Main campaign: Stalingrad pointless?

[Halajda]

First of all, I am a veteran Panzer General I & II player and I owned and played Panzer Corps way before it's made its appearance on Steam. So please, skip the noob-calling.

All of the following is under assumption you didn't achieved major victories in Low Countries and France in 1940.

In the original PG1, if you won Stalingrad on Major victory, you went to Moscow '42. This basically allowed you to finish of USSR in time to get at Sealion '43. It was hell harder than Sealion '40, as the Allies were much stronger and more fortified, US were in the war fulltime, while you don't have the Italian fleet aid option. But it could be won.

But in Panzer Corps main campaign, unless you beat Moscow on the first try in '41, you can't win the Western front. Sealion is moved to 1942 and if you miss that, the best you can manage is to push Overlord back to the sea and get peace with the Western Allies. There is no Moscow '42 either.

This basically makes Stalingrad scenario pointless campaign-path-wise, because no matter how you do at Stalingrad, you end up at Kursk. This is wrong for several reasons...
This game is so good at getting the gamer at the edge of his chair, rushing his forces to flag objectives and make that decisive (major) victory in time. I would outright put my forces in danger, leave open flanks, sacrifice some inferior untis and drive motorized infantry in harm's way in trucks, just to get that decisive victory. But at Stalingrad... why bother if no matter what I do, I get to Kursk?
From historical, or rather alternate historical point of view - if Germans had won the Stalingrad campaign, hence the Soviet counter-offensives between December '42 and March '43 failed, there wouldn't be any battle of Kursk. The Kursk pocket was created by Soviet operations Mars and Saturn after encirclement of Stalingrad and following German counter-attack at 3rd battle of Charkov.

Personally, I would welcome a bit more speculative what-if scenarios in the main campaing. Victory at Stalingrad would give Germans opportunity and resources to strike into Russia proper in a speculative 1943 offensive - upstream the Volga river against Saratov, Samara, Kazan and Nizhniy Novgorod, giving them alternate starting position against Moscow in 1943. Now that's an interesting scenario or two, which would give more variability to mid-war Eastern front.

Obviously I don't expect the devs to make such a massive surgical strike into a game that is almost 3 years old, but is this a missed opportunity? You can (and people have) make this sort of campaign in scenario editor, but there's a difference between player-created scenarios and main campaign line.

So I wonder what the newly founded Panzer Corps Steam community makes of this.

[Morholt]

I am at the Stalingrad scenario right now. I was once better, but I apparently got rusty and instead of kicking England and Russia out of the War, here we are... :)

You are right, it's WIN/MARGINAL/LOSS -> Kursk. Or Italy in some cases, if England is still in, but only for a Major Victory.

So what to do... make the best of it. You also seem to get the same prestige amount, regardless if you win or lose Stalingrad, for Kursk. I also think this scenario should be called CAUCASUS. Yes, there is Stalingrad, but we rather move into the city and take the Crimea and oil fields, all that things, rather than fighting for Stalingrad. THAT is in the 1942 DLC. Several scenarios tied together.

Milk it. You get prestige per turn in this one. So just play defensively and gain oodles of Prestige, preserve strength. Then upgrade to Tigers and Panhers and FW190 and overstrength and hope you can decisively win Kursk.

The thing is, you cannot turn the war around at this point anymore. But that is what many historians argue, if it would be better gameplay wise to give people another chance for invasion of England, hmm, that's somehing to argue about.

So yeah, maybe another chance to turn things around would be nice, given as option. But you have a historically pleasant path the way it is right now.

Bagration, Balaton, Ardennes - you really must show them what you are made of there to prevent ending up in the "Germany" scenarios.

[Halajda]

I see no point going to Italy after Stalingrad, that deprives you of the last chance to defeat Soviet Union by missing Moscow '43, while in return you can't do anything significant in Italy - you end up at Overlord either way.

Btw "Caucausus" is a scenario from Afrikakorps DLC, in which you attack the region from the south after successful campaing across North Africa and Middle East. It is more fitting name for the Afrika Corps option, as well as keeping in line with original Panzer General campaing.

Btw, in the old Panzer General, me and my brother would (given successful Sealion 40) intentionally dragged the Eastern front all the way until 1943 to milk up troops, prestige and experience for invasion of the US.