for too long, making surrender of men and arms the only option remaining. So, in France's 1940 for example, there was not a huge bunch of French soldiers killed, but most of the French army was effectively put of combat by sheer disorganization, panic and lack of willingness to fight. For the Germans, it had basically the same effect at the end of day that having all of them killed.

In a computer wargame, when things like this happen to units, they simply vanish from the map as soon as they make contact with the enemy, their morale and organizational strength values being too low to fight. So you get the impression you have "killed" them but in fact it's not true. It's just that for all practical purposes they are still alive but out of combat and the game mechanics remove these units from the game and count them as losses. In that sense, the "losses" factor can be realistic.

I am not saying assigning points to hexes isn't good, it's OK but it has to take into account the historical background of the scenario.

In most scenario capturing objectives is good, but if you have barely scratched the enemy forces in the process, you should still deserve a defeat. That's what I meant when I said that, often, I was relieved to see that a scenario was ending because despite having captured objectives, I did not inflict much damage on the enemy forces. I knew then, if the scenario would continue 5 more turns, I would probably lose since the enemy would recapture these hexes...This is not realistic.
 
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Dr Zaius

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An interesting debate.

The bottom line is that one size doesn't fit all. There are military situations in which the sacrifice of huge numbers of troops is acceptable to accomplish a specific goal. In such situations taking the "objective hex(s)" does amount to victory. In other situations losses of men and material are simply not acceptable. I believe that for a wargame to be successful at modeling this aspect of war it must have a certain degree of flexibility built in for scenario designers to use. There are just too many different situations to use a cookie cutter approach.

TOAW probably has more flexibility in this department than any other wargame currently on the market. The scenario author can adjust the point value for specific locations and add as many as needed. He can also set up a complex series of rewards or penalties using the event editor that are based on the capture of an objective or when certain losses have been incurred.

In most military operations there is a balance between the importance of achieving a specific goal, while limiting losses of men and material. That balance can change dramatically from one situation to the next.

Vietnam is always a very difficult conflict to model at anything above the squad or platoon level. For one thing there are simply not that many large-scale military engagements to choose from. No Kursk, no Stalingrads, no Inchons. It's a difficult conflict to model because much of the fighting was guerrilla warfare or low intensity combat. Goals and objectives in this conflict didn't always make sense from a military point of view, but were based on flawed political assessments of the situation. Using analogies from Vietnam is probably not terribly sound because no wargame that I have seen yet models this war very well. TOAW is operational in nature, but were it not for the use of the event editor, the system wouldn't be able to model Vietnam at all. Panzer Campaigns is somewhat smaller in scale, but it can't rely on an event editor to smooth things out.
 

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Maddog,

Your comments just about sum-up my feelings - well stated. BTY, I agree Vietnam was not a very good example. I only used it to emphasize that numbers don't always reflect the situaton.

Sincerely, Lew Fisher
 

Dr Zaius

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Let me say that I think that wargames based around Vietnam are doable, they just have a very different feel than most other types. Also, they are probably best at the tactical level rather than at the grand tactical or operational.
 
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