French Arab EvenSteven- 2nd Golden Horde test (with ATG 2.04 rules)

[springer]

The reason I started these AARs is to look into cavalry. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I really like it. It breaks up the WWI feeling ATG can get in the early stages and adds the feel of old AT with its wild mobility. On the other hand, I think it may be too powerful. Not only can it run rings around a variety of enemy, it has the holding power of regular infantry.

Thus, the Golden Horde doctrine is a way for me to play around with a toy scenario to test whether my feelings/observations hold.

I continue those tests here. I saw that 2.04 aims to address the imbalance of CAV by making it more expensive. I agree with this. Training men and horses that can work together to be fast combat units should be expensive.
Is it enough to disrupt the Golden Horde Doctrine?

For this second "Golden Horde" AAR, there are a few changes from the first one:
A. Lessons learned from the first AAR are applied. (1. support CAV with Anti-tank support, 2. Don't combine units of different speeds into the same unit.)
B. I haven't downloaded the 2.04 patch yet, but this AAR was played with the relevant 2.04 rules (CAV = 300 pts each to build; trains take 20 raw).

I also stuck to the two major "Golden Horde" self-constraints. No oil-burning units (besides the initial armored cars), no factories (as will be seen, the construction of one factory would have been useful...).

In addition, only the following 4 SFTs could be built: HORSE, STAFF, CAV, ATG.

I decided to use ATG units instead BAZ units so that I am restricted to the use of only one infantry-type unit, which is the CAV. That way, the effects of CAV can be more clear.

The game ends when both Eden and Basra have fallen to the French, or when the Arab Forces have taken just one city.

So here it goes...

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Below is a key for the AARs that I developed ad-hoc. It should help makes sense of the maps, though not all events are marked:

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The biggest change is the reorganization of the Golden Horde into battle groups. A battle group contains two regiments- a ATG regiment and an ATG that are not tied to each other, but will stack together at the end of a turn when possible. This gives the horde the mobility it needs but also gives it quick access to Anti-tank power, when needed.

Looking around the AARs before starting with this one, I see that a post from Josh that points toward the same tactic the Horde will be using.

Because of the rule changes of 2.04, which make CAV 50% more expensive, the Horde Regiment was reduced from 4 Btn. (40 CAV) to 3 Btn (30% CAV) force. I don't believe this detracts significantly from the power of the Horde.

Here's the TO&E of a Horde Battle-group:



The dashed line denotes that the two regiments are separate units in ATG, so that they can move at their independent speeds (CAV is faster than HORSE).

Now the game begins!

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Turn 1 (Arab move complete)

The first turn begins with the standard AT positions. The AI has made an attack on one of the mixed INF/Armor Car stacks and has been repulsed.





Because of the ATG 2.04 rule change, production for the French is more strained. PP are used in research to bring the INF up to level III. AT guns are researched as well. Production consists of 20 HORSE, 8 ATG and 92 CAV.

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Turn 2 (French move complete)

Jumping out of the chute, the horde immediately goes to work against the AI forces and smashes them in five positions. This is where ATG and cav is fun. The game of maneuver is in full force. Units can be flanked, encircled, and hit with concentric attacks.

The Arab forces and their AI commander are off balance. If we can keep the casualty rates high, the AI will have to focus on replacements, not technology improvements.

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Turn 2 (Arab turn complete)

The Arab forces still have some punch. They concentrate their armor at the point between the two commands (North and Central) and smash a unit, threatening to cut off the remainder. in the north.

The French produce 20 HORSE, 8 ATG, 101 CAV. (Horse was overproduced initially because I used the two highest producing cities to feed the north and central headquarters. Just 10% of production, gives 10 HORSES. After this turn, horses were no longer used.

The southern front is currently being neglected (No HQ, CAV or ATG being sent that way.) On Turn 3, some production is finally diverted south. The slow development of the southern front will make the way this AAR plays out quite different than the first Golden Horde AAR.

[springer]

Turn 3 (French turn only; Arab turn missing)

The Horde continues to move again. Four positions are smashed. The westernmost position was isolated, and the Arab taskforce that was threatening the north was Annihilated. This is ATG at its best, where mobility is the key to victory. One additional attack in the north doesn't take its hex, but it damages the Arab unit nevertheless.

The Golden Horde battle groups are working well. The CAV regiments moves independently of the ATG regiments so that the CAV can do what they do best, encircle and smash. But, the CAV and ATG regiments are together again by the end of the turn.



One bug that came from playing the game so fast (just a couple of minutes a turn since the doctrine is pretty stable), was that I kept moving my HQs to the wrong location by accident. I'd transfer units out of the HQ into a new unit. I'd then move the new unit (I thought), but find myself moving the HQ instead [X(]. I found myself doing this three or four times. Once the deed is done, there is no going back...

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Turn 4 (Arab move only; French move missing)

Turn 3 already put the French forces at Eden's door. Turn 4 pushes the forces into Eden. The AI can't find its balance in the face of the Golden Horde's maneuvering. On the northern coast road, the AI's units were isolated and destroyed. Even during it's own recovery phase, the Arab forces are having trouble mustering the forces needed to stop the Horde in the north.

The game hasn't ended yet because both Eden and Basra must fall. Since the southern front is only getting reinforcements in turns 3 and 4, the offense for Basra has not yet begun. The southern battle is still a defensive one just outside of the Easternmost French oilfield.

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Turn 5 (Arab move only; French move not available):

Three more Arab positions have been smashed. Arabs pour reinforcements into the north. There is some heavy artillery up there now.

However, in the central front, the Arab defense of the mines looks like it is going to come to a quick end.
Everything the Arabs toss into the line is getting chewed up. Though it can't be seen as well in the end state screenshots. The horde is constantly destroying arab units through encirclement and concentric attacks, not though the WWI frontal assault grind that plagued the endgame of the first AAR.

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Turn 6 (French only; Arab not available)


Four more Arab positions are smashed. The Arab armor is isolated, though the attack on it fails for this turn. The picture does provide a good picture of the Horde's power of infiltrating and surrounding enemy powers.

Central command HQ is in the south only because of that previously mentioned mis-click/mis-move that occurs because of the transfer. Fortunately, the central front is doing fine without the help of the HQ.

Alexandria is now being threatened by the Horde.

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Turn 7 (French move)

The game is over.
Basra falls this turn. The isolated Arab armor unit is disposed off and the Arab's are having trouble stabilizing their front south of Alexandria.

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Turn 7 (Overview of the entire map)

This is just an overview of the final position of units across the entire map.

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End Game:

Here are summary of the destruction:



Definitely, the Horde Battlegroup is a much more cost-effective strategy than the combined arms unit.

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End Game:

The Golden Horde battle group strategy worked well throughout the game. The French always maintained the upper hand in the kill ratios, and as the experience between the two armies became more and more extreme, the difference started growing exponentially.

Here is the destruction across the turns:

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Final comments:

I had a couple of goals in this AAR.

One goal is not to demonstrate my own ATG prowess. Though I smashed the AI (and enjoyed doing so), this is by no means a demonstration that I'm a good player. Any glance at the AARs would clearly put me in the bottom half of gamer competence. I also know that if I played a real opponent, they could break up the Golden Horde strategy easily. (I can see the weaknesses myself.)

I like playing the AI to test out the parameters of the game engine without peeking too much at the internal mechanics. (Though I appreciate very much how transparent the rules of ATG are. It allows all of us who are interested to participate in making the system better.)

I do think the AI in ATG is a good challenge. At its normal settings, it is usually able to hold it's own against an opponent for quite a few turns. So, I think that playing against the AI is a great way to check out the balance of mechanics (as long as the AI is respected, but not trying out "Gamey stunts". In that situation, all bets are off.) If the AI can be beaten easily, the balance of the mechanics may be off a bit.


Here I tested some thoughts I had about CAV. Cavalry is a great addition because it returns ATG to the roots of what made me buy it (...well, actually it was People's Tactics that got me hooked). In my opinion, the hallmark of the Advance Tactics was the wild maneuvering that gave the game its "blitzkrieg" feeling. Cavalry brings this back. (Both AARs were fun because they both emphasized mobility (except for the endgame of the first AAR).

As I mentioned elsewhere, I still think CAV may be too strong. Except perhaps in a swamp, it has the same ground-holding ability as INF. My AARs were partly meant as demonstration of this possibility. It may be worth exploring modifiers in which CAV, at best, serves as an auxiliary to INF, rather than a substitute for INF.

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Post-script (Yet, a third test of the Golden-Horde Doctrine):

After finishing the AAR above, I further tested my ideas about Cavalry by given them a 50% defense penalty(in non-mountains). in addition to the other 2.04 modifications. As expected, the game was somewhat more balanced, though the French still won. The Arabs launched a number of counterattacks that broke the French line open: even the ATGs in the stacks couldn't stop the breakthrough.

Though I recorded the moves, I'll only show the end result with losses. I stopped the game on French turn 7 to keep it similar to the AAR above. Basra had not fallen yet, but would in the next turn. I played the Arab turn 7 to see if there was still some teeth left in their army, and there was. They launched a nice counterattack that opened the northern road back up. (Though, their defeat is inevitable.)

I found myself relying more on the armor cars than before, and I wanted to put the few INF units I had in important positions. The French casualties are much higher and I never had enough surplus production to get my ATG up to level II.



Though it would take other similations, I'd ask those who are active modders to
consider the following to balance CAV:

1. CAV keeps the high cost it gets in ATG 2.04.
2. Consider giving CAV its own research line. Thus, a player has to make a long-term commitment to making it powerful. The player doesn't get CAV upgrades for free when Rifles/SMGs are upgraded.
3. Consider giving CAV some sort of defense penalty in (at least) open terrain. (50% may be too high, though it seemed to work well). I think it would be a more specialized unit, if it was relatively poor at holding ground unsupported by other infantry types. It's inability to hold ground is what gave the Arabs more mobility in the third test game.

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(Fourth test of the Horde doctrine)
I thought that maybe one problem that made the game so one-sided was that I was using CAV III with 50% more defense.
So this time, I used the standard Golden Horde restrictions (No factories; no new Fuel consuming units) and added another one (no upgrades for CAV, it must fight as CAV I). I did give ATG level II, however. (It's relatively cheap and a doesn't seem too unreasonable)

Because I had no need to generate more PP, the southern front could develop faster.

Unfortunately, I think I have overplayed the scenario and know the AI's standard responses. So it is hard to give the doctrine a fair test anymore. Here is the final position on turn 7 (Both Eden and Basra have fallen). CAV I seems as good as CAV III.

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(Fifth test of the Golden Horde Doctrine)
I played one more game with the same doctrine as the previous game (CAV I only, no factories, no fuel, only Staff, ATG, CAV, Horse produced), but gave the CAV a -50% defense penalty.

This is a snapshot of the final position on Turn 7. Both Eden and Basra have fallen.

The defensive penalty made the game more dynamic. More than once, the AI pulled off a couple of successful counterattacks against hexes with the normal CAV/ATG combination, and forced the French to divert forces to address their threat. The result is that both the CAV and ATG units are more battered and the the end position is less advanced than the previous one where CAV had no defensive penalty.

On the other hand, the differences between the last four games (Tests 2-5) are surprisingly small given the differences in CAV upgrades and defensive penalties.



This test appears to support the idea that cavalry with defensive penalties seems to be good for game play against the AI.