A very basic question about movement into hostile provinces

[Earl Uhtred]

Question to devs: Org loss advancing into low infra provinces breaks combat system?

I have a hell of a time in the early years of the war during simple conflicts like the SCW and Abyssinia simply because my troops lose all cohesion in the course of advancing into enemy provinces with crappy infrastructure and get instantly broken by feeble counterattacks when they finally reach their destination as they have zero org.

Is there a simple way around this or is it just something you have to deal with while you wear down the defender? I'm finding it impossible to advance in Ethiopia, and must have been defeated 50 times in Guadalajara having first driven the defenders back every time.

 

[kiahoga]

It can be a pain but the best council i can give you is to use Simultaneous arrival of your units the AI will counter attack 1 division readily enough but it tend to shy away if 5 or 6 arrive at the same time 0 org or not.

 

[Inner Circle]

Use your TAC/CAS to bomb them. This will make things a lot easier

 

[Earl Uhtred]

It can be a pain but the best council i can give you is to use Simultaneous arrival of your units the AI will counter attack 1 division readily enough but it tend to shy away if 5 or 6 arrive at the same time 0 org or not.

Thanks for the advice both of you. I feared this would be the case - ah well, advancing hundreds of km into the Abyssinian highlands should take a long time. Watching that arrow creep across the map seems to take half of eternity even at maximum speed

 

[unmerged(50895)]

Yes, I am playing Japan and am invading DEI. My God, moving to another hostile province (even with no enemy units present) takes months! Now I appreciate that jungle terrain is hard going, but this? Is this WAD?

As a workaround, I keep my transports around and start to do 'jungle hopping' by sea. But this is rather tedious.

 

[Otacon]

Seems to be WAD, but that doesn't mean its good. I just hate that mechanic how it is now, plain and simple. The reduced org from the new combat system just doesn't work that well with the old org loss settings for marching. Its absolutely lolwut to lose all your org while traveling 50 km in a MONTH. I can't understand how anybody can like or advocate this, seriously. It's just silly.

 

[unmerged(50895)]

Yes, it seems to be WAD, but I also do not like it. The pendulum has swung to far IMHO. It is a bit silly that I own the jungle province the minute I land a division there with a transport. Then I load up the division in my transport and a few days later I land it in the neighbouring province and presto, now I own that province too. I am micromanaging a cruise around the DEI, sorta like the love boat

 

[unmerged(150987)]

I have to agree, an unpleasant side effect of the combat changes is that it is super tedious to wage war in low infra / bad terrain. It's a perfect storm of factors:

1) low base org from the new combat changes
2) automatic infra loss on province capture leading to terrible org regain
3) -.48 org/day loss while marching
4) long distances + low infra + bad terrain

If you're losing -.48 org a day just from marching, and your units have 40 org, and it takes 30 days to move from one province to another (not including any combat along the way). . . there isn't a lot left for fighting.

Not only is it tedious because you have to stop so often to let units org regain and provinces infra recover, all these factors working together give the defender a huge and unjustified benefit.

The solution I suggest is simply to get rid off the org loss from marching. The same thing is simulated by slower org regain in poor infra provinces so I think it's redundant.


And interesting and somewhat tangential side effect is that Germany's low org / high GDE structure means they are not so good at movement (because of the org loss while marching + low base org) But they are extremely good at defense and methodical, one province at a time slugfests, thanks to the high GDE. Kind of backwards for a nation that is constantly supposed to be on the attack until late war imo.

 

[vcgetdown]

Another thing was that in manchuria (pushing into japan territory) I was getting .25 org regain a day, which meant that offensives halted after one province and took half a year at times to reorg.

 

[Otacon]

The solution I suggest is simply to get rid off the org loss from marching. The same thing is simulated by slower org regain in poor infra provinces so I think it's redundant.

And interesting and somewhat tangential side effect is that Germany's low org / high GDE structure means they are not so good at movement (because of the org loss while marching + low base org) But they are extremely good at defense and methodical, one province at a time slugfests, thanks to the high GDE. Kind of backwards for a nation that is constantly supposed to be on the attack until late war imo.

Amen to that. Exactly what I'm saying. Get rid off the marching penalty or at least hugely lower it, since it takes ages for troops to move anywhere anyways. Totally agree on the land doctrine focus, too. Mobility, eh? Bah.

 

[unmerged(50895)]

Well this is a beta. Tweaking and balancing. I would say too that this needs tweaking. Any of the devs have any comment on this?

 

[Gort11]

Maybe locations that take ages to cross should be split into several smaller provinces?

 

[lanodaka]

Maybe locations that take ages to cross should be split into several smaller provinces?

like they are going to change the map AGAIN?

 

[Gort11]

like they are going to change the map AGAIN?

It's just a couple of provinces that are the real problem.

 

[PanzerMan7]

removing the marching penalty would be nice

 

[Majorlee2000]

I agree with removing the marching org loss. The simple fact that after combat you cannot regain org until you are idle in a friendly province means that units will still be weakened from the combat, but not totally helpless upon arrival in the new province.

On a side note, I wish they could incorporate the time it takes to secure a province similar to what was done in Vicki. The more suppresion you have the quicker the province is controlled and painted your color.

 

[zanaikin]

My recommendations here:
--- Use more specialized troops for the really rough terrain places. Special forces have both more ORG to burn and more morale for faster recovery.
--- Attack with marines/mountaineers/motor/cavalry, support attack with infantry then redeploy them forward and leapfrog like that. Even in say, the Ukrainian plains, spearhead+redeployment is much faster and ORG conservative than forward march =P Of course this requires you to keep TC down.
--- If the enemy keeps reinforcing a province, divided your units between attack and support attack can help, since this means support units will regain ORG inbetween fights and once a battle breaks out again they'll be the ones to lose ORG first (and dish out more damage with their higher ORG), allowing your advancing units to take less presure.
--- Engineers give a pretty good bonus to mountain/jungle movement (+5%). Artillery/armor gives a penalty. Careful which brigade you choose. Heavily brigaded infantry with the wrong brigades will slow you badly.
--- Get specialized equipment (Sturdy, Jungle, etc). With both tech + production you get something like +8% move.
--- After a few fights and you start getting terrain specialist generals (mountaineer trait is really easy to get ime), use those for advance as they grant more speed.
--- Don't rely on infantry. I relearned this when it took me 3 months to push from Siam to Singapore.

 

[unmerged(50895)]

Those are some good recommendations. I invaded with Marines or regular infantatry. No tropical equipment researched and no engineers attached. That will help some. But still, I feel the going will remain very slow. I am invading DEI and there are only a few enemy troops on Java. The rest of the islands are undefended. Ofcourse conquering all relevant provinces and annexing them ends it all, but I still feel movement through difficult but uncontested terrain is too slow for my liking.

 

[Stingray]

Amen to that. Exactly what I'm saying. Get rid off the marching penalty or at least hugely lower it, since it takes ages for troops to move anywhere anyways. Totally agree on the land doctrine focus, too. Mobility, eh? Bah.

I agree with this.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Where in the files can I find the marching penalty value? I want to reduce it to about 10% what it is now.