Does expanding the width of combats help you win?

[Corpse Fool]

Should I use 80w and hope they roll badly on reinforcement to auto-squish, or should I use 160+w to cause more damage to more units?

This was asked in the quick questions quick answers thread, and as quick as it is to ask, I don't think it really has all that quick of an answer.

The original question had the goal of collapsing an encircled pocket as quickly as possible, and it also had the assumption that only the default combat size was made up of 'good' attacker units, such that any extra width would be made up with units that aren't as good for the purpose. I'm going to approach this more theoretically and try to find out if more generally, assuming an infinite stack of formations on either side, would you win sooner by using less width, or by using more width.

I think this is a difficult question to answer because the math is really difficult (for me, at least), and simplifying the math loses at least some of its value. The conditions I'm going to use are 2v4 and 3v6, in a sort of 40w v 20w at 80 or 120 width. I'm going to be using a graph similar to the one used in my defense efficiency graphs thread.

The lines are showing how much more damage reduction the 3v6 scenario has than the 2v4 scenario. The lines show that increasing the amount of formations through increased width, will never increase the rate at which attacks are converted into damage and if anything will have a tendency to lower the rate at which attacks are converted into damage. Since the total attack, defense, and org pools are all scaling at the same rate when allowing for more width, having less of those attacks converted into damage means that the enemy e-org pool has gotten larger, and will take more time for you to defeat them.

I'm sure there is a lot more that could be said about this, and the floor is open to anyone that wants to say something. I know @HugsAndSnuggles had a comment regarding this in that thread, feel free to comment.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Sure, but you are damaging 6 divisions instead of 4, so you still end up being net positive on total damage dealt. Might not be as efficient per width, but it'll be faster anyway.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Sure, but you are damaging 6 divisions instead of 4, so you still end up being net positive on total damage dealt. Might not be as efficient per width, but it'll be faster anyway.

But you also have 6 formations worth of org to chew through, rather than 4.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

But you also have 6 formations worth of org to chew through, rather than 4.

Provided reinforcement rate is not abysmal, you'll have to do it either way.

Edit: of course, purely from MP perspective (where you simply "click" divisions) there's no point in widening the frontage; but if that's the case, this shouldn't really be a question, I think.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Provided reinforcement rate is not abysmal, you'll have to do it either way.

Not necessarily. We could still use small width combats and just flip to using smaller width templates to purposefully spread the damage around more and narrow the gap between one being kicked out and the rest being kicked out, in order to minimize the window for reinforcements to happen.

A 4v4 and 6v6 scenario using 20w on both sides shows the same trend of the larger combat allowing the defenders to absorb comparatively more of the attacks. And for the 35% coordination, 4v4 and 6v6 showed a smaller damage reduction than the 2v4 and 3v6. Unfortunately my data for 6v6 stopped at 35% coordination and itself is incomplete for some reason. Using smaller templates would also generally allow for more total attacks from the extra support companies and would shift the defenses to attack ratio downwards (I mislabeled the graph here incorrectly, sorry) which increases damage yet again.

It'll take me more time to generate the data for an 8v4 and 12v6 graph showing 10w v 20w in 80 and 120, but that is at least something I can capable of doing because it uses the old rules which are simpler, it just takes time. The old rules do have a tendency to lean towards bigger=better, so I'm curious what sort of graph that would turn out.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Still, with more potential defenters, damage tends to be spread more evenly - smaller chance of all divisions focusing the same target - so when divisions start to get kicked out, they start doing that pretty fast. If defender would be capable of easily reinforcing that; I doubt that he'll have harder time reinforcing smaller widths.

 

[Cavalry]

In previous DLC, only extend the width if you have more number advantage, keep the width down to have chance to kich them out.

In this DLC, small width become numerous, so it is harder to do that.
There is an alternative very good tactics to deal with a wall of enemy: constant attack to not let enemy recovery Org, while you can cycle your troops.

Whatever if you don't have number advantage in attack, there is something wrong, like you use too much tank in each division and don't have extra tank divisions... or it is not the time to attack yet.