Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.4

[PeteMitchell]

There is an overview of the upgrafe paths in the library but without cost.

[McGuba]

Thanks for the quick responses Pete and McGuba. I’m up to around turn 40 now and playing fairly historically and finding it more challenging than expected. Really enjoying it!

Nice!

By the way, where can I find the file with all the unit stats and upgrade timing/cost etc? I recall there used to be a .csv file with this info, but can’t seem to find it.

The equipment file is in the "Data" folder within the main Panzer Corps install folder and named "equipment.pzeqp". It is a plain text file, anything can open it even Windows notepad. Other than that, as Pete mentioned, there are several in-game unit upgrade charts for the mod, which can be checked in the Library.

[JimmyC]

Thanks for the responses. It was the equipment.pzeqp file i was looking for, so much appreciated.

I played through to turn 90 (just 10 left to go). I played mostly historically apart from abandoning North Africa at the beginning. I didnt capture any of the objectives until relatively late (I focused on getting the Russian oilfields, which takes time and just held the line mostly on the outskirts of Moscow and Leningrad until the oilfields were secured). As a result the Russians had some pretty significant mid-late game forces. I was surprised by a few things:
1. Russian air force came back with a vengance in early 1943 once the winter stopped. They mauled me at least for the first few turns of clear weather.
2. Sicily was harder to hold than i expected and i almost lost it. Very, very close call. Later on (around time of Normandy) a few units tried to take Sicily again and i almost lost it again as i'd moved almost all the forces to other fronts.
3. Leningrad i set up the siege kind of late, but a Russian counterattack really mauled me and forced me to abandon the siege for a while (maybe this was sometime in 1943).
4. I ran close to 0 prestige at the time of Panthers becoming available as i upgraded almost all tanks to Panthers (including Pz I's & II's). It was also due to me not capturing any of the main objectives until later on. Its the first time i've played this scenario that i've been so strapped for prestige. Later on once i got the oilfields, Stalingrad, Leningrad and Moscow they gave me big prestige boosts and i was fine again. Now at turn 90 i have around 4,000 prestige, so am quite safe.
5. As always i underestimate the Allied air forces during/after Normandy. Sure, I have AA covering my troops, but it gets suppressed by overstrength Strat bomber and then the tactical bombers go to town on my poor armor and artillery. I have had to sead ground, but am holding Paris and with all my Eastern Front forces now coming, should be fine.

Thanks again for the fantastic mod McGuba. Its a testament to your mod that i am picking this up again after 4-5 year break and still loving it!

[JimmyC]

Small suggestion, but why not give a free conversion of a 38(t)C tank to a Flakpanzer 38(t) when it becomes available in late '43? Because by this time the 38(t)C is mostly useless, but a free conversion to AA would make it useful again in my opinion.

[McGuba]

Thanks again for the fantastic mod McGuba. Its a testament to your mod that i am picking this up again after 4-5 year break and still loving it!

Nice! I hope you will have the chance to try BE 2.5 as well whenever it will be ready.

I played through to turn 90 (just 10 left to go). I played mostly historically apart from abandoning North Africa at the beginning.
...

So have you finished by now? And also what difficulty level (General, perhaps?) and what version (real+, I suppose?) were you playing, if I may ask?

Small suggestion, but why not give a free conversion of a 38(t)C tank to a Flakpanzer 38(t) when it becomes available in late '43? Because by this time the 38(t)C is mostly useless, but a free conversion to AA would make it useful again in my opinion.

The problem with this is the Flakpanzer 38(t) only becomes available very late and thus it would encourage players to keep using the Pz.38 until that to get that free conversion, well after its historical use-by date. When in fact, as far as I am aware, only small numbers of Pz.38 tanks were in frontline use after spring 1943, and only with the Slovaks and Romanians. It would also reduce the number of experienced tank units in the German army which is not desirable for balancing reasons.

I think it is much better to upgrade the Pz.38 (and the other) light tanks to a Pz.III or Pz.IV by the end of 1942 the latest. There should be enough prestige for that in the most recommended General and FM difficulty levels. Then they can retain their experience, which is quite important for tank units. As opposed to give these cross-class conversions and then purchase new Pz.IIIs and IVs with no experience.

[JimmyC]

Nice! I hope you will have the chance to try BE 2.5 as well whenever it will be ready.

Yes. I'm definitely up for v2.5 whenever you release it. My strategy was fairly conservative this playthrough as its been so many years since i last played it, so next time i will take a more aggressive approach.

So have you finished by now? And also what difficulty level (General, perhaps?) and what version (real+, I suppose?) were you playing, if I may ask?

Yes, finished now. After defeating Russia, I could transfer my troops back to the western theatre and fairly easily hold off the Allies (they still had plenty of troops, but they were boxed in along the coast). I played on general, real+ and fully random dice.

The problem with this is the Flakpanzer 38(t) only becomes available very late and thus it would encourage players to keep using the Pz.38 until that to get that free conversion, well after its historical use-by date. When in fact, as far as I am aware, only small numbers of Pz.38 tanks were in frontline use after spring 1943, and only with the Slovaks and Romanians. It would also reduce the number of experienced tank units in the German army which is not desirable for balancing reasons.

I think it is much better to upgrade the Pz.38 (and the other) light tanks to a Pz.III or Pz.IV by the end of 1942 the latest. There should be enough prestige for that in the most recommended General and FM difficulty levels. Then they can retain their experience, which is quite important for tank units. As opposed to give these cross-class conversions and then purchase new Pz.IIIs and IVs with no experience.

Well noted. I usually upgrade PzI and PzII to III's, but always struggle to know what to do with the 38t(c) as its still alright at the beginning so i have it on the front lines. But as you say, it gets outclassed after a while. Probably best to just bite the prestige bullet and upgrade it to a III or IV at some point.

I also really love the design of the late model SPAA such as Wirbelwind, etc., but they come too late and are too expensive to justify purchasing. So i was angling for the cross-class conversion. Well understood the historical reasons for not doing this though.

[Uhu]

Hi my fellow Panzer (Corps) Generals and Field Marshalls!

I'm back...
As I tried out all challenges to make a DV (last time was 25% prestige, 50% experience, than the Normandy save to make the most of it, capture Moscow, etc. ), I did not have any new challenges.
(On the other hand I saved a lot of free time for other purposes........ )
BUT!

It fell me in one last challenge: start with the Kursk save and see if it can be done with a DV. Theoretically yes, as with the Stalingrad save and manual calculated 50% prestige I could make a DV. But with that conditions the Kursk version was impossible to do all the capture. Let alone the questionable possibility to invade England with the more and more restrictions/defense added to the British islands in the later versions of the BE mod! But the true enemy is time - if it is enough time from turn 51 to 99 to travel to the end of the world - or at least to reach Glasgow, Archangelsk, Kuybyshev, Astrakhan, Abadan and Tunis.

I'm now at turn 67. Several times completely, or partially reloaded all of the turns, from the beginning... I could finally make a reverse D-day landing at turn 66, but the Allied air power is devastating. I could repel the Sicily invasion but it hung on the edge, if I looses it, or not. Of course massive forces needed to redeployed in this theater but finally I will earn of the victory here and cash the prestige boost for taking Malta. But there are tons of units around Tunis... I will see.

Still playing with dice chess (it can be inserted as a cheat) option and with a tons of saves and reloads - but not for better results but for better decisions. On the other hand playing with the Finns historically so they do not move/fly further from their initial line of defense until Leningrad is captured (pretty hard decision I must say.) . Also I looked one time at the start with fog of war OFF to see all the defending units in and around the above mentioned goal cities - I will see this together with the frequent saves as a reverse-Enigma-decode and having a strong intelligence force.

[Uhu]

Small suggestion, but why not give a free conversion of a 38(t)C tank to a Flakpanzer 38(t) when it becomes available in late '43? Because by this time the 38(t)C is mostly useless, but a free conversion to AA would make it useful again in my opinion.

IMHO while it depends on the prestige situations, but one of the Pz38(t) is useful to converted to Marder III (the M series is relative capable and later as a Hetzer even so), I upgraded the one with the hero for Panzer IV long gun version and I do not remember what I did with the third one, but probably also upgraded later to Pz III. Because of the earned xp I would surely not convert them to AA.

[JimmyC]

Hi Uhu. Its good to see you still around and kicking. Depending on difficulty setting it can be very hard to upgrade out of series due to lack of prestige, so I thought a cheap upgrade to mobile AA could be good for a 38(t). Fully understand McGuba’s reasons not to do it though.

If you can find the time once v2.5 is released, I would like your advice on Sea Lion. I only managed it successfully once in an earlier version (before bottom mines) and would like to attempt it at some stage again, but am hoping for some tips in advance.

[PeteMitchell]

Sounds great, please share some screenshots!

Hi my fellow Panzer (Corps) Generals and Field Marshalls!

I'm back...
As I tried out all challenges to make a DV (last time was 25% prestige, 50% experience, than the Normandy save to make the most of it, capture Moscow, etc. ), I did not have any new challenges.
(On the other hand I saved a lot of free time for other purposes........ )
BUT!

It fell me in one last challenge: start with the Kursk save and see if it can be done with a DV. Theoretically yes, as with the Stalingrad save and manual calculated 50% prestige I could make a DV. But with that conditions the Kursk version was impossible to do all the capture. Let alone the questionable possibility to invade England with the more and more restrictions/defense added to the British islands in the later versions of the BE mod! But the true enemy is time - if it is enough time from turn 51 to 99 to travel to the end of the world - or at least to reach Glasgow, Archangelsk, Kuybyshev, Astrakhan, Abadan and Tunis.

I'm now at turn 67. Several times completely, or partially reloaded all of the turns, from the beginning... I could finally make a reverse D-day landing at turn 66, but the Allied air power is devastating. I could repel the Sicily invasion but it hung on the edge, if I looses it, or not. Of course massive forces needed to redeployed in this theater but finally I will earn of the victory here and cash the prestige boost for taking Malta. But there are tons of units around Tunis... I will see.

Still playing with dice chess (it can be inserted as a cheat) option and with a tons of saves and reloads - but not for better results but for better decisions. On the other hand playing with the Finns historically so they do not move/fly further from their initial line of defense until Leningrad is captured (pretty hard decision I must say.) . Also I looked one time at the start with fog of war OFF to see all the defending units in and around the above mentioned goal cities - I will see this together with the frequent saves as a reverse-Enigma-decode and having a strong intelligence force.

[Uhu]

I can do this when I finished this war. On the other hand, maybe it is useful to only share data about Sealion'44 after McGuba release 2.5 - or maybe he will strengthen England even further.

Hi Uhu. Its good to see you still around and kicking. Depending on difficulty setting it can be very hard to upgrade out of series due to lack of prestige, so I thought a cheap upgrade to mobile AA could be good for a 38(t). Fully understand McGuba’s reasons not to do it though.

If you can find the time once v2.5 is released, I would like your advice on Sea Lion. I only managed it successfully once in an earlier version (before bottom mines) and would like to attempt it at some stage again, but am hoping for some tips in advance.

[Uhu]

I would gladly do but it is always so hard to find a solution to insert pictures here: find a platform, add link...
It would be much easier just to insert the pictures directly here with uploading.

Sounds great, please share some screenshots!

[PeteMitchell]

Which can be done

Example.jpg (142.5 KiB) Viewed 119 times

There is no need for third party hosting of photos

[PeteMitchell]

Can you buy Hungarian or Romanian infantry? I am not able to buy them, is this correct?

[Uhu]

I recently stumbled also into this issue as I would have bought some excellent Hungarian Zrínyi II assault guns but there were no options for that.
Maybe the cause of the missing minor Axis purchase cities (except Italy) is that the rest of the minors did not have much military industry capabilities. But still it would be great to have some. Also if you loose the minimum number of minor Axis inf units which is needed to get the turn based Axis minor prestige income, you cannot undo, or correct that by buying another inf unit.

Can you buy Hungarian or Romanian infantry? I am not able to buy them, is this correct?

[Uhu]

Turn 68 - Malta finally captured (Sicily defended).PNG (1.66 MiB) Viewed 72 times

[Uhu]

Thank you, that works!

Which can be done

Example.jpg

There is no need for third party hosting of photos

[PeteMitchell]

Yes, the deployment cities are missing

[McGuba]

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.

[McGuba]

I recently stumbled also into this issue as I would have bought some excellent Hungarian Zrínyi II assault guns but there were no options for that.

You can upgrade the existing towed Hungarian artillery unit that appears in turn 21 to a Zrinyi II. I think having just one of this is also right due to the limited production capability of Hungary. After all, only 60-66 Zrinyi IIs were ever produced and I think even the Axis being on the winning path would not have changed that significantly.

I can do this when I finished this war. On the other hand, maybe it is useful to only share data about Sealion'44 after McGuba release 2.5 - or maybe he will strengthen England even further.

Yes, I think I have changed a few things when it comes to the defense of Britain, but do not quite remember just now. There were many changes overall. I think it will be somewhat harder to capture it later in the war with more and more units appearing there over time. On the other hand, the Axis side will also get a few new secret assets in 2.5 that may be put to good use.

Yes, finished now. After defeating Russia, I could transfer my troops back to the western theatre and fairly easily hold off the Allies (they still had plenty of troops, but they were boxed in along the coast). I played on general, real+ and fully random dice.

Nice!

I also really love the design of the late model SPAA such as Wirbelwind, etc., but they come too late and are too expensive to justify purchasing. So i was angling for the cross-class conversion. Well understood the historical reasons for not doing this though.

Sure, but that was also the historical context. These fully tracked and armoured German SPAAs arrived at a time when Germany was already retreating on all fronts, when the task of these would have been to provide AA defense to the advancing armoured units on the move. So yes, they were definitely late to the party.

But if Germany happens to be on the winning path in 1944, then there should be enough prestige to purchase one or two of these, only for good measure. I remember doing so in some of my previous multiplayer matches when I was winning with the Axis.