What do ground combat odds mean?

[niceguy2005]

Now that I have been playing this game for a while, I have noticed that the outcome for ground combat given a certain set of odds varies greatly.

For example, if my allied forces in China attack at 0:1 odds they get slaughtered - usually. However, once in a while, I will see odds of 0:1, yet the attacker actually inflicts greater damage than is recieved.

My question is this: what do the odds mean? Is 0:1 indicative of a lost battle? From my obseravtions, I would guess that 0:1 is an estimation of the strength of both sides taking in to account all factors such as assault strength, terrain, forts, supplies, etc. Once these things have been calculated and odds are determined, a roll is then done to see what the results are. The result is that even an attack at 0:1 could succeed if the role is lucky. Is this correct?

[AmiralLaurent]

Ground combat in WITP is in two phases:

1) both sides fire on each other

2) once the fire is over, the power of each side is calculated (influenced by terrain, command, experience, supplies, preparation, fortifications, disruption and fatigue) and the attack succeeds it it achieves more than 2+fort level to 1.

My understanding is that most of the casualties displayed on the combat reports are suffered in the first phase (except surrendering units). And then the side with the best firepower (especially artillery) may score more casualties than it is suffering. But losses are mostly done by the second phase, especially when an unit is obliged to surrender (total destruction) or to retreat (10-15% of squads are destroyed), while most of teh "casualties" in normal combat are only disabled (in later versions of WITP the ground units are losing really more squads than before and an unit after two months of battle without any defeat will be at 90-95% TOE if replacements are turned off).

All losses suffered during retreat are not shown by the combat report.

[Nikademus]

The odds listed at the end of each combat represent the final modified odds. The most important thing for you to remember is that the modified odds results are not directly tied to final casualties suffered by either side. For example, you can get a modified result of 1:1 or 300:1 and still get the same casualties listed.

Modfied odds indicates how successful you were in acheiving your objective (ownership of the hex) 0:1 usually means a failed attack. In general your disruption afterwards will be on the high side. Odds of 1:1 or higher means you were successful (to some degree) and your disruption afterwards will be lower.

Just be careful not too assume that a successful attack will automatically lead to another one. Its also possible to "win ground" on one battle (1:1 or better) and then on the next day or attack, score 0:1 and get stopped.

[Lt. Calley]

Also keep in mind that 0:1 can mean anything from .99 to 1 to .00001 to 1.

[Ron Saueracker]

What does 12000:1 mean?[:)]

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

What does 12000:1 mean?[:)]

That you've landed on the wrong island and just conducted a successful shock attack on an empty meadow. [:D]

[Tom Hunter]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

What does 12000:1 mean?[:)]

In a recent incedent in my Lunacy game it means that the out of supply Japanese 56th division just moved into a hex occupied by the fully supplied 200,000 man Changsha army. For an unsupplied unit 56th moved to the next hex with remarkable speed. [:D]

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

What does 12000:1 mean?[:)]

It means you've using the power of the dark side....stop it.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

The odds listed at the end of each combat represent the final modified odds. The most important thing for you to remember is that the modified odds results are not directly tied to final casualties suffered by either side. For example, you can get a modified result of 1:1 or 300:1 and still get the same casualties listed.

Modfied odds indicates how successful you were in acheiving your objective (ownership of the hex) 0:1 usually means a failed attack. In general your disruption afterwards will be on the high side. Odds of 1:1 or higher means you were successful (to some degree) and your disruption afterwards will be lower.

Just be careful not too assume that a successful attack will automatically lead to another one. Its also possible to "win ground" on one battle (1:1 or better) and then on the next day or attack, score 0:1 and get stopped.

THanks Nik.

What I am trying to figure out with this is if you have two relatively equally matched forces (taking into account terrain, forts and all other modifiers), does it make sense to keep attacking if you get 0:1 odds, or is it required that you move reinforcements in. It would appear to me that if I inflict greater casualties, but get 0:1 odds that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I keep inflicting greater casualties I may eventually get to 1:1 odds or better. Is this correct?

[tsimmonds]

There are two better indicators of what you should be doing with your assault than the odds listed in the combat report. The first is the combat report listing of casualties suffered by each side. While it is true that the casualties are mostly caused by the fire combat that preceeds the assault, and not by the assault itself, this is an indication of how beat-up the units of each side will be in the following turn.

The best indicator though is the display of each sides base and adjusted assault value that comes at the end of the combat animation. This is the one and only time that you have visibility into the relative strength of the two forces involved in the combat. If you keep track of these values from one assault to the next, this will give you a very clear picture of how your attack is progressing, and should tell you whether or not to keep attacking.

If you are interested in more about this, check out this thread.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005


THanks Nik.

What I am trying to figure out with this is if you have two relatively equally matched forces (taking into account terrain, forts and all other modifiers), does it make sense to keep attacking if you get 0:1 odds, or is it required that you move reinforcements in. It would appear to me that if I inflict greater casualties, but get 0:1 odds that isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I keep inflicting greater casualties I may eventually get to 1:1 odds or better. Is this correct?

This is a hard question to answer. The easiest scenario, as already described is if you are inflicting equal or better casualties on the enemy then yes....by all means keep attacking, more so if the defender is in a supply compromised position. If you are not inflicting greater casualties and score 0:1.....thats the tougher part. I have seen the AI, for example fail miserably in it's initial attacks and suffer heavy losses vs. the defender. Sometimes however it will keep attacking which automatically makes me wince as i tend to be conservative about casualties. Sometimes these assaults will only result in further bloodletting.....but sometimes the AI will succeed as the odds suddenly shift in it's favor. Part of the reason for this are the variable rolls which help make the combat not so predictible (hence game-able)

Being conservative, my general rule of thumb is that if my attack fails (0:1) and i suffer greater losses, i'll back off and first allow my disruption to go down. Disruption is the most important variable when it comes to LCU effectivness.....an LCU with 80 disruption is all but combat impotent and is ripe for a counter-attack, more so when remembering that any LCU or LCU group that attacks has it's entrenchment modifyers eliminated for a full turn. I'd rather take a slow and steady course rather than risk being force retreated which is the most costly action for LCU's in the game.

Watch the assault/defense values at the end of the attack phase as they also give important info on the strength of the defense and how effective your own attack is. Bombardment can be useful but be aware that conducting bombardments will help keep your disruption level higher than if resting.

[scout1]

Watch the assault/defense values at the end of the attack phase as they also give important info on the strength of the defense and how effective your own attack is.

Pity this isn't dumped out with the combat report. If you watch combat animations it's common knowledge. If you don't your somewhat blind, but not tied to the computer for the entire turn.

This is one that would be very nice to include in a future patch update, but only if it didn't take any leaders with it [;)]

[Nikademus]

I agree....especially for the larger combats....it can take 5 minutes for it to resolve.

[niceguy2005]

Thank you Nik and irrelevant. This is pretty much what I thought. I have been avoiding waiting through all the combat animations as some of the ground combat can take forever. In fact, while waiting on big ground combat animations, I often will go cook a gourmet meal, have a couple of beers and watch the entire Getysburg movie, by that time the combat is wrapping up. It sounds like for non-critical combat I can look at casualty reports as a rough estimate.

I have been getting more aggresive with my Chinese army units and have been trying to figure out how much success my attacks are having. I don't really need to move his units out of hexes right now, just cause damage. Several times I have attacked my opponent, come up with 0:1 odds, but inflicted greater casualties. Knowing that FOW makes combat reports unreliable, I was trying to figure out what to make of this. It sounds as though I did in fact cause considerable damage to his units. Once disruption goes down, all things being equal, I can try again.

This may in fact be a good strategy for the Chinese, win through attrition - as long as the supplies will hold out that is.

[tsimmonds]

Several times I have attacked my opponent, come up with 0:1 odds, but inflicted greater casualties. Knowing that FOW makes combat reports unreliable, I was trying to figure out what to make of this. It sounds as though I did in fact cause considerable damage to his units. Once disruption goes down, all things being equal, I can try again.

If you are causing him more casualties than you are suffering, you are also likely causing more disruption than you are suffering. The flipside of waiting for your disruption to go down is that his disruption will go down as well. In general, the question to ask yourself is, who has more support and supply: me or him? If the answer is "him", then he will recover disruption faster than you do, and so waiting for your disruption to go down helps him more than it does you.

If you are getting 0 to 1s, but inflicting more casualties than you are suffering, one thing or the other will eventually happen: either you will eventually get to 1 to 1, at which point you will have him by the balls (shock attack!), or else your casualties will eventually become the greater, at which point you probably just became the defender.

[AmiralLaurent]

In my own experience, units attackin at 0 to 1 are suffering far more fatigue and global unit disruption that if attacking at 1 to 1 or better ratio, and that usually means that the next assault will be even less successfull. I don't repeat such attacks the next day, except if all my units are 100% prepared for the target (and then recover quicklier and have less fatigue and disruption at the end of each turn). I may launch another attack after 2-3 days of rest, even if no reinforcement has reached the battlefield.

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

In my own experience, units attackin at 0 to 1 are suffering far more fatigue and global unit disruption that if attacking at 1 to 1 or better ratio, and that usually means that the next assault will be even less successfull. I don't repeat such attacks the next day, except if all my units are 100% prepared for the target (and then recover quicklier and have less fatigue and disruption at the end of each turn). I may launch another attack after 2-3 days of rest, even if no reinforcement has reached the battlefield.

It all depends on the situation. A 0 to 1 can in reality be a 1 to 10, or it can be almost a 1 to 1, and the only way to know is to watch the animation and check the AVs. But if you are not patient enough to watch the animation, my thinking would be that if you are inflicting more casualties than you are suffering, it can't be too far from being a 1 to 1, and so it's probably worth another shot. In any case, it is hard to tell what the situation is and where it is heading without two data points.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

In my own experience, units attackin at 0 to 1 are suffering far more fatigue and global unit disruption that if attacking at 1 to 1 or better ratio, and that usually means that the next assault will be even less successfull. I don't repeat such attacks the next day, except if all my units are 100% prepared for the target (and then recover quicklier and have less fatigue and disruption at the end of each turn). I may launch another attack after 2-3 days of rest, even if no reinforcement has reached the battlefield.

It all depends on the situation. A 0 to 1 can in reality be a 1 to 10, or it can be almost a 1 to 1, and the only way to know is to watch the animation and check the AVs. But if you are not patient enough to watch the animation, my thinking would be that if you are inflicting more casualties than you are suffering, it can't be too far from being a 1 to 1, and so it's probably worth another shot. In any case, it is hard to tell what the situation is and where it is heading without two data points.

I agree. Thanks guys. This thread has been a big help.

[doktorblood]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

Now that I have been playing this game for a while, I have noticed that the outcome for ground combat given a certain set of odds varies greatly.

For example, if my allied forces in China attack at 0:1 odds they get slaughtered - usually. However, once in a while, I will see odds of 0:1, yet the attacker actually inflicts greater damage than is recieved.

My question is this: what do the odds mean? Is 0:1 indicative of a lost battle? From my obseravtions, I would guess that 0:1 is an estimation of the strength of both sides taking in to account all factors such as assault strength, terrain, forts, supplies, etc. Once these things have been calculated and odds are determined, a roll is then done to see what the results are. The result is that even an attack at 0:1 could succeed if the role is lucky. Is this correct?

No. 0:1 attack will never succeed and you should avoid it. You need at least 1:1 to reduce forts and a minimum of 2:1 to percipitate the enemy to retreat, which should be your eventual goal.

Land combat works a lot like GG's previous games. Most of the losses listed in the combat report are actually elements that go from ready to unready( I think it's called disabled in this game). Unready elements are not counted in the assault value and take time and supply to repair with high experience units repairing much faster. You want to make the enemy retreat because retreating units actually lose a big chunk of their unready elements. I'm not sure what the percentage is in this game ... In East Front/West Front it was 1/2 of unready elements lost in a retreat.

These losses don't show up on any combat report but do show up on the intel(score) screen as ground losses.