Battlefield: Europe MOD v2.4

[Cfant]

Thanks, confirmed, the Mod makes the difference. I thought I had missed a new version of BE Thanks for your help and for this great work. I'll play as intended.

[Locarnus]

With Addon, the third core air unit (a Bf 110) is deployed near Breslau in the Poland scenario (regardless of BE 2.3 or BE 2.4).
Otherwise there is something wrong with the install.

I had not yet time to fully incorporate all the BE 2.4 changes, so those pre-scenarios with Addon are still based on BE 2.3.
If playing with the Addon, my thread is usually better suited for any issues and questions.
I do not want to burden McGuba with compatibility issues, which are purely my own doing.

Some recommendations for future BE:
1. Requesting a port city on Cyprus, to be able to disembark potential invasion units.
2. A more direct railway connection from German cities to Italian cities. So units can go from the Eastern Front to Germany for upgrades and then redeploy to Italy. Or go from the Italian peninsula to Germany for upgrades and then to France against Overlord.
2. Wurfrahmen 40 missing values in Graphics\efx.pzdat
reads: Wurfrahmen_40.png (-15,0) -15
should read: Wurfrahmen_40.png (-15,0) (15,0)

[McGuba]

I had not yet time to fully incorporate all the BE 2.4 changes, so those pre-scenarios with Addon are still based on BE 2.3.

Hm, yes, now I see. But it looks like from the first Duedman video showcasing the mod that the big scenario is based on the 2.4 version. Which presents a continuity problem in the Addon as while pre-Barbarossa scenarios have the original cavalry and "Grenadier" units, these are changed in the main scenario to the mounted/unmounted cavalry and Schützen inf. Which may confuse some players.

Some recommendations for future BE:

Yes, thanks I noted these, and will visit them again if and when a later version will be made.

[Locarnus]

Hm, yes, now I see. But it looks like from the first Duedman video showcasing the mod that the big scenario is based on the 2.4 version. Which presents a continuity problem in the Addon as while pre-Barbarossa scenarios have the original cavalry and "Grenadier" units, these are changed in the main scenario to the mounted/unmounted cavalry and Schützen inf. Which may confuse some players.

The first showcase video seems to be a mixup of a BE 2.4 savegame, but loaded from a BE + Addon install.
Resulting in addon unit icons on the map, but no addon buying options in the purchasing screen.
Happened to me as well, when loading a vanilla Grand Campaign savegame with an install that had the Amulet unit mod activated.

I renamed all the scenarios to distinguish them as savegames (ie LocBE, LocAK), but with one PzC savegame folder for all installs, occasional mixups can still happen. He caught the issue after the video, so that should be no problem for the continous campaign.

[bondjamesbond]

Can be useful to anyone ) Gallery of automotostarines. Military license plates U.S.S.R. 1942-1962.
Photos (supplement to the main page).

http://www.autogallery.org.ru/i/ynom42v.htm

[Uhu]

And that's it.
I finished BE 2.4, single player campaign. Difficulty: Rommel 2x, which is actually less, than 25% prestige income, because of the rounding downs. Dice chess and normal experience grew.
It was one of the most intense experience with BE! Once I reloaded from turn 75 back to turn 20, because bad choices... ...but I already reloaded from Poland all the minor scenarios, because I made overstrenght - which 180 prestige point was than desperately missed in the main scenario...

I will not say, what the endresult was, because this time I REALLY want to make an AAR, maybe with some video footage too, so I do not want to spoiler it.

Some impressions:
- Great improvement and changes!! The new specifications of battleships brings a whole new gameplay, also the changes of the attack specifications of the cruisers are OK, while the modified heavy inf units are also a new experience. Since the icon change I admired them not anymore so much as earlier as heavy inf and because of the low prestige situation, many times they were not resupplied, so they made guard duties with 3-4 str points. But at the first phase of Barbarossa and when resupplied, they were great and important asset. I was sceptic about it, but this change was a bold and smart move in the direction of reality! Also the change of Cavarly unit into this new type of reg inf-horse transport is a loved change to reality.

- The new music tracks are also lovely!

- Allied fighter agressiveness is much bigger from both sides (Soviet, Anglo-American)

- The 4-range 21cm mortar is a very important advantage to aerlier versions

- The garnison units are also a good idea. Also because they have no AA, the player have to guard them with AA if he do not want them to destroyed.

- It lasted more than a month from the start of Poland to the end of the game. When a new version comes out, I usually go into some sort of trance: I can only think about my next moves, I go in bed and wake up (usually too early... ) with my strategic plans, and usually do just the really needed things in my real life. So I become fast total tired, but it has also a positive side: I'm not interested about all the shit around the real world news, plus I do not waste my time to look at tons of not useful yt videos.

- I played with the following prestige rules: I left the artifical penalties, as they were (25%), but I always paid the full penalties for actual events (with the prestige cheat help), like partisans railway disruptions - it happened two times. I got no bombing penalties: I could handle the Allied bombers and I was also lucky, plus later I also captured England. Which penalty would have been a disaster, as my income per turn was 133 prestige.... For conversion fees, I paid the full price with the prestige cheat.

- I tried to capture really all cities, harbors and airfield as really every penny counted.

- I had to be extra careful with ALL of my units as every casualty and replacement was a heavy burden for my lightweight prestige economy. Still I made some minor bad choices, where I did not have the energy to reload several turns back...

- The pre-scenarios were really important to collect as much prestige as possible. First time in the mod, I used the Soviets too at the Poland scn. Until now, I did not need them, but this time I was occupied more to collecting POWS/prestige, so I left Stalin's soldiers some chance. I made a tons of forced surrenders, especially at the France scenario - spoiler: Dunkirk did not happen... Also took as much cities as possible. I took special care of my core units, so I lost only 1-3 str for the whole pre-scenarios as casualty. So I started Barbarossa with 1440 prestige. Which, as I said, was less than 25% (for example, cities are worth only 12 prestige).
I stayed at the default core composition as the Stuka is a very important asset at the start of Barbarossa. I could have upgrade all of the panzers to Pz IV instead instead of just one, which would have been a serious advantage, but I left it for historical reasons. Maybe it would be an interesting alternative to change the Stuka to Bf 110D and have all the panzers as Pz IV's.

- I played with the Finns as historically as possible: before the capture of Leningrad, Finnish airforce bombed only on "greater Finn territories" till to Svir river and not on Leningrad. South of the Svir river only in 2 range hex, in the vicinity of Finnish defenders at the shore of Svir "to lower the chance for a possible Soviet counter-attack". After taking Leningrad, the Finns joined the Crusade and were freely used.

- I really felt the pain to not have the opportunity to merge weakened units. So I had many 1-2 str units in the Hinterland. Still they were in some way useful for guarding rail lines. A partial reinforcement option would be also useful. Of course these goes over the possibilities of this mod, just mentioning. Odessa was very long time under siege - I tried to play it also realistically to guard it from all land sides with (weakened) units. Also I always tried to guard all hostile front parts, where no attacks came at the moment, but still needed realistically guarded (for example W of Leningrad at Tallin before the capture of L)

- The prestinge situation: insane. Never had enough. After the big captures (Malta, England, etc.) a brief moment of breath, some needed reinforcements, maybe upgrades and it was already gone. Therefore I never made any elite replacement, never bought anything and never upgraded out of the family. No transport upgrades for arty at all. In many cases I didn't made even any upgrades...like Italian planes, or to any 44' Inf.

-... But because I really cared for my units, and reloads and dice chess, I still had at the end of the campaign a Pz II and two Pz 38(t)'s (A Pz II and a Pz 38 (t) were converted to Panzerjägers). Also the CR.42 and a MC.200.

- I could only afford to upgrade from PzIII's to Panther G's, and also just step by step

- Summary: it was a great, painful, but super challenging game experience! I think, maybe with Rommel 2x, it even more represents the real effects of oil crisis and the logistic crisis of the Axis. Thank you McGuba for this new version! And thank you Goose_2 for the idea of playing on double Rommel!

- Just a reminder: if you want to play the historical saves with dice chess, you can do it: press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C to enter a cheat code. Type "dice chess".

Some bugs and change proposals:
- Italian Inf Cav has no entry in EFX file, so no sound and animation. Not a big deal, because it only apperars in the Mediterrean scenario, but still.
- Horse inf transport is overpowered. First, HA should be zero, as horses have no chances against any armored vehicle (For example see the fight, when two Csaba armored cars surprised and massacred several companies of horse mounted Soviet inf at the Uman pocket in WW2). Also I would set the SA lower to 2, as cavalry was only successful against inf at special and few occasions.
- Cossacks appeared not anymore. I Don't know, if it is intended, that the player gets them only on loosing path?
- AR 234 Blitz bomber - no transport switch
- AB 43 - no normal version, just tropical
- After I captured England and a British partisan retakes first time a major city, the Axis player suddenly gets 2000 (?) prestige extra (I only 500 of course with 2x Rommel).
- I not really understood why the land attack possibilites of subs and S-boats were taken away. Maybe the later OK, although even a 20mm cannon could have an SA 2, HA 1, but the subs had heavy guns on their decks, which were occasionally used for attacking land targets in WW2, so... I can understand it from gameplay/balance direction though, as they cannot be used now for entrenched level lowering, or sucking away the ammo of a given defending land unit.
- Slovak uprising should be deleted fully from winning path as it has make no sense to make an uprising when whole of Europe is under Axis rule. Maybe more partisan activity in the Balkan could balance that.
- I wrote your findings about the Italian navy fuel situation. Thank you for that, very interesting! Maybe we could change is some way to represent more the situation: until late 1941, as I read, with some kindness, to situation could be the same as now. After that, all Italian capital ships would have fuel 6, until Malta is captured. With Malta captured, the overall theater would be much secure, so the fuel would not need to guard so much the convoys. So, the fuel settings would be raised to the level, what now is after the start of the fuel crisis. The only problem is how to balance the option what now is, that we can guard the way W-NW of Malta with the Battleships from Sicily in 1941-42. This would be not anymore the case. Maybe giving more mines? Or give all Italian capital ships 15 fuel until Malta is captured.

[McGuba]

the modified heavy inf units are also a new experience. Since the icon change I admired them not anymore so much as earlier as heavy inf and because of the low prestige situation, many times they were not resupplied, so they made guard duties with 3-4 str points. But at the first phase of Barbarossa and when resupplied, they were great and important asset. I was sceptic about it, but this change was a bold and smart move in the direction of reality! Also the change of Cavarly unit into this new type of reg inf-horse transport is a loved change to reality.

Another change I was thinking was the removal of the Pioniere/Engineer units. As at this level it would not make much sense to have this unit. (Every infantry regiment had a combat engineer platoon so they should be included in the current infantry units which represent the soldiers of 8-10 infantry regiments.) Also there is only one such unit in the Axis army so its removal would not make a huge difference balancewise. And in my playthroughs I always struggled to find a role for that unit. Due to its high price it is a favourite target of the AI and as a result it mostly performs as a prestige drain. Giving it elite replacements is not a good idea, even when there is enough prestige. But then it gets gradually weaker and less effective loosing its main function of being the main assault infantry unit. While its usefulness is rather limited: similarly to the earlier Grenadiers, it is too slow on its own and too vulnerable when being transported. But I was just not bold enough to remove it now. It appears that the Pioniere unit has become just too popular with players. Maybe next time.

I made a tons of forced surrenders, especially at the France scenario - spoiler: Dunkirk did not happen...

Yes, for sure it is fine and all, but I think it is a bit too easy as it is now. I noticed the same in the current Duedman yt playthrough. And in fact it looks like the only good solution, much more lucrative than the historical strategic encircling. Which should not be the case or at least not so easily. And thus for the next version I have already made it a bit harder so that it will not be so easy to destroy those units with forced surrenders and yet achieve a decisive victory. It will still be possible to do it like that but then it will be harder to achieve a decisive or even a marginal victory because it will take more time.

After taking Leningrad, the Finns joined the Crusade and were freely used.

Hm, I am not so sure if the Finns should be released from this restriction after the fall of Leningrad. What's the reasoning behind that? Why would they become more aggressive and move further into the SU after that? I think if I ever add this restriction they should be confined to their historical area of operations for the entire war, that would make more sense.

A partial reinforcement option would be also useful. Of course these goes over the possibilities of this mod, just mentioning.

If your really want to, you can do so with cheats. First check how much it would cost to fully reinforce a unit, then divide this prestige amount with the number of strenght points to learn how much it costs to replace one strength point. Then make the necessary adjustments with the prestige and unit strength cheats. (Add as many strength points to the given unit as you want to and then reduce your prestige accordingly. And of course do not perform any action with that unit in that turn, just press "resupply". )

thank you Goose_2 for the idea of playing on double Rommel!

I still think that a Rommel + Field Marshal combined difficulty would be interesting as well.

- Horse inf transport is overpowered. First, HA should be zero, as horses have no chances against any armored vehicle (

As far as I know cavalry units were well equipped with anti tank rifles and AT guns. Whether they were able to use them or not while riding a horse is another thing... But I think here the situation is similar to one of the earlier versions in which I gave 0 hard attack value to the tankettes and recons which only have machine guns. Then, if I remember well, it was you who protested against it, and you were right. And thus I reset these values in the subsequent version of the mod. Since even machine guns can have a limited anti armour capability, at least against thin armour. Or just damaging the periscope and stuff on the outside of a tank thereby reducing its effectiveness. And the same is true for the rifles and light machine guns used by cavalrymen. So I think it is good for them to have a minimal HA.

Their soft attack could go down a bit, though.

- Cossacks appeared not anymore. I Don't know, if it is intended, that the player gets them only on loosing path?

Only on losing path, it is like that since at least v2.0

- After I captured England and a British partisan retakes first time a major city, the Axis player suddenly gets 2000 (?) prestige extra (I only 500 of course with 2x Rommel).

This is really strange, I never had this, and no one else has reported such a thing. Moreso, there is no script which would add 2000 prestige to the Axis suddenly. It would be nice if you could send me the save game after said turn so that I can check it in a replay what is happening.

- I not really understood why the land attack possibilites of subs and S-boats were taken away. Maybe the later OK, although even a 20mm cannon could have an SA 2, HA 1, but the subs had heavy guns on their decks, which were occasionally used for attacking land targets in WW2, so... I can understand it from gameplay/balance direction though, as they cannot be used now for entrenched level lowering, or sucking away the ammo of a given defending land unit.

There were a few occasions when a lone U-boat bombarded a small weather station in the Arctic Sea or a fuel tank in the Caribbean, but these were rather rare and isolated incidents. And with little actual effect. I do not know about any occasion when a u-boat, or a group of u-boats attacked enemy ground units to support an ongoing land battle. And of course it is not good from balance/gameplay point of view to use them to make the enemy artillery run out of ammo or lowering entrenchment and the like.

- I wrote your findings about the Italian navy fuel situation. Thank you for that, very interesting! Maybe we could change is some way to represent more the situation: until late 1941, as I read, with some kindness, to situation could be the same as now. After that, all Italian capital ships would have fuel 6, until Malta is captured. With Malta captured, the overall theater would be much secure, so the fuel would not need to guard so much the convoys. So, the fuel settings would be raised to the level, what now is after the start of the fuel crisis. The only problem is how to balance the option what now is, that we can guard the way W-NW of Malta with the Battleships from Sicily in 1941-42. This would be not anymore the case. Maybe giving more mines? Or give all Italian capital ships 15 fuel until Malta is captured.

Yes, something should be done about this. Just not sure yet what exactly. It is quite complex due to the risk of ruining the current balance. But anyways, I think it should be made harder to capture Tobruk in 1941. However, that would of course start a domino effect. In reality it appears that the Afrika Korps did not have the strength to storm Tobruk in 1941 mainly because of their lack of supplies and also because of the constant British counter attacks. Somewhere I read they had a 2:1 force ratio, but of course ideally an attack against entrenched positions requires at least 3:1. And if the attackers are low in ammunition and fuel it is even more difficult.

As for the rest of the suggestions, I will try to fix them, they are more trivial, but thanks for them anyway!

[goose_2]

I really enjoyed reading your breakdown Uhu as well as your response McGuba...happy to inspire this attempt...yikes I thought I was the only one insane enough to try this difficulty. I guess I am not the only masochist.

[Duedman]

I made a tons of forced surrenders, especially at the France scenario - spoiler: Dunkirk did not happen...

Yes, for sure it is fine and all, but I think it is a bit too easy as it is now. I noticed the same in the current Duedman yt playthrough. And in fact it looks like the only good solution, much more lucrative than the historical strategic encircling. Which should not be the case or at least not so easily. And thus for the next version I have already made it a bit harder so that it will not be so easy to destroy those units with forced surrenders and yet achieve a decisive victory. It will still be possible to do it like that but then it will be harder to achieve a decisive or even a marginal victory because it will take more time.

Sadly in Panzer Corps 1 there is no mechanic that rewards large scale encirclements.
But why don't you add triggers like Kiev / Leningrad while making the defenders a real threat with 1 or 2 long range Artys that constantly drain prestige?

Edit: Or combine a Kiev-like trigger with a Prestige penalty per turn if there are still Allied units in that area after turn X.
Maybe on a minus Prestige per remaing unit level? That would prevent the player from "harvesting" these units.

[McGuba]

Sadly in Panzer Corps 1 there is no mechanic that rewards large scale encirclements.
But why don't you add triggers like Kiev / Leningrad while making the defenders a real threat with 1 or 2 long range Artys that constantly drain prestige?

Edit: Or combine a Kiev-like trigger with a Prestige penalty per turn if there are still Allied units in that area after turn X.
Maybe on a minus Prestige per remaing unit level? That would prevent the player from "harvesting" these units.

I have already made the Allied armies in Belgium a bit stronger. Now it shall take longer to destroy all these units one by one, by which time the player may run out of turns.

On the other hand I would not want to completely eliminate this option. This mod is all about choices and decisions. Besides, many historians claim that the Germans made a mistake when they "allowed" the British to evacuate from Dunkirk. As without these forces the defense of England would have been very difficult against a possible German invasion later that year. But it looks like it was not that simple, since according to some others, the Germans were exhaused by the time they reached the Channel and did not really have the strength to destroy all the Allied armies in the pocket. So this element of the mod should be changed a bit by making the Allies stronger there I guess. (Actually, in BE 2.4 I already made some changes like this but the Locarnus addon uses the earlier BE 2.3 scenarios.)

And if we are here, while watching this video, I was wondering why did you insist on destroying all the Allied units in the pocket for the extra prestige when you were supposedly aware that (as opposed to vanilla BE) the Locarnus addon removes all the prestige accumulated before the main scenario? When playing the BE mod on its own it makes sense to save as much prestige as possible in the early scenarios, but the Locarnus addon makes it more or less pointless.

[Duedman]

And if we are here, while watching this video, I was wondering why did you insist on destroying all the Allied units in the pocket for the extra prestige when you were supposedly aware that (as opposed to vanilla BE) the Locarnus addon removes all the prestige accumulated before the main scenario? When playing the BE mod on its own it makes sense to save as much prestige as possible in the early scenarios, but the Locarnus addon makes it more or less pointless.

I just can't help it haha.
In the end I was not even able to get as good units as Locarnus lets you start Barbarossa with.
With all the prestige I should have gone for attacks that damage my core units a lot more often. Just for the XP.

But on the topic how to approach France - there seems to be no tactical benefit for cutting through to the channel.
I do not know which of the many enemy tanks will never move and which might attack me. Seems very risky to me.
Some map triggers that weaken the then northern Allied pocket might give an incentive to try and find out.
But as of now I think it is safest just not to do it.

[McGuba]

But on the topic how to approach France - there seems to be no tactical benefit for cutting through to the channel.
I do not know which of the many enemy tanks will never move and which might attack me. Seems very risky to me.

Hm, yes, now I think I see the point. And I might be able to do something about that. For example giving 0 fuel to those units waiting around Paris so that the player can feel safer when moving towards the Channel.

But somehow in this yt video I had the feeleing that although you had a chance to reach and capture Abbeville earlier, instead of that you advanced towards and over Paris and at the same time continued with the forced surrenders of the Allied units in Belgium. So basically you attacked just about everwhere just not where you were supposed to.

And also, now that I took a closer look on the unit stats, it looks like Locarnus made quite a lot of changes in those as well. For example I noticed that the Panzer IVD has significantly better stats in the Addon than in the vanilla mod.
In Locarnus addon PzIVD Ini: 6, Soft Attack:9, Hard Attack:9
In BE 2.4 it is like: Ini: 5, Soft Attack:8 Hard Attack:6.
while their defense stats are the same.

Which makes the PzIVD significantly better in the addon. Especially when compared to the Pz.IIIF (Ini: 6, SA:6, HA:6). (However it looks like the stats of the PzIIIF were also changed a bit in the addon, but only its SA is higher, which is not so important in this case.) So now, since the PzIVD is a significantly better all around tank than the PzIIIF in the Locarnus addon, understandably you upgraded all your tanks to Pz.IVs for France. But then you had a significantly stronger armoured spear that made it even more tempting to use brute force and destroy and force surrender every enemy unit instead of following the historical path and encircle the Allies.

And if we are here, I must state that the scenarios of the mod were designed and tested over the years with the vanilla BE unit stats and thus such significant changes may cause strange results. For example in this case there is not much point in using the early Pz.III in the Locarnus Addon, while in reality it was more numerous in 1940 than the Pz.IV. In 1940 the main role of the Pz.IIIE/F was to destroy other tanks, while the Pz.IVC/D was more against infantry and other soft targets. Thus the two types are better balanced in vanilla BE for their different roles, as opposed to the Addon, in which the Pz.IV is simply better in almost every aspect and for only a modestly higher price. In the Addon the Pz.IV is 18% more expensive than the Pz.III, while in vanilla BE by 33%, and it is less effective against hard targets. Which makes it less tempting to upgrade all core tank units to a Pz.IV in vanilla BE.

And these things may continue to drag on in the main scenario as players of the Addon will most likely have a core full of Pz.IVs which is again not very accurate historically as in 1941 there were more Pz.IIIs than Pz.IVs. While in the case of vanilla BE there are debates here every now and then about best ratio of Pz.III and Pz.IV tanks in the core, which is great, I think. It shows that these two tank types are fairly well balanced in the vanilla mod as players struggle to decide or agree on the "correct" ratio. Probably because there is no such thing as "correct" ratio for all as in this case it depends on the playing style of the given person.

[Duedman]

Immobilizing the units around Paris would indeed make a push for Abbeville feasible. But still - what do I gain from getting Abbeville early?
If there would be (for example) constantly respawning enemy Airforce and capturing Abbeville would put and end to that or something similar then I would consider it.
But as it is now, I can instead smash forward, beating the clock while the slow units harvest prestige and join up via rail later to then already captured train stations.
Bear in mind tho, that I play on General difficulty with no further modifications like Rommel etc.

On the PzIII vs PzIV issue I have to say that I was also surprised about the overall superior stats on the IV.
I do not know why Locarnus made that and I'm not a fan of that. Like you said, the struggle of choosing between III and IV and then having the right ones at the needed locations was a fun part of the game.
I just could not bring myself to passing on the IVs - because we all now the long barrelled version is the workhorse during the important years of the war. And with prohibitively high costs for upgrading to another line I was too scared to have not enough of those later on. I think just for that reason I would've gone with 2 IV and 1 III even with considerably weaker stats on the IVs.
I did pass on that mobile 8.8 Antitank tho. Historically they existed but never close to a number that would justifiy them beeing a unit in game.

[McGuba]

Immobilizing the units around Paris would indeed make a push for Abbeville feasible. But still - what do I gain from getting Abbeville early?
If there would be (for example) constantly respawning enemy Airforce and capturing Abbeville would put and end to that or something similar then I would consider it.

Hm, well, yes indeed, perhaps there could be something more, I will think about that. But it should be something that is plausible from a historical point of view.

But as it is now, I can instead smash forward, beating the clock while the slow units harvest prestige and join up via rail later to then already captured train stations.

As I wrote, I already made some changes which will make this prestige harvest more time consuming in the next version. Which in turn may result in missing the deadline for a decisive or even a marginal victory if the player continues to commit artillery and strat bombers for forced surrenders in Belgium instead of moving them forward.

I just could not bring myself to passing on the IVs - because we all now the long barrelled version is the workhorse during the important years of the war. And with prohibitively high costs for upgrading to another line I was too scared to have not enough of those later on.
I think just for that reason I would've gone with 2 IV and 1 III even with considerably weaker stats on the IVs.

It is one of the reasons why I put the Pz.III and the Panther in the same upgrade line (or family) originally in the mod. It makes the choice between the Pz.III and Pz.IV even more interesting. As Pz.IVs are indeed very very important from 1942 to 1943, but after that the Panther becomes the king, which in turn makes the Pz.III a long term investment.

Historically the Panther in effect completely replaced the Pz.III between mid 1943 and mid 1944, while the Pz.IV remained in use until the end of the war. Therefore it felt logical to place the Pz.III and the Panther in the same line in the BE mod. But again, for some reason Locarnus changed this as well and removed the Panther from the Pz.III line in the addon. In his addon Pz.IIIs can be upgraded to StuG IIIs basically for free as he placed these in the same line. Which is all nice as well as it also makes the Pz.III disappear, but it will start to happen earlier, from late 1942, when the StuG IIIF-8 appears. From a historical point of view it is too early as in the Kursk battle the Panzer III was still the second most numerous armoured vehicle (after the Pz.IV). But in the addon nothing would stop the player from upgrading all existing Panzer IIIs to StuG IIIF-8s (and some time later Gs) since these are in the same line and cost about the same. In fact the StuGs are even cheaper with much better hard attack stats.

Which leaves the Pz.IVs to be upgraded to Panthers, but in turn it may make the Pz.IV disappear from the map by 1945 if the player has enough prestige. Moreso that Pz.IVs in the addon can be upgraded for cheap or even free to other fancy units like Hummels, Brummbars or Jagpanzer IVs. I think it basically guarantees that there will be no Pz.IV units on the map by late 1944, which is not really in line with the historical events.

And if the player does not have enough prestige, for example because he is on the losing path, he may struggle to upgrade any tanks to a Panther, but then again it may be unhistorical as in reality the Germans had a lot of Panthers by the end of the war, even if they were losing. Vanilla BE with Pz.IIIs and Panthers being in the same line helps this as well to some extent, as players being on the losing path can easier afford to upgrade at least some surviving Pz.IIIs to Panthers as they do not have to pay the full price. And it happens like that especially in multiplayer matches when the Axis player is on defense.

I did pass on that mobile 8.8 Antitank tho. Historically they existed but never close to a number that would justifiy them beeing a unit in game.

I guess it is that "Bunkerflak" thingy? If so, indeed, only 10 were produced and that's why I did not include such units in the vanilla BE mod. It is far too few as in the mod a tank or similar vehicle unit represents about 200 actual vehicles. On could argue that they could have produced more of these if they wanted to, but it does not look like a successful design. It had to get close to a bunker to destroy it with direct fire, but since it only had a thin armour it must have been very vulnerable in the process. Its relatively high silhouette only made things worse in this regard. It appears that all were lost by early 1943.

[Duedman]

For France I thought he upgraded his Mod to 2.4 but maybe not all of it.
If you did something already to counter the harvesting then I might have to try that.
But even if the player is forced to take some Arty and bombers away from that due to stiffer resistance elsewhere, it should still be easy. It will take longer but because you got 24 turns that should not matter. There is not much use for the harvesters anyway after they finished their job. So if it takes them till turn 24.... thats still ok.

Btw. I tried doing a Major Victory with some french units and flags left and then loaded the save, harvested some more and got more flags. The Minor Victory gained a few hundred more prestige in the end.

I did not do much research into what Locarnus' mod changes compared to Vanilla BE. What I liked was the prestige cut to 350 and the 6 core units. But I see your points with the PzIII / IV upgrade trees.
And yeah Bunkerflaks. Did not take those as their hard attack is insane and should shred through early war tanks. While quite obviously beeing a pretty flawed unhistorical design.

Overall playing experience for the big scenario is still great
Maybe I'll do a Vanilla BE playthrough at some point. But actually I'd fancy a Multiplayer match more. Just need someone to convince the Gooseman

[Locarnus]

And also, now that I took a closer look on the unit stats, it looks like Locarnus made quite a lot of changes in those as well. For example I noticed that the Panzer IVD has significantly better stats in the Addon than in the vanilla mod.
In Locarnus addon PzIVD Ini: 6, Soft Attack:9, Hard Attack:9
In BE 2.4 it is like: Ini: 5, Soft Attack:8 Hard Attack:6.
while their defense stats are the same.

Which makes the PzIVD significantly better in the addon. Especially when compared to the Pz.IIIF (Ini: 6, SA:6, HA:6). (However it looks like the stats of the PzIIIF were also changed a bit in the addon, but only its SA is higher, which is not so important in this case.) So now, since the PzIVD is a significantly better all around tank than the PzIIIF in the Locarnus addon, understandably you upgraded all your tanks to Pz.IVs for France. But then you had a significantly stronger armoured spear that made it even more tempting to use brute force and destroy and force surrender every enemy unit instead of following the historical path and encircle the Allies.

Agreed, at the moment the Pz IV D is overpowered in the Addon at the start of France.
While HEAT became available for the Pz IV D, it only did so in numbers after the initial stages of France and only a weaker HEAT round was available at all before Barbarossa. I will remedy this issue in the next updates. Probably by splitting the Pz IV D into 2 versions (D and D+ with HEAT) and I'll take a look at the other early armored units as well.

And if we are here, I must state that the scenarios of the mod were designed and tested over the years with the vanilla BE unit stats and thus such significant changes may cause strange results. For example in this case there is not much point in using the early Pz.III in the Locarnus Addon, while in reality it was more numerous in 1940 than the Pz.IV. In 1940 the main role of the Pz.IIIE/F was to destroy other tanks, while the Pz.IVC/D was more against infantry and other soft targets. Thus the two types are better balanced in vanilla BE for their different roles, as opposed to the Addon, in which the Pz.IV is simply better in almost every aspect and for only a modestly higher price. In the Addon the Pz.IV is 18% more expensive than the Pz.III, while in vanilla BE by 33%, and it is less effective against hard targets. Which makes it less tempting to upgrade all core tank units to a Pz.IV in vanilla BE.

Imho the Pz III being designed against tanks and the Pz IV being designed against soft targets does not make the Pz III better against tanks, especially with that 3.7cm gun it initially had. It still was the time where desired and actual effect of vehicle designs could be very far apart, for all nations.
Imho the problem from a game design and engine limitation point of view is, that the player can freely switch between types and there are no "inventory" and "retooling" limitations. This switching is of course much easier with the addon, where prestige from the pre-scenarios does not carry over.

And these things may continue to drag on in the main scenario as players of the Addon will most likely have a core full of Pz.IVs which is again not very accurate historically as in 1941 there were more Pz.IIIs than Pz.IVs. While in the case of vanilla BE there are debates here every now and then about best ratio of Pz.III and Pz.IV tanks in the core, which is great, I think. It shows that these two tank types are fairly well balanced in the vanilla mod as players struggle to decide or agree on the "correct" ratio. Probably because there is no such thing as "correct" ratio for all as in this case it depends on the playing style of the given person.

I think this is a point where our design philosophies are just a bit different.
I lean more towards providing some in-game options, that might be exploitable and need house rules to be contained to historical levels.
I'm fine with some players choosing the more historical variety (using house rules) at the expense of in-game advantages.
And other players maximizing their in-game advantage instead. Or mixing those principles depending on the issue.
For example goose_2 and JanD used a house "rule of one/two" for their Africa playthrough, increasing unit variety at the expense of an in-game advantage. On the other hand, the "recon trick/exploit" is being used.

On the PzIII vs PzIV issue I have to say that I was also surprised about the overall superior stats on the IV.
I do not know why Locarnus made that and I'm not a fan of that. Like you said, the struggle of choosing between III and IV and then having the right ones at the needed locations was a fun part of the game.
I just could not bring myself to passing on the IVs - because we all now the long barrelled version is the workhorse during the important years of the war. And with prohibitively high costs for upgrading to another line I was too scared to have not enough of those later on. I think just for that reason I would've gone with 2 IV and 1 III even with considerably weaker stats on the IVs.

Interesting!
Even with the current stats of the early Pz IV, I would not have chosen 3x Pz IV, if I wanted to in-game maximize.
Though I'm also using my "arty" StuG III units more offensively in the arty role, and I find the Pz III J relatively ok compared to the Pz IV F, especially considering the expensive "winter freeze".
I think this is also an expectation adjustment, with regards to the upgrade options. The long barrel Panzer IV is much more important without addon, while with addon the Panzer III can be cheaply upgraded to long barrel StuG III units for similar effect.

Historically the Panther in effect completely replaced the Pz.III between mid 1943 and mid 1944, while the Pz.IV remained in use until the end of the war. Therefore it felt logical to place the Pz.III and the Panther in the same line in the BE mod. But again, for some reason Locarnus changed this as well and removed the Panther from the Pz.III line in the addon. In his addon Pz.IIIs can be upgraded to StuG IIIs basically for free as he placed these in the same line. Which is all nice as well as it also makes the Pz.III disappear, but it will start to happen earlier, from late 1942, when the StuG IIIF-8 appears. From a historical point of view it is too early as in the Kursk battle the Panzer III was still the second most numerous armoured vehicle (after the Pz.IV). But in the addon nothing would stop the player from upgrading all existing Panzer IIIs to StuG IIIF-8s (and some time later Gs) since these are in the same line and cost about the same. In fact the StuGs are even cheaper with much better hard attack stats.

This partially goes back to the different philosophies. In the addon, the player has the earlier option to in-game "min/max" away the Panzer III, however that is a decision to play the game in that way.
But for example the Bf 109 F-4 and the Bf 110 E/F are available for quite some time in Duedman's playthrough, yet there are still Bf 109 E-7, F-2 and Bf 110 C flying around in turn 9. And those do not even need to shuffle back to the Reich for upgrades.
On the other hand, the Pz I chassis has been min/maxed away in favor of Bison I (Sturmpanzer I) units. But so far, they had very limited effect on the battle, while the unupgraded Pz I units could have provided mobile mass attack initiative boni. The usual upgrade dilemma from the great "upgrades only at home" mechanic from BE...

Which leaves the Pz.IVs to be upgraded to Panthers, but in turn it may make the Pz.IV disappear from the map by 1945 if the player has enough prestige. Moreso that Pz.IVs in the addon can be upgraded for cheap or even free to other fancy units like Hummels, Brummbars or Jagpanzer IVs. I think it basically guarantees that there will be no Pz.IV units on the map by late 1944, which is not really in line with the historical events.

And if the player does not have enough prestige, for example because he is on the losing path, he may struggle to upgrade any tanks to a Panther, but then again it may be unhistorical as in reality the Germans had a lot of Panthers by the end of the war, even if they were losing. Vanilla BE with Pz.IIIs and Panthers being in the same line helps this as well to some extent, as players being on the losing path can easier afford to upgrade at least some surviving Pz.IIIs to Panthers as they do not have to pay the full price. And it happens like that especially in multiplayer matches when the Axis player is on defense.

I agree that the "losing path" could need some work for the addon, in terms of prestige and unit availability.
And if the addon had multiplayer support, that would surely help with balancing for that scenario. Unfortunately my current time limitations make serious multiplayer balancing impossible and until now the Afrika Korps part of the addon has received a lot more interest.

Not sure how exactly to deal with that Panther issue.
Having the Panthers in the same upgrade family with the whole Panzer III chassis would have a wider effect with addon, since all StuG III and so on would also be eligible.
Perhaps that is something that could use some scripted and thus limited upgrade options.

[McGuba]

For France I thought he upgraded his Mod to 2.4 but maybe not all of it.

It looks like all the scenarios of the addon are modified versions on the scenarios of BE 2.3. Including the main big scenario. Now I checked the main scenario of the Addon and it does not have any of the map adjustments and other fixes I made for 2.4. It also does not seem to have any of the scripts that I added after v2.3. The Addon does not seem to use many of the new unit icons I made for BE 2.4, like the new icons for the 8-rad recon series, the German Panzergrenadier and the new Allied units like the Lancaster Special or the Barracuda. Under the "Downloads and version history" of the first post of the Addon thread he lists a few unit changes which are inspired by BE 2.4 like modified naval force standards, and that's it. Currently the Addon looks more like a submod of BE 2.3 with a few twists from 2.4, but I might be wrong.

If you did something already to counter the harvesting then I might have to try that.
But even if the player is forced to take some Arty and bombers away from that due to stiffer resistance elsewhere, it should still be easy. It will take longer but because you got 24 turns that should not matter. There is not much use for the harvesters anyway after they finished their job. So if it takes them till turn 24.... thats still ok.

There are a few changes in BE 2.4 compared to BE 2.3 in this regard, but now I have made several more on top of those for the next version. For example I reduced the turn limit to 22 and I also made the Allied forces in Belgium more resistant to relatively quick force surrenders.

The other significant difference is the equipment file. As I explained above, the fact that the Pz.IVD is much better in the addon than in vanilla BE 2.4 makes it easier to follow this strategy in the addon. In the addon the German panzers spearheaded by the stronger Pz.IVDs can rush forward more easily since they are less vulnerable to enemy tanks. This alone changes the overall balance of the scenario quite significantly in my opinion. It think it makes the scenario in the addon easier in general, regardless of the other changes. But I did not play the scenario with the Addon so again, I might be wrong.

Btw. I tried doing a Major Victory with some french units and flags left and then loaded the save, harvested some more and got more flags. The Minor Victory gained a few hundred more prestige in the end.

Yes, I have made some steps to fix this potiential issue as well. In the next version it will also be harder to capture the additional French cities which were not captured historically in this campaign. And also I reduced the turn limit for marginal victory to 22.

I did not do much research into what Locarnus' mod changes compared to Vanilla BE. What I liked was the prestige cut to 350 and the 6 core units.

Ah, OK, so if there was another version which offers 7 core units would you prefer that one? Come on.
In that case maybe you should try BE v1.0 from 2014 as that one offered no less than 9 core units.

But seriusly, I made the decision to minimize the number of core units in the early scenarios so that the player can start the main scenario with a more historically accurate Axis army. The more core slots there are, the higher the chance that the player would create a core army that is significantly stronger or more effective than what was historically available in June 1941.

Ideally, there should be no core slots at all in the pre-Barbarossa scenarios, but then players would be less likely to play those scenarios. When it is highly recommended to play them so that they can get used to the changes introduced by the mod before they would start the main scenario. That is the main reason why the pre-Barbarossa scenarios are there and not to create a decisive core army. However, I am aware that building a core army is a central feature of the PG/PzC franchise so it has to be there, but at the same time it should not reduce the overall historical accuracy of the main scenario. And there came the compromise to have a few such units, but not only as many as really necessary.

[McGuba]

This partially goes back to the different philosophies. In the addon, the player has the earlier option to in-game "min/max" away the Panzer III, however that is a decision to play the game in that way.

With all due respect to your different philosophy, I am not so sure that the majority of the players are aware of when a certain unit type was replaced in the frontline. Also I am not so sure that the majority of the players would take the time and effort to do the necessary research to find it out. Or just that they would bother to do so. I think players are much more likely to maximize their chances to win by using whatever assets are made available by the campaign designer. And if the designer makes it possible to upgrade all Pz.IIIs to a much better StuG IIIF-8 or G for little or no price, they will do so as soon as they can. After all, everbody wants to win and it is hard to blame them for that. Therefore I do not think that whether or not players use unhistorical upgrades is a conscious decision at all times. They might just think like: "OK, so the designer made this asset available so it must be right for me to use it". The same thinking might be behind the use of the recon "trick", which is clearly a game bug and should not be used IMO. But since it is there players who are aware of it tend to use it anyways. Unless they realise the balancing problems it can cause and make the conscious decision not to use it.

But for example the Bf 109 F-4 and the Bf 110 E/F are available for quite some time in Duedman's playthrough, yet there are still Bf 109 E-7, F-2 and Bf 110 C flying around in turn 9. And those do not even need to shuffle back to the Reich for upgrades.

I guess it might be because air units are quite busy in the first turns, but I am not sure, Duedman should know better. Often it may be better to use a slightly weaker unit a little longer than sending it for an upgrade which can take 2 turns even with air units, meaning they cannot be used for these 2 turns actively. In general, the best time to upgrade air units is the early winter turns when the weather is guarteed to be bad.

On the other hand, the Pz I chassis has been min/maxed away in favor of Bison I (Sturmpanzer I) units.

Altough my German is very limited, as far as I understood from the video, Duedman decided to make this upgrade because he likes this particular unit very much, and this dates back to the time of Panzer General. So it might be more of an "emotional" decision than a rational decision, perhaps the latter would have taken into account the reduced stats of this particular unit in the mod.

Which again, takes us back to our "philosophical differences". In vanilla BE it was a conscious decision on my side to make the 15 cm sIG 33 (aka "Bison I" or "Sturmpanzer I") hard to get since in reality it was used in small numbers, mainly because it was not a very successful vehicle. If it was any better most likely they would have converted more Pz.Is to this vehicle. As in 1941 there were still hundreds of Pz.Is in reserve and only being used for training and policing. And yet, only 38 of these were ever converted to a Bison I. Whereas in the addon a Pz.I can be easily upgraded to it like Duedman did. And probably he did so mainly because this unit was unhistorically depicted as being an overpowered early war self-propelled artillery in Panzer General and even in Panzer Corps which resulted in it becoming a favourite unit for many players. And so when they see that the useless Pz.I can be upgraded to it relatively easily, they would do so without hesitation and perhaps even withouth checking out that its stats are now reduced to better represent its historical flaws. Which potentially results in a bad decision, as you noticed it as well. Or without checking out how many Pz.Is were actually converted to Bison Is in reality. And so it looks like many players make an unhistorical decision, even though they believe they are playing a historically accurate mod, only because the addon makes it possible for them to do so.

[Duedman]

Do not be too hard on France tho. As I said I played on General and with those powerful Pz IV.
The reason I did not upgrade the fighters was indeed just that they were busy all the time.
What I still wonder is - what happens, if I do not shoot down these scores of enemy planes? Will the AI upgrade them? will at some point the whole sky be full of enemy air because they get new spawns in addition to the surviving ones?

You were right with the Bison / sIG Stats. I did not notice, that they were weaker than in the old PG games. Still, they are borderline cheesy. But not as bad as Bunkerflak!
And yeah, its a trade off because indeed the Pz I are helpful in clearing the way very early on.

For your limited skills in German you might try the autotranslate option youtube offers. Its like 2 clicks in the subtitle settings of the video. It works reasonably well even with my not always clear pronounciaton.

[Locarnus]

This partially goes back to the different philosophies. In the addon, the player has the earlier option to in-game "min/max" away the Panzer III, however that is a decision to play the game in that way.

With all due respect to your different philosophy, I am not so sure that the majority of the players are aware of when a certain unit type was replaced in the frontline. Also I am not so sure that the majority of the players would take the time and effort to do the necessary research to find it out. Or just that they would bother to do so. I think players are much more likely to maximize their chances to win by using whatever assets are made available by the campaign designer. And if the designer makes it possible to upgrade all Pz.IIIs to a much better StuG IIIF-8 or G for little or no price, they will do so as soon as they can.

After all, everbody wants to win and it is hard to blame them for that.

I fundamentally disagree that "everybody wants to win".
Imho the underlying assumption to this point is the single most influential reason why so many (strategy) games "fail":
The assumption that the potential target audience has a relatively homogenous perspective on the game, and that this perspective aligns with the one of the designer.

I remember PzC not having the "dice chess" option and what a struggle it was to convince the designers to implement it. They kept repeating that full dice is how the game is meant to be played, so essentially no one should have the option to play it differently...
The "Klotzen! Panzer Battles" designer thought "Save Game (For losers)" was a funny remark, until player feedback changed his mind...
The "Victoria 3" designers, QA department and many of the early access "influencers" thought, that the game was in a good place at launch. And they seemingly never bothered to consult someone with a different perspective, until steam reviews from actual players told a very different story...

I do not want to win, winning is a very unimportant variable within my utility function, when playing strategy games.
Though as a "designer", I try to take into account that other people have different utility functions. And for many of those, "winning" is an important factor.
So I aim to enable different playstyles wherever reasonably possible, only curtaining the side effects of those different playstyles where necessary.

Therefore I do not think that whether or not players use unhistorical upgrades is a conscious decision at all times. They might just think like: "OK, so the designer made this asset available so it must be right for me to use it". The same thinking might be behind the use of the recon "trick", which is clearly a game bug and should not be used IMO. But since it is there players who are aware of it tend to use it anyways. Unless they realise the balancing problems it can cause and make the conscious decision not to use it.

"Speedrunners" exist for many games, yet most of those games are fine for the usual player.
It is a "tricky" prospect, especially while modding within a limited game engine framework.
I just like to put the boundary further out, when I can not fix the underlying exploit.

For example it would be possible to remove "reconmove" from all units.
That would end the recon exploit, but would imho also diminish the game.
From my perspecctive it is in principle the same dilemma regarding the available unit upgrades.

But for example the Bf 109 F-4 and the Bf 110 E/F are available for quite some time in Duedman's playthrough, yet there are still Bf 109 E-7, F-2 and Bf 110 C flying around in turn 9. And those do not even need to shuffle back to the Reich for upgrades.

I guess it might be because air units are quite busy in the first turns, but I am not sure, Duedman should know better. Often it may be better to use a slightly weaker unit a little longer than sending it for an upgrade which can take 2 turns even with air units, meaning they cannot be used for these 2 turns actively. In general, the best time to upgrade air units is the early winter turns when the weather is guarteed to be bad.

Or "optimizing" and thus "winning" is not such a priority in this instance.
Taking twice the amount of time per turn would certainly yield better results and would ensure more "winning". And again twice that time would perhaps be even better.
In the extreme, "Blitz/Lightning chess" does not yield optimal results for a player, it is still "fun" for many though not all.
Some players like to make a plan when to best upgrade a unit and send it back in advance. Others play with units that are "good enough" for the time being. Most play something in between. Both extremes and their outcomes are fine with me, players time, players choice to spend it.

I did pass on that mobile 8.8 Antitank tho. Historically they existed but never close to a number that would justifiy them beeing a unit in game.

I guess it is that "Bunkerflak" thingy? If so, indeed, only 10 were produced and that's why I did not include such units in the vanilla BE mod. It is far too few as in the mod a tank or similar vehicle unit represents about 200 actual vehicles. On could argue that they could have produced more of these if they wanted to, but it does not look like a successful design. It had to get close to a bunker to destroy it with direct fire, but since it only had a thin armour it must have been very vulnerable in the process. Its relatively high silhouette only made things worse in this regard. It appears that all were lost by early 1943.

And yeah Bunkerflaks. Did not take those as their hard attack is insane and should shred through early war tanks. While quite obviously beeing a pretty flawed unhistorical design.

Different game/mod design philosophy again: More options, while it is up to the player how many are used.
Also a considerable part of the production decisions were influenced by the top decider. A role that is assumed by the player in BE. So from this perspective, it imho would make sense to allow a wider range of available units.

Some low production examples:

BuFla ("8,8-cm-Flak 18 (Sfl.) auf Zugkraftwagen 12t / Bunkerflak"): 10
Flakpanzer I ("2-cm-Flak-38 auf Fgst. Munitionspanzer I Ausf. A"): 24
Bison I ("15-cm-schweres Infanteriegeschütz 33 (Sf) auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen I Ausf. B"): 38
Bison II ("15-cm-schweres Infanteriegeschütz 33 (Sf) auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II"): 12

Mörser "Karl" ("Gerät 040 (60cm) / Gerät 041 (54cm)"): 7
28-cm-Kanone 5 (E): 25
80-cm-Kanone (E): 2

The Bison II was a horrible failure in Africa, those 12 vehicles reportedly never made it far out of the repair shops before breaking down again. The earlier Bison I was probably worse, with the enormously overloaded suspension and the lack of space, resulting in ~4! ready rounds of ammo on the vehicle. Yet both are available in vanilla PzC.
Also the later Nashorn was operationally not so different from the BuFla, giant silhouette, weak armor. Imho the only reason so few BuFla were produced was, that the Germans were totally oblivious to the fact that the Soviets had heavily armored tanks at all, let alone so many of them.

On the other hand, the Pz I chassis has been min/maxed away in favor of Bison I (Sturmpanzer I) units.

Altough my German is very limited, as far as I understood from the video, Duedman decided to make this upgrade because he likes this particular unit very much, and this dates back to the time of Panzer General. So it might be more of an "emotional" decision than a rational decision, perhaps the latter would have taken into account the reduced stats of this particular unit in the mod.

Which again, takes us back to our "philosophical differences". In vanilla BE it was a conscious decision on my side to make the 15 cm sIG 33 (aka "Bison I" or "Sturmpanzer I") hard to get since in reality it was used in small numbers, mainly because it was not a very successful vehicle. If it was any better most likely they would have converted more Pz.Is to this vehicle. As in 1941 there were still hundreds of Pz.Is in reserve and only being used for training and policing. And yet, only 38 of these were ever converted to a Bison I. Whereas in the addon a Pz.I can be easily upgraded to it like Duedman did. And probably he did so mainly because this unit was unhistorically depicted as being an overpowered early war self-propelled artillery in Panzer General and even in Panzer Corps which resulted in it becoming a favourite unit for many players. And so when they see that the useless Pz.I can be upgraded to it relatively easily, they would do so without hesitation and perhaps even withouth checking out that its stats are now reduced to better represent its historical flaws. Which potentially results in a bad decision, as you noticed it as well. Or without checking out how many Pz.Is were actually converted to Bison Is in reality. And so it looks like many players make an unhistorical decision, even though they believe they are playing a historically accurate mod, only because the addon makes it possible for them to do so.

Isn't this one of the most interesting experiences for a game playthrough?
The assumption that something works out and then testing it, getting feedback and modifying the approach?
Those 3? "Bison I" might not have worked as well as simple Pz I until now, but during the winter and spring offensive they could very well make the difference.
That "BuFla" goose_2 used for his first Africa Korps run did hit hard, but it also took some expensive beatings in 1942.

And doesn't this "trial and error" make the game more historical on a meta level?
After all the WW2 participants also tried a whole bunch of different stuff.
Some things worked well, other approaches did not.
Some ideas were great for a certain time (U-Boot warfare), other concepts needed time to mature.