Calculating who will win in a battle for 100%

[Kubusta]

As my topic says. Daniel in stream said that because in HOIIV there is nothing "random" or invisibile (like a dice in EU IV for example or some hidden stuff), you should be able to calculate for 100% if you are going to win a battle or not. Could he or anybody else, please, show some model situation to show off how would you do that? What numbers/stats you should watch to calculate your efficiency?

 

[wright1331]

there is NO 100% calculation
Leaders tactics play a Huge role in the battle and this is based upon recon and intel, also random weather will come into effect.
I have to imagine there is something else "random" that will effect it, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

Which is good, because being able to calculate exactally how a battle will be decided based on the first minute of the engagement would be f***ing stupid

 

[Kubusta]

there is NO 100% calculation
Leaders tactics play a Huge role in the battle and this is based upon recon and intel, also random weather will come into effect.
I have to imagine there is something else "random" that will effect it, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

Which is good, because being able to calculate exactally how a battle will be decided based on the first minute of the engagement would be f***ing stupid

Well, good point, but I think you should be able (if you have good intel etc) to see what enemy divisions have, what type of guns, composition etc. are you facing so you could calculate..
I think it is better than if you have like 15k vs 15k in eu IV and you win only if you have good numbers on your dice..(ignoring generals and other stuff pretty much)

 

[Wimpola]

Just throw in 100 divisions to one battalion. That is a 100% chance of victory because the organization will instantly break the unit. (It's not a 100% chance just like a 99.999999% chance because who knows if they enemy will win with 1000 men against like 1 million, could happen).

 

[blue_yonder]

I was rather worried by Daniel’s comment on absolute predictability. Both IRL and in-game, it is sheer madness to fight a battle if you know for certain you are going to lose (holding/rearguard actions excepted).

What about ‘the fortunes of war,’ a phrase everybody knows? Or Wellington’s ‘damn close-run thing,’ or Napoleon’s remark that he would rather have a lucky general than a good one? He and Jake then semi-corrected themselves and mentioned weather and tactics; I hope these are enough to remove clockwork inevitability, but if they aren’t, something else needs to be modelled that throws a small spanner in the works.

 

[phantomrider]

I was rather worried by Daniel’s comment on absolute predictability. Both IRL and in-game, it is sheer madness to fight a battle if you know for certain you are going to lose (holding/rearguard actions excepted).

What about ‘the fortunes of war,’ a phrase everybody knows? Or Wellington’s ‘damn close-run thing,’ or Napoleon’s remark that he would rather have a lucky general than a good one? He and Jake then semi-corrected themselves and mentioned weather and tactics; I hope these are enough to remove clockwork inevitability, but if they aren’t, something else needs to be modelled that throws a small spanner in the works.

The outcome of war or battles are not something than can be decided by doing a series of calculations because it is a situation where chaos theory comes heavily into play. Seemingly "random" events (that aren't considered in "firepower" calculations such as diet, infection, breakdown/readiness rate of equipment and people which can in turn be effected by weather, supplies present at the point of need can have enormous influence on battle outcomes. Traditionally in war games, random number generation (sometimes aka roll of the die) based on different probabilities of outcome (nothing in life is certain except maybe death at some point in one's future) is used to simulate this. With all the potential variables that modern computers allow to be considered the combat results tables should be quite complex but the more complex may actually increase the uncertainty of any given event.

 

[blue_yonder]

it is a situation where chaos theory comes heavily into play..

ha! - yes, good post! 'Luck' is just the pre-scientific term for what we now call chaos theory.. )

 

[kviiri]

Yes, they said it's 100% non-random - and then instantly amended it by saying that weather and tactics are random and have a potentially huge impact. Also there's hidden information (enemy divisions that might reinforce, incoming air support etc) which is akin to randomness from a player's POV.

 

[LordOfWar16]

You can predict an chance of you winning the battle, just as the game does with the indicators, but you cant say for sure how the battle will go. There are still some random factors, not including random dice rolls, yes, but like weather for example and the tactics of your generals. Airplanes dropping into the battle and strafing the enemy and leaving the battle again will make a difference aswell.

This are the informations you get about an ongoing battle.

 

[Kubusta]

Yes, they said it's 100% non-random - and then instantly amended it by saying that weather and tactics are random and have a potentially huge impact. Also there's hidden information (enemy divisions that might reinforce, incoming air support etc) which is akin to randomness from a player's POV.

thanks for that. I think I misheard this. Also thanks @LordOfWar16 for pic.
It is good that there are some random facts, of course, but I was just wondering what to do to predict a win of a battle. Because it seems there is a lot of information going on and a lot of stats, so maybe I should have asked to what exactly, or with what priority I should pay attention to different stats units have to have the biggest chance to win a battle. (looking just at the numbers of divisions would be stupid right)

 

[kviiri]

thanks for that. I think I misheard this. Also thanks @LordOfWar16 for pic.
It is good that there are some random facts, of course, but I was just wondering what to do to predict a win of a battle. Because it seems there is a lot of information going on and a lot of stats, so maybe I should have asked to what exactly, or with what priority I should pay attention to different stats units have to have the biggest chance to win a battle. (looking just at the numbers of divisions would be stupid right)

The game does it for you when the battle is ongoing at least - the little red/yellow/green bubble estimates the chances of you winning a battle. Apart from that it might rely a lot on guesswork, especially since you don't know accurate stats of your enemies.

 

[Iarodus]

Sounds like randomness will be less of a factor. In the era of EU a great general could take a smaller ragtag army to victory against a larger better prepared force. Terrain and morale played a huge differential role as well. Even further back, no hope battles could be won due to a comet or thunderstorm or whatever. By WW2 the random elements played a far smaller, though still significant role. A larger better trained and equipped German force is simply going to overrun a smaller [insert country rolled over in days here] force regardless of leadership or random elements. Or similarly a larger more fully equipped and supplied American force supported by airpower is going to beat a German force regardless of the same, just may take longer.

Just throw in 100 divisions to one battalion. That is a 100% chance of victory because the organization will instantly break the unit. (It's not a 100% chance just like a 99.999999% chance because who knows if they enemy will win with 1000 men against like 1 million, could happen).

I don't know, didn't the Israelis do that like 7 times?

I kid I kid.

 

[kalauer]

There are elements where you'd want randomness, that's all extern effects (just like weather and from our point of perspective, the general's decisions). But you surely don't want randomness in the base stats of your units. Your soldiers should not "have a bad day" for no reason and *removed offensive exapmle* drop to 0 ORG just because you rolled a 1. Same with soft/hard attack.

If you agree that these values should be fixed, there is not much more to randomise. And HoI with the random fights of EU would be horrible, as some others have stated.

Also, since you don't have perfect knowledge of the current state, the lack of randomness is irrelevant to you. Though we might do some experiments with isolated fights, save-loading and letting them be fought several times to see how different the outcome can be. Sounds really fun .

 

[phantomrider]

Sounds like randomness will be less of a factor. In the era of EU a great general could take a smaller ragtag army to victory against a larger better prepared force. Terrain and morale played a huge differential role as well. Even further back, no hope battles could be won due to a comet or thunderstorm or whatever. By WW2 the random elements played a far smaller, though still significant role. A larger better trained and equipped German force is simply going to overrun a smaller [insert country rolled over in days here] force regardless of leadership or random elements. Or similarly a larger more fully equipped and supplied American force supported by airpower is going to beat a German force regardless of the same, just may take longer.



I don't know, didn't the Israelis do that like 7 times?

I kid I kid.

The question really isn't if a bigger, better trained, better equipped, more experienced and better led army will beat a smaller, less experienced and trained and poorly led army but what happens when a veteran, well led, well equipped army that is 2/3 or 1/2 the size of its opponent who are all raw recruits, poorly equipped and led or more accurately and realistically when each army has different levels of superiority/inferiority in these factors combined with terrain and the need to play either offense and defense. If you want to take Americans vs Germans look at the performance of the US 106th division in the Battle of the Bulge. This was a raw, inexperienced, new unit that was put in what was thought to be a "quiet" sector of the line to get some "seasoning". They were overrun (2/3 surrendered) by experienced German troops in the biggest defeat of the war (worse than Kasserine Pass). Compare that with the 101st Airborne in Bastone -- a veteran unit (but not equipped well in terms of anti tank weapons, armor to fight panzers) that was superbly led that stopped the Germans cold and even though surrounded held on until Patton got the rescue force to them which in turn totally derailed the German offensive.

 

[kalauer]

The question really isn't if a bigger, better trained, better equipped, more experienced and better led army will beat a smaller, less experienced and trained and poorly led army but what happens when a veteran, well led, well equipped army that is 2/3 or 1/2 the size of its opponent who are all raw recruits, poorly equipped and led or more accurately and realistically when each army has different levels of superiority/inferiority in these factors combined with terrain and the need to play either offense and defense. If you want to take Americans vs Germans look at the performance of the US 106th division in the Battle of the Bulge. This was a raw, inexperienced, new unit that was put in what was thought to be a "quiet" sector of the line to get some "seasoning". They were overrun (2/3 surrendered) by experienced German troops in the biggest defeat of the war (worse than Kasserine Pass). Compare that with the 101st Airborne in Bastone -- a veteran unit (but not equipped well in terms of anti tank weapons, armor to fight panzers) that was superbly led that stopped the Germans cold and even though surrounded held on until Patton got the rescue force to them which in turn totally derailed the German offensive.

How is that random? You might argue that experience is underrated in HoI4, I couldn't argue against or in favor. But randomness is something else to me.

 

[Iarodus]

The question really isn't if a bigger, better trained, better equipped, more experienced and better led army will beat a smaller, less experienced and trained and poorly led army but what happens when a veteran, well led, well equipped army that is 2/3 or 1/2 the size of its opponent who are all raw recruits, poorly equipped and led or more accurately and realistically when each army has different levels of superiority/inferiority in these factors combined with terrain and the need to play either offense and defense. If you want to take Americans vs Germans look at the performance of the US 106th division in the Battle of the Bulge. This was a raw, inexperienced, new unit that was put in what was thought to be a "quiet" sector of the line to get some "seasoning". They were overrun (2/3 surrendered) by experienced German troops in the biggest defeat of the war (worse than Kasserine Pass). Compare that with the 101st Airborne in Bastone -- a veteran unit (but not equipped well in terms of anti tank weapons, armor to fight panzers) that was superbly led that stopped the Germans cold and even though surrounded held on until Patton got the rescue force to them which in turn totally derailed the German offensive.

I was pointing out close to the extremes, your examples fall within it (I didn't want to spend all day pointing out every variation). My point remains, in neither case does "randomness" play anywhere near as much of a role as it did in the EU era.

EDIT: I should directly answer your points. Yes a poorly led green American infantry division without backup or air support was cut apart by multiple veteran well led German divisions. An EU random factor could have stopped that (like the Battle of Harlem Heights where a small American force retreated in front of a major British one but turned and cut into it after the British played the hunting call) but in modern times it wouldn't. Yes also an elite well led oversized American infantry division held a town while surrounded, the Germans has other goals and had to move their heavy forces onwards and shortly afterwards the weather changed allowing supply and air support. So again, with the less random game idea that's not surprising.

 

[phantomrider]

I was pointing out close to the extremes, your examples fall within it (I didn't want to spend all day pointing out every variation). My point remains, in neither case does "randomness" play anywhere near as much of a role as it did in the EU era.

EDIT: I should directly answer your points. Yes a poorly led green American infantry division without backup or air support was cut apart by multiple veteran well led German divisions. An EU random factor could have stopped that (like the Battle of Harlem Heights where a small American force retreated in front of a major British one but turned and cut into it after the British played the hunting call) but in modern times it wouldn't. Yes also an elite well led oversized American infantry division held a town while surrounded, the Germans has other goals and had to move their heavy forces onwards and shortly afterwards the weather changed allowing supply and air support. So again, with the less random game idea that's not surprising.

Not to beat the point to death -- but the 101 Airborne was not an oversized line infantry division with lots of heavy artillery and AT units attached -- it was a "light" infantry airborne division with no equipment assigned that couldn't be airlifted in gliders or C-47s. You don't get "brownie" points in military war college games throwing a light infantry or airborne force in front of armored units. If you start doing projectile throw weight analyses for each side, add experience levels and even guesses at leadership estimates the airborne should have been beaten quickly. The only "wild card" is how well they used defensive terrain/urban ruins to their advantage and how you could have estimated that beforehand (the 101 were trained to jump out of airplanes, reform into intially small and then bigger formations (a requirement for small unit leadership and initative) not in how to defend fixed positions).