Locarnus Addon 2023-11, for Grand Campaign, Battlefield Europe and Afrika Korps

[bondjamesbond]

Of course , no one carried heavy anti - aircraft guns with horses , but everything that was easier was actively used )


Well, sometimes I had to drag myself on my back and a mule if there was a minefield ahead)))
https://travelask.ru/blog/posts/32088-s ... o-chto-zhe

[Intenso82]

The Soviets also used mechanized transport to move AA guns(37мм, 76мм, 85мм)
These were trucks, tractors, but not horses.

Unit Changes:
- A lot more cheap horse transport options, from Pioniere to 8.8cm Flak and several artillery pieces

I think it is very unlikely that the 8.8cm Flak was ever pulled by horses. Firstly, it was probably a bit too heavy (it looks like even the 15cm sFH 18 could only be towed by horses in two parts: one carriage was carrying the barrel and another the mount, each pulled by a seperate horse team, and I'm not sure if the 8.8cm Flak could be dismantled as such). Second,
German doctrine dictated that Flak guns (and towed AT guns) had to be motorised for fast redeployment.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... p?t=339365

[bondjamesbond]

Well, one cell can be allowed to move the gun even if the tractor is not purchased
https://waralbum.ru/138775/


German 105 mm leFH 18 (10.5-cm leFH 18) horse-drawn howitzers on the march in the mountains of Dalmatia.
https://waralbum.ru/397229/


In the mountains and if there is no fuel, the horse is better, you can even eat it like the Romanians in Stalingrad)))


Creepy trophies of the Red Army. Saddles of the eaten Romanian cavalry. The district of Stalingrad, 1943.
| military history |


https://warspot.ru/9627-pushka-na-telege



https://stylishbag.ru/kartinki/verblyud ... tinki.html



https://blog.togetherweserved.com/2023/ ... ion-husky/
https://www.secondworldwarhistory.com/o ... sicily.php

[Locarnus]

[...]
However, giving dedicated horse transport to units which were not known to have it for weight reason seems less ideal as some players may just use them with horses anyway for extended periods, perhaps even throughout a whole campaign, which would be totally unhistorical.

Ok, so no horse transport option for the 8.8cm Flak anymore!

Some other changes based on the youtube feedback by Richard Martin are also incorporated (StuG III A for France, 15cm sFH with SdKfz 7 for Kampinoska, exit hex for Poznan so Recon Rudel does not block a core slot).

@goose_2 might want to skip this update for his British India final scenario of Afrika Korps playthrough. Since the 8.8cm BuFla is now understrength, I recommend switch to AT class and upgrade to Nashorn in previous Addon version 2023-10, if the BuFla is still around after Road to India. And the now current Addon version 2023-10a does not change anything else for British India.


2023-10a Complete "Locarnus Addon" Download: https://bit.ly/46CTDs2

The bugfixed version of Panzer Corps 1.32 is required, see install instructions in slitherine forum

Grand Campaign DLC compatibility, thank you Richard Martin for GC 39 youtube playthrough
- Exit hex added, for Poznan scenario only
- Rewriting of some messages during Poznan scenario
- GC 39&40 unit spreadsheet adjusted for changes below
- 15cm sFH and 8.8cm Flak changes, see below

Unit Changes:
- 8.8cm Flak got horse transport option removed again (thank you McGuba for realism intervention!)
- 8.8cm BuFla rebalanced, str 8 instead of 10, but rof 10 instead of 9, ammo 6 instead of 4 & slight GD and AD buff
- 15cm sFH available earlier, for Lodz. It initially has only horse transport option, until Kampinoska
- 3.7cm Pak with Krupp Protze has one more ammo
- StuG III A s8 replaces StuG III B for France (thank you Richard Martin for realism feedback!)
- Panzer III F later (France instead of Norway)
- Panzer 38(t) A-D split into A/B and C/D versions
- Brückenpioniere a bit cheaper


Adjusted GC 39 & 40 unit upgrade spreadsheet with some cursive comments in the bottom right of each section: https://bit.ly/3ZJ8WNB

[Locarnus]

After the initial GC 39 + Addon feedback and all those early adjustments, the balance is now much more stable.
Harder difficulties are now much more possible and comparable with vanilla and Deducter mod.
Eg by providing a more historical unit selection during Poland than before (15cm sFH & 8.8cm Flak, both with SdKfz 7 motorized transport for Kampinoska). And eg making the enemy camo AT surprises more manageable.
This leaves more room for GC 41-45 East testing and harder campaign difficulty considerations.

Richard Martin established Napoleon difficulty, mainly focusing on Deducter mod.
For compatibility with Locarnus Addon mod, here is a rewrite of the rules from his "Napoleon Mode Revision" video, hopefully keeping the spirit of the challenge.
The rewrite was necessary because of the different treatment of bonus (formerly SE) units with Locarnus Addon.
Where the role of bonus units is inverted compared to vanilla PzC and Deducter mod (with Addon they are weak standard infantry, instead of especially strong units without Addon).
Rules concerning those bonus units are put into the B section, which has to be omitted when playing with Addon.


Napoleon Difficulty
Adjusted for Locarnus Addon compatibility, original by Richard Martin mainly for Deducter mod.
It's okay if you don’t get a DV. Battles are insane now so roll with it.

A) Common Core of Napoleon Difficulty:
1. No more than 1 of same unit version (Rule of 1, except for the standard infantry without transport, you can have mutliple of those).
2. Double Rommel: Player gets 25% prestige & AI gets 200% prestige.
3. Double Field Marshall. Player gets 25% experience.
4. "Reform units" advanced option activated.
5. No use of special campaign hero units (eg Rudel). Special campaign hero units can be sold for prestige.
6. No more than half of the artillery corps can be mechanized.
7. Must accept first assigned random heroes.
(8. Must show a Live play to earn the title of Napoleon. This does not mean literally show 6 consecutive hours of live play. Each map can be broken into as many parts as needed.)

B) Vanilla & Deducter mod additional rules for Napoleon difficulty (omit this section with Locarnus Addon):
1. 3 SE infantry units must be in core. One must be a SE mountaineer. One SE regular that cannot become a grenadier and one that is SE Grenadier. No reloading for SE units. You can’t sell unless the second SE matches the first. This is to make it harder to ride SE tanks to victory.
2. Must keep transports of SE units. As soon as possible, those transports need to be different from each other. One SE unit without a truck is required.
3. Non SE Infantry can’t use truck transports. (rail, sea, and air allowed).

C) Harder Rules for Napoleon Difficulty:
1. During the battles of 1939 no elite replacements are ever required.
2. During 1940 battles starting at Albert Canal: If the unit is below 1 star after regular replacement cost you must use elite replacements. If you are unable to do this, the unit must be kept in reserve until you can afford the elite replacement costs.
3. 1941 this rule applies to units below 2 stars.
4. 1942 this rule applies to units below 3 stars.
5. 1943 this rule applies to units below 3 stars.
6. 1944-45 this rule applies to units below 4 stars.
7. First time a unit is used, next deployment you do not have to use elite replacements.
8. No lost units can be restored, instead of "reform units option" from rule A6 in the paragraph above.
9. Weather must be accepted and not reloaded.
10. Only use German units. No capturable units can be added to the corps.
11. AI gets bonus experience (eg 20%).
12. Airfields can be used to transport troops in Poland. One plane for each scenario. You must activate this in the map editor.
13. Exit hexes available for each map. Which means one unit exits and another can come in. You must add this in the map editor.
14. Bonus insanity; Try to show off every unit type over the campaign. You can exclude one class upgrade path or one particular upgrade in each grouped military category (tanks, infantry…etc). No purchase tags items like JagdTiger and any extremely rare unit you do not have to buy.

[bondjamesbond]

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/autocann ... t-spa-38r/


http://gabgames.ucoz.hu/index/hungary/0-24

[Locarnus]

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/autocann ... t-spa-38r/

http://gabgames.ucoz.hu/index/hungary/0-24

Goose_2 proposed making non-german axis units purchasable for the grand campaign. For even more unit variety.
Eg including the greatly expanded unit roster for Italy (Locarnus Addon) and Hungary (McGuba for Battlefield Europe).

Especially with some house rules (which became more popular when Richard Martin proposed his Napoleon difficulty), those nations could add quite a bit of flavor to the grand campaign!


For now just a bit of realism improvement, for GC39 in particular.
While the 10 strength Panzer 38(t) option for Poland was good for gameplay reasons, historically Germany had fewer of those available than Panzer III and IV at the start of Poland.
Thus the Pz 38(t) A/B is now split into the understrength Poland version and a full strength version for Norway (while Pz III and IV only get full strength versions for France). To make it still viable for Poland, the aux Pz 35(t) unit is exchanged for an experienced Pz 38(t) str8 core unit at the start of Poznan.
The player may use the Poznan exit hex to free up core slots during the battle.

I plan to update the unit spreadsheet for 2023-11, since that takes some time with the pictures and so on.


2023-10b Complete "Locarnus Addon" Download: https://bit.ly/402PbAS

The bugfixed version of Panzer Corps 1.32 is required, see install instructions in slitherine forum

Grand Campaign DLC compatibility
- Poznan Panzer 35(t) aux unit changed to Panzer 38(t) strength 8 core unit
- Poznan German unit experience adjusted

Unit Changes:
- Panzer 38(t) A/B further split into strength 8 (Poland) and full strength version (Norway)
- Balancing pass for early Spitfires and Hurricane
- 5cm Pak 38 and 7.5cm Pak 40 availability adjusted
- Price adjustments for several german multi engine aircraft families

[bondjamesbond]

Yes, so let 's say the minor participants of the WWII are also a kind of highlight )

Secondary Axis members
The secondary members of the Axis include participants in World War II from among the allies of Germany, Japan and Italy, who did not play a primary role on the battlefield, but nevertheless took part in hostilities on the side of the Nazi bloc or declared war on the countries of the Anti-Hitler Coalition. These include:

Hungary;
Bulgaria;
Romania;
Slovakia;
Kingdom of Thailand;
Finland;
Iraq;
Republic of San Marino.

https://shadecraft.ru/sostav-gitlerovsk ... voiny.html

https://bigpicture.ru/neobychnye-soldat ... oj-vojtek/


The African guerrillas of italy
https://yourenlang.ru/partizanskaya-voi ... cev-v.html

The most daring and successful saboteurs of World War II (9 photos)
https://pressa.tv/top/51572-top-8-samye ... -foto.html

Red Army soldiers with bows against Germans with machine guns
https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/3358700847 ... 78a976a1c9
https://picturehistory.livejournal.com/7068597.html

Living Terminators )
https://listverse.com/2013/10/18/10-wor ... ing-feats/


https://oper-1974.livejournal.com/382078.html


https://mashable.com/feature/fuzzy-wuzz ... wWC0_gTOqx


https://indigenous.jimdofree.com/2013/1 ... вой-войне/

[Locarnus]

Yes, so let 's say the minor participants of the WWII are also a kind of highlight )

For a start, I made Italy available for GC 1941 onward, with this mini mod called "GrandCampaignNoSpam":
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=113550
And also reduced AI core limit to 1, to reduce the "AI spam thinking stutter".

Only GC 39-42 compatibility so far, since it is quite tedious to manually adjust all the scenarios.

If GrandCampaignNoSpam is used with Locarnus Addon, make sure that Locarnus addon is always installed last!



I also updated the unit spreadsheet for Locarnus Addon 2023-11.
Putting the initial horse drawn 7.5cm arty in the GebG upgrade family, adding the Ju 87 A and adjusting the Ju 87 B model availability dates.
Also accounting for the low ground pressure movement type "16", which gives a slight buff to several light tanks.


GC 39 & 40 unit stats & availability spreadsheet (dropbox.com with preview): https://bit.ly/3u6PChN








2023-11 Complete "Locarnus Addon" Download: https://bit.ly/3u4jqLX

The bugfixed version of Panzer Corps 1.32 is required, see install instructions in slitherine forum

Grand Campaign DLC compatibility
- Corrected typos (bugs) in the unmodded grand campaign gamerule files (concerning replacement costs)
- Adjusted grand campaign gamerule files (replacement costs) to be consistent with Afrika Korps + Addon
- Non-elite replacements result in less of an experience drop, but cost prestige during deployment (10%)
- Elite replacements outside of deployment phase cost less prestige than before (75% instead of 100%)
- Victory hexes provide 150 instead of 100 prestige before modifiers (consistent with AK with Addon)
- Mobility advantage in muddy conditions for Panzer I & Panzerjäger I, early Panzer II, Panzer 38(t) and Marder III
- Norwegian non infantry unit strength restricted (AA & arty)

Unit Changes:
- 7.5cm FK 16 nA arty added to GebG upgrade family
- 7.5cm GebG 36 arty (which is in GebG upgrade family) small price increase
- Panzer 38(t) Ausf. G gets reconmove trait (like Panzer I, without switch to recon class)
- Low ground pressure MoveType 16 (better in mud and snow) for Panzer I, early Panzer II, Panzer 38(t) & Marder III
- Tracked (MoveType 0) and wide tracked (MT 16) movement costs adjusted for different terrains
- Slight 8cm PAW 600 buff
- Ju 87 A added, Ju 87 B-1 available on 5.9.1939, Ju 87 B-2 available later (Norway)

[goose_2]

I applied the update with the no spam thingy. No spam thingy first then the 11 update that shows up. I checked the next scenario Kampinoska, and it shows that replacements still cost prestige....what did I do wrong?

[Locarnus]

I applied the update with the no spam thingy. No spam thingy first then the 11 update that shows up. I checked the next scenario Kampinoska, and it shows that replacements still cost prestige....what did I do wrong?

Nothing wrong, working as intended.

It is now intentional that replacements in the GC with Addon cost prestige, but in the future you also should get less of an experience penalty when using them (this part did not work before 2023-11).

Unfortunately this probably only has an effect after transitioning to GC 40, so give yourself 500 prestige with the cheat/debug code (to offset what you pay in GC 39 for normal replacements without getting the experience benefit).

Loving your GC and Soviet Corps youtube playthrough!

PS: Keep in mind that your horse drawn 7.5cm is now also in the GebG upgrade family (despite showing up outside of it until the game reloads the equipment file for GC 40).

[goose_2]

I played Kampinoska this morning. Super fun and did very, very well, all things considered.

Thanks for giving me the update.

[Slartibartfast]

Thanks to Locarnus for this interesting adaptation. And thank you McGuba for the brilliant BE "vanilla"!

I just finished a game of LocBE on Colonel with full random number generation. I got too carried away with all the new upgrades and paratroopers lol, so I only got a draw, with very heavy forces stuck outside Kazan, Stalin's bunker and Baghdad but everything else conquered.

This after conquering Moscow before the 1941 freeze, and after taking Leningrad, Alexandria, London and all the Russian oilfields before the second winter.

I'm now of the opinion that the rule of 1, restricted paratrooper divisions, and level 2 AI are all beneficial for the Axis. Which to me was counterintuitive.

Locarnus, a question: why do you not use artillery across the English Channel? Historically a lot of artillery were used across the Channel, striking as far as Chatham which is located on the edge of the easternmost tile of London in BE:
https://militaryhistorynow.com/2016/02/ ... n-england/
To me the 3 tiles southeast of London are fair game for the German guns.

[Locarnus]

[...]
I'm now of the opinion that the rule of 1, restricted paratrooper divisions, and level 2 AI are all beneficial for the Axis. Which to me was counterintuitive.

Locarnus, a question: why do you not use artillery across the English Channel? Historically a lot of artillery were used across the Channel, striking as far as Chatham which is located on the edge of the easternmost tile of London in BE:
https://militaryhistorynow.com/2016/02/ ... n-england/
To me the 3 tiles southeast of London are fair game for the German guns.

Oh, played Battlefield Europe scenario with rule of 1?
That sounds like a really fun challenge, I'll have to try that.

I made that no arty against England house rule, because it is easier to follow such a general rule, rather than planning in detail where shooting is allowed.
Gustav and the 280mm K5 railway gun have so much range in game, that they can reach London.
You are very welcome to use a more detailed house rule, like the 3 tiles across the narrowest part of the channel, with the big guns.

Unit variety can be distracting, I know the feeling.
You could try the "turns" cheat code to give yourself a bit more time for conquering the last holdouts:
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25990

Thank you for giving the Addon + BE a try and posting back in this thread!

[goose_2]

Oh Man! This weekend was a ball buster for the gooseman.

I played through Modlin. I don't care about spoilers.
The first time I played I tried for a Decisive Victory. I missed it by not taken that last Fort out in Modlin itself.

I was thinking I was just going to keep it, but the damage I took was truly crushing which would leave me with hardly any experience for my troops in Warsaw. This became unacceptable to me as I knew I could get the same Marginal Voctory with almost no damage.

So I tried again, this time avoiding damage and maximizing kills and prestige acquisition.

That is when it just killed me. I kept making mistake after mistake and taking damage I found to be unacceptable.

It took me until the 5th time to get it right. 5 times I played through until the end, or almost the end before I got it to a point that I could accept the results.

Man this Napoleon difficulty sure is a ball buster. Just had to share.

Blessings,

[Locarnus]

[...]
I played through Modlin. I don't care about spoilers.
[...]
It took me until the 5th time to get it right. 5 times I played through until the end, or almost the end before I got it to a point that I could accept the results.

Man this Napoleon difficulty sure is a ball buster. Just had to share.

Sounds like a real struggle, I shudder to think about a time when the enemy units catch up in terms of stats.
Beginning with the British fighter in Norway

I just did another estimate of the prestige damage caused by the regular reinforcements bug and the old values until version 2023-10b. Based eg on your reg reinforcement costs shown for Piatek, Danzig and Lodz.

Total damages most likely above 1000 prestige, until corrections take effect in GC 40.
Since you already reimbursed yourself with 500 prestige in the mid of Poland, I highly recommend reimbursing you with another 500 prestige at the beginning of Norway (instead of the 300 I recommended during the youtube broadcast today).
To make your playthrough comparable with other Napoleon difficulty and Addon ones.

Captured units are also balanced for keeping them, including the T-34 and KV later on, it adds a lot of flavor without making it harder or easier (because most of them have no upgrade path, or a limited one).

Finally, the Ju 88 is currently overpowered in tac bomber mode. I will correct this in the next update 2023-12, just in case you are able to wait until then for Norway.