Locarnus Addon 2025-08b, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

[Locarnus]

Good News! I think I have everything except all of the videos because I think STeam saved it all, but I am having trouble reinstalling the mod. Is there anyway you can help me?

Sent you an email.
If there is more trouble, it is better to reply to the email instead of the forum, since the forum is not great on mobile devices.



Something different:
Request for help regarding graphics:

Can anyone exchange the german themed central poster for the campaign starts with a soviet themed one (same 1939 year in the top right corner)?
So that it is more fitting for starting a soviet campaign?

Wikipedia has this one marked to be public domain, which would roughly fit regarding the displayed equipment and aspect ratio:
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:E ... poster.jpg

0_default.png (101.45 KiB) Viewed 636 times

0_highlighted.png (106.82 KiB) Viewed 636 times

0_selected.png (106.93 KiB) Viewed 636 times

[goose_2]

Hey Buddy,

Good News!

I was able to get the mod to work and am excited to get started with diving into the start of 44.

I have been thinking that I wanted to start training my 7th SE unit, but I happened to get as my first se unit as the Pz3J which costs like 435, which my cursory scan of the various se units available right now is the most expensive, so I have decided for at least the 1st scenario in 44 that I will sell the se unit for quick cash and start off right with prestige gain as needing to do expensive unit switches for exp gain.

I hope to get time this weekend to record, but not sure as finding good game time is hard to do, unless you are a new easy to jump on mod like Nico made.

[goose_2]

My plan for Korsun is coming together, but it will look different than any other playthrough that I have seen, and may mean a loss of the Scenario but carries the possibilities of the greatest rewards, so yeah, going for that one.

[goose_2]

Is there a reason I should be getting 150 per main objective taken, instead of the normal 100?

I noticed that I get 37 per main objective which is 25% of 150, and I double checked the difficulty which is set up correctly.

[Locarnus]

Great that it works.
Agreed, 438 prestige is well worth it to sell that bonus SE/Std unit with your extreme difficulty setting!
44 is the last year where you can sell bonus SE/Std, so now or never.

Very much looking forward to your Korsun strategy! Great to see new approaches.

Ah, totally forgot that it was 100 prestige for victory hexes in unmodded PzC.
McGuba must have changed that for Battlefield Europe, to make those more important than taking normal flags.

[eskuche]

Update on AK playthrough on FM Rommel.
Eked out decisive on Gaza line. I haven't played AK in a very, very long time (6-8 years?). I also couldn't figure out which were the core units, so I briefly broke rule-of-1 to kill more mines with pioneers. 4 units lost so far, including the hero IT Breda.


Post-gaza. Everyone is extremely beat up. I had to elite reinforce PzGren and something else this map. I completely didn't know there was a massive eastern attack coming so had to scramble there. Enemy air was difficult to contend. I also missed reading the briefing completely through and didn't destroy the last two Matilda IIs behind the line until turn 23.


Starting Malta with 7500 prestige before overstrength. Heroes are fairly decent; both pioneers were trained up (with one mid-map swap) on mines in Gazala line. In addition to the Breda, 2 units with bad heroes (I think a Bison and a german tank?) have died. I didn't know if I could afford swapping classes like in GC but might do so here. The D3 would go great on a bersagliari or something. The gifted JG 27 hero has saved the campaign. I am SORELY lacking in a panzer IV, but waffled on commiting. I may skip it altogether and just live with a StuG III F. Most of the Italian artillery has been lackluster, with 2 range, and I regret not selling them way earlier. May be worth converting some German artillery to experienced tanks, but will see...

I feel like German equipment only gets relatively better from here barring some Wunderwaffen, so hopefully things go better from hereon forward.

[Locarnus]

Update on AK playthrough on FM Rommel.

Very nice to see you continue with AK, especially on FM Rommel!
Yeah, elite reinforcements during a scenario is something to get used to.
And Gazala is really rough, even with map knowledge and less punishing difficulty settings and house rules!
Full unit losses hurt a lot more as well, especially when playing without reform unit options and a special campaign hero is lost.

That Bf 109 campaign hero was perhaps the best individual fighter pilot in history. Controversial character (eg not a teamplayer, recklessness and "partying"), but unmatched air combat skill in his aircraft. After a bad career start, he became known as the "Star of Africa", and a few weeks before his death claimed 17 enemy fighters on a single day!
If I had to fit him in with the grand campaign heroes, he would have stats similar to Uber Rudel, but back when I made AK compatible, I balanced it overall much tighter.

7500 prestige is great on FM Rommel Africa Corps, allows for quite some adjustments.
Yeah, italians are really underwhelming, except for their fighters during the ahistorical path. Speaking of those, you only have 2 single engine fighters and 5 aircraft total?

Back then the german core unit selection was not as varied as it is now. So now there is less reason for so many italian arties (eg germans now also have many 2 movement arty options). Imho the italian 100/17 arty is really useful when in family upgraded to be mounted on the truck, instead of just being towed by it. Before that 2 range self propelled with rof 10 capability becomes available with tracked, armored units.

Ah, forgot about that captured M3. I wanted to make it upgradeable to Sherman and then Firefly. Will do so in the next update. You can already switch it to desert tracked variant, which should improve its movement.


I'm amazed that you managed to come this far on that difficulty in AK and even have a prestige cushion, really well played!
Thank you so much for your feedback. Always gives me motivation to revisit the balancing and find stuff I missed or overlooked (like that captured M3 Grant upgrade option).

[eskuche]

Aircraft: they are way too expensive, and without the cushion of GC39-43 I can't afford to elite reinforce too much, and even green reinforce (I know it's not 0% green unit experience) costs quite a bit given how strong, relatively, the enemy fighters are. Given the relatively fewer unit slots, I also can't afford too much on fighters. I haven't even used the strat bomber on most maps. Given my experience with locarnus mod GC, I opted for more artillery to convert into passable ground units later. So far, there hasn't been a huge need for infantry either given the terrain. I will maybe convert one more artillery to an elite infantry after Palestine or so.

Campaign: It seems much harder than I remember, although I did not read all of your updates. Prestige-wise, I am not sure if you bumped up surrender by 100%, but I seem to be getting much more from there. Again will mention the low max strength matildas which have contributed a very significant amount to my stores. Not sure if this is balanced if people don't know about this mechanic. Escarpment has made for very convenient surrenders sometimes needing only 1-2 units to block.

[Locarnus]

Aircraft: they are way too expensive, and without the cushion of GC39-43 I can't afford to elite reinforce too much, and even green reinforce (I know it's not 0% green unit experience) costs quite a bit given how strong, relatively, the enemy fighters are. Given the relatively fewer unit slots, I also can't afford too much on fighters. I haven't even used the strat bomber on most maps. Given my experience with locarnus mod GC, I opted for more artillery to convert into passable ground units later. So far, there hasn't been a huge need for infantry either given the terrain. I will maybe convert one more artillery to an elite infantry after Palestine or so.

Campaign: It seems much harder than I remember, although I did not read all of your updates. Prestige-wise, I am not sure if you bumped up surrender by 100%, but I seem to be getting much more from there. Again will mention the low max strength matildas which have contributed a very significant amount to my stores. Not sure if this is balanced if people don't know about this mechanic. Escarpment has made for very convenient surrenders sometimes needing only 1-2 units to block.

I agree that aircraft are expensive, not controlling the air might be more expensive?
Also agreed on limited unit slots, so a pure fighter might be wasted after achieving air superiority.
Therefore I highly recommend a Fw 190, if you aim for the ahistorical, longer path.

While only available as a pure fighter in mid 1942, from early 1943 the F (and G) variants are both decent fighters and tac bombers. Like the Bf 110, but with competitive initiative against enemy fighters in 1943. The Re.200x would be the italian option, though it probably would have needed training from 1941 onwards and does not have as many options as the Fw 190.

Not having any Pz IV is tough for 1942, earliest crossover from your current units would be the Brummbär in May 1943, when most of Africa Corps campaign is already completed.
I'll make your M3 Grant upgradeable to an M4 Sherman/M10 Wolverine in the next update. Not great, not terrible.

I think I already made it much harder when I initially made it compatible with the Addon. Due to using a more hands on approach and thinking about more radical game balance changes for the Addon. Something that was not feasible anymore when I came around to the idea of making more campaigns compatible, like the grand campaign.

Yep, prestige from unit surrenders was significantly increased. Perhaps end of last year or earlier this year, not sure anymore. As far as I remember, with many Addon players going for Rommel difficulty, it seemed that prestige from surrender was often not worth the risk anymore. To counter the damage taken from those surrender attempts. Especially compared to selling captured units and randomly gained bonus SE units from the grand campaign. Since those unit sales are not affected by the 50% Rommel prestige setting.

You are right, players can't use it if they do not know about it. I'll have to work on communication of those Addon changes to game mechanics.

[eskuche]

Cinched last turn DV on Malta. Played very carefully because it looked like naval units had weird rebalances. This is despite using 2 class-change units that apparently couldn't upgrade on the Allied objectives. They still did their job as decoy with 3 artillery behind the during rain Also used a Fw 189 scout, which was interesting! Racked up a star with 1 attack. If I replay the GC (or if you mod another campaign) might be interested in running one of those in the core if they ever got recon move..

For El Alamein, 3 star artillery became a Pz IV, losing 400 prestige. 3 attack pioneer became a 10.5 cm leFH. My sad italian tank is driving a semovente. Sold grant and spitfire for 1k. Might need to do a strat bomber shuffle to Fw190, but that 700 prestige price tag is gonna hurt.

[Locarnus]

Cinched last turn DV on Malta. Played very carefully because it looked like naval units had weird rebalances. This is despite using 2 class-change units that apparently couldn't upgrade on the Allied objectives. They still did their job as decoy with 3 artillery behind the during rain Also used a Fw 189 scout, which was interesting! Racked up a star with 1 attack. If I replay the GC (or if you mod another campaign) might be interested in running one of those in the core if they ever got recon move..

For El Alamein, 3 star artillery became a Pz IV, losing 400 prestige. 3 attack pioneer became a 10.5 cm leFH. My sad italian tank is driving a semovente. Sold grant and spitfire for 1k. Might need to do a strat bomber shuffle to Fw190, but that 700 prestige price tag is gonna hurt.

I had to reinstate the unmodded PzC values for the ships for everything except Battlefield Europe scenario. Thus there are currently two versions for most ships, one for BE and one unmodded version (usually with "GC" = grand campaign in the name).
For example the GC submarines do not have all those dive and camo modes from BE. Most importantly the Naval Transports (in the normale campaigns) have movement 4 again, for which many landing scenarios were designed (while the BE Landing craft have movement 6).

Upgrade cities are only those with either the black cross or the double chevron in the bottom right corner. So only Valletta is an upgrade hex in the Malta scenario.

Ah, the Fw 189. Still not sure how to balance that. Very interesting that it got a star so quickly.
I think there are currently actually 3 versions of the Fw 189 and the other small scout plane, two for Battlefield Europe, the other one for the normal campaigns.
One of the BE ones is only given as a script, can not be upgraded or switched to another mode except for ferry.
The other BE one and the one for normal campaigns can be purchased and switched between fighter, tac bomber and strat bomber modes. If I remember correctly, the only difference is that the BE does not have recon move in strat bomber mode, while the normal campaign one should have recon move in strat bomber mode?

The He 111 has a night fighter conversion available from January 1943 (added in the last update? Though I seem to have forgotten it in the update list of changes). Which you could use to switch your current He 111 to fighter mode, saving at least that transitioning prestige.