Air Stacking penalty...

[Zacherai]

Maybe its me but I can't stand the new stacking penalty...

Im currently playing as the ussr, just got done annexing Germany and Ive got a number of fighters..split up into stacks of 3 with air marshalls. I go to war with the UK and this horrendus stack of 12 bombers flys in, beats the @(&@ out of any fighter force (3 without a stacking pentaly, or a group of 12 with, or any between) I send agaisnt it, then proceeds to attempt to bomb the red army into submission while they give france dejavu of the german army...just without the maginot line.

Needless to say this is becoming quit annoying...the only time Ive succesffuly defeated this super force of bombers is when I stacked all my fighters + my 2 dive bobmer groups ( 6 dive bombers with 6 multirole fighters)...into one stack...and that was only for about a month, the bomber force comes back again, and kicks the crap out of that entire stack -.-.

Either the comp needs to be reapplyed to the penalty, or it needs to be removed all together, because it makes it impossable to oppose any size enemy airforce of (roughly) equal tech with 4 times your number.

PS: I finnally got annoyed and crushed london with a large tank force, destroying all the bombers in the process of invading England, Hallajuh!

[Diomedene]

The air stack penalty annoys many around here, including myself, just for this unescourted bombers vs. fighters scenario. One thing I should point out is that it applys for groups over four not three, so you are short-changing yourself as well. I'm experimenting with groups of five and six (I'd rather experiment than work out the math, it's slower but more fun).

[Disgustoid]

It really is annoying isn't it ? I wish the cut-off was at least at 6 or so ... in CORE (sorry!) the AI bombers benefit from AI.Fighter-Escort techs anyway (increases AA and AD) (ok, that is a mod and the vanilla version should not necessarily have to take that into account). Anyway, I was just about as annoyed at shooting down or losing 12 bombers to a fighter-superstack ... I do realise that the AI was at a disadvantage but the 4-stack-sollution is just too hard ... maybe they should've reduced AA-values of airplanes as a total or should've increased AD or something, or alternatively have an 8-stack-penalty for the AI ...

I've started experimenting with Inf/AA and cheap Arm/AA as was suggested by Sgt.Bulldog and I must say the result is not bad ... and I haven't even teched the AA up yet ...

[boy_recon]

Currently having the hots for:
- Emanuelle Béart (v1.987)
- Keira Knightley (v2.003)
- Carolina Kluft (v2.004 Gold Edition)



Who are these intruiging young ladies?

[Wolf52]

Two questions, 1. What are you talking about? And 2. Why here?

Ok about the stacking thing, at the very least i would like to see either the penalty halved, or have the penalty stay the same for human players but the ai gets half the penalty too.

[Disgustoid]

Currently having the hots for:
- Emanuelle Béart (v1.987)
- Keira Knightley (v2.003)
- Carolina Kluft (v2.004 Gold Edition)

Who are these intruiging young ladies?

entirely off-topic (but only polite to answer):
Carolina Kluft: Swedish winner of the Heptathlon in Athens
Emanuelle Beart: French Actress, born 1967 (Manon des Sources (1987) et al.) *rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhh*
Keira Knightley: You're kidding me, right ? She's British for crying out loud ! Bend it like Beckham ( ), Pirates of the Carib., The Hole

Back on-topic:
I had another think, why didn't they keep the penalty for the AI aswell ?
IIRC, all the penalty is supposed to prevent is that uber-stacks can instantly take out small-to-medium-sized AI-stacks or MP-stacks. If the AI makes sure it has it's fighters in the non-penalized slots/positions, escorted bombers aren't that easy to destroy ... if all they wanted to do is make air-units more durable, the AI should be penalized as well (maybe at 6 or 8)

ok, things are getting too complicated there ... but please think of something that doesn't make 12-stacks invulnerable ... in 4 vs 12 even a tech-advantage isn't gonna save ya ... that's just not right

[Shawkhan]

...Most of us realize that there are serious problems with combat for air units. The simple truth here is that air units simply weren't used in the numbers depicted in the game. Thousand plane raids certainly occurred but they were rare and quite strung out. The line of planes in a major raid could easily stretch out for hundreds of miles, encompassing more than one province of Western Europe.
...Practically speaking the game would probably function more realistically if the stacking limit was reduced for both human and AI.
... The fundamental problem with aerial combat is that it depends more on the individual unit than either ground or naval combat. Pilots in WWII were like fishermen in that a small percentage of them actually do most of the work. AS 20% of fishermen catch 80% of the fish, 20% or even fewer pilots shot down 80% at least of enemy aircraft. I think this makes a case for allowing experience for the individual air unit, allowing one to have elite(ACE) air units, ideally, with upgraded stats. Don't know if it is workable within the game, but I would prefer this to the present system.

[talin]

I do not mind if the AI gets to play with loaded dice. But in the 106c version of HoI the AI gets to play with dice that have six sixes.

IMHO it would have made more sense to tell the AI about the stacking limits in 106 than inplement the 106c rules.

[boy_recon]

ah, many thanks Disgustoid. I don't get out much, you see.

[Zhude]

Playing Germany, 1.06c Starfire mod (apologies, but the stacking penalty stinks here too). Anyway, attacked Russia in late 1940. I send 12 tac bombers (3 stacks of 4) to support an attack in one of the Baltic provinces. The Ruskies arrive with their 12 stack of bombers - a pain in earlier versions too. The game proceeds to treat this as a dogfight. I decided to sit back and watch as the air battle went on for 24+ hours. My bombers have a -70 stack penalty (I thought it only applied to fighters - who knows maybe some fighters set to intercept were somewhere in the mess). Result - my 12 tacs were decimated and/or eliminated altogether. When the smoke cleared, my ground forces had also had their org chewed up pretty good. One more result - I think I will go back to an earlier patch.

[Colonel Warden]

The game proceeds to treat this as a dogfight. I decided to sit back and watch as the air battle went on for 24+ hours. My bombers have a -70 stack penalty (I thought it only applied to fighters

No. The game treats all aircraft the same - I suppose air transports will try to fight each too if they encounter other. It matters less in such cases because these aircraft types have lower air-to-air-values than fighters and so you have plenty of time to retreat.

What ought to happen in such cases is that the bombers would ignore each other and just focus on their missions.

Andrew

[Nuno]

You guys think there is a possibility of a 1.06d patch that is 1.06c minus the air stacking game killer?

[Wolf52]

Theres probably a way we can edit it ourselves, most of the files are in text format anyway.

[Fiendix]

Theres probably a way we can edit it ourselves, most of the files are in text format anyway.

Its hard coded so you cant change it - only Johan

F

[Nuno]

How about if we just asked for an exe file without the air stacking penalty to use in single-player? that probably isn't that much work for the developers

[Olaf the Unsure]

How about if we just asked for an exe file without the air stacking penalty to use in single-player? that probably isn't that much work for the developers

Maybe if we all hollar loud enough. There is precedent. Johan basically undid some of the MP-targeted changes to the latest EUII beta patch when enough SP enthusiasts complained.

Which leads to a serious concern of mine: I'm troubled by what appears to be a bias toward MP in the latest Paradox patches. I don't have time for MP and won't continue to buy and play Paradox games if the SP experience deteriorates. And I've frankly never understood the rationale behind crippling a perfectly good SP feature just to prevent folks from using exploits in MP. The answer, it seems to me, is not to ruin the SP game just because some folks can't control themselves in MP games. Those who use gamey tactics and exploits in their MP games will be known soon enough in the MP community and the problem will take care of itself. In the meantime, the rest of us should still be able to enjoy the SP experience.

[Colonel Warden]

I'm troubled by what appears to be a bias toward MP in the latest Paradox patches.

The air stacking change in 1.06c was actually made to try to improve the SP game. Changing the way that the AI and human player interact is not a big deal in MP, by definition. The concern about 1.06b was that it was too easy for the AI to blunder its planes away, as happened in 1.05c with the similar naval stacking rule. The change made in 1.06c was to improve the performance of the AI and this was done mainly for the benefit of SP players.

The complaints that we're hearing seem to be like the complaints that were made about the sphere events, the logistic distance penalty and the new tough AI for the Soviet Union. Some players have gotten used to the SP game being easy and don't like that it's that much harder now. They're entitled to their opinion but this stuff about MP bias is off target.

Andrew

[Zhude]

The complaints that we're hearing seem to be like the complaints that were made about the sphere events, the logistic distance penalty and the new tough AI for the Soviet Union.

Agreed, the AI should be a tough opponent and it is legitmate to handicap human players to make up for AI deficiencies. The new air stacking penalty, however, goes too far to accomplish these goals. An AI stack of 12 bombers becomes, for all intents and purposes, a "super weapon" - there is little or nothing I can do to counter this weapon. Handicaps for the human player and/or "cheats" for the AI should create challenges, but the human player should be able to develop counter measures. Taken together these should make the game more difficult to win. Sphere events and logistics penalities do just that, but with the air stacking penatly there is no counter measure that I can see - and that's the problem. There is no challenge to overcome - I am just clubbed and all I can do is watch and weep.

[Horrorshow]

I'm sorry, but if a stack of 12 improved bombers is killing your stack of 6 improved interceptors you have bigger problems than air stacking.

You know bombers have a low air to air value...I'm curious as to how they are decimating you guys. In every SP game I play with the new patch I am forced to make 4-5 groups of fighters (sweet Jesus no!) that don't seem to have much trouble handling twice their number of bombers.

A screenshot can be taken with F11. Could someone who is experiencing this air stack nightmare post a screenshot of a combat? Last time I asked no one could produce one and I'd like to see it for myself.

[Shawkhan]

...Well, that is certainly true. As a human player one can micromanage his air force to destroy any stack of 12 bombers. I am currently invading the Soviet Union in HOI as Germany and they do indeed have the proverbial uber stacks. All one needs to do is send a series of fighter sorties at the bombers until they are destroyed, four fighters at a time.