Infantry armies and corps are hard targets?

[FroBodine]

I'm just starting out, and running through the tutorial. All the infantry armies and corps that I have right-clicked on to see their properties, at the bottom of the properties screen they are designated as target type hard.

Why is this? What is a soft target, if it's not infantry units?

[balto]

Use the CTRL F (find) feature in the manual and type in keywords (like "hard") if you do not want to read it. It will show you all the "hits" on the left side and you click thru them quickly.

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Manual, page 20 (Section 3.6.9)

Otherwise, just browse through the map and read the properties of a few units.
Tanks are target type tank, garrisons are soft, infantry is hard.

[FroBodine]

Thank you. I found a good summary on page 90:

8.1.1. Target Types
All Land Units are divided into three Target Types:

Soft – Second line units, e.g. HQs, Garrisons, AA,
Artillery

Hard – Front line infantry units, Light Tanks,
Anti-Tank

Tank – Tanks and Heavy Tanks

[balto]

Actually try 8.1.1 it gives you a list. I found this in 15 seconds by using the Find (ctrl F) function. Use it, its great.

[FroBodine]

Yep. I guess I was just being lazy. ) I will stop doing that.

I was just a bit confused, because most games designate infantry as soft targets. This is a new beast!

[balto]

Again, still reading manual and have NOT played it yet, but that SC definition of HARD goes against every one of my 100+ games definition of HARD.

You know, that is major botch. If SC wants to go with three types of Land unit target types (per 8.1.1), it should be Hard (SC category Tank), Soft (SC category of Hard), and Weak (SC category of Soft).

That is going to confuse me for dozen and dozens of turns. Maybe I will never get that straight.

Was SC 2 like this. I only played that for about 100 hours so I was never a master of that.

[FroBodine]

Yep, that was why I was confused, too. It is unlike any other wargame and its definition of soft vs. hard targets.

[Numdydar]

At this level 1st line infantry should be a Hard target since Inf Corps/Armies had quite a lot of AT assets. From towed guns to Tank Destroyers. So I think this is correct. Once you go down in scale, then these higher level assets are no longer part of the organic structure of a unit so should be considered Soft targets.

Below is a German Corp from 1940. So you can see the Corp assets. So an Armie would have even more AT/TD units. So I can easily see why they would be considered Hard targets.

[Hubert Cater]

Thanks for the feedback gentlemen and part of the reason for this is that since we now have much more specific types (which is a good thing as it really enables us to fine tune combat results), using Hard for Tank just didn't seem to fit as well when we also wanted a specific category for Lighter Armor and for Artillery and for Strategic Artillery and so on, i.e. having types that were more closely matched to the type of the units (when applicable) seemed to make sense at the time of all the changes.

We realize it is a bit unconventional but here is the list of full types that can be assigned:

Soft
Hard
Anti-Air
Artillery
Strategic Artillery
Rocket
Light Armor
Tank
Fighter
Bomber
Strategic Bomber
Kamikaze
Naval
Carrier
Sub
Transport

But that being said, the suggestions here based on regular conventions is definitely something for us to consider as well. It just never really came up and as mentioned before, this is also one of those things we implement and then move on to everything else.

[balto]

Hello Hubert, thanks for the reply.

When I compare your above list to section 8.1.1, I see some issues; (1) Light Armor is now separate from Hard, (2) AA is now separate from Soft, (3) Artillery is now separate from Soft.

So I guess when I see your list above, what exactly should be under Hard and Soft because I think this list clashes a little bit with 8.1.1.

Thanks again for all of the effort in this.

[FroBodine]

Good catch, balto!

[Hubert Cater]

Good catch and we can clarify that in the next update, and to get a better idea here are a few as they stand now. For the details for all units this can be seen in game in the Purchase screen or in the Properties screens under Target Type.

Soft - HQ, Garrison, Brigade, Engineers, Partisans

Hard - Division, Corps, Army, Special Forces, Paratroops, Shock Army

Light Armor - Mechanized, Light Tanks

Tank - Medium Tanks, Tanks

[rickier65]

Thanks for the explanation. And also good point made on hard/soft issue at this level of play. I'm enjoying what I've read so far, though I've only played through turn 1 so far (played it several times as I follow tutorial).

Thanks, I think I'll be enjoying this game for a while!

Rick

[Rosseau]

The more variables, the better, imo. It adds diversity to what really is a strategic game and we now need to pay more attention in combat.

However, "hard" infantry is also something I hadn't noticed, so thanks.