Pointy hex grid

Our initial approach when we started developing The Panzer Division was to use the Panzer General I look. That meant that units were 2D icons, facing either left or right.

The original Panzer General look

Panzer General II came with a better approach, displaying the battlefield from an oblique angle, and the units had a 3D look. Of course, the game was not really 3D, but it looked better anyway.

The second Panzer General game looked better with pseudo-3D units and terrain

The units could rotate to twelve different directions, six of them facing the hex sides and the other six pointing toward the hex corners.

Back when we started developing our game, we used the original Panzer General artwork . This has helped us a lot, not having to bother with a map editor and such. But after we implemented a great deal of the game mechanics, we said it's time to create our own artwork.

I started designing the units graphics, and I used a great tool for this: Blender. It's a free 3D modeler and in the past few years it has improved a lot, especially in the user interface area.

I began modeling some panzers and rendered them into 2D images from the sides. I managed to get them to look like the original PG units. But as long as we have the units modeled in 3D, it is a breeze to render them from an oblique angle and facing different directions, as they are in PG2. So we decided to take that route, and use a pseudo-3D look for our game.

The Panzer General games use a hex grid, which is obvious by looking at the screenshots above. But the hexes are aligned in vertical columns, the hexagons lying on their side. That means that the directions facing the hex sides include pointing up and down, but in our opinion, a unit facing north or south doesn't look so good.

Units facing north or south (up/down) do not look so good

So, we changed the way the hex grid is oriented and make it have the corners pointing up and down, as you can see in the image below.

With a 'pointy' hex grid, units are never facing up or down

This way, the units would never be displayed from front or back, making it easier to recognize the differences between various units of the same type.

Best Anti-Tank Gun of WWII: the German 88

© S H Photos

While the best tank of the war is controversial, I think we can find more agreement on the best anti tank gun of the WWII: the 88mm Flak.

Originally used as anti aircraft gun, the 88mm Flak became famous when used as a anti-tank weapon.

Here is an example about its efficiency. The Real Reason for the 88’s Success:

During Operation Battleaxe from 15th to 18th June 1941 the Commonwealth forces are known to have lost 92 AFVs including 82 tanks to the I./Flak-Regiment 33, a Luftwaffe mixed flak battalion with 12 88s.(7) The only other heavy flak battalion available to Rommel through 1941 was the identical I./Flak-Regiment 18. By the end of 1941 these two Luftwaffe flak battalions (authorised a total of 24 88s) had destroyed 264 tanks and 42 aircraft.(8) During this period the Allied forces had over three times as many 3.7inch AA guns available as the Axis forces had 88s, yet the German and Italian tank crews probably never even got to see one.(9)