Locarnus Addon 2025-05, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

A forum to discuss custom scenarios, campaigns and modding in general.

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PeteMitchell
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-01, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by PeteMitchell »

I think you guys need to add some screen shots again... impressive though
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-01, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by goose_2 »

PeteMitchell wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 6:22 pm I think you guys need to add some screen shots again... impressive though
I would love to do that, but not sure how. :oops:
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-01, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by caesar67 »

One question: Are the normal balanced multiplayer scenarios like Steamhammer also modded from BE snd Locarnus?
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

caesar67 wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 10:17 pm One question: Are the normal balanced multiplayer scenarios like Steamhammer also modded from BE snd Locarnus?
Not from my side. Not sure about McGuba & BE, but I doubt it since he focuses on BE itself.

In other news, I did not yet find a good way to make different elite infantry viable, without sacrificing Grenadiere in the process (like BE did).
Until then, I really prefer the Grenadiere concept (slower but much stronger than normal infantry) as a stand in for elite infantry units.
Compared to the one used by BE, where some units are equally fast but only marginally stronger than normal infantry units.
So for the time being, the Grenadiere are still the elite infantry representation.

Coming back to the difficulty question from earlier, I still recommend staying on General difficulty for a new attempt.
The Soviet Union now has 2 fewer primary victory objectives (Baku is secondary objective again, and also Kem - on the way to Murmansk). Also there are now somewhat fewer and weaker units and mines protecting the Caucasus.
But the most important aspect is of course the knowledge gained from the previous game.
However if you want to make it easier, I recommend just giving yourself a bit more prestige instead of using a preset (don't forget to make the checkmark at the top of the custom difficulty settings!). Thus your intuition about combat results is not thrown out, you have just more funds to elite reinforce and purchase more units.


PeteMitchell wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2025 6:22 pm I think you guys need to add some screen shots again... impressive though
Yep, good point, it got a bit text heavy. :)


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, new update (requires 2025 Addon base version, see install instructions in the first post of this thread).
Major big tank/gun rebalancing. More ini, less hard attack and ground defense.
Since ini is capped in close terrain, it thus makes more sense now to fight stronger enemy tanks there, if you have a lower ini tank yourself. And vice versa, if your tank/AT gun has an ini advantage over the enemy, it is now even worse to fight them in close terrain (forest, cities, hills and so on).

Also quite a bit of BE and GC specific balancing. Including weaker Soviet Caucasus defenders for BE and Toldi tanks available as bonus SE units for the Grand Campaign, as requested by goose_2.


2025-02 Update "Locarnus Addon" Download: https://bit.ly/3EnoqAh

This is only an update to the Addon and requires the 2025 base version of the Locarnus Addon to be installed already.

Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps, GC & original PzC campaign compatibility
- BE Baku and Kem (towards Murmansk) are not primary objectives anymore
- BE Soviet primary objectives are marked with (*) stars besides the name
- BE If the Soviet flag is on fewer than 4 primary objectives, no new units appear
- BE Several Caucasus Soviet units weaker (7 instead of 10 strength)
- BE Several Caucasus Soviet units removed, many minefields much weaker
- BE Soviets get more British tanks near Baku, if Africa is near abandoned early
- BE Germany gets a SdKfz 250/11 halftrack recon unit in early 1942
- GC 3.7cm Pak with horse added as an early crossover for bonus SE Inf to AT
- GC 2cm Flaks added to bonus SE, first towed, then self propelled from 1.6.1940
- GC Toldi tanks/recons added to bonus SE unit roster, per goose_2 special request

Unit Changes:
- Major big gun and big tank rebalancing, especially initiative!
- Big tank/gun advantage is bigger in open terrain, smaller in closer terrain
- Big soviet tanks rebalanced (late KV, IS series, ISU-122, SU-100)
- Panther & long 88 units rebalanced, more ini, less HA, some less GD
- BuFla and Nashorn rebalanced, but less ini due to size and no armor
- Jagdpanther rebalanced, also 3 months later and much more expensive
- Tiger P++ and Elefant 3-4 months later, some rebalancing for the line
- Jagdtiger 10 strength version later, pretty much too late for the war
- Panzer IV late versions increased ground defense by 1
- StuG III G, StuH and StuG IV versions rebalanced and late additions
- StuH is now in the 10.5cm leFH arty upgrade family
- StuIG 33B considerably nerfed hard attack
- Pershing, Wolverine and Jackson buffed
- Sherman (76) variants buffed HA, but Firefly buffed ini
- T-34-85 again has 10 instead of 9 rate of fire
- Puma and Pz II Luchs 5cm have more ini and ammo
- SdKfz 250 and 251 lineup rebalanced (including earlier recon variants)
- SdKfz 221+ and 250/11 less initiative due to 2.8cm gun range limitations
- Semovente 47/32 and Italian M tanks nerfed hard attack
- Cav units that can switch to recon class have 8 rof there, instead of 7
- Hungarian Toldi tanks rebalanced, can all switch between tank and recon
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by goose_2 »

Locarnus wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 4:55 pm
- GC Toldi tanks/recons added to bonus SE unit roster, per goose_2 special request
Thanks Buddy, looking forward with trying to utlilize this guy in 43.

about your comment about Singer. What you are saying makes sense based on the fact that he has such little exp, but he also has so few kills.

I want to see what he can do as a Tiger P with these stats. I am committing to the bit so to speak.

for these reasons:
1) Few kills means it needs exercise to get those needed kills and as a tank he can get those.
2) I already have left him back so long for the reason of upgrading him to the Tiger P, so changing now with literally 1 scenario before I see what he can do as a Big Dog tank.
3) The final reason is something that I think you would want to see. If Singer acts OP as an 8 str 2 starred unit, then you know that unit is too op, and you can adjust. If he is more vulnerable, that teaches something as well, as it points to the fact that the vehicle was not going to work anyways and needs to be upgraded to the Elephant.

See you Friday
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

goose_2 wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 5:31 pm about your comment about Singer. What you are saying makes sense based on the fact that he has such little exp, but he also has so few kills.

I want to see what he can do as a Tiger P with these stats. I am committing to the bit so to speak.

for these reasons:
1) Few kills means it needs exercise to get those needed kills and as a tank he can get those.
2) I already have left him back so long for the reason of upgrading him to the Tiger P, so changing now with literally 1 scenario before I see what he can do as a Big Dog tank.
3) The final reason is something that I think you would want to see. If Singer acts OP as an 8 str 2 starred unit, then you know that unit is too op, and you can adjust. If he is more vulnerable, that teaches something as well, as it points to the fact that the vehicle was not going to work anyways and needs to be upgraded to the Elephant.

See you Friday
Wasn't Singer supposed to become the regular Tiger in 1943?

With Gooseboy becoming the Tiger P in Kotelnikovo, since he has that movement hero.
Though the regular Tiger will be 8 strength as well, until Kursk.

Thats why I asked about using another unit for regular Tiger, rather than Singer.
No Elephant option to save the day when the 2 star regular Tiger has issues.
While Gooseboy with Tiger P also only has 3 stars and no attack heroes, but at least the ini and attack advantage of the Elephant will make it much less of an issue from Kursk onward, after testing out the Tiger P until then.
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by caesar67 »

Hi Locarnus! Thanks for answering, I will soon make a new start. But what are Toldi tanks?? :(
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

caesar67 wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 11:11 pm Hi Locarnus! Thanks for answering, I will soon make a new start. But what are Toldi tanks?? :(
Toldi tanks are from Hungary, roughly comparable in size to the Panzer II and 38(t).
The player gets one in turn 2 of Battlefield Europe, when the Hungarians send forces.
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

Updated the map screenshot in the first post.
Now depicting the current topography as well as the special strength plate for units with non-random, historical heroes.

Image
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by goose_2 »

Locarnus wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2025 8:39 pm Updated the map screenshot in the first post.
Now depicting the current topography as well as the special strength plate for units with non-random, historical heroes.

Image
Hey Buddy,

Discuss that thing you mentioned about aerial movement. That was interesting and think would be good to hear from the rest of the community and see if they agree it will make it easier for the ai to save their planes.
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

goose_2 wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2025 2:30 pm Hey Buddy,

Discuss that thing you mentioned about aerial movement. That was interesting and think would be good to hear from the rest of the community and see if they agree it will make it easier for the ai to save their planes.
I posted it in the Battlefield Europe thread, since it could be something that McGuba might consider as well.
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-01, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by goose_2 »

Locarnus wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 9:48 pm

red marker for a) no heroes, b) <300 kills, c) <300 experience
blue marker for a) r1 or a3 or 2nd heroes, b) >=600 kills, c) >= 400 experience

Quick ?

What do you see the parameters be for the differentials going into 43?
Adjusted up or remaining the same?

I am curious
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

goose_2 wrote: Tue Feb 11, 2025 5:06 pm
Locarnus wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 9:48 pm red marker for a) no heroes, b) <300 kills, c) <300 experience
blue marker for a) r1 or a3 or 2nd heroes, b) >=600 kills, c) >= 400 experience
Quick ?

What do you see the parameters be for the differentials going into 43?
Adjusted up or remaining the same?

I am curious
Good question, I'm not sure how many kills are added per scenario, since so many units can now participate in battles and the battles are longer and have more enemies on average than eg mid 1942.
Perhaps I should only change the kills to eg 500 lower, 1000 upper threshold for early 1943 and then reconsider in mid 1943?

red marker for a) no heroes, b) <500 kills, c) <300 experience
blue marker for a) r1 or a3 or 2nd heroes, b) >=1000 kills, c) >= 400 experience
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by eskuche »

Hello folks, I am back-ish in between spurts of D2R grindfests. I'm running Locarnus GC "blind" at FMRommel. Look forward to trying to break the new system. From my understanding, it takes a whole scenarios to transition any unit among the different classes, since you will need to change to kubel then switch class inside the map (excepting air units). Seems also to need some strong lynchpin units to hold the line with the 1-of rule and lack of SE Tiger II spam. I'll keep posted by text but am too lazy to stream anymore :)
Cheers.

Edit: some thoughts. fighter experience should be no longer an issue from the base game, since you can spam level bomber experience -> tac bombers for kills -> fighter for final form. I haven't quite wrapped my head around panzer chassis upgrade paths yet but at least anti-tanks should be able to be leveled from artillery. I think the current setup makes the first 3 years extremely important to get a wide roster of 3 star units rather than focusing on farming heroes, since you can always swap inappropriately placed heroes. Alternatively you can stick all your move heroes appropriately (range less so I guess).

More thoughts: since enemies will no longer spam last victory hex units, you can't farm experience off them anymore. That makes it way/even more imperative to use indirect attack as exp farm. It's probably best to get low damage high ROF things, since indirect fire experience is based off suppressed points. I took a look through the bonus/SE unit list, and it looks like there are no indirect fire units in there, so it might be super important to level these units instead of main core whenever possible. Does it make sense to only take infantry for SE units then as much as possible then? You get 4-5 infantry heroes, so maybe you don't need 15 infantry total, but I don't see there being a good way to train the SE units, besides maybe farming air units repairing at an airport for dozens of turns. Given this, I actually restarted my campaign after finishing Bzura tonight. Getting experience on indirect fire units is of utmost importance, possibly even to the exclusion of winning scenarios. I look to train ~15-20 artillery and ~15 level bombers in 1939 to 225 experience. The hardest part here in 1939 will be getting enough prestige to constantly purchase new units while holding done-training units in reserve.
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by thejf »

Hi all! With more people starting to report their experiences in GC East I figured it is time for me to move out of the shadows and start contributing actively here. I've been playing PC for a few years now and have completed most of the campaigns (with a lot of help from Youtube and this Forum!). Wanting to spin up GC East one more time before going deeper into the wonderful world of mods (BE is next :D ) I've been playing this mod for about a month now.
Settings are similar to eskuche: FMRommel rule of one and mostly blind as I've only played the GC's once. I'm playing fairly casually but try to limit reloads to only those cases where I'm actually losing full units. Only exception so far was Streets of Moscow, needed a restart there because I (not for the first time...) woefully underestimated the Soviet counterattacks from the flanks.

So far I'm loving the variety of units, the changed stats and the choices you have to make with regards to which units to bring and how to use them. I've just started GC42 and things are looking pretty healthy: about 30k prestige, 55 units (including 5 SE), most of which are at 3 stars (I've been elite replacing everything since late GC40). Hero situation is pretty good with some good rolls. I'll probably post some more details my core at a later stage.

Am still thinking about how far I will go to swap units for maximum hero efficiency, it does feel a bit cheesy. Like eskuche mentioned, you can get more then half of all classes up to 3+ stars easily by having them start out as an arty or level bomber.
The lack of farming due to the no-spam is indeed annoying. On the upside I find that it makes the pacing of missions a lot easier, you no longer need to rush the last objectives because of a potential large unit spam there. As a result I'm taking far fewer losses then in my earlier GC run. It also allows non-motorized AT/AA's to see enough action to get some XP.

Looking forward to what the later years will throw at me. I'm already afraid of the air war from '43 onwards...
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

eskuche wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 3:30 am Hello folks, I am back-ish in between spurts of D2R grindfests. I'm running Locarnus GC "blind" at FMRommel. Look forward to trying to break the new system. From my understanding, it takes a whole scenarios to transition any unit among the different classes, since you will need to change to kubel then switch class inside the map (excepting air units). Seems also to need some strong lynchpin units to hold the line with the 1-of rule and lack of SE Tiger II spam. I'll keep posted by text but am too lazy to stream anymore :)
Cheers.
Hello eskuche, great to have you try out the Addon!


Essentially there are 2 ways to transition a unit to one that is normally in a different class.
1) The cheap & direct but specific path.
Eg you have a Panzer I, which you can cheaply (in family) upgrade to eg Bison I (in tank mode) during deployment phase.
When the Bison I is deployed, you can switch it to its primary arty mode and use it as such from turn 1.
Of course that only works if there is such a unit that can itself switch between classes, and it works even better (cheaper and overstrength friendly) if that unit is also in the same upgrade family.

2) The expensive & indirect but general path.

Eg you have a Panzer I, you upgrade that to the Kübelwagen Heer Pz during the deployment phase (for full Kübelwagen price and losing overstrength).
Then you deploy that Kübelwagen Heer Pz on an upgrade hex (usually 1-3 city hexes per scenario with that black cross in the bottom right corner) and switch it to the arty class in turn 1.
Since you are already on an upgrade hex, you can then upgrade that Kübelwagen Heer Ari to any arty you want (paying full price again).


Yep, with rule of 1 you will greatly appreciate some units that the AI is less likely to attack or at least which can withstand attacks.
Goose_2 eg took a captured Matilda (great close defense), Char B, T-34 and a KV-1 with him. Note that the latter 3 units even have in-family upgrade options with the Addon. Thus keeping them up to date for quite a while in case of the T-34 and KV-1 and offering really good conversion choices for the Char B (flamethrower tank and self-propelled range 3 arty).

eskuche wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 3:30 am Edit: some thoughts. fighter experience should be no longer an issue from the base game, since you can spam level bomber experience -> tac bombers for kills -> fighter for final form. I haven't quite wrapped my head around panzer chassis upgrade paths yet but at least anti-tanks should be able to be leveled from artillery. I think the current setup makes the first 3 years extremely important to get a wide roster of 3 star units rather than focusing on farming heroes, since you can always swap inappropriately placed heroes. Alternatively you can stick all your move heroes appropriately (range less so I guess).
An important thing to note is, that there is no soft-cap! A buffer is great, especially later on when unit upgrades are more expensive, but no need anymore to hoard a mountain of prestige like a dragon.
Thus overall experience is probably less abundant than prestige, if you reduce both by the same percentage.

Yep, generally arty and level bombers are the experience boosting classes.
The deeper the experience gain difficulty cut is, the more such an arty and level bomber training stint becomes necessary. However I'm not sure where the threshold is.

Eg goose_2 is currently attempting a run on double FM, double Rommel (25% player experience, 25% player prestige) where experience is really lacking for everything except arty and level bombers.
Though we have different ideas how to best develop the core in response to that.
He prefers leveling up his whole core roughly at comparable levels, while I would prefer a few rather elite units per class and a lot of weaker units to train up. So that I could deploy those elite forces for harder scenarios, while they sit out the normal scenarios if already near the experience cap.

Also note that without the AI unit spam it is much less likely that many of your units will get third heroes, which in turn makes the first heroes more valuable.

eskuche wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 3:30 am More thoughts: since enemies will no longer spam last victory hex units, you can't farm experience off them anymore. That makes it way/even more imperative to use indirect attack as exp farm. It's probably best to get low damage high ROF things, since indirect fire experience is based off suppressed points. I took a look through the bonus/SE unit list, and it looks like there are no indirect fire units in there, so it might be super important to level these units instead of main core whenever possible. Does it make sense to only take infantry for SE units then as much as possible then? You get 4-5 infantry heroes, so maybe you don't need 15 infantry total, but I don't see there being a good way to train the SE units, besides maybe farming air units repairing at an airport for dozens of turns. Given this, I actually restarted my campaign after finishing Bzura tonight. Getting experience on indirect fire units is of utmost importance, possibly even to the exclusion of winning scenarios. I look to train ~15-20 artillery and ~15 level bombers in 1939 to 225 experience. The hardest part here in 1939 will be getting enough prestige to constantly purchase new units while holding done-training units in reserve.
When goose_2 started his playthrough, there were only bonus SE infantry units in the file.
Since he had so many bonus SE infantry units deployed for free, his non bonus SE infantry got way less training.
Which was then a major issue in the city battles of 1942, especially Sevastopol and Storming Stalingrad.

The now greatly expanded bonus SE unit roster is a directy result of that, trying to fix my design error.
I recommend using a mix of bonus SE units. Eg 1 inf, 1 AA, 1 AT, 1 TD, 1 Recon as long as you can spread them out like this. Not yet sure about the late war.

Overall I would rate priorities like this:
Kills (highest scarcity due to no AI spam) > experience > prestige (due to not having to worry about soft cap)


thejf wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 4:24 pm Hi all! With more people starting to report their experiences in GC East I figured it is time for me to move out of the shadows and start contributing actively here. I've been playing PC for a few years now and have completed most of the campaigns (with a lot of help from Youtube and this Forum!). Wanting to spin up GC East one more time before going deeper into the wonderful world of mods (BE is next :D ) I've been playing this mod for about a month now.
Settings are similar to eskuche: FMRommel rule of one and mostly blind as I've only played the GC's once. I'm playing fairly casually but try to limit reloads to only those cases where I'm actually losing full units. Only exception so far was Streets of Moscow, needed a restart there because I (not for the first time...) woefully underestimated the Soviet counterattacks from the flanks.
Hello thejf, thank you for making your forum debut with your Addon feedback (first with GC East, then with BE ? :wink: )!

I can highly recommend the "reform units" option for the next GC chapter (don't forget to also make a checkmark for the Custom Difficulty checkbox). It makes full unit losses still very painful, but not so painful that you are compelled to reload, thus actually increasing the difficulty if you reloaded for those cases before.

Yeah, rule of 1 makes the core much more squishy overall.
Enemy counterattacks can really hurt with it, since the enemy has much less respect.
And several more units have vision range of 2, like SMG infantry and even the now camo AT units.

thejf wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 4:24 pm So far I'm loving the variety of units, the changed stats and the choices you have to make with regards to which units to bring and how to use them. I've just started GC42 and things are looking pretty healthy: about 30k prestige, 55 units (including 5 SE), most of which are at 3 stars (I've been elite replacing everything since late GC40). Hero situation is pretty good with some good rolls. I'll probably post some more details my core at a later stage.
That sounds great!
Great to have a good buffer of prestige, also for some of the more expensive upgrades later on.
Though no need to amass a mountain of it for the later years, since there is no soft-cap anymore!
Which allows players to make much more use of eg elite replacements even during scenarios.

thejf wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 4:24 pm Am still thinking about how far I will go to swap units for maximum hero efficiency, it does feel a bit cheesy. Like eskuche mentioned, you can get more then half of all classes up to 3+ stars easily by having them start out as an arty or level bomber.
The lack of farming due to the no-spam is indeed annoying. On the upside I find that it makes the pacing of missions a lot easier, you no longer need to rush the last objectives because of a potential large unit spam there. As a result I'm taking far fewer losses then in my earlier GC run. It also allows non-motorized AT/AA's to see enough action to get some XP.

Looking forward to what the later years will throw at me. I'm already afraid of the air war from '43 onwards...
Agreed, the drastic contrast between arty & level bomber experience gain and every other class experience gain is a major balancing issue. Unfortunatly it is not moddable as far as I know.
The no spam thing was initially just for compatibility with BE, but now I'm also liking the better scenario pacing.
And maybe I found it very immersion breaking that the enemy can spawn a small army around a hex that is fully encircled, just not close enough encircled yet :wink: .

I have an idea to find a compromise for that no-spam problem. But it would require a lot of work and I'm already struggling with the time for balancing things :) .

Until then, I wonder if Manstein or an enemy overstrength setting could make the game easier in that regard, giving the player more enemy strength points to kill. Though the benefit would come later on with the experience and hero gain, but the cost would come early on, making 1939 much more difficult...
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by eskuche »

Thanks for the long reply! I missed at first that a lot of ground units have cross class switching and that you can upgrade on-map, so it’s a bit less tedious than i thought.
A few more thoughts: i am not certain that prestige is completely a non-issue given the way I plan to play. 1. Cross upgrading a lot is really expensive. Especially starting level bomber into a fighter costs at least 600 prestige in addition to the fighter costs and cross upgrades. Artillery is similarly so based on deducter’s cost scheme. 2. A major source of income is surrender from on map units and from last city AI buys. The latter is gone, and the former is i believe less incentivized since you need your units to be actually depleting as much strength as possible. 3. Certain enemy units will be prime targets: land mines for artillery practice and conscripts for many bodies that are cheap for the AI replenish. I’m not absolutely certain I want to minmax this hard but based on goose’s AAR I may have to (I think on normal rommel i end up somewhere around 60-70k by 1942-3).
Locarnus
2nd Lieutenant - Panzer IVF/2
2nd Lieutenant - Panzer IVF/2
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Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

eskuche wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2025 3:57 pm Thanks for the long reply! I missed at first that a lot of ground units have cross class switching and that you can upgrade on-map, so it’s a bit less tedious than i thought.
A few more thoughts: i am not certain that prestige is completely a non-issue given the way I plan to play. 1. Cross upgrading a lot is really expensive. Especially starting level bomber into a fighter costs at least 600 prestige in addition to the fighter costs and cross upgrades. Artillery is similarly so based on deducter’s cost scheme. 2. A major source of income is surrender from on map units and from last city AI buys. The latter is gone, and the former is i believe less incentivized since you need your units to be actually depleting as much strength as possible. 3. Certain enemy units will be prime targets: land mines for artillery practice and conscripts for many bodies that are cheap for the AI replenish. I’m not absolutely certain I want to minmax this hard but based on goose’s AAR I may have to (I think on normal rommel i end up somewhere around 60-70k by 1942-3).
ad 1:
Yep, the costs of using the indirect upgrade path (via Kübelwagen and so on) so regularly will be really expensive.
So far I only went with that very sparingly, since I tried to test it with the very low prestige settings goose_2 uses.
Looking forward to having more feedback with regards to prestige levels throughout the grand campaign, and especially how much the lack of soft cap effects the later years.

ad 2:
Surrender now brings double the prestige, to make it a bit more worthwhile.
This somewhat counters the GC/AK shift towards kills being more important for experience and heroes. Though overall strength kills remain much more important.
It also makes a good source of additional income for Battlefield Europe, where historically the Axis benefited a lot from capturing enemy equipment early on.

ad 3:
Yeah, conscripts remain good for experience gain, since they are one of the few units that still only have 1 vision.

Looking forward to more feedback and reports on how it goes!
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
eskuche
Sergeant - 7.5 cm FK 16 nA
Sergeant - 7.5 cm FK 16 nA
Posts: 219
Joined: Fri Mar 24, 2017 3:32 am

Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by eskuche »

Locarnus wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2025 4:58 pm ad 2:
Surrender now brings double the prestige, to make it a bit more worthwhile.
This somewhat counters the GC/AK shift towards kills being more important for experience and heroes. Though overall strength kills remain much more important.
It also makes a good source of additional income for Battlefield Europe, where historically the Axis benefited a lot from capturing enemy equipment early on.
Oh, I definitely missed that in the game rules! I was wondering why a KV-2 gave me like 200 prestige. I am finishing up '39 and will post a core update. Class switching is actually really interesting with the default heroes. I didn't even think about that yet, but perhaps Oleh Dir may be better as a PzJg I... :)

One suggestion is for you to include movement tables that are changed in the mods. I didn't see it in the encyclopedia I believe, and some are pretty important to know exactly, such as tracked on roads. I still can't really wrap my head around my 5 wheeled movement recons on road; they seem to always lose more MP than I expect...
Locarnus
2nd Lieutenant - Panzer IVF/2
2nd Lieutenant - Panzer IVF/2
Posts: 684
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:14 pm

Re: Locarnus Addon 2025-02, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

Post by Locarnus »

eskuche wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2025 5:16 pm Oh, I definitely missed that in the game rules! I was wondering why a KV-2 gave me like 200 prestige. I am finishing up '39 and will post a core update. Class switching is actually really interesting with the default heroes. I didn't even think about that yet, but perhaps Oleh Dir may be better as a PzJg I... :)

One suggestion is for you to include movement tables that are changed in the mods. I didn't see it in the encyclopedia I believe, and some are pretty important to know exactly, such as tracked on roads. I still can't really wrap my head around my 5 wheeled movement recons on road; they seem to always lose more MP than I expect...
Well, double compared to before. I removed the special prestige reduction for surrenders (thus this is now set to 100 instead of the previous 50 I think, making it easy to overlook).

The campaign super heroes can be even more overpowered now due to the class switching ability.
Eg you will probably need 1-2 fewer core fighter units overall, if you transition Rudel to fighter. Or even more overpowered if he becomes a fighter bomber, that can simply switch depending on the situation. Eg Bf 110 or Ju 88 C until roughly 1943 and then perhaps Fw 190 F later on.
While Oleh Dir with his super movement can really abuse the camo trait of towed AT and tank destroyers in AT mode. Or make a super speed Elefant for 1943.
Imho the super heroes are rather game breaking in terms of balance (goose_2 disbands them for that reason), though they are of course fun in their own right.


I tried to normalize every movement type to be 1 movement cost for 1 countryside tile.
I think only movement type 14 (horse drawn) does not adhere to that at this time, due to some game engine limitations (currently 1.5 movement cost on countryside terrain).

Normal wheeled vehicles have 0.5 movement cost on roads (eg SdKfz 22x, Opel Blitz transport), and 1 on countryside terrain. Since recons lose 1 additional movement point per stop, this makes stops more costly, but it also makes movement heroes on those recons more useful.
The better cross country wheeled vehicles have 0.6 movement cost on roads (eg SdKfz 23x), and 1 on countryside terrain - though they usually have move movement points overall.
Most other units have 0.7 movement cost on roads, except for special movement type having 1 cost on road, like cav, horse drawn and towed (towed arty movement and camo AT movement, even for TDs in camo mode).

You are right about the movement table of course. I should have long since put that info back into the library, thank you for mentioning it. I'll rectify this in the next update.
longer, alternative "PG" like Campaign new version 0.34 from 2011.08.02 (another bugfix & now in zip format)
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