Slitherine

You just made my weekend! Thanks for all your work, as always, McGuba. And by way of compliments, expect another round of suggestions in the coming weeks and months.

I am really excited to try this new version - especially air reconnaisance

Thank you for your efforts McGuba!

THANK YOU McGuba

hugh2711 wrote:THANK YOU McGuba

+1

Time to move back to the front, Herr Generalfeldmarschall!

Many thx for the new version!!

First impressions:
- Really nice changes!
- All the new war toys, yummie!
- A lots of minor changes too, so it can bring new exciting challenges
- Congratulation for the integration of the Leningrad siege "mission"! I'm still curious, how it will work for me, as I just started to reach that siege-hexes.
- The mod looks much more harder, so I'm also curious, if DV can be made at turn 50...(on the other hand, I also have some "magic" in my cilinder, what I want to try out. )

- Played until turn 12, when...

***Spoiler!***

General Winter and his horrible companion, the freeze came!
Now, for the 2nd try, I will try to pull out as many important units from the Russian theater for that turn, as possible to save some prestige. I hope, the Axis will be better prepared for the winter of 1942...

McGuba, can you explain, how the Leningrad siege works? I managed to hold the points for several (maybe 3?) turns, but I do not saw any decrease of the defender's streght.

I've been unable to hold the siege myself, but I am pretty sure he said that you have to maintain units on all the required hexes for 6 turns at a minimum. That hex south of Lake Ladoga is tough!

Edit: I found the post where McGuba explains the siege mechanics:

The long and destructive siege of Leningrad is added. As historically, Army Group North is potentially not strong enough to storm and capture the city on its own without additional support, but strong enough to encircle and blockade it for prolonged time. During which the defenders get weaker and weaker losing one strength point after every 6-10 turns of the siege as long as it is not being lifted. If the Soviets can lift the siege for just one turn the defenders of the city do not lose strenght in the actual 6-10 turn period. However, if the Axis can reestablish the blockade the defenders will continue to lose strength from the next period:

Thank you Ceek, I just missed this information!
But I will do not have the time...I target also with the new version the "Turn 50 timerun". Hmm, I see,this capture will harder, than expected. But, if a few points of the defenders will be gone, than it is also a help.

Ceek wrote:I've been unable to hold the siege myself, but I am pretty sure he said that you have to maintain units on all the required hexes for 6 turns at a minimum. That hex south of Lake Ladoga is tough!

Edit: I found the post where McGuba explains the siege mechanics:

The long and destructive siege of Leningrad is added. As historically, Army Group North is potentially not strong enough to storm and capture the city on its own without additional support, but strong enough to encircle and blockade it for prolonged time. During which the defenders get weaker and weaker losing one strength point after every 6-10 turns of the siege as long as it is not being lifted. If the Soviets can lift the siege for just one turn the defenders of the city do not lose strenght in the actual 6-10 turn period. However, if the Axis can reestablish the blockade the defenders will continue to lose strength from the next period:

Yeah, when I wrote long siege I really meant LONG as historically it lasted for nearly 900 days or three years. And even at the end of it the defenders of the city were not yet broken. So in 1941-42 you need to hold the siege for about 6 turns for the defenders to lose 1 strength point, but this period gets longer with time and by 1944 you will need to wait like 10 turns for the same. However, by then the defenders should be weakened enough so that the city can be taken much easier than in 1941.

So I guess there are three ways to capture it:
- by a direct attack in 1941/42 - but this requires additional troops, mainly siege artillery and bombers, to be sent there. Army Group North is just not strong enough to make it on its own.
- by weakening its defenders during a long siege up until 1944 and then try to attack - this is the historical way, it can be done with less troops, but obviously takes longer and eventually the Soviets will try to lift the siege, as historically. However, even if the Soviets can lift the siege for just one turn it can be encircled again and then the defenders will start to lose strength again after a while (8-10-15 turns), as long as it is encircled. So basically if the Soviets can lift the siege in the Allied turn by taking a siege hex it can be taken back in the next Axis turn and then it does not have any effect. But if they can lift the siege for one full turn they can get in enough supplies so that the defenders do not lose 1 strength point in the actual 6-10 turn period. And if the encirclement can be re-esablished they will continue to lose strength, just later, starting from the next 6-10 turn period.
- by a combination of both of the above, i.e. keep it under siege for a while and then transfer some more troops to the area and attempt to capture it

Keep in mind that the siege was not just long and costly for the Soviets, the Germans also suffered nearly 600,000 casualties during the three years, nearly as much as in the Battle of Moscow and Stalingrad combined. So it has to be hard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFx9fk4bbQ8

Again, for them, who want play it realistic with the Fallschirmjägers (German paratroopers) - otherway, they are supa-dupa-magic fairies

The alternative rules for using Fallschirmjägers realistic:
1., Calculate with fuel 66 (wikipedia says range = 1000 km). About the same as the Ju 87D. These are 33 "steps" maximum - or you can fly further, but than consider the planes to crashlanded and you cannot use them again.
2., Make paradrops only in good, or cloudy weather.
3., Use the Ju 52 planes for transport only in good, or cloudy weather (but you can use them to transport from Axis held airport to Axis held airport also in rainy weather - but not in snow). If weather goes bad, return to the nearest airport (but you don't need to land, just touch it's hex). Example: you take off with the Fallschirm guys in good weather, but on the flight, it turns rainy. So you have to than turn back to the nearest Axis held airport.
4., The Fallschirmjägers do not get supplies from "Supply fairies" - so, without land connection to Axis held territory, use reinforce, or resupply (also in the cause of automatic resupply, consider it as non-resupplied) ONLY if a PORT, or an AIRPORT is at least one turn long captured. Example: if you land SE of Cairo, while the frontline is at Mersha Matruh and you suffer 5 casualties and depleat your ammo - you can only resupply and reinforce, if one of the airports at Cairo is captured. If not, well...than they are doomed...or they can hide and wait for the rescue troops.

there seems to be two kinds of 88's (flak 18 and flak 36) in this new version or is it my installation?. there doesnt seem to be any info about them in the changes section. I presume they are they both switchable to anti-tank? Do they both have the same functions? is there any difference other than the 36 has higher tank defence. thanks for info.

I am currently at round 13. Winter is coming!

I want to repeat my very first game with this mod that ended in a defeat. Priority has the Caucasus to reach the Russian oil fields and later the Iraqi oil fields to generate prestige in the second half of the war.

Malta already captured (the first time I made it so quickly. Luck)
AA/AT multipurpose units are very fine.
Leningrad encircled and siege started.
Closed Kiev pocket in December.
Troops still far away from Moscow around Smolensk but (hopefully) in good positions to survive the Russian winter attack
England much better defended (I see more mines and more fortifications). But I do not plan to land there.
Whole German fleet sitting on the northern convoy lane holding the position as long as possible to gain prestige

Overall strategy:
Occupy convoy lanes as long as possible
Capture Tobruk and move to Egypt with the Afrika Korps. Stop the British tank armies that appear in parallel to Torch in Egypt.
Defend Tunis later with a second army (including the Tiger and the main core of the Italian fleet) against the American Torch invasion
Hold the siege of Leningrad
Carefully move to Moscow
Invade the Caucasus and then move south with a battle group to capture the oil fields in Iraq
Try to defeat the Russians before Overlord starts and stop the Allied invasion somewhere in France.

V1.7 battle finished - DV at turn 54!

Difficulty: Rommel
Realistic use of Fallschirmjägers.
With some minor faults in my gameplay, but I cannot imagine to make a DV much earlier on Rommel.

My oppinion about v1.7:
- Really great new features, a real fresh gameplay! Thank you again for it!!
- As I earlier mentioned, I edited many stats of the armored vehicles, plus many recon vehicles to reflect more the reality. But these are minor changes.
- The new, multipurpose units work fine! I felt so natural, as it were intended always to work so. I felt the few Allied double-purpose arty/AT guns also fair and were not offbalanced.
- I found almost no bugs (but I have admit, that I cannot say anything beyond turn 65 - the earliel try)
- The Stug arty are - because of the low caliber, but even more because of the range 1 - simply: crap. I converted them both as fast as possible to SiG's.
- Strongpoints changed back to direct fight works also much better.
- The new German AA system worked also fine for me. Probably without the early capture of England, things would be different... (although McGuba mentioned, that AA units will be added time to time)
- The recon airplanes (Axis and Allied) are also useful and felt not that they ruin the balance.
- The siege of Leningrad is a really nice new feature and it works also very well! It's a real infantry bloodbath, almost like WW1. Probably, if you send there more bombers and heavy equipment, than it is easier, but of course, that resources are needed elsewhere.
- The weakened Karl Gerät is also a good change. It makes it's job still useful, but it is no more a super-weapon and destroying the forts can take also longer which is also ok.
- The terror-frost of the winter of 1941/42 is also a nice addition. Adds another nice "play" to prepare for it and transport most of the high-value units out of Russia for that turn (turn 12). I think, it is realistic, because these units get proper winter outfit at the time, they spent out of the winter terrors.
- Reducing the number of transport units - works well and add another hard challenge to overcome this situation.
- The new, lesser pre-Barbarossa number of core units is also a nice change: in that way, no more tricks are allowed to change the inf to fighters and heavy guns. I just sold the 2 panzers and bought PzIV's and sold the 10,5cm arty and bought a 150mm one. You can try to sell one panzer and buy another fighter, because fighters are always few. But actually the 4x Pz IV's are also badly needed at Barbarossa.
- I liked also the new type of core member: the Stuka. As "flying artillery", it became a well experienced veteran and with Rudel together, they made a sort story of the Malta fortress in 1942.

Hopefully I will make an AAR and a replay video about the gameplay. But it takes time... (Still interested about free and easy-use screenplay-recorder software.)

Is this deliberate or have I stuffed my installation?: At 93,38 there is AG12 a reconnaissance plane which looks exactly like a JU88D (it was a ju88d in vers 1.6). This is distinct from the reconnaissance plane at 93,33 which does actually look like a reconnaissance plane.

If I upgrade the JU88D reconnaissance when the upgrade becomes available will it revert to a normal bomber with usual strike characteristics?.
Also the AG11 reconnaissance at 93,33 says it is a (modified) HS129, similarly if i upgrade that will it revert to a normal tactical bomber?. thanks for info

Oh, I almost forgot, that I was happy, that I broke some of my own records about capturing/initiating several actions. It is good to know, that the whole war depends on such early successes - especially about the capturing of Moscow and England. I write it here just to now, that it is possible. ("You can do it!" too )

- Kiev encirclement finished - Turn 8
- Moscow captured - Turn 9 (with minor casualties)
- Starting the siege of Leningrad - Turn 9
- Naval landing in the Middle East - Turn 13
- Rostov captured - Turn 25
- Malta captured - Turn 26*

* - It can be captured earlier of course, if forces are diverted earlier to this operation

hugh2711 wrote:there seems to be two kinds of 88's (flak 18 and flak 36) in this new version or is it my installation?. there doesnt seem to be any info about them in the changes section. I presume they are they both switchable to anti-tank? Do they both have the same functions? is there any difference other than the 36 has higher tank defence. thanks for info.

Yes, there are two kinds: one with the armoured shield (named Flak 36 in the mod) and one without (Flak 18). Both are switchable AA/AT and the one with the armoured shield has somewhat higher ground defense making it better for frontline use. The other is better suited for home defense to protect the objective cities in Germany as it should not have to face ground units until the late war years. This one can be upgraded for a small fee to the armoured one if the player wants to send it to the front, just as many Flak 18s were re-fitted with shields. Note that historically Flak 18 and 36 had other design differencies and both could have the armoured shield and I only gave them a different designation in the mod to make a clear difference between the shielded and the unprotected AA guns.

Flak 36s were often fitted with an armoured shield that provided limited protection for the gunners. These shields could be re-fitted on older Flak 18s as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37/41

GeneralWerner wrote:I am currently at round 13. Winter is coming!

I want to repeat my very first game with this mod that ended in a defeat. Priority has the Caucasus to reach the Russian oil fields and later the Iraqi oil fields to generate prestige in the second half of the war.

Good luck! Hopefully this time you will have more success than in your first playthrough.

Uhu wrote:V1.7 battle finished - DV at turn 54!

Nice! So it seems that v1.7 is not much harder than v1.6. Actually I did not really want to make it harder, just more interesting and fun. And more historically accurate, of course, as always!

- The Stug arty are - because of the low caliber, but even more because of the range 1 - simply: crap. I converted them both as fast as possible to SiG's.

It is quite interesting as a bit earlier someone (P210: viewtopic.php?f=147&t=47985&start=1420) wrote it is one of his favourite units and in v1.6 (in which there was only one on the map by default) he upgraded another towed artillery to Stug III and used two of these. Which means its usefulness is really up to the personal taste and tactics. I personally think they are not that bad at all in 1941/42 and compared to the SiG they have better protection and are mulitpurpose, at the cost of lower range, which creates a nice balance. Additionally, the StuG III can be upgraded to the superior StuH 42 later, which is also quite good until the end of the war.

- I found almost no bugs (but I have admit, that I cannot say anything beyond turn 65 - the earliel try)

Ahh, good to know, at last! It is time to have a definitive version after more than two years of development.

Hopefully I will make an AAR and a replay video about the gameplay. But it takes time...

Hopefully, yeah. I have been waiting for a while for a full AAR from you with all the tips and stuff. I am pretty sure that many players would find it useful as well. Especially those who think it is "impossible" to achieve a Decisive Victory in this mod.

(Still interested about free and easy-use screenplay-recorder software.)

Maybe Fraps? Probably that's the most common and as far as I know the only drawback of the free version is that the word "fraps" is always visible in the corner of the video. For non-professional use it is acceptable, I guess.

hugh2711 wrote:Is this deliberate or have I stuffed my installation?: At 93,38 there is AG12 a reconnaissance plane which looks exactly like a JU88D (it was a ju88d in vers 1.6). This is distinct from the reconnaissance plane at 93,33 which does actually look like a reconnaissance plane.

All right, so there is some misunderstanding here, I suppose. Historically the Ju 88 had many different variants, including the most produced bomber (Ju 88A), night fighters (Ju 88C and G) and reconnnaissance (Ju 88D). And they all looked very similar, given that they were the different variants of the same aircraft type.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_88#Variants

AG 12 has indeed the recon version (Ju 88D) added by the latest version of the mod. (Note that AG stands for Aufklärungsgeschwader/Reconnaissance Wing. However, historically in WW2 the Germans did not really have recon wings as recon planes were only organised to squadrons (Staffeln) or groups (Gruppen) at best. But in the mod a German air unit represents a full Geschwader anyway, with 3-5 Gruppen (each with 3-5 Staffeln) and with 100-150 aircraft so I just added some fictional AGs.)

If I upgrade the JU88D reconnaissance when the upgrade becomes available will it revert to a normal bomber with usual strike characteristics?.

Recon planes cannot be upgraded to normal bombers as it would unbalance the mod. (There would be more bomber units than historically.) The new recon planes are either take it or leave it. If you do not want recon planes you can disband them to potentially free up a few core slots. However, it is not recommended as they can be better used as the eyes or your advancing armies. IMO there are enough normal bomber units on the map in turn 1.

Also the AG11 reconnaissance at 93,33 says it is a (modified) HS129, similarly if i upgrade that will it revert to a normal tactical bomber?. thanks for info

AG 11 is a Hs 126, which has nothing in common with the later Hs 129 other than the manufacturer company (Henschel). These are completely different aircraft types. Hs 126 is a recon plane, Hs 129 is a tank buster. As with all recon planes, the Hs 126 cannot be upgraded to any other air unit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henschel_Hs_126

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henschel_Hs_129

Thanks for the clarifications McGuba. this is by far my favourite mod.

where I put the save folder that came with Battlefield: Europe v1.7?