New player - help understand combat

[hefewe1zen]

I'm new to the game, actually playing the tutorial and trying to understand the mechanics. This game has a high appeal and I would love to climb that learning curve.

I have studied the manual and some online guides. However, I still don't understand ground combat.

On one hand, the outcome of the battle is simply determined by modified CV ratio. I understand that CV is the sum of the individual forces with the most important adjustments being type of attack, leaders, terrain etc. This look rather simple to me so I wonder what exactly makes this a so complicated game. I couldn't find a reference that the composition of armies matter, it's only the value of CV what counts.

Then there is the actual combat where unit are shooting at each other, determining battle losses. This is where the different type of forces (support units etc) comes in I guess.

Infantry and AFV units are contributing to CV so basically they are the decisive factor for gaining ground etc. Support units like artillery have little CV value so I wonder what they actually do.

Am I right to think that the outcome of the battle (which side will retreat) is determined by CV but the actual losses (a completely independent calculation) are a result of army compositions? So for example, you can take out more tanks if you have more supporting anti-tank guns.

What I' missing is that I cannot find out from battle reports how effective my individual units are, for example what a mortar battalion or anti-tank gun contributed.

Thanks in advance.

[Hanny]

Try having the combat log at highest level of info.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: hefewe1zen

I'm new to the game, actually playing the tutorial and trying to understand the mechanics. This game has a high appeal and I would love to climb that learning curve.

I have studied the manual and some online guides. However, I still don't understand ground combat.

On one hand, the outcome of the battle is simply determined by modified CV ratio. I understand that CV is the sum of the individual forces with the most important adjustments being type of attack, leaders, terrain etc. This look rather simple to me so I wonder what exactly makes this a so complicated game. I couldn't find a reference that the composition of armies matter, it's only the value of CV what counts.

Then there is the actual combat where unit are shooting at each other, determining battle losses. This is where the different type of forces (support units etc) comes in I guess.

Infantry and AFV units are contributing to CV so basically they are the decisive factor for gaining ground etc. Support units like artillery have little CV value so I wonder what they actually do.

Am I right to think that the outcome of the battle (which side will retreat) is determined by CV but the actual losses (a completely independent calculation) are a result of army compositions? So for example, you can take out more tanks if you have more supporting anti-tank guns.

What I' missing is that I cannot find out from battle reports how effective my individual units are, for example what a mortar battalion or anti-tank gun contributed.

Thanks in advance.

Artillery does not add much CV in itself but will disrupt enemy elements, preventing them from taking part in the combat and contributing their CV.

There is a fair chunk of the combat engine that takes place in a 'black box' that is not covered in the manual. My 2c would be that you don't need to understand that stuff in order to play the game well. What you do need to understand is what is covered in the manual - e.g. how units gain/lose 'conditioning' in terms of morale/experience/fatigue/supply, how your leaders/OOB structure affects combat effectiveness, and how terrain/weather affect combat.

I think Hanny's advice depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you have an 'academic' interest in how the combat engine works then it might be of some interest. If your interest is more 'practical' in terms of wanting to play the game well my advice would be that your time would be much better spent getting lots of turns in and reading (and rereading!) the manual. All you see at a high message level is elements interacting with each other and the results of those interactions. But it does not tell you why those interactions are working in that way.

[Hanny]

Sammy is quite right*,for practicality, you might get a better feel for combat by setting up attacks at different cv odds, save and replay , note the results, there is fair bit of variation in outcomes, change the odds by inclusion of another unit, or Div asset, and run again, after a while I found I had a feel for what would work, another advantage is watching AI retreat logic by attacking from combinations of directions, or out of combat movement to steer retreats to where you want, very annoying to push them where you then need to push them out of again, but rewarding to be able to push units into a pocket.

Example, T1 Brest Lit, you start by clearing the flanks to open up attacks from the other side of the river, you can then get 3 Div on the other side of the river to push the City units out, maybe you add in a fourth, now you can further influence retreat paths by clearing out its rear with a high movement point unit coming up to convert hex’s, so the garrison is pushed to where you want rather than annoy you by going somewhere awkward.

Another example is how to use ground support, replay attacks to see outcomes, to get a feel of what is likely, compare sorties on targets you want to win, as opposed to sorties on routed units to rack up losses further.

* The game is well designed enough to get results you want, from simply observing outcomes, without fully understanding the mechanics of combat, of course doing so means you can better estimate force ratios to get the results and be more cost effective, but you can certainly play on intuition and get by well enough.

[hefewe1zen]

Thank you for the replies.

I have found the excellent YouTube tutorial series by Strategy Gaming Dojo (it's about 10-12 hours in total, I'm around the middle). I now see that the game's strength lies in how it is very detailed, allowing you to dig into granular level, but also simple and elegant so can be played as a purely hex and counter game.

I think some understanding of in-depth combat mechanics is helpful for decision making, for example, how much force is needed for a successful attack and how much can be committed elsewhere, or whether to directly attach some support units.

In my initial post I assumed that CV ratio comparison (to determined winner and retreat) and actual battle losses are separate calculations. I'm beginning to understand that the modified (final) CV ratio is actually a result of the combat (I guess that's how artillery can 'prevent' an enemy unit from contributing to modified CV).

So I will finish the tutorial series and experiment with some smaller scenarios to see how different battles turn out.