Stacking Documentation?

[solops]

I got this game last week and I am having a GREAT time with it. It's kind of like Empire on steroids and growth hormones. As a looong time TOAW player I wonder about how the engine and AI compares, but it sure seems flexible. I have seen some posts comparing the two, but I have not played enough to make up my own mind. One of ATGs weak points is occasional holes in documentation........

STACKING: Much is made of stacking, battlestacking, stacking points, etc. in ATG. But I cannot find Anything in the ATG manual, the ATWWII manual or the Players guide about how many stacking points are allowed in a hex without incurring penalties. Nor is there any info I could find on how weather or terrain might effect stacking limits or penalties. How about it? Anyone know? Is there a "Stacking Explained" guide out there like the supply guide?

[jreid]

You can stack as many troops as you like in a single hex.

But if you stack more than 100 stack points in a hex and are attacked, you'll suffer additional casualties.

When attacking, the number of stack points that you can use without incurring additional casualties is basd on the number of hexes you attack from.

It displays it when setting up your attack, but you can use 100 stack points when attacking from one or two hexes, 150 stack points when attacking from 3 hexes, etc.

If you right click on a unit, you can see in one of the tabs (general tab, maybe) the stack points of a unit. So, a rifle is 1 stack point and a light tank 10 points.

You can overstack to have a greater chance of attacking or defending a hex, but you'll take more losses.

[Josh]

"...You can overstack to have a greater chance of attacking or defending a hex, but you'll take more losses..."
True, you can also set the loss percentage at 50% - 75% or 100%.
 
Jreid is right, 100 is a sacred number be it the max amount of stacking points in a hex, or the max Artillery / Air attack in a hex. These numbers by the way are displayed in the right hand panel. Meaning 10 Art tubes firing at a hex gives you 100 Art stack number, same with 10 divebombers, or 10 lvl bombers. That means that defending with more than 100 (100 Inf or 10 tanks) gets you a penalty, but also that bombarding with more than 10 Art tubes gets you a penalty. Still, attacking with 15 Arty tubes, or even 20 is quite possible, only the results diminish ever more. This has been done to prevent killer stacks, say 20 tubes that blast their way through anything, or 20 heavy tanks that roll over everything. Oh they probably *will* roll over everything... but with great losses.
 
One of the things you really have to look at is the green readiness bar, the lower it gets the better. Bomb them into submission then attack with your tanks and troops, especially Artillery and lvl bombers are good at lowering that green readiness bar (well that is obvious) Dive bombers are better at taking out armour, so say 4 out of 5 tanks survive but their readiness bar does not lower because of the dive bombers. 

[Meanfcker]

good manual here. No section on stacking yet, but I will cobble something up this weekend.
www.meanfcker.com

[LazyBoy]

This is an area of the game I still have problems with.
Josh what are the penalties for more than 10 tubes firing?

What number of guns does it take to be come counter productive.

[Josh]

Hmm I don't know the exact numbers because I'm not a numbercruncher, all I know is what is efficient "gamewise". My experience is that 10 tubes against a soft target out in the open = very efficient. You can see the green readiness bar decrease, and experienced tube units do get a lot of kills as well. That's why Arty units get high exp levels. I'd say 100 Artillery Battle Stack number is pretty solid, so try to aim for that... but there are exceptions that this rule. I have had situations where I bombed an enemy unit up to 250 points, meaning I had a significant penalty but I had the tubes available so why not do it anways. You will see at one point that shooting at targets that are on open ground are much more vulneralbe to Art. fire, units in dense forests or hills are much much tougher to crack, and can take many turns of bombing and encircling before they surrender. So when facing the choice of either bombing an enemy unit out in the open with twice the 100 points (200 Artillery BS points = 20 tubes) or dividing that between two enemy units each with 100 ArtBS points... but one of these units is taking cover in a forest/hills/city... the choice is easy; go for 200 Art BS points on that one unit in the open, it's gonna be toast.
 
Early on in the game I produce Art units of say 2-5 tubes. Less tubes is very inefficient because they don't hurt nobody, one shell falling out of the sky is uhm... laughable. 5 tubes already make a dent, 10 tubes punch a hole. So later on in the game I recombine those early units into 6-10 tube units. But like I said when facing a very large Inf unit out in the open (and sometimes the AI has masses of Inf coming at you) don't be afraid to use 2-3 of these units against that target. There is no opportunity fire in this game, so unless you want to use the Action Points to move a unit you might as well use the AP to shell that target.
 
And have them near their HQ as well!!! Art tubes get kills fast (without getting killed like the soldiers do) and so does their exp lvl rise high as well, so their HQ benefits from their exp as well. The more troops you kill the higher the HQ exp gets. The higher your HQ exp the better your forces fight. (that is the more fighting bonus they get).
 
Sooo long story; when facing soft targets out in the open; one full turn of shelling with 10-15 tubes (if available, certainly not early on in the game) then attack with combined arms and multi angle attacks and the HQ nearby. When facing a well dug in opponent, loads of Inf in woods, hills and mountains... expect many turns of hard fighting, shelling, bombing and encircling... my latest random game reminded me of Italy at Monte Casino, or Verdun, two game years of fighting and shelling, engineers buildig roads across rivers and hills, continuously building airbases to keep the planes nearby.
 
Oh and heavy Artillery absolutely rocks, especially lvl 2 and higher. They can make a dent even in well dug in forces.

[Strategiusz]

I think stacking penalty applies attack/defense and HP. In my test when I had stack 230/100 the penalty was -43%.
Stacking penalties are getting smaller and smaller during the battle - units die and penalty simply drops down.