Panzer General II

Rating: 4/5

Two and a half years ago the computer game industry had nearly given up on war games (unless the war was between you and a horde of fireball-shooting beasties). Then came SSI's Panzer General - it combined the appeal of replaying historical battles with a very easy-to-grasp combat system and was a storming success, selling better than many "mainstream games".

A lot has changed in the gaming world since mid-'95, but the designers of the sequel to this highly successful game have chosen not to risk compromising the game's simplicity by adding too much. There are a few new wrinkles to the game, but it is just as easy to play, and if you know the first you should have no trouble in picking up the second.

In the campaign game you are the commander in a series of battles - the size of each unit is a little vague ("from divisions… down to individual companies") and the maps are only about 40 miles square. At this scale you can't play to capture major cities or win the whole of major battles. Instead you have to be satisfied with playing in key sectors of larger battles, and if you do well you can even play some alternative history scenarios like an attack on Windsor in 1940 or 1943. You start with a core of units that you take with you from one scenario to the next, plus auxiliary units for each scenario, (which are expendable). When you win battles you get prestige points which you can use to upgrade your existing core units, buy replacements or purchase new units.

Each unit is entirely composed of a single kind of weapon - this is a historical nonsense, of course, but it's undoubtedly more fun to move around a King Tiger unit than a generic "heavy armour" one. In the new game, if you play well you can get your hands on "prototype" units as much as six months in advance of their historical introduction. As your units get more experienced, they can also randomly acquire "leaders" with special abilities- all of this gives you a more personal interest in the survival of your core units.

There isn't a lot of finesse involved in the progress of battle. There are a few subtleties, of course - tanks can easily take on infantry in the open but they have difficulty in dislodging them from built-up areas, for example, and it's always best to attack one unit with several, preferably using artillery to soften them up first. Artillery has greater range now, so you don't have to line it up immediately behind attacking units, and it can also provide defensive fire during an opponents turn to break up an attack. But supply rules, for example, remain rudimentary - unless there is bad weather or there are more than two adjacent enemy units, your units can always be resupplied, even if they are miles from their base and the countryside between is full of enemy units.

It's a good thing that basic game play is fairly simple, as the manual is skimpy (56 pages plus design notes) and has no index. There is also no online help at all, and no unit encyclopaedia to give you a flavour of the history and capabilities of (say) the Tiger tank.

As in Panzer General and Allied General each unit has a set of basic attack and defence values that depend on the type of equipment it has and a combat strength reflecting casualties and suppression. Annoyingly, while your unit's combat strength (from 1 to 10) is clearly shown its overall effective strength is not - a "5 strength" unit of Tigers may have no trouble chewing up a "10 strength" unit of Shermans for example. If you want to predict how a battle will go you either have to right-click on each unit and do some calculations in your head or move them adjacent to the enemy and put your mouse over him to see what the computer predicts the result will be. Of course by moving you already have committed yourself. You also can't see that a unit is nearly out of ammo or fuel unless you check its status.

Some obvious evolutionary changes have been made to bring the game up to date. While Panzer General and Allied General, as their names suggest, made you choose one side or the other, Panzer General II offers you the chance to play campaigns as the Germans, Russians, British or Americans. Multi-player options are now more extensive - up to four players at a time can play across the internet, a LAN or by email. "Club SSI" has been set up, complete with add-on software, to allow you to easily find internet opponents, but until "early 1998" it is only available to North Americans. One irritant is that while real time play presumably works OK (I wasn't able to try it because Club SSI isn't working yet) there is no way to find out what happened in your opponent's turn when you are playing by email or by alternating at the same PC. The documentation refers to a "VCR mode" to see the what happened in any saved turn but that feature was removed. The 1.01 patch claims to have restored a simpler "see last turn" feature but it didn't work when I tested it.

The maps have been improved - now it looks as if you are moving your units over an aerial painting of the battle scene rather than stylised terrain. An unfortunate side effect is that you actually see less of the map than you were able to in the original game. You therefore often have to spend a fair amount of time switching between the strategic map (where you can't offer orders to your units) and the tactical one. You also are stuck with the resolution SSI has chosen to use, so even if you have a powerful video card and large screen you can't see any more of the map.

Panzer General was designed to be fun to play rather than historically accurate or a realistic battle simulation. Panzer General II is just as fun as its predecessor, has a few useful innovations and offers more play options - if you never owned the original, it is certainly worth picking up. My only regret is that the designers didn't spend more time polishing it - in truth they should have called it Panzer General 1.5.