Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.4

[Longshanks]

After taking Leningrad and garrisoning it, I had a Soviet 10-Regular pop up behind the lines and attack the city. Similarly, I had a Soviet 10-Regular pop up on the road from Yerevan to Tabriz, both of which I own. Both appeared during the Soviet Turn 15.

Haven't seen non-partisan units appear behind the lines before. Working as intended?

The mod is excellent. Wish I could play the Soviets, but that must be a game limitation (I've only had this about 5 weeks).

-Longshanks

[Ag0range]

Hi! Before anything, thanks for this great and incredible mod!!!

As for the ideas, I stumbled upon this one - probably, the fuel concept might be implemented for the submarines, refillable near the ports, to be able to limit the subs operation... What do you think? With white/red dots system, like for planes.

Another one is the national SE divisions... Historically they used to exist, as well as these might serve to enhance the auxiliary units number.

And finally, I would like to share with you my concern about the prestige points as well... Probably, each major city under control might generate some prestige points each turn? So to provide steady income depending on the size?

Hmm and a doubt... If I strategically bomb a ground unit, that does not lose fuel/ammo anymore?

[Delta66]

Another one is the national SE divisions... Historically they used to exist, as well as these might serve to enhance the auxiliary units number.

You get some SE units later in the mod, At least a SE Tiger midwar

And finally, I would like to share with you my concern about the prestige points as well... Probably, each major city under control might generate some prestige points each turn? So to provide steady income depending on the size?

Cities, actually objectives with flags, generate only a one time pp income (note that this value was already increased from the base game), only oil field generate a per turn/pp. This is just fine and help maintain the pp income in reasonable limits to encourage player to field a "historical" force. Moreover it gives a higher incentive to move forward and capture new objectives to get new pp, additionally some key objectives like Moscow, Leningrad, Malta give a one time 1500pp which is huge.
I'm currently playing in 'Rommel' difficulty which means only 50% of pp income, this is hard but playable, in FM difficulty with 100% you should have enough extra prestige.

Hmm and a doubt... If I strategically bomb a ground unit, that does not lose fuel/ammo anymore?

Notice that the actual fuel and ammo of the enemy is not displayed, only the max value, this is explained in the manual and help increase fog of war. So even if you reduce those value you may not see it unless the enemy units get a low value marker. Additionaly with the RNG it also depends on the result of your attack, missed shots don't reduce the enemy supply.

[McGuba]

Finally I find to play BE 1.4.
I play on Rommel, which make prestige pretty low. I think started Barbarossa with around 1500pp after purchase.
I still have some lousy Pz IIC in the frontline

Fair enough. In early 1942 there were still hundreds of Pz.I and Pz.II in the inventory of the Wehrmacht.
Though most of these were relegated to training or security duties, each Panzer division still had 10-15 Pz.II mainly used for reconnaissance:

Tank strength - Inventory of armored fighting vehicles on January 1, 1942:
PzKpfw I: 723
PzKpfw II: 837
PzKpfw II (flame-thrower) : 89
PzKpfw 35(t): 197
PzKpfw 38(t): 381
PzKpfw III: 1,849
PzKpfw IV : 513
Armoured Command Vehicles: 307
Assault gun StuG III (short 7.5cm gun): 625
TOTAL: 5,521

Approximate organization strength of the major types of the German Army divisions in 1942:
Panzer Division Tanks: 142 - 213 (10-15 PzKpfw II, 88-132 PzKpfw III, 44-66 PzKpfw IV)

http://ww2-weapons.com/Armies/Germany/W ... t/1942.htm

Not yet much to report about the Air War over Germany has it just started.

Reading other's reports it seems that it does not work in v1.4 as intended. In v1.5 I will try to improve it.

I have captured Leningrad on turn 16 and the frontline, which is continuous in this area is a bit to the east, However 1 Soviet SMG infantry poped out of nowhere (I reloaded and lifted the FoW just to be sure) just in the middle of my troops refitting in Leningrad.

Obviously it is a bug, it should not happen. I managed to find such a unit, which might be the culprit, but it is a Regular Inf and not an SMG. Anyway, I fixed that one.

Leningrad is harder to take, but somehow I improved my tactics in this area, and I captured earlier than in BE 1.3 in FM where I took it in August 42.

In v1.5 the Soviets will send some troops to help the defense once the Axis take at least one flag. The only question is wheter they can get there on time from the Ural. (Probably not, but then they would try to recapure it.) The other option is to add more Soviets spawning near the city, but it would lead to such unwanted events as above.

I think Malta and Gibraltar are a bit easy to capture, considering that it didn't happen historically. What about increasing their forts strength a little to delay their capture?

Good idea. And I also added some entrenchment. It will take time to reduce it.

I just realized that submarine have a range of 2,
It may be ok for naval combat, but in ship mode they can bomb land based target 2 hexs away, which feel weird considering that destroyer cannot do that. IMO destroyer were better at shore bombardment than submarine.

True. Will change that to 0.

I didnt realise gme was required, surely then it should list this in the 'requirements' section of the single player campaigns sticky where it is listed.

It is not required, but highly recommended. If you have problems installing the mod properly with GME you can try the "hard way" without it as written in the readme:

Using JSGME is highly recommended. Alternatively, you can copy the contents of the Panzer Corps folder to a new folder for this mod and simply overwrite the corresponding folders with the contents of this zip.

In other words create a new folder somewhere in your computer, e.g. in C:\Program Files\ named "Battlefield Europe" (or anything else), so that there would be a folder "C:\Program Files\Battlefield Europe". Then locate and copy all the contents of your Panzer Corps folder, i.e. all the files and folders within it like Audio, Auto Play, Data etc. to this new folder. In this way you will have an exact copy of your Panzer Corps installation in another folder. Then open the folder Battlefield Europe v1.4 (or 1.3 or whatever) within the zip and copy all of its contents i.e. the Audio, Data, etc. to the new folder with the copy of your Panzer Corps you just created so that the modified files and folders overwrite the original ones. Then you can add the PanzerCorps.exe file from the C:\Program Files\Battlefield Europe folder to the desktop with the /nocahce switch as described in the readme to start the mod. Then, when you are fed up with this mod you just have to delete the "C:\Program Files\Battlefield Europe" folder.

After taking Leningrad and garrisoning it, I had a Soviet 10-Regular pop up behind the lines and attack the city.

I think it is the same unit that Delta66 reported as well. I fixed it anyway, thanks.

Similarly, I had a Soviet 10-Regular pop up on the road from Yerevan to Tabriz, both of which I own. Both appeared during the Soviet Turn 15

Thanks, I have fixed it, too. I just did not expect that some smart players would get that far that early.

The mod is excellent. Wish I could play the Soviets, but that must be a game limitation (I've only had this about 5 weeks).

It is not, I might make an allied version later, but it will take a long-long time. Until then you can try bebro's Inferno campaign or wait for the Soviet Strom mod by Akkula or the coming official Soviet Corps.

Hi! Before anything, thanks for this great and incredible mod!!!

Hi, and welcome to our little modding workshop!

As for the ideas, I stumbled upon this one - probably, the fuel concept might be implemented for the submarines, refillable near the ports, to be able to limit the subs operation... What do you think? With white/red dots system, like for planes.

Sure, it could be great, but it seems to be hard-coded: currently only air units get the red dots to indicate the limited remaining fuel. So I could reduce the range of U-boats, but then players would not know how far they can wander without running out ot fuel. Thus U-boats have a fairly long range to avoid it. However, they will run out of torpedoes fairly quickly.

Another one is the national SE divisions... Historically they used to exist, as well as these might serve to enhance the auxiliary units number.

Currently I work on a full revise of the OOBs so a few units might change. However, I do not intend to make major changes as it would change the existing balance and difficulty level.

And finally, I would like to share with you my concern about the prestige points as well... Probably, each major city under control might generate some prestige points each turn? So to provide steady income depending on the size?

Then the mod would be easier and easier as the player captures more and more major victory objectives. Instead, I would like to have some climax in the end and to keep it challanging and interesting until the last turn. Also, having a bigger and bigger empire should require more and more resources (security units, administration, logistic support, etc.) and in the end it would probably cost more than it brings in. Thus the player only gets a one time prestige award for the capture of those major objectives, which would simulate both the increase in moral and the plunder of the city.

Hmm and a doubt... If I strategically bomb a ground unit, that does not lose fuel/ammo anymore?

It does, but it is just not displayed. Quote from the mod's Library:

Limited unit information
Following Chris10's original idea, I limited the available information on enemy units: the actual amount of ammunition and fuel of the enemy units is no longer visible when the player hovers the cursor over them. In WW2 it was impossible to know how much fuel and ammunition the enemy had at any given time, and it should be like that in the game as well. Only the maximum ammo and fuel of the unit is known and the player has to make guesses about the actual numbers. However, due to game engine limitations, the same applies to the player's units. So in order to learn how much fuel and ammo the Axis units have the player has to select the given unit by (left)clicking on it. This will reveal the actual numbers in the left unit information window. Since the player cannot select enemy units, their actual ammo and fuel will remain hidden.

[carramba66]

A little bug, maybe reported yet:

In 1942 Romanians did change the side (because of soviet tanks on the romanian borders). It takes about three turns to pacify them with hungarian forces, but the next turn I was surprised when they (Romanians) announce another mobilisation for help Third Reich to fight against Soviet Union...

Thanks

[hugh2711]

Manual (non-GME) installation works great!
many thanks for your help and (once again) for your AWESOME mod.

[Delta66]

There may be an issue with the trigger for pop up message for the Dieppe landing in mid 1942, the message saying:
"Allied force has landed at Dieppe....' it appear not on the first turn of the raid when the Churchill tank land, but later when the accompanying infantry land, which might be several turn later if you immediately send your french tanks to contest the landing. In my game the message appeared in November on turn 34 although the landing actually happened several turn before.

The Allied air war over Germany doesn't seems to works as intended. at the end of 1942 I didn't encountered Allied Bomber east of Kiel, actually they mostly raid the Brittany region in westernmost France. (too bad I have parked most of my AA guns in western Germany ).

It's good to have made the Vichy french garrisons in Morocco as 'no move' to limit abuse of those unit. However this leave only one port available to refuel your fleet in this area. Most of the time this is ok. Unless you have a big fleet. Maybe you could move one of the garrison adjacent to a port instead of in a port to free a second port for ships. Just musing.

This time I captured Leningrad from the south with the Germans, (and massive air support of 6 bombers and 2 fighters) which feel more natural. So the way you make the northern attack by the Finns more difficult is quite good IMO. Adding a Soviet counterattack not too big) in the south as you suggested could be just fine.

[McGuba]

A little bug, maybe reported yet:

In 1942 Romanians did change the side (because of soviet tanks on the romanian borders). It takes about three turns to pacify them with hungarian forces, but the next turn I was surprised when they (Romanians) announce another mobilisation for help Third Reich to fight against Soviet Union...

Thanks

Well, yeah lol, Romania just keep changing sides... which should not be the case... it should only change side a maximum of one time during the duration of the war... I will look into it.

There may be an issue with the trigger for pop up message for the Dieppe landing in mid 1942, the message saying:
"Allied force has landed at Dieppe....' it appear not on the first turn of the raid when the Churchill tank land, but later when the accompanying infantry land, which might be several turn later if you immediately send your french tanks to contest the landing. In my game the message appeared in November on turn 34 although the landing actually happened several turn before.

OK, I will fix it: the message would come up when any Canadian ground unit lands in France.

The Allied air war over Germany doesn't seems to works as intended. at the end of 1942 I didn't encountered Allied Bomber east of Kiel, actually they mostly raid the Brittany region in westernmost France. (too bad I have parked most of my AA guns in western Germany ).

Yeah, by now I am fully aware of it. As I described earlier, even though those bombers are set to patrol the objective cities in Germany, if there is another target of opportunity within their movement range the AI seems to prefer to attack it with the bombers instead going against the cities. What I will try to do in v1.5 is adding more bombers to appear in the same turn, in which case some of those would continue to go against those other targets, while others will hopefully go against the cities as there would be no more remaining targets of opportunity for them. We will see.

t's good to have made the Vichy french garrisons in Morocco as 'no move' to limit abuse of those unit. However this leave only one port available to refuel your fleet in this area. Most of the time this is ok. Unless you have a big fleet. Maybe you could move one of the garrison adjacent to a port instead of in a port to free a second port for ships. Just musing.

Actually I am planning to make the territory of Vichy France and Vichy N Africa neutral (inaccessible) until Nov 42. To be honest, I do not like the fact that people can occupy and dig in in Tunisia prior to the Allied invasion without problem as it is very unhistorical. Also, I am not sure if the Axis were allowed to use Vichy French ports in N Africa between 1940-42. After all Vichy France was kinda neutral. Do you (or anyone else) have any information about Axis naval units "officially" using those Vichy French ports? In that case I could make some of those accessible for the Axis navy.

This time I captured Leningrad from the south with the Germans, (and massive air support of 6 bombers and 2 fighters) which feel more natural. So the way you make the northern attack by the Finns more difficult is quite good IMO. Adding a Soviet counterattack not too big) in the south as you suggested could be just fine.

Right, so far someone said it is still too easy, for others it is impossible, for you it is just about all right. Thus I think I will leave it like this for now. Plus some limited Soviet counter attacks.

[Delta66]

Actually I am planning to make the territory of Vichy France and Vichy N Africa neutral (inaccessible) until Nov 42. To be honest, I do not like the fact that people can occupy and dig in in Tunisia prior to the Allied invasion without problem as it is very unhistorical. Also, I am not sure if the Axis were allowed to use Vichy French ports in N Africa between 1940-42. After all Vichy France was kinda neutral. Do you (or anyone else) have any information about Axis naval units "officially" using those Vichy French ports? In that case I could make some of those accessible for the Axis navy.

I was thinking about something like that a few days ago, I was just wondering if the system allows to change an area status from neutral to playable in the middle of a scenario.
IMO it would be the best solution, Vichy Southern France and Vichy North Africa, should be more or less taboo, until November 1942, and the Torch landing.
Then if possible as soon as the landing happens Southern France flags should switch to Germans, maybe add a Germans units (Motorcycle infantry, or armored car) around Lyon in Middle of France to 'invade' the southern zone. I think Tunisia should similarly turn Germans, and Morocco and Algeria remain French.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

t's good to have made the Vichy french garrisons in Morocco as 'no move' to limit abuse of those unit. However this leave only one port available to refuel your fleet in this area. Most of the time this is ok. Unless you have a big fleet. Maybe you could move one of the garrison adjacent to a port instead of in a port to free a second port for ships. Just musing.

Actually I am planning to make the territory of Vichy France and Vichy N Africa neutral (inaccessible) until Nov 42. To be honest, I do not like the fact that people can occupy and dig in in Tunisia prior to the Allied invasion without problem as it is very unhistorical. Also, I am not sure if the Axis were allowed to use Vichy French ports in N Africa between 1940-42. After all Vichy France was kinda neutral. Do you (or anyone else) have any information about Axis naval units "officially" using those Vichy French ports? In that case I could make some of those accessible for the Axis navy.

Sorry to spoil your plans, but I'm afraid that isn't possible. I tried something similar in War of the World and again in the large WWI map and worked this out:

You can make something become neutral (play the WWI large map beta and don't move Goeben or Breslau to see this happen in turn 5-6), but can't make a neutral tile become beligerent.

However, you could make all of those tiles be set up to take 20 strength off of any Axis unit that enters and set the trigger to turn [1,xx] (xx = Nov 42).

- BNC

[McGuba]

I was thinking about something like that a few days ago, I was just wondering if the system allows to change an area status from neutral to playable in the middle of a scenario.

Sorry to spoil your plans, but I'm afraid that isn't possible. I tried something similar in War of the World and again in the large WWI map and worked this out:

Yesterday I ran a test and it seemed to work nicely. You just have to untick the neutral marker in the hex action script like this:

hexact.jpg (82.23 KiB) Viewed 4798 times

which would do the trick.

IMO it would be the best solution, Vichy Southern France and Vichy North Africa, should be more or less taboo, until November 1942, and the Torch landing.
Then if possible as soon as the landing happens Southern France flags should switch to Germans, maybe add a Germans units (Motorcycle infantry, or armored car) around Lyon in Middle of France to 'invade' the southern zone. I think Tunisia should similarly turn Germans, and Morocco and Algeria remain French.

Yeah, it will be something like that if all goes well. However, Tunisia will not turn into German as it would make its defense far too easy: you could buy lots of German units on the site in the next turn and buy further ones as reinforcements when the Allies arrive. Instead, it will remain Vichy French, as Vichy France do not have any units available for purchase in the Tunisian cities, so the player has to transfer German units there from mainland Europe and/or from the Tobruk-Cairo area, like it happened historically. Which will lead to an interesting and historically accurate race between the Axis and Allies for the Vichy North African colonies.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

I was thinking about something like that a few days ago, I was just wondering if the system allows to change an area status from neutral to playable in the middle of a scenario.

Sorry to spoil your plans, but I'm afraid that isn't possible. I tried something similar in War of the World and again in the large WWI map and worked this out:

Yesterday I ran a test and it seemed to work nicely. You just have to untick the neutral marker in the hex action script like this:

hexact.jpg

which would do the trick.

Maybe it's been fixed since War of the World was made then! If I have assigned zones well enough, WWI Grand map shall be a lot more realistic

- BNC

[Delta66]

interesting about neutral area.

Italians units in Italy are often used in unhistorical fashion ended up massively in the eastern front (which is often much more than the historical expeditionary force in the Soviet Union) or anywhere else that suit the player strategy. Basically there is nothing to defend in Italy or Sicily at scenario start, so you can move all those troops out of Italy without any negative effect. What about giving less troops to the Italians at Barbarossa beginning and, giving them additional troops from time to time. In effect giving the same numbers of Italians troops as there are now, but more progressively. Keeping some freedom of deployment for Italians troops, especially for North Africa, but keeping it more under control.

[McGuba]

Hm, I have already started it: so far I removed 5 Italian ground units from mainland Italy and Sicily, but there are still 9 left. And as a compensation I added a Semovente 75 in early 42. Now I think I should carry on with it, and further reduce those Italian units at the start to like 2-3. I also made the Bersaglieri and Alpini units unpurchasable as there were only a few of these elite units, the bulk of the Italian army being much less effective normal infantry.

The thing is that, when I first placed those units, I used some historical OOBs, but it appears that many of those units only existed on paper. As wiki says:
"On paper Italy had one of the world's largest armies,[27] but the reality was the opposite. According to the estimates of Bierman and Smith, the Italian regular army could field only about 200,000 troops at the war's beginning."

So in 1941 there should only be N African forces, the Balkans occupation army and the Expedition Force in Russia.

Then in 1942 some more units would appear to increase the strenght of the Expedition Force to a full army, but it would only appear if the player takes a few Soviet objectives by then. Obviously these could also be sent elsewhere.

Then there should be some more units ready to be shipped to Tunisia in Nov 42 as the Italians sent some five divisions there that time.

And a few more should appear for the defense of Sicily.

However, while being more accurate historically, the side effect of these changes will be that making a DV will be much more difficult, if even possible. Which is not neccessarily a problem, as I believe that Germany had very little chance to defeat both Britain and the USSR in WW2.


What I could also do is to make Italy defect to the Allies triggered by the loss of Sicily. In that case the whole of the Italian army would disappear from the map, and in the next turn a few units would re-appear to represent the forces of the pro-German RSI, while a few Italian units would appear to fight for the Allies representing the Co-Belligerent forces. The reason while I did not do it was that I felt that it would be a bit too harsh, especially if the player spent lots of prestige before on upgrading the Italian army. I think some players would feel cheated in this case. On the other hand, historically the defection of Italy was truly devastating for Germany and a real turning point in the war. It would also make the defense of Tunisia/Sicily even more important in the mod.

[Delta66]

Your Ideas about Italy sound good.
About difficulty, each player seems to have its own opinion.Conquering either the Soviet Union or Great Britain should be a big achievement compared to the historical result. And Conquering both truly a great feat. As it is in 1.4 or 1.3 I think I can get a DV on Rommel, hard but possible. SO with FM or colonel it should be ok (yet challenging) for everyone.

I have checked the manual and the in game library, but I cannot found the exact effect of partisan and what precisely trigger the pp penalty. I think partisan units reduce pp by 50 to a max of 150. I'm not sure if the partisan unit needs to be adjacent to a rail line or to a axis flag to cause a -50pp penalty.
In FM I didn't really care about the detail, but in Rommel I'm so low on prestige, I found myself reduced to 100pp (instead of 250) on a few turn although i thought I was doing pretty well on anti partisan warfare.

[hugh2711]

It makes a big difference being able to go through the previous scenarios to the big one and import a small core; on general, AI level = 2 i am starting with 3K+ prestige (as oposed to 1.5K), a couple of extra 2 star fighters and a wulframen.

[hugh2711]

Also: what are the terrain values ( i.e. base entrenchment and initiative cap) of an oil field?

[Delta66]

Also: what are the terrain values ( i.e. base entrenchment and initiative cap) of an oil field?

I don't know the exact value, but
- you can see the initiative cap, in the detailed combat log ('L' key) after a combat.
- for the base entrenchment value just put one of your unit in the hex and check the entrenchment value in the right side bar on the next turn.

[Longshanks]

I'm very impressed with the way you are handling the various issues that testers come up with. Here's another for you to consider. Very early in the game, I sent an invasion fleet (and airborne troops) of about 10 units from Romania to the Turkish border area, landing two units at a time to avoid spotting from nearby Russian units. The whole army was landed and advanced eastwards down the valleys, taking Tibilsi, Yerevan, and Tabriz along the way to Iraq (which was the destination). Had to fight a few Russian units next to the rail line, but NONE OF THE REST RESPONDED. This is the problem I think. Whether the Axis could have pulled off such an invasion is unknown, but having done it, I'm quite sure the Soviets would have reacted with whatever they had in the region and would have drafted emergency units like they did in 42 when the Germans approached.

I subsequently walked into Iraq, attacked and took Kirkuk and none of the units in Iraq responded. I know those units are pre-placed and aren't necessarily really there yet, but something would have been, especially after the Allies knew of the invasion of southern Russia.

Finally (and this is probably moot if you fix all the above), after I advanced on Baghdad, a contingent of Allied forces popped behind me in the area between Kirkuk and Baghdad. This was around turn 25 or so.

[Longshanks]

In another situation, I also invaded Iceland very early in the game, taking the extreme northern route. Along the way there is one destroyer there, which my advance subs hit and took out. So, the allies didn't know the attack was coming (although I suspect they really would have increased patrols up there). After I hit Iceland, there was no Allied reaction. The fleets around England stayed put (I had fog of war off to watch). Seems like you need a reaction trigger for this.

After Iceland, I sent the whole Kriegsmarine into the English Channel, shelling and sinking the BBs there. No reaction (a couple of bombing attacks against DDs). I destroyed the strongpoints and the radar. No reaction. Now I'm working my way around to the west side of Northern Ireland to invade there during Fall 1942. Seems you need a reaction trigger for such actions too.

Love your work! You've made a "whatever" game into to one worth playing.