As a wargamer and a WW2 enthusiast I might not be that objective when I'm saying that this game's pretty damn good! At the same time however, the many hours spent trying to beat the campaign on Field Marshal, testing my skills with people on multiplayer, exploring the game on many levels, as well as a decent overview of the wargaming scene, contribute to a thoughtful assessment, I hope :P

On with a brief presentation of the game!
Panzer Corps Wehrmacht (PC) is a light, turn based (Igo-Ugo) strategy game and a reimplementation of the old school Panzer General (PG). If you liked PG you'll almost definitely enjoy PC and the opposite of course. The idea is simple. You start the second world war commanding part of the German army, starting from the invasion of Poland and decide its fate with possibilities ranging, depending on your performance, from its historical demise to a *minor spoiler* glorious blitzkrieg through the entire US.

The fun of the game derives through its tactical simplicity though it leaves a lot of room for depth—for those willing to look for it.
All you have to do is move and fire your units in any order you desire. Simple enough, huh?
Sure, but in order to master the game, you have to grasp many subtle mechanisms. Panzer Corps features: a variety of terrain with unique characteristics, unit suppression, an interesting initiative system, unit retreat/surrender, a weather system, supply (albeit in an unrealistic form due to the lack of supply lines), entrenchment, zone of control, strategic redeployment and many more interesting elements.

Furthermore the game comes with many units that, besides chrome, offer many tactical opportunities. Will you plow the battlefield with slow moving King Tigers or blitz with Panther tanks? Will you dominate the skies with a combined fighters/dive bombers force or follow a fighter-bomber doctrine? Due to the many different unit types offered, the efficiency of combined arms really shines.

Another aspect of Panzer Corps is its subtle yet engaging strategic element.
You are given command of a core force that you control through the entire game, in contrast to a couple of secondary/temporary units that are provided for a single scenario. This core force can be expanded by buying/upgrading units between or during the scenarios but, friendly note, don't try to figure the scale; units may represent divisions, corps, or even armies, depending on the scope of the scenario. In addition, every unit gains experience through combat and the dilemma of how to replace loses, through regular (inexperienced and cheap) or elite (battle-hardened and expensive) replacements, arises. This of course means I have to explain prestige as well...

Prestige (the game currency) depends on your performance on the scenario. That is the capture of objectives (primary/secondary) and the battle outcome (normal/decisive victory or defeat). A decisive victory may have to come many times through attrition which may cost in the long-run. Even more choices!

However not everything's great...
To begin with, the A.I. is relatively uninspired. It doesn't act terribly ahistorically or plain silly (besides two rare situations) but the difficulty of most scenarios comes through the numerical advantage of the enemy. Then we have the repetitive objectives, at least in Wehrmacht, "Capture all cities in X turns". A few people nag about the lack of replay value as well but I beg to differ. Besides the branching campaign and the multiplayer scenarios (can be played both online and hotseat) there are a lot mods at your disposal for free!

Another thing that bugged me is the fact that, although there is an option of a detailed battle sheet both before and after each combat, the game lacks detail both in the tutorial and the manual. This leaves those eager to dig deeper no option other than to go through many forum posts. For example artillery has a rate of fire stat that isn't mentioned anywhere in the game! Every basic piece of information is covered however and the interface, in most cases, is intuitive and elegant.

Finally, the realism issue arises. Due to its abstract nature this game is far from a simulation at a strategic level. The lack of many important details make it unrealistic at a tactical level as well. At its heart however every decision the player makes is realistic, in a sense that the same dilemmas arose to WW2 generals as well. Somehow, through the careful deduction from realism, this game manages to remain true, as much as a light wargame can, to the nature of the war.

All in all, Panzer Corps is a strategy game I would recommend to everyone; both the uninitiated who wants to discover the joys of wargaming and the grognard who wishes for a less complex game.

Rating: 9/10