Panzer Corps 2

its a fun game but be prepared to be milk dry from this company in DLC. Its sad since back in the old days u bought a full game upon release

66 hours into the game I have some comments, pros and cons compared to PC1 (200+ hours).
Pros:
Panzers can now overrun again (hint: try to optimize a single pazer, and you will see it blitz through as many units as it have ammo in one round after just a few missions). This is so cool and is like playing the old Panzer General.
Planes are much less effective now. Only used 2 bombers total, but 4 fighters to keep the opposition down.
Cons:
Infantry and artillery are not really developed through the game. You end up using mostly the same as in the first mission.
Despite all the diversity of units, the point buy system limits your use of new exciting units severly. This is perhaps my biggest regret. The best end-game composition seems to be 4 overpowered tanks, 4 starter pioneers, 4 starter artillery. +2 AA (again starter units as the 88s are the best, and the planes mentioned above). Everything now serves as support for your uber-tanks. Just as it did in the old Panzer general.
They actually cut down the number of missions from the magnificent Grand Campaign DLC we all played in PC1. I guess they save that grand experience to the endless DLC's in Steam games we all dread so much.
Well I did sound a bit negative here, but I really enjoyed the game. There are just some things that could be better (in my subjective opinion).
BTW: Be sure to disengage the Nvidia in-game utilities as they crash the game all the time. Just a hint.
Try this game if you liked the first PC or if you liked the old Panzer General. It actually reminds me a lot of Panzer General 2 where they also did the 3D trick. Here it just works a bit better. And the starting campaign is rather cool, with some fun alternative history missions at the end. Thumbs up.

This game is like the old-school Panzer General 2, but with better graphics and more features.
Also, I like the fact that it's easy to change the variables in the excel unit file (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Panzer Corps 2\PanzerCorps2\Content\Data\units.cvs).
Just open up the unit file with excel and change things to your liking; for instance, I like to give my heavy infantry (grenadiers) the machine gun trait (traits are on the 29th tab to the right labeled traits). The possibilities are limitless, change attack strength, movement, faction, year available, etc.. I even played one time swapping many of the German units for American units (I also changed the flag to American by editing the factions.cvs file...remember to always save the original files, so you can always switch back in case you mess up). Again, I really like the fact they made this game easy to mod units.
Below is a list of modifications I like to make to various units:
Fallschirmjager - Camouflage trait (because paratroopers are sneaky as hell...I know, because I used to be one)
Gebirgsjager - PhasedMovement trait (because alpine infantry walk past the enemy like ninjas)
Grenadier - MachineGun trait (because heavy infantry uses heavy weapons...hello...MG 34)
Kradschutzen - I like to change their class to infantry and add the Overrun trait (nothing funner than watching a heavily armed military biker gang over-run a group of weak units...oh the sound of Harleys (actually BMW R12 Combos) and machine guns bring happy tears to my eyes).
As I previously mentioned, this game is wicked fun and modding units makes it even more wickedly fun.

Once again, a game where i regret there's no "neutral" rating.
Panzer Corps 2 has quite a few things going for it, but has just as much questionable design decisions.
So, the GOOD:
-Slick-looking interface and graphics:
The game is quite beautiful, with animated units actually moving between hexes, instead of just magically teleporting between them, like in older wargames, with a lot of different and well-made sound effects for guns blazing, bombs falling and tanks exploding. Not to mention, the models themselves are pretty great too, even if a bit too clean for the endless war that happens on-screen. The interface is highly-customizable and mostly inobtrusive, even though it may feel too cluttered at times. I'll also add that the sountrack is pretty good and i listen to it from time to time even when not playing the game.
-Improved supply mechanics:
Your units, just like in Panzer Corps 1, have limited supply and ammo, which they replenish at the start of your turn. However, this time it is also tied into the new surround system, where supply flow along roads from supply hubs, and if you manage to block off the supply routes for enemy units, they won't replenish fuel and ammo and get stacking combat penalties as long as they remain cut off. Yeah, we know which game they took the idea from (looks at Order of Battle), but it has its own quirs in this game and works quite well, giving you more ways to overcome the mounting numerical superiority your enemies will have most of the time.
-Customizable "player character" for more diverse playthroughs:
Actually, not as much as a "player character", as a point shop for bonuses/penalties you can access one time when you start the campaign. In it, you initially have 2 points, which you use to get global improvements for your army, such as an additional move point for your panzers, permanently revealing enemy positions around mission objectives, and so on. But, if 2 points is too few for you, you can take a penalty (like less unit slots, slower supply replenishment, etc.) to get more bonus points. Depending on which bonuses/penalties you take, your playthrough may end up pretty different, which is a good thing
-Equipment capture mechanics:
Think your panzers suck? Want to use that shiny T-34/French Somua you've seen? You actually can, as the game features a fully fleshed-out way to capture enemy equipment. Make the enemy unit retreat by attacking it with overwhelming force, and it will retreat. If it has nowhere to retreat to because of either terrain or your units blocking the way, they surrender, yielding you a 1 hp worth of equipment per 1 hp they had left when they surrender. When you have 10 hp worth of surrendered equipment of the same type, you can field it as a unit! But be careful, as you gotta keep a stockpile of extra parts to replenish this unit, so keep on capturing!
Now, onto the BAD:
-Terrible difficulity balancing:
So, you know how difficulity is usually balanced in those kinds of games: your enemy might have more hp, more units to take down, stricter time limits... But this game went further: on difficulities above Normal (3rd one out of 5), the enemy units will just deal more damage, making units that get damage often, like infantry, nearly totally obsolete on higher levels and making turns where a random machine-gun armed tankette one-shots your forward panzer unit all too common, which is a lame way to balance a strategy game in a somewhat-realistic setting, as making every enemy unit into a superhuman blows that "somewhat-realistic" feeling out of the window.
-Hero system
Every mission you clear awards you a random hero, which you can attach to any of your in-game units, but instead of boosting its stats, it awards a special ability, like increasing the unit's defense per hp lost, being able to attack twice per turn, repairing a few HP for free if a unit didn't attack... While it does sound pretty cool, what ruins it are two facts: that you can attach up to 3 heroes to each unit, and that once per mission cleared is a bit too often, as it leads to absurd amounts of heroes, which can make absurdly overpowered combinations with each other, or even by themselves. Want to capture every piece of equipment you see? Here is the hero that turns every enemy retreat into surrender. Want even more broken tanks for the complete "wehrmacht power fantasy" experience? Here you are, a hero that removes the only weakness of a tank-class unit, which is a defense penalty against infantry in close terrain. With so much of those they stop feeling special, and abilities being that absurd do not help the "historical" flavor.
-Mostly boring missions
"Capture this hex there, then over there" is all there is to mission objectives. Granted, they tried to fix that in the "Axis Operations" series of DLC, but given that enemy scripting is nearly nonexistant, most of the time you will simply repel waves of random enemy units trying to charge in your general direction, sometimes even doing stupid things like placing their artillery at the frontline. Enemy scripting is important, as it was one of the major things that made the other wargame, Order of Battle, feel fresh across numerouf missions and DLC's.
-Low-effort writing
Yeah, i admit that writing during mission briefings is not the most important thing in this genre, but given the fact that the game, and especially the DLC campaigns try to get into character-driven narrative, it all feels pretty rushed and "same every time".
Now, with all that being said, i still do enjoy the game for what it is and will probably buy the DLC's that get released in the future, but it is far from being the "King of wargames" how the game description says, doesn't earn its 86-point Metacritic ranking and won't be THE game i will remember first when my friend will ask me to recommend a wargame. Yet, it is still pretty decent, and if you didn't play wargames before, Panzer Corps 2 might be a good place to start, as it tries pretty hard to be new player-friendly, even though Panzer Corps 1 is still the superior game.

It's been many years (decades) since I played Panzer General, Fantasy General, and every other General there was at the time. I enjoy COH2 and Ultimate General Civil war along with a few other military RTS games, and wondered when PC2 first caught my eye, if I would enjoy a turn based hex game. Well, I wonder no more. Despite its shortcomings, it's sucked me in pretty hard. I've spent an embarrassing amount of time playing it over the last few days. Apparently I'm not very good at it, because even on easy level I had to use a cheat to get some prestige to upgrade my army, and even then getting through it was a tough slog. Then when I got to the Kursk scenario I had to back it down to Very Easy. Usually I don't like to cheat as using cheats usually causes the challenge to go away and I lose interest. With this game it doesn't bother me. I'm still early in the Kursk scenario, and I'm not far enough in to see if it's lost its challenge. I think prestige income is ridiculously difficult to come by. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone can go through the kind of attrition over time and still have enough prestige to even replace units, let alone upgrade or buy new units. Again, I don't care, I'm having too much fun.

I would like this game to be expanded for Allied campaigns!

I initially didn’t like this game. However, having persevered, I can say it is a very good game. A true successor to Panzer General, Panzer General 2 and Panzer Corps.
There are some changes compared to Panzer Corps 2. For instance, now the main limiting factor isn’t really prestige, it is the number of slots to buy units. It is interesting.
A lot of reviews are very negative. People naturally dislike change but if people give the game a chance, they will enjoy it. The developers have done a good job.