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

[Turtler]

Honestly, both the "Ghost" units and prestige knocks feel like poor solutions. After all, they're fundamentally artificial and implemented "just cause" rather than organically emerging from the game, and that means they're also going to poorly adapt to changing or ahistorical circumstances (I get dinged prestige/can't move troops out of Norway even after Britain and Leningrad have fallen?!?! Insane).

The old War of the World II mod I think did it better, with periodic rebellions or guerilla actions. That isn't quite as workable in Norway, but maybe a script to check how many units you have in the VP points or a given area, and the chance to spawn enemy units based on how many are(n't) there?

[PeteMitchell]

Honestly, both the "Ghost" units and prestige knocks feel like poor solutions. After all, they're fundamentally artificial and implemented "just cause" rather than organically emerging from the game, and that means they're also going to poorly adapt to changing or ahistorical circumstances (I get dinged prestige/can't move troops out of Norway even after Britain and Leningrad have fallen?!?! Insane).

The old War of the World II mod I think did it better, with periodic rebellions or guerilla actions. That isn't quite as workable in Norway, but maybe a script to check how many units you have in the VP points or a given area, and the chance to spawn enemy units based on how many are(n't) there?

I like the idea of periodic rebellions or guerilla actions!

[McGuba]

Technically it would be possible to set the random appearance of partisan units based on the number of occupation forces in a given area.

But I think there are two problems with it:

1) It could only work with PzC v1.32 as it would require several additional AI zones designated to this purpose. But the problem with PzC v1.32 is that it is still somewhat "unofficial", the latest official patch being v1.30, that's what PzC Gold is being shipped with and finding and installing v1.32 is not so obvious for casual/average players. On the other hand, the recommended version for BE is already 1.31 which comes after the latest official version. However, currently it is not a huge problem if someone plays the BE mod with PzC v1.30 instead of the recommended v1.31 as it still works with the official version, the only difference would be that bottom mines would not be able to attack submarines. So currently the BE mod is fully compatible with the latest official PzC 1.30. But if PzC v1.32 would be requested and not just recommended for running the mod (which would be the case if more AI zones would be used) than it would further limit the number of potential players due to the additional mumbo-jumbo needed for the proper installation of the mod. That's the main reason why I am still hesitant to switch to 1.32, although it would help a lot.

If only there was an official easy one-click install of PzC 1.32... but instead of that we only have a post hidden in an old topic, which contains a zip that contains two versions of the same exe, one for steam and one for non-steam and one of which has to be renamed manually and any of these have to be copied manually over the old exe. Not very user friendly.

2) It would be difficult to set the whole thing and to explain to the player what to expect. For example there are two German infantry units in Norway in turn 1. From a player's perspective it would be like this: OK, so what happens if I move one of these German infantry units away? I guess there should be an increased chance of partisan activity. But how much increased? Would it worth it? And then what if I transfer one of the German infantry units and replace it with an Italian? How would it affect the odds? And then again, compared to that, what if I transfer both German infantry units and replace one of them with an Italian and the other with a Romanian? Will the chance of partisans spawning be higher if there are 3 Minor Axis units instead of 2 Germans? If so, how much? So in the end, how many and what type of units should I keep there, to be on the safe side but not to waste resources?

I think it is easy to see that the possibilities and the questions are nearly endless. Then of course now we are only talking about Norway, but the same should happen with Yugoslavia, Poland and pretty much all the occupied areas. Each of these should have its own zone and its own requirement of minimum-maximum number of occupation units vs. partisans being spawned. I think this would cause total confusion to the player and in the end he would be more concerned about how much and what type of units he should keep in the occupied territories to minimize the partizan threat than about the actual offensive.

On the other hand, the advantage of having two infantry units in Norway which cannot be moved away, besides the easier technical implementation, would be in that case the player would not need to worry about the overall situation there as his choices would be limited in this regard. One less thing to worry about. But of course I am not saying this is the only way, just testing the public opinoin.

[goose_2]

Technically it would be possible to set the random appearance of partisan units based on the number of occupation forces in a given area.

McGuba I hate to bring this up here, but I know this is getting a lot of attention right now. Arato made me scared with his latest comment and his discussion on the broad cast yesterday. He swears there were only 2 fighters that he was allowed to do a cheap upgrade to an FW. Could you check your BE Mod to make sure that there are 3 units that can be cheaply upgraded or is it 2 and will need to be corrected on next update?

[Locarnus]

Technically it would be possible to set the random appearance of partisan units based on the number of occupation forces in a given area.

McGuba I hate to bring this up here, but I know this is getting a lot of attention right now. Arato made me scared with his latest comment and his discussion on the broad cast yesterday. He swears there were only 2 fighters that he was allowed to do a cheap upgrade to an FW. Could you check your BE Mod to make sure that there are 3 units that can be cheaply upgraded or is it 2 and will need to be corrected on next update?

@McGuba
Oh, and about that upgrade possiblity, what did you do to allow upgrades from units that do not start on the map?
Did you just remove the "JG" name requirement?

[PeteMitchell]

Part of the joy playing this mod, are the choices you can and have to make... taking too many of these away, will kill the mod IMHO...

Prevoiusly people asked for even more choices, such as alternative paths, e.g. having Spain or Turkey join the war for example, to increase replayability...

Well, it's your mod mod, the decision is yours of course.

[McGuba]

Technically it would be possible to set the random appearance of partisan units based on the number of occupation forces in a given area.

McGuba I hate to bring this up here, but I know this is getting a lot of attention right now. Arato made me scared with his latest comment and his discussion on the broad cast yesterday. He swears there were only 2 fighters that he was allowed to do a cheap upgrade to an FW. Could you check your BE Mod to make sure that there are 3 units that can be cheaply upgraded or is it 2 and will need to be corrected on next update?

I replied under the yt video. Basically any fighter moved to that airfield should be moved away in the next turn otherwise the script runs twice. Even if it is moved there when switched to air transport mode. If it is moved there in air transport mode and then "land" in the next turn technically it spends two turns over the airfield in "landed" mode because it is already in "landed" mode when being moved by an air transport. This results in the script running twice for one unit. I was unable to fix this due to game engine limitations.

@McGuba
Oh, and about that upgrade possiblity, what did you do to allow upgrades from units that do not start on the map?
Did you just remove the "JG" name requirement?

Yes, that's correct, that should do the trick.

Part of the joy playing this mod, are the choices you can and have to make... taking too many of these away, will kill the mod IMHO...

For sure, but I would like to leave in only those choices which are at least somewhat plausible. For example moving out all the occupation forces from France would have almost certainly resulted in a revolt. And the same could be said about other countries like Yugoslavia or Norway. Had the Germans moved all their occupation forces from these countries to the east in 1941 they would have almost certainly lost the war very quickly. So there are two ways to simulate it: making it actually happen, but that would require moving on to PzC 1.32 which may result in the loss of some of the players, or to have some units there all times which cannot be moved away. Another option is to assume that there are always a few "invisible" or "imaginary" occupation units which stay behind even if all the "real" units are moved away and they more or less keep control until the real partisans slowly take over. Currently it is more like this I think.

Prevoiusly people asked for even more choices, such as alternative paths, e.g. having Spain or Turkey join the war for example, to increase replayability...

Ah, yeah, people always want more and more and they are never happy. Some people even suggested that the Spanish Civil War should be added as well.

[Locarnus]

I replied under the yt video. Basically any fighter moved to that airfield should be moved away in the next turn otherwise the script runs twice. Even if it is moved there when switched to air transport mode. If it is moved there in air transport mode and then "land" in the next turn technically it spends two turns over the airfield in "landed" mode because it is already in "landed" mode when being moved by an air transport. This results in the script running twice for one unit. I was unable to fix this due to game engine limitations.

Ah, now I remember that issue, it came up before.
I wanted to try and change the unit class of those fighters in ferry mode to something else (even if it is just unit class 8=tac bomber), which might circumvent this issue (since it checks for "fighter class" units).
No wait, wasn't the last time such an issue came up about the exchange of strat bombers for fighters? Can't find the script right now, but I guess that one is looking for strat bombers. The ferry mode = tac bomber class might then also work for that?

[PeteMitchell]

Prevoiusly people asked for even more choices, such as alternative paths, e.g. having Spain or Turkey join the war for example, to increase replayability...
Ah, yeah, people always want more and more and they are never happy. Some people even suggested that the Spanish Civil War should be added as well.

The Spanish Civil War would perfectly fit into your series (Poland, Norway, France, Med) and it would enrich your mod...

[McGuba]

Ah, now I remember that issue, it came up before.
I wanted to try and change the unit class of those fighters in ferry mode to something else (even if it is just unit class 8=tac bomber), which might circumvent this issue (since it checks for "fighter class" units).
No wait, wasn't the last time such an issue came up about the exchange of strat bombers for fighters? Can't find the script right now, but I guess that one is looking for strat bombers. The ferry mode = tac bomber class might then also work for that?

Yes, it is the same fundamental problem. It doesn't really matter what class it is in "ferry" mode. Problem is it changes to "ferry" mode and then stays in it for two turns. One turn: movement/arrival over the arifield, second turn: "landing". Then it makes the script run twice, wasting one opportunity. So basically when being moved over the airfield in air transport mode the unit should not "land" in a second turn but moved away immediately in the next turn. I am just not sure how to explain it in plain and clear. Because it took me some time as well to understand what is happening.

[McGuba]

The Spanish Civil War would perfectly fit into your series (Poland, Norway, France, Med) and it would enrich your mod...

Yes, I agree. And maybe it will happen some time later. I am just not sure how to add it. I think it would better to have it replacing the tutorial campaign. Because if it comes before Poland it may indeed mess up the current prestige/experience/hero balance by the main scenario. As there could be too much of these. I remember when I added the extra Norway scenario I had to add a prestige reduction script to keep the prestige amount under control. And it wasn't very popular.

[Locarnus]

scratch that, I'm getting tired and not thinking clearly, what was written here would not have had any effect

edit: I guess the only thing left is splitting the one script into 3 scripts that each run once, targeting 3 different airfields! But that would be too much for this update at this time. Will have to keep that in mind for a future update.

[Turtler]

Another option is to assume that there are always a few "invisible" or "imaginary" occupation units which stay behind even if all the "real" units are moved away and they more or less keep control until the real partisans slowly take over. Currently it is more like this I think.

That makes a lot of sense. Garrison units are famously poorly equipped and immobile on the whole, not well equipped for pitched combat. But they are also around quite a lot. It also probably helps that many of the other assets such as-say- Gestapo, SD, ORVA, Collab Militias used as local guards are likewise "invisibly" represented, in that they're acting in the background doing unspeakable things that would be unsavory to show in a game but that (IDEALLY) help keep the areas pacified in lieu of more pressing issues.

Same way we don't have to drop lots of little units around to guard the major POW camps (or..... less savory camps) in order to prevent Colonel Hogan and his Heroes from revolting in Central Germany because "not enough guards." So this seems like the best.

Especially since such units and personnel are really not capable of posing much of a threat to the opposition (and if they were it'd be a special occasion worth representing with a unit, like the Polish Post Workers in Danzig).

[Locarnus]

Well, I have to make a cut somewhere and release the update.
Some late additions, like the "occupational forces rebalance" implementation as well as the 8.8cm BuFla are considered "experimental" for this update.
Imho they add quite a few interesting changes and gameplay opportunities and their experimental implementation allows future updates to draw from the experience of using them.

For Afrika Korps, all the scenarios of the "losing path" should now be compatible (including Malta).
A campaign tree can be found here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =244331746
I can't make any promises about making the "winning path" scenario compatible (at least not without a campaign restart in the future). There were so many unexpected issues already. Anyway, that will be something for the future.

2022-04 Download: https://bit.ly/3E40Q7p
Movement:
- "Countryside" terrain is now easily passable by "desert" units (only "clear" and "desert" terrain are affected by "desert" movement types)
- North-West Africa, Sicily, Italy, Greece/Balkans and the Caucasus now have mostly "countryside" terrain
- This provides some "interface" zone where both "normal" and "desert" movement units can operate without movement penalties
- Movement types adjusted, especially for some speed 2 unmotorized units (10.5cm LeG, 3.7cm Pak on roads)

Upgrades:
- Italian units now follow the same chassis based upgrade logic (eg cheap upgrades between Italian tanks and Semovente)
- All Pak are now in the same upgrade group (better "campaign" compatibility), much earlier 5cm Pak 38 availability
- Both of the Karl-Gerät types are now in the same upgrade group (for existing playthrough, use the cheat code to get the prestige difference back when upgrading)
- Some "available at" dates have been adjusted (usually earlier than in BE and closer to vanilla) to increase campaign compatibility and standardized treatment
- He 111 H-16 variant introduced as an in-family upgrade option for the He-111 (since He 177 is not in the same upgrade group anymore)
- 8.8cm BunkerFlak experimental implementation (no time to test properly, so for the time being I recommend house rules or waiting for next update)
- Corrected some in-game library information about upgrade groups (Pioniere, Brückenpioniere in same upgrade group with normal Wehrmacht and Grenadiere)
- A special thank you to guille1434 for even more of his icons (eg 2-figure Security inf, 8.8cm BuFla)!

Rebalancing:
- Panzerjäger I is now cheaper (thus more economical in the mobile anti-tank role), as are some Panzer III and IV variants
- 3.7cm and 5cm armed tanks (eg Panzer III) have better soft attack
- Short barreled 7.5cm vehicles have rebalanced HEAT rounds (StuG III E has weaker HEAT, others have HEAT rounds for the first time)
- Dual purpose fighter bombers can carry more fuel (thus higher range), when in fighter mode
- Italian fighters rebalanced with Afrika Korps campaign in mind (also including availability dates and upgrade groups), thanks to goose_2 for the feedback
- Lots of more minor bugs, omissions (eg unit pictures) and prices/stats corrected

Afrika Korps:
- AK: All scenarios on the "losing path" of AK now compatible and playable, including Malta (winning path will have to wait for future updates)
- AK: You can find the campaign tree (and thus the losing path scenario progression) here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =244331746
- AK: Additional core units given in the first scenarios (former aux units, core cap prevents any overuse)
- AK: Visually "clear" terrain is now functionally "countryside" terrain. This simply allows "desert" units to go over that terrain without penalties.
- AK: One of the Dash to the Wire (scenario 5) bonus units is now a Panzer IV instead of a Panzer III
- AK: Captured equipment starts at strength 5, reward and prize units (eg Dash to the Wire) start at strength ~7
- AK: Addon Advice messages at the start of several early scenarios
- A special thank you to goose_2 for his youtube feedback, which lead to several of the bug fixes and changes above

Battlefield Europe:
- Lots of units changed to aux, on the Battlefield Europe map (eg Finland and Hungary), increasing available core slots
- Experimental changes for Battlefield Europe scenario regarding occupational forces in mid 1941
- Fewer occupational units in France/BeNeLux at the start, they roughly appear at times when they were historically mobilized (eg for the Eastern Front)
- Another occupation unit in Norway, so there will probably still be some movement to the Eastern Front (from Norway and Denmark)
- Balkan/Greece occupational units and territories reworked (also including Jäger units and security infantry)
- Due to time constraints I'll have to revisit this in the future, hopefully based on feedback from this experimental implementation
- Thank you everyone who shared their ideas in the forum thread about this, especially McGuba who went into great detail!

[Locarnus]

That makes a lot of sense. Garrison units are famously poorly equipped and immobile on the whole, not well equipped for pitched combat. But they are also around quite a lot. It also probably helps that many of the other assets such as-say- Gestapo, SD, ORVA, Collab Militias used as local guards are likewise "invisibly" represented, in that they're acting in the background doing unspeakable things that would be unsavory to show in a game but that (IDEALLY) help keep the areas pacified in lieu of more pressing issues.

Same way we don't have to drop lots of little units around to guard the major POW camps (or..... less savory camps) in order to prevent Colonel Hogan and his Heroes from revolting in Central Germany because "not enough guards." So this seems like the best.

Especially since such units and personnel are really not capable of posing much of a threat to the opposition (and if they were it'd be a special occasion worth representing with a unit, like the Polish Post Workers in Danzig).

Agreed, invisible representation has quite a few benefits, given the game engine limitations.


About Afrika Korps:
I did not change too much in terms of balancing, to allow for comparability with vanilla Africa Corps playthroughs and difficulty settings.
There are several effects on the prestige balancing, in total prestige is probably a little tighter with the Addon:
1) No free replacements between scenarios, those cost 10% of the unit price (25% within a scenario, 50% elite between scenarios and 75% elite within a scenario). This also makes it less costly (in terms of opportunity costs) to use regular replacements within a scenario.
2) More "chassis family" cheap upgrade options. Eg between Panzer II, Marder II, Bison II (Sturmpanzer II).
3) However quite a few units are also more expensive compared to vanilla Panzer Corps (eg many Panzers). Which in turn makes reinforcements more expensive, especially considering that there are no free reinforcements between scenarios, see 1).
4) Some map adjustments were necessary for compatibility (eg a few more airfields, due to the lower range of air units in BE). Some of them were roughly compensated for.
5) The effect of optional scenarios (so far only Malta) imho had to be nerfed. So that there is not such a massive imbalance between those who do that optional scenario and those who don't.

Since vanilla campaigns usually shower the player in prestige (due to "underwhelming" prestige balancing), I consider "Rommel" (50% player prestige) to be the default difficulty.
You can take it up a notch with "FM Rommel" (field marshal + Rommel).

But imho the most interesting approach would be the usage of house rules:
Due to the vastly expanded unit variety of BE (and the Addon on top), a "1 unit per type" house rule should be possible:
A) Either in a stricter sense (eg only 1 StuG III, 1 Panzer III, and so on, perhaps with an exception for 2 Italian infantry)
B) Or on a "variant" basis (eg max 1 StuG III B, 1 StuG III E, and so on).

The latter approach would mean less restrictions, but would also lead to a more historically varied core, where not everything could be upgraded to the latest model.
It could also lead to some interesting gameplay choices, eg between an older variant of a better unit or a more modern variant of generally a weaker unit.

[McGuba]

Right, so currently I am revising all the German infantry in the BE mod. Thanks to Locarnus and the ideas discussed here, I have already added some new infantry unit types like Garnison, Sicherungs (Security), Leichte (Light) Infantry, Volksgrenadier and Jäger. So now basically all the historical infantry types are represented. But there is a problem with the existing vanilla "Grenadier" unit type. In short, it should not be called as such as it looks like historically the term "Grenadier" was used to the regiments of the regular non-motorized infantry divisions and only from late 1942. And not for motorized (heavy) infantry, as it is in the game.

It looks like in reality early in the war the Germans had the regular non-motorized infantry which was simply called "Infanterie" and which of course gave the bulk of the army. And then there was the motorized infantry which was called "Schützen". These were of course the motorized infantry divisions and the motorized infantry part of the armoured division (the Schützen Regiment).

Then in 1942 regular infantry or "Infanterie" regiments were renamed to "Grenadier" to improve morale, and "Schützen" regiments of the Panzer divisions were likewise renamed to "Panzergrenadier" for the same reason. However, at the divisional level they continued to use the term "Infanterie Division", but now it consisted of three "Greandier" regiments. So in reality the term "Grenadier" referred to the infantry regiments of the regular infantry divisions after mid 1942.

Also note that in the original Panzer General there was no unit with this name, instead there was a similar infantry unit named "Wehr HW", as there are such "HW" (supposedly meaning heavy) Allied infantry units in Panzer Corps. So it looks like this "Grenadier" unit name was an "invention" of the creators of Panzer Corps to be used for the motorized heavy infantry of Germany.

These are from German wiki pages:

The term "Schützen" was also used in the Wehrmacht. Here, the rifle troop was part of the "fast troops" and formed the infantry part of the early armored divisions. At that time, a tank division had a "Schützenbrigade" (rifle brigade), consisting of two "Schützenregimentern" (rifle regiments) and a motorcycle battalion. The designation was later changed to Panzergrenadiers, which also continues to exist in today's Bundeswehr.

After the invasion of Poland, the light divisions were reorganized into armored divisions, so that all infantry units were now referred to as "Schützen" (riflemen) . On July 5, 1942, these were renamed Panzergrenadiers, regardless of whether they had armored vehicles.

In the Wehrmacht, from October 15, 1942, ... almost all designations have been changed accordingly. Thus "Infantry regiments" became "Grenadier regiments". The measure was intended to raise morale. The divisions only kept their names from the division level.

Der Begriff „Schützen“ wurde auch in der Wehrmacht verwendet. Hierbei war die Schützentruppe ein Teil der „Schnellen Truppen“ und bildete den infanteristischen Anteil der frühen Panzerdivisionen. Eine Panzerdivision verfügte damals über je eine Schützenbrigade, bestehend aus zwei Schützenregimentern und einem Kradschützen-Bataillon. Später wurde die Bezeichnung in Panzergrenadiere geändert, die auch in der heutigen Bundeswehr fortbesteht.

Nach dem Überfall auf Polen wurden die leichten Divisionen in Panzerdivisionen umgegliedert, sodass nun alle infanteristischen Verbände als Schützen bezeichnet wurden. Am 5. Juli 1942 wurden diese dann in Panzergrenadiere umbenannt, unabhängig davon ob sie über gepanzerte Fahrzeuge verfügten.

In der Wehrmacht wurden ab 15. Oktober 1942, ... wurden fast alle Bezeichnungen entsprechend geändert. So wurden aus „Infanterie-Regimentern“ nunmehr „Grenadier-Regimenter“. Die Maßnahme sollte der Hebung der Moral dienen. Nur ab Divisionsstufe behielten die Divisionen ihren Namen.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%BC ... it%C3%A4r)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzergrenadier
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenadiere

So for now I am thinking to rename the existing "Grenadier" infantry unit to "Schützen", but it may be too strange sounding for the players as they got used to the seemingly incorrect name over the years. So perhaps renaming this unit to "Panzergrenadier" would make more sense but it would be less accurate historically as this term was only introduced in mid 1942. However, it would be still better to use than the current name "Grenadier", which was also introduced in 1942 and was used for regular non-motorized infantry regiments.

But then again, the current depiction of the German "Grenadier" unit (or whatever it should be called) as being a kind of heavy infantry may not be correct either. For in reality the infantry of the German motorized and armoured divisions had basically the same weapons and equipment as the regular infantry and as far as I know they did not have a higher ratio of heavy weapons. The only difference was that they had trucks (and a few half-tracks) for fast movement.

So perhaps besides renaming them to something else, it would make sense to change these to be more similar to regular infantry units with lower attack and defense stats but higher movement and with the ability to be equipped with land transports. Perhaps they could still have slightly better attack/defense stats than regular infantry, to depict a potentially higher level of training and morale, just not so much. Panzer divisions were the elite of the Wehrmacht and thus supposedly they had the best officers and NCOs in the motorized Schützen/Panzergrenadier regiments which would also mean better stats. And of course in this case the HW Inf units of the Allies should get a similar treatment to make it fair. In fact, in my Hungarian mod there is such a "Hungarian Mot Inf" unit instead of the usual "HW Infantry" of other nations and it works quite well.

Any thoughts on these are welcome. Especially from native German speakers to check the validity of these claims.

[PeteMitchell]

I recall this related/previous discussion on this topic (incl. links):
https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... 21&t=88654

[JanD]

Thanks a lot Locarnus!

I can't make any promises about making the "winning path" scenario compatible (at least not without a campaign restart in the future).

Considering the plethora of changes that BE made, i'd say forget about backwards copatibility. It common logic in both, official and hobbyist circles. And if the "previous" patch didn't had any major bugs, it is fair game IMHO.

[JanD]

currently I am revising all the [..] infantry in the BE mod. Thanks to Locarnus and the ideas discussed here, I have already added some new infantry unit types

My main gripe with this is: sure you can add 2 dozen completely different infantry types for all nations and give them fancy names like Grenadiere, Gvardeyskaya, Honved, Jalkavaari, etc. But does it
- add to game immersion
- potentially confuse players worldwide
- break the game's balancing

I've played mods which literally had dozens of infantry types, many of which with fancyful names. But even at the last scenario of a 30-scen campaign I still had to check "what stats did this type have again", because the many types and names just didn't stick.
We are gamers, not history students on the quest for their dissertation

[PeteMitchell]

Could you share the titles of the books you are proposing by Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand, please? Thanks!