HOI III TFH: Combined Arms Question

[winterharvest]

Playing HOI III TFH, I have a division consisting of 3 Armour, 1 Self-Propelled Artillery, and 1 Engineer brigades. The softness is displayed as 41% in Production, but it does not have the combined arms bonus indicator. I have not yet sent it into battle and would like to make any change to get it the bonus before I do.

Any thoughts on why it does not get the bonus?

 

[potski]

Playing HOI III TFH, I have a division consisting of 3 Armour, 1 Self-Propelled Artillery, and 1 Engineer brigades. The softness is displayed as 41% in Production, but it does not have the combined arms bonus indicator. I have not yet sent it into battle and would like to make any change to get it the bonus before I do.

Any thoughts on why it does not get the bonus?

The percentage softness I think applied only in the earlier versions of HOI3. You must have at least one Infantry brigade. Cavalry and all Infantry types (including Motorised, Mechanised and Garrison) are OK, except Militia.

The amount of the bonus depends on the numbers of different unit types in the Div. If you replace one Arm with MOT you would have four types (Infantry, Armour, Artillery and Support). Support brigades are Engineers and Armoured Cars.

MOT + Arm + Arm + Sp.Art + Eng would give 15% bonus.

 

[winterharvest]

Thanks, Potski. I will give this configuration a try. Note that the latest HOI III wiki still lists softness as the determining factor.

 

[Pro_Consul]

Thanks, Potski. I will give this configuration a try. Note that the latest HOI III wiki still lists softness as the determining factor.

Definitely an error there. Sadly there persists quite a bit of outdated info on the wiki. To put it even more simply than Potski (who was quite correct all the same), to enable the CA bonus you need to build a division that has one armor type brigade (LARM, ARM, HARM, SHARM) and one infantry type brigade (CAV, INF, MTN, MAR, PAR, MOT, MEC, GAR). That gets the base CA bonus and qualifies the unit for any additional CA-dependent bonus like the Battle Master trait of a leader. The bonus is further increased for each other general unit type represented, of which there are three. All these types are color-coded in the division builder screen for ease of identification. Notice that there are gray types, particularly MIL and MP - this indicates they have no effect on the CA bonus.

There may be another factor in play, depending on the version of the game you are playing. You show vanilla on your registrations, but it would be helpful to know what expansions you also have. (And more helpful still if you registered them )

 

[Kovax]

Previous expansions, as well as the basic game, used Softness to trigger the Combined Arms bonus. Anything in the range of 34% to 66% Softness received it. Having a line brigade so the division could actually fight was another issue that changed in the expansions. The TFH expansion made several major changes, including a complete redesign of Combined Arms.

A 3xARM unit is serious overkill, and a huge waste of supply, fuel, and IC/days, unless you've got practically no manpower to build other units. All you need, especially in TFH, is one ARM to provide the Armor and Penetration numbers, while the MOT or other infantry units and artillery or other support brigades provide bulk firepower. AC or ENG, ART or other indirect-fire brigades, and direct-fire brigades (AA, AT) each provide other CA bonuses.

 

[potski]

There may be another factor in play, depending on the version of the game you are playing. You show vanilla on your registrations, but it would be helpful to know what expansions you also have. (And more helpful still if you registered them )

he says "Playing HOI III TFH..."

 

[potski]

Thanks, Potski. I will give this configuration a try. Note that the latest HOI III wiki still lists softness as the determining factor.

The wiki covers vanilla and all three expansions. But if you look here:

http://www.hoi3wiki.com/Combined_arms_bonus#Combined_Arms

Under the heading "Changes introduced with Their Finest Hour" you'll get everything you need.

 

[jju_57]

But in some tests it seems the CA bonus doesn't work as designed for TFH. It appears in the tooltip just fine but it doesn't seem to impact the battle or figure in the attack/defense final numbers. You can do this by creating a unique unit that only you can build and give it something like +1000% CA bonus. The CA bonus appears but the attack/defend don't reflect it and in very limited tests the battle duration is about the same.

What really needs to be tested is if the unique unit causes the softness to fall within the 33-66 range. Maybe the logic that excludes units from outside this range is still in the code.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Definitely an error there. Sadly there persists quite a bit of outdated info on the wiki. To put it even more simply than Potski (who was quite correct all the same), to enable the CA bonus you need to build a division that has one armor type brigade (LARM, ARM, HARM, SHARM) and one infantry type brigade (CAV, INF, MTN, MAR, PAR, MOT, MEC, GAR). That gets the base CA bonus and qualifies the unit for any additional CA-dependent bonus like the Battle Master trait of a leader. The bonus is further increased for each other general unit type represented, of which there are three. All these types are color-coded in the division builder screen for ease of identification. Notice that there are gray types, particularly MIL and MP - this indicates they have no effect on the CA bonus.

There may be another factor in play, depending on the version of the game you are playing. You show vanilla on your registrations, but it would be helpful to know what expansions you also have. (And more helpful still if you registered them )

Minor correction.

Armor is not needed for the CA bonus (but with the right doctrines it helps ofcourse). Just an Inf + something else.

 

[Pro_Consul]

You can do this by creating a unique unit that only you can build and give it something like +1000% CA bonus. The CA bonus appears but the attack/defend don't reflect it and in very limited tests the battle duration is about the same.

Have you tried that test with a number a little less..err... astronomical? It could be that the algorithm which applies it during combat could not handle a number that big for that particular variable and so zeroed it out.

Minor correction.

Good catch. Thanks.

 

[winterharvest]

The percentage softness I think applied only in the earlier versions of HOI3. You must have at least one Infantry brigade. Cavalry and all Infantry types (including Motorised, Mechanised and Garrison) are OK, except Militia.

The amount of the bonus depends on the numbers of different unit types in the Div. If you replace one Arm with MOT you would have four types (Infantry, Armour, Artillery and Support). Support brigades are Engineers and Armoured Cars.

MOT + Arm + Arm + Sp.Art + Eng would give 15% bonus.

Nice going, Potski. I have tried a number of different configurations and leaders. The most I can get is a CA bonus of 45%, consisting of 20% for brigades, 10% for tech, 10% for division leader, and 5% for corps leader. I have not found a way to get additional CA bonus points from leaders above the Corps level. Apparently they can provide other types of bonuses, but not CA.

 

[Pro_Consul]

Another important point to keep in mind about the CA bonus when designing a division build is total unit capability. Often it is more useful to add another brigade with high combat stats that does not add more CA bonus instead of adding a weak unit that does add the bonus. Remember that bonus is just adding a percentage onto the base combat ability of the unit. So the division should have strong ability to begin with, or you are just adding a percentage to a small number, which will yield a number that is slightly bigger but still small. The exception to this of course is when the weak brigade that is bumping your CA bonus is also adding some utility that the unit can make good use of, i.e. adding AC to a mobile unit to increase its speed or adding ENG to a unit you will be using to assault forts and make opposed river crossings.

 

[Kovax]

The point above is that adding a support unit for its CA bonus or other modifiers is only useful if there's enough base value to be worth modifying. Adding an ENG unit gives a division's regular INF a significant bonus in river crossing or attacking fortifications, but that ENG doesn't add enough attack value of its own to be useful in open plains. An additional INF brigade or an ART brigade would add more base firepower, but that would be heavily reduced if attacking across a river or against fortifications, where the ENG's bonuses would more than compensate for the lower base firepower in that situation. I found 3xINF+ENG to be useful in attacking Forests as well, and noticeably more effective than 3xINF+ART, despite both theoretically providing the same CA bonus.

The AC unit, on the other end of the spectrum, will add movement modifiers in open terrain, lower the softness of the division, and add a small but significant amount of actual firepower, for a price tag that's very modest for a mobile unit, but somewhat expensive for a regular foot division. As with ENG or ART, it also provides a CA bonus. I find them a very cheap boost to the capabilities of an armored or motorized infantry division, but there are better and more economical options for a foot division.

Once you've already got an ARM brigade to add Armor and Piercing stats, adding an additional ARM instead of MOT or MEC gains you very little, for a big IC price tag and higher supply and fuel usage. The first brigade provides a CA bonus, which doesn't work if there's no "base" unit to provide the bonus to, and any additional armor brigades don't offer further CA benefits. More than one ARM brigade in a division makes very little sense, unless you're so constrained by manpower that the IC cost and supply cost is irrelevant.

 

[P-51]

Which stats are receiving a bonus from combined arms? Is it just the soft and hard attack?

 

[Kovax]

Combined Arms provides both an Offensive and Defensive bonus. Whether your unit uses its Hard Attack or its Soft Attack against a particular target is totally dependent upon a random number compared against the opponent's Softness stat. A Harder unit (lower softness) will more often be targeted by your Hard Attack value than your Soft Attack (Soft Attack almost always being the higher value). From what I understand, up to some number of attacks will be "intercepted" by the target's Defensiveness, and have a chance of being negated. Once the target's Defensiveness is used up for the turn, any further attacks will have a greatly increased chance of causing damage.

I believe that an Offensive bonus means that a unit will make more total attacks. Similarly, it appears that a Defensive bonus gives the ability to attempt to negate more attacks in a turn of combat. Combined Arms provides bonuses to both.

I'm not positive about this aspect of the mechanics, but it seems like increased Defensiveness provides very little benefit if you drastically outnumber the opponent, and your current Defensiveness is already sufficient to engage every attack against your unit.

 

[jju_57]

I'm still testing it out and so far I'm having problems seeing the CA bonus being added to the attacker/defender numbers. Now maybe this is WAD and they impact the battle differently. I haven't been able to verify that case as of yet.

 

[Pro_Consul]

I'm still testing it out and so far I'm having problems seeing the CA bonus being added to the attacker/defender numbers. Now maybe this is WAD and they impact the battle differently. I haven't been able to verify that case as of yet.

I thought CA was applied as an effectiveness bonus....was that wrong?

 

[Charles Reeps]

I thought CA was applied as an effectiveness bonus....was that wrong?

CA is part of the effectiveness bonus.

 

[jju_57]

So how would the effectiveness bonus impact combat? Reason I'm asking is I don't see much difference between a unit with +1000% CA and a unit with very little CA. Battles, damage etc. seem about the same.

But if I change stats that show up in the attacker bonus it greatly impacts combat results. I'll be doing more testing tonight.

 

[Charles Reeps]

As I understand it the effectiveness bonus is a multiplier. Let's say you have a unit with with 10 SA with a combat effectiveness of 110%. Multiplying 10 SA by 1.1 (the effectiveness bonus as a number) nets an SA of 11. This bonus applies to SA, HA, Defensiveness, and Toughness. Just follow the same logic for air and naval combat.