PeteMitchell wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 9:50 am
Can you buy Hungarian or Romanian infantry? I am not able to buy them, is this correct?
Yes, that is correct. There are several reasons for that, and I think I wrote this before, but whatever...
1.)
Due to game engine limitations upgrade and purchase cities are the same, these two functions cannot be separated. Meaning if a city is purchase city then it is upgrade city as well. Therefore, if for example Budapest and Bucharest, the Hungarian and Romanian capitals were purchase cities, allowing the purchase of the units of these nations, then players would also be able to upgrade their units in these. But in turn that would also result in players moving their German units from the eastern front to these to upgrade them, which would be very strange and unhistorical. (Because of course these cities are closer to the eastern front than the German cities so that would potentially save a turn.) But then it would be hard to explain why it is necessary to move a German tank to Romania or Hungary to upgrade it to a better German tank. That's complete nonsense and as far as I know there was no historical precedent for that.
On the other hand, there were several documented instances when Hungarian or Romanian units were transferred to Germany to get trained for the use of their newly issued German equipment or just for tactical training. For example, when the Hungarians introduced the Zrinyi II assault guns, a group of Hungarian officers were sent to Germany to receive assault gun training since the Germans were already using the StuG IIIs for quite some time. So I think it is just fine that units of the Minor Axis nations have to be transferred to Germany to get better equipment. Or at least, it is less strange than it would be the other way around and having German units being moved to Romania or Hungary for the same thing.
2.)
I think normally not being able to purchase new Minor Axis units (apart form Italians) makes the mod more interesting since it forces the player to look after these units, instead of just expending them as cannon fodder and then simply replace them with new ones if necessary, in order to keep getting the extra prestige for having them. That would be just too cheap and easy to do so.
It would also be quite unhistorical as historically we know that the Minor Axis armies were mostly withdrawn from the eastern front after the heavy losses they suffered in winter '42-43, and they only resumed heavy fighting when the frontline got close to their own border. In early 1943 the Romanians, Hungarians and Italians requested the withdrawal of their forces from the eastern front to avoid further heavy losses and to prevent public outrage at home. It also worth mentioning that Romania and Hungary were both preparing to fight each other at some point over the ownership of Transylvania so they both wanted to have some intact forces at home for that seemingly inevitable conflict (which indeed happened in September 1944).
So this mod mechanic aims to simulate all this: while these armies can suffer some losses, if losses are too high there will be a consequence in the form of getting less prestige. In the early versions of the mod, before it was introduced, it was common for players to just to waste these units without any consequence but that was quite unhistorical for the above reasons.
But there are tons of units around Tunis... I will see. 
