Defensive Postures Question

[Daza99]

Excuse me if this is a bit of a silly question. When it says forces get 50% on defense, does this just mean their defensive stat is increased by %50 and where it says -60% Attack. Does this ONLY apply when you are doing the attacking?

In other words, if you are attacked you get 50% bonus on your defense stat but your forces who counterattack or shoot back will not get a penalty on firing back/shooting, only if they were the attackers? I presume this is correct. Just making sure i have correct.

A bonus question; Mechanized forces postures, this is talking about mobile AND infantry correct?

[BlueTemplar]

No, these postures only apply to the 4 tactical attack (and counter-attack) stats, not to the 2 HPs. (The 2 "Defenses" are tactical attack stats too.)

So a "+75% on attack, but -75% on defense" posture :
multiplies the two of your tactical attack (and counter-attack) stats by 1.75 on operational offensives (which are the "Soft and Hard Attack"),
but multiplies by 0.25 (= divides by 4) the two of your tactical attack (and counter-attack) stats used on operational defensives (which are the "Soft and Hard Defense").

And they have no effect on the 2 tactical defense stats that are the "Soft and Hard HPs".
Postures that effect entrenchment and such are a different matter, so I guess "All Out Attack" is not a good example, but I took it because it's a basic Posture with extreme modifiers (and so a very unequal effect of the "same magnitude" percentages).

----

AFAIK "Mechanized" has no effect on infantry, AFAIK it means "Tank". I'm not certain how the 3 categories of Infantry/Gun/Tank are picked yet... maybe if you have a soft armor, then you're Infantry, if you have hard armor, then you're a Tank... *except* if you have a ranged attack, then you're a Gun (= Artillery, though tanks use guns too) ?

(I'd have to check Anti-Tank Guns, they might be Guns, and not Infantry...
And what about Trucks ? I suspect they might have soft armor, since they don't have a Soft HP penalty... they would be Infantry and not Mechanized then ?)

Hmm, maybe Infantry vs Tank = Mechanized is about having an engine then ?
Is Mechanized Artillery a Mechanized Tank, an Artillery Gun, or both ?

Gah, déjà vu all over again !
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4948145

[Daza99]

When you said 4 tactical attack, did you mean 4 different attack postures?

Ok so to see if i follow. Example soft attack is X/Y, the way i always saw it was y is your soft defense value from soft weapons eg. infantry weapons etc. And Hard defense, as infantry i guess Y is defense against hard weapons like a AT or tank.

Lets say my OHQ has a defensive posture. When we talk about counter-attack, we are of course using the X value. I don't think i worded my question correctly. But in this instance, the counter-attack, the -60% penalty to attack, does this only apply to attack postures and not when counter-attacking with a defense posture? or it will apply regardless if you are the attacker or defender?

[zgrssd]

The terminology around attack and defense is very confusing.

In tactical combat:
Wich values you use to deal damage, depends on the strategic situation (either the offense or defense values depending on strategic situation).
But you always resist damage using your HP (note that callibre calculations and vehicles being attacked by infantry can have a massive impact here).

[Daza99]

For some reason, i never looked at the HP. It mentions that on page 97 and more detail on page 297. I had always looked at the X value when comparing units and in the course of learning the game did not come back to the finer details of combat regarding this.

It sounds like the HP is sort of like the difficulty number the attack score is rolled/calculated against? and if greater then the targeted unit is hit? if i understand it correctly.

[BlueTemplar]

When you said 4 tactical attack, did you mean 4 different attack postures?

The 4 tactical attack values (with a red arrow pictogram) that are all based on weapon Firepower and used both during tactical attacks and tactical counter-attacks, which the game calls :
Soft Attack / Soft Defense, Hard Attack / Hard Defense.

Ok so to see if i follow. Example soft attack is X/Y, the way i always saw it was y is your soft defense value from soft weapons eg. infantry weapons etc. And Hard defense, as infantry i guess Y is defense against hard weapons like a AT or tank.

If by X/Y you mean what the game calls Soft Attack / Soft Defense, then no.

Lets say my OHQ has a defensive posture. When we talk about counter-attack, we are of course using the X value. I don't think i worded my question correctly. But in this instance, the counter-attack, the -60% penalty to attack, does this only apply to attack postures and not when counter-attacking with a defense posture? or it will apply regardless if you are the attacker or defender?

No, (and I fell in both of these traps too), you'll (usually) have during a combat round both sides tactically attacking and counter-attacking.

Ok, right, you seem to be talking about the first Heart posture "Hold the Line : Infantry forces get +50% on defense and -60% on attack. Retreat at 80% losses." (Not sure what is the normal retreat %, but probably lower ?)

So, say during the enemy turn the enemy has tanks on operational offensive trying to attack into a hex where your RPG infantry is, which has "Hold the Line" :
During each tactical combat round each of the subunits is normally going to attack once.
(You can see these details during the combat by clicking the Details button on the bottom right, but obviously not when you're on operational defensive during the enemy turn.)
A subunit that has been attacked then (not always ?) gets a chance to counter-attack.

During an attack (or counter-attack) one of those 4 tactical attack values is going to be rolled against one of the two HP values (Which are based on Armour Strength - AFAIK both HP values are the same for all soft armor units ?)

So since the tanks are on the operational offensive, during an attack or counter-attack they're going to use one of the 2 of their Attack values.
Since your RPG infantry has soft armor, it's going to be the Soft Attack one.
Your RPG infantry is going to use its HP value to tactically defend.
So the Tanks' subunit Soft Attack (after all modifiers are applied) is going to be rolled against your RPG infantry subunit HP (after all modifiers are applied, like entrenchment).

And in the other direction too, the same thing is happening in the same combat round :
Since your RPG infantry is on the operational defensive during an attack or counter-attack it's going to use one of the 2 of their Defense values.
Since the Tanks have hard armor, it's going to be the Hard Defense one (which infantry RPG is the best at !).
Their Tanks are going to use one of their two HP values to tactically defend.
(Now this is the part that I haven't tested yet - only on towed Howitzer arty against Tanks - but I *think* this is what is happening ? : )
Since RPG infantry has a *soft* weapon, the tanks are going to use their Soft HP value to defend. (Which they generally - though Side Skirts might change this - have a penalty at !)
So your RPG's subunit Hard Defense value (after all modifiers are applied) is going to be rolled against the Tanks subunit Soft HP value (after all modifiers are applied).
And here's where the Hold the Line posture comes in : You're going to get an *extra* +50% modifier on that Hard Defense value, so an extra x1.5 multiplier, which is going to increase your chances to hit the tank !
(And *maybe* also, if the tank is hit, to increase the chances to have it be a Retreat hit or even Killed hit than just a Pinned hit ?)

[zgrssd]

Ok, right, you seem to be talking about the first Heart posture "Hold the Line : Infantry forces get +50% on defense and -60% on attack. Retreat at 80% losses." (Not sure what is the normal retreat %, but probably lower ?)

I would guess it refers to a Oderly Retreat:
From 5.10.15.1. Combat looP:
"If % of kills + retreats suffered by a Unit triggers the retreat % of a Unit, then it will do an Orderly Retreat.
Units that have no avenue of retreat will not be able retreat. And will probably eventually suffer a Panic Retreat."

I could find a value in the details for "HQ Power". It was 50% without postures.
Note however that regardless of the Stratagem, Panic Retreat still applies:

"Check Panic Retreat
If % of the Subunits remaining of a Unit drop below the Morale of a Unit, then there is a chance it will do Panic Retreat.
Units that have no avenue of retreat have their Morale doubled for this calculation."
So unless you morale is still 80 (40 for combats without retreat), the unit will propably fold long before a retreat is ordered.

[BlueTemplar]

Right, thanks !

I *knew* I remembered it from somewhere, but I check that tab so rarely... (if ever !)

[Cassini]

Bringing up a 'dead' thread...

It has been about a year since I played this (participated in the Beta test 2 years ago), I had time to play again so I went through two 100 round games.

Regarding the 'Hold the Line' posture... the AI player DOES NOT experience 80 percent retreat losses - it experiences no additional retreat losses at all.

I've hit an infantry force with 'Hold the Line' posture (over 100 recon present on the hexes each time), with an entire armor brigade - the infantry takes some losses and retreats - NO ADDITIONAL LOSSES are incurred by the retreating force. The armor brigade is set to 'Blitzkrieg' posture, so I hit the force again - still, no additional losses.

Hitting a 'stack' of infantry TWICE that has the 'Hold the Line' posture should result in its near complete destruction (statistically only 4 percent should survive a double hit after retreating twice). The only losses experienced by the opposing force are direct combat incurred - no 'additional' losses are assessed due to the remainder retreating.

[Clux]

Bringing up a 'dead' thread...

It has been about a year since I played this (participated in the Beta test 2 years ago), I had time to play again so I went through two 100 round games.

Regarding the 'Hold the Line' posture... the AI player DOES NOT experience 80 percent retreat losses - it experiences no additional retreat losses at all.

I've hit an infantry force with 'Hold the Line' posture (over 100 recon present on the hexes each time), with an entire armor brigade - the infantry takes some losses and retreats - NO ADDITIONAL LOSSES are incurred by the retreating force. The armor brigade is set to 'Blitzkrieg' posture, so I hit the force again - still, no additional losses.

Hitting a 'stack' of infantry TWICE that has the 'Hold the Line' posture should result in its near complete destruction (statistically only 4 percent should survive a double hit after retreating twice). The only losses experienced by the opposing force are direct combat incurred - no 'additional' losses are assessed due to the remainder retreating.

I think you're confusing "No retreat" (fist posture) which increases the chances of your units getting killed while retreating with "Hold the line" (heart posture) which increases the chances of passing the retreat check (thus staying longer in combat)

[Cassini]

The last item on the description of the posture description states "Retreat at 80% losses".

To me that reads that 80% of the forces that retreat from the hex (post combat resolution) will be LOST.

So either the posture isn't correctly modeled in the program, or the description of what the program is doing is incorrect.

[JeanleChauve]

It is when integrity is at or under 20%. In battle, integrity is the number of subunits at the begining of combat. And yes, descriptions are not always very acurate.

[BlueTemplar]

Why does it read like this to you ??

Both Hold the Line and Retreat postures (to take the most obvious ones) seem pretty clear to me :
Hold the Line has "Retreat at 80% losses"
Retreat has "Retreat at 10% losses"

On the contrary, this is one of the *fairly* clear descriptions, as combat modifiers go ?

Though, as we mentioned above, the tricky aspects are :
- you have to dig quite a bit to find what the default retreat % is...
- it only applies to orderly retreats, not panic retreats :

5.10.15. Combat
[...]
A Unit will retreat if it has more losses than its Posture tolerates or because it has had so many losses that it panics.
[...]

If it worked like you say, I would have expected the description to be something like "80% extra losses on retreat" ??