Panzer General

I got the original one off of BH Legends (thank you Narck). Best of all, it is the full version. I am having trouble capturing Warsaw, though. Does anybody have some tips?

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"Ah, I see the **** up fairy has visited us again."
~Alexander's Horse


"They say that our universe, which consists of everything that we do and don’t know about, is a 21 trillion year-old hologram."
~Alex Collier, on a race of advanced aliens that he has been in contact with for 30 years

Ban RainbowJDS for life.

[Seeker]

I hope your playing PG in dos mode, it's much better. I have played all of it, and the only thing I haven't done is a major victory in Washington on '39 campaign. I've also gotten a victory in Berlin: Last Stand as the germans.

Do you have the unit editor for PG? Once you get it, edit the allied units to make the strengths historically accurate instead of overwhelmingly favouring the germans and play it again.

Hints: Did you get a major victory in western Poland? If you didn't, go back and get it. Make sure you buy another 7.5 leFlak and a bunch of pz 35t's. In Warsaw, upgrade 1 of your most experienced inf to a pioneer with a halftrack. Spend the rest to buy a fighter, bomber, and divebomber.

Placement: place the pioneer as close as possible to the bottom-most Polish city with an artillery behind it. Use the artillery to soften up the defenders, the pioneer to finish them off, and a pz 35 to occupy the city. Also: place an artillery near the woods along the north road to soften up the entrenched cavalry.

General hints: finish off the Polish fighter squadron ASAP, then use your 109 to strafe river artillery and the JU-87 to hit their tanks (remember that the 7TP is the good tank).

Most important: to achieve a major victory, you must be able to capture the city that is farthest away before they can defend it too much. Use that pioneer and pz 35 to cross the river on turn 2 and capture the city with them.

General hints for the Long Campaign game: In Norway and Low countries, buy lots of fighters. Even as late as France, you should spend all your prestige on fighters. Why? THEY ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT UNIT IN THE GAME!! And it's only in these early scenarios that you can get them experienced (always use elite replacements on your core units). Buying a green fighter squadron past 1940 is useless.
ii. keep that Ju-88 alive. It has a high naval attack, and it is the only way to deal with the nasty allied navies!!

iii. All of your infantry (4-5)should eventually be upgraded to pioneer. They avoid "rugged defense". 1 should be a bridge engineer. Infantry are used almost solely to attack ATGs and entrenched infantry.

iv. tanks. you should have 6-8 core tanks by France, half PZ IV (which are anti-infantry) and half PZ III's. Keep them like this until 1942 when you can make them all PZ IVf2's. Never attack a city with a tank if you can help it. The damage estimate you see with the PZ IV doesn't take into account that entrenched inf in a city ALMOST ALWAYS get a rugged defense vs tanks.
Enemy tanks: until 1942, the enemy heavy tanks are superior to you 1 on 1. Always soften them up with your Ju-87 first. By France you should have 2 Ju-87Bs and 1 110 fighter-bomber. The Ju-87 D has the best "hard" attack in the game.

V. Don't build: in 39 campaign, never build Air Defenses, Mobile AA, ATGs, or tank destroyers (until JP Elefant is available) as core units. PG is wierd because the 88 ATG sucks in the camapign mode.

Lessons:

"How to capture a heavily defended city"
i. Recon: fly a plane over it or use a recon unit. Does it have a) only an entrenched defender (inf or atg) b) defender + artillry, or c) (the hardest) defender + artillery + Air defense

if: A) Attack it with a pioneer. if possible, soften up with artillery. All other units should move on.
B) Attack the artillery with a tank or dive bomber until it's dead. Then see A.
C) these are very annoying, especially if there are other enemy units around like tanks. Don't let those precious planes get damaged by the AD! Just sit outside and pound them with artillery. Hopefully, you will be able to get a tank behind them and kill the artillery. These cities tend to be important objectives, the first one you'll see is in Norway.

vi. Overstrength units: you need these in the campaign. Overstregth your fighter's in France by waiting a while. I think its impossible for a begginer to get the "Sealion" (which is major victories in Low Countries, easy, and in France, hard)

RULE #1: Never, ever, just rush in and hope for the best. You can't afford to be repairing units all the time in 39 campaign. If a unit doesn't have anything to do, have it advance towards the next objective

[CapTVK]

My advice is: Buy stukas (Ju-87), once these suckers are 3-5 stars overstrength they'll eat shermans for breakfast.

I've scored major victories in france39, sealion, moscow and washington this way...

My suggestion is to get 3 stukas and 2 fighters in the '39 campaign. Then you slowly build up your airforce: 4 stuka's : 3 fighters, 5-4 etc...Don't modernize your stukas because you have the option to do it, that prestige is better used on buying a new stuka!

Always escort your stukas with fighters! Escorting is also an excellent way to gain experience and shoot down enemy planes without taking hits yourself. Don't worry about the stukas, most enemy planes won't be able to attack, they won't take much damage. Plus the enemy fighter will be severely weakened.[*]You can also 'trap' enemy air units this way.

On normal land units:[*]Don't be afraid to take a few blows, even units that have been beaten to 3-5 can still be used to take out weakened enemy units.[*][*]All combat experience counts, the more combat they get the better.[*]Try to take the smaller cities that earn prestige too.[*]You'll need one bridging unit and one paratooper unit (Moscow and Washington).[*]Don't be too eager to upgrade, I rather buy fresh troops before upgrading my existing units. The combat experience they have earned will offset their poor attack strength.[*]Jagdpanzers and antitank guns should be bought early in the campaign if you want to play the defensive campaign. Also note that that these units are better on the defense than offense, first use them to attack weakened units to let them gain some experience.


Another tip:
Once you have 4-5 fighters you can build an airdefense screen. Position your planes (stukas can also be used for this but don't forget an escort!) two hexes apart in a straight line. Enemy fighters won't be able to pass through this screen, thereby giving your stukas and bombers complete air superiority behind it.

Final note:
There's a bug in the france 39 victory campaign. You'll have to finish early to score a major victory here, so keep moving!

I captured Warsaw and now I am invading the low countries (why isn't the Netherlands in that mission?). I just bought oodles of infantry and stormed Warsaw and Modlin.

------------------
"Ah, I see the **** up fairy has visited us again."
~Alexander's Horse


"They say that our universe, which consists of everything that we do and don’t know about, is a 21 trillion year-old hologram."
~Alex Collier, on a race of advanced aliens that he has been in contact with for 30 years

Ban RainbowJDS for life.

[Seeker]

Uh oh...You bought lots of INFANTRY in warsaw? I buy tanks (in addition to the basic airforce) so that my mass of PZ IIIs can fight Matilda IIs on relatively even terms.

Even more so than Warsaw, low countries needs those pioneer infantry. Your first turn purchases should be fighters.

Why didn't you get to go to Norway? The prestige and experience are vital!

[Seeker]

CapTVK: I also found that upgrading Stukas is a bad idea. But I'm suprised you have a core paratrooper! How do you use it?
Also: i never build ATG's. Why? A tank is faster, better vs inf, has a higher initiative, ect. By the time the awesome Tank Destroyers show up like JadzPanther my core tanks are 5 * 15's anyway so I just buy SiGs.

[CapTVK]

quote: Originally posted by Seeker on 03-06-2000 08:39 PM CapTVK: I also found that upgrading Stukas is a bad idea. But I'm suprised you have a core paratrooper! How do you use it? Also: i never build ATG's. Why? A tank is faster, better vs inf, has a higher initiative, ect. By the time the awesome Tank Destroyers show up like JadzPanther my core tanks are 5 * 15's anyway so I just buy SiGs.

Simply really, with such a large airforce you'll need to refuel and rearm. Instead of flying back to existing airfield I capture one far behind enemy lines with a paratrooper. Paratroopers are also good for flushing enemy units out of entrenchment. Once they attack it's easy to attack them with other units.
At the start I buy ATG because they are cheap, not because they are tankkillers (that's for later). They are useful as mopping up units at the start, once they're experienced I can upgrade to elephants or jagdigers. Also note that ATG always shoot first when they are attacked (even when the attacker has a higher initiative)so they are far more useful on defensive campaigns.

[Provost Harrison]

I can't remember about Warsaw, but I think I used artillery and bombed theirs.

I have had a major victor in Washington!

[Seeker]

On what difficulty? I am assuming weather, supply, hidden units..

I bought useless Komet fighters because I thought that there might be more annoying Meteor IIIs around..too bad, US makes A-bomb and a truce is declared in Washington minor victory.