Matrix Games Forums

Posted: **Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:30 pm**

When xBoroNx did that follow up attack we did see much more realistic numbers... seille had far fewer forces defending the city as well. xBoroNx claims of the over stack being the main culprit does seem to hold up.

I think Mortars are fine the way they are with the possible exception of the high attack stat versus armor.

@grumpyMel... Bazookas do defend a lot better against armor. If I were trying to defend against mass armor attacks I would use bazookas in that situation for over Mortars. There cheaper and the rear area status of the mortars is not as much of a safety net on defence.
But given the better attack value against armor the mortars have combined with the rear area status which is much more powerful on attack I would have to go with mortars if I were on the offense.
Of course if I had to fight mass armor with infantry and being mobile wasn't a dire necessity, I would go a step further and take the AT gun over the bazooka. Unless PP cost was not a problem then I would go with tankdestroyer. Probably why I rarely use Bazookas.

@JAMiAM... That may be overkill. I would would much rather see the attack value versus armor changed. In fact after reading this discussion I think I would recommend that change in future versions.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:24 am**

ORIGINAL: seille

Sorry, but their rear area status is more than enough protection.
All they need is some infantry to protect the frontline.

That's my point though, your spending more money to protect mortars in addition to the cost.

The offensive player has not to fear to lose his mortars mainly
as long as he´s attacking in his turns and the enemy has no bigger numbers of divebombers or
artillery.

Why not counter attack? That seems to be an effective way to destroy them (with the right units). After an attacker losses some rifles/SMGs, you should be able to do some more damage to them and kill some rear area units. Mortar's aren't that hot on defense.

In a game against twber i bought some mortars for my russian winter offensive, but i had the problem that Tom still did successful attacks on my
russians. That way he killed a lot of mortars. But he was strong enough and he broke my lines.
A thing you often can´t do when you´re in full defense.

Is this an issue with the scenario or the unit? I play random maps a lot (verse AIs, other players, and myself (to test ideas and unit mixes)) and I really haven't seen results like yours, even though about 1/4 of my non-armor SFs are mortars.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:58 am**

I also think that the mortar is fine with the exeption of his anti tank value. His anti tank values could get decreased 25-50%.

But i have some slight issues with other troops. I think those sfttypes are too weak:
-Infantry guns, flak and possibly at guns as well.

Flak seems too weak vs. Air. In a few games i tried to use flak, but since some weeks i have never built a single flak gun anymore. If you have only 1-5 flak guns somewhere they basically never ever kill an enemy air unit. 10+ flaks eventually scare away smaller enemy air wings. But unless they are in a city or fort or at least heavy forest you probably can kill the flaks with a massed air strike very easily. You might lose 1-2 planes but kill 10 flaks + parts of the additional units in the target hex. So only in rarest situations the flak is semi-useful. But normally a map is large enough so that there is enough maneuvering space, so you can then simply ignore the heavily fortified enemy flak + other troops or if there are not enough attack with ground forces. Additionally if you are on the offensive you have to mobilize the flak.

The infantry gun is also too weak imho. Since it is an only offensive weapon and has artillery movement you need to mobilize them. Since the horse is not that fast if speed is needed you would have to use halftracks or trucks. This makes them good airstrike victims then though. 1 mortar + 5 rifle or smg cost the same and are much more flexible. Only in the special case of attacking infantry in forts or cities there is theoretically the niche for the IG. But that's imho too niche to justify purchasing them, and 5 smg + 1 mortar are almost as good even vs. forts. Maybe even better since they have more hitpoints.

10 Ig + 50 rifle/smg would be 100 stack points, so a good bunker buster. But instead you could buy a rilfe/mortar combo. The above costs 15000 production points, you would get e.g. 50 rifle and 20 mortar or e.g. 70 rifle and 16 mortar. You would get even less stack points than if you use IGs this way, so you save the cost for 1-2 mobilizers too.

Finally the at gun. It is ok vs. enemy tanks, but sucks vs. anything else. 10 infantry cost the same and are better vs. tanks on the offensive and not that much worse on defensive vs. tanks. 600/600 vs. 450/1350. But again, the AT guns are only artillery movement, so very inflexible. And they are only good on defense. So only for defensive fort formations they are somewhat useful. Not attractive neither.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 3:02 am**

Just my two cents.

I have not noticed anyone mention that the armor takes a -50% Attack/defend modifier in urban areas. If you add the readiness with the over stacking and the fact that Boron out numbers Seille almost three to one SMG's, to the negative modifier, then the results make sense.

The tanks don't hurt the infantry in urban areas because of the tight areas and ease with which infantry can move as opposed to armor in a tight area.

Mortars have the wonderful effect of suppressing the enemies rifle so that your rifle can close for the kill. So maybe the overwhelming numbers for the mortar against armor makes sense. It is not the mortars killing the tanks but the fact that they allow the rifle to close and make the kill.

What would happen if a unit of only mortars attacked a unit of only tanks??? Time to go test.

Plutarch

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:30 am**

ORIGINAL: xBoroNx

I also think that the mortar is fine with the exeption of his anti tank value. His anti tank values could get decreased 25-50%.

But i have some slight issues with other troops. I think those sfttypes are too weak:
-Infantry guns, flak and possibly at guns as well.

Flak seems too weak vs. Air. In a few games i tried to use flak, but since some weeks i have never built a single flak gun anymore. If you have only 1-5 flak guns somewhere they basically never ever kill an enemy air unit. 10+ flaks eventually scare away smaller enemy air wings. But unless they are in a city or fort or at least heavy forest you probably can kill the flaks with a massed air strike very easily. You might lose 1-2 planes but kill 10 flaks + parts of the additional units in the target hex. So only in rarest situations the flak is semi-useful. But normally a map is large enough so that there is enough maneuvering space, so you can then simply ignore the heavily fortified enemy flak + other troops or if there are not enough attack with ground forces. Additionally if you are on the offensive you have to mobilize the flak.

The infantry gun is also too weak imho. Since it is an only offensive weapon and has artillery movement you need to mobilize them. Since the horse is not that fast if speed is needed you would have to use halftracks or trucks. This makes them good airstrike victims then though. 1 mortar + 5 rifle or smg cost the same and are much more flexible. Only in the special case of attacking infantry in forts or cities there is theoretically the niche for the IG. But that's imho too niche to justify purchasing them, and 5 smg + 1 mortar are almost as good even vs. forts. Maybe even better since they have more hitpoints.

10 Ig + 50 rifle/smg would be 100 stack points, so a good bunker buster. But instead you could buy a rilfe/mortar combo. The above costs 15000 production points, you would get e.g. 50 rifle and 20 mortar or e.g. 70 rifle and 16 mortar. You would get even less stack points than if you use IGs this way, so you save the cost for 1-2 mobilizers too.

Finally the at gun. It is ok vs. enemy tanks, but sucks vs. anything else. 10 infantry cost the same and are better vs. tanks on the offensive and not that much worse on defensive vs. tanks. 600/600 vs. 450/1350. But again, the AT guns are only artillery movement, so very inflexible. And they are only good on defense. So only for defensive fort formations they are somewhat useful. Not attractive neither.

On mortars we are agreed.

I always put a high priority on air and usually achieve air superiority. I have played people who are very skilled with the use of flak and people who are not. If my opponent trys using flak I will look for opportunities to take them out with tac bombers. players that are more skilled in the use of flak will spread them out more and use flak to cover flak. My experence has been that destroying flak guns in one territory when there are adjacent hexes with additional flak is very difficult. In that situation destroying the 2 flak guns in the attacked hex, if I succeed is sometimes not worth the effort since I will have six plus flak guns pointed at me cause of adjacent hexes. I will often lose 1 or 2 bombers just to kill 1 or 2 flak. attacking six flak guns directly works very well. Attacking six flak guns when only 2 of them are actually in the hex your attcking leads to much different results from my experence.
It's true I don't lose huge amounts of planes to flak but with proper use of flak by my oppenent my bombers lose most of there effectiveness and struggle to kill anything. flak seems to suppress there power more so than actually shoot them down.

I go back and forth between Mortars and IG's. I guess it depends on how mobile I need my forces to be in a given conflict and wheather or not I need to be concerned with stacking penalties.
I lean towards Mortar.

AT's on the other hand are very good at there job. I love using them to protect my infantry against armor attacks. Even just having 1 will make an enemy tank formation think for a minute before attacking. And if your in a situation where the enemy has massive amounts of armor and you are forced to defend on a budjet with mainly heavy infantry they could be a god sent.
I have play tested the AT quit a bit and I can say without a doubt that If had had an enemy tank unit in front of me and had the choice of facing the unit 50 infantry or forty infantry and an AT gun. I would definatly go with the AT unit.

IMHO...

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:35 am**

ORIGINAL: Plutarch

Just my two cents.

I have not noticed anyone mention that the armor takes a -50% Attack/defend modifier in urban areas. If you add the readiness with the over stacking and the fact that Boron out numbers Seille almost three to one SMG's, to the negative modifier, then the results make sense.

The tanks don't hurt the infantry in urban areas because of the tight areas and ease with which infantry can move as opposed to armor in a tight area.

Mortars have the wonderful effect of suppressing the enemies rifle so that your rifle can close for the kill. So maybe the overwhelming numbers for the mortar against armor makes sense. It is not the mortars killing the tanks but the fact that they allow the rifle to close and make the kill.

What would happen if a unit of only mortars attacked a unit of only tanks??? Time to go test.

Plutarch

Tanks only suffer negative terrain modifiers when attacking not while defending. I guess it is debatable as to weather or not that is realistic in an urban enviroment. But the game does not penalize on defence.[;)]

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:37 am**

I think mortars rear status is ok, but mortars shouldn't be effective against any armor. Infantry guns on the other hand need some love. For now there is no point producing them - mortars are light-weighted, could be carried by tanks and on average as much effective. May be infantry guns should get artillery range one ?
IMO tanks urban defens is ok. Think of them as digged in armored guns.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:53 am**

Mortars probably shouldn't be "as much"  rear as artillery - some intermediate level perhaps for v2.0......

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:55 am**

OK, morters v tanks .. too powerfull imo
Flak, too weak v tactical air.
 

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:57 pm**

I like SMK´s idea to divide rear area in two zones. One with better and one with less protection.
But i´m not sure Vic could code this that easy. And if he´s willing to do this.....
 
Flak is ok as it is as iron wrote you have to spread it and don´t use it in bigger formations.
Flak is good because it often force the enemy to use more attack power on single units to spread
the flak fire and reduce the losses.
 
Infantry guns should NEVER get artillery range. Their plus actually is the bonus against fortifications.
In open field battles i would not use it. Here i would prefer the mortar or the tank.
 
AT guns i must say i used in my actual game vs Boron together with up to 50 rifle, but never saw them killing a tank.
No effect. Probably Boron broke my lines in no time and wiped out the AT guns. Low experience on my side....

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:22 pm**

I've done a lot of experimentation with IG guns. I build my armies so they will fight well in nearly all terrain on the battlefield, so I go with rifle and build very few smg's. So lets say for example I have an army group with 5 heavy infantry and 2 armor units. All my infantry units contain rifle. I'll keep 3 or 4 IG guns in the army groups HQ and transfer them to the unit or units when they are needed say for attacking a fortification or a city. I'm always experimenting with new tactics and this is one of my more recent ideas. I sometimes carry as many as 6 IG's in my field HQ. It has worked well for me so far since I don't use smg's I can can get that big bonus in urban and fort combat that the IG has when I need it and where I need it without having to worry about keeping enough trucks in my infantry unit. I always have lot of trucks in my HQ's anyway.

HMMM... that idea of have 2 levels of rear area is interesting and makes some sense.

I'll have to go back to the drawing board with the AT. But I seem to remember running some test like having a medium tank attack 30 infantry in open terrain and then running the same test with 20 infantry and an AT gun. As I recall the medium tank won most of the time but the infantry with the AT gun had more wins than the one without. Sometimes the tank would get wacked early on in the attack with the AT unit and that would be the end of it. In my games against AI+ where I often face tons of massed armor I'll keep 2 AT guns in all my heavy infantry units. Can't say I have ever used that tactic against human though.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:05 pm**

ORIGINAL: IRONCROM
AT's on the other hand are very good at there job. I love using them to protect my infantry against armor attacks. Even just having 1 will make an enemy tank formation think for a minute before attacking. And if your in a situation where the enemy has massive amounts of armor and you are forced to defend on a budjet with mainly heavy infantry they could be a god sent.
I have play tested the AT quit a bit and I can say without a doubt that If had had an enemy tank unit in front of me and had the choice of facing the unit 50 infantry or forty infantry and an AT gun. I would definatly go with the AT unit.

IMHO...

That comparison is slightly problematic though because of the slow artillery movement. Infantry needs 30 ap for most terrain, so can usually travel 3 hexes or at least 2 if it also has to paint. Artillery needs 50 ap for plain terrain though, only on roads it is faster with 40 ap.
This means then that e.g. if you have slightly lowered readiness so that you have e.g. 99 or 98 ap instead of 100 you can only move a single hex.
So you need to buy at least 1 horse. So it is 52 rilfe vs. 40 rifle + 1 at gun + 1 horse

.

Regarding your infantry gun idea: But if you transfer the IGs to another unit it ends this units turn and lowers their readiness somewhat. So you would have to do that after it has moved and is in the hex just in front of the fort/city it shall storm or you need to transfer trucks too.

Posted: **Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:35 pm**

Regarding IG gun. I transfer IG's after I finish moving for next turn assualt. If the IG comes from the units own HQ the loss of rediness is minimal and most will recover by the next turn when the assualt will begin. Having the IG there for the assualt outweights the small loss in rediness. Like I said, I don't field smg's and of course I would be careful to watch out for overstack.
 
regarding AT. In my test I was using AT in defence. so mobilitiy was less important. I will revisit my testing of the AT when I find time, but even with the added cost of trans I still think its worth it. I generally don't attack armor with just infantry alone. And it is not intended to give my infantry offensive capability against armor, although of course it helps on offense as well. I use them to protect my infantry from an oppenent who has far more armor than I do and I can't afford to field tankdestroyers or match his armor with my own. Tankdestroyers rule at killing armor... but they are just to expensive to field in large numbers.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:12 am**

Hm and how do you protect your IG formations then from an enemy sally attempt? If you transfer them at the end of your turn it means you give the enemy 1 turn time to react. If it's an important siege, e.g. trying to break a fortified river line in the great patriotic war scenario, i strongly doubt that you can effectively use the igs there. Either if the enemy troops are strong enough they will counter the igs with their artillery/air and do a counterattack on the disrupted formations containing the igs or if you are stronger they will locally retreat trying to lure you into traps.

So mobility will be always an issue with the igs. And if you add mobility units to them they become an even juicier target for the enemy. It's often enough for them then to basically neutralize your IG unit with a lucky artillery barrage that kills 1-2 trucks or horses of the IG unit.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:55 am**

HMMM. Is anything really safe from a counter attack. Besides if you have a city surrounded from say 3 sides the forces in the city will likely only have enough force to attack one hex. The IG is a rear area weapon and is no more vulnerable to counter attack than mortars. It actually has double the hit points and defends better against armor.
 Also I did not say it was the cure all way to defeat any scenario or any city or fort just one way I have found the IG useful.
Counter attacking out of a city without help from other hexes against a heavy Infantry that has been further strengthened with IG guns sounds awfully risky.[:-] If you fail to win decisively your defence of the city could be severely weakened.
I would only attack a well defended city from one direction if I had no other choice. The concentric bonus is just to important to have. Unless of course I have hammered the city into dust with air and arty before hand. Counterattack would not be very likely then.
 
As a rule I generally transfer the IG's back to my HQ after they have helped take the city or fort. This way I don't slow the unit if they don't have enough transport capacity.
 
Besides You forget. I already stated that I prefer to use Mortar over IG's. I'm just not entirely convinced that IG's are completely useless. I often use mortars as a staple sub formation in both heavy infantry and Armor units.[;)]

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:06 pm**

Thank you, IRONCROM, for correcting me. And, I went back up the list of posts and can see that I missed where this had already been discussed. I will go clean the egg of my face in a minute. [:D]

I have two questions and a request.

1. Why do so many players build SMG to defend cities? It has to be confusion over Attack/Defense Stats.

2. Why is there a separate column for Defense Stats in the box where Attack/Defense stats are listed. Everywhere else, when you see a listing of X/Y in the heading you get a column that reads X/Y. But in this screen, the heading is Attack/Defense and you get two separate columns with no / between the stats.

I would like to know what your opinion is on my conclusion about why the Mortar is so powerful against armor.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:53 pm**

Hm i should have written a bit more Ironcrom.

If you can't hold a key city, e.g. moscow, then it's game over anyway. But even for such fights where the enemy decides to fight to death for those artillery is enough anyways imho.

But normally there are 2 cases. Either the enemy thinks that he is strong enough to hold a line, i usually build my lines with the plan in mind to counterattack if the enemy only arrives in smaller groups and not concentrated. In most scenarios there is enough space for that. In the russia 41 or GPW scenario e.g. it very often works as russian to first give up voluntarily lots of ground and then suddenly defend in force. Very often the enemy fast moving armor spearheads reach your lines then but have only some ap left, so they stand totally in front of your lines, which is best case, or only 1-2 hexes away which is still very good. Because all the slower moving troops are far behind often then you can sally out and destroy some enemy units and then retreat back in your fort position. If that doesn't work if you can't maneuver anymore well then it gets a bloodbath and you have to try to bleed your opponent dry trying to break your fort lines. Otherwise you can simply retreat and fight later again.

So the use for infantry guns is basically nonexistent. In maybe 1 of 100 games they would be useful. You also said you usually use mortars instead.

I think a nice solution to the problem would be to remove IGs completely from AT and replace them with assault guns like the german Stugs/Stuhs/Brummbärs or the russian SU/ISU 152s.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:40 pm**

Well, I have to admit I have a soft spot for IG's and as a result I am always trying new ideas on how to use them. With that said I have accumulated far more hours playing this game then I would ever want my wife to know about and have long come to the conclusion that the mortar is the closest unit to compare with the IG in terms of its use in battle. And the mortar is also superior to the IG.
 The IG has double the cost and double the power against its prefered enemy(soft types), but the weight of the IG and the need for transport to move them around with any speed are its downfall. The 50% assault bonus against cities and forts are the only real advantage it has over mortars. Because of my soft spot for the IG I found a way to take advantage of this one strength and that was my idea. In a fast moving Blitz attack like the one the germans have against soviets it may not always be the best way to take down a city. But I found that by keeping them in my HQ and moving them in and out of the unit the way I do, I'm not losing to much more time and don't have to worry about needing all those extra trucks to haul them around. I think if The assault bonus of the IG were bumped up even a bit more then more players would give them a try. I have found them to be better at surviving an enemy breakthrough than the other rear area weapons. They don't do well against enemy air strikes though. But against enemy artillery attacks they are very resilient.
 
@plutarch... No worries. I found out after reading this forum that I have been making the same mistake with smg's that most everone is making.(thinking they have bonus defending city)
 
I think your theory on mortars versus armor make some sense, but I just don't think mortars should have a higher attack value versus armor than bazooka.

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 8:54 pm**

ORIGINAL: Plutarch
1. Why do so many players build SMG to defend cities? It has to be confusion over Attack/Defense Stats.

ORIGINAL: IRONCROM
@plutarch... No worries. I found out after reading this forum that I have been making the same mistake with smg's that most everone is making.(thinking they have bonus defending city)

I'm not sure that the SMG's don't end up with an effective bonus defending a city. It is my understanding that during the counterattack portion of the battle loop, when the defending SFT's counterattack, they do so with the terrain bonuses/deficits that exist in the defending hex. If this is indeed the case, then the SMG units will get their bonus at this stage. In the meantime, however, they are not suffering any for being in the city, and if pushed out, what better units to counterattack the city with, than SMG's?

Vic, can you shed some light on this? Does the defending hex's terrain determine the bonuses/deficits to both sides during both the attack and counterattack portions of the combat loop? What about attacking across a river hexside? Does the counterattack likewise suffer the river deficit, or is it assumed that the counterattack happens against a bridgehead on the "friendly" side?

Posted: **Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:24 pm**

I just ran combat sim (runs the same combat 200 times and reports average result) for GPW and had two identical German divisions attack 50 Soviet rifles and 50 SMGs in an urban hex.  The results were within 1% of eachother so I would say that SMG has no advantage in city defense.
 
In general, I like to run sftypes in combat sim in a bunch of different situations (on attack, on defense, against different types, and in different terrains) before saying whether one type is better than the other.  My guess is that mortar is good on offense but not so good on the defense.  A unit is really only too powerful is that is all you buy.
 
 

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