apd1004
Posts: 158
Joined: 8/1/2006 Status: offline
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I have been a loyal follower of Achtung Panzer since the original version, Achtung Panzer:Kharkov, and I wanted to recommend the game to those of you who may not know anything about it. There are a lot of quirks mainly due to the language barrier because the game was developed in Russia, and the user interface takes some getting used to but overall it is a highly enjoyable game. In fact, there is so much unwritten and/or under-written about the game that many people might get turned off by it at first. Stick with it! Here are a few screenies I have captured over the past few months to hopefully illustrate just how great AP is. Operational map with fog of war. This is how you maneuver your platoons on the operational map, and the outcome of a turn on this map sets up the tactical battles for that turn. You can have many tactical battles generated in one operational turn, which is about 4 hours time. Some tactical battles can overlap and be redundant, which means that on the operational map you might see 2 or more tactical battles in roughly the same area at the end of the operational turn. Usually after playing one of the overlapping battles, you will discover that the other ones from the same area are no longer playable because they all involved the same forces. 2D tactical map from inside a tactical battle. Operational graphics are templated over the map and you can actually see individual soldiers, guns, buildings, etc. You can see in the center of the large blue arrow there is a graphical spot report (4:13 veh), which the graphic shows as a vehicle along with the axis of movement of the sighting. This is the tactical battle deployment phase. The blue squares are enemy setup areas and the green squares with different colored squares inside the outer green square are friendly setup areas. The light green spray pattern is a selected unit with area LOS tool turned on. I have discovered that the area LOS tool is not absolute - meaning that enemies are sometimes visible beyond the spray pattern and also visible inside what appears to be dead space. Basically, the double boxes represent cover (outer box) and concealment (inner box). Green is good. Dashed outer box means entrenching is not possible. German flags and Soviet flags are objectives. I hope you all like night action, because there is a lot of it in AP. Here, a Soviet lend-lease Carrier awaits a German attack in the pre-dawn twilight. Vehicle models are well done, and each vehicle will have unique numbering according to their "call sign". An entrenched Soviet infantry squad awaits a German attack in the pre-dawn twilight. The green arc is the assigned sector of fire for the squad and the blue lines just mean that the squad is selected. You can assign sectors of fire but they are just "recommendations" according to the developers. The AI does a fairly good job at self-preservation, and units will react to threats outside their sectors of fire accordingly. Here, a Soviet recon section in a captured whitewashed German Sdkfz 250/1 (callsign: Oak 953) awaits a German attack. The crew door is animated and will open and shut when the passengers mount/dismount. The white square "riv. crossing" is an objective that has no owner (yet). A dug-in Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun awaits German assault. The tiny blue square just above the end of the gun tube is a sighted German vehicle. The red dots are friendly Soviet troops off in the distance. A whitewashed German Sdkfz 251/1 running fast with headlights on approaches some entrenched Soviet infantry. Vehicles under a fast move order will run with headlights on at night. Slow move vehicles will be in blackout. I had the Soviets on "no fire" mode in an attempt to allow the German vehicle to get within grenade range. The halftrack stops and the infantry inside dismount. I think I waited to long to lift the no fire order. The German infantry have blue dots above their heads, Soviet infantry has red dots. 13 seconds later, the halftrack is burning (from molotovs or sticky grenades) and there are several dead infantry on both sides. Casualties have the grey dots/plus signs above their heads. A plus sign indicates an infantryman with an automatic weapon or other heavy weapon such as an ATR. Another view of the same scene. This ambush did not go well for the Germans, but the Soviet squad took a couple casualties as well and will probably panic and rout much easier if more Germans appear. Leaders nearby can keep the Soviets from panicking, however. There will always be pathfinding issues, especially with vehicles set to close column formation. The game has evolved very well however, and problems like this are not that common and usually just around built-up areas. Just a few screenshots so you can see what this game is all about. Enjoy! Cheers
< Message edited by apd1004 -- 3/22/2012 11:59:44 PM >
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