Matrix Games Forums

I am a little confused about something.
Why is it when on defense in clear weather, during summer time with 99% readiness in supply 5 or 6 hex. Do my force or forces end up in almost every case only defending with between half and sometimes a 1/3 of the ready forces at hand, as opposed to the attacker. I find it troubling when I have 5 infantry divisons at 99% readiness with Anti-tank support and artillery. behind a river in a city with an entrechnent of 6 being attack by two to three armies, and getting sometimes if I'm ("Luckly"???) half of my forces to defend with. Plus to add injury to insult I'm getting my squads loss left and right while the attacker is taking half those losses and attacking with a far greater part of his force to boot. And in many casees I have greater air support than the attacker. And again this is with forces defending behind a river in a city
entrencement 6. Can Someone Explain to me how that is or why it should work that way?

maybe I missing something. Now I know that 40% readiness is removed at the start of the turn and forces lose an added 10% when defending at the start of combat. But if what I read in the "What's New" with this current version of this game, the 40% readiness loss has been removed. So unless it's very bad weather or my troops have gotten themselves completey removed from the supply chain I read It As a 10% loss to the defender At the start of combat. Which doing the math would leave me with an 89% readiness at the start of combat which I thought According to the reading of the rules under Readiness would give me a 89% of my forces ready not 50% if i'm ("luckly"????) or many times 33% of those forces.

So What I'm I missing. Is there some hidden unknown rule about defenders only being able to defend with a certain part of there force despite the readiness state. Or is it that, HQ's with low OP's cause this condition. Is it because Of leadership value, I mean there is some vague and esoteric mention of leaders having influnce in the units under there command during combat. As well as Hq's with low OP's. But it is never really explained just how. I mean what Are the qualifier about low OP's states 10,5,1? You know I had to take an advance math class just to figure out the formulas for the combat strengths and the formulas for Force levels on the other fronts. So given all the hoppla about those things (which in the scope of a combat game are of less importants in relationship to leaders and HQ's to the preformence of combat related situation.) you would think a little time and space would be taken up to go into more detail about how those two things work and what their effects are in the game, good and bad. Why hasn't more been said or one formula been given about these important aspects,(If indeed they are important) only just some vague idea about it in the rules manual.

So anyone in the know who could help...Please.

[This message has been edited by Rover1gp (edited February 13, 2001).]

Originally posted by Rover1gp:
I am a little confused about something.
Why is it when on defense in clear weather, during summer time with 99% readiness in supply 5 or 6 hex. Do my force or forces end up in almost every case only defending with between half and sometimes a 1/3 of the ready forces at hand, as opposed to the attacker. I find it troubling when I have 5 infantry divisons at 99% readiness with Anti-tank support and artillery. behind a river in a city with an entrechnent of 6 being attack by two to three armies, and getting sometimes if I'm ("Luckly"???) half of my forces to defend with. Plus to add injury to insult I'm getting my squads loss left and right while the attacker is taking half those losses and attacking with a far greater part of his force to boot. And in many casees I have greater air support than the attacker. And again this is with forces defending behind a river in a city entrencement 6. Can Someone Explain to me how that is or why it should work that way?

maybe I missing something. Now I know that 40% readiness is removed at the start of the turn and forces lose an added 10% when defending at the start of combat. But if what I read in the "What's New" with this current version of this game, the 40% readiness loss has been removed. So unless it's very bad weather or my troops have gotten themselves completey removed from the supply chain I read It As a 10% loss to the defender At the start of combat. Which doing the math would leave me with an 89% readiness at the start of combat which I thought According to the reading of the rules under Readiness would give me a 89% of my forces ready not 50% if i'm ("luckly"????) or many times 33% of those forces.

I don't have the answers to your questions, but here is what I know about the game. I believe that the defensive strength is also modified by experience levels, so if you are the Soviets in 1941, your experience levels are quite low, while the Axis are up around 90% or higher - big difference there if I am correct on this point. At 40% experience, that would drop your strength committed to 35% or so. I am also not sure where all the various air and artillery bombardments fit in, although probably after the point where you are talking about.

Unfortunately, the manual is wrong or missing information on many important items, which has always made it tough to figure out what is actually correct. For me, the biggest indicator of combat strength has always been the CV listed for a corps/army, although other factors also have an impact. I am surprised that you have a strong defender highly entrenched behind a river getting beat, but if the CV for the unit is fairly low, it can happen.


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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

Ok i'll take a closer look at the CV values. Maybe that could be the problem.

Thanks RickyB

Originally posted by Rover1gp:
I am a little confused about something.
Why is it when on defense in clear weather, during summer time with 99% readiness in supply 5 or 6 hex. Do my force or forces end up in almost every case only defending with between half and sometimes a 1/3 of the ready forces at hand, as opposed to the attacker.

Are you playing the Germans or the Soviets here? If its the Germans I'd be kinda suprised there unless the infantry divisions are inexperienced cannonfodder, or are commanded by a bad leader. As for the Soviets before '44, besides low experience, the manual shows they get a penalty to readiness to show the chaotic and weak state of organization they had. I don't believe those penalties have been changed, so the Soviets will perform poorly until '44, no matter how good their force looks like on paper.

Ed,

Since now I understand what the combat formula actually applys to. which was not explained about in the rules manual, only a formula given. I can to some degree come up with how many troops are going to be around for combat in clear weather. Total troops X (experince/100)X(readiness/100). I understood the formula, but I had no Idea were it applied to. Yet I still see things going on that still don't seem right to me.
First, What is A combat Value and how is it determine. If I where to assume that A Infantry Corps with A combat value of 51, means that I can expect to have 51% of my troops able to engage the enemy. Than an SS Panzer Korps CV of 275 would have 275% of their force engaged. So, no that is not it. No where In the manual does it say what a CV is, just that it is an indicator of combat strenghts between Combat forces. Fair enough. But what derives it. and what is it?
if Someone could answer that than I'll tell you more.

I'm playing 1943 Germans. have pulled back behind Dniper/Dniva.


[This message has been edited by Rover1gp (edited February 14, 2001).]

Originally posted by Rover1gp:
Ed,

Since now I understand what the combat formula actually applys to. which was not explained about in the rules manual, only a formula given. I can to some degree come up with how many troops are going to be around for combat in clear weather. Total troops X (experince/100)X(readiness/100). I understood the formula, but I had no Idea were it applied to. Yet I still see things going on that still don't seem right to me.
First, What is A combat Value and how is it determine. If I where to assume that A Infantry Corps with A combat value of 51, means that I can expect to have 51% of my troops able to engage the enemy. Than an SS Panzer Korps CV of 275 would have 275% of their force engaged. So, no that is not it. No where In the manual does it say what a CV is, just that it is an indicator of combat strenghts between Combat forces. Fair enough. But what derives it. and what is it?
if Someone could answer that than I'll tell you more.

I'm playing 1943 Germans. have pulled back behind Dniper/Dniva.

The cv, or combat value, is the "strength" of the unit used to calculate the odds after various weapons have fired, based on remaining strength. I think the formulas are in the back part of the manual, but very unclear as to what they are for. Basically, the defender CV is (1 point per squad or gun + 2 points per AFV) times the readiness % times the experience %. The attacker CV is calculated the same except that it is 4 times the number of AFVs rather than just 2. Recon vehicles are counted in here somewhere also, although not listed in the formula. The total is divided by 10 or something to give the CV listed. I never knew this myself until playtesting the game for Matrix, the manual is so unclear.


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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

Thanks Rick
Also thanks for the infor earlier. It was a great help. yes you are right the manual is unclear about certain aspects.(which I is unusal for Gary Grisby Game. God, I played Gettysbrug over 15 years. And he did a pretty good job with all the combat formulas and how they related to each other. I wonder what has changed? You Guy have been a big Help Thanks.

Gary

Originally posted by Rover1gp:
Thanks Rick
Also thanks for the infor earlier. It was a great help. yes you are right the manual is unclear about certain aspects.(which I is unusal for Gary Grisby Game. God, I played Gettysbrug over 15 years. And he did a pretty good job with all the combat formulas and how they related to each other. I wonder what has changed? You Guy have been a big Help Thanks.

Gary

Gary,

Ed and I, and all the rest, enjoy the game and enjoy discussing it and what we have learned. Glad to help with these kind of questions. I have had the game since it came out, but was not online until fairly recently, so missed out on a lot of the discussions about the game by the real grognards of it. However, I don't think the manual was Gary's fault - I am sure things were still unfinished when the game manual was prepared, and so some things changed, and others were just not documented well at all by whoever did that job. Some of the formula entries are completely wrong, others seem to be out of order. It always drove me crazy trying to figure them out - Arnaud, the programmer/developer/everything has done a good job of explaining the hows and whys of the game, which has been a big help in learning what is really going on behind the scenes.

By the way, rereading your original message about the heavy defender losses, that was something we saw in some of our test versions, and the last release must have had that problem also. I remember where just about any attack at any odds would cause heavier defender losses, period, when we were testing whatever version it was. The upcoming release is much cleaner all the way around, I think, and will play really well.

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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

[This message has been edited by RickyB (edited February 15, 2001).]

Rick,
well I don't feel so bad about the defenders thing than. I do look forward to the new upcoming release. And yes you are right, it is not Gary's fault about the manual. It is those people, who ever they may be, that got into a hurry to get the game out. This seemed to be a reoccuring problem with many computer game companys this last decade. But on the plus side computer gaming has gotten far better in many, many aspects. And if it was not for Gary's works and people like him.
Most comptuer gaming would be flight sims and RPG's. Not that they are bad either.

Gary