Fortification not in a "base" location

[GetAssista]

I ran a batch of fort-building in stripped Coral Sea, blessed be 4-day turns and zero message delay settings. Alfred might be technically correct after all [:)], the rules for off-base fort building seem to be the same for Japan and Allies. It does not follow though that these rules are fair.

There seems to be an AV threshold (around 300 AV), with infantry LCUs higher than not being able to build off-base forts above 1-2. I noticed this when running my scenario with a bunch of Chinese of different TOE/disablement percentage.

Why this is not fair? Because the majority of Allied LCUs are below this threshold at the time where forts matter for them. All of Chinese Corps are below, many of Indian and Aussie divisions are understrength too. So they enjoy forts 4 after 2-3 months of sitting in a hex, and can fight the Japanese onslaught preffy efffectively. When Japan is fighting a defensive land war, her most effective IDs are not able to dig in further unless you divide them or they take a pounding first. I mentioned earlier some of my divs being able to build fort 3 - this is probably because they were driven below the AV threshold in the siege battle they were taking part in.

Bottomline: if your Japanese ID is at full strength and building forts for 10 days, it is most certainly stuck at this level forever. Divide it into regiments to continue increasing forts

Here are some interesting stats i was gathering. Something can be infered about xp and morale too =) All of LCUs were at 100 TOE with no disablements, so all IDs were above 300AV. Also all IDs were at zero prep, so you see xp increasing after about 70-80 days passed, when prep goes to 100

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Has anyone noticed does terrain have any impact on time to build and/or build level?


The manual only covers base/beach and non-base/beach.
P.S.

Your grenade sump looks too shallow.

Get Assista mentioned he had seen no correlation between terrain types and fort building speed.

I did not see any measurably big difference in Allied units fort building speeds, which in my test were in forest, forest rough, jungle and jungle rough terrains. The IJA unit is in jungle rough I believe.

thanks, ..."factors that do not matter or matter very marginally". ... it would seem to be the same for weather.


" Another strange fact is that speed of building is not linear through time in a sense that I had numerious occasions of ID reaching fort=2 before an assortment of brigades. And then all those brigades overtake and reach fort=3 and even fort=4 while ID stays at 2. Not very logical "

could be a missed factor somewhere. Or just a randomness factor that plays in.

I wonder if your equipment plays in, as you have to dig it in.

[GetAssista]

Additional note the the curious: it takes about 300 days to get to forts 5

ORIGINAL: MANUAL 8.4.4
Ground units that are not in a base/beach and are not moving will automatically attempt to build
fortifications to protect themselves from attacking enemy ground units. Engineers in the hex will help in the building of these fortifications. Engineers will only provide this help if the Engineer is in Combat OpMode and does not have a Destination. Although units without the help of engineers can build fortifications, the work will proceed very slowly.

I could not find the slightest evidence of manual 8.4.4 being correct. Bunching a horde of engineer LCUs in a hex with a single other unit did not make that unit build forts faster compared to control group (I used artillery LCUs for this test).

ORIGINAL: obvert
Question:
Does number of engineers/device in each unit affect time to fortify?

Don't know about devices, but # of engineers did not matter the slightest for support units, they were all considerably slower at digging than brigades/regiments, but within 1 day from one another, even construction LCUs. I doubt them matter for large infantry LCUs

See in the stats above: 38th Div (42 eng squads) was not able to go past fort1 (actually in several tests, not just one). Depot Divs (measly 5 eng) in one test were the champions of building, going to fort2 faster that anybody else, but then stalled.

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn
thanks, ..."factors that do not matter or matter very marginally". ... it would seem to be the same for weather.

You can't control weather so why bother. I did all tests in the same hex, so weather was identical for all LCUs involved.

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn
" Another strange fact is that speed of building is not linear through time in a sense that I had numerious occasions of ID reaching fort=2 before an assortment of brigades. And then all those brigades overtake and reach fort=3 and even fort=4 while ID stays at 2. Not very logical "

could be a missed factor somewhere. Or just a randomness factor that plays in.

AV threshold theory works ok

[rustysi]

(1 engineer vehicle equivalent to 10 x engineers)

Each engineer vehicle is equivalent to 5 x engineers. Manual 9.4.2 p214.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

(1 engineer vehicle equivalent to 10 x engineers)

Each engineer vehicle is equivalent to 5 x engineers. Manual 9.4.2 p214.

You're absolutely right. Thanks! [&o]

So that is even more on the side of the IJ having more engineers.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

There seems to be an AV threshold (around 300 AV), with infantry LCUs higher than not being able to build off-base forts above 1-2. I noticed this when running my scenario with a bunch of Chinese of different TOE/disablement percentage.

Here are some interesting stats i was gathering. Something can be infered about xp and morale too =) All of LCUs were at 100 TOE with no disablements, so all IDs were above 300AV. Also all IDs were at zero prep, so you see xp increasing after about 70-80 days passed, when prep goes to 100

Do you mean 400AV?

The Aussie division (390AV) I tested above definitely went to forts 3. In fact a few of them did. They didn't get any higher though in the period I tested.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

That some individual has only noted x fortification level has the same probative value as do all the vanity tests which are regularly conducted.  Basically none.  At best only limited cognisance of all the relevant variables have been taken into account.  So before jumping to such illogical conclusions and presenting them without further reflection as being how the game handles the issue, why not stop for a moment and consider why, as there is no difference between Japanese and Allied bases in building fortification levels, there would be one for non base fortification building. 

Alfred

So now that there seems to be a difference in at least some units and several tests of many different units show no indication of IJA IDs going above forts 2, what might be causing this issue? What are the other variables? Why would there be a difference for non-base fortification building?

Is this WAD? Is it a bug?

[obvert]

The upshot of all of this is if you're in a situation where you want to blockade the opponent in good defensive terrain, you're using IDs above 300-400 AV (not yet sure which it is), it's best to split them into regiments to fortify.

I ran the test for a year and the regimented IDs got to 5-6 forts. The fully combined IDs stayed at forts 2 (with exception of Aussie IDs, two of which went to forts 3). The brigades got to forts 5-6. A small Chinese Corps got to forts 5 (150+AV) and a large Chinese corps (500+AV) stayed at forts 2.

The only IDs that have reached more than forts 2 when fully combined were the two Aussie IDs (while a few others didn't get over forts 2). Those IDs are 390AV (as pictured in an above post). That would make me think that there is an AV cutoff, or a device # cutoff. Another US Army ID with 344AV got to only forts 2 after a year, so unless something else is going on with nationalities, maybe it's devices? The load cost of the Aussie IDs is only 11676 while the US Army ID is 15560.

[Yakface]

I don't seem to have a problem getting forts above 2 in my current game as the allies (and haven't had to divide units to achieve it).

I have a number of units in level 3-4 field fortifications. On a side note - the speed with which units build the forts seems very sensitive to experience levels

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Yakface

I don't seem to have a problem getting forts above 2 in my current game as the allies (and haven't had to divide units to achieve it).

I have a number of units in level 3-4 field fortifications. On a side note - the speed with which units build the forts seems very sensitive to experience levels

Do you have any screens and some info about how long they've been in place? It helps to know what kind of unit, how large (as you can see we're trying to figure out which might be below some threshold for building forts and which are not).

[bradfordkay]

"The only IDs that have reached more than forts 2 when fully combined were the two Aussie IDs (while a few others didn't get over forts 2)."

Aussies are called diggers for a reason, apparently.

[Lokasenna]

Also note that the '1p' in the details screen seems to indicate that the unit currently has level 1 forts, and the 'p' signifies that they are building. If that is indeed the case, then I currently have IJA IDs that are marked as 2p... meaning they are building. If that's what the 'p' is.

[geofflambert]

I would like to present the logic that Alfred refers to. You might think that because Japanese soldiers were quite a bit, on average, smaller than American soldiers in particular, and consequently their shovels smaller too, you might think, intuitively, that they would be unable to dig foxholes as fast or as deep as American soldiers. You would, as it turns out, be correct. However, since the average Japanese soldier was smaller, they did not need their foxholes to be as deep, and to some extent, because you can squeeze more sardines in a tin than herring, they did not necessarily need as many.

Just kidding.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Also note that the '1p' in the details screen seems to indicate that the unit currently has level 1 forts, and the 'p' signifies that they are building. If that is indeed the case, then I currently have IJA IDs that are marked as 2p... meaning they are building. If that's what the 'p' is.

Note than in the stats that I provided earlier, some IJ IDs (lucky ones) have 2p since day 10, and into eternity. So it does not mean they will reach 3 eventually

I'd say "p" means "plus" here, the level of forts is above the whole number. It is not necessarily increasing though. When you recombine the regiments which have built Xp forts, ID gets X without p. It is not logical to switch building off when recombining, but logical enough to round down the number of forts

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Also note that the '1p' in the details screen seems to indicate that the unit currently has level 1 forts, and the 'p' signifies that they are building. If that is indeed the case, then I currently have IJA IDs that are marked as 2p... meaning they are building. If that's what the 'p' is.

Note than in the stats that I provided earlier, some IJ IDs (lucky ones) have 2p since day 10, and into eternity. So it does not mean they will reach 3 eventually

I'd say "p" means "plus" here, the level of forts is above the whole number. It is not necessarily increasing though. When you recombine the regiments which have built Xp forts, ID gets X without p. It is not logical to switch building off when recombining, but logical enough to round down the number of forts

This would make sense, as we do know that attacks against bases which have fort construction occurring... the attack can degrade the amount of fort construction towards next level as well as the completed levels themselves.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna
Also note that the '1p' in the details screen seems to indicate that the unit currently has level 1 forts, and the 'p' signifies that they are building. If that is indeed the case, then I currently have IJA IDs that are marked as 2p... meaning they are building. If that's what the 'p' is.

Note than in the stats that I provided earlier, some IJ IDs (lucky ones) have 2p since day 10, and into eternity. So it does not mean they will reach 3 eventually

I'd say "p" means "plus" here, the level of forts is above the whole number. It is not necessarily increasing though. When you recombine the regiments which have built Xp forts, ID gets X without p. It is not logical to switch building off when recombining, but logical enough to round down the number of forts

I thought the "p" stood for "provisional", meaning field forts as opposed to the ones available when you build a fortified base. It makes a difference for whether the forts can be lowered before the enemy is driven out. Field forts do not get reduced by the combat engineers - the enemy just flees when the odds are too great.

[MakeeLearn]

51. On Army list screen, 'soft' value of %TOE strength and unit fortification level with 'p' to show unit is building them (LCUs in hex only).

p for ? OR

"p" stood for "provisional",

the "p" shows for LCUs in a nonbase hex and a base hex, that are building fortifications. It seems not all base hex forts have a "p", but all nonbase hexes do. It may be a hold over from when the LCU was in the hex, but had no control over the base.




While terrain does not affect the building of fortifications, it does add benefits to the unit

61. Gameplay Change: Added terrain and fort effects against artillery attacks.

87. Gameplay Change: LCU given fort and concealment protection based on terrain from air to ground bombs. Protection will reduce casualties a lot and disruption a bit.

[obvert]

Right, so the "p" is added in betas, and is an indication of continuing building. If that's the case, I'll just test for 3-4 years in continuous play mode and see if they ever get higher. [;)]

[obvert]

So. I've found through some tests that there does seem to be a threshold for unit size that determines which can build fortifications greater than 2 outside base hexes.

I sat some modified Chinese units in the same hex for a year and a half. As you can see, forts 3 have only been reached by the two units below 11,000 load cost (or stacking level, not sure which is the determining factor but they're usually similar numbers). It has nothing to do with AV level of a unit, number of engineers, supply, terrain, or any other factor I can see here.

So anything below 11,000 load/stacking with build at least to level 3. Maybe there is another threshold for getting 4-6 as some of the smaller Japanese units got to during this same period in the same hex.

[Lokasenna]

Note that the load cost of the Aussie Division above with level 3 forts is 11676.