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Question about division builder and combat

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In HoI3 you could add a A heavy tank on everything and suddenly all your INF is protected. That makes combined arms Division which have from everything a bit very strong.
How HoI4 handles this is intersting. They can not do it like in HoI3, because otherwise I will equip all division with 1 single Tiger tank and suddenly millions of soldiers are protected with armour can pierce the enemy.
 
dav77-b said:
In HoI3 you could add a A heavy tank on everything and suddenly all your INF is protected. That makes combined arms Division which have from everything a bit very strong.
How HoI4 handles this is intersting. They can not do it like in HoI3, because otherwise I will equip all division with 1 single Tiger tank and suddenly millions of soldiers are protected with armour can pierce the enemy.
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Not really. Losses in hoi 3 are suffered by individual brigades. All your inf can be at zero org and your heavy armor still fighting. All in the same division.
 
dav77-b said:
Armour and AP was counted for the whole division
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True, but let's say that a division has 4 regiments and each one accounts to 25% of total shots fired (for simplicity's sake). If 3 of those 4 regiments are down to 33% strength, then you fire off a ton less shots (soft and hard attack). Without proper attacks, all that armour and AP is not going to make that much difference anymore.
 
misterbean said:
True, but let's say that a division has 4 regiments and each one accounts to 25% of total shots fired (for simplicity's sake). If 3 of those 4 regiments are down to 33% strength, then you fire off a ton less shots (soft and hard attack). Without proper attacks, all that armour and AP is not going to make that much difference anymore.
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The non tiger tank units are able to fire without being a tiger tank.
My point is that amour and piercing HAVE to be calculated on a new way, instead of using the highest value for the entire division.
In Hoi3 it made 0 difference if you hade one or 2 HARM brigades in your divisions ( if we value Armour and piercing ), but in HoI4 this system can be impossible working as we can have single tanks attached to your divisions

My suggestion:

A HARM brigade adds 10 soft(hard) attack which can pierce 5 armour
A INF brigade adds 7 soft attack which can pierce 2 armour

The division of 1 INF + 1 HARM would have : 17 soft attack , but only 10/17 can pierce 5 armour and 7/17 can only pierce 2 armour.

A single tank would only add 0.x soft attack which can pierce 5 armour.

The same can work with armour.

A HARM brigade adds the coverage of 10 attacks covered with 5 armour
A INF brigade adds 3 attacks covered with 1 armour

the division of 1 INF + 1 HARM would have : 13 attacks can be covered; 10/13 with 5 armour and 3/10 with 1 armour.

It would be interesting to hear how the DEVs plan to do it ;)
 
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One clarification, you won't ever be assigning a single tank to your division. The game tracks single tanks, but the smallest unit you can form is a battalion, which is closer to 50 tanks. That being said, I really don't want to see things calcaulated with only one aggregate number for the whole division.
 
I'm confused. Don't Armour types always pierce? in the above example, wouldn't you need 10 armour to prevent the Harm from doing full damage?
 
In Hoi 3 it was calculated if a division can pierce or not ( highest value of the brigades counted ) Example you have 9 pierce . Hostile tanks with 4000 or 10 armour did not made a difference. Not being able to pierce gave a combat malus. A LARM in HoI3 was not able to pierce a HARM.

I see a problem in HoI4. If I give my 15000 men division a 50 tank brigade, the whole division would be able to use the amour and the pierce.
 
dav77-b said:
In Hoi 3 it was calculated if a division can pierce or not ( highest value of the brigades counted ) Example you have 9 pierce . Hostile tanks with 4000 or 10 armour did not made a difference. Not being able to pierce gave a combat malus. A LARM in HoI3 was not able to pierce a HARM.

I see a problem in HoI4. If I give my 15000 men division a 50 tank brigade, the whole division would be able to use the amour and the pierce.
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You see that is only a problem if the combat mechanics are identical to the past, hence the reason for this post in the first place.
 
We don't have any indications of how battalion-based units (I don't say divisions, because I imagine you could produce a unit with only 1 battalion) will calculate their combat stats. As Dalwin mentions, if the mechanics are the same, then we probably will have problems a la HOI3, but there's no data available yet.
 
To me the key point in designing divisions is how they are evaluated in combat. Divisions are really combined arms teams (infantry+ artillery + other stuff). A team or division with the "right" balance of arms should do much better than one without the balance (in an extreme infantry unsupported by artillery) and all the other support units also have a role (engineers, anti tank, anti air, recon and obviously armor). In addition to just having 1 of everything the balance between arms needs to be right as well. For example early in the war many armored divisions were thought of as "cavalry" and had 2 armored brigades and one infantry and were not very effective. By the end of the war most nations were using 2 infantry (motor or mech) for each armored brigade (although in some cases it was 1 for 1) because armor could not be used effectively without accompanying infantry. As a strategic simulation HOI series probably can not get down to the battallion level but even at the division level how the combat system evaluates and resolves combat based on the engage forces by both numbers and also by "multiplier" efforts of having the right combination of forces engaged is key. Without this then designing pretty divisions that look good in the division formation is of little value.
 
Will there be a DD on land combat so we can get a feel for how divisions stats are derived and what role if any the battalions play in combat?
 
If each division is only an aggregate of the stats of its subunits, without those units directly participating in the combat engine, I suspect that the efficient strategy will be to skip several battalion types even though they were in the historical TO&E. It will be substantially more efficient from a production standpoint to simply stick to the basics. This would be a shame, to see the potential of this level of detail fall into the category of cool ideas that are easier to skip or ignore.
 
Dalwin said:
If each division is only an aggregate of the stats of its subunits, without those units directly participating in the combat engine, I suspect that the efficient strategy will be to skip several battalion types even though they were in the historical TO&E. It will be substantially more efficient from a production standpoint to simply stick to the basics. This would be a shame, to see the potential of this level of detail fall into the category of cool ideas that are easier to skip or ignore.
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I don't think it will just be the sum of its parts, since some kind of combined arms bonus should be added (maybe from doctrines??) as this would make sense. I am not sure I understand what you mean with the rest, about efficiency and such. Care to elaborate?
 
I think the easiest fix is to give each individual tank its own stats. I think the whole hard attack/soft attack thing would be hard to implent into this structure.

Maybe even a percentage? Say 1 tank gives .15% of an "armor effect" on a battle. This "armor effect" creates a battle bonus (combined arms bonus for example). These percentages increase the chance of an envelopment or the enemy's morale breaking completely and them routing quickly!

This needs some work but its a pretty good suggestion...
 
Olfert Fischer said:
I don't think it will just be the sum of its parts, since some kind of combined arms bonus should be added (maybe from doctrines??) as this would make sense. I am not sure I understand what you mean with the rest, about efficiency and such. Care to elaborate?
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What I mean by efficiency in this context refers to the penalty when you retool a production line becasue of upgrades etc. The fewer different lines I have running, the easier it will be to balance my production vs what my forces need for replacement and building of new units. In simpler terms, it will be eaiser to balance the output of 3 items than 6.

Then you have the concept of what happens to production lines when factories are bombed or cities overrun. If I have three items with multiple lines of each, it should be easy to stagger my priorities such that nothing catastrophic happens to my overall output.

If I have many different lines, it will be easier for some secondary item, say armored cars for recon Bns as an example, to get their entire production wiped out by factory losses. This would result in me producing divisions which were weaker because the recon Bn in the template would essentially be empty. Even if I reassign some existing factories from other lines to start up a new line for armored cars, that new line will start at 10% efficiency and the shortage will last for quite a while.
 
Now I'm with you. I understand your point - but what you are proposing as a production scheme might have the consequence of eliminating any (assuming there are) combined arms/piercing/whatever bonus, which might be substantial - but then again might not - for the purpose of maintaining a certain production level. A possible decision the player needs to make - I like the way this is shaping up.
 
Olfert Fischer said:
Now I'm with you. I understand your point - but what you are proposing as a production scheme might have the consequence of eliminating any (assuming there are) combined arms/piercing/whatever bonus, which might be substantial - but then again might not - for the purpose of maintaining a certain production level. A possible decision the player needs to make - I like the way this is shaping up.
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You are exactly right, which is why I have been asking for some basic hints on how battalions are going to fit into the combat engine. I am not saying that my simplified production scheme is how things ARE going to be. I am saying this is how it COULD turn out to be if there is not enough detail in the mechanics of combat.
 
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