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Sorry, with everything you say I just disagree more, to the point that I think you're blind to my argument.  Lets try it point by point.

a) I'm not trying to be aggressive, I'm trying to blood him.  The game is just meaning that my blooding is totally ineffective.  They could, and did, do this in real life.  Wastage was hardly insignificant, it was a large percentage of the casualties incurred, and "abstracting it away" is not on, IMO.  I thought the way that artillery works is just fine at handling wastage.  As far as I'm concerned the reality mongers and artillery haters have gone way too far with their quotations about artillery tables and such and gone and ruined it all, which is actually what I predicted a little while back.

b) I don't think the emphasis on assaulting is at all realistic.  It has been commented on repeatedly that the frontlines in GoA are far more fluid than they were IRL, even on the Western Front with all the rules.  Lascar is currently engaged in a salient pinching on a scale of at least fifty miles, in 1916, without any upgrades which are assisting his advances, against level 4 trenches.  This kinda throws out any argument that "GoA models this via an assault, its realistic" out the window because as far as WW1 is concerned it is most definitely the "wrong war".  This is not something which bothers me, at all, as it would be frustrating if you couldn't get anywhere.  Its very hard to get anywhere and that'll do, but nevertheless you arguing that its the 'wrong war' to expect general casualties, possibly heavy casualties, across a frontline by the standards of the day "quiet", is so completely wrong I find it very hard not to be more derisive than I am.  Maybe you should tell the ghosts of the guys at Hellfire Corner that there was no effective way to wear them down other than assaulting?  Really, this is ridiculous.  Its a shame I dont have my books to hand on what the monthly wastage on the Western Front was but over the course of a full year it was akin to any one of the major battles.

c) Falkenhayn wanted to drag the French into a war of attrition in what on the GoA map would be a tiny segment of a hex.  Most of the fighting at Verdun was static, and most of the casualties were caused by the incessant bombardments, not infantry assaults.  But thats at two deep a level for this game.  Still, that was his plan.

Whatever.  If you don't see any point in the above, then I'm clearly not going to convince, but seriously, if this is how its gonna be, I think its going back on the shelf.

I understand exactly what you are saying, and to me you are asking for something that will add complexity for no great purpose - and that would be a bad mistake.

the game should be about decisions players make, not automated attrition that will win or lose 9or at least influence) the game without players actually having to do anything at all.

when you say you think the emphasis on assaulting is unrealistic IMO you are confusing assault with the massive general offensives - assault can also be used to engage in attrition warfare. It will often take 2-3 turns of assaulting to take a hex...or it may never be taken at all....especialy when there are few entrenchments....gaining a hex in Goa is usually a big deal and will only happen if yuo get a clear cut victory and then usually after several attacks and massive casualties (except on the Eastern Front)....or with tanks or Assault troops.....there WERE successful multi-hex offensives on the Western Front in 1918.

ultimately your problems seem to have been caused by your own choice not to invest in artillery and blaming the game for it not appropriate.

In my last game as the CP vs the AI, the ET were throwing 5 strength bombardments against level 4 trenches & inflicting between 1 to 3 strength pts of damage to me in 7 or 8 attacks total for the turn.

I found the best way to take a hex was to wear down the readiness of the units just to the point before the AI would rotate the units with fresh corps, then attack. Works well with assault-trained troops, significantly less effective without them.
I was using 30-40 strength bombardments for two turns at least to do this, and doing an average 15-30 strength points damage (on the East front) per assault.
When the assault didn't work, casualties were roughly equal or in the Russian's favor at around the 15 pt. mark.
Cutting off areas is the most effective (and difficult) way to inflict huge casualties to the enemy.

I think the arty has been balanced much better than it was, forcing alternative strategies than 'kill stacks', which I never liked.
After a successful attack, even the under-developed Russian 3 strength arty units cause significant damage to unprotected or under entrenched troops.

There's a work on casualties and attrition rates at http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwi/casualties/love2.htm that may be interesting - it uses US rates - towards the bottom of the article is table 13, which gives a simple monthly count of basic casualties divided into 3 - disease/non-combat, gas, and gunshot (presumably incl artillery).
 
Teh total % casualties increases from about 1.5% to about 3.5% when in combat from July.
 
However this is only part of the story.....most injuries were not debilitating - ie only a small % of actual injuries were killed or had to be sent to teh rear for prolonged treatment.  However eth % for non-combat and gas was much, much smaller than for gunshot - only 3% of non-combat and 6% of gas injuries had to be removed to the "zone of het interior" for treatment, but 20% of gunshot injuries had to be.
 
the fatality rate from non-battle injuries was 3.7% for US forces, for gas was only 1.73% of cases actually sent to hospital, and for gunshot wounds 8.12% - however the non-battle disease figures included deaths from the influenza epidemic, and without that the rate was estimated to be 1.44%.
 
What this shows is that "wastage" of US forces in 1918 was extremely low in terms of permanent casualties - less than 1 GOA strength point for the whole of the US forces for the 1st 6 months of 1918 in total (ie <2000 men permanently withdrawn from combat in the entire 6 months).
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Once they got into combat it changed considerably of course - many more gunshot casualties were recorded, and a far higher % of those casualties were killed than those who were gassed or suffered disease or non-battle injury.
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KCole's post seems to imply that artillery can be used to attrit the enemy.

This is a difficult discussion as I don't have enough experience with the game (and I think no one here does as of yet; but I could be wrong on this point) to decide if what EUBanana is worried about is endemic to the current rules (I'm guessing not, but I'm still willing to listen to the discussion) or if EUBanana just hasn't played the game correctly to obtain the results he is looking for??

An interesting side discussion is whether or not the western front is too fluid. I don't know. Certainly V1.2 beta 5 makes it significantly less fluid than prior versions. It feels fairly correct to me; realizing that in real life the opposing side "played the rules" in a fashion that resulted in static warfare for much of the time.

But was this necessary" Or could they have "played the rules" in way that would've resulted in a more fluid western front. It might be "dumb" to play the rules in this fashion; but if possible in real life, the game should allow it; and perhaps all we are seeing is this effect.

My suspicion is that with the current rules either side can make the west be rather static if they desire to play expend their resources in that fashion. (disclaimer: I freely admit that my experience level may render this suspicion inaccurate.)

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

Sorry, with everything you say I just disagree more, to the point that I think you're blind to my argument.  Lets try it point by point.

a) I'm not trying to be aggressive, I'm trying to blood him.  As far as I'm concerned the reality mongers and artillery haters have gone way too far with their quotations about artillery tables and such and gone and ruined it all, which is actually what I predicted a little while back.

b) I don't think the emphasis on assaulting is at all realistic.  but nevertheless you arguing that its the 'wrong war' to expect general casualties, possibly heavy casualties, across a frontline by the standards of the day "quiet", is so completely wrong I find it very hard not to be more derisive than I am.  Maybe you should tell the ghosts of the guys at Hellfire Corner that there was no effective way to wear them down other than assaulting?  Really, this is ridiculous.  Its a shame I dont have my books to hand on what the monthly wastage on the Western Front was but over the course of a full year it was akin to any one of the major battles.

Whatever.  If you don't see any point in the above, then I'm clearly not going to convince, but seriously, if this is how its gonna be, I think its going back on the shelf.

I'm not oblivious to your arguments, I just think they are flawed:

1. You want to bleed the CP player, but you don't actually want to fight him? The fact is that arty never did "serious" casualties against troops in fixed positions in WW1. You can say that Verdun was the reverse, but there the casualties were generated because the French had been driven out of their fixed defenses into the open where they had to maneuver and counterattack under arty. That attrition was due to a German offensive into their "hex" that reduced the "trench level". Heavy arty is now what it was in WW1--a way of "somewhat" (and most always less than the commands on both sides hoped) suppressing enemy trench levels and readiness in advance of an assault--not a carpet bombing mission.

2. You want to subject the CP to wastage on the Western front, but you want a wastage mechanism that scales with the number of arty units and barrages you buy. Thats not historical at all and it is not even "wastage" in the sense that you talk about it. Wastage in the WW1 sense comes from local patrolling, trench raids, local arty bombardments that were most likely done with "organic" artillery in most cases, "combat fatigue", and disease and exposure in the trenches. I'm all for modelling that if Frank Hunter hasn't taken the design decision that wastage shouldnt be abstracted out of the game, but I am not for a situation where one side with 20 corps on a front can generate "3X" wastage than the other sides 20 corps because side A decided to build all the arty units that their countermix allowed where side B only built half their arty units.

3. I'm sure that wastage in any given year did generate as many casualties as a major offensive, but considering that from the Allied side there were generally a few major offensives each year, in the scheme of things that shows that wastage was not the major source of reducing enemy strength. If you want to do that, then you have to assault his trenches.

4. I dont consider myself an "arty hater". I just don't want my corps ahistorically losing half their strength in one impulse just from an arty barrage. I think that heavy arty should be what it was in the real war, a useful way to inflict some casualties, reduce readiness and destroy some defenses and defense infrastructre. But its not a war-winning weapon. For me personally the jury is stil out on whether arty is now too weak or not, but I will say its a lot better now than it was in 1.1

I think using the US as an example of wastage being irrelevant is deeply flawed, given most of the very brief time they were actually on the line they were involved in assaults, and they were holding a small section of the line - and the situation in 1918 from Spring on was atypical of WW1 anyway.&nbsp; I think looking at German or British figures will lead to different conclusions.

Anyway, thats a level of detail and historical haggling which I don't think is relevant.&nbsp; Yes yes, I know all this stuff about artillery and how many casualties it inflicts.&nbsp; I also know that its a corp level game (one wonders why artillery counters are in it at all in that case, beyond siege artillery maybe.)&nbsp;

I don't think additional wastage mechanics are necessary, where did I advocate that?&nbsp; I suppose thats not exactly a surprise when posting on a forum full of grogs who play games like WITP, the urge to add extra mechanics and haggle over historical authenticity and artillery casualty tables.&nbsp; [:D].&nbsp; I thought that GoA elegantly handles bleeding the enemy with wastage, raids, and what have you with a single mechanic - barrages.&nbsp; I /know/ that artillery was not used like that - irrelevant to me.&nbsp; The bottom line was that it was a good mechanic to sum up all sorts of things and bundle it into an abstraction called a 'barrage', at the end of the day a game mechanic that lets the barrager convert some industry and some R&D into a means to sap some enemies who happen to be adjacent to these non corps level units called 'artillery counters' of their strength in a static warfare fashion.&nbsp; This actually strikes me as more historical than the emphasis on large scale encirclements over by the standards of the day fantasy scale distances of advance, but thats almost by the by, I'm less interested in the historicity of the individual mechanics than I am in the overall feel of the game and the variety of strategies that are in the players toolbox, waiting to be deployed.

Its a balance issue is all.&nbsp; I don't think the fact that a whole year of shelling in game inflicted 0 casualties implies that some rebalancing is needed is all that contentious, to be honest.&nbsp; Or a whole year of my shelling with R&D, air support and weaker trenches that did almost nothing, either.&nbsp;

I think the quicker entrenching is much better than it was before, and I was actually researching assault troops with Lascar as a result - something I never bothered with before.&nbsp; Thats a good thing, assault troops and tanks (and even trenches!) being not worth it was something that bugged me before and I opined about that too.&nbsp; This latest patch is pretty good progress I think, and needs only the slightest of tweaks IMO to take it pretty much to the exact sweet spot of balancing acts.&nbsp;

As for what I guess the damage a year of shelling with not very good guns against good fortifications should be, I'm not quite sure, but I know it should be better than 0, that much is plain.&nbsp;

assuming 1 barrage point is the equal of 2 infantry, the break even in attritional terms is clearly 1 barrage point doing 2 damage.&nbsp; So a four point worth barrage, which is typical for one of my maximum effort bombardments, should do about 8 to be a worthwhile strategy in the long term.&nbsp; Obviously it should deviate up and down from that depending on the precise situation, like with bad guns versus heavy trenches it should be more like 1-4, say, and with an ideal situation, good guns against troops in the open it should be higher than that, perhaps considerably higher like, say, 16.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But lets say an average of 8.&nbsp; Everybody I've played in this game (and the AI) tends to keep the guns firing, presumably in the hope its paying its way.&nbsp; In the latest patch I don't think its even possible for artillery to pay its way, except perhaps in the late war when artillery R&D is real good and troops are advancing and thus unentrenched.&nbsp; So all these constant barrages are a complete waste of time.&nbsp; Even the readiness loss isn't very significant, a point here, a point there, a trench level if you are exceedingly lucky, so even in the supporting the attack role its of pretty marginal use.&nbsp;&nbsp; Of course I can only comment on the bombardments I've been on the receiving end of, but even when entrenched to a fairly low level (like 1, say) I've not seen any bombardments even come near to that break even.

So a tool from the toolbox has been removed.&nbsp; As the game has thankfully simple mechanics I think thats quite serious (not to say the game lacks depth, but if you took rooks out of chess, another game with simple rules but great depth, then it would seriously reduce the games options), and the lack of ability to wear down the enemy if he keeps a front packed with men, short of assaults,&nbsp; strikes me as very un-WW1-like.

(An assault, incidentally, is an extremely poor strategy from a purely attritional point of view in terms of industry because you pay 18 arms just to pay for the HQ point to send in the troops, so unless you dish out 18 more damage than you take - unusual, though possibly, I would say - thats not gonna work either, which kinda removes these 'if its a quiet front then attack' argument.&nbsp; The CPs mid to late war strategy surely has to be attritional, as it was IRL.&nbsp; As it stands you don't have an attritional option in the toolbox, and this is supposed to be a game about a war infamous for attrition tactics!).

Granted i have not been playing that much with 1.2 beta yet, but when wastage is not reproduced at all I would rather have continued shelling having a slightly larger effect on readiness for preparation of a major assault. Similarly barraging as part of an attack should give an offensive bonus to the attack.

Both would contribute to lower attacker losses and conversely higher defender losses and so be an incentive to more offensive play in the west besides giving it a more "realistic" feel using combined arms.

Well, the other thing I'm very much aware of is the late game CP strategy.&nbsp; As it is playing after 1916 seems a waste of time, and thats surely not a good thing either, to be able to predict with certainty whats going to happen because the game lacks a delaying/attritional option for you to take.&nbsp; Digging in and hoping the TE bleeds to death against your fortifications simply cannot happen without barrages taking a major role, and around mid 1916 and on this is pretty crucial stuff for the CPs in a game where they've not won already.

I get the impression that if people took 16 hits from a heavy barrage here there would be a clamour of dissent, as 16 is waaaay above what the current patch dishes out.&nbsp; I even get the impression that if they took 8 hits from a heavy barrage there might be some grumping.&nbsp; Fact is if you see Barrage 12, Hits 8, your opponent has achieved nothing of real lasting import at the grand strategic level (granted, he may well have at the tactical level - prior to an assault, forcing movement to plug weakened sectors, etc, which is why I think this is the sort of ballpark figure needed for 'average' bombardment).&nbsp; You only have reason to panic, I would say, when you see Barrage 12, Hits 16.&nbsp; Obviously with an attritional strategy this is the sort of number the bombarder should be shooting for, its the sort of number which, over a long term, will have some sort of impact on the overall course of the war.


Clearly these numbers are a far cry from 45, so I'm hardly advocating it goes back to the way it was, which I presume some people might be thinking i am.

Alright, some quick tests.

4 x 3 artillery versus trench 1, packed to the max =
6 hits -> below break even (and 4 readiness, but this is less important to me, I'm looking at an attritional strategy)

And again
5 hits -> almost half break even. No readiness loss either, so you've truly wasted your time and industry here, beyond narrow tactical impact (and concentrating 4 guns in one spot - is it worth it, for such a slight gain?)

And again, with just 1 corp as target, so a poor choice for a barrage
2 hits -> your a fool if you do this, in any situation, very poor move

And again, packed trench, but this time with air support
6 hits -> not even breaking even with aircraft

And again, packed trench, air support
6 hits

One more time with air support
7 hits - almost!



I think these numbers should be around the 8 mark, higher (10?) with lucky rolls.&nbsp; They are as close to ideal conditions as you can get with massed basic artillery against a massed target, wth R&D not being a factor on&nbsp; either side as both have the basic kit.&nbsp; No trench at all will obviously raise it well into the Danger Zone but then, it should, and 'no trench at all' is hard to arrange due to the difficulty of moving artillery counters forward with an advance.&nbsp; (Those who dont buy trenches deserve everything they get in WW1).

Out of curiousity, was that with 1.2 B6?&nbsp; or B5?

I ask because B6 has one level more randomness and a greater span to the results.

Some numbers,

3 artillery units cost 1 industrial point to fire regardless of whether that strength is anywhere from 2 to 7.

It costs 1 industrial point to purchase from 5 to 7 arms points (depending on nationality).

All the numbers below assume 3 artillery units firing with air support against 3 corps stacked in a hex.

3 * 3 strength artillery units against 0 trenches will produce an average of 15 hits.
3 * 3 strength artillery units against level 1 trenches will produce an average of 8 hits.
3 * 3 strength artillery units against level 2 trenches will produce an average of 6 hits.
3 * 3 strength artillery units against level 3 trenches will produce an average of 3 hits.
3 * 3 strength artillery units against level 4 trenches will produce an average of 3 hits.

3 * 7 strength artillery units against 0 trenches will produce an average of 30 hits.
3 * 7 strength artillery units against level 1 trenches will produce an average of 17 hits.
3 * 7 strength artillery units against level 2 trenches will produce an average of 15 hits.
3 * 7 strength artillery units against level 3 trenches will produce an average of 12 hits.
3 * 7 strength artillery units against level 4 trenches will produce an average of 10 hits.

To figure what the averages would be without air support just remember that air support roughly has the effect of nullifying one level of trenches.

And to figure what the averages would be against a single corps in a hex, halve the hit average.

Tech level certainly plays a big role but I think artillery does pass your test that on average it produce costs to your opponent slightly better than or equal to your own spending.

Mmm, those numbers don't really match my experiences in game? Going by that even level 3 artillery without any spotting involved will reliably score a hit or two?

I tested with the patch, yup - but the provoker of the debate was my experience in pbem rather than a test (which was with b5).

If its been changed slightly then it looks to me then its likely been changed enough, it only takes a little nudge to have a drastic effect, at least over time (like, a year of shelling).

Game on.

Out of interest what sort of effect does aircraft tech have on bombardments? As I know the book says that aircraft technology also increases the power of barrages if aircraft are spotting.

I've never bothered researching aircraft above 1 myself (so they can shoot down bad guys), I work on artillery instead - is this perhaps a bad move, I wonder...

I would like a clarification on this too with the Beta.

In 1.1 one level of air support roughly gave the same benefit as one level of researched artillery (at lower levels at least), while being cheaper and faster to research and giving added benefit of possibly gaining air superiority.

Aircraft tech has no effect on artillery.&nbsp; Aircraft tech is only for air to air combat so the higher tech you are the better chance you'll get recce points.

In 1.1 one level of air support roughly gave the same benefit as one level of researched artillery (at lower levels at least), while being cheaper and faster to research and giving added benefit of possibly gaining air superiority.

Yes

I just had a crack with the new patch, 3 x 3 artillery seems to do about 8 on average against a trench at 1.&nbsp; Thats certainly high enough to cause attrition, with research it only gets better.

Looks to be about a happy medium to me.&nbsp; [&o]

Let me give EUBanana the benefit of the doubt, temporarily.

There are combinations of three or four ways you can increase artillery's effectivenes

1) Increase their lethality; what EUBanana seems to be advocating
2) Increase their ability to lower readiness on enemy troops
3) Increase their ability to destroy enemy trenches
4) Make it cheaper to buy barrages.

One can of course fiddle and tweak in different ways all four factors.

A question for EUBanana would be why ignore 2-4 in your discussions?

Personally I think the lethality is about right. I'm only playing against the AI, but I see some 4-8 losses at times from artillery. Also, a lot of zeros, but I'm at Trench level 4 and the AI seems to not be concentrating his artillery fire.

I think I'd like to see barrages be a tad cheaper and maybe a slight improvement in the readiness lowering ability of barrages.

Thoughts?

I favor increasing the impact of arty on trenches and readiness. IMHO it should not be "cost effective" to trade barrages for strength points. Barrages should be more expensive than the cost of the average number of strength points that they will likely eliminate. That's the historical point: the Entente because of its resource base&nbsp;can afford to trade material for dead Germans. The reverse isn't true.
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I thought that 1.5 was a better simulation of Great War arty than 1.6.

See beta6 first impressions thread.

I think that Franks explanation of the change in arty base is reasonably good, but folks there seem to mostly think trenches need to be cheaper with the slight increase of arty effectiveness present.

I've got mixed feelings and am undecided about my suggestion of making arty barrages cheaper. I'm beginning to think its not such a good idea.