Grand Campaign Unit Revisions (GC45West, Mar 4 2013)

[Uhu]

OK, I will share, but I have to make it more user-friendly: I mean, for me alone, many things were clear, how I modified it, but I want to make it clear for the others too. I will post, when I'm finished with it.

If someone wants an absolute (99%) historical accurate and with all nations involved in Europe, North African and Middle East theater file than we can share the files which we developed with McGuba for the Battlefield Europe mod.

Yes please! I've played with modified stats before and it was a lot of fun compared to vanila

ps.: same goes for the minor nation parts ofc

[nvett]

Looking forward to your release...

[Rockety]

Hi Uhu, deducter made a come back. Maybe it would be beneficial to combine your efforts.

[deducter]

I'm quite shocked this thread is still here on the first page of the Scenario Design subforum. Unit Revisions v11 is tuned specifically for v1.14 rules and should still work very well with them. I was satisfied with this version since I didn't think there was anything else I could do without game engine changes.

Certain things that bugged me in the old version simply could not be changed without the new rules introduced in v1.2. In particular, the dice roll cap will finally allow me to mitigate the exponential growth of the power of the player's core. On the one hand, overstrength elite high attack/high initiative German units will no longer crush the AI without losses. On the other hand, those overstrength AI units in 1943+ won't devastate your historical core either. There will almost always be some losses in most engagements, but it'll be much more gradual. The effect should be that more powerful cores will still have to play well to achieve victory, whereas weaker cores can just hang in there for the late war scenarios and stem the Allied/Soviet attacks without being wiped out.

[Delta66]

Nice to hear from you Deducter.
Regards

[Renemesis]

mr. deductor! I was wondering after looking at your youtube videos.. how can you adjust so that you recieve less prestige overall? It's all fine and dandy with the changes you make here to make it more challenging, but I would like the exact same difficulty as you have in your videos, and if I try to use custom rules in the GC, it just overrules it, and goes with the standard rules, which isn't really all that challenging, and never really forces me to give a darn about prestige, as having 10 000 on hand at all times, or even way more isn't really that hard. This makes the game too easy, and it feels like no matter what I do, I can't fail. I'd like it to be pretty much as hard and challenging as possible, but how do I do it? How can I use other prestige settings so I get less? Do I need to change some script file? And if so, which and how?

[Rockety]

What year are you playing?

[Renemesis]

I want to start from 39 with little to no prestige and have a hard fight, but it's always set to the same values, 50 on minior city, 100 on VP flag. If I set overall prestige to 20% it is still at 100% and I start with the same amount of prestige, I just can't make the custom rules take, even if I check for them and everything.

[Alexkfabian]

Welcome back, Deducter!

Would you kindly consider continuing your mod to cater for the 1.2+ patches?

[Delta66]

I want to start from 39 with little to no prestige and have a hard fight, but it's always set to the same values, 50 on minior city, 100 on VP flag. If I set overall prestige to 20% it is still at 100% and I start with the same amount of prestige, I just can't make the custom rules take, even if I check for them and everything.

Hi,

If you want to tweak the settings more than what is allowed with the advanced options .

Goes to your game folder and find the Data subfolder, something like:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Slitherine\Panzer Corps\Data

There, using a simple text editor, you can edit the files ending with .pzdat, in particular
diff.pzdat, for the difficulty level
campaign.pzdat

[vasilak]

Wow, this is some work. Great job deducter!
So, if I understand correctly this mod does not work with the latest Panzer Corps update (1.22).
Can anyone verify this?

[Delta66]

Wow, this is some work. Great job deducter!
So, if I understand correctly this mod does not work with the latest Panzer Corps update (1.22).
Can anyone verify this?

It works, the problem is rather balance issues with some of the rules in 1.20+ versions, than any technical problem.

[vasilak]

Wow, this is some work. Great job deducter!
So, if I understand correctly this mod does not work with the latest Panzer Corps update (1.22).
Can anyone verify this?

It works, the problem is rather balance issues with some of the rules in 1.20+ versions, than any technical problem.

So If I select the 1.14 rules when I start the campaign there is no problem, right?

[Delta66]

Correct, but note as Deducter said that the mod v1.11 is tuned for rules 1.14.

The later revision of the mod 1.12 supposed to works with rules 1.20 is still a work in progress. As rules 1.20 added rules that change the gameplay significantly, it requires a lot of extra work and balancing. I think mod v1.12 is more or less ok with GC East, I played it until 1944, but there is more issues with GC West due to the new Soft Cap prestige rule.

Currently Deducter seems to be on other games.

[vasilak]

I currently play with the new rules but I don't mind playing with the 1.14 rules either, so no problem there.
Thanks.

[Waffenamt]

I've really enjoyed playing from 1939 almost through 1942 with the 1,21b2 mod. That, along with the 1.20 rules is the best combination imho. I've been following the tread on the newer mod, but you're right that our friend deducter seems to be involved in other stuff at the moment. I'm hoping to move on to 1943 soon and was thinking of using the gamerules and exp files from 1.21b2 GC42 along with the equipment file from 1.11.1 GC43E. I really like how the 1.21b2 mod works with the new rules and want to continue with it if possible. Is that how you made it through to 1944, Delta66?

Regards

[Delta66]

I helped Deducter playtest the last revision, and played several times until the end of 1943 without any major issues. And at least one time through 1944.
I played on Rommel which reduce pp by 50%, and also tried with Rommel+50% (that is 25%).
I even experienced with Rommel + 25%, and I managed to accumulate 15000-18000 by the End of 1943.Relying on only 10 str units and only buying overstrength for artillery. And using all possible technics and tricks to save pp:
- As far as can I try to capture all secondary objectives, though in the GC it is impossible in some scenarios, in hard settings, like Leningrad. For example in the Stalingrad Ruins scenario you are supposed to defend, but you can actually go on offense and clear all the map.
- don't buy transport for all you infantry, I think you can play through all GC 1939 with foot only infantry. even going as far as disbanding those that start with trucks and buying truck-less one to get new pp. This make replacement cheaper as tthey are based on the whole unit price.
- No need to upgrade all your artillery to the more expensive type.
- Never repair during a battle but with the cheaper rates during setup.
- keep some cheap units in you front line to absorb losses, and make the best of the auxilliary units to absorb looses instead of your core units.
- in rules 1.20 if you force surrender you'll get a fraction of the enemy units cost in pp. This can lead to several thousands extra pp along the campaign.
- you can disband captured equipment to get extra pp.
- another trick is to disband some of the free SE units you receive (especially if your are not happy with the type received. Obviously you want to keep them to have a stronger core, but once you reach the SE number limit for a specific campaign you can disband one of them to get pp, and you will still eligible to get a new SE units later in the campaign. I always keep the first one, but once you have 2 or 3 it is relatively safe to disband one of them.
- Rather than upgrading a unit to a better type, you can also consider disbanding it, if it has few xp and no heroes, to buy a new one this save a lot of pp. For example I always disband the at start AT gun. Towed AT is very ineffective early in the campaign, and with its truck it gives some good pp early on.

....

So I think playing in FM should works until GC East 1945 with 1.12. The whole idea of the mod being you can't field all slots with super weapons upgrade to 15str.
Moreover, I think the mod was started before the special bonus heroes units were introduced in the GC, so with those very (OP) units it should be ok with the 45 files.

The main problem is rather with GC West, were due to the Soft Cap you immediately find yourself in a pp drought.

[Delta66]

I think you can uses equipment files from 1.12, but tweak the gamerules to remove soft cap (set the flag to 0).

In my experience Soft Cap doesn't affect too much on GC East until 1943. With Soft Cap on, it is very difficult to predict how it will affect players so far in the campaign, as different players will have vastly different forces?

[Waffenamt]

Thanks. So it looks good for using he gamerules and exp files from 121b2 GC42 along with the equipment file from the unit revisions 1.11.1 GC43E. According to the 12b2 changelog "Prestige soft cap removed as it is not necessary with the other changes". I checked the gamerules file, and yes it's already set to 0. Now I just need to make sure I don't get thumped too severely in the final GC 42 battles!

Regards

[wastedswan]

I would like to tell you guys about a simple change I made to the equip file that adds a WHOLE lot more depth to the game. All you do is set the movement of all towed guns to zero. Simple eh? But so much depth. Guns must now mount transports to move - gone are the days of run and gun assault artillery. This turns them into a predominantly defensive unit.
Artillery
Used on the defensive or brought up to soften up the enemy before the final assault on a city or fortress. Self propelled arty now your go to unit for a blitzkrieg attack.
AT guns
Purely a defensive unit now. Can also be set up as traps by drawing enemy armor to them. Again separating them from TDs which are now your blitzkrieg weapon. Re-balanced by giving anything of 75mm caliber and up a range of 1 which enables them to attack adjacent hexes without a counter-attack. You could also reduce their init so when they do get assaulted they fare worse.
AA
Purely a defensive unit now, stops them from chasing down your stukas.

Unforseen (but welcome) effect
When they would have retreated, because these units cant move they now surrender. Now when overrun by armor the crews no longer stuff the guns in their pockets and leg it. This now also makes it easier to brute force through the AI gun spam at the final objective.
Implications for AI
Not a nerf, rather AI guns are now a fixed hardpoint that can either be assaulted or avoided.

A friend and I have played through the GC with this change and we not only find it well balanced but also a great improvement to the game.

I am eagerly awaiting your replies Herr Generals.