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

[Locarnus]

This sounds like a lot of fun!

It certainly is. And every player only needs to commit for a limited involvement.

Some may only take on a single term and write a short AAR, while others may take over multiple terms at different times or write more lengthy AARs.
Or take more time discussing the situations between other players terms and so on.
With a bit of flexibility (also in terms of AAR preferences from everyone), it is a great concept.

This was a Rule the Waves 2 succession AAR in video form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2LVIa6 ... XalBOBxoWp

It is a youtube playlist of several streamers playing a succession game.
One is really unprepared and forgot how the game works, one is known for strong convictions and hates early torpedo boats (thus eg missing out on stuff like Japans surprise attack mechanic), one goes overboard with experimental designs, another one plays plays "normally"...
And of course everyone has to deal with a new situation each time they take over.

[Locarnus]

So, at lot has happened in the last two weeks.

Unfortunately not a single person interested in participating in the succession game.
Writing for that was quite some effort for nothing.

Addon units and functionality in Afrika Korps Iraq scenario:



Some units from the update, which was originally planned for the succession game (thank you guille1434, for those great Karl Gerät and Eisenbahnflak icons!):

[jeffoot77]

"Unfortunately not a single person interested in participating in the succession game.
Writing for that was quite some effort for nothing. "

--> no , many players have played your excellent mod but are not posting and also some guys are just waiting some patchs to begin a new game with your mod.
For me by example, i m playing the mod at the moment but i play it very slowly, i play only 1 turn by day so i can't post a review until i finish my game.
thank you very much for this upgrade of Mc Guba mod. It is very pleasant to play for the moment.

[guille1434]

Hello Locarnus!
Excellent work, keep it up! Unfortunately I am not able to play PzCorps right now with my very old netbook computer, I bought a new one but I don't have the time to install the Operative System on it to be able to use it... Also, I did not forget about the Sturmtiger. I found many reference images, and I think you will like the results. This is a "work in progress"

Also, I am reseraching the performances and distinctive characteristics of the Fw-190A different sub-variants in order to make more visually identifiable icons and to try to find a more defined "function niche" for said different variants. I fount that the ones present in the equipment file at the moment are very similar one to the other (mainly, they have different prestige cost values, the other stats showing very little variation).

I am very glad you liked the icons I made for your mod! And I congratulate you for the great work you are doing!!

[Locarnus]

2022-03 Download: https://bit.ly/3tM0HRr
- Improved balancing for rocket propelled and assault arty, plus additional units (eg Karl-Gerät split into 040 and 041 variants)
- Improved balancing for some aircraft (Bf 110), plus additional units (eg Fw 190A-4)
- Improved balancing for infantry (eg ground and close defense rebalanced), plus additional units (eg Jäger)
- New movement type for light infantry (eg Jäger, Bersaglieri), great for hills and forests!
- Alpine movement type buffed in some aspects (frozen ground movement, forests), nerfed a bit for hills, mountains and high mountains
- Improved balancing for some heavy tanks
- New German heavy tank progression (see screenshots 3 posts above), allowing for more realism and flexibility in deployment
- New Eisenbahnflak unit!
- Additional in-between "scenarios" for cross-class upgrading options during the early campaign. Also allows some more core customization before Barbarossa
- New difficulty preset: "FM Rommel", combining Fieldmarshal experience nerf (50%) with Rommel prestige nerf (50%)
- As well as some bug fixes and stuff

A big thank you to guille1434, for providing the icons for the Karl Gerät and the Eisenbahnflak!

Afrika Korps campaign now playable! (bottom left campaign icon, which formerly started the campaign at the Mediterranean scenario)
- AK can thus be played with the rebalanced equipment file!
- Dual purpose AA units, not limited to the 88 (eg SdKfz 10/4, SdKfz 7/1 and SdKfz 7/2 against those British bombers)
- Dual purpose assault guns, not limited to the StuG III B/E (eg Sturmpanzer II and StuIG 33B)
- Dual purpose aircraft (eg fighter bombers Bf 110 and Fw 190 variants)!
- Many units new to AK, like Flammpanzer III and German Jäger light infantry!
- Some non-gameplay relevant compromises had to be made for compatibility with BE and game engine limitations, like flag adjustments
- First 7 AK scenarios are already made compatible (up to and including Gazala Line in mid 1942), the rest will follow in future updates

[PeteMitchell]

AK is now separate, a separate map?

[Locarnus]

@jeffoot77:
Ah, thank you!
Looking forward to any feedback you have!

@guille1434:
Thank you!
Yeah, any more mobile device makes is hard for games intended to run on larger screens. Looking forward to some great Sturmtiger icons in the future!
With the Fw-190A-4, I closed the gap a little bit and somewhat adjusted the A-2, but did not invest a lot of time into researching the different versions. Too much other stuff going on (infantry movement type was quite some work). Any input is welcome.
The Eisenbahnflak is now included, to gather some experience about how well it can be used. Will then take another look at it in a future update, together with the other heavy flak and the whole siege movement/AA trucks chasing aircraft mechanic. It was just too much for this update due to all the issues I had with AK integration.

@PeteMitchell:
AK is the standard DLC campaign from PzC. Imho the best official dlc, where there is at least some prestige limit on Rommel difficulty. And combined with Field Marshal it might offer a challenge.
I tested it a bit with Rommel and then with FM Rommel difficulty.
Afrika Korps campaign integration woke lots of sleeping dragons (flags, terrain, invalid units and so on) and was a lot more work than I anticipated (even for the 7 scenarios I did so far).

But I needed a bit of a break from the giant BE scenario and the AK campaign was the official one I was most interested in.
So much stuff makes more sense now with the modded unit file (SPAA can switch to ground targets, chassis based upgrade options and so on)...
Works quite well in my opinion! Some things are cheaper now (chassis based upgrades), other aspects became harder (some upgrades, general unit prices: eg good infantry, tanks, especially Tiger I).
A familiar yet different challenge, both when coming from vanilla AK and coming from addon BE.

[Locarnus]

The scenarios of the original Afrika Korps campaign are only adjusted for compatibility with BE (BE uses some tricks and workarounds, which do well on their own, but clash a bit with original PzC DLC scenarios).

Besides some "terrain type", "flag slots" and equipment entry repurposements for BE, one of the issues was the treatment of bonus units.
To compensate for the absence of properly adjusted bonus units in the BE equipment file, I had to make some changes that should somewhat balance out and keep it as close as possible to the original AK DLC.
Axis bonus slots are removed from each scenario, but added to the normal core slot count.

To make up for the player not getting bonus units for free, some additional auxiliar units in the first scenario are turned into core units (they can't all be used in the next scenarios, due to limited core slots and the second scenario not allowing for aircraft anyway). These are:
1. The Flak 8.8 cm on the left
2. The Bf 110
3. The Stuka

Further more, the starting force is somewhat adjusted for historical accuracy, in line with the wider BE/Addon equipment file:
a) One of the Grenadiers with SdKfz 251 is turned into a Wehrmacht Inf with Opel Blitz (called "Wüsten Blitz", which has the exact same stats but with desert camo visuals)
b) Some transports are more historically accurate
c) The player starts out with a less capable SdKfz 222 instead of a 232. The 222 was a lot more numerous than the 232, in Africa in 1941

Many BE/Addon units are more expensive than their vanilla counterparts, but the addon also provides more in-group upgrade opportunities.
Between scenarios, basic reinforcements cost 10% of the unit price, 25% during a scenario (standard). Elites cost 50% between and 75% within a scenario (also standard).
Units that can be captured in vanilla AK can also be captured with the addon.
First 7 scenarios (up to and including "Gazala Line") are made compatible so far, rest follows in future updates.

"Recon in Force" scenario start, with core composition at the beginning of the campaign:

[jeffoot77]

Hello Locarnus,

I m playing the great McGuba mod with yours improvements , i m only turn 18 ( end of winter 41-42) and your mod is very good: the mode brings a lot of freshness, first with the core units possible to buy from the start, I was also able to upgrade a pzI or I in bison, which is super nice is that I was able to buy a average unit each turn to fill gaps on one front or another. Finally I have AA or antitanks where I want, finally I can just defend and position my troops without stressing, that changes everything! It was very strange to make the pre-scenarios without worrying about prestige, in fact it makes the 4-5 scenarios super cool to do: no more pressure by wanting to save prestige at all costs!

And : just a bug? : on turn 14-15, no more prestige per turn! : i thus started turn 15 with zero prestige!
Then it comes back after turn 16 but the money from the capital cities was missing (4x40 = 160) so i manually add these missing 160 prestige each new turn.
Otherwise, what is always so frustrating in the mod is the submarines which cannot sink a transport in 1 hit. it therefore very often happens that a submarine sinks only 1 boat (and more) before having to return to the base. I think that the strenght of a merchant ship should have been set to 5.
Another problem: you put +18 free core units at the beginning ( turn 2) and therefore, at turn 17-18, I can no longer had the ability to buy new units . So I also manually add +10 in core...

I can't wait to see the next turns . Thank you again for all the improvements you made, the mod is much more fun!

[Locarnus]

@jeffoot77
Thank you very much for your feedback, it helps me a lot!

Yeah, the pre scenarios are a lot more relaxing, and the lack of prestige pressure allows for some more experimentation with unit mechanics and variety.

The lack of starting prestige in between turns 15-20 is very strange, since I did not modify those prestige gains compared to BE 2.3.
I remember something about giving the game time to run all the scripts at the beginning of a turn (eg wait a few seconds before you click on the "weather report and victory conditions" screen at the start of each of your turns).
Since the game engine was not built to run so many scripts at the beginning of a turn.
If this is the case, maybe I can change some scripts to run at different times. So many workarounds necessary, the game was really not designed for such a complex scenario.
I'll have to investigate further, but that will have to wait till April due to real life constraints.

The submarine warfare aspect is something I tried adressing in the experimental September branch from last year and I eventually plan to rebalance that.
Though I guess the main thing about the "sinking transports" vs "staying on shipping lanes" is, that transports represent larger convoys and require wolfpack tactics (multiple subs) for a good payout.

Hm, the core slot mechanic is hard to balance, since units do not require upkeep/costly supplies and the axis player also gets some units through events.
I'll see what I can do about it while keeping an eye on the balance.
What difficulty settings do you use?

Can't wait for additional feedback, it is vital to improve the gameplay experience!
Thank you again!

[jeffoot77]

I use colonel settings and so i don't loose many units ^^. For the core units, I can't no more buy new units after turn 18. The units the player get for free are counting as core units and so it is very fast to reach max core units number.

For the prestige goint to zero at turn 14, it appeared when winter arrived with frozen ground and snow . And the 16O missing prestige are coming back too after some turns. ( turns 18-19)

With your mod and planes switching in bomber , it is very fun to adapt strategy. For example, with just a core experienced german b110 , i have reduced malta fortress to 0 (with help of italian planes) . So no need to use Rudel for Malta. ( i took Malta on turn 21).

The switch icon on the units are very usefuL .I like antitank/bison !
For the submarines, it is also hard to see and find merchants ships, i have the impression to find systematically enemy destroyers! Maybe one solution is to give more vision range?

Thanks again for your mod ! one of the top improvement mod on the best mod of PC (McGuba mod) !

[jeffoot77]

edit: turn 35 and it is going well in the mod. No bug, no problem.

Just some suggestions :

- the submarines are loosing one ammo each turn when they are on the road of the convoy (without attacking) , is it normal??
- The submarine have not enough ammo and it is too long to take them back so i let them on the road of the convoys. why not give them infinite ammo when they are on the surface? ammo of the cannon are almost infinite, aren't they ?
- upgrading a unit when it is very limited should be able to be done in any city. For example, the stug F in stug F/2, it is very tiring to bring back one by one more than 10 stugs!
- there should be at least one garnison in south norway. When partisan raise, not even a troop to kill them!
- maybe some warning messages when winter is coming to 100% like in november : for exemple, i had 80% sun weather for the next turn and it was snow (even by restarting a savegame ) , it is always snow..

[Locarnus]

edit: turn 35 and it is going well in the mod. No bug, no problem.

Just some suggestions :

- the submarines are loosing one ammo each turn when they are on the road of the convoy (without attacking) , is it normal??
- The submarine have not enough ammo and it is too long to take them back so i let them on the road of the convoys. why not give them infinite ammo when they are on the surface? ammo of the cannon are almost infinite, aren't they ?
- upgrading a unit when it is very limited should be able to be done in any city. For example, the stug F in stug F/2, it is very tiring to bring back one by one more than 10 stugs!
- there should be at least one garnison in south norway. When partisan raise, not even a troop to kill them!
- maybe some warning messages when winter is coming to 100% like in november : for exemple, i had 80% sun weather for the next turn and it was snow (even by restarting a savegame ) , it is always snow..

About subs:
Those are pretty much unchanged from BE 2.3. As far as I know, McGuba's intended them to give a small effect when passively sitting on the "route" (at the cost of 1 ammo per turn) and a loarge effect when actively destroying ships/convoys. Sitting on a route can be done by one sub, while active hunting encourages the use of multiple subs on the same target for higher returns. The whole returning to port due to limited ammo issue simulates the dangers of the whole submarine warfare operation. It becomes a tactical decision when to withdraw and rearm. Otherwise players could just sit on those routes forever, with a massed horde of subs.
One interesting aspect is the usage of long range airplanes. Those can either loiter over the area and act as spotters for submarine wolfpacks (or early warning for subs in general) or fly back and rearm often and help with sinking ships.
While the stats and such do not make the subs realistic, they help in providing the players with tactical dilemmas that increase the realism of the whole operation.

Unit upgrades:
I agree that some upgrades should be possible as "field modifications". Unfortunately I do not know how to implement this given the game engine limitations. The BE scenario is really stretching the limits of what the PzC engine can do (with many workarounds already in use).

Norway:
Agreed, historically there were lots of troops stationed in Norway due to its strategic importance. Most players ferry some italians over, but Norway should start out with more troops at the beginning of Barbarossa.

Warning messages:
Absolutely, this is something that comes up since far earlier versions of BE itself. Be it winter frostbite season, Italian capitulation or unit deployment preparations.
The weather forecast is not working for BE at all, and the player should be informed about that.
I personally use the small BE 2.2 "history" by Uhu: https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... 1&t=105417
While the Addon changed some things compared to that history (many unit availability dates), I did not touch the weather at all.
I'll also try to add more messages for the axis player. It will be a work in progress, but I'll try to take care of the most crucial and devastating "surprises" in that regard.

Thank you for all the feedback!


Afrika Korps youtube playthrough by goose_2 on "Field Marshall + Rommel" difficulty (50% player experience and 50% player prestige)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2gzDEp ... KR&index=1




I'm currently working on the next update (for April).
It will be focused on the feedback and contributions from guille1434, goose_2 (youtube) and jeffoot77.
While some aspects require longer development, there are quite a few things going into this first major "direct feedback" based update.
It will also make the Afrika Korps "losing path" scenarios compatible with the Addon, enabling goose_2 to continue with his youtube playthrough.

[jeffoot77]

Thxs for the quick answer.

I think you are right when you said that McGuba want more subs together for hunting but the fact that the sub loose one ammo by turn make this strategy very hard. I think, the prestige won by sitting on convoy routes should be removed.The player will thus favor the tactic of waiting for other submarines before attacking instead of sitting on routes.

Thxs for all the hard works for this mod.

[McGuba]

Norway:
Agreed, historically there were lots of troops stationed in Norway due to its strategic importance. Most players ferry some italians over, but Norway should start out with more troops at the beginning of Barbarossa.

There are several fixed German units in Norway like strongpoints, coastal batteries and AA guns. These are intended to simulate the large number of German forces that were indeed based in Norway. If more of these were mobile than many players would probably move them to the eastern front as it happened in previous versions of the mod. In general it makes more sense to move every mobile unit to the east and only leave a minimum amount for occupation duties in the west, as many players do so. Even here the suggestion is that the existing German infantry units should be replaced with weaker Italians. Actually now I am thinking to replace these German infantry units in the west with a weaker new German security infantry unit type so that it will not make sense to replace them with Italians or Romanians. That would be more accurate historically.

I agree that some upgrades should be possible as "field modifications". Unfortunately I do not know how to implement this given the game engine limitations.

It is not really possible. But this unit rotation has an additional historical role as written in the in-game library: in WW2 German units were regularly taken back for rest and refit, no unit spent several years in the frontline continuously. So sometimes they must go home for a short holiday in the mod as well.

Absolutely, this is something that comes up since far earlier versions of BE itself. Be it winter frostbite season, Italian capitulation or unit deployment preparations.

As far as I remember now there is such a warning at least at the beginning of the first winter. It may be true that it may be necessary to have a similar warning at the beginning of every winter but on the other hand in reality sudden weather changes were also mostly unexpected. Currently in the mod only the start and the end of the winter season is hard coded, the rest of the weather is random or at least semi-random and as such there can be no warning given to the player.

As for the Italian, Romanian and other capitulations. I do not really think that there should be a warning for these as in reality these were also completely unexpected and as such had devastating consequencies for the Germans. But again, if I remember well now there is at least a hint given to the player that the loss of Tunis and Sicily would result in the surrender of the Italians, so...

Same for unit deployment preparations, whatever it may mean. As far as I remember there are several warning messages for the player for the coming D-day and Torch landings and perhaps a few other major Allied operations like the increase of the air raids. I do not think there should be many more of these as there are not many more of these scripted events anyway.

I think you are right when you said that McGuba want more subs together for hunting but the fact that the sub loose one ammo by turn make this strategy very hard. I think, the prestige won by sitting on convoy routes should be removed.

Only by being there they pose a threat to the Allies which forces them to commit resources to find and destroy the u-boats. Nevertheless, this has been greatly reduced in v2.3 and u-boats now get more for actually sinking convoy units. As for losing ammo in each turn, but gaining some experience it simulates that the wolfpacks attack individual ships as well (which are not shown at this map and unit scale) in every turn and not only the large convoys depicted by the actual convoy units. Their experience is also increasing even by avoiding detection and just surviving the harsh conditions in general.

The player will thus favor the tactic of waiting for other submarines before attacking instead of sitting on routes.

This is an absolutely valid tactic as historically the first u-boat that found a convoy often only "shadowed" it for a while by regularly reporting its speed and heading so that other u-boats could find it as well. That was the so-called wolfpack tactic in which u-boats attacked large convoys in groups for more success. Obviously PzC is not very good to depict naval operations due to game engine limitations but some aspects can be simulated more or less.

[Locarnus]

There are several fixed German units in Norway like strongpoints, coastal batteries and AA guns. These are intended to simulate the large number of German forces that were indeed based in Norway. If more of these were mobile than many players would probably move them to the eastern front as it happened in previous versions of the mod. In general it makes more sense to move every mobile unit to the east and only leave a minimum amount for occupation duties in the west, as many players do so. Even here the suggestion is that the existing German infantry units should be replaced with weaker Italians. Actually now I am thinking to replace these German infantry units in the west with a weaker new German security infantry unit type so that it will not make sense to replace them with Italians or Romanians. That would be more accurate historically.

Yep, I introduced such a "security" unit in one of the last updates, though the implementation needs some polish. Perhaps removing their "cheap" upgrade option to standard infantry, so that players have an incentive to keep them around instead of upgrading at the first opportunity. For the next update, I'd then replace some of the units in France and Greece? and station some of them in Norway as well.

As far as I remember now there is such a warning at least at the beginning of the first winter. It may be true that it may be necessary to have a similar warning at the beginning of every winter but on the other hand in reality sudden weather changes were also mostly unexpected. Currently in the mod only the start and the end of the winter season is hard coded, the rest of the weather is random or at least semi-random and as such there can be no warning given to the player.

As for the Italian, Romanian and other capitulations. I do not really think that there should be a warning for these as in reality these were also completely unexpected and as such had devastating consequencies for the Germans. But again, if I remember well now there is at least a hint given to the player that the loss of Tunis and Sicily would result in the surrender of the Italians, so...

Same for unit deployment preparations, whatever it may mean. As far as I remember there are several warning messages for the player for the coming D-day and Torch landings and perhaps a few other major Allied operations like the increase of the air raids. I do not think there should be many more of these as there are not many more of these scripted events anyway.

I just remember two German youtuber attempts at older BE versions. Both were pretty frustrated at some point, with some of the events seemingly being key aspects pushing them to abandon the playthrough.
I'll see what I can do in this regard, making it more "palatable" for first time users (even though there probably won't be any).

About the unit deployment preparations: Sorry, I meant telling the player that reinforcements can be expected in the coming turns. Eg that the player will receive more air force units for the Afrika Korps in turn 6 or so. So that a new player does not needlessly send units from other fronts. Or a message that new Pak models will become available in the near future.

Just some info that makes that first playthrough a bit less overwhelming.
Since there will be quite a few people who do not come back for a second attempt, if there are too many frustrations in the first one.

[McGuba]

Yep, I introduced such a "security" unit in one of the last updates, though the implementation needs some polish. Perhaps removing their "cheap" upgrade option to standard infantry, so that players have an incentive to keep them around instead of upgrading at the first opportunity. For the next update, I'd then replace some of the units in France and Greece? and station some of them in Norway as well.

Actually I checked a German 27 June 1941 OOB today:
https://www.ww2-weapons.com/german-orde ... arbarossa/
So it is a couple of days after the start of the invasion. It gives 9 such security divisions for that time, these are the numbered security divisions 454, 444, 213, 286, 221, 403, 281, 285, and 207. Basically all of these are on the eastern front, either in reserve or already doing their occupation duty just behind the frontline.

Thus they made up a small part of the total 175 German infantry divisions in 1941. About 5%.

But of course in the mod infantry units do not represent actual infantry divisions but more like a corps sized mass of riflemen. That is like 20-40 thousand riflemen or the rifle and submachine gun equipped soldiers of 2-4 infantry divisions.

(Currently there are 48 German infantry units in the map in turn 1 if I'm right, which means each represent the riflemen of about 3.5 infantry divisions or about 35,000 riflemen. But of course there are exceptions like the Brandenburger unit which was only a regiment in 1941, hence it is understrength. However, later it was expanded to a division sized unit. Actually now it just gave me the idea that perhaps the base strength of this unit could be increased from 5 to 7-8 at some point to simulate its expansion.)

So yeah, if there are 48 infantry units in turn 1 and in reality 5% of the infantry divisions were security divisions then there should be only 2-3 such infantry units. Perhaps only 2 as I reckon these were understrength units as well. I think I will change the two infantry units which are currently just behind the frontline units in the east and that should be it. And of course these should have similar or slightly better stats as the existing Minor Axis security and reserve infantry units.

Later a few more German security divisions were raised, but not too many, their total number seems to be 16:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_ ... Wehrmacht)

So perhaps 2 more such units should appear on the map, let's say one in 42 and another in 43. And then this unit type should not be available for purchase due to the limited number being formed. The wiki article also claims that almost all these were used in the east so in fact there should not be any of these in Norway or elsewhere.



Also about the earlier suggestion:

Norway:
Agreed, historically there were lots of troops stationed in Norway due to its strategic importance. Most players ferry some italians over, but Norway should start out with more troops at the beginning of Barbarossa.

Again, the above mentioned 1941 OOB gives 11 infantry divisions in Norway. But some (I would say about half) of these were used in the north against Petsamo/Murmansk which is outside of the current map. Which leaves 5-6 infantry divisions for the southern half of Norway which is included in the mod. Which means the two actual starting infantry units there is just about right. There is no need to place there more, I guess. I remember that I checked it a few years ago and that's why there is only two of them.

However, now I have also checked the history of the numerous German infantry divisions which were based in France in June 1941 in the same OOB and found that most of these were in fact static. Meaning they were not suitable for offensive operation as they lacked the transport vehicles and offensive weapons. However, many of these were later restructured to become regular infantry divisions and sent to the east. Thus now I am also thinking to reduce their starting number somewhat (currently there are 10 such infantry units in the map in the west in turn 1). And make these units appear later, in 42 and 43, when they were historically restructured and sent to the front. This would make the mod more realistic (and a bit harder of course) as currently most players move many of these units to the east as early as in 41, when historically it would not have been possible to do so. And then these would be "invisible" static units in 1941 and the new static infantry division which were raised later to replace them would be depicted by the strongpoint units which appear on the map in 43-44. And then the balance would remain more or less the same.

[McGuba]

I just remember two German youtuber attempts at older BE versions. Both were pretty frustrated at some point, with some of the events seemingly being key aspects pushing them to abandon the playthrough.
I'll see what I can do in this regard, making it more "palatable" for first time users (even though there probably won't be any).

It is not possible to make everyone happy. This is not an easy campaign and players are warned about that. Also for those who would prefer less frustration, there is the "Moderate" version of the scenario and the possiblity to play it on a lower difficulty level than the suggested General.

Also I think the main reason for these players giving up the mod at their first attempt is not this kind of frustration but their overall lack of skill in the game itself. For example I remember watching one of these playthroughs and the person playing it was not very good to say the least. He made lots of strategic mistakes and his tactical skill was also not very high. The overall situation was already very bad when they gave it up.

And I can only repeat myself, the surrender and switching side of Italy or Romania was also very unexpected and surely very frustrating for the German High Comand. But they kept on fighting even after these. When realistically they should have also given up after any of these debacles, so...

About the unit deployment preparations: Sorry, I meant telling the player that reinforcements can be expected in the coming turns. Eg that the player will receive more air force units for the Afrika Korps in turn 6 or so. So that a new player does not needlessly send units from other fronts.

Yes, it makes sense. But the problem here is that in my opinon there are already too many message boxes which may be somewhat annoying for those who play it multiple times. Perhaps it would be better to enclose the "Events" file in the in-game library so that players can check what they can expect in the next turns.

Or a message that new Pak models will become available in the near future.

For that purpose there is the unit upgrade chart in the in-game library. That should be adequate for most, I would say. And there are some messages like that already. And again, I think having many more of these messages would just overflow the player with information. But of course it is up to debate.

[goose_2]

This discussion between you 2 is highly entertaining and educational. Such good stuff

[Locarnus]

The rechecking of non-frontline units is a very interesting proposition!

From starting in Norway, to France/BeNeLux and the ones hanging back behind the Barbarossa frontlines, let me expand it to Greece/Balkans.

I made an accounting of the German non-frontline, non-flak units (should be pretty much the same with and without Addon).
First number is the amount which is there at the start of the big scenario,
second negative number is the approx amount that are shipped to the frontlines asap (most to the eastern front).

Standard German infantry:
1-1 Posen
1-1 Breslau

1-1 Belgrade
3-1 Greece

2-1 Norway

1-1 Denmark
3-3 BeNeLux
5-3 France
--------------------------------
17-12 total standard Inf
edit: Some of them are exchanged for eg Romanian reserves or Italian inf (especially concerning Balkan/Greece and Norway).


Adding to that the other non-inf/flak units:
Ruhr and Berlin
2-2 Pak

Wien
1-1 Gebirgsjäger

Crete
1-1 Gebirgs- and
1-1 Fallschirmjäger

Nantes
1-1 Kradschützen

Paris
1-1 mot Grenadiere,
1-1 Pak
1-1 Arty
2 captured French tanks
----------------------------------
11-9 non-inf/flak units


So, practically about 21 existing units reinforce the frontlines as soon as they can catch up.
Might be ~15 units for players with fewer BE starts (or who are more cautious about partisans), but that is still a lot of units.
Those can make the difference between current gameplay (where players tend to push on the whole front in spring 1942)
and history (where the Axis was only able to push at the southern section of the fronline while just holding the Center and North).

Another aspect about the translation from historical divisions to in-game units:
There needs to be some accounting for the in-game "externalized" units (eg Pak, Arty), which historically are usually part of ordinary divisions.
So eg on average 10 historical eastern front divisions might be represented by 3 inf units, 1 pak unit, 1 arty unit and 1 additional unit (eg pak or flak or something else).
While in smaller deployment zones like Greece or BeNeLux, there are too few units to have "externalization" of pak and arty.
Therefore 10 divisions in these areas have to be represented by 6 infantry units and no additional units.
Or 5 infantry units, accounting for the lower strength of such non-frontline units.

edit: The numbers in the last paragraph are just a quick example for the principle, not based on actual represenation on the map.