Locarnus Addon 2025-10a, for Battlefield Europe, Afrika Korps and Grand Campaign East

[Locarnus]

here is my exp.pzdat for your consideration. pm me for lots of boring details. tested with the GC DLC's

as far as fighters (class 7) are concerned i've never quite got round to a definitive rethink but general my feeling is less initiative (-2), more gd (+1) less ad (-1, -2?)
the AI gets suckered into using them for useless ground attack so i'd consider giving them sa=0 and ha=0. ground attack is the job of class 8 units.

For the exp.pzdat I'm heavily inclined to try a near "tabula rasa" approach to all those class specific boni.
Imho the class specific boni never worked great in the first place and those original issues are even more pronounced with this Addon. They skew a unit's usefulness even more in the direction of those "arbitrary" classes.

I'm therefore planning to simply give +0.5 initiative and +1 of the other stats per experience level (which only increases a stat if the unit already has a non-zero value for that stat in the first place).
For now the only exception would be air and sea units. Air units because I want to get more experience with the current rebalancing which takes those skewed boni into account. And naval units because I lack the time to fully test for them at the moment.

Which brings me to the recent fighter rebalancing.
This is an excerpt from the fighter rebalancing tables for patch 2022-07.
Only change from 2022-06 is a lowered initiative value for the early Fw 190 models (up to and including A-5).
The "bomber killer" R2 versions for several Fw 190 variants are so far only thought experiments and not planned for 2022-07. And the Me163 rate of fire is not factored in for those results, so it performs considerably worse than stated in the charts.

For experience Level 0:


For experience Level 2:


For experience Level 4:

[faos333]

impressive analysis and well thought

[sbpc1]

i can see you are taking this "beer and pretzels" game seriously! they'll give us the source code and you can be project lead.

[Locarnus]

i can see you are taking this "beer and pretzels" game seriously! they'll give us the source code and you can be project lead.

Thank you!
I just prefer 1 good pretzel recpie and baking mixture to several mediocre ones.
And if none is commercially available, occasionally I take the one with the most promise and try to improve it.

impressive analysis and well thought

Thank you!
One information I took from that analysis was the value of initiative.
For some reason I thought it was more important than attack or defense, perhaps because only a +1 initiative hero is available, but +3 attack and defense heroes.
But at least for aircraft it is usually the other way around, with initiative being mostly the least valuable bonus.

[goose_2]

i can see you are taking this "beer and pretzels" game seriously! they'll give us the source code and you can be project lead.

Thank you!
I just prefer 1 good pretzel recpie and baking mixture to several mediocre ones.
And if none is commercially available, occasionally I take the one with the most promise and try to improve it.

impressive analysis and well thought

Thank you!
One information I took from that analysis was the value of initiative.
For some reason I thought it was more important than attack or defense, perhaps because only a +1 initiative hero is available, but +3 attack and defense heroes.
But at least for aircraft it is usually the other way around, with initiative being mostly the least valuable bonus.

I have to disagree with you there Locarnus. I like Initiative for Fighters. My favorite 2 hero combo is def +3; +1 Initiative
That way I fire first and what's left usually misses me.

[Locarnus]

I have to disagree with you there Locarnus. I like Initiative for Fighters. My favorite 2 hero combo is def +3; +1 Initiative
That way I fire first and what's left usually misses me.

With the unmodded experience boni mechanic (+0.5 initiative, +2 attack and +1 defense per level), there are cases where initiative scales better with higher experience levels.
1) Compare the Bf 109 F-4 (12; 13; 19) with the Fw 190 A-4 (9; 16; 19) in the charts above. The F-4 has 3 more initiative, while the A-4 has 3 more attack.
At experience level 0, the F-4 narrowly wins against a Spitfire Vb (22:21), while the A-4 clearly whacks the Spitfire (31:22).
However for experience level 4, the F-4 has a bit wider margin against the Vb (40:36), but the A-4 fares much worse (42:40) than at level 0. And relatively even worse than the F-4!

But for the most part, initiative is not as good as expected.

2) The Bf 109 F-4 (12; 13; 19) has 2 more initiative but only one less defense compared to the Bf 109 G-2 (10; 13; 20). Yet the results against enemy fighter are not far off, with each one sometimes having more favorable odds.

Then let's look at some direct engagements:
3) Eg Re.2005+ (13; 15; 20) vs Spitfire XIV (11; 15; 22), the Re.2005+ has 2 more initiative while the Spitfire XIV has 2 more defense. The Re.2005+ consistently loses against the XIV regardless of experience level. Initiative is usually worse than defense.

4) Or Fw 190 A-6 (9; 17; 20) vs Spitfire IXb (11; 15; 20), the A-6 has 2 more attack while the IXb has 2 more initiative. The A-6 is consistently better than the IXb regardless of experience. Initiative is usually worse than attack.


Overall one is not always better than the other. But usually initiative is less valuable than raw attack and defense. And especially against bombers, attack is the most important stat for fighters.

I was also under the impression that initiative is the most valuable stat for fighters. Right until I actually went through the numbers above.

[Locarnus]

I will release another smaller update tomorrow.
Mainly minor fixes and a bit of polish, but also the first iteration of the modded exp.pzdat (experience level boni).
If you found any issues so far, I may be able to still include them in the patch, before the summer break from modding.

[Locarnus]

Lots of minor fixes and rebalancing efforts as well as long overdue small additions (eg some desert versions and at least some italian bomber upgrades).
The italian L6 is now treated as a scout tank and even the tiny Semovente 47/32 has recon movement.
For units able to switch from recon to tank class, the tank class provides more rate of fire, but worse defense.
For units able to switch from recon to infantry class, the infantry class provides more defense, but less movement.

A major change was made to the exp.pzdat file, which is responsible for the experience boni (eg recon units got the smallest buffs based on experience level). It generally provided pretty skewed boni, something that is even more problematic with all the possible unit switches in this addon.
Now all ground units simply get buffs to their stats, half a point of initiative per level and a full point for every other stat except naval attack.
Fighters are still treated differently, due to the fighter rebalancing from last patch being already built around their skewed boni.
This is a work in progress, together with the whole aircraft rebalancing effort. But imho the 2022-07 patch already provides much fairer mechanics than vanilla PzC.

A minor change, yet providing quite some quality of life improvements, is the "renaming" of the Africa Corps scenarios with the LocAK prefix. Which should make savegame management much easier when playing several different mods at the same time.
The Battlefield Europe campaign prefix was changed to LocBE.


2022-07 Download: https://bit.ly/3nPVqWw
General changes:
- Italian L6/40 and Semovente 47/32 rebalanced (reconmove in tank mode!), also see Uhu's Italian Campaign
- Kradschützen rebalanced, more defense in infantry mode, more movement in recon mode, both modes have recon-movement!
- Recon Pz II availability corrected, movement and costs rebalanced, reconmove even in tank mode (+1 rof, -1 ground & close defense)
- New mid 1943 Panzer II Luchs variant with 5cm gun, thanks to a unit model by AKRebel (co-author of famous PAK mod!)
- Heavily armed german wheeled recon units rate of fire nerfed, but also cheaper
- Fw 190 A-1, A-2, A-4 and A-5 decreased initiative by 1
- SdKfz 8 and Opel Maultier darker desert camo
- Fuel values of several heavy german tanks buffed
- Several Flakpanzer prices lowered (especially Flakpanzer 38(t) "Gepard") and stats corrected
- Flakpanzer I, Jagdpanzer IV/48 and SdKfz 251/4+ desert versions, thanks to recommendation by JanD
- 8.8cm Pak 43/41 bugs fixed, rebalanced prestige costs and desert version added, thanks to recommendation by JanD
- Italian bomber upgrades in April 1943 (SM.79bis and CANT Z.1007ter)
- Bison II available one month later (1.1.1942)

Gamerules:
- Experience boni rebalanced (exp.pzdat), so far only for ground units (especially the recon class benefits from this)
- Several ground units have now 1 close defense to be able to make use of the exp.pzdat rebalancing

AK scenarios/campaign
- Added "LocAK" to the scenario names, making mod savegames easier to distinguish
- Corrected faulty reinforcements prestige events for Tunisian Bridgehead scenario

[faos333]

Congrats for the new version, you have done a tremendous job so far, I wish many people will download and give it a try.

[Locarnus]

Congrats for the new version, you have done a tremendous job so far, I wish many people will download and give it a try.

Thank you!

While thinking about possible extensions to the german heavies (Tiger P and Sturmtiger/Jagdsturmtiger), the current "phased availability" came into focus as well.

At the moment, the player first gets access to the 7 strength early version at 70% prestige cost (eg Tiger "H" for 931 prestige). And then the 7 and 10 strength late versions at the same time (eg Tiger "E" for 798 and 1140 prestige).

For eg the Battlefield Europe scenario, there is at least some minimal benefit of staying with the late 7 strength version (effectively no upgrade costs, from 931 prestige down to 798 prestige).
Although since the late version is cheaper per strength point, the unit upgrade cost is much more enticing in case of going from the early 7 strength version (931 prestige) directly to the late 10 strength version (1140) prestige.
Making the late 7 strength version nearly irrelevant and resulting in lots of 10 strength german heavy units anyway.

For Afrika Korps, this is even more pronounced, due to the limited deployment slots.
The current system even makes the early versions a doubtful investment, since a 7 strength unit is so much worse at dealing damage within those limited campaign scenarios.

The triple nerf for early versions might be too strong (1. higher prestige per strength costs, 2. lower strength unit per hex, 3. fuel nerf to simulate early version teething problems).
And the transition from early version to late version might be too badly represented within the game engine limitations.

I'm thus considering a change to the current german heavy approach.
A. Three phase roll-out, instead of current 2 phase roll-out.
Phase 1: Understrength early version
Phase 2: Understrength late version
Phase 3: Full strength late version
B. Understrength versions have strength 8 instead of 7, but still cost only 70-75% of the full strength version.
C. Early version a bit cheaper
alternative D. Early understrength version costs the same as the late understrength unit, but only provides 7 strength points instead of 8 for the late version. The advantage is, that the player does not "lose" prestige when upgrading from early to late understrength version. The disadvantage is, that a strength 7 unit is less valuable on the battlefield than a strength 8 unit. And if the player upgrades an existing strength 10 unit, eg to a Tiger 1 H, the player loses 3 strength points.

Together, those measures should make the understrength versions much more viable, both for Afrika Korps and for Battlefield Europe. Thus potentially leading to a more historical force composition instead of the PzC typical hordes of "best units only".

What are your thoughts on those measures?
Would you prefer an early 8 strength unit or an early 7 strength unit, which is even cheaper per strength point?

edit: eg 8 strength Tiger H for 960 prestige (120 prestige per strength point) or 7 strength Tiger H for 800 prestige (~114 prestige per strength point)? So that 8th Tiger H strength point would cost you 160 prestige.

[faos333]

Definitely the early 8 strength unit it is much more reliable and thus more desirable for me

[goose_2]

Why not give the player both options to consider?
Have 1 7 str unit at one price point and 1 at 8 str at a different price point...that way the player can decide

[PeteMitchell]

I agree, it is always good to let the player decide!

[Locarnus]

Definitely the early 8 strength unit it is much more reliable and thus more desirable for me

Agreed, if I have the prestige, the 8 strength would be my preference as well. Mainly for survivability reasons with normal dice.

Why not give the player both options to consider?
Have 1 7 str unit at one price point and 1 at 8 str at a different price point...that way the player can decide

I agree, it is always good to let the player decide!

That choice would introduce new balancing issues, because I would have to take into account that the player may upgrade between such 2 early versions as well.
So instead of having to balance effectively 3 transitions,
B (early 8 ) => X (late 8 )
B (early 8 ) => Z (late 10 )
X (late 8 ) => Z (late 10 )
I would have to balance effectively 6 viable transitions:
A (early 7 ) => B (early 8 )
A (early 7 ) => X (late 8 )
A (early 7 ) => Z (late 10 )
B (early 8 ) => X (late 8 )
B (early 8 ) => Z (late 10 )
X (late 8 ) => Z (late 10 )

It would get messy, not only for me but also for the player. And with the PzC engine, there is not even a good way to provide some help/information for the player.

Some info and my proposal for the next update, taking this into account:

PzC vanilla:
Tiger 1 - r10 s10 - 703 prestige - 26.12.1942

Battlefield Europe:
Tiger 1 - r10 s10 - 1230 prestige - 19 fuel - 1.4.1943 (early stats)
Tiger 1 - r10 s10 - 1040 prestige - 34 fuel - 1.5.1944 (late stats)

Locarnus Addon 2022-07
Tiger 1H - r10 s7 - 931 prestige - 26 fuel - 15.12.1942 (early stats)
Tiger 1E - r10 s7 - 798 prestige - 36 fuel - 12.4.1943 (late stats)
Tiger 1E - r10 s10 - 1140 prestige - 36 fuel - 12.4.1943 (late stats)

Locarnus Addon proposal 2022-08
Tiger 1H - r9 s8 - 900 prestige - 28 fuel - 15.12.1942
Tiger 1E - r10 s8 - 900 prestige - 36 fuel - 12.4.1943
Tiger 1E - r10 s10 - 1200 prestige - 36 fuel - 12.7.1943

The early Tiger unit becomes a bit cheaper (900 instead of 931 prestige), gets a strength buff from 7 to 8 (survivability!), while keeping the same offensive capabilities ("rof 9 * strength 8 = 7 salvos", same as "rof 10 * strength 7 = 7 salvos" before). Perhaps also a slight fuel buff from 26 to 28, making it a bit more viable in the desert campaign.

The understrength Tiger 1 E also gets 8 strength points and then costs 900 prestige, but with the normal 10 rate of fire. So it is also buffed compared to the earlier addon stats. And crucially there is no "prestige loss" when upgrading from early Tiger 1 H to understrength Tiger 1 E.
At the moment (patch 2022-07), there is little reason to go from early understrength to late understrength Tiger, because the player would pretty much waste 133 prestige in the process (compared to spending 209 prestige and getting a much better full strength Tiger 1 E).

Finally the full strength Tiger 1 E comes later and is more expensive, but also closer to the available Tiger 1 in Battlefield Europe at that time (though with much better "fuel" stats). Crucially the understrength Tiger 1 E only costs 75% of the full strength Tiger 1 E, but provides 80% of the combat capability (strength 8 vs strength 10). Providing at least a minor incentive to keep the Tiger units at more historical understrength levels, if prestige is scarce.

[Locarnus]

It has now been 1 year since I uploaded the first version of this "Addon"!
I want to thank everyone who contributed, from icons to feedback and Let's Plays/AARs!

Standing on the shoulder of giants, I of course thank McGuba himself, as well as Uhu, goose_2, Marginaldefeat, faos333, George_Parr, hugh2711, PeteMitchell, uzbek2012 and JimmyC for their feedback on Battlefield Europe.
"Kanthe" for his museum, providing inspiration for new units, and the whole Panzer Corps community still working on this 10 year old title.
Also thanks to faos333, for the early encouragement, as well as uzbek2012 (in his various incarnations ) and sbpc1 for all the inspiration in this forum of silence.
And nikivdd for the many great campaigns over all those years and Uhu for his Italy campaign.
The unit rebalancing is based on the work of deducter, McGuba (BE) and Messmann (Amulet mod), with some inspiration from Akkula's "Modern Conflicts" mod.

A special thank you to guille1434, JanD, jeffoot77, uzbek2012, eskuche and everyone else for the direct feedback to the Addon.
The youtube playthrough of Afrika Korps by goose_2 helped tremendously with the popularity and balancing.
The AAR replays by JanD (AAR forum), as well as his detailed lists of error and inconsistency reports, were invaluable for balancing and bugfixing, especially concerning the equipment file!
Such feedback has the most effect on further development, both in terms of feature implementation as well as motivation to work on this Addon!

Special thanks to the modders who provide free unit icons and camo schemes to the community in general and this mod in particular:
For example the StuIG33, Eisenbahn-Flak, BuFla and many other icons from "guille1434": https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36536
And the 105mm Leichtgeschütz 42 icon from "phcas", as well as eg the Flakpanzer I and Panzer II H icons from "AKRebel", both co-authors of the incredibly detailed PAK mod: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=92787
The Panther F and several base icons for DCS from "flakfernrohr": https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42725
Dwight's Camo Sprayshop by "rezaf" is invaluable and used to great effect (eg for later german heavy tanks): https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33526
"The Grand Armory" thread by "rezaf" also helped a lot for unit inspirations: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46156


No major additions for this update.
Just many smaller attempts at fixing inconsistencies, filling gaps and general polishing.

2022-08 Download: https://bit.ly/3QK50X8
Infantry and towed units:
- Italian paratroopers available for AK Malta (using the german icon for now)
- Ammo and ground defense rebalanced for some light troops (Jäger, Gebirgsjäger, Alpini and so on)
- Fallschirmjäger less expensive (-20 prestige)
- Wehrmacht Inf 43 & 44 can now use SdKfz transports
- Brückenpioniere 1943 version
- Italian Obice 75/18 now in same upgrade family with Semovente 75/18
- Opel Blitz and Opel Maultier share the same upgrade family

Vehicles:
- 3 availability stages for german heavy tanks, 10 strength version now only available later on
- Some rebalancing of german heavies (fuel), Tiger II and Jagdtiger close defense stat nerfed
- StuG III B & E a bit more expensive (+10 prestige)
- BuFla ground defense buffed
- Some minor corrections (eg switch icon for Gepard desert version)
- Some late SdKfz 250 & 251 prestige cost rebalancing
- Jagdpanther desert version

Aircraft:
- Several italian fighters rebalanced and some additional "late models"
- Finally Re.2002 tac bomber/fighter switch implemented
- Many ground attack aircraft rebalanced (and those that can switch to tac bomber mode)

AK scenarios/campaign
- Caucasus scenario provides 3 extra aux parachuting units, to somewhat compensate for the inability to put Tigers into gliders !sic
- Persia and Caucasus scenarios changed, from 1 to 2 days per turn (still very unrealistic, but at least a bit less so)
- Suez Canal scenario provides aux Brückenpioniere unit
- All AK scenarios are now available from the "Scenario" menu outside of the campaign (eg to check for unit availability at those times)

[faos333]

Thanking for yet another update of this great mod, this time I will install and have a play over summertime, since its one of my favorite things, Afrika Korps during summer vacs

[bondjamesbond]

Central Asia thanks you for your addon and historical additions to the battlefield mod !

http://www.wio.ru/

[Locarnus]

Thanking for yet another update of this great mod, this time I will install and have a play over summertime, since its one of my favorite things, Afrika Korps during summer vacs

Central Asia thanks you for your addon and historical additions to the battlefield mod !

http://www.wio.ru/

You are welcome!
I hope you enjoy it!


After a year of development, it is imho time for another self-evaluation.

1) Since the next major update of BE is making progress, I'll probably wait for that and see how and if I (can) continue this addon mod to BE 2.3.
2) At least the Afrika Korps part of this addon mod enjoys some interest, and there are still some things I might adjust (especially for the ashitorical winning path) and add to it (Tiger P, Sturmtiger, Jagdsturmtiger).
3) But overall the addon mod appears to be in good shape as it is (though based on limited feedback regarding the ahistorical AK campaign and the major BE scenario).
4) With major development winding down, documentation and help could use some work. While I'm unable to make up for PzC limitations in that regard (install process, lack of in-game tooltips), I might be able to provide better information through the forum.

[bondjamesbond]

Well, good luck, but with a map of the Spanish Civil War, everything would be deeper and interesting )

http://airaces.narod.ru/spane/kondor.htm
https://www.arsmilitaris.org/pubblicazi ... alegio.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviazione_Legionaria
https://picturehistory.livejournal.com/1519993.html

[PeteMitchell]

Yes, a map of the Spanish Civil War would be an awesome idea!!