Artillery in 1.2 beta 2

[Walloc]

Hi Frank,


It seems to me that u have tweeked artillery further up in beta 2 than it was in beta 1 or im I wrong?

I've now played 2 campaigns with beta 2. Im starting to wonder if artillery hasnt been tweeked up to be too overpowered.

2 examples.
First. Liege still at fort 3 takes 19 hits from 5 firepower of art, the fort being equal to level 3 trenches.

Secondly. The only French border hex thats starts as level 1 trench. Suffering 45 casulties not being over stacked from a 6 firepower attack.



My experiece in the games has been overall that even non upgraded art does alot of casulties until they have to start hitting trench 3. So if u advance 1 hex it with new rules still takes 3 turns to upgrade the trenchs too level 3. In those 2 3 turns, 2 non upgraded art can easily do 20-25 hit per turn to a hex that has 3-4 inf, but still not overstacked.
If u advance ot attack with less u many times wont succede or is very septible to counter attacks.

So if u attack and take 2 hexes u can easily take up too 100 hits in the following 2 impulses from 3-4 art units while u get entrenched. This to me seems very excesive and in a costs analysis art becomes the unriveled king in terms of cost benefit.
There is nothing u can do about it, im assuming u entrench as fast as u can. This from non upgraded art.
Playing CP in a french strategy first game. I had stopped the russian just inside my borders and entrenched to level 4 in half a years time effectivly making that front static.
After France and Italy i transfered my 16 art to the russian front. The russians unlike the french rarely seems to go above 2 in entrenchment.
At this time my art was almost fully upgraded.
I removed the 40 hex front line filled with 3-4 corps in each in matter of 4 5 turns. Causing millions of casulties while not hardly taking any myself unleasing the might of the upgraded CP art.
Causing some 4 mil casulties in 10'ish impulses tho i was upgraded art and russian wasnt fully entrenched seems very unhistoric. I hardly had to advance into russian territory. i just removed more or less the entire the until then undamaged russian army with artillery fire making russia collapse from the casulties taken.

I have to say that when u reach trench 3 non upgraded art stops completly being effective but once u upgraded u can do those 15 20 hit per hit per impulse again to a fully stacked trench 4 hex.

Im as said above some what concerned what this does to the balance of the game in that artillery from pure cost benefite analysis POV seems only option players really have is to buy artillery to defend ur self to this.

I'd suggest toning down artillery a bit again especially non upgraded artilley.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[FrankHunter]

Right, I tweaked arty again in 1.2b

All the below assume no air support.

A level 3 unit firing without air support against 4 units in the open with no defences will on average, produce about 14 hits.  28 hits would be the maximum possible.

At best, a level 3 artillery unit firing at a level 1 trench will produce 5 hits per unit.  So a stack of 4 units could take 20 hits.  But on average a stack of 4 units would take around 8 hits.  Roughly 2 hits per unit.

A level 3 unit firing on level 2 trenches will produce a maximum of 3 hits per unit and an average of one hit per unit.

A level 3 unit firing on level 3 trenches will produce a maximum of 1 hit per unit and an average of 0 hits per unit.

[FrankHunter]

If u advance ot attack with less u many times wont succede or is very septible to counter attacks.

I wanted forces that had just taken a hex to be vulnerable to counter-attacks.  I felt this was the case historically as they outran their artillery and no longer had defensive positions.

It was also my belief that breaking trench lines wasn't as hard as holding on to those gains.  That this was demonstrated in the evolution of tactics so that near the end of the war the forward positions were very lightly held.  Instead, the emphasis was on destroying the attacking forces when they were most vulnerable, after they had left their own defensive positions. 

I felt that players would eventually hold their front lines with light forces, knowing enemy artillery could blow away any hex that they put the resources against, and instead keep their artillery and better units in their second line for a counter-attack against an enemy that would have no trenches, depleted readiness and no artillery.

[Joel Rauber]

Frank,

At the scale of the game, wouldn't all this be happening within a single hex?

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Joel Rauber

Frank,

At the scale of the game, wouldn't all this be happening within a single hex?

I don't know about that. Its fair to say that Franks assumptions hold at a higher level, too. Really, initial gains followed by being bogged down happened in pretty much every major offensive, from the little ones to the big ones.

The German Spring Offensives of 1918 would pretty much fit that, for example.

[Lascar]

ORIGINAL: Joel Rauber

Frank,

At the scale of the game, wouldn't all this be happening within a single hex?

That's a good point, this is a strategic level not a tactical or operational level game.

[Walloc]

Thx for all the answers Frank. It do raise more questions to me tho.
If

A level 3 unit firing on level 3 trenches will produce a maximum of 1 hit per unit and an average of 0 hits per unit.

I wonder, it was AI doing it so i cant tell about airsupport, how 5 artillery firepower can do 19 hits to Liege confirmed at fort/trench 3 after the attack. It was in impulse 2 so i assume it was 2 unupgraded german art and since i lost no Fort bonus that it wasnt a siege art. I've never seen an siege art not doing at leased 1 reduce fort hit.
Would 19 under those conditiosn even be possible with airsupport?

That example from the game doesnt seem to add up to the theory. /boggle

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

I wanted forces that had just taken a hex to be vulnerable to counter-attacks. I felt this was the case historically as they outran their artillery and no longer had defensive positions.

It was also my belief that breaking trench lines wasn't as hard as holding on to those gains. That this was demonstrated in the evolution of tactics so that near the end of the war the forward positions were very lightly held. Instead, the emphasis was on destroying the attacking forces when they were most vulnerable, after they had left their own defensive positions.

I felt that players would eventually hold their front lines with light forces, knowing enemy artillery could blow away any hex that they put the resources against, and instead keep their artillery and better units in their second line for a counter-attack against an enemy that would have no trenches, depleted readiness and no artillery.

Ok i get this. I do see problems with that tho.
Ok lets say u defend front lightly and allow ur frontline hexes to be taken only to bombard and counter attack those attacks.

Side a attacks into side b screen frontline hexes.
Side b bombards and counterattack before side A makes trenches.
I get ur design idea so far, but problem arise now.
Side B has succesfully counter attacked. Now they stand in front of side A frontline which is full of art and u are naturally in trench 0. Since art happens before move side B will be slaugtered by side As original frontline art and is septible to new counter attacks.

Rinse, repeat. Start at step 1.

Seems to me what u get out of it isnt static warfare but counterattack, on counterattack on counterattack until 1 side is dead or stops.
Problem is the counterattack is now just as exposed to bombard and counter attacks. U be stupid not to bombard the counterattack comming out in 0 trenchhexes where they will get slaugthered too. The overall casulties of this from my gaming experience is casulties far exceding what u can replace.

Only avoidance i see is make no counterattack only bombards as ur screenline is taken. Allowing for trenches to be build and after they are completed.
Then retreat 1 hex to a premade trenchline to make same and that way making any advance deadly. Trading space for casulties. Doesnt seem to be trench warfare as i understand it, given the scale of the game.

I fear if take my experience added with what u write in above posts about average hits in trench 0-1 that the end result will be creating a dynamic that is other than what u seek, as i read u.

Also as i write in my original post tho in some part due to AIs lack of entrenchments it has an effect of the ability of litterally removing more or less the entire russian army through bombardments in a pretty short periode of time and at almost no cost.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[SMK-at-work]

ORIGINAL: Joel Rauber
At the scale of the game, wouldn't all this be happening within a single hex?

Yes....but there's nothing in the way the game is built that shows it, except the artillery units getting left behind in an attack.

Certainly this happened at a "lower" level, but IMO the way Frank has achieved it gives the effect despite being ostensibly at eth wrong scale.

I'm not sure whether it is deliberate or not, but this design for effect works well IMO.

[FrankHunter]

Seems to me what u get out of it isnt static warfare but counterattack, on counterattack on counterattack until 1 side is dead or stops.
Problem is the counterattack is now just as exposed to bombard and counter attacks. U be stupid not to bombard the counterattack comming out in 0 trenchhexes where they will get slaugthered too. The overall casulties of this from my gaming experience is casulties far exceding what u can replace.

Right, that's generally how I see it.  The only way to take a hex should be to expose yourself to counter-attacks and enemy artillery.  To put it simply, he who runs out of reserves last, should keep the hex. 

Only avoidance i see is make no counterattack only bombards as ur screenline is taken.
Then retreat 1 hex to a premade trenchline

Artillery can't retreat and fire on the same turn.  And given the scale of the game you can only retreat a few hexes before you're in danger of losing the war. 

At the scale of the game, wouldn't all this be happening within a single hex?

Generally yes.  But would the effect of ignoring "operational" concerns change the strategic view in an unhistorical manner?  In other words, should the design produce the effect that winning requires attacking or should the player mind-set be completely removed from the historical mind-set and instead think building strong trenches and not spending on artillery and attacking is the way to go?

If I was to greatly reduce artillery effectiveness so that they couldn't hurt an enemy line, the line wouldn't move and there would be no reason to attack which wouldn't produce the historical mind-set.  Both sides believed that victory required attacking.  If I instead made trenches so strong that they were almost impervious to enemy action the front would be static.  "Static" not just in terms of not moving, but also in the sense of being quiet.  Why would anyone attack a hex if it couldn't be taken?  Were trenches really that strong?  In my opinion, they weren't which means making defenders in hexes with trenches in them impervious to enemy action would be unhistorical. 

Let's say you could put 15 artillery against a hex with level 2 defences and only produce 2-4 losses.  Would you keep firing?  Would you barrage hexes you wanted to attack?  Would you bother attacking at all?  I don't think you would do any of those things.  Yet the historical commanders did.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter
Right, that's generally how I see it.  The only way to take a hex should be to expose yourself to counter-attacks and enemy artillery.  To put it simply, he who runs out of reserves last, should keep the hex.

Yes but since it would be so painfull to do the counterattack u will end up not doing it. For example France initially cant afford that.

Artillery can't retreat and fire on the same turn.  And given the scale of the game you can only retreat a few hexes before you're in danger of losing the war. 

Sorry i edited my original line, a weakness of mine. I didnt mean retreat in same turn. I meant, u retreat since u dont counterattack so opponent will eventually have trench 3-4 at that point u would retreat setting up a new screenline.

Cuz if opponent as descriped in original post has upgraded art u can massacre troops in trench 3-4, so if u dont retreat u could be dead meat. Idea is that the one advancing into the original screenline only screens this line with 1 unit to make trenches to cut down on losses. While u can put looots of art in to kill once the trenchline is down. Side one can only retreat or attack now. If he attacks he just pushed art out of the line ending up again in a situasion where he is infront of alot of art in trench 0 or retreat.

As u say u cant really retreat that much or lose the war so i dont see any way u dont end up in a situasion where u will in lots of situasion end up in trench 0 infront of the enemy art.

I can only say my experience of doing what if i understand u correctly u want ppl to do that u end up in situasion where casulties mount to very high propertions early. I dont see periode of relativly calm only when trench lines are produced in the no mans land screenlines.

Overall do one thing and that is buy art. Push that into the screen lines covered by 1 inf unit so they're not overrunned and force ur opponent to attack or withdraw. Art dictates every thing then.....

Any how this is how i see as of now.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[SMK-at-work]

Remember artillery shoots before moving....if yuo retreat from your frontline to a prepared entrenched position (such as hte Germans did twice in the war!) then yuo can't shoot from the 2nd line at enemy that advances into your previously owned hexes.  The enemy then gets 1 move to entrench to level 1 before you shoot.  If he puts 1 corps into the hex per turn he can entrench level 1 every turn...if you don't kill hte entrenchement then it will increase slowly.
 
Entrenchement is now very cheap - much cheaper than artillery bombardments.
 
Artillery is now 2 stacking points, so to have 2 arty units shooting at 1 hex from 2 adjacent hexes you can have only 3 corps in each hex shooting at them.....and if he gets his entrenchments up to 3 or 4 then you've lot a line of hexes and you probably won't get them back.....
 
Taking a limited frontage of entrenched troops is going to be much more expensive than it was in 1.1, because the entrenchements are going to be much better - I used to make air power my #1 research priority and trenches were way down the list....now it is trenches with air #2.
 
the answer is, of course, to try to attack unentrenched hexes.......say through Belgium....

[Walloc]

Sorry if im so bad at making my point.

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Remember artillery shoots before moving....if yuo retreat from your frontline to a prepared entrenched position (such as hte Germans did twice in the war!) then yuo can't shoot from the 2nd line at enemy that advances into your previously owned hexes.  The enemy then gets 1 move to entrench to level 1 before you shoot.  If he puts 1 corps into the hex per turn he can entrench level 1 every turn...if you don't kill hte entrenchement then it will increase slowly.

Idea is not retreat art but only the inf. Less the 1 unit to make sure ur art isnt overrunned.
Art then if attacked is pushed back and is rdy to fire next turn since it per say hasnt moved. On those unit that just attacked the hex the art was in. Fool prove methode.

Entrenchement is now very cheap - much cheaper than artillery bombardments.

Yes but when u can use 2 point of art bombarment = 2/3 of a point to kill 45 inf points in trench 1, hit of inf = 7+ points that u cant use inf to defend from a cost benefit analyse POV. Later on i get same results with upgraded art vs trench 3-4.

Artillery is now 2 stacking points, so to have 2 arty units shooting at 1 hex from 2 adjacent hexes you can have only 3 corps in each hex shooting at them.....and if he gets his entrenchments up to 3 or 4 then you've lot a line of hexes and you probably won't get them back.....

I disagree in that he cant defend them with inf cuz of the cost as just descriped above.
Any how this attcking crep is to be used by attacker not defender.

the answer is, of course, to try to attack unentrenched hexes.......say through Belgium....

And then when if the french try setting up a line just, with his initial trench tech 1 bombard him to the stone age.
2ndly why not just bombard his level 3 forts. 2 unupgraded art can do 19 hit if he defends with 2 corps as the example shows from Liege. If he tries to defend those hexes.

Pic is after, Britain, France, Italy, Romenia and Serbia has surrendered and i lost less than 1 mio men.... i dont need to lose men i just kill his. Dang overwrote that pic. this 1 just before Romenia and Britain surrendered in next strategic impuls. Losses was 990.000 or so.

From here i bombarded russians into submission, and played one version where i attacked. In bombard version i ended with 1.5m men lost to nearly 8min, so 10-1(500k vs 5m) in russian front casulties just bombard them.
The one i attacked in it was 3mio vs 8.5m at end.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[SMK-at-work]

Games against the AI prove nothing!!

If you leave in 1 corps per hex to "prevent your artillery eting over run" you will probably lose that corps every time.  In addition you expose your artillery to being hit by the attacking artillery and then destroyed when the hex is conquered anyway - my understanding is that "D" artillery will be destroyed if all their "covering" infantry is destroyed and they are forced to retreat.

All your talk assumes that you're doing maximum damage every turn with every artillery unit, and that is not my experience.  I have found that 6 artillery will do 5-6 damage usually against a level 2 hex.  Attacking Liege you get a masive concentration - and that's just not sustainable across the whole game - 1-2 artillery per hex will be the normal concentration for an attack, and it won't be enough to dislodge a hexful of defending infantry entrenched up to their eyeballs.

You say this tactic is for the attacker?  ER.....how is an attacker going to be able to use this if a defender does it against him in recerse??  If you've jsut got 1 corps per hex the then defender only needs that in defence too....plus when you take his hex any artillery in his 2nd line gets a free shot at you when you are not entrenched!

It makes no sense either way sorry.

Perhaps you'd like a game to prove me wrong??!![:)]

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Games against the AI prove nothing!!

Agreed other than showing that u can indeed kill 5 mio russians entrenched with art.

If you leave in 1 corps per hex to "prevent your artillery eting over run" you will probably lose that corps every time. 

How will i lose that corps? by u counterattacking?
Doing that just leaves u in trench 1 territory, rdy to get eaten by art. if u attack with 3-4 corps to ensure u kill that corps u end up in the exact situasion u wana avoid. Having 3-4 corps in trench 1 territory if just 2 art can shoot at that i regular see 25 hits and up too as high as 45 hits. Plus u need to have those 3-4 corps in front line where u before being able to attack will take casulties. So u still lose out.

In addition you expose your artillery to being hit by the attacking artillery and then destroyed when the hex is conquered anyway - my understanding is that "D" artillery will be destroyed if all their "covering" infantry is destroyed and they are forced to retreat.

I rarely see my art with a D on as of beta 1, patch 1.2. As to whether u destroyed if forced retreat i cant say. i've never seen that.

All your talk assumes that you're doing maximum damage every turn with every artillery unit, and that is not my experience.  I have found that 6 artillery will do 5-6 damage usually against a level 2 hex.  Attacking Liege you get a masive concentration - and that's just not sustainable across the whole game - 1-2 artillery per hex will be the normal concentration for an attack, and it won't be enough to dislodge a hexful of defending infantry entrenched up to their eyeballs.

Just ran a test of 6 art FP vs 3 corps in trench 2, 20 times to get a base. Average number of hits was 21,2.
It was 2 unupgraded art that attacked Liege, a level 3 fort with 30 men in it killing 19 of them in 1 shot.

You say this tactic is for the attacker?  ER.....how is an attacker going to be able to use this if a defender does it against him in recerse??  If you've jsut got 1 corps per hex the then defender only needs that in defence too....plus when you take his hex any artillery in his 2nd line gets a free shot at you when you are not entrenched!

Exactly, as i've said u end up in art dominating the battlefield totally. Only defence is ur own art. Making entrenched inf unimportand.

Perhaps you'd like a game to prove me wrong??!![:)]

Sure.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[SMK-at-work]

Just ran a test of 6 art FP vs 3 corps in trench 2, 20 times to get a base. Average number of hits was 21,2.
It was 2 unupgraded art that attacked Liege, a level 3 fort with 30 men in it killing 19 of them in 1 shot.

Then there's something wrong - I've never seen anything like that and I've been playing 1.2 for a couple of weeks including a complete campaign vs the AI to 1919 and 2 PBEM games.

How will i lose that corps? by u counterattacking?
Doing that just leaves u in trench 1 territory, rdy to get eaten by art. if u attack with 3-4 corps to ensure u kill that corps u end up in the exact situasion u wana avoid. Having 3-4 corps in trench 1 territory if just 2 art can shoot at that i regular see 25 hits and up too as high as 45 hits. Plus u need to have those 3-4 corps in front line where u before being able to attack will take casulties. So u still lose out.

I'm confused....aren't you proposing to "attack" by advancing with artillery covered by a single corps? As a defender I can have 1 corps in my front hexes - you have to take them somehow - you can't do it with artillery so you have to move your own corps into the hex - and you will be at entrench 0 the turn you do so, or 1 the turn after. to get your own artillery into that hex you have to move it in after.

You won't have any artillery to shoot at a counter-attacking force unless you keep a lot of your artillrty back in a 2nd line where it will otehrwise never get to shoot........seems like a very expensive proposition having perhaps half yuor artillery in a 2nd line where it will only occasionally get to shoot??

AFAIK the change to artillery is now that 1 hit makes them "D", a 2nd hit destroys them....so you should see fewer "D" artillery bcause they will be dying faster!!

[Walloc]

Kinda figured after reading Franks theorizing of casulty levels in this first post. Why quoting my self:

That example from the game doesnt seem to add up to the theory. /boggle

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[SMK-at-work]

Yes I saw your quote, and I am perplexed because I've not seen anything like it, and AFAIK we're using the same .exe

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

Yes I saw your quote, and I am perplexed because I've not seen anything like it, and AFAIK we're using the same .exe

Could always be those pesky hamsters running the spin wheel for my random number generator. Let me see if they have water and food. [8|]

[FrankHunter]

Just ran a test of 6 art FP vs 3 corps in trench 2, 20 times to get a base. Average number of hits was 21,2.
It was 2 unupgraded art that attacked Liege, a level 3 fort with 30 men in it killing 19 of them in 1 shot.

Is that with air support?  Assuming no air support and that that 6 artillery is 2 units of 3 strength and not 1 unit of 6, then your average number of hits should be 5 or 6.  Its possible, if rolling above 70% on every roll, to get 18 hits.  But I'm assuming of course that you will roll above 70% only 30% of the time.

If you have air support it raises your maximum to 30 hits and your average to 9.

I checked to make sure I was indeed re-seeding the random number generator and its there.

Do you still have a save of that 21 hits? 

[FrankHunter]

As regards the Russian front, perhaps I should reduce the number of artillery units that can be built so you can't launch "breakthrough" type artillery barrages along an entire front?