• Please make sure you are familiar with the forum rules. You can find them here: https://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules.2334636/

Panzer General 2

Panzer Meyer

Grizzled Veteran
Dec 26, 2005
759
31
North Cacilaci
Does anyone still have this game or remember it. It came out in 1995 I believe, published by SSI.

This game is amazing, I still have it installed and play it to this day. Thanks to the small, but relentless and hard working mod community for this game, it has been kept alive.

What the community has done is, add new maps for every region and country in the world, added new campaigns, some 50 scenarios long, and a lot of them being non-linear. Meaning depending on how well you do in the battles, depends on where you go next.

They added new sounds, new sprites, new graphics, new units. I mean they expanded on the game insanely. They were also able to update the actual game itself. Because SSI went under long ago and the game is not being supported, there was no way for it get patched. So they did that themselves.

Here are some screenshots to refresh your memory. Remember this game came out in 1995. But to me, it was the first introduction to serious Wargaming.

German units attemp to breach the Dunkir defenses, while French armor counter-attacks.
dunk2.gif


German units attack Polish defenders of Mlawa.
mlawa.jpg


Here are some of the community websites:
This website has almost all of it, and the rest it has links to. Start here if you are looking for trying some of these mods out.
http://www.wargamer.com/pg2campaigns/steve/pg2.htm

The other is also a great website which has a lot of maps and other things and the rest is also linked.
http://www.strategyplanet.com/panzergeneral/PG2Main_news.html

Those two websites is all you will need, and if you have questions they have a forum where the folks will be very happy to help.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shadrach
I saw this thread title and was just about to lay into the game for being the 'hugest, most pointless, smelliest POS it had ever been my misfortune to download'.

Then I saw that you said it was made in 1995 so I changed my opinion to this:

It is the hugest, most pointless, smelliest, OLD POS it has ever been my misfortune to download
 
Upvote 0
*7GA* Nestor Makhno said:
I saw this thread title and was just about to lay into the game for being the 'hugest, most pointless, smelliest POS it had ever been my misfortune to download'.

Then I saw that you said it was made in 1995 so I changed my opinion to this:

It is the hugest, most pointless, smelliest, OLD POS it has ever been my misfortune to download

Why do you say that? What do you not like about it? Why such foul language, is that really neccesary, couldn't you use more constroctive language next time....thanks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: husbert
Upvote 0
It is a operational level game, where each unit represents a battalion (idealy). You can command any unit in a real division, tanks, infantry, anti-tank battalion, anti-aircraft, recon, fighters, bombers, paratroopers, ships, submarines, artillery, and so on. The wonderfull thing though is that with all these units, you have differernt kinds.

So say you want to have an armored battalion, you go to the purchase screen and pick out a tank battalion, which lists all the types available. Say its May 1940, invasion of France and you are Germany. You will only have the models available at that time. Like PzIII and PzII and so on. Same for infantry types, there are many different ones.

Regulars, Pioneers, Paratroopers, Motorcycle troops, Waffen-SS, Volksstrum and so on. Same thing with planes, Me-109s, FW190s respective to date of course. And same goes for the other nations as well.

Each unit has a data sheet, its firepower, defense, spotting range, movement, fuel, suplplies and then it also lists its attributes. If one of your units performs well in battle, it recieves certain bonuses, and a leader. Which also earns more bonuses.

The game is a little deep, but takes no time to learn. The Purchase system I mentioned earlier works on prestige. Meaning, depending on how good you do in a battle determines how much prestige you earn to purchase new units or repair, resuuply and refit your existing ones. Of course as new equipment comes available, you can upgrade yours. So say you have a Pz-III battalion, you have a lot of prestige earned from your battles, and it is late 1942, the Tiger becomes available. It is going to be expansive, but you can upgrade your Pz-III battalion to a Tiger battalion if you can afford it.

I am not sure what else to describe, but the game is a lot of fun, there are a lot of campaigns made for a lot of nations, Germany, USSR, UK, USA, France and so on. You just have to try the game to see what is is like.

Yea the graphics aren't pretty, but c'mon it was 1995, those are good graphics for that time, imo. And I am one of those people who prefer gameplay over some graphics. I guess I am not superficial like other people, but I like content to my games, rather that spiffy new graphics.

 
Upvote 0
Hi Panzer Meyer, thank you for the post. This will seem silly lol but I just registered in order to talk to you. I am a HUGE Panzer General 2 fan and have had the game for so many years I can't count. I even bought Panzer General 3d which I also enjoyed, even though that cd has disappeared. :/ I wanted to ask you about those screenshots though because I just recently reinstalled PG2 about 3 weeks ago and have been playing it (got 4 brilliant victories in a row!) and I've also discovered the website you linked to prior to reading your thread and THOUGHT I was upgraded. My question though is that even though I've upgraded the game, the units in your screenshots seem much more crisp and colorful than what the units look like in my games, and I was wondering if you could tell me how you got them to look like that.

I installed the all-in-one patch on Steve's site which included an updated graphical component, but other than a changed startup screen I have noticed nothing different. Could you please tell me what mod you used to get those beautiful unit icons? I will still play the game using the old ones because I think it's so great, but if I could get my units to look like yours then I'd be a happy camper. Thanks for any info!
 
Upvote 0
Bah Ive been fooling with this thing forever and still can't figure it out. I redownloaded the datup file marked Nov 30, 2005 and replaced the old one in my directory (which was actually the upgraded one anyway), with no change. Are you also running at a higher resolution than the default? I went in manually when i first reinstalled the game 3 weeks ago and changed the resolution in the settings text file to 1280 960 like my desktop but the screen was off-centered, so I went back to the highest in the original game which is 1024 768. Your screenshots just look so much neater than my in-game display.
 
Upvote 0
Scharnhorst said:
Bah Ive been fooling with this thing forever and still can't figure it out. I redownloaded the datup file marked Nov 30, 2005 and replaced the old one in my directory (which was actually the upgraded one anyway), with no change. Are you also running at a higher resolution than the default? I went in manually when i first reinstalled the game 3 weeks ago and changed the resolution in the settings text file to 1280 960 like my desktop but the screen was off-centered, so I went back to the highest in the original game which is 1024 768. Your screenshots just look so much neater than my in-game display.

Hey, glad to meet other PG2 fans.
Are you using the patched exe, it should read something like PG2UK (dont remember all of it). Do not use the stock PANZER.EXE anymore.

Second, are you playing a custom campaign, with the right equipment file? If you are playing the stock SSI capmaign with the stock equipment file, you will have the old icons.

Those screenshots are from the DAS Reich campaign, which uses the Adler Korps 4000 equipment file, which in turn utilizes the new icons and sprites and sounds.

Every equipment file is different, and lot of campaigns use different one, you have to make sure you get the right one. Each custom campaign comes with a read me and tells you which equipment file to use, this is key!

Also, lot of the custom campaigns use custom maps, make sure you get them, again the read me with those campaigns which ones you have to download. There is a process which you have to follow ( a few easy steps) to get custom maps to work.

All that info however is on those 2 websites I provided. If you need more help let me know.
 
Upvote 0
Any history on Open General, I think that is amazing they did that, but how, why, how does it work, who all worked on it, etc. I am just curious, I just find it amazing.
I've got no clue, but one very cool feature is that you download maps on the fly when you need them.

No need to download gigs of maps in one package, it'll automatically download a the needed maps, either in a bulk for one campaign or in-between each battle.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Apos
Upvote 0