Panzer Campaigns France ’40 Gold updated to version 2.02

Hi All,

Panzer Campaigns France ’40 Gold has been updated to version 2.02.

Panzer Campaigns France ’40 Gold was released just before Christmas 2018. We have been very happy with the reception from both the community and reviewers alike. A great example is Bill Gray’s review on the Wargamer site; Review Link which really captures what the team were trying to create with this Gold update.

Like all mega releases, some issues have been identified. Some hardy souls looking to play one of the new campaigns found issues with some of the unit releases. This has now been corrected. A range of other fixes and tweaks have been done as further review and play over the last three months found them.

More importantly, the Designer Notes for all the new Prucha scenarios were not ready in December. They are now, and they really help players understand both the design teams’ intentions and considerations. The 56 pages of notes is accompanied with a second document; ‘Abbreviation Glossary’ that explains the acronyms for each nationality used in the Order of Battle or in general use in 1940. I can’t recommend enough, both sets of notes for anyone intending to play/purchase the game.

The notes are included in the 2.02 patch but you can also get the notes to review from here;

France ’40 Gold Design Notes Notes Link

France ’40 Gold Abbreviation Glossary Glossary Link

The patch in summary includes the following changes and can be installed over the JTS France ’40 versions 2.00 or 2.01. You can get the patch from the John Tiller update page here; Link to JTS Updates Page

  • Revisions to various Prucha scenarios and campaigns. Corrected releases and other historical variances
  • New alternate Stonne scenario
  • Corrected some erroneous unit graphics
  • Added road network where missing on the master map
  • Included the Designer notes for all the Prucha scenarios and campaigns (F’40 Gold Design Notes)
  • Included a military terms glossary (F’40 Gold Abbreviations Glossary)

With the upcoming release of the next title in the Panzer Campaigns series – Japan ’45, I can confirm that this is not the only game in the series being worked on. The very talented Mike Prucha and Dave Michas have now moved on from their France ’40 Gold opus and are now working on a brand new, late war, Western front Panzer Campaigns title.

It’s exciting (and busy) times here at Wargame Design Studio.

30 thoughts on “Panzer Campaigns France ’40 Gold updated to version 2.02

  • Downloading F40 v2.02 as I type. Thanks for the update. Looking forward to the Japanese hypotheticals and another Western Front title (hmm…Operation Cobra?).

  • Looking forward to these updates, I found one mistake in the multiple Prucha campaigns. Hex 369,142 has a ferry to the left in some campaigns and not in others. Is this intentional?

  • The new France ’40 incorporates the Fragile Morale rules, apparently. How is this parameter applied? How do you know if a unit is fragile? Can you set Fragility anywhere?

    • Fragile Morale is hard coded by Nationality. That’s why you will actually see two different groupings for both the French and the Dutch. Some will be impacted by national surrender, others will not.

  • If you can expand the map for France ’40, why can’t you expand the map for Normandy ’44? It needs to have more area to the east and south to include the Falaise Breakout, etc. (I was surprised to discover the next PzC game was in Japan; I’ve wondered when you would get around to Cobra ’44.)

    • Chris,

      It’s a matter of time. Every item we do requires a dedicated team and someone with the time to do it. France ’40 was expanded because Mike Prucha had a huge number of new France ’40 scenarios ready to go and we discussed the possibility of adding Holland. David Michas stepped up and did the mapping for Holland and much more subsequently. It was a team effort off the back of work already completed. For Normandy as you say, it again comes down to much more than the map, but rather is anyone ready to do the work creating scenarios. We spent a lot of time working on Panzer Battles Normandy and there is work that could translate from there but there is no-one with the time available currently. It’s certainly a possible future title.

      • Yeah, I tried to add on to the Normandy map myself (I figured out how to do so and wrote a small app to calculate values and checksums). Didn’t get very far. Having to do each hex one at a time was very tedious. Pity. There are Goodwood, Cobra and Mortain scenarios out there, but Falaise just won’t fit.

  • Great work with F40 Gold! I am also patiently waiting for 3rd title of First World War Campaigns (although my patience slowly grows impatient 😉 Additionally I will gladly sell my soul for title covering Fall Weiss. We have to remember that II World War begun in Poland in ’39. There were also some panzer battles (eg. Piotrkow, Tomaszow Lubelski) or some great battles (eg. Bzura). I hope some day my dream comes true 🙂

    • Thanks Pawel,

      I know Ed is working hard on the next FWWC title. As far as Fall Weiss, yes there are so many possibilities for titles. If you saw the list of suggested ‘next projects’ you would see we could be busy for many years to come…

  • Thanks much! Breathing new life into these games. But why didn’t you use “French-Free” instead of “South-Korean”. (A silly question, I guess).

  • First: What are these “back.dat” files?

    Second: I love to mod. In the old version, I had a separate category for French Colonials (I believe they were “Canadians”.) As I ubderstand it now, if I do that, I can’t also assign them as fragile?

    • The Back.dat files should have been removed as they we’re backups for the unit.dats. You can get rid of them.

      Unfortunately, the fragile nations is hard coded. In this case its the French, Dutch, Danish and Belgians from memory.

  • But only in France ’40 Gold, right? Doesn’t affect the “Belgians” in Stalingrad Gold, right?

    • Correct, I need to check but I believe it is only title specific and the code was specifically added for France ’40. Stalingrad was released long before that title and does not include the new code. I will check as some of those nationalities are in titles yet to be released such as El Alamein.

  • Hello David

    I used the v2.02 hot fix you posted on 8-April, but I still find that I cannot implement new nationality folders in OOB editor (Prucha OOB and others) for the Wehrmacht forces. My new folders are visible in the drop down menu for other forces Luxembourg for example. When I try to select a new nationality folder for Wehrmacht units I can only select German, German-SS or Luftwaffe. What I am doing wrong or are you going to release an updated patch to correct this?

    • You need to add a folder with an ‘Axis’ nationality, for example Hungary or Italy. It should appear when you select Axis units.

  • Thanks David, I will follow your advice. I am Looking forward to the last two WDS Panzer campaign releases, especially El Alamein 42′, which, rumor has it, contains another campaign scenario opus by Brian Jennings. His Bulge ’44 scenario Herbstnebel was the best PzC playing experience I have had to date. A sincere thank you to all WDS staff and acknowledgement of your time and effort required to produce these PzC overhauls.

  • Hi there,

    Sounds like there’s a mismatch regarding 254. ID (XXVI. AK) in Prucha’s OOB:
    – General in command should be BEHSCHNITT instead of KOCH as of May 10th ’40.
    – Cross-checking Units’ pictures, I can see BEHSCHNITT in directory (pink background), but it seems unused
    nb : using Mapmod + Volcano mod.

    Keep up the good work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *