Five Star General Series: Panzer General and Allied General

by Bill Haering, Dirk Cremer, and Douglas Wick

Overview

Your creative juices have been flowing and you have come up with an excellent idea for a Panzer General or Allied General Scenario. The next question that comes to mind is how to go from an idea to a finished scenario, since the games themselves do not have editors. The Wargamer's 5 Star Series Section has several maps and unit editors, which one should you use? In order to help you get started in the right direction we have asked contributing scenario designers which programs their using.
Thanks to Bill Haering, Dirk Cremer, and Douglas Wick for providing their expertise.

Panzer General DOS floppy and CD Versions

For creating a new scenario or editing an existing scenario we recommend starting with Charles Tyson's Editor. Charles Tyson's Editor allows the user to modify existing scenarios or create new ones. With the editor a map can be created or modified, new units can be placed, existing units can be replaced with another unit from the existing force pool, and modifications to a units experience and initial entrenchment levels can be made. Charles Tyson's Editor is freeware and is a Windows program. Bill Haering has also taken the time to write down some lessons he has learned while using Charles Tyson's Editor.
One drawback of this editor is that the terrain is displayed in a generic format. This makes creating a new map that is functional or aesthetically pleasing very difficult. David Smid's SET Map Editor allows you to view and edit the map as displayed in PG or AG. This is an invaluable tool for creating terrain. It must be used in conjunction with Charles Tyson's editor.
If the scenario designer wants to modify more unit characteristics than experience and entrenchment levels, then try one of the shareware unit editors from Skookum Software or Drawde Software.
Charles Tyson's Map Editor v0.2 154k. Windows based Map editor that permits editing of original scenario maps.
Charles Tyson's Map Editor (including CD version.) Provides Instructions and files required to run custom scenarios with the CD version of Panzer General. The file also contains a new scenario.Must be run in DOS!
David Smid's SET Map Editor Map editor which allows you to veiw and edit the map
Brass Polish v3.0 - (168k)Shareware Unit Editor for Panzer General (DOS and Win95) and Allied General. (by Skookum Software)
Panzer General shareware unit editor (69k) and map editor. (62k) (by DRAWDE Software) The shareware version does not allow you to save created equipment.
Fred Chlanda has created a series of programs that allows the user to extract the unit icons from several of SSI's games' data file and convert them into shp files. You can then view the shp files, save them as bmp files, and import new bmp files into shp files. This version also includes a repacking program to convert all the files back into the proper data file. Way to go Fred! shped047.zip
Olivier de Béru has created lists, in Excel, of the icons for Allied General and Panzer General which would be helpfull for someone creating their own icons for the game in conjunction with using Fred Chlanda's ship editor.
RhinoBones has created mapname lists in Excel. One file sorts the names alphbetically and the other numerically as the names appear in the Mapnames.str file.
Larry Widing has created a set of scenario designer tools. You will find an equipment editor Version 1.1.01, a scenario stat editor Version 1.0, and a map names editor Version 1.0.03.

Panzer General Win95 Version

For creating a new scenario or editing an existing scenario we recommend starting with Charles Tyson's Editor. Charles Tyson's Editor allows the user to modify existing scenarios or create new ones. With the editor a map can be created or modified, new units can be placed, existing units can be replaced with another unit from the existing force pool, and modifications to a units experience and initial entrenchment levels can be made. Charles Tyson's Editor is freeware and runs under Windows. Bill Haering has also taken the time to write down some lessons he has learned while using Charles Tyson's Editor.
Bill Haering's map editor, for the Win95 version of Panzer General. (161k)
Brass Polish v3.0 - (168k)Shareware Unit Editor for Panzer General (DOS and Win95) and Allied General. (by Skookum Software)

Allied General

Bill Haering's modified editor also works with Allied General scenarios. As with the Win95 version, the Allied General scenario is converted to Panzer General DOS, modifications are then made with Charles Tyson's Editor (and David Smid's) and the files reconverted. As an added bonus created Allied General scenarios and Panzer General scenarios can then be converted and played with any of the games.
Bill Haering's Allied General scenario editor. (162k)
Dirk Herrmann's Allied General saved game editor.
Brass Polish v3.0 - (168k) Shareware Unit Editor for Panzer General (DOS and Win95) and Allied General. (by Skookum Software)
Fred Chlanda has created a series of programs that allows the user to extract the unit icons from several of SSI's games' data file and convert them into shp files. You can then view the shp files, save them as bmp files, and import new bmp files into shp files. This version also includes a repacking program to convert all the files back into the proper data file. Way to go Fred! shped047.zip
Olivier de Béru has created lists, in Excel, of the icons for Allied General and Panzer General which would be helpfull for someone creating their own icons for the game in conjunction with using Fred Chlanda's ship editor.

Macintosh Software

Matthew Hill's Macintosh Allied General/Panzer General editor.