Broken ground combat

[siRkid]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

I'm really leary of this suggestion. I think it might make river defenses a little too over the top. I'd much rather see a combat penalty for a "river hex" in the same vein as the urban combat rules.

Problem is there are no river hexes.

[siRkid]

Instead of forcing a shock attack, why not have the attacked incur a disruption penalty for having to cross the river.

Already in the game. If it's not working, it's a bug.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Kid
Already in the game. If it's not working, it's a bug.

Of course it's working, Kid. The problem is that nobody sees it (or wants to see it). It either affects the enemy coming to get you, or you don't pay any attention to disruption of your conquering legions ("Yah, my boys are 90 percent disrupted, but they oughtta win anyway, 'cause they're my guys, so BANZAI!).

What I see is that units are able to cross rivers into enemy-occupied hexes without cost (other than disruption), hunker down for a couple of days, then launch their attack. You would not be attempting the cross-river maneuver unless you were at superior strength, so you are safe. Besides, if the enemy attacks you on the turn after you cross, they lose the benefit of their fortification strength if you counterattack in the same turn ...

She looks about as realistic to me as Jessica Simpson's teeters.

[siRkid]

One thing Joel told me was increasing the level of fortification could hurt the AI and throw the game out of balance. This same thought applies to making them harder to reduce.

[moses]

two ideas that I've posted before but since you asked for ideas:

1) Have a weather effect such as: Thunderstorms 50% chance of attack not coming off, rain 20% etc. This would slow things down quit a bit and might fix the large land theaters all by itself. Probably shouldn't apply to atols and would probably need some early excemptions in Singapore and PI so that these could flow at the historically very rapid pace.

2)A temporary garrison requirement for newly captured bases. Somthing like when you take a base it requires a garrison of 75% of the assault value of the conquering force. This requirment decays at 10% or so a day until it reaches some minimum value and then disappears. This would simulate the requirement to mop up an area and reorganize after a conquest.

[Halsey]

If a shock attack is initiated after crossing a river, the troops will be massed. So It will be a one shot deal. It will then be up to the defending player. Deciding whether to sit in his fortifications or leave them and counterattack. If they counterattack the results may force the enemy back across from whence they came. If they don't, then the enemy will be across the river, and normal attacks would happen. The river defense would then be broken, and you would then use your troops to roll up the flanks. No more mandatory shock attacks, because your troops are across the river.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Kid

One thing Joel told me was increasing the level of fortification could hurt the AI and throw the game out of balance. This same thought applies to making them harder to reduce.

Hmmm...have to throw in my two cents here. Can't...keeeep...big...mouth....shut.[:)] Simply, the AI is poor but for reasons beyond game designer control. No AI will can be more than a training/familiarization tool in a game this complex...AI design has not advanced far enough or enjoyed any design breakthroughs to alter this at this point. Why then, does the game have to be continually subjected to all sorts of design compromises (like the drive though convenience store nature of TF refueling/rearming in any port, or fortification increases, what have you) simply because it may "hurt the AI and throw the game out of balance." What balance? When even the testers and developers state that the AI is more of a training tool than anything else, I can't figure why the AI continues to rate so high on the importance list. Balance is only achieved if the game is set to AI vs AI. Let that ship sink and rescue the survivors.[8D]

[Captain Cruft]

A lot of these issues could have been avoided with a "parameter config file", wherein things like assault odds needed for capture could be changed by the players.

[steveh11Matrix]

Er, Ron, as a dedicated Me vs AI player with no interest in PBEM, let me tell you that if they destroy the player vs AI game, I'll be a tad vexed... [;)]

Steve.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: moses

Its a problem simulating so many types of ground combat. In almost every case ground combat should be slower, however in many important cases (like in singapore) forces did move very quickly.

The CD problem is related. At PH they would have been devestating to anyone stupid enough to invade near Honolulu. So invasions would have occured at any of dozens of locations that could not possibly be defended by a mere 2 divisions. So you would have probably very few losses to CD's followed by several weeks of delaying actions until the ports and airfields came under threat.

Its very easy to come up with situations where units could share the same hex but have no chance of even coming into contact much less fighting. But in the game you can always choose deliberate attack and have a full battle.

Of course complaining is easy and its hard to see a complete reworking of ground combat at this stage.

ONE, Oahu's coastal defenses were concentraited primarily on the South side because
that's where the Targets (PH and Honolulu) were, but there were plenty of extra
guns watching other potential landing sights. Heck, the 16" guns could shoot clear
across the Island. And the North Shore may be great for surfing, but for the same
reasons it stinks as a landing ground. You want to bring a Higgin's Boat in through
the Banzaii Pipeline? Not likely. Unless they could have landed with complete suprise
on the morning of the 7th, a Jap attempt at Oahu should be almost suicidal without
a long involved operation to sieze other islands in the chain as support bases. If it
can be done in the game in the manner described, the system is busted and needs
fixing.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Zeta16

OK we are never going to agree about where they are landing, but if these ap's are getting hit by large shells why are more troops like in the water, I would not think that the gunners are going to wait until troops get into the boats to hit the big ships. It's not like they are unloading 10 miles out, maybe a few. I guess my point is not where they land it's why Cd's don't seem to kill many troops when they are killing the transports.

Good point. Most of the CD's in the game are 4-6" guns and to a certain extent mobile.
It might be possible in good sea conditions to launch small craft far enough out for the
transports to avoid their fire. But the big permanent installations (static) have guns
that easily outrange such efforts. You can't put men into boats 50,000 Yards off shore
and expect them to make a landing. So in these cases, the Transports should come
under fire BEFORE they can unload troops and the casualties would be horrific. Look
at the History..., NOBODY tried to land against these defenses. They landed somewhere
else and marched overland. Problem is that you can't do that at Oahu. And Hawaii
WAS pretty much an "armed camp" in 1941. There were more troops there than the
Japs had at Iwo 4 years later, with heavy permanent CD defenses (none at Iwo) and
The Americans still needed 6 weeks, 3 Marine Divisions, TF 58, and total command of
the sea and sky, plus 4 years of lessons and equipment improvement to pull it off.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: moses

But requiring shock attacks always implies that units are forced to attack the strongest point of defence. This makes sence for atols but not for larger bases.

It really is a difficult problem to simulate all possible combat on this scale with one model. Despite all the posting I think they've done OK given that this is primarily a navel/air simulation.

The only serious problem in my opinion is with the large land theaters. Probably the easiest quickest way to solve this is to have bad weather in China and Burma cause a probabability for attacks to be called off. This would slow things down in these theaters.

Everything else can be basically left alone. Its not perfect but I havn't seen any suggestions to improve that won't break the system in other ways.

How about improving the "defensive" rating for the Chinese? I don't want them running
over the Japanese either---but as it stands now it's far too easy for the Japanese to run
over them.

[Nikademus]

The AI has amassed 3000+ Assault points near Yunan. I wont be running over that (though i will be outflanking it) [:'(]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: steveh11Matrix

Er, Ron, as a dedicated Me vs AI player with no interest in PBEM, let me tell you that if they destroy the player vs AI game, I'll be a tad vexed... [;)]

Steve.

I know there are a few of "you people" out there, but as a renowned major geek once said..."the needs of the many outweigh the need of the few".[:D]

Are you getting anything out of the game playing the AI? Seriously? It's like what dating an inflatable doll would be like. You can do whatever the hell ya want to it, spank it, humiliate it etc. but in the end, hmmm, what have you accomplished?[:'(]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Kid

I would agree that some tweaking of the combat model is called for but as you can see from this thread it will be very hard to come to an agreement.

One suggested change from another thread that I like was to make LCUs do a shock attack when crossing a river that has enemy units on the other side. Should be fairly simple to code and test.

Now what other simple changes could be made that will not throw the island combat out of whack?

ONE. Have permanent CD units fire at any TF which enters their hex with an "offensive"
mission. Like bombardment of anything, or landing of troops, or attacking ships "in
port" (docked). This alone would prevent a lot of the silly plans I've seen proposed.
If the CD's engage BEFORE you can carry out the "offensive mission" instead of after
(the way they seem to now) they might actually perform their designed mission---which
was to prevent the other side from even contemplating such foolishness.

TWO Give the Chinese Troops a 20-25% "Defensive Bonus". This wouldn't help them
to squew the game by attacking..., but it would help prevent the Japanese from coming
up with "conquer China in a few months" plans when they hadn't been able to do it in
years before. If the Japs can cut their supplies and then slowly grind them down over
a 2 year period, that's one thing. But this "Banzaii Blitzkrieg" stuff is just silly.

[moses]

Oahu is bigger then you think and I supect the big guns could not be trained to fire over the central plains. The North shore has large waves at times but other times its not so bad. People swim, surf, and wade about there so I suspect you could land there without too much difficulty. I'm sure they set up some guns and had some defences but no military commander would set up a cordon defence with as much coastline as in this example. Not with only two divisions available. You would defend key locations around PH just like you say. That is the area that you have to hold no matter what. For the rest of the island you would have a centralized force ready to counterattack or contain invasions in other parts of the island.

But the central point that I was trying to make is that the attacker does have a choice in most cases. Do I charge into the teeth of the defences with a direct attack on PH. Do I instead invade at some more out of the way location and then try to fight my way across island with all the problems that entails.

For the first option I agree with you completely. A direct invasion of PH would be suicide unless you achieved massive surprise or you pounded the harbor to dust beforhand. Not only do you have the CD's but every ship in the harbor can fire at you.

Its the second option that is more likely in this or in most invasions that do not involve atols. You invade at locations where the defence is thin or non-existant and then fight your way to the objective. You don't need a perfect beach to land at. This isn't Normandy so you don't have to land and supply dozens of divisions. And the enemy doesn't have the troops in most cases to defend every inch of beach. So you land where he isn't and move to where he is.

I believe most landings in the Pacific conformed to this second option. Of course the famous examples are the ones where we were forced by geography to attack directly into the defences.

Now for those who designed the game this is a hard modeling problem. How do you simulate invasions in cases where there are 2 totally different approaches. The first is essentially a shock attack against the harbor. It will be extremly bloody and will probably succeed or fail on the first day. The second would allow a landing at much lower cost but require at least a week or two of fighting at various intensity levels until at some point a decisive battle can be attempted.

Anyway this is just somthing to talk about while waiting for the patch so don't anyone else get upset with me. Just my opinion.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

I'm not sure I'm fully in favor of the shock attack idea either, Nik, but you've got to remember that rivers are hexside features. If the river crossing is defended, something sure ought to happen between the attackers and defenders, and the defenders ought to have some sort of advantages in the resulting combat. Assaulting a defended river line (before vertical envelopment) has always been one of the most difficult and costly military maneuvers. I hope that something satisfactory can be worked out (in retrospect, it might have been better to route rivers through hexes instead of along hexsides, so that attackers sitting on the river line could be made to suffer attack penalties and be required to make some sort of attack - perhaps shock).

Instead of forcing a shock attack, why not have the attacked incur a disruption penalty for having to cross the river. To me this would seem a nice way to disrupt the attackers lines of sight / communication, as well as forcing a limited amount of men on the far side engaging a larger amount of defenders - the first couple waves of men will be hard pressed...

Perhaps engineering regiments would have less / or no penalty due to the chance of them having correct equipment to cross rivers - bridges, boats, etc..

Xargun

This is a good idea. If a unit crosses a river into a defended hex, it aquires a heavy
disruption penalty. A Division could still probably shove a regiment back, but it would
make it more costly and time consuming. On the other hand, if the attacker spent
some time "consolodating his position" (ie. recovering from the disruption) then he's
merely invested some extra time---and it would be up to the defender to try and "do
something" while the disruption lasts. Simple and workable and elegant.

[Nikademus]

This rule is already in place....which was why i asked if anyone has actually "tried" to assault an LCU that has just crossed a river?

[Bradley7735]

Do the hex sides show a different color for Rivers? I ask because it's hard to identify where rivers actually are (especially around Rangoon). If the hex sides aren't different for rivers, this would be something to put on the wish list. I've been on the devensive in my game, so I don't pay much attention to attacking over a river. I'll need to figure it out soon, though.

bc

[IKerensky]

Just a point: China was a stalemate basically because Japan had grabbed nearly all that he wanted and lack the ressources and full war commitement to try to go for the kill.

By 1942 , they have the SRA and are effectively in 150% war. Too bad they cannot concentrate on CHina and had to divert effort to India/Burma/Pacific.

In all simulation I know of, a japanese player willing to go for a China KO in 1942-1943 is following a viable strategy. In fact it is one of the 3-4 axes for Japan second advance:
1- Kill china
2- Kill India
3- Kill Australia
4- Expand the forward bases and build up defense.

They wont succeed any time but they definitely can. The problem is that concentrating too much on CHina let the naval allies run wild... but in case of a win then it is nearly jackpot with massive infantry liberated and a good ressource and industrial base quite hard to reach from the sea...