Battle Results

[chuckbbq]

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. I've been trying to read into the battle results to see what has the greatest influence on combat and more importantly, the "modified combat factor". Can someone explain these results to me? I attacked with the following

German Infantry Division
CV shown - 8
TOE - 98%
Morale - high 70's
Fatigue - 40's to 50's
support - 2 Pioneer, artillery, flak
Luftwaffe - 71 fighters, 11 bombers
Attacking from Light woods

Defending was a soviet infantry with 1 CV shown, and no fort level, not even level 0, and in clear terrain. Weather is clear. Had a motorcycle squad for support and 2 aircraft. Now, initial combat odds show at 5 to 1, but for some reason, my modified combat factor cuts in half, and soviet doubles with the end result of a held. I'm trying to understand, what's going on here?

[DorianGray]

Welcome to the world of WiTE. [:)]

I feel your pain.

Most likely your leader failed their command roll and your enemy succeeded in theirs - resulting in your CV getting halved and your enemy getting theirs doubled.

I wish I had more details I could provide, but the specifics of how various leader command rolls exactly impact combat has not been readily made available. This is a source of frustration for various players. Some aspects of the game are clearly identified and detailed, whereas other aspects are more hidden from the players.

[821Bobo]

Also this was a hasty attack. Deliberate would not have failed. Use deliberate attacks if possible. It will inflict more casualties and that's counts.

[carlkay58]

Hasty attack is an instant 50% CV adjustment. That was your CV deduction. The Soviet commander made his infantry check and doubled the defending CV.

[chuckbbq]

How can you tell it's a hasty attack? I thought I did deliberate, that's why I was so perplexed by the results.

[821Bobo]

It was just a guess. If it was deliberate then it is indeed strange. Can you check it in the commander's report screen?

[timmyab]

I don't think it's a hasty attack, there's no (H). even if it was it would be accounted for in the initial CV.
If Kuntze is still in charge of 42nd corps then that's the most likely reason for the failure. Swap out your worst leaders as soon as possible.
I'm sorry to say that this is nothing compared to the craziness you'll experience later on when you are defending against Soviet attacks. Your defense CVs will routinely half no matter what you do and Soviet attack CVs will double to quadruple almost without exception.
Who would have thought that the German army couldn't defend properly? Massive game failure I'm afraid.

[morvael]

I think I explained several times how this works. The game favours the attacker by giving him an additional chance for a x2 CV multiplier per entire unit if the leader makes his combat roll (so all else equal, the attacker can win at 1:1 initial odds). Also, you always see only the last one CV ratio rolled in combat which ended the combat, therefore it must end with high CV of the winner and low CV of the defender. Anyway, there are some bugfixes coming that should address an issue in the CV system, which can result in an overflow (and make a very strong unit a very weak unit), but it didn't affect this combat (I think) as it was performed by low CV units (when you go into on-counter CV of 100 - displayed as X - the problem is sure to happen).

[timmyab]

It still doesn't explain though why if I'm playing the Soviet side I need 1:1 for a likely successful attack and when I play the German side I look for 2:1.
Soviet CVs as marked can be at least doubled for attack purposes.

[morvael]

That's the effect of Soviet side having more elements. Their (individual element's) impact on total CV might be low, but due to the fact that a lot of them survives fire combat means the Soviet units retain their CV better than Germans and thus can prevail in combat. Remember that CVs are only one half of the combat system and the other half is not measurable in any other way than by using experience to estabilish ratios as you did (and I did, and those ratios agree with yours).

You can setup a situation in the editor where units with equal CV fight: one with 2:1 element ratio, 1:1 element ratio and 1:2 element ratio (equalized by lowering experience and morale of unit with higher numbers - you can even use the same squads for both sides and set leaders to have identical skills). You will see for yourself how does element quantity affect results. Partially this is because the math used to present static CVs is different than the math used to get in-combat CV values (most likely value is different than presented static value), which is bad of course, but to change it know would reduce people's experience (like your 1:1/2:1 ratios needed) to nil.

[timmyab]

Yes I gathered it was a quantity over quality type thing. This is the worst problem with the combat system in my opinion, German tactical superiority is not sufficiently accounted for when defending.
What is actually needed isn't a Soviet 1:1 rule, but a Soviet 3:1 rule.

[jwolf]

To the OP:  With hindsight it may be possible to explain battles such as these, but I humbly suggest a bit of perspective.  In each turn you are making dozens of attacks, so it should not be shocking that one or two of them end up FUBAR.  If you get many results like this each turn, that would suggest you're doing something badly wrong.  But don't obsess over an occasional defeat.