Does 1.5 call for a nerf in Entrenchment?

[TorAndreKongelf]

The AI is much better at getting their defense up now. When I attack a fronline I see enemy AIs defence above 500. Even seen numbers as high as 1300 in defense. Pre 1.5 we could get passed AI defense by using artillery and stack enough soft attack to break the defense.

Its almost impossible to get passed the AI frontline without stacking huge amounts of breakthrough and CAS. And now the only viable option in many scenarios is to use lots of medium tanks and CAS to break the frontline. In it self, nothing really wrong with that. But its now the only possible solution.

Melting down the frontline with artillery and then rush in with infantry is no longer viable.

Entrenchment is now causing this. Units with low entrenchtment or none at all are easily breakable as long as you outperform them in strengh and strategy.

Do you think entrenchment narrows down the viable options to break frontlines? If yes, are you fine with it? Do you think entrenchment is fine as it is?

 

[Zwirbaum]

Something something, stacking modifiers, something something entrenchment can reach ~152-153% with Last Stand. For non-chinese, it's a little bit lower (~16-18%).

Max cap for chinese (no last stand) is ~122-123%.
Max cap for non-china is ~110%.

And yes, it's quite over the top amount, especially now with planning bonus nerfed, you can stack entrenchment sky-high to the absurd levels.

(Screenshot from testing things with AI turned-off).

 

[Denkt]

While entrenchment can get really high with certain general traits, which have the disadvantage of giving up other traits, entrenchment by itself have the weakness that it is lost upon moving.

The best way to defeat enemies that exploit entrenchment is to put alot of pressure upon a single Point in their line. Assuming the enemy spread out its divisions to defend the whole front, to defend that single Point may need them to move alot of divisions which mean they lose their entrenchment. If you breakthrougth, simply drive Deep inside their country and the only option left for the enemy may be to strategic withdraw their forces Before they are encircled and lose supply as well they may need them to defend against the breakthrougth. By moving the enemy give both up their entrenchment as well as territory.

It is a bit harder if the enemy have a defence in depth and have prepered line after line with entrenched divisions.

 

[Meglok]

The AI is much better at getting their defense up now. When I attack a fronline I see enemy AIs defence above 500. Even seen numbers as high as 1300 in defense. Pre 1.5 we could get passed AI defense by using artillery and stack enough soft attack to break the defense.

Its almost impossible to get passed the AI frontline without stacking huge amounts of breakthrough and CAS. And now the only viable option in many scenarios is to use lots of medium tanks and CAS to break the frontline. In it self, nothing really wrong with that. But its now the only possible solution.

Melting down the frontline with artillery and then rush in with infantry is no longer viable.

Entrenchment is now causing this. Units with low entrenchtment or none at all are easily breakable as long as you outperform them in strengh and strategy.

Do you think entrenchment narrows down the viable options to break frontlines? If yes, are you fine with it? Do you think entrenchment is fine as it is?

The "primary" reasoning behind the SA nerf was, as I understand it, that at the high SA numbers that large divisions could create the combat calculations got wonky.

The SA nerf only went part ways in it's logic. I would say lower the base defense numbers of Infantry battalions instead of nerfing entrenchment. The main issue is that Infantry is too buff on defense right now. I wouldn't touch entrenchment as entrenched Infantry with good Engineering tech was very difficult to level out of position in WW2. It took either 3-4:1 odds or a planned offensive.

The Germans had a maxim on the Eastern Front, either attack Russians within 24 hours of them taking a position with whatever you had on hand or they had to wait to plan a staged attack. Letting the Russians dig in meant it was just too prohibitive in casualties to attack them on the fly after 24 hours. The Western Allies experienced the same problems in Normandy, leveling dug in German infantry out of position took several failed offensives and one massive coordinated one called Cobra.

@podcat Something to consider, will post in the suggestion forum.

 

[AmpsterMan]

I like it. It means using infantry to push is difficult or imposible. It also makes specialists marginally better in their roles.

 

[Baron_Mijail]

If anything make tanks/mechanized better, but first nerf the air force (specially CAS) so they don't get murdered every time they try something.

 

[Vampiresoap]

All this nerfing around is idiotic. The system was fine before they messed up the soft attack. Now everything has to change.

 

[Denkt]

All this nerfing around is idiotic. The system was fine before they messed up the soft attack. Now everything has to change.

Soft attack is fine as it is. I recently won a war as Qin China against China and the Warlords with artillery, cavalry and infantry vs infantry so even with such a poor army I could still advance and eventually win.

 

[IceForge]

heavy tanks / super heavy tanks and line arty, and or mechanized units with medium / modern tanks with touch of SPG's usually works fine. But the real BIG change in 1.5 ive seen is that aircraft perform WAY better then they have, did a playthough with the kaiser back in action and i looked over the air stats after the fight in poland, russia and france and my god am i glad i had air supremacy the numbers were insane. Not to mention the -60% reduction in defence due to air superiority really helps as well aircraft is a major impact changer in 1.5 much more so then previously where i could just stick to CAS production and stack AA in my divisions and walk away fine.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

I'm doing One Empire atm and overall I found that light tanks alongside Grand Battleplan do well to breach French and American lines. I am yet to fight Germans and Soviets tho, the Soviets will especially show how strong defence is.

 

[DragonScythe]

I don't necessarily think the effectiveness of entrenchment is over the top, but perhaps introduce a mechanic that reduces the % bonus for every direction you attack from as it's hard to make entrenchments that cover every possible direction. So if you run into a province and can only attack from 1 direction, it will be hell to get through without tanks and air support. But if it's a bulge and you can hit the province from 3+ directions, the effectiveness of the trenches is greatly reduced.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm doing One Empire atm and overall I found that light tanks alongside Grand Battleplan do well to breach French and American lines. I am yet to fight Germans and Soviets tho, the Soviets will especially show how strong defence is.

In SP with air superiority you'll be fine, especially if you force the AI to pierce + use hard attack (infantry/arty mix is quite awful at hard attack). Besides, AI is roughly the worst at entrenchment since it moves so much with the awful battle planner in response to every little thing plus attacks all the time in bad spots, so it's not like you'll actually see 50% entrenchment from the AI in practice, let alone 100% or more.

 

[Zwirbaum]

In SP with air superiority you'll be fine, especially if you force the AI to pierce + use hard attack (infantry/arty mix is quite awful at hard attack). Besides, AI is roughly the worst at entrenchment since it moves so much with the awful battle planner in response to every little thing plus attacks all the time in bad spots, so it's not like you'll actually see 50% entrenchment from the AI in practice, let alone 100% or more.

I've seen yesterday AI infantry divisions that did dig-in and had 1.2k Soft Attack and 1.4k (or 1.6k?) Defense after modifiers applied. It was... quite something to behold.

 

[DGuller]

I think AI first needs to have its brain buffed. The way to combat the defense by AI is to order one province on the front line evacuated. They immediately try to attack, and usually not just that province, but the whole area. You can then feel free to counter-attack once they kill their entrenchment and organization, or repeat the exercise just to wear them down.

 

[TorAndreKongelf]

heavy tanks / super heavy tanks and line arty, and or mechanized units with medium / modern tanks with touch of SPG's usually works fine. But the real BIG change in 1.5 ive seen is that aircraft perform WAY better then they have, did a playthough with the kaiser back in action and i looked over the air stats after the fight in poland, russia and france and my god am i glad i had air supremacy the numbers were insane. Not to mention the -60% reduction in defence due to air superiority really helps as well aircraft is a major impact changer in 1.5 much more so then previously where i could just stick to CAS production and stack AA in my divisions and walk away fine.

Well this brings me to my point. You need some super specific unit composition to break the entrenchment. Which is in my view an issue. Not fun to come into moments where you need to spend a year researching super tanks and build them just to get through a front line.

In SP with air superiority you'll be fine, especially if you force the AI to pierce + use hard attack (infantry/arty mix is quite awful at hard attack). Besides, AI is roughly the worst at entrenchment since it moves so much with the awful battle planner in response to every little thing plus attacks all the time in bad spots, so it's not like you'll actually see 50% entrenchment from the AI in practice, let alone 100% or more.

They did use a lot of movement before WTT. But not so much any longer in my experience.

 

[halvorni]

I like it. Entrenched infantry is WW1 all over again, and we know how that went. Now the player is forced to be smart and use armour, CAS and flanking manoeuvers.

 

[uberjedi]

WW2 without tanks and planes should be WW1 all over again.
I like it.

 

[Zwirbaum]

So I've decided to test few things out: and I've setup following situation: Divisions using tech up to and including '39 (Which means, Improved Inf Eq I, Weapons II, Engineers I and II, Support Weapons I and II, All Land Doctrines (picked GBP for that one), and I've grinded to get enough experience on leaders (so that they got level 6-7-8) and could assign traits I wanted to give to them. Decided to pick Germany, but put no MIL High Command. General and leader stats may vary a little bit. (I know, I know, I could just make mod with generals and assign them perfect stats I would like to have for them, but got lazy )

There are following templates used:

Divisions are trained to regular level (+25%)
Garbage Inf ( 10 INF)
Garbage Cav (10 CAV)
Garbage Mix (6 CAV/4 INF)
Standard Inf (10 INF/ENG/S. ART)
Standard Cav (10 CAV/ENG/S. ART)
Standard Cav/Inf Mix (6 CAV/4 INF/ENG/S.ART)
Quality Inf (10 INF/ENG/REC/MP/S.ART)
Quality Cav(10 INF/ENG/REC/MP/S.ART)
Quality Cav/Inf Mix (6 CAV/4INF/ENG/REC/MP/S.ART)

Field Marshal was chosen with Inflexible Strategist as background. Earned traits: Infantry, Cavalry Leader. Assigned following traits: Ambusher, Cavalry Expert, Unyielding Defender, Defensive Doctrine. Min level: 6
Generals assigned trait: Ambusher and Cavalry Expert.

Results are following:
Garbage Infantry

Garbage Cav

Garbage Cav/Inf Mix

Quality Cav

Quality Inf

Quity funny, right? ^^

And that is with 1939 tech, and no further one. No last stand was activated for further lolz.

Ok, I couldn't resist the temptation ('only last stand activated')

And all that fighting is going on plains - so no extra boni towards stats from Engineers or terrain traits (Forest would give 1.4 multiplier to defense for example...)