answers to some basic questions

[toawfan]

Is there a simpler way to answer this so I understand? If I disband a unit, how soon will it replace? The next turn? And under conditions where there is room for replacements to come in scattered around the map in similar units? Have I got it?

[toawfan]

I have read the manual thoroughly and the forums religiously and have written a bunch of notes for my own "manual" about tips and strategies so I can understand this game better.

Based on what I have learned from a playtest of the new and promising Armageddon scenario (see AARs over on that side of the forum) and the repeated turn burn problems I have experienced, is the following accurate?:

Hidden cheats are possible in some scenarios to exploit an opponent's strategies when it comes to attack planning. It is possible to violate rules mentioned in the manual and on helpful forum pages regarding the battle planner.

Carefully monitoring the battle planner to make sure that no unit attacks in poor health or low proficiency, with insufficient movement points or in any fashion that activates more than one of the turn icons in the planner are rules that generally will work in most scenarios.

However, a setting that does not allow combat rounds to function as usual can lead to the following cheat: You can disrupt an opponent's attack planning if you set just one unit on defense to "ignore losses." Even if you are fighting in a theater as expansive as Europe, North Africa the Mideast and Scandavaian countries, one unit exploiting "ignore losses" can end the turn for an opponent unexpectedly throughout the entire theater.

Despite what the manual and forum entries say about the rules of planning an attack, these conventions can be violated with this exploit. You will have no way of knowing the cause because the battle planner, mouse-over area that shows how much of your turn has been used or how much combat is planned, and the circle of stars showing the same information will not show the problem or the warning.

This will not occur in most scenarios.

The way to check or fix this exploit has to do with a setting in the scenario editor called the MRPB (Maximum Rounds Per Battle), which I'm hoping can be further explained here.

Meanwhile, here are excellent primers for the beginner, including Bob Cross' extensive help about the battle planner.

But again, please note that these rules do not apply and can be exploited as a hidden cheat by an opponent who is wise to the "ignore losses" setting.

Bob Cross primer about combat planning
tm.asp?m=2231066

Larry Fulkerson's how-to for beginners
http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread. ... -beginners

[Panama]

Ignore losses in not an 'exploit'. An early ending turn is something that will happen as stated in the manual. There are and never will be guarantees in a battle. Don't know how many ways to say these things. If you want things to go exactly as you have planned them to go you will most certainly be disappointed in TOAW. That's the plain truth of the matter. Not trying to be negative or anything, I like to see people stick around the forums and play the game. The more the merrier. [;)]

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: toawfan

Is there a simpler way to answer this so I understand? If I disband a unit, how soon will it replace? The next turn?

Not the next turn. Replacement weapons never appear as units on the map at all. They are assigned to units already in play, or they are used to reconstitute units that were previously disbanded or otherwise destroyed.

There is no such thing as a 'weapon' that ever appears on the map, anywhere, under any circumstances. There are units that are made up of weapons.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Ignore losses in not an 'exploit'. An early ending turn is something that will happen as stated in the manual. There are and never will be guarantees in a battle. Don't know how many ways to say these things. If you want things to go exactly as you have planned them to go you will most certainly be disappointed in TOAW. That's the plain truth of the matter. Not trying to be negative or anything, I like to see people stick around the forums and play the game. The more the merrier. [;)]

'No plan survives contact with the enemy.'

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I just can't read a screen.  25 rifle squads didn't appear on turn 1.  They would have only started appearing on turn 2, and 225 -225=0, and that solves the mystery of the missing squads.

However, units will reconstitute as soon as current demand is met.  The program doesn't wait for all units in play to be completely replenished first.

Note, by the way, that reconstituted units will always have their proficiency set at (original proficiency + force proficiency)/2. This creates some awkward considerations when it comes to setting force proficiency. If you had a force proficiency of 80 and a lot of units with unit proficiencies of 20, the thing to do would be to disband them all as soon as practical and get them back as units with proficiencies of 50.

Right, current demand is met and then the reconstitution is done as long as 66% of a units first equipment slot are available. If that is met then all equipment is replenished in the reconstitued unit as much as possible up to the maximum. Not sure I like that.

That last can be used to represent reinforcing units made of hastily raised conscripts. The units get killed off and the later units appear as better trained troops.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: toawfan

Is there a simpler way to answer this so I understand? If I disband a unit, how soon will it replace? The next turn?

Not the next turn. Replacement weapons never appear as units on the map at all. They are assigned to units already in play, or they are used to reconstitute units that were previously disbanded or otherwise destroyed.

There is no such thing as a 'weapon' that ever appears on the map, anywhere, under any circumstances. There are units that are made up of weapons.

The disbanded unit will be reconstituted as soon as enough equipment in the first equipment slot is available. That's a minimum of 66% of that slot's equipment. The unit will appear as a reinforcement four game weeks after that I believe. How many turns depends of the length of time that constitutes a turn.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: toawfan



However, a setting that does not allow combat rounds to function as usual can lead to the following cheat: You can disrupt an opponent's attack planning if you set just one unit on defense to "ignore losses." Even if you are fighting in a theater as expansive as Europe, North Africa the Mideast and Scandavaian countries, one unit exploiting "ignore losses" can end the turn for an opponent unexpectedly throughout the entire theater.

That's true, and that's a flaw in the system.

However, you overlook the fact that the unit may promptly evaporate -- and that if you're playing me, my units will be set to 'minimize losses' and will promptly break off the attack if you don't evaporate.

Should we ever play a match, you're welcome to set whatever units you like to 'ignore losses.' I won't suffer early turn ending, and the thought of the tactic doesn't disturb me at all.

I wouldn't even call it a 'cheat.' As you describe it, the unit is simply functioning as a rear guard.

There are some dubious tactics it's possible to employ. However, this isn't one of them.

[toawfan]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Ignore losses in not an 'exploit'. An early ending turn is something that will happen as stated in the manual. There are and never will be guarantees in a battle. Don't know how many ways to say these things. If you want things to go exactly as you have planned them to go you will most certainly be disappointed in TOAW. That's the plain truth of the matter. Not trying to be negative or anything, I like to see people stick around the forums and play the game. The more the merrier. [;)]

I don't have any problem with unintended consequences in battle results. What I don't understand is how you can have all of these thorough details and rules about how to plan a battle and then devices to tell you how much of your turn remains -- and then find out that all of this is absolutely irrelevant if the opponent set "ignore losses" on one defending unit.

Are you defending that kind of unexpected result?

Are you saying that many scenarios will have three consecutive turns end on your very first round when you thought you had engaged in only minor battles that should have burned 10 percent of your turn so that you could then make the rest of your moves or attacks?

That doesn't strike you as more than an unfortunate vagary of war?

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: toawfan

ORIGINAL: Panama

Ignore losses in not an 'exploit'. An early ending turn is something that will happen as stated in the manual. There are and never will be guarantees in a battle. Don't know how many ways to say these things. If you want things to go exactly as you have planned them to go you will most certainly be disappointed in TOAW. That's the plain truth of the matter. Not trying to be negative or anything, I like to see people stick around the forums and play the game. The more the merrier. [;)]

I don't have any problem with unintended consequences in battle results. What I don't understand is how you can have all of these thorough details and rules about how to plan a battle and then devices to tell you how much of your turn remains -- and then find out that all of this is absolutely irrelevant if the opponent set "ignore losses" on one defending unit.

Are you defending that kind of unexpected result?

The problem with your reasoning is that the result you anticipate from setting one unit to 'ignore losses' will only occur if your opponent cooperates.

Are you saying that many scenarios will have three consecutive turns end on your very first round when you thought you had engaged in only minor battles that should have burned 10 percent of your turn so that you could then make the rest of your moves or attacks?

That doesn't strike you as more than an unfortunate vagary of war?

It's an academic question as far as I'm concerned. Nothing like this has ever happened to me.

[toawfan]

I just found this and now wonder whether this reported bug really was fixed. I wonder if I am doing myself in with this previously reported bug and a defender's ignore losses is not the sole cause for turn burn.

Here's the link to the full article.http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/docs/s ... rounds.php

And here is the key paragraph, the next to last paragraph in the article.

At present, there is a bug affecting ranged artillery specifically allocated to an attack (i.e. it shows up in the "Support" column on the right hand side of the Attack Planning Dialogue and you dedicate to the attack by clicking on it, rather than just leaving it in general support). Such artillery will keep blasting away at a tough enemy for the rest of the turn, even if the adjacent assaulting units have all broken of their attacks. This can be good, because you can pulverize the enemy with this super artillery, or it can be bad because, if the enemy doesn't retreat or evaporate, you're going to burn up all your turn in this one battle. Norm has promised to fix this bug in the .05 patch. (Ed - it's fixed!)

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: toawfan

I just found this and now wonder whether this reported bug really was fixed. I wonder if I am doing myself in with this previously reported bug and a defender's ignore losses is not the sole cause for turn burn.

Here's the link to the full article.http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/docs/s ... rounds.php

And here is the key paragraph, the next to last paragraph in the article.

At present, there is a bug affecting ranged artillery specifically allocated to an attack (i.e. it shows up in the "Support" column on the right hand side of the Attack Planning Dialogue and you dedicate to the attack by clicking on it, rather than just leaving it in general support). Such artillery will keep blasting away at a tough enemy for the rest of the turn, even if the adjacent assaulting units have all broken of their attacks. This can be good, because you can pulverize the enemy with this super artillery, or it can be bad because, if the enemy doesn't retreat or evaporate, you're going to burn up all your turn in this one battle. Norm has promised to fix this bug in the .05 patch. (Ed - it's fixed!)

It's been fixed.

I dunno what you're doing, but first, don't assign any unit to an attack if it makes the minimum number of rounds jump beyond what assigning most units will do -- and make sure this is true for all attacks. Like, if most of my attacking units can attack while using 40% of the turn, I don't assign a unit that's going to make that jump to 70% for one attack.

Avoid assigning non-cooperative units to an attack. If you assign a unit and flags turn black, don't do it. In fact, try to avoid making flags turn grey.

Second, when you're attacking try setting everyone to 'minimize losses' -- all the time.

Third, don't mount attacks where the odds don't look so great. Like, one infantry regiment having at a fortified battalion with no artillery supporting the attack probably isn't such a great idea (Don't rely on the numbers or verdict given by the attack planner for this -- those values ignore too many factors).

You'll want to elaborate on this -- but try it. You'll get more rounds.

[toawfan]

quote:



Are you saying that many scenarios will have three consecutive turns end on your very first round when you thought you had engaged in only minor battles that should have burned 10 percent of your turn so that you could then make the rest of your moves or attacks?

That doesn't strike you as more than an unfortunate vagary of war?


It's an academic question as far as I'm concerned. Nothing like this has ever happened to me.

This is exactly what has happened to me in the past three turns in the Armageddon scenario that Larry and I are testing and posting over on the AAR forum. He also is having unusual numbers of turn burns and he's a veteran player.

I guess that's why I'm not giving up on an explanation. Not academic to me. Actual results that could shift the outcome of the game and in a way that appears undocumented or against any of the so-called game mechanics.

I've played several other scenarios and never had this happen either. Larry thinks it might have something to do with the scenario's Maximum Rounds Per Turn (MRPT) if I've got that right.

I'm not looking to start a flame; honestly trying to understand the rules and asking for what is an accurate statement of fact for my own personal manual of tips and strategies.

[toawfan]

Here is the general strategy that I was following. And now I wonder if the first step of direct artillery attacks did me in with the previously reported artillery/turn burn bug mentioned above. Even following the general guidelines below, my turn completely ended with just the softening up artillery phase, no other combats or movements because that was to come in round 2. Never got the chance, three consecutive turns in Armageddon:


McBride ten tactical rounds
Commentary on Successful Attacks From Daniel McBride

How many TOAW grognards out there have actually had a ten-round turn? How many opt for the easy route and turn the system into a basic all-unit-move-and-then-attack game? Well you are obviously using your Porsche to drive to the corner store, in first gear all the way.

In this article I propose to demonstrate how all-out 10-phase attack turns might be planned for, and made an integral part of your attack strategy. I find myself adopting 3 distinct modes of attack in TOAW:
1) Breakthrough mode (moving all units to their maximum and attacking--I don't want to risk losing any forward movement and one attack will suffice.
2) 50% movement and attack, which usually assures you of a breakthrough phase and a second attack. One sustained attack upon a tough position can ruin this, which leads to
3) Intensive attacks on tough positions.

These must be anticipated and I will use my scenario to be posted soon, Rundstedt's Plan Martin, as an example as I am play testing it daily at this point. In this Bulge variant the initial German assault is far stronger, as was Rundstedt's intention, and German reserves are fed into the battle quickly and not held back as they were historically. Even so, this is no walk-through for the Germans, and in most cases American airborne units can make it into Bastogne if desired. The town has its own supply point and can thus last indefinitely while surrounded. As the German this presents the obvious dilemma: do I go all out to take it, or sprint for the Meuse? We assume here the former and it serves to demonstrate a tough, multi-hex, position. These are obviously places of strategic import, or of such natural defensive characteristics, that we can assume the enemy will go all-out to hold them. Their units will be on "ignore all losses", and this is what will ruin any plans you have for multiple phases in a turn if you choose to attack one of these. And so the idea is that you refrain from doing so until you decide upon an intensive attack turn.

I am suggesting that you anticipate this turn and set it up according to the following criteria:
1) Move up all the units you want to attack and have them echeloned, the second echelon behind the front on a road leading forward if possible to reduce movement costs to engage.
2) Position your HQ's near your units on roads to feed in replacements before the attack at an increased rate. Your units sitting and waiting for the order to attack will also increase their readiness turn by turn.
3) Have all your artillery in place and begin softening up the target hexes for a turn or two.
4) Plan your attack for an AM turn for maximum impact (for half-day turn scenarios such as mine--your attack strength is enhanced on AM turns)

The rest of your front can move and engage as desired during this build-up period; however, you must anticipate "H-Hour" in the sense that it would be better if you had your units elsewhere close up against the enemy and ready to engage without having to move far as you are not going to allow any unit to move more that 10% of its MF that AM turn. Also, and this is important, no attack is to be launched into a hex whose terrain cost to enter exceeds that of your intensive-attack target (yes, you finally have to sit down and figure out exact terrain costs). If a desired movement path requires more than either, forget it. Your priority for that turn is your intensive attack and these units will benefit by sitting it out and recovering supply and readiness in any case. It is not time lost.

In launching the attack you have a number of options. You can start off with a limited attack to feel out the defense, and then escalate it next turn to a regular attack with limited losses, and finally an ignore losses phase if it looks ready to break. You can also go for an all-out assault and mop-up. Keep an eye on your supplies and readiness and pull out units that dip too low, as their losses will be incommensurate with gains--feed in your 2nd echelon assault troops. If you have a number of target hexes, attack the least desirable first to possibly draw off reserves from your primary target.

It is unlikely you will get a 10-phase turn, although I have had it happen (truly a War-gaming epiphany if there is one); however, even a 2-5 phase turn can reduce a series of defensive positions that would take as many normal turns using the move-and-attack mode (1) discussed above. If we are dealing with extensive defenses--i.e. multi-hex locales--then it is imperative that you have fresh reserves to feed into succeeding phases, or even succeeding turns, as you should resist the temptation to just hammer away with depleted, low-readiness troops, or you will be known as the "Butcher of Bastogne" as I came to be known as playing the German in one game. This strategy allows you to take tough positions quicker than usual AND with the chance for reduced casualties if handled properly. Nonetheless, you should anticipate horrific casualties, and this is the beauty of this system in that nothing is guaranteed. You must decide, in advance, if the strategic goals of your larger plan warrant such sacrifice.

Source: http://www.the-strategist.net/RD/docs/s ... rounds.php

[larryfulkerson]

McBride ten tactical rounds
Commentary on Successful Attacks From Daniel McBride

He just described what I try to do except I tend to make ALL my attacks at "minimize losses" settings. And I tend to get at least four rounds per turn in FITE. Every blue moon I'll get burned for a turn but that only happens maybe once every 6 or 7 turns or so. And it could have been something I forgot to do etc. But it just seems to me that turn burn happens way way too often in the scenario Armageddon 2015 - Europe & North Africa so I too have to admit that I suspect that this Artillery Support Bug that was aledgedly fixed........well, maybe it isn't.

I'll start looking for some evidence one way or another by scanning all the logs I can produce looking for the words "continuing attack" or some form or fashion of that. Maybe we can prove this one way or another that yes it IS fixed or no it's not. Unless somebody has already tested for it and has already proved it one way or another. An authoritive answer that's all I want.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

McBride ten tactical rounds
Commentary on Successful Attacks From Daniel McBride

He just described what I try to do except I tend to make ALL my attacks at "minimize losses" settings. And I tend to get at least four rounds per turn in FITE. Every blue moon I'll get burned for a turn but that only happens maybe once every 6 or 7 turns or so. And it could have been something I forgot to do etc. But it just seems to me that turn burn happens way way too often in the scenario Armageddon 2015 - Europe & North Africa so I too have to admit that I suspect that this Artillery Support Bug that was aledgedly fixed........well, maybe it isn't.

I'll start looking for some evidence one way or another by scanning all the logs I can produce looking for the words "continuing attack" or some form or fashion of that. Maybe we can prove this one way or another that yes it IS fixed or no it's not. Unless somebody has already tested for it and has already proved it one way or another. An authoritive answer that's all I want.

There aren't units with 90+ percent proficiency, are there? Those'll do it.

[toawfan]

[/quote]

There aren't units with 90+ percent proficiency, are there? Those'll do it.
[/quote]

I just checked my OOB and, in fact, I do have several units with 90+ proficiency. So what does this mean? Did I find a bug that was not really quashed and does it explain my maddening repeated turn burns when I'm following all the rules?

[toawfan]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: toawfan

It's been fixed.

I dunno what you're doing, but first, don't assign any unit to an attack if it makes the minimum number of rounds jump beyond what assigning most units will do -- and make sure this is true for all attacks. Like, if most of my attacking units can attack while using 40% of the turn, I don't assign a unit that's going to make that jump to 70% for one attack.

Avoid assigning non-cooperative units to an attack. If you assign a unit and flags turn black, don't do it. In fact, try to avoid making flags turn grey.

Second, when you're attacking try setting everyone to 'minimize losses' -- all the time.

Third, don't mount attacks where the odds don't look so great. Like, one infantry regiment having at a fortified battalion with no artillery supporting the attack probably isn't such a great idea (Don't rely on the numbers or verdict given by the attack planner for this -- those values ignore too many factors).

You'll want to elaborate on this -- but try it. You'll get more rounds.

That's what I am ranting about: I did follow these rules to no avail. I don't mind continuing to dig to try to find out why this is not working as advertised.

[Panama]

If you're having problems with a scenario then is it a problem with TOAW or is it a problem with the scenario?

[toawfan]

ORIGINAL: Panama

If you're having problems with a scenario then is it a problem with TOAW or is it a problem with the scenario?

It now appears to be a documented problem with both. Larry Fulkerson has confirmed and documented the artillery bug in fact has not been fixed as previously reported.

I did another turn in Armageddon, making sure that every single unit on the map was at minimize or limited losses, no attack was done with low proficiency, and every attack in the battle planner showed only 1 icon lit. And still, for the fourth consecutive round, the turn completely burned in one and only move. Larry and I have never had this happen in any other scenario.

So, problem is with both.