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Sometimes you may want to upgrade an infantry unit to a specialised one, like combat engineers (a new combat engineer unit with 0 experience would not be very useful).

So if you want to have a division of combat engineers for some special mission like bunker killing or capturing a heavily defended city, you take an infantry division and upgrade it to combat engineers without selecting the unit size (battalion or regiment). In that case you get a combat engineer division.

This cheat also works for construction engineers.

Doesn’t that crash the game ?

No, at least not on my computer.

There was a similar cheat in early versions when StuGs were only available in battalions. I bought a regiment of 50 mm PaKs and upgraded to StuGs so I got a StuG regiment. This cheat may work even with 1.08 but there is no need for it, you can buy a regiment of StuGs directly, or even a brigade.

... I will have to try this with artillery, buy a Nebelwerfer brigade, upgrade to 150 mm guns and get a real ''Artillery Command'' or Arko. The only problem is that these artillery commands must be expensive, so you will never get many... but if you have a couple for Moscow, then those Siberian guards will learn what ''artillery'' really means!

Could you post a screenshoot of this "Combat Engineer Division" with Nato symbol ?

You can sometimes play with these units (I have tried a scenario of 10 moves) but the game crashes if you reload a save. So it crashes a game in 1.08.

If we use only the allowed formations, we can have a combat engineer regiment with three additional battalions, or one additional regiment. That is not a division but definitely is a brigade (strength of 10) - and you can find two combat engineer regiments per army group, so you get a perfectly legitimate sturmbrigade.

The same goes for 150 mm howitzers but you can still have a regiment with two extra companies, or one battalion (strength of 9). That gives you an overstrength regiment or understrength brigade, and you can use the third attachment for extra ammo. The question is, what do you want more - a larger force or better supplies?

The good side of the legitimate way is lower costs, you do not need to do those double upgrades.

Thanks for the screenshot, I figured it would crash the game. So it is not a Cheat but a real Bug!

Hi AngrySwan,

will check this out - thanks for reporting it!

Regards,

Hi Ronald,

A more accurate problem description is ''If you want to upgrade a unit with another unit with less formations available you get a bug unit.'' You can still play with it if you are lucky but trying to reload a save crashes the game.
For example, you want to get an experienced combat engineer unit so you take the best infantry division you have and upgrade them to combat engineers. Combat engineers are available in battalions and regiments so you are not given a formation and have to chose one. It is not a big deal - if the player just remembers it and never forgets to specify the units size.

Hi AngrySwan,

good news (or bad news for the evil cheaters [;)] ), this exploit is removed in 1.09, so you have to stay true to the historical pattern in the improvement screen. You still can build others, but that is for the designers, not the players to do.

Hi Ronald,

Along the same lines - there are Elite forces as core units in 1941-42 and Eastern Front 1941 campaigns. Wiking starts as a regiment in Bialystok in the extended Barbarossa campaign. Is it possible to change upgrade options for the Elite units so that they cannot be upgraded to Army?
As followers of the old Prussian military tradition and good church goers, the generals in HQ have somewhat reserved attitude to those units - but panzer groups need a strong mobile infantry force, and the Army motorized units are just not enough.

If it is too hard or takes too much time, I will remove one infantry division from Bialystok scenario and put Wiking on the line as a division.