Slitherine

It's a game bug

Ok, then i know. Though i have another question. I dont know if this might have been answered in this thread, but do the western allies get lesser bombers to attack germany with if you manage to defeat the soviet union or something like that? Like how the soviet union get less reinforcments if you capture leningrad, moscow and stalingrad? And if not, why not? Caus i feel like that coud make the last 30 turns of the mod to less of a slog with how many bombers the allies get.

I understand that its to be historically acurate and such, but it just dosent make much sense how the allies woud keep sending all thoose bombers if non of them ever returns from germany. Like, if you defeat the soviet union, then the allies get less bombers to attack germany with?

Caus in my current game, i have defeated the soviet union and transfered all my fighters and AA to germany and eastern France. Something like 20 fighters and 30 AA and i shoot down every plane over Germany and that just makes it feel kinda silly how they just send more and more bombers every turn. And it also turns into a slog when you are winning and have to spend like 20 turns just shooting down plane after plane each turn.

Though this migt not be a priority or something you think woud fit the mod, but just a thought and wonderd what you think about this mcguba.

PeteMitchell wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 3:00 pm It's a game bug

Thanks! But it is strange, that the reply doesn't work on pc and works fine on laptop wirh the same installation.

Idk, but mp replay of opponent's turns is a known issue

High command underestimated the resistance of the Russian forces and their ability to mass armour and stage significant counterattacks. Relocating the majority of our forces to the western front, the remaining forces in the East were grouped into spearheads to attack the last remaining objectives. With the onset of winter in late '44, the Russians took advantage of the rivers freezing and poured across the Volga, brushing aside our understrength troops. Although we have air supremacy, the heavy Russian armour resists all but our most largest bombs and proves a match for even our highly skilled Panther crews.

Our forces holding Gorky were either pushed back or destroyed. Some enemy pushed through and made an attempt to capture Moscow, however were cut off from reinforcement and annihilated. We are now desperately counterattacking to try and retake Gorky, as the Russian will to continue the war will not falter until it is captured.

Simultaneously to the attack on Gorky, the Russians have mostly encircled Stalingrad and are besieging the defenders inside. The Luftwaffe are proving invaluable in blunting the Russian attacks and reinforcing our defenses.

On the Western Front, we have mostly pushed the Allied forces back across the Seine, however they have taken advantage of the Loire River freezing and look like capturing Nantes. We sacrificed space for time and abandoned Le Mans after our hitherto dominant Tiger tank battalion was severely bloodied during their first encounter with the enemy Pershing tanks.

Our desert forces have reached the town of Abadon and are attempting to take it and the oilfields beyond. With only limited forces on our side and British capital ships assisting the defenders, it is unknown whether we can capture these by the final deadline of mid '45.

Finally in March of 1945 the last Soviet counterattacks are defeated and Stalin's bunker is captured, leading to the capitulation of Russia. We are now free to transfer our forces (specifically our armour and Luftwaffe) to the Western Front where they are needed.

2 months later, the Commonwealth forces are fully pushed out of North Africa and the Middle East and the oilfields are now in our hands. This is too late to have a meaningful impact on the situation in other theatres, but will strengthen our hand in any peace negotiations with the Allies.

In the Spring/Summer of '45 we managed to hold the Allies back making use of the natural defensive positions of the Loire and Seine rivers. Whilst the enemy had air supremacy in this theatre, the Luftwaffe held air supremacy over Germany and destroyed all enemy air forces entering this area.

Below is the final position of our troops prior to the armistice (we made a final thrust to force the Allies to come to terms).

I played on General full random dice and got a victory, defeating the Soviet Union. Basically things went mostly to plan. Highlights were:

• The Atlantic convoy system worked better this time. More incentive to send the subs this way and either hunt down convoys or sit statically on the routes to get extra prestige

• I again struggled to break through El Alamein to Egypt. The positioning of the naval mines mostly prevents the Regia Marina assisting. As i was too slow to break through everything got held up and i didnt manage to capture the oilfields until almost the last turn. This in turn hurt the Luftwaffe (as you get prestige losses every turn until the oilfields are captured). The slog across the desert is also very tough as you are constantly running out of fuel. It would have been much quicker/easier to have taken the Caucuses and then kept heading down to the oilfields in my opinion (in this playthrough i determined to ignore the Caucuses entirely

• I took a long time to capture Moscow and Leningrad and this meant the Soviet defense was very strong right up to the end. I made the mistake of thinking they were on their last legs and relocated a lot of troops back to the west in the winter of '44/'45, only to have the Soviets counterattack across the frozen Volga and cause me significant trouble. In retrospect, this actually made it more fun/challenging

• The additional ground defence of Allied aircraft makes them even more formidable and it is difficult to rely only on AA. However, they cannot be challenged directly until significantly worn down. My strategy of keeping the Luftwaffe over Germany mostly worked, but it was still painful to see my ground forces getting pounded by the enemy air. The Allied artillery also mostly targeted any of my AA in range, thereby allowing their air arm to cause even more damage.

• Random dice really hurts sometimes. If i were to play on a harder difficultly, i think i would have to turn this down. But I think General/Random dice is the right level for me.

Thanks again McGuba for this fantastic mod after so many years. I would have stopped playing PzC years ago if not for this mod!

JimmyC wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2026 7:05 am Thanks again McGuba for this fantastic mod after so many years. I would have stopped playing PzC years ago if not for this mod!

I am glad that people still find it interesting after all these years! And thanks for your feedback. I think most of the latest changes are for the better, I think I achieved what I wanted. Probably there shall be another small update of the mod soon, based on this and other feedback, but I am just too busy these days...

Raven89 wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 7:43 pm Ok, then i know. Though i have another question. I dont know if this might have been answered in this thread, but do the western allies get lesser bombers to attack germany with if you manage to defeat the soviet union or something like that?

No, currently there is no such a thing. By all means, they should have even more bombers in that case, since then they would not send them to the Soviet Union as aid.

However, I understand the problem, but it would not be easy to fix it. For example in another game it might be that the Axis player just barely manage to defeat the Soviets, using his last resources, and then the Western Allies may still be able to turn the tide. So if I made such a change this could be exploited: players would just send everything to the east, knowing that once they finish the Soviets the war is basically over because the Western Allies just give up. Probably that would be even worse.

caesar67 wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:47 am

PeteMitchell wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 3:00 pm It's a game bug

Thanks! But it is strange, that the reply doesn't work on pc and works fine on laptop wirh the same installation.

I do not think it is because using a laptop instead of a desktop(?) pc. I am mostly using a laptop as well and I always had that bug with the replay stopping after just a few turns with this mod. Several other players have reported the same issue over the years, with or without mods, as documented in this other topic:
viewtopic.php?t=63828

It looks like mostly large maps are affected though, so it might be some memory problem, like maybe the game should use more memory or something, I don't know. Some other older games have a thing called memory patch, which allows the game to use memory up to 4 GB, since back in the day most games only used like 1 GB, I really don't know...

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Hi McGuba and thanks for answering. Isn't it a big problem, especially for MP, when I can't see opponent turns? For example, I can not see enemy paratroopers flying across my lines.
Isn't there any chance to fix this? Btw: My desktop has more RAM as my laptop; that's strange!

Reporting from the Front:

After so many years, BE can still give new, unique gameplay enjoyment!
Also all the new features of the 2.5.1 version, but I want to write this time about the new gamestyle of the 25% prestige version.
Because I have never enough prestige, I have learned how to fight with middle-, or low strength units. For example since the losses, I fight in the Eastern Mediterrean with one 4, one 8 str level bomber and two 6 str tac bomber.

Another aspect are the obsolete tanks and fighter planes. I use the obsolete Italian and Romanian fighters very good at finishing the Allied bombers, which were already weakened with German destroyers and fighters. Also the obsolete German panzers were useful hunting exposed Soviet infantry - most are now already lost or converted to Panzerjägers (...which was not an easy task as 100 prestige/conversion was almost an impossible price to pay for me as my whole turn-budget was slightly below 100. But in the last minute, at turn 49 and turn 50, the two obsolete candidates could be converted!) . But two Pz38(t)'s are still in active use, one got even lucky with a +3D hero.

As I also try always to "cover the front" (that means, no holes left without the sights of the units/cities, even if the enemy is not present - see this as a push for even more realistic play), so very weak/obsolete units can be used also for that.

Just another update:

I will again make a reload. It will be the 4th. I made it earlier to turn 51. It looked better than the previous, but now in hindsight... My last reload will be from turn 81. It looks really good! I could win at Tunis at turn 56 (every Anglo-Saxon units destroyed), capture Britain at turn 57. Survived the winter of 42-43 and 43-44. I could finally start to mop-up the Kursk salient ant close all entrance to the region east of Moscow also securing it as a staging point to advance further east. Africa is in my pocket, Rommel's forces are at the outskirts of Basra (although Baghdad and the rest is not yet captured).

So why then reload? Well, maybe I'm wrong and it could be still done in 18 turns. But...

- As a base challenge, my income even with the latest Speer addition and with all of the Caucasus oil fields running is 182 prestige/turn. That is much higher than 100, but big upgrades are still almost impossible.
- None of the minor fighters could be upgraded except the Romanian BF 109.
- The Luftwaffe is in decreasing state of fighting force with still the old Bf 109G-6's (plus the two FW 190A's) flying with weakening in every turn in strength while the Red Airforce is getting stronger and stronger.
- Zero Pz III could be yet upgraded - even for the latest and cheapest Panthger G type - so I fight with what I have: my greatest assets are the Tiger and the Ferdinand which I could retain still in str 7, plus some PzIV's, Jagdpanters and Panzerjägers.
- Sevastopol is not yet captured (probable it could be done relative quickly if I could spare some concentrated forces for the task).
- Leningrad is absolutely not yet touched (except Kraysnaya Gorka destroyed) and that is my biggest concern: for a siege I don't think that there is enough time left and for the concentrated attack I do not have the force because I do not have yet the Panthers and I do have to advance further east.
- Therefore all the Finnish troops and planes are still passive and no advance could be made toward the Archangelsk-Vologda line.

So as a summery I'm probably not far from a DV but a few turns would be missing for it.

What now? Sometimes I get into the grinding, just moving forward and defending (...while total in coma/zombie mode because of the constant not much sleep... ) - but the new ideas came spontaneous.

So what to change to bring different results?
- Again, not letting units to rot idle in the hinterland because no prestige for upgrades - it is still better to use them in obsolete state as to not use them at all...
- Do not try to defend Orel. It will anyway not succeed. On the other hand, west of Orel in the forest only an arty and a few inf units can hold up the advancing soviets. Units freed up could be used elsewhere.
- I'm not sure about this but maybe sacrificing inf units in lonely defenses at Belgorod, Sumy, Harkov do not really slow down the Soviet armored forces so they could be used more effectively by helping building/holding other defensive lines.
- Moving almost all units from the Afrika Korps after reaching the Suez canal to other theaters: there will be no further hostile attacks from that direction and the Baghdad - Abadan region can be captured still from the Caucasus. The shore line can be captured when all of the Regia Marina capital ships are freed up at Tunis so they can give a devastating arty support for any advancing Axis troops.
- With the additional arty (2 x 105, 2 x Italian!) I could speed up the process at Tunis which would bring a snowballing effect as all of the fighting forces there could be moved to the eastern front much sooner!

Let's see my fellow Field Marshalls, let's see...

This Region is still neglected because of scarce resources.
At Moscow I have really upper hand. Kursk getting mopped up - but strong Soviet armored forces are advancing still south...

This picture is showing that things are still not yet fully in winning state...
The Caucasus oil fields could be defended, but a lot of forces were needed for that task. Rommel's forces could be surely capture the Abadan oild fields - but again: would be enough time to capture the rest of the major cities in the region?

Did you try to destroy the coastal battery on 52,41 in your latest attemps?

Or rather via 47,41 and 49,41?

Not many people would get that far with so little prestige

The reloading and the dice chess helps. (Plus a ton of patience. )
What is really interesting how I learn to fight "budget"- style: with low-, or medium strength units, minimizing Sea Lion, minimizing Rommel, minimizing Tunis.
For example Tunis could be won by without any armored units (The lonely Semovente 47/32 was destroyed early on) and with just a 105mm arty and a 65mm mtn arty. What was the "magic"? The Regia Marina was there with 1 and 0,3 battleships plus the 2 heavy cruisers. OK and with most of the Luftwaffe!

PeteMitchell wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2026 3:05 pm Not many people would get that far with so little prestige

caesar67 wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 12:23 pm Hi McGuba and thanks for answering. Isn't it a big problem, especially for MP, when I can't see opponent turns? For example, I can not see enemy paratroopers flying across my lines.
Isn't there any chance to fix this? Btw: My desktop has more RAM as my laptop; that's strange!

It is indeed a problem, but not a fatal one. And it also has a few advantages for example it is easier to escape with submarines or much weakened friendly units since the opponent does not see in which direction these are retreating. And so there is a higher chance to save them.

As for paratroopers, it is one of the reasons why there are only two Axis paratrooper units in the mod, or more like one and a half, since one of these is understrength. This small force cannot make a huge change or decide the outcome of the war.

Also it is highly recommended to play the mod with such a house rule that paratroopers can only be dropped over enemy territory within 12-13 hexes from the nearest friendly airfield. Because air transports unfortunately do not consume fuel and otherwise could move all over the map. This is a vanilla Panzer Corps issue and cannot be fixed by mods.

Another recommended house rule in multiplayer is to avoid the full encirclement of enemy air units with friendly ones. That is at least one hex should be left empty next to enemy air unit(s) allowing them to escape if they survive all the air attacks during the actual turn.

Finally, it is also recommended to check out the youtube playlist of a multiplayer longplay of the beta version of BE 2.5, uploaded by Duedman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fiyUBa ... X&index=84

Uhu wrote: Sat Aug 22, 2026 7:29 am Just another update:

I will again make a reload. It will be the 4th. I made it earlier to turn 51. It looked better than the previous, but now in hindsight...

That is some amazing commitment!
Playing for a total victory with such little prestige is truly very difficult, if not impossible.

As for house rules: at singleplayer I try to maintain always a coherent front line.

What does it mean? Where the front "line" is, as a chain, every hex should be watched. In good weather that could be two units with 4 hexes between them, or a unit and a town with 3 hexes between them. Important is that no hostile units could sneak through undetected (...except AT ).

I could imagine if some time a full BE can be created as a new game that if there are not watched hexes, there would be a certain chance that a hostile weak unit would spawn there and live it's life.

Why an unmanned town can also guard? It has also a watch radius and I imagine these towns that there is a small amount of garrison troops which are two small/weak to fight, but they can maintain an occupation.