Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.5.1

[McGuba]

It's a pity the mod can't start in something like 39 or 40 and give the player more freedom in what to do strategically.

In that case the Allied player in multiplayer would get super frustrated by 1942-43, the first time he has some chance to stop the Wehrmacht. Even with the current mid-1941 starting time there were some unhappy voices that the Allied side can do nothing meaningful for a while just watch how his units are destroyed by the dozen in each turn.

I dusted off my old copy of CEAW today to have a go at WW2 grand strategy again. Unfortunately it feels shallow compared to BE.

Thanks, I take it as a compliment!

But since I tried first the Allied side while playing myself (for multi training) and later playing with Alex and McGuba I have now the motivation also strong with the Allied.

I feel the same. I got to the point when I enjoy playing any side equally as both have lots of interesting units and strategic options. There are many ways to win and to lose for both the Axis and Allies, which is fun. And hopefully the possibilities and the balance with improve with the next coming release.

one time i managed to take moscow (out of my 3 MP matches), it was not even one of my main objectives, and I moved towards it in a more cautious way

It is because your success also depends on the strategy that your opponent follows. Perhaps in this particular case he did not allocate too many units for the defense of Moscow. And in the end, as they say, no plan can survive first contact with the enemy. Or something like that.

@McGuba: unfortunately, the Black Sea hexes off the coast of Constanța/Danube Delta don't seem to count to your "3 hex away from border post" rule?

Hm... the message says it clearly... or doesn't it?

sample04.jpg (151.68 KiB) Viewed 4636 times

But anyway, even without the exact wording of the message one should assume that the Soviet High Command expects you to attack the waves of the invaders and not the waves of the Black Sea.

One should not expect to cheat Uncle Joe so easily and get away with it.

[slowgtp]

McGuba was curious about at because one of the other pesky things about starting the scenario is those Soviet bombers that immediately start showing up and if they make it through my lines they fly pretty much to france lol

[PeteMitchell]

Yes, I guess it says it clearly... Will just need to keep it in mind as it happened to me the second time now

[Uhu]

Me a pro? And how is named, who beat the pro?
OK, probably I'm a pro in single, but in multi I still learning.

I think, Moscow has to be captured, otherways the Soviets will have a strong concentration here, from where they can later counterattack. But the approach should be different in single as in multi: while you must drive as fast as possible in the single game, in the multi, you have do this with caution, otherwise, you will get high and painful losses.
On the other hand, maybe it is even a bigger question, if it is worth to defend Moscow with the Soviets. And if yes, how strong and how long?

The Kiev encirclement can be and must done, but also with caution. With Pete it was really interesting scenario, where he defended the Kiev area and the south with absolute agressive tactics. It made me a big surprise and a lot of casualties, but in the end it was questionable if it was worth - I still destroyed all of the units in the encirclement area and also many others in the southern region (oh, it would be so nice to make AAR's - but it needs so much time!).

I wouldn't call myself a pro in PzC or BE... that's Uhu for example

However, all I can say, I think for me it depends on the overall situation along the entire front line... personally, I think it is very hard to hold the Kiev pocket/Donbass area further south, Moscow and Leningrad all at the same time... in the same way it is very hard to successfully attack all three of them simultaneously.

If you can capture and hold Moscow, it has some payoff (i.e. less reinforcements for SU early on) but by doing so you also unfreeze some other units all over the place... on the other side, if you can't close the Kiev pocket in time... you will have your hands full in the south for some time in 1942...

While time is against you in any way...

[Uhu]

What do you mean with premium? Scarce? Surely! On both sides! But I think, anyway, in BE, one of the success factor is to learn carefully and smart use of the given prestige. ...Plus make as much as possible with town and unit captures!

One thing I noticed is that prestige is certainly at a premium. Jeez.

[alexfilip]

yeah. going from v2.0 with 6000 prestige in SP to MP in v2.14 with less than 1000 in MP was a punch in the gut

@McGubba regarding the strategic possibilities. I hear ya! In case the game would be made to start earlier, then the allied player should also be given the option to change things around (make Norway a bloodbath, inflict heavy losses on axis in france, maybe make the axis lose their navy in the med earlier etc). I agree that at the current time, the opening moves for the allies are rather boring, but also understand the base limitations of the thing.

if this were to ever be done, i guess it would have to be with a) lots of starting prestige for both sides, and b) few starting units (would deployment areas become an issue then?). Then the allied player would have the choice of (spend prestige in poland vs spend prestige in france, bump up the BEF or the RAF, etc...)
Big map, early starting date, on first turn axis player is not allowed to move, only place units, in order to let the ally do the same, then the fun begins. and it would most likely not work in SP, only MP. I don't know anything about coding or mod creation, so not trying to bash the mod, I love it, just thinking out loud 'what it'. Will keep playing MP after I am done getting as a**-whooping from Uhu and Pete.

Thought experiment - what would happen if you were to make a simple mod with early starting date, Just equipment file and large map, and no units at all on the ground/air, and its up to the two MP players to buy all the units starting in '39? Perhaps there are ways to progressively allow countries to join the war (maybe house rules like no invading romania/hungary/finland before they are supposed to join the war). Then the game would not only be one about strategic movement, but also strategic purchases.

[Uhu]

yeah. going from v2.0 with 6000 prestige in SP to MP in v2.14 with less than 1000 in MP was a punch in the gut

On Rommel diff. it's only 3000. But if somebody can play smart playing from Poland and it can be increased a lot of (many unit capturings and maximizing the secondary town captures).

[McGuba]

McGuba was curious about at because one of the other pesky things about starting the scenario is those Soviet bombers that immediately start showing up and if they make it through my lines they fly pretty much to france lol

Ah, you mean in the single player version? Sorry, I am just a bit confused as now we are talking about both the single and the multiplayer version here in paralel and the two are quite different by now.

But in any case, the attack of Berlin by Soviet bombers in 1941 is a (little known) historical fact and not my "invention" so there is nothing wrong with it:
https://www.rbth.com/history/328995-sov ... omb-berlin

So yes, it did happen in reality and it was indeed extremely annoying to the German leadership even though its actual military value was minimal. Same as with the US Doolitlle raid against Tokyo.

They should not move toward France, though, but if do they disappear once they reach the British airfields so they cannot get refueled there to return. In theory after reaching Berlin from Saarema or the airfields of Leningrad, the Soviet bombers could have moved to British airfields as that distance was a little shorter than going home. Howevr, at that time there was no such agreement between the two Allied nations so if following the bombing of Berlin the Soviet bombers end up in Britain they are interned.

yeah. going from v2.0 with 6000 prestige in SP to MP in v2.14 with less than 1000 in MP was a punch in the gut

I felt that 4-6000 in the beginning is way too much. It also raises the question if the Germans have so much prestige (= money, resources, industrial capacity, etc.) why they would no not raise an even bigger army for the invasion of the SU and make their job easier? It think it is more plausible to assume that they used all their available resources to raise an army as big as possible and then there is very little left in reserve/savings.

Thought experiment - what would happen if you were to make a simple mod with early starting date, Just equipment file and large map, and no units at all on the ground/air, and its up to the two MP players to buy all the units starting in '39?

Yes, maybe I will do it for fun later. But until now I have been more obsessed with historical accuracy and to find out if there was any chance of an Axis victory had they followed a different strategy after June 1941, when the war became a really full-scale European war with basically every nation involved in one way or another. Hence the name "Battlefield: Europe". It is a completely different question and scenario if we are talking about an April/May 1940 or September 1939 or whatever starting date. In theory we can go back to 1938, 1936, 1933 or even 1920. Each year was an important turning point in politics. But if so, why not start 1914?
http://kukgen.tripod.com/

So yes, it is of course doable, but I still have lots of other things on my list and foremost the current multiplayer version should reach a stage when we can claim that it is more or less equally difficult to achieve a victory by any of the two sides. That would be the "short term"(?) goal. And it requires several more full multiplayer matches ideally by several more players. After that I still have other things and requests, like making the Spanish civil war replace the vanilla tutorial or improving the current single scenario in various way by using the new exe with 256 AI zones.

[alexfilip]

fair enough

[Uhu]

I felt that 4-6000 in the beginning is way too much. It also raises the question if the Germans have so much prestige (= money, resources, industrial capacity, etc.) why they would no not raise an even bigger army for the invasion of the SU and make their job easier? It think it is more plausible to assume that they used all their available resources to raise an army as big as possible and then there is very little left in reserve/savings.

I would say, it is also not needed: the Axis cannot buy anything because of the 175 limit. There is also not much of upgrade, except a few units. Also the Axis gets a lot of prestige by capturing many towns and some units. The first hard time comes about at the winter of 41, when the older panzers should be upgraded and the losses of the Russian winter should be also replaced which cost also a lot of.

[Uhu]

OK, I finally digitalized a Schedule list for the Axis and partly for the Allied! There could be some changes, since McGuba is developing always something. But it is mostly uptodate. There could be also useful to make a trigger-list for MP gameplay too, but it would be a harder task as I do not have any, just some in my head.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

The "+" indicates extra unit, without "+" means that it is available. Weather is showed when there are big, static changes. From Allied side I just wrote a few important ones. It can be refreshed though.


Example:
4., 50 AT, + Italian Arm 1, + Brandenburgers
5., + FW 190A (hero)
6., + Ju.87D (Africa), + Bf 190F-4 (hero, Africa)
7., + PzIIC, + PzIIIE (both released)
8., Pz IIIJ, Do-217E (no more Do-17 reinforcements), + MC.202 (hero)
9., RAIN, Stu IIIE, + Tirpitz
10., RAIN, MUD, + Sub (Kiel)
11., CLOUDS, MUD,  Fw 190A-2, Ju.87D (+t)
12., SNOWFALL, SNOW, SiG 33 (+tropical version too), -1 WINTER Strenghts
13., SNOWFALL, + parachute mines, + T-34, -1 WINTER Strenghts, (Allied SU counter-attack!)
14., SNOWFALL, 15cm Arty, 2x Chetnicks Inf, + ... Inf, -1 WINTER Strenghts
15., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW, + Semovente 75/18
16., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW
...

[alexfilip]

wow, thanks Uhu!!!

[Maths]

Hello everybody,
Something must be wrong with my installation but some Graphics/Units icons are missing. I've fixed some but it happens stangely often espacially as the concerned units are "basic".
Dowloaded the 2.14 version from this topic's first post.
Afaik here is the list of missing icons : pak36 (eu), pak38 (eu), somua 35, 15cm Nebelwerfer, 232 8rad(eu), panhard recon, karl gerat 040.
Tell me if those are known issues with 2.14 because I never had this problem with earlier versions.
Greetings

[slowgtp]

OK, I finally digitalized a Schedule list for the Axis and partly for the Allied! There could be some changes, since McGuba is developing always something. But it is mostly uptodate. There could be also useful to make a trigger-list for MP gameplay too, but it would be a harder task as I do not have any, just some in my head.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

The "+" indicates extra unit, without "+" means that it is available. Weather is showed when there are big, static changes. From Allied side I just wrote a few important ones. It can be refreshed though.


Example:
4., 50 AT, + Italian Arm 1, + Brandenburgers
5., + FW 190A (hero)
6., + Ju.87D (Africa), + Bf 190F-4 (hero, Africa)
7., + PzIIC, + PzIIIE (both released)
8., Pz IIIJ, Do-217E (no more Do-17 reinforcements), + MC.202 (hero)
9., RAIN, Stu IIIE, + Tirpitz
10., RAIN, MUD, + Sub (Kiel)
11., CLOUDS, MUD,  Fw 190A-2, Ju.87D (+t)
12., SNOWFALL, SNOW, SiG 33 (+tropical version too), -1 WINTER Strenghts
13., SNOWFALL, + parachute mines, + T-34, -1 WINTER Strenghts, (Allied SU counter-attack!)
14., SNOWFALL, 15cm Arty, 2x Chetnicks Inf, + ... Inf, -1 WINTER Strenghts
15., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW, + Semovente 75/18
16., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW
...

Ive never seen the Stuka in Africa

[PeteMitchell]

Hello everybody,
Something must be wrong with my installation but some Graphics/Units icons are missing. I've fixed some but it happens stangely often espacially as the concerned units are "basic".
Dowloaded the 2.14 version from this topic's first post.
Afaik here is the list of missing icons : pak36 (eu), pak38 (eu), somua 35, 15cm Nebelwerfer, 232 8rad(eu), panhard recon, karl gerat 040.
Tell me if those are known issues with 2.14 because I never had this problem with earlier versions.
Greetings

When you say "wrong"... what is happening? When graphics are missing, PzC usually crashes...

[Uhu]

OK, I finally digitalized a Schedule list for the Axis and partly for the Allied! There could be some changes, since McGuba is developing always something. But it is mostly uptodate. There could be also useful to make a trigger-list for MP gameplay too, but it would be a harder task as I do not have any, just some in my head.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

The "+" indicates extra unit, without "+" means that it is available. Weather is showed when there are big, static changes. From Allied side I just wrote a few important ones. It can be refreshed though.


Example:
4., 50 AT, + Italian Arm 1, + Brandenburgers
5., + FW 190A (hero)
6., + Ju.87D (Africa), + Bf 190F-4 (hero, Africa)
7., + PzIIC, + PzIIIE (both released)
8., Pz IIIJ, Do-217E (no more Do-17 reinforcements), + MC.202 (hero)
9., RAIN, Stu IIIE, + Tirpitz
10., RAIN, MUD, + Sub (Kiel)
11., CLOUDS, MUD,  Fw 190A-2, Ju.87D (+t)
12., SNOWFALL, SNOW, SiG 33 (+tropical version too), -1 WINTER Strenghts
13., SNOWFALL, + parachute mines, + T-34, -1 WINTER Strenghts, (Allied SU counter-attack!)
14., SNOWFALL, 15cm Arty, 2x Chetnicks Inf, + ... Inf, -1 WINTER Strenghts
15., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW, + Semovente 75/18
16., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW
...

Ive never seen the Stuka in Africa

I looked it in the editor, it can come between turn 6-12.

[slowgtp]

OK, I finally digitalized a Schedule list for the Axis and partly for the Allied! There could be some changes, since McGuba is developing always something. But it is mostly uptodate. There could be also useful to make a trigger-list for MP gameplay too, but it would be a harder task as I do not have any, just some in my head.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

The "+" indicates extra unit, without "+" means that it is available. Weather is showed when there are big, static changes. From Allied side I just wrote a few important ones. It can be refreshed though.


Example:
4., 50 AT, + Italian Arm 1, + Brandenburgers
5., + FW 190A (hero)
6., + Ju.87D (Africa), + Bf 190F-4 (hero, Africa)
7., + PzIIC, + PzIIIE (both released)
8., Pz IIIJ, Do-217E (no more Do-17 reinforcements), + MC.202 (hero)
9., RAIN, Stu IIIE, + Tirpitz
10., RAIN, MUD, + Sub (Kiel)
11., CLOUDS, MUD,  Fw 190A-2, Ju.87D (+t)
12., SNOWFALL, SNOW, SiG 33 (+tropical version too), -1 WINTER Strenghts
13., SNOWFALL, + parachute mines, + T-34, -1 WINTER Strenghts, (Allied SU counter-attack!)
14., SNOWFALL, 15cm Arty, 2x Chetnicks Inf, + ... Inf, -1 WINTER Strenghts
15., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW, + Semovente 75/18
16., CLOUDY/SNOWFALL, SNOW
...

Ive never seen the Stuka in Africa

I looked it in the editor, it can come between turn 6-12.

Is it just multiplayer? Becasuse I've simply never seen it in singleplayer

[Uhu]

Is it just multiplayer? Becasuse I've simply never seen it in singleplayer

Probably yes. But you can also look at it, if you open the Kursk...pzscn files with the editor.

[PeteMitchell]

I only remember Italian bombers but not a Stuka in that area... I might be wrong though...
MP is a different pzscn file than SP

[Maths]

Hello everybody,
Something must be wrong with my installation but some Graphics/Units icons are missing. I've fixed some but it happens stangely often espacially as the concerned units are "basic".
Dowloaded the 2.14 version from this topic's first post.
Afaik here is the list of missing icons : pak36 (eu), pak38 (eu), somua 35, 15cm Nebelwerfer, 232 8rad(eu), panhard recon, karl gerat 040.
Tell me if those are known issues with 2.14 because I never had this problem with earlier versions.
Greetings

When you say "wrong"... what is happening? When graphics are missing, PzC usually crashes...

The installation is OK : no window stating that something is missing. I thought the problem might be with the installation as anybody else seem to have this issue.
When I started a new game in SP I read the first in-game messages, I started to move units and then I saw that the icons I've listed above were missing (Big Unit pictures are working though). That is only the unit ON-MAP icon which is missing (png file in Graphics\Units) because these png pictures were simply absent in the Graphics\Units
Was that clear ? My english is kinda rough
Greetings