Stacked Defensive Bonuses

[Chernobyl]

If you are defending a mountain hex that is also a town, do you get both defensive bonuses added or do you only get one? If one, is there some priority logic? Does entrenchment override one or more of these bonuses? (Cause they never seem to all add up to a number which would make sense to me when I look at the battle prediction numbers)

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Chernobyl,

It is not cumulative, I think at one time it was but if I remember correctly it was too powerful a defense for units. In your example you would only receive the defensive bonuses of the town and not the underlying mountain.

Hubert

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

If you are defending a mountain hex that is also a town, do you get both defensive bonuses added or do you only get one? If one, is there some priority logic? Does entrenchment override one or more of these bonuses? (Cause they never seem to all add up to a number which would make sense to me when I look at the battle prediction numbers)

I bet this is about Trento. I've been reading your exchange with Stockwellpete about this on a different tread.

Yes..I think Trento needs a little reworking. Its the WEAK link on the Austro-Hungarian frontier, when it should be the Strong link. Perhaps making it a fortress is not a bad idea.

Quite a few months back...I was parking a Mt Corp there thinking it was getting the Mt defensive bonus on top of the rest..but realized soon enough that that was not so. Its a town..and an Important NM site in a fiercely contested area...and one of the main reasons for war between Italy and Austria-Hungary. It historically was as strong as say like Novo-Georgievsk, or possibly, even more so because of the terrain that this town and its forts where located on.

[Chernobyl]

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor
I bet this is about Trento

The funny thing is I actually never lost Trento in any of my games! But I can just tell it's something I would go for if I played Entente

[OldCrowBalthazor]

As Entente..I always have Trento as one of my priority operations sooner if not later. It depends a lot on whats happening else where. If the Germans are heavily entrenched there, than Italy will need help with the heavy lifting. )

Why its so important to take Trento from the Entente's p.o.v. is that Italy's NM score will shoot up to around 114% from a base of 100%. Now this may seem excessive, but its probably designed to compensate for any future disasters they are prone to, like at the Ilzonzo or other area's in that sector. [X(]

[Chernobyl]

So Trent is a town and a hill. Would changing to a town and a mountain make any defensive diffrence? Still unclear on this point.

[Hubert Cater]

No, not in terms of unit defensive bonuses, e.g. the unit only takes the defensive bonus values of the town as a benefit. Essentially it doesn't matter what the town is on, e.g. clear, mountain, hill and so on.

At one time it did and if I remember correctly the change was made to what we have now as these locations added up too much in defensive bonuses otherwise.

[Taxman66]

Can you set it to take the higher given value based on circumstances? (this might be more useful in the other games).

[Hubert Cater]

It's possible, I guess it comes down to whether we think of the unit in the Mountain or in the Town or City. I almost feel like there would be no solid cases/answers for this one way or the other (as there could be good arguments one way or the other) which is why we de-linked the stacked defensive bonuses and just made it dependent upon the top layer, which is in this case the Town when on a mountain, and just the mountain when there is no town etc.

[Taxman66]

Hubert,

At the scale these games take place at the defender would (usually) be rather layered. A whole corps (Army, etc... in the other games) would not be crammed into the urban area of a city/town (though there are a few exceptions that could be argued).

[mdsmall]

Taxman's argument makes sense to me. It would seem reasonable that in cases of stacked terrain, the defender would get the benefit of the most advantageous terrain for his unit type, as that is where the defender would deploy. I find that the overall game system is weighted towards the attack, so I see some added benefit in small rule change that benefits the defence.

[dhucul2011]

It should definately be set at the highest defensive bonus available from the terrain or resource.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: dhucul2011

It should definately be set at the highest defensive bonus available from the terrain or resource.

This would solve the problem with Trento..which is a town (resource) and a mountain hex (terrain).

Then a Mt Corp placed on that particular location could get its full defensive value.

[Hubert Cater]

Fair points but I foresee some potential issues and confusion and then perhaps some special cases/rules to remember.

For example, Mountains give a lower Bomber Defense value than a City. In a back to back attack, let's say Tactical Bomber, then a Tank attack, if we go with whatever the highest value is, are the defenders running into the city for the Tactical Bomber attack, then running back out into fortified Mountain positions for the Tank attack? What if you follow up with another Tactical Bomber attack and so on?

We can potentially fiddle with the numbers but that's maybe a hard long look to make sure we've got it right (maybe) for all the combinations of attack and what the defensive bonuses should be. I haven't actually looked but off hand I'm not sure we could get that 100% just right etc. I'll be honest we are generally loathe to make the more significant changes unless it is truly game breaking and we really have to.

Additionally, I guess for me I'm still thinking that while a city or town may be in the mountains (e.g. at elevation), it is still typically at a lower elevation point somewhere within these ranges.

For example, remembering Sarajevo from the 90s, a city at elevation in the Dinaric Alps, a good proportion of the city is flat enough to be no different than any other city in a flatter valley, which provided a great advantage to the attackers that were positioned above the city in the surrounding peaks. At this point are we really thinking of the defenders being in the surrounding hills? e.g. when we think of the attackers also being in the surrounding hills?

Is it not better, if we want to think of the defenders being in the surrounding peaks, that in game terms they actually are and occupy the adjacent mountainous hexes in positions surrounding the city?

Once we get to the point of attacker finally being adjacent and attacking the mountainous city, it is simply attacking that final position and so on?

Again, I could be wrong, but just throwing this out there for consideration if this is something that really needs addressing etc.

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Is it not better, if we want to think of the defenders being in the surrounding peaks, that in game terms they actually are and occupy the adjacent mountainous hexes in positions surrounding the city?

Once we get to the point of attacker finally being adjacent and attacking the mountainous city, it is simply attacking that final position and so on?

But Trento is right on the border so Italy can immediately put 3 units adjacent to it when it first mobilises without fighting at all. It makes Trento virtually impossible to defend once a Tech 1 Artillery unit is also moved into the area to attack it.

I think this may be the only situation in the game where this situation occurs, so making Trento a fortified town on a normal terrain hex plus giving Austria-Hungary an Infantry Corps unit there when they rebuff Italian demands (so 2x Detachments and 1x Infantry Corps instead of 3x Detachments) might be the simplest solution.

[Hubert Cater]

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

But Trento is right on the border so Italy can immediately put 3 units adjacent to it when it first mobilises without fighting at all. It makes Trento virtually impossible to defend once a Tech 1 Artillery unit is also moved into the area to attack it.

I think this may be the only situation in the game where this situation occurs, so making Trento a fortified town on a normal terrain hex plus giving Austria-Hungary an Infantry Corps unit there when they rebuff Italian demands (so 2x Detachments and 1x Infantry Corps instead of 3x Detachments) might be the simplest solution.

Fair points for sure

[stockwellpete]

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

But Trento is right on the border so Italy can immediately put 3 units adjacent to it when it first mobilises without fighting at all. It makes Trento virtually impossible to defend once a Tech 1 Artillery unit is also moved into the area to attack it.

I think this may be the only situation in the game where this situation occurs, so making Trento a fortified town on a normal terrain hex plus giving Austria-Hungary an Infantry Corps unit there when they rebuff Italian demands (so 2x Detachments and 1x Infantry Corps instead of 3x Detachments) might be the simplest solution.

Fair points for sure

The other issue here is a bit tangential really, but you might be able to solve two issues at once. It seems almost impossible for the Central Powers player to defend this mountainous area with Austro-Hungarian units in 1915. Players seem to be deploying German units there, which did not happen in 1915. Given that Italy did not declare war on Germany until the late summer of 1916 one way of keeping German and Italian units apart would be for the Austro-Hungarians to do rather better than 3x Detachments when they reject Italian claims on the area. If 1 or 2 of the Detachments were replaced by Infantry Corps then the Central Powers player might not feel the need to use German units so much. Similarly, the German submarine units deployed at Pola actually used Austro-Hungarian insignia to deceive the Italians and this could also be replicated in the game by a slight adjustment to the text relating to those deployments so that they actually appear as Austro-Hungarian subs. In this way it would still be possible for German and Italian units to clash in 1915, but it would be much less likely.

Obviously doing something like this would be giving a boost to the Austro-Hungarians so they might need to lose something somewhere else to balance things up again.

[Chernobyl]

It would be less likely to see Germans fight Italians early, but some people are going to choose to spare German corps and a German HQ for Italy simply because they might be the ones most available. It's also not a far walk from the western front to northern italy so it can save some MPP if france is quiet.

[BillRunacre]

In the spring of 1915 Austria-Hungary had very few troops along the Italian border, certainly nothing more than the Detachments we give them, and so increasing their defences required taking troops from elsewhere.

Consequently, providing them with a Corps if they say no to handing territory over to Italy wouldn't be historical, but if it turns out that this is what it takes for better balance then we might have to go down this route.

Making Trento a Fortified Town is a simple change, but if that and a Corps were placed there, would we need to penalize Austria-Hungary in another way?

Or to put it another way, is the overall war currently fairly balanced and therefore a small change might push it away from balance?

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

In the spring of 1915 Austria-Hungary had very few troops along the Italian border, certainly nothing more than the Detachments we give them, and so increasing their defences required taking troops from elsewhere.

Consequently, providing them with a Corps if they say no to handing territory over to Italy wouldn't be historical, but if it turns out that this is what it takes for better balance then we might have to go down this route.

Making Trento a Fortified Town is a simple change, but if that and a Corps were placed there, would we need to penalize Austria-Hungary in another way?

Or to put it another way, is the overall war currently fairly balanced and therefore a small change might push it away from balance?

Hi Bill,

I'm still in the process of running my mini-mod making Trento a Fortress. I've rolled into mid 1915 as Italy gets in the war. I'm doing this solo and running both sides to see what happens, but I haven't compiled enough data to see any unexpected outcomes..yet . I have not run the AI against with this also...so have no idea how it would react to this simple change on the map.

One concern I have..but not tested yet, is if placing a fort there will make Trento an unassailable point that the CP can use to snipe every unit, particularly Italian units, that are in the early stages of their research and are camped out around it. What I wonder is if click/shifting 2 or 3 CP units on the road from behind or on either side of Trento and attacking one defending unit could eliminate it easy. While moving in and out of the fortress will diminish the forts entrenchment value for the next turn, I'm not sure yet if that would off set the damage that such a tactic could do on a turn by turn basis, and if it will be balanced or not. Like I said though..it needs more testing.

So far though in the first stages of my test, at least from the Central Powers perspective, having Trento as a Fortress does alleviate by a small measure the anxiety of holding the place. Since I'm running the rest of the campaign, I haven't felt compelled to get a German corp in there as much as I normally do. But then again, this is just an initial observation.

Also, at least for now, with the Fortress placed on Trento, I personally don't think adding an Austro-Hungarian Corp to the OOB or as an extra unit is necessary. I think that the CP player should still have to make the determination of what he places in Trento with the original forces at hand, be it Austro-Hungarian or German.

Anyway, sorry I can't add anymore or answer any questions regarding balance or other possible problems that would warp the existing model. My gut feeling says this change could be ok, and it looks and feels right so far, but more testing needs to be done with this. This has been fun...and I will be working on it and will post what I have discovered.

Mike