Why would someone want the mixed units

[balto]

As you progress up the OOB research thing, why would you want a unit that has.., say, tanks, inf, and Arty in it? Because from what I see, if you have arty in a unit, you can only use it for either Range attack or Regular attack. The rest of the units abilities are wasted.

Wouldn't you only want your Arty to be independent, stand-alone units? And wouldn't you want your mixed units to have everything buy Arty in them?

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: balto

As you progress up the OOB research thing, why would you want a unit that has.., say, tanks, inf, and Arty in it? Because from what I see, if you have arty in a unit, you can only use it for either Range attack or Regular attack. The rest of the units abilities are wasted.

Wouldn't you only want your Arty to be independent, stand-alone units? And wouldn't you want your mixed units to have everything buy Arty in them?

On this point I do agree with you providing the artillery unit is never going to be left alone on a front line.


If it is then having a defensive infantry element .....maybe also some anti tank capability in the unit would be very handy to give the unit some resilience.

[balto]

Anti-tank, armor, all things but Indirect Fire would be great because in the combat window, there is a separate button for Indirect Attack.

If the Indirect button did not "zero-out" the remainder of the direct fire portion of a mixed unit, then it would work great. But from what I saw, the mixed Militia units that have Arty and other things.., well, if you use the Indirect attack button, the rest of the unit is unusable.

[Saros]

My take is that the 'artillery' in game is not really meant to be used as indirect fire which is why it only has 1 hex range, that's the job of rocket launchers. It is there to represent organic arty which forms part of a unit. It's a mashup of Mortars and Infantry guns from ATG.

[DasTactic]

Yes, you really want specialised OOBs and it can be frustrating waiting for your Staff Council to discover Light Tank OOBs but instead finds every combination of all the other units instead.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: balto
Wouldn't you only want your Arty to be independent, stand-alone units? And wouldn't you want your mixed units to have everything buy Arty in them?

Perceptive and correct.

Arguably, MG and anti-tank are very defensive as well.

As background for any game, sometimes it's difficult to determine specific echelons. Echelons can have capabilities to conduct diverse tactical tasks. Land forces (at the tactical level) usually range from fire team/crew, through the squad, section, platoon, company, battalion, brigade, and division. The division can also be an operational echelon -- based on the scope of a campaign.

The parts sometime missed by games are the Commanders’ concerns regarding different echelons. Sometimes called, “situational awareness two levels up and two levels down.”

For example, as a Brigade commander, I direct battalion/task force commanders and track companies/teams. Those are the two levels down. I am getting my mission from the Division Commander at one level up. Finally, I most certainly care about the overall situation and intent of the Corps Commander (or whatever HQ level might exist two levels up in the specific task org).

The last part, usually abstracted, are supporting relationships. This is very important to fires, like field artillery support. For example, is the artillery in direct support or is general support available. That’s a complicated topic and likely tldr given almost all wargames. It should be abstracted by the game design.

[balto]

I guess it would be helpful if when a player selects Indirect Fire, a mixed unit could still use its Direct attack units. Presently, it is one or the other.., at least the last time I saw that on YouTube.

[OldSarge]

Combat mechanics in SE looks to be similar to Vic's DC series and based upon the firing unit expending action points for combat. In the DC series, units with a mix of artillery and infantry can either engage in direct combat or be used in an indirect role. I've always found their indirect role far more valuable than their less powerful direct combat role.

Like you, I've only been able to observe over the shoulders of the YouTubers. So there may be other considerations I may be missing.

[Shards]

I have a "Siege Infantry" OHQ that is 4/5 Infantry to 1/5 Artillery.

I've found them very useful in winkling a Minor faction's units out of entrenched positions and eventually their capital. They can lend some minor indirect fire through a Ranged Attack to soften up the enemy and then also engage directly to push them from that position (with the arty providing fire support in the assault).

But, similarly, I've also had a full OHQ of just Infantry be supported by an independent unit of pure Artillery that I've attached to them temporarily to fulfil exactly the same operational roles.

[KingHalford]

I've got the perfect example of why.

In my current game, I'm facing off against a smaller Major Regime who has vastly superior technology in his infantry: Gauss Small Arms and Heavy Combat Armour. I just can't defeat him even with 10:1 numbers. We're fighting in Heavy Forest meaning we both get huge defense bonusus, so it's become a WW1 style trench war. Tracked and wheeled vehicles are almost useless, particularly in an offensive role.

Enter the Siege Infantry Corps. Those artillery pieces will chew through heavy armour: if you buy Heavy Siege formations you get twice the artillery, and you can spend a few turns softening up your enemy and reducing their entrenchment and readiness before using more in a direct attack, where the artillery do most of the damage whilst your infantry engage.

If I'd attached the maximum of two artillery regiments to the OHQ instead (because you want to apply posture Strategems), you get a good amount of arty but they're unprotected if other stacked formations are driven off. With the specific Siege formations, you get artillery attached to every infantry unit and all of those can use the Strategems (plus you can still attach another two independent regiments as required).

There really is a use for all of the units available in the game: there don't seem to be any redundant units at all as far as I can see, although I've not made it all the way to the top of the tech tree in any of my games yet!

[balto]

Explorminate, I do not have access to SE. I take it the Siege Infantry Corps in each 'counter' has both infantry and Artillery. I also assume that you are selecting Direct Attack, and that uses both the Arty and the Infantry. Is that correct?

I ask the question like that because I am seeing Youtubers using mixed units (some that are about 10% Arty) and using the Indirect Fire button. If I am correct in your description, than my self and many Youtubers have this all wrong.

Let me know if this is a correct statement -- You should ONLY use the INDIRECT attack button if you have a pure Arty formation. Else if it is a combo of both Direct and Indirect, ALWAYS use Direct because it uses BOTH Direct and Indirect. See what I mean?

To come full circle, if you use Indirect on a Hybrid unit, you sort of wasted the entire DIRECT portion of the formation.

Wow, I think that is massive leap in understanding for myself and many others. Let me know if I missed something here.

Thank you,

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: KingHalford

I've got the perfect example of why.

In my current game, I'm facing off against a smaller Major Regime who has vastly superior technology in his infantry: Gauss Small Arms and Heavy Combat Armour. I just can't defeat him even with 10:1 numbers. We're fighting in Heavy Forest meaning we both get huge defense bonusus, so it's become a WW1 style trench war. Tracked and wheeled vehicles are almost useless, particularly in an offensive role.

Enter the Siege Infantry Corps. Those artillery pieces will chew through heavy armour: if you buy Heavy Siege formations you get twice the artillery, and you can spend a few turns softening up your enemy and reducing their entrenchment and readiness before using more in a direct attack, where the artillery do most of the damage whilst your infantry engage.

If I'd attached the maximum of two artillery regiments to the OHQ instead (because you want to apply posture Strategems), you get a good amount of arty but they're unprotected if other stacked formations are driven off. With the specific Siege formations, you get artillery attached to every infantry unit and all of those can use the Strategems (plus you can still attach another two independent regiments as required).

There really is a use for all of the units available in the game: there don't seem to be any redundant units at all as far as I can see, although I've not made it all the way to the top of the tech tree in any of my games yet!

That was exactly the use I was anticipating when I originally answered Balto's query. Thank you Ben.

What is so encouraging is that although undoubtedly a complex game Shadow Empire has mechanics that are mostly common sense to moderately experienced wargamers even if, like me they have not been privileged to play the beta versions.

[KingHalford]

Here are the relative costs too.

IMPORTANT NOTE: costs for equipment varies dependent on the Models in use because of the way the game procedurally generates them, taking into account the different components (different calibur guns, armour etc.) and also technological advances and field testing etc so don't expect these numbers to be exactly the same in your game.

2x Artillery Regiments = 360x Artillery costing 3600 troops, 1440 IP, 2052 Metal and 6 PP
and
1x Light Infantry Corps = 19000x Infantry costing 19000 troops, 1139 IP, 759 Metal and 4 PP

for a total of 19000 Infantry and 360 Artillery costing 22600 troops, 2579 IP, 2759 Metal and 10PP

vs

1x Heavy Siege Corps = 10000x Infantry + 500 Artillery costing 15000x Troops, 2599 IP, 3249 Metal and 6 PP

So for the job of clearing out heavily armed and armoured Infantry from well defensible terrain like Heavy Forest, I'd take the Heavy Siege Corps over the Infantry Corps with 2 Artillery Regiments purely because I don't need so many infantry (they're mostly there to just hold the line and protect your guns) and I'm getting an extra 140 arty pieces to do the damage with.

Also note that the Heavy Siege Corps could add ANOTHER 2 Artillery Regiments for another 360 guns and all able to take posture strategems from their OHQ! Not so for the Infantry Corps with attached Regiments.

So it's not quite "twice the artillery" I claimed but you'll get twice the effect you want I'm sure

[balto]

My questions are not based on common sense or wargame experience, my questions are based on what I am seeing on the Youtubers. I have watched probably about 80 hours of them.

[KingHalford]

Sorry Balto I missed that comment whilst I was editing mine.

Ok so the reason you're seeing people do that is that some of the early Militia units carry a few Artillery guns on them. They can do some damage but they're mostly useless for ranged bombardments unless you have a lot of them massed.

The regular units with guns have more of them, and in situations like the one I've described, it can be worth using them to Long Range attack for several turns to destroy entrenchment and reduce readiness (as well as direct damage) and then regular attack with them all the next round to finish the job.

[Malevolence]

All other things being equal, you're sacrificing the the flexibility of independent supporting fires and an economy of force.

As a metaphor, fixed defenses can be very economical and lethal to an attacker on paper. However, given limited resources, you're painting yourself into a corner.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

All other things being equal, you're sacrificing the the flexibility of independent supporting fires and an economy of force.

As a metaphor, fixed defenses can be very economical and lethal to an attacker on paper. However, given limited resources, you're painting yourself into a corner.

A very fair point....the "unbreakable" Maginot Line comes to mind 😉

What is refreshing however is that just like the French Defence Ministry, at least the player in this game gets a choice....or to be more accurate a whole range of choices.

[Malevolence]

Indeed.

[DasTactic]

I'll have to do some experimenting based on Ben's comments.
I was firmly in the camp of Artillery being a bit of a dead weight in combined units and much preferred using them to soften up readiness or to damage infrastructure during seiges. In battles you do have a front-rank and a support rank. For example, I think you don't get to destroy trucks or artillery unless you make a break-through with your front-line and it takes a couple of combat rounds for front-line troops to close the gap.

[Saros]

Try it sometime, I expect you will see that artillery when used on the attack cause a lot of hits and casualties, far more than you would expect from their stats so I think there must be something else going on. Perhaps they get multiple attacks per round like a tank or something.