Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.4

[Locarnus]

This partially goes back to the different philosophies. In the addon, the player has the earlier option to in-game "min/max" away the Panzer III, however that is a decision to play the game in that way.

With all due respect to your different philosophy, I am not so sure that the majority of the players are aware of when a certain unit type was replaced in the frontline. Also I am not so sure that the majority of the players would take the time and effort to do the necessary research to find it out. Or just that they would bother to do so. I think players are much more likely to maximize their chances to win by using whatever assets are made available by the campaign designer. And if the designer makes it possible to upgrade all Pz.IIIs to a much better StuG IIIF-8 or G for little or no price, they will do so as soon as they can.

After all, everbody wants to win and it is hard to blame them for that.

I fundamentally disagree that "everybody wants to win".
Imho the underlying assumption to this point is the single most influential reason why so many (strategy) games "fail":
The assumption that the potential target audience has a relatively homogenous perspective on the game, and that this perspective aligns with the one of the designer.

I remember PzC not having the "dice chess" option and what a struggle it was to convince the designers to implement it. They kept repeating that full dice is how the game is meant to be played, so essentially no one should have the option to play it differently...
The "Klotzen! Panzer Battles" designer thought "Save Game (For losers)" was a funny remark, until player feedback changed his mind...
The "Victoria 3" designers, QA department and many of the early access "influencers" thought, that the game was in a good place at launch. And they seemingly never bothered to consult someone with a different perspective, until steam reviews from actual players told a very different story...

I do not want to win, winning is a very unimportant variable within my utility function, when playing strategy games.
Though as a "designer", I try to take into account that other people have different utility functions. And for many of those, "winning" is an important factor.
So I aim to enable different playstyles wherever reasonably possible, only curtaining the side effects of those different playstyles where necessary.

Therefore I do not think that whether or not players use unhistorical upgrades is a conscious decision at all times. They might just think like: "OK, so the designer made this asset available so it must be right for me to use it". The same thinking might be behind the use of the recon "trick", which is clearly a game bug and should not be used IMO. But since it is there players who are aware of it tend to use it anyways. Unless they realise the balancing problems it can cause and make the conscious decision not to use it.

"Speedrunners" exist for many games, yet most of those games are fine for the usual player.
It is a "tricky" prospect, especially while modding within a limited game engine framework.
I just like to put the boundary further out, when I can not fix the underlying exploit.

For example it would be possible to remove "reconmove" from all units.
That would end the recon exploit, but would imho also diminish the game.
From my perspecctive it is in principle the same dilemma regarding the available unit upgrades.

But for example the Bf 109 F-4 and the Bf 110 E/F are available for quite some time in Duedman's playthrough, yet there are still Bf 109 E-7, F-2 and Bf 110 C flying around in turn 9. And those do not even need to shuffle back to the Reich for upgrades.

I guess it might be because air units are quite busy in the first turns, but I am not sure, Duedman should know better. Often it may be better to use a slightly weaker unit a little longer than sending it for an upgrade which can take 2 turns even with air units, meaning they cannot be used for these 2 turns actively. In general, the best time to upgrade air units is the early winter turns when the weather is guarteed to be bad.

Or "optimizing" and thus "winning" is not such a priority in this instance.
Taking twice the amount of time per turn would certainly yield better results and would ensure more "winning". And again twice that time would perhaps be even better.
In the extreme, "Blitz/Lightning chess" does not yield optimal results for a player, it is still "fun" for many though not all.
Some players like to make a plan when to best upgrade a unit and send it back in advance. Others play with units that are "good enough" for the time being. Most play something in between. Both extremes and their outcomes are fine with me, players time, players choice to spend it.

I did pass on that mobile 8.8 Antitank tho. Historically they existed but never close to a number that would justifiy them beeing a unit in game.

I guess it is that "Bunkerflak" thingy? If so, indeed, only 10 were produced and that's why I did not include such units in the vanilla BE mod. It is far too few as in the mod a tank or similar vehicle unit represents about 200 actual vehicles. On could argue that they could have produced more of these if they wanted to, but it does not look like a successful design. It had to get close to a bunker to destroy it with direct fire, but since it only had a thin armour it must have been very vulnerable in the process. Its relatively high silhouette only made things worse in this regard. It appears that all were lost by early 1943.

And yeah Bunkerflaks. Did not take those as their hard attack is insane and should shred through early war tanks. While quite obviously beeing a pretty flawed unhistorical design.

Different game/mod design philosophy again: More options, while it is up to the player how many are used.
Also a considerable part of the production decisions were influenced by the top decider. A role that is assumed by the player in BE. So from this perspective, it imho would make sense to allow a wider range of available units.

Some low production examples:

BuFla ("8,8-cm-Flak 18 (Sfl.) auf Zugkraftwagen 12t / Bunkerflak"): 10
Flakpanzer I ("2-cm-Flak-38 auf Fgst. Munitionspanzer I Ausf. A"): 24
Bison I ("15-cm-schweres Infanteriegeschütz 33 (Sf) auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen I Ausf. B"): 38
Bison II ("15-cm-schweres Infanteriegeschütz 33 (Sf) auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II"): 12

Mörser "Karl" ("Gerät 040 (60cm) / Gerät 041 (54cm)"): 7
28-cm-Kanone 5 (E): 25
80-cm-Kanone (E): 2

The Bison II was a horrible failure in Africa, those 12 vehicles reportedly never made it far out of the repair shops before breaking down again. The earlier Bison I was probably worse, with the enormously overloaded suspension and the lack of space, resulting in ~4! ready rounds of ammo on the vehicle. Yet both are available in vanilla PzC.
Also the later Nashorn was operationally not so different from the BuFla, giant silhouette, weak armor. Imho the only reason so few BuFla were produced was, that the Germans were totally oblivious to the fact that the Soviets had heavily armored tanks at all, let alone so many of them.

On the other hand, the Pz I chassis has been min/maxed away in favor of Bison I (Sturmpanzer I) units.

Altough my German is very limited, as far as I understood from the video, Duedman decided to make this upgrade because he likes this particular unit very much, and this dates back to the time of Panzer General. So it might be more of an "emotional" decision than a rational decision, perhaps the latter would have taken into account the reduced stats of this particular unit in the mod.

Which again, takes us back to our "philosophical differences". In vanilla BE it was a conscious decision on my side to make the 15 cm sIG 33 (aka "Bison I" or "Sturmpanzer I") hard to get since in reality it was used in small numbers, mainly because it was not a very successful vehicle. If it was any better most likely they would have converted more Pz.Is to this vehicle. As in 1941 there were still hundreds of Pz.Is in reserve and only being used for training and policing. And yet, only 38 of these were ever converted to a Bison I. Whereas in the addon a Pz.I can be easily upgraded to it like Duedman did. And probably he did so mainly because this unit was unhistorically depicted as being an overpowered early war self-propelled artillery in Panzer General and even in Panzer Corps which resulted in it becoming a favourite unit for many players. And so when they see that the useless Pz.I can be upgraded to it relatively easily, they would do so without hesitation and perhaps even withouth checking out that its stats are now reduced to better represent its historical flaws. Which potentially results in a bad decision, as you noticed it as well. Or without checking out how many Pz.Is were actually converted to Bison Is in reality. And so it looks like many players make an unhistorical decision, even though they believe they are playing a historically accurate mod, only because the addon makes it possible for them to do so.

Isn't this one of the most interesting experiences for a game playthrough?
The assumption that something works out and then testing it, getting feedback and modifying the approach?
Those 3? "Bison I" might not have worked as well as simple Pz I until now, but during the winter and spring offensive they could very well make the difference.
That "BuFla" goose_2 used for his first Africa Korps run did hit hard, but it also took some expensive beatings in 1942.

And doesn't this "trial and error" make the game more historical on a meta level?
After all the WW2 participants also tried a whole bunch of different stuff.
Some things worked well, other approaches did not.
Some ideas were great for a certain time (U-Boot warfare), other concepts needed time to mature.

[Locarnus]

For France I thought he upgraded his Mod to 2.4 but maybe not all of it.

It looks like all the scenarios of the addon are modified versions on the scenarios of BE 2.3. Including the main big scenario. Now I checked the main scenario of the Addon and it does not have any of the map adjustments and other fixes I made for 2.4. It also does not seem to have any of the scripts that I added after v2.3. The Addon does not seem to use many of the new unit icons I made for BE 2.4, like the new icons for the 8-rad recon series, the German Panzergrenadier and the new Allied units like the Lancaster Special or the Barracuda. Under the "Downloads and version history" of the first post of the Addon thread he lists a few unit changes which are inspired by BE 2.4 like modified naval force standards, and that's it. Currently the Addon looks more like a submod of BE 2.3 with a few twists from 2.4, but I might be wrong.

Yep, so far I did not have time to fully work through the BE 2.4 changes.
And with BE 2.3 not being available anymore, my main priority was to establish full technical compatibility with BE 2.4.
In order to keep the addon working at all for new players (since my last addon version was released just a few hours before BE 2.4).
I could not risk changing some aspects (eg equipment file) without the time to also check the interdependencies (scenario unit IDs, graphics, efx file, movement file and so on).

I did not do much research into what Locarnus' mod changes compared to Vanilla BE. What I liked was the prestige cut to 350 and the 6 core units.

Ah, OK, so if there was another version which offers 7 core units would you prefer that one? Come on.
In that case maybe you should try BE v1.0 from 2014 as that one offered no less than 9 core units.

Reintroducing a core infantry sounds interesting to me, with the addon design philosophy. I'll look into it!

Imho the prestige "cut" already has quite an effect.
I noticed that the major german ships in France were not repaired so far, during the addon youtube playthrough by Duedman.
And as of turn 9, no? or just one totally new unit was bought, despite free core slots since turn 2.
Was that additional Fallschirmjäger an upgrade or a fresh purchase?
Thus saving up lots of prestige for the winter freeze, despite having less from the pre-scenarios.

Do not be too hard on France tho. As I said I played on General and with those powerful Pz IV.
The reason I did not upgrade the fighters was indeed just that they were busy all the time.

On the other hand, the Panzer IV D might have been too powerful for efficiently farming experience.
Speaking of fighters, would you go with 3 Bf 109 from the pre-scenarios again?
Did you miss a second Stuka on the Eastern Front?

What I still wonder is - what happens, if I do not shoot down these scores of enemy planes? Will the AI upgrade them? will at some point the whole sky be full of enemy air because they get new spawns in addition to the surviving ones?

I guess the Allied airforce will blot out the sun and the Axis will have to fight in the shade

[McGuba]

Well, this is indeed some really interesting discussion about somewhat conflicting "philosophies" and our perception of what the general player community may or may not think or prefer. As far as I understand, your philosophy is to provide more choices to the player and leave it up to them to decide if they agree to play according to your recommendations, i.e. to use some house rules or just choose whatever unit they think is best to achieve their goals. BE is indeed more restrictive in this sense, partly because I believe that most players do not take the time to check if they make their decisions based on historical evidence. Or if they would even care about that. Hence the choices on unit upgrades are more limited, more based on the historical production numbers. Which results in an Axis army composition that is more in line with the historical one. The disadvantage of this approach is obviously less freedom, but the advantage is more historical accuracy. And also easier difficulty balancing since the choices of the player are more limited in terms of unit upgrades.

I fundamentally disagree that "everybody wants to win".
...
I do not want to win, winning is a very unimportant variable within my utility function, when playing strategy games.

Hm, OK, so I should have written "almost everybody wants to win".
I mostly based my (seemingly wrong) assumption on my previous experience in games in which players always do their best to win in the end. Which in some cases may include exploiting some flawed game mechanics and even cheating, but ideally not. I think the fundamental desire to win may be somehow encoded in humans, inherited from our ancestors ranging back to the first life forms. After all, evolution is all about winners being able to survive and losers doomed to get extinct. And I think this mentality can be found in games as well, and not just strategy games, any kind of. My experience so far shows that the large majority of players simply hate to lose in a game (even if they do not admit it), but yes, I agree there can be exceptions. Fair enough.

For example it would be possible to remove "reconmove" from all units.
That would end the recon exploit, but would imho also diminish the game.

It can also be eliminated by unchecking the "undo" box before starting a game. But using the "undo" button can also be exploited by normal units, for example to move a destroyer around in all directions with undo until it finds that cunning hiding submarine. Which is basically another example of a recon cheat, another exploitation of a somewhat flawed game mechanic. I remember that during the early development of PzC2 the designers seriously considered removing the "undo" option completely from the game because of this. But again, similarly to the examples that you listed, they backed under the pressure of the gaming community.

From my perspecctive it is in principle the same dilemma regarding the available unit upgrades.

Yes, indeed, both of these would require some kind of self-restriction on behalf of the player. But it looks like most players do not really like to self-restrict themselves. If they have an asset that makes it easier for them to achieve their goal, which in most cases is winning, they will most likely use it. Even if there may be exceptions, for whom winning is unimportant in a game.

But whatever their goal is, I think the more options there are for exploiting the game, whether it be recon move or a greater range of unit upgrades, most players will be happy to use them. That's why I think it is better to minimise the number of such potential exploits.

The Bison II was a horrible failure in Africa, those 12 vehicles reportedly never made it far out of the repair shops before breaking down again. The earlier Bison I was probably worse, with the enormously overloaded suspension and the lack of space, resulting in ~4! ready rounds of ammo on the vehicle. Yet both are available in vanilla PzC.

They are probaly available in Panzer Corps because these were also available in Panzer General. And it looks like these have become quite popular with players. But only because they are depicted in the original games as being fairly effective early war self-propelled guns, something that in reality they were not.

Therefore in BE I decided to make them less attractive by reducing their firing range, closer to the historical, and making them more expensive. Seemingly it made the trick, as it looks like it is not a very popular unit with players (I do not really know anyone using it), although they have the option to upgrade an existing artillery unit to it. However, the latter option is not very tempting since they would need to pay the full price.

As I see in the addon their rate of fire had been reduced as well, albeit their price is cheaper again and of course they can be upgraded from the Pz.I for a relatively small price. This change has made them much more attractive and therefore I am not so surprised that Duedman decided to upgrade his Pz.I to these upfront. Moreso that the rate of fire feature remains largely unknown to many players and as such its reduction may not influence their decisions.

In the end, since the addon makes this unit more attractive and easier to obtain it presumably results in more players using it, which in turn results in a less historically accurate Axis army as early as in summer 1941.

And yes, it is indeed a dilemma whether to include a unit which was produced in small numbers or not. In most cases, there was a reason for them being produced in small numbers and this reason was usually that they were not very good. Therefore it may not be a problem if a less used unit is in the game regardless, problem comes when that certain unit is depicted as being better than it historically was and/or when it becomes too easy to obtain such a unit.


But let's just read what Duedman wrote:

You were right with the Bison / sIG Stats. I did not notice, that they were weaker than in the old PG games. Still, they are borderline cheesy. But not as bad as Bunkerflak!

I also think they are still too good or at least "borderline cheesy" with firing range 2, even though in the vanilla game they have 3, which is just over the roof. In fact earlier I was contemplating to reduce the firing range of all units equipped with the 15 cm sIG 33 howitzer to just 1 hex. It looks like in reality the firing range of the sIG 33 howitzer was only about 4700 m. Which does not really justify a firing range of 2. It is exactly borderline cheesy. But especially because most players got used to its unhistorically long range in the original games such a reduction may be too shocking to them and thus I just did not had the courage to make such a bold move. But perhaps in the next version I will do so. Then their price could go down as well to the original levels.

What I still wonder is - what happens, if I do not shoot down these scores of enemy planes? Will the AI upgrade them?

The AI does not upgrade units on its own. It is too dumb for that.

will at some point the whole sky be full of enemy air because they get new spawns in addition to the surviving ones?

Well, no, and yes. If you do not destroy the enemy air units there will be new spawns coming to help the older models, however, the AI tends to let air units crash due to them running out of fuel. It does not happen always, in fact in most cases they do go back to a nearby airfield when running low in fuel, but unfortunately not always. Which results in a small but gradual reduction of the AI air units over time. Which is largely offset by the ever increasing number of new models being spawned. But this AI flaw has the advantage of older models slowly disappearing from the map and creating the false impression that older models are being replaced by newer ones, even if they are not being destroyed by the player. When in fact what really happens is, older models sooner or later crash due to running out of fuel and their place is taken by newer models.

For your limited skills in German you might try the autotranslate option youtube offers. Its like 2 clicks in the subtitle settings of the video. It works reasonably well even with my not always clear pronounciaton.

Thanks for the tip, I am trying it right now.

[Locarnus]

Well, this is indeed some really interesting discussion about somewhat conflicting "philosophies" and our perception of what the general player community may or may not think or prefer. As far as I understand, your philosophy is to provide more choices to the player and leave it up to them to decide if they agree to play according to your recommendations, i.e. to use some house rules or just choose whatever unit they think is best to achieve their goals. BE is indeed more restrictive in this sense, partly because I believe that most players do not take the time to check if they make their decisions based on historical evidence. Or if they would even care about that. Hence the choices on unit upgrades are more limited, more based on the historical production numbers. Which results in an Axis army composition that is more in line with the historical one. The disadvantage of this approach is obviously less freedom, but the advantage is more historical accuracy. And also easier difficulty balancing since the choices of the player are more limited in terms of unit upgrades.

Yep, I would prefer to fix exploits and balance units and game mechanics as well, so that player choices can not result in major imbalances. And provide more information to the player (eg unit descriptions to "guide" the player).
But without those options due to modding restrictions, I prefer a "longer leash" for the player.

Although to a large extent, this is the "freedom of the younger sibling".
The "more restricted and thus more balanced" approach already exists.
The addon can experiment more and try different ideas, because it is built on the wide shoulders of the great BE.
And while "freedom and house rules" can be viable for singleplayer, that concept tends to fall apart in multiplayer.

I fundamentally disagree that "everybody wants to win".
...
I do not want to win, winning is a very unimportant variable within my utility function, when playing strategy games.

Hm, OK, so I should have written "almost everybody wants to win".
I mostly based my (seemingly wrong) assumption on my previous experience in games in which players always do their best to win in the end. Which in some cases may include exploiting some flawed game mechanics and even cheating, but ideally not. I think the fundamental desire to win may be somehow encoded in humans, inherited from our ancestors ranging back to the first life forms. After all, evolution is all about winners being able to survive and losers doomed to get extinct. And I think this mentality can be found in games as well, and not just strategy games, any kind of. My experience so far shows that the large majority of players simply hate to lose in a game (even if they do not admit it), but yes, I agree there can be exceptions. Fair enough.

Imho it depends on the definitions and expectations.
For example, winning a CIVILIZATIONS game on deity difficulty can be nice, but it also imho leads to a very "streamlined" playstyle. Some mechanics are necessary due to being clearly overpowered, while many flavor mechanics become useless.
Thus optimizing (and winning) can become repetitive and tiresome, especially after the n-th victory on deity difficulty.
And for various reasons I find the early and mid game more interesting than the late game, in most strategy games.
Personally I'd rather try some experimental early game strategy for some self-imposed abstract goal, than finishing and "winning" another deity CIV game.
That said, although I do not care much for "winning" in terms of the game rules, I agree that I'm much less inclined to "lose" by them.
Eg if some AI faction tries to exterminate my happyness focused tree huggers, I might consider it an interesting roleplay challenge to plant happy little trees where that AI faction had cities...

From my perspecctive it is in principle the same dilemma regarding the available unit upgrades.

Yes, indeed, both of these would require some kind of self-restriction on behalf of the player. But it looks like most players do not really like to self-restrict themselves. If they have an asset that makes it easier for them to achieve their goal, which in most cases is winning, they will most likely use it. Even if there may be exceptions, for whom winning is unimportant in a game.

But whatever their goal is, I think the more options there are for exploiting the game, whether it be recon move or a greater range of unit upgrades, most players will be happy to use them. That's why I think it is better to minimise the number of such potential exploits.

I agree on all of those points for a "wider audience" in general and for multiplayer in particular.
My addon approach would not work so well for PzC itself, or even BE itself with its multiplayer level balancing.

Bison I: [...]
As I see in the addon their rate of fire had been reduced as well, albeit their price is cheaper again and of course they can be upgraded from the Pz.I for a relatively small price. This change has made them much more attractive and therefore I am not so surprised that Duedman decided to upgrade his Pz.I to these upfront. Moreso that the rate of fire feature remains largely unknown to many players and as such its reduction may not influence their decisions.

I like those Bison I as well, probably also from PG and early PzC days.
In the addon I added the "rate of fire" stat info directly to the name of each and every unit, since I used that stat a lot for rebalancing. Especially for arty and those units that I had a hard time fitting into that addon upgrade family system.

And yes, it is indeed a dilemma whether to include a unit which was produced in small numbers or not. In most cases, there was a reason for them being produced in small numbers and this reason was usually that they were not very good. Therefore it may not be a problem if a less used unit is in the game regardless, problem comes when that certain unit is depicted as being better than it historically was and/or when it becomes too easy to obtain such a unit.

But let's just read what Duedman wrote:

You were right with the Bison / sIG Stats. I did not notice, that they were weaker than in the old PG games. Still, they are borderline cheesy. But not as bad as Bunkerflak!

I also think they are still too good or at least "borderline cheesy" with firing range 2, even though in the vanilla game they have 3, which is just over the roof. In fact earlier I was contemplating to reduce the firing range of all units equipped with the 15 cm sIG 33 howitzer to just 1 hex. It looks like in reality the firing range of the sIG 33 howitzer was only about 4700 m. Which does not really justify a firing range of 2. It is exactly borderline cheesy. But especially because most players got used to its unhistorically long range in the original games such a reduction may be too shocking to them and thus I just did not had the courage to make such a bold move. But perhaps in the next version I will do so. Then their price could go down as well to the original levels.*

To be able to upgrade from Panzer I to Bison I in the addon, the Bison I has to have a direct fire mode as well (since it needs to be in tank class).
Which initially made them even more overpowered. It needed to have attack stats similar to a SU-152 (based on caliber), but fit into the unit mix for France as well as Kursk. Kinda similar to the BuFla, but with added arty mode and upgrade option from Pz I...
But due to the additional fuel and rate of fire reduction, they now seem to work quite well. I get both complaints: That they are too good and that they are useless.
Thus I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing how they perform for Duedman.

In the addon, a unit often seems to be more over or underpowered than it actually is (except for that Pz IV D in the current form ). Sometimes small stat differences can have unexpectedly large impacts, if vanilla PzC does not use those to the same extent.
I was also hesitant to nerf the early Karl-Gerät to range 2, fearing that it would become useless. But so far it seems to be able to do the job it was meant for.
Or splitting the Wurfrahmen 40 into an early and a late version. While nerfing the early version to range 1 and ammo 3! So far it is not popular and needs some special care, but I found it to be devastating in the right situation.

[Duedman]

I am also on the probable majority side of players who just want to win. If it is unwinnable, then have the best result possible. Which might be a win too - if you compare results with other players.
Strategic Command American Civil War was surprisingly engaging in Multiplayer as the South. The eventual loss was inevitable but delaying, counterattacking and just frustrating my opponents was real fun - although I knew I was losing.

I could not imagine that some people like games, where it is only partially the skill of the player that decides the outcome.
But just as the aforementioned PC dev choice to not include dice chess I remember the devs of Battle Brothers to have the game be Ironman only. Until scores of players bullied them to introduce a save mechanic (probably due to their Alt-F4 keys breaking haha).
So yeah.... there are different philosophies on that issue.
(btw BB is the best Tactics game I ever played. And I played a lot )

As for the sIG performance I can spoiler that much: The super low fuel (20? 22?) combined with -2 fuel per turn really does balance it. It is still nice when you can actually use it but not as cheesy as I remembered it to be.
As the cheap Pz I upgrade they are ok.
But if I could choose between a sIG and a towed Nebelwerfer I would take the Nebelwerfer all the time.

[Locarnus]

[...]
So yeah.... there are different philosophies on that issue.
(btw BB is the best Tactics game I ever played. And I played a lot )

Oh yeah, Battle Brothers is a true indie gem!

As for the sIG performance I can spoiler that much: The super low fuel (20? 22?) combined with -2 fuel per turn really does balance it. It is still nice when you can actually use it but not as cheesy as I remembered it to be.
As the cheap Pz I upgrade they are ok.
But if I could choose between a sIG and a towed Nebelwerfer I would take the Nebelwerfer all the time.

Yep, imho that is how it should be.
A viable but not overpowered upgrade option the player has to weigh against other prestige spending alternatives.
That 15cm Nebelwerfer might not be as strong as it was, but the 2 movement (with addon) provides some great flexibility.

What is your opinion on the proposals to limit the italian fleet already from the start of the Barbarossa scenario?
Without that fleet support, Tobruk would be a much harder nut to crack.
Something more in line with the historical Axis problems in North Africa.

[Duedman]

What is your opinion on the proposals to limit the italian fleet already from the start of the Barbarossa scenario?
Without that fleet support, Tobruk would be a much harder nut to crack.
Something more in line with the historical Axis problems in North Africa.

That would probably a good thing. It would slow down the fall of Egypt considerably (if the player does not decide to completely bypass Tobruk - a thing the AI would let him do)
Although you will see a daring (or reckless) move to speed things up down there soon. And its technically not with Paras lol

Immobilizing the fleet takes possibilities out of the players hands tho. A measure that should not be overdone.

On earlier questions I forgot to answer about 6 core units / would I take 3 fighters again:
I understand McGuba's intentions a bit more now I think. His limit to 2 fighters leads to a greater struggle for safe airspace.
And there is nothing more important than that. If you cannot use your bombers at will and drive your Arty around in trucks that slows you down a lot. Either by restricting yourself from these actions or by high repair bills.
On top of that, enemy air is just superrrrrr annoying As I want to win it would be a clear YES - I'd go for 3 fighters again.
Also, the 3rd fighter can be shuffled down to Africa to easily tip the balance there while still being comfortable in Russia.

I admit that I was annoyed by the small core army and limit to 2 fighters because building the core is a key feature of this series. But for Battlefield Europe it seems to be the right way to go.

[Locarnus]

[...]
On earlier questions I forgot to answer about 6 core units / would I take 3 fighters again:
I understand McGuba's intentions a bit more now I think. His limit to 2 fighters leads to a greater struggle for safe airspace.
And there is nothing more important than that. If you cannot use your bombers at will and drive your Arty around in trucks that slows you down a lot. Either by restricting yourself from these actions or by high repair bills.
On top of that, enemy air is just superrrrrr annoying As I want to win it would be a clear YES - I'd go for 3 fighters again.
[...]

Speaking about the air war for PzC in general and BE scenario particular (and with the addon Eisenbahnflak in mind, which is op when hunting enemies):
Would it help to nerf the ammo capacity of the mobile flak units a bit?
Eg to 5 ammo for most of the self-propelled ones, while the towed versions keep their high ammo count?

With PzC game engine limitations, every option to curtail this "mobile flak hunting aircraft" issue brings its own problems. An ammo reduction would probably be the easiest step.

[sn0wball]

I just got thrashed in fall of 1944, playing on REALISTIC. The new version is really great, but I feel that it is absolutely hard enough. I thouroughly underestimated the Operation Torch forces, and then again those of Operation Overlord. Also, I had been expecting the Russian to be weakened by then, with Moscow, Stalingrad, Crimea fallen. While I was very carefully advancing up to that point, I got careless in 1944 and advanced too fast. I probably should have created a defensive line earlier, waiting with the final offensive after Operation Overlord. There were so many, many modern Russian tanks, while I was still mainly equipped with Panzer IV Gs. As far as that is concerned, I was surprised how long the Allies kep sending wave after wave of landing crafts, month after month.

Dividing the forces between Normandy and Russia was very tense. Prestige was very rare, upgrades hardly possible, except within the upgrade paths. But what hindered me the most was the lack of railway transports to shuffle the Infantry back to Germany to get their 1944 upgrades, while also sending troops to Normandy.

[faos333]

...But what hindered me the most was the lack of railway transports to shuffle the Infantry back to Germany to get their 1944 upgrades, while also sending troops to Normandy.

The lack of railway transports, is due to 2.4 changes?

[fgiannet]

It is amazing to think about the depth of foresight in BE design. To think about all the little adjustments (Panthers in Pz III upgrade family, etc.) enacted in order to guide the player towards historical decision making and historical outcomes. Brilliant and so much more foresight than what was used to create the original game.

[fgiannet]

It is also interesting to think about the fine line between it being just a game (letting people do/buy/play how they want) and enacting limitations requiring the player to think more carefully (chess is only fun once you learn the rules and not when you are simply moving pieces around wherever you like).

I am always impressed when I hear a modder say “it is your game, play it how you most enjoy it” instead of “do you know how long I spent on that element you just used a cheat to bypass?”.

Everything is like that to some degree I suppose......how many fans of Franz Liszt truly understand the depths of his greatness? They listen and enjoy but do not really understand all that is happening.....just like someone enjoying BE but getting frustrated at having to send units back to Germany for rest/refitting

I am near turn 65 in BE on the most realistic level. It is my first/only play through and I am doing it on Rommel. I setup the game this way knowing that I would not win but wanted to see if I could knock the Soviet Union out of the war and hold off the Allies afterward. There are a lot of great things in your fascinating mod. What a work of art.

[P210]

Well said, fgiannet.

[Maths]

Hello,

I recently started a new game with version 2.4 and I have a question about the new infantry types, especially the motorized ones (called "Schützen" or even the SE variant of that unit of which you get two units at the beginning of the big scenario) : what is your rationale for giving them the same movement ability as classic leg infantry ?
One obvious difference is that schutzen have trucks but those are so weak in defense that they can't be used anywhere near the frontlines, especially as part of a spearhead for example.
Why, for example, didn't you give them the same type of movement mechanic you gave to cavalry units (a "leg" mode and a "fast" mode which is still potent in combat).

I'm really not the best player out there to say the least... so this question is just out of curiosity and to check if I'm missing anything ; no criticism intended of course.

Thanks,
Maths

[McGuba]

I understand McGuba's intentions a bit more now I think. His limit to 2 fighters leads to a greater struggle for safe airspace.
And there is nothing more important than that. If you cannot use your bombers at will and drive your Arty around in trucks that slows you down a lot. Either by restricting yourself from these actions or by high repair bills.

...
I admit that I was annoyed by the small core army and limit to 2 fighters because building the core is a key feature of this series. But for Battlefield Europe it seems to be the right way to go.

Yes, everything is there for a reason. The mod is being fixed and improved for over 8(!) years now.

I just got thrashed in fall of 1944, playing on REALISTIC. The new version is really great, but I feel that it is absolutely hard enough. I thouroughly underestimated the Operation Torch forces, and then again those of Operation Overlord. Also, I had been expecting the Russian to be weakened by then, with Moscow, Stalingrad, Crimea fallen.
...

That's really interesting! It would be nice if you could send me the last save game file of this play through. I find it really helpful to check how other players manage in certain situations in the mod. It helps to fine-tune those important events and to fix any possible existing issues.

The lack of railway transports, is due to 2.4 changes?

No, v2.4 has the same number of rail transports as the previous versions.

I am near turn 65 in BE on the most realistic level. It is my first/only play through and I am doing it on Rommel. I setup the game this way knowing that I would not win but wanted to see if I could knock the Soviet Union out of the war and hold off the Allies afterward. There are a lot of great things in your fascinating mod. What a work of art.

Thanks for your thoughts, it is really interesting. Also, it would be great if you could send me the last save game file of this play through. Then I could check its replay file to see how a first time blind play unfolds on Rommel. It would be useful to see if the balance is OK for such a blind play or if there are any problems that should be addressed.

I recently started a new game with version 2.4 and I have a question about the new infantry types, especially the motorized ones (called "Schützen" or even the SE variant of that unit of which you get two units at the beginning of the big scenario) : what is your rationale for giving them the same movement ability as classic leg infantry ?

I attempted to better represent the historical German motorized infantry in the mod and to replace the unhistorical "Grenadier" units of the vanilla game with them. (Note that in the mod an infantry unit represents about 10 infantry regiments, minus the anti-tank and AA guns which are represented by separate units.)

Historically a German motorized infantry regiment (from 1942 renamed as "Panzergrenadier") had almost the same equipment as a regular (non-motorized) infantry regiment (from 1942 renamed as "Grenadier"). Motorized infantry regiments did not really have more heavy weapons than regular ones to make them slower on foot. The only difference was that the former had trucks (and a small number of halftracks) for longer travel, while the latter had to march on foot most of the time, unless being moved by trains.

However, in the mod I did give slightly better stats to the motorized infantry units as I assumed that they are in general higher quality units with better officers, NCOs, training and morale. After all motorized infantry regiments were mostly part of the panzer divisions, which were the elite of the Wehrmacht.

In vanilla Panzer Corps the German "Grenadier" unit is a kind of nonsense, as it represents a heavy infantry unit with better attack stats but slower movement which necessitates a transport being added in most cases, when in reality the term "Grenadier" was used for non-motorized (regular) infantry regiments (and companies, platoons etc.), and only after mid 1942.

Also the term "Grenadier" was not used for heavy infantry in WW2 in the Wehrmacht. Instead there were two types of "heavy infantry" units: a regular infantry regiment had 3 battalions and each battalion had one machine gun company called "MG Kompanie" and the regiment also had an infantry gun equipped company called "Infanterie-Geschütz-kompanie". (The latter was equipped with a couple short ranged 75 and 150 mm infantry guns.)
https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Zu ... giment.htm

Why, for example, didn't you give them the same type of movement mechanic you gave to cavalry units (a "leg" mode and a "fast" mode which is still potent in combat).

Mainly because cavalry units did fight on a few occasions when riding their horses, but motorized infantry units hardly ever fought when being transported by Opel Blitz trucks. But this change is still somewhat experimental, Uhu has already reported that according to him cavalry units are a bit too effective when riding their horses, which is probably true, and thus I plan to reduce their attack stats a bit further. On the other hand, I also plan to increase the attack stats of the armed halftrack transports so that those will be more potent in battle. P210 drew my attention to the fact that there was a change in the doctrine of halftrack equipped Panzergrenadier units from primarily unmounted fighting to primarily mounted fighting. Here is a video which explains this in more detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsTudthlCik

But currently I do not really plan to do the same with the unarmored truck transports. I think they are good as they are, mainly to provide faster movement to infantry units so that they can keep up the speed with the advancing tank units.

[fgiannet]

Thanks for your thoughts, it is really interesting. Also, it would be great if you could send me the last save game file of this play through. Then I could check its replay file to see how a first time blind play unfolds on Rommel. It would be useful to see if the balance is OK for such a blind play or if there are any problems that should be addressed.

I would not recommend anyone playing BE for the first time on Rommel.

I usually play Rommel whenever I play as the axis. I do not mind minor victories and enjoy the process of scraping together obsolete units for a minor victory (one more CHEER for your Hungarian Mod!) but prestige seems very tight in BE (and I am not replaying turns, attacks, etc.).

I think I get about 350 prestige per turn. Everything causes casualties (which is fine in a macroeconomic sense, there are constant losses to accidents, etc.) but attacking bombers with Focke-Wulf 190s still results in one loss to the Focke-Wulf (even if the bombers only have 4 return fire....). It seemed too expensive to maintain so I focused on producing infantry for the Eastern Front (let Soviet tanks take over towns then use the infantry to destroy them). Whole fronts were neglected due to lack of prestige and I think I missed a lot of the good parts of the mod. The German Army was becoming demechanized but growing in manpower and still taking territory.

But I do not think it is a balancing issue. I just do not think someone should play BE on Rommel for their first time (It did make those free upgrades much more valuable). Prestige per turn seems too little (you would have to add Red Cross type units/locations, like in Sonya’s D2R mod, in order for player to have a chance).

I will freely admit that this mod is overwhelming to me (I might not be the best gauge for balance). It is crazy how vast and intricate a creation this is....8 years later and people are still raving/filming play-throughs for it. You must be one incredible asset for an organization somewhere (and if not it must be because the sycophants have taken over! ha, ha, ha).

I have played these games most of my life and nothing (Storm Across Europe, Gary Grigsby WitE, etc.) ever seemed to befuddle me like this. There were more than a few turns where I lost valuable units and squandered opportunities just because I could not focus on what should be the next moves. That was an unusual feeling for me (I always have multiple plans even when I lose). I consciously committed myself to focusing on the Soviet Union and still would get overwhelmed looking at the map.

I will send you my save game this weekend. It is not my best work but I think it is good enough to see how limiting Rommel could be for a first time player. Thank you very much for your hard, intelligent, and precise work. You have made something really special.

[Maths]

I attempted to better represent the historical German motorized infantry in the mod and to replace the unhistorical "Grenadier" units of the vanilla game with them. (Note that in the mod an infantry unit represents about 10 infantry regiments, minus the anti-tank and AA guns which are represented by separate units.)

Historically a German motorized infantry regiment (from 1942 renamed as "Panzergrenadier") had almost the same equipment as a regular (non-motorized) infantry regiment (from 1942 renamed as "Grenadier"). Motorized infantry regiments did not really have more heavy weapons than regular ones to make them slower on foot. The only difference was that the former had trucks (and a small number of halftracks) for longer travel, while the latter had to march on foot most of the time, unless being moved by trains.

However, in the mod I did give slightly better stats to the motorized infantry units as I assumed that they are in general higher quality units with better officers, NCOs, training and morale. After all motorized infantry regiments were mostly part of the panzer divisions, which were the elite of the Wehrmacht.

Agreed. And from a gameplay point of view, I like the idea of having variety in the units available. For example at such a large scale (your infantry units are roughly the size of an army corps) almost every one of these corps could have been represented by a single unit type and the motorized infantry regiments included abstractly in the tank units which represent panzer divisions with their motorized IR.

In vanilla Panzer Corps the German "Grenadier" unit is a kind of nonsense, as it represents a heavy infantry unit with better attack stats but slower movement which necessitates a transport being added in most cases, when in reality the term "Grenadier" was used for non-motorized (regular) infantry regiments (and companies, platoons etc.), and only after mid 1942.

Also the term "Grenadier" was not used for heavy infantry in WW2 in the Wehrmacht. Instead there were two types of "heavy infantry" units: a regular infantry regiment had 3 battalions and each battalion had one machine gun company called "MG Kompanie" and the regiment also had an infantry gun equipped company called "Infanterie-Geschütz-kompanie". (The latter was equipped with a couple short ranged 75 and 150 mm infantry guns.)
https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Zu ... giment.htm

Yes, the vanilla name is quite surprising in this regard.

Mainly because cavalry units did fight on a few occasions when riding their horses, but motorized infantry units hardly ever fought when being transported by Opel Blitz trucks.

Actually my main concern is about their defensive ability. I do agree on the fact that truck-mounted infantry rarely fought mounted but in the game loaded units don't fire back when attacked and you can be happy with "only" a 6-strength loss... I think that trucks in the game are efficient in simulating the enhanced rear-area movement of appropriate units but AFAIK trucks did bolster a unit's reactivity, tactical movement ability and thus overall performance. In the game loading a unit on truck on the frontline is suicidal.
Still your simulation is satisfying (that's what I wanted in the first place, again this no criticism but modding curiosity). I decided to leave my original thoughts above to enlighten what follows.
The enhanced rear area movement is simulated by the "safe" use of trucks when transiting in controlled territory while improved tactical effectiveness is reflected in the increased stats of these units.

On the other hand, I also plan to increase the attack stats of the armed halftrack transports so that those will be more potent in battle. P210 drew my attention to the fact that there was a change in the doctrine of halftrack equipped Panzergrenadier units from primarily unmounted fighting to primarily mounted fighting. Here is a video which explains this in more detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsTudthlCik

This would indeed be welcomed. As of now halftracks are mainly different looking trucks but do not provide a significant improvment over classic trucks. They are efficient in rear area movement, like trucks ; they are weak as hell in defense, like trucks.
As pointed out this would also cope with the change of doctrine mentioned above.

But currently I do not really plan to do the same with the unarmored truck transports. I think they are good as they are, mainly to provide faster movement to infantry units so that they can keep up the speed with the advancing tank units.

Good conclusion although I would still advocate a slight increase of their ground defense if these units were to go on the frontline loaded on trucks.

It's possible that all this comes from the very core of the combat rules in PzC. It seems like attack and defense (I'm talking about the stats, not the actual stance of which unit attacks which one) are seperate that is there is no correlation between the two : your attack determines how much can you damage the enemy whatever may be your defense. Meanwhile, your defense determines how much "beating" you can take regardless of everything. An exaggerated situation would be a unit with no guns (0 attack stat) but with formidable defense (defense stat of ~30) ; in reality even the weakest armed unit would be able to defeat such a unit since it cannot harm the attacker, however in PzC this would most likely result in a mere 0/1 combat outcome. In the light of this, our truck units have no weapons and miserable defense, so despite being the elite of the army they always suffer from 0/6+ combat outcomes.
I hope this is clear

Anyway, thank you for your answer !
Greetings,

[sbpc1]

how about doing away with the attached transport way of doing things altogether?
just add 1 or 2 moves to an infantry unit to represent how much/want type of transport forms PART of that unit.
increase costs for units so equipped maybe decrease the GD and AD to represent some vulnerability whist getting into position/retreating. the concept of infantry sitting in trucks patiently whilst allowing the enemy to fire at them is ok i guess at an ASL (boardgame) type level (call it opportunity fire) but at the hex scale/time per turn of Battlefield: Europe it seems silly.

[Intenso82]

Turn 18 passed.
Looks more complicated than previous versions.
After the 16th turn, for some reason the prestige per turn dropped to 40 and not about 240-280 as it was before, heh ..
Soviet opposition was tangible, without prestige the Axis was greatly weakened.
I even thought that -30% Winter is too much, maybe -20% on turns 13 (-1) and 15 (-1) will be enough

By the way, thanks a lot for BE24_Events.txt
I used to have notes on paper

I am happy with the new changes.
Soviet aviation became more aggressive.
A raid of ships on the Constanta is shown.
The counteroffensive is even too strong)

Battleships against ground units are still very effective. Perhaps too much.
I applaud the Light Infantry type of movement. I came up with a similar outcome for my mod)
As well as the division into Jaegers, Light Infantry, etc.
I liked the Garrison unit, visually very clear.
But I couldn't find any tangible visual differences between Light Infantry and Sec. Infantry.
It might be worth adding some symbol for it.

I don't have an opinion on the cavalry yet.
But motorized infantry appeared well.
Although in my mod, I thought it was more clean because it doesn't have vehicles and has good movement points.
Here we have a mix between vanilla infantry on vehicles and Uberunit under human control. It's already good.
But it remains possible to buy vehicles for ordinary infantry.
It turns out mobile infantry with vehicles and ordinary infantry with vehicles ...

[bondjamesbond]

http://www.kfzderwehrmacht.de/Homepage_ ... zeuge.html

Only one cavalry corps of the Soviet General Lev Mikhailovich Dovator during the battle for Moscow fettered the rear of an entire army. And the enemy could not do anything with the brave and elusive cavalrymen. Here is what the Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht troops, General Halder, wrote in his memorandum: “We constantly encounter cavalry formations. They are so maneuverable that it is not possible to use the power of German equipment against them. The consciousness that not a single commander can be calm for his rear, has a depressing effect on the morale of the troops.
But sometimes Soviet cavalrymen also participated in open confrontation. So, for example, at the end of the war, the cavalry division of General Blinov saved 50,000 prisoners of war and blocked the road to Dresden. And the 7th Guards Cavalry Corps distinguished itself by taking the cities of Rathenow and Brandenburg. The 3rd Guards Corps took Reinburg and met the allies on the Elbe. So here, too, the cavalry proved its effectiveness.

https://horsesbb.livejournal.com/14146.html


Cavalry and horse-drawn transport are a force to be reckoned with ) Although the Second World War is considered to be a war of engines , everyone had to participate and pull loads on themselves )
https://en.topwar.ru/74935-velikaya-ote ... lerii.html

In 1943, the Wehrmacht was "armed" with 1,380,000 horses. On regular "heavy Hf2 wagons" they were supposed to carry loads weighing up to 1750 kg along the front roads

This is one of the photographs from the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Comments on it can be found in the diaries of the Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht F. Halder, who noted: “Autumn, and especially the winter of 1941, unkindly met the Wehrmacht units. mud made even tracked vehicles stop." The impossibility of carrying out road transport in such conditions sharply raised the importance of horse-drawn transport in the German army.
By 1940, there were 771,000 horses and mules in the German armed forces. The Wehrmacht began the war with the USSR, having already about a million of them in its ranks. The horse became "the main driving force of the German troops." Apparently, therefore, by 1943 the number of "units of draft power" in the troops reached 1380 thousand.
In the Wehrmacht, specially designed standard military-style horse-drawn carts were in service. Type Hf1 was a 650 kg double-horse "crew" covered with a "low-profile awning". Its carrying capacity was 750 kg - with one convoy. Others - such as Hf2 - were heavy wagons, they were upholstered with iron sheets and had rubber wheels. They were already pulled by four horses, because they themselves were really heavy - weighing 1024 kg; they carried loads up to 1720 kg.
There is evidence that the Germans for the period 1939 - 1945. more than three million horses were used in the army: they accounted for 90% of the draft force, and in all infantry divisions the artillery was horse-drawn.
This was also acknowledged by the German military leader General of Wehrmacht Artillery M. Fretter-Pico in his book "Strategic Mistakes of the Wehrmacht", published here only in 2013. He pointed out, in particular, to the events that took place in the autumn of 1941 in Ukraine: " The mobility of the division was provided by horse traction. Numerous vehicles, for example, Parisian delivery vehicles, with which the division was equipped, could not go in muddy conditions "and continues: "The division applied in advance for tractors, which would undoubtedly justify themselves"

https://radio-rhodesia.livejournal.com/999677.html

Mongolian lend-lease...
World War II was not only the first war of engines in the world, but also the last war of cavalry and horses ... The horse literally pulled out that war on itself, and on both sides of the front.
On the eve of the war, 3,039 horses were relied on the state for a rifle division of the Red Army. But in the German "Wehrmacht" there were even more - according to the state in their infantry division there were over 6,000 (six thousand!) Horses. In total, the "Wehrmacht" at the time of the invasion of the USSR used more than one million horses, 88% of which were in infantry divisions.


During the four years of the war, about 485 thousand "Mongol" horses were delivered to the Soviet Union. According to other sources - over 500 thousand.

No wonder they say: "The road is a spoon for dinner." In 1941-45. The USSR could not get half a million horses anywhere for any money. In addition to Mongolia, horses in such a commercial quantity were only in North and South America - not to mention the price (purchasing such a quantity in a short time would inflate their price hoo!) to deliver them to the warring USSR would be much more problematic and more difficult than the whole the rest of the "lend-lease" ...

https://alter-vij.livejournal.com/174908.html


So oil also still needs to be found, processed and accumulated;)
https://union.4bb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=634&p=12
https://lsvsx.livejournal.com/1719190.h ... =3userpost


http://www.kfzderwehrmacht.de/Homepage_ ... zeuge.html