Improvements to combat width, manpower and independent battalions

[Corpse Fool]

yes, but these are rare circumstances from my point of view.

I deploy defensive regions with w75 - w80, while my offensive Divisions are combined always w38 - w40.

Might not be perfect, but works fine for me.

They aren't exactly rare, not only fighting across rivers can drop you to bridge fighting, having SF doctrine as the defender can drop you to tactical withdrawal phase, and SF doctrine is pretty common. Encirclement tactic doesn't need to be unlocked, just have its conditions met and its weight can even be boosted with officer traits. And then you can have mass charge and guerilla tactics from a mass mobilization doctrine that can also mess with available width as either attacker or defender. These are very real possibilities that can have dramatic effect on the outcomes of your battles.

I am not sure what you mean by having 75-80 width for defensive regions, telling me that by itself is practically meaningless. You should be having 80 to 120 width in every province you intend to defend, preferably in 20 wide chunks for 4-6 divisions. As the attacker, you have a lot more control over the available width by choosing to open flanks, or cancelling an attack and hit them again to re-roll your tactics if you didn't like them. That aside, there is hardly a penalty to the attacker if they lose a combat, while the defender gets all of their divisions kicked out of the province. Since the defender has little to no control over what the width of the combat is going to be, I would suggest leaning a bit more towards universality of width for your defensive templates than you would for your offensive templates, where you do have control.

And sure, X or Y might "work for you". But that doesn't stop something else from working in whatever way, better. I'm not going to become complacent and marry the first things I stumble across that "works". I'm going to put a bit of elbow grease into figuring out why that works, and what might work better.

 

[General WVPM]

I never understood the logic behind combat width. If I have more troops then the enemy I, can just flank the enemy. The enemy could ofcourse spread their forces thin, this would result in me having local numerical superiority across the line.

Overwhelming the enemy with manpower is a tactic, it just has many limitations.

• It is hard to coordinate many different units to attack at the same time, this allows the enemy to fight off attacks one by one
• When you concentrate your army, you weaken the rest of the line.
• You tend to require more supplies in total, this gets tougher as you progress forward.

Pretty sure you could balance it just with these factors instead of restricting units in battle to an arbitrary limit.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

The game mechanics make 40 width much stronger than two 20 width divisions because that 40 width divsion will always attack one unit in concert where as two 20 width will likely attack two different. This is incredibly flawed. In addition, while there may be a few limited exceptions, 40 width is not historical. Some historical divisions may be approximated as somewhat higher than 20, but restricted by the combat width metric of 80, divisions should be capped not much higher than 20. 40 width should be banned or a limit placed similar to special forces.

 

[walt526]

In my sp games, I just play with 20 width for historical realism. At the very least, there should be a significant organization penalty for divisions that are above 27 width or whatever.

 

[Corpse Fool]

In my sp games, I just play with 20 width for historical realism. At the very least, there should be a significant organization penalty for divisions that are above 27 width or whatever.

There is? Using 40 wides instead of 20 has around half as much organization.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

There is? Using 40 wides instead of 20 has around half as much organization.

but this disadvantage is not enough. despite it, it's still better to make 40W divisions. (as @Gefallener_Held explained above)

 

[Corpse Fool]

but this disadvantage is not enough. despite it, it's still better to make 40W divisions. (as @Gefallener_Held explained above)

40 wides can still lose a battle where an equivalent width of smaller divisions would have won through raw org grinding. The width of the division is only one of the factors. I have investigated combat width in great detail, it is something I believe I know a thing or two about.

I disagree with the blanket statement that it is better to make 40w divisions. 40 wide divisions have some specific qualities to them which can be considered weaknesses. These include vulnerability to the width of the combat, where 40 wide divisions in 20, 40, or 60 wide battles would only be able to fit 1 division and would lose the battle immediately upon its defeat. Similar limitations surround 100 wide battles where you're still stuck with only using 80 width compared to the enemies 100. Or 140 wide battles where you have 120 width compared to their 140.

Even in 80, 120, 160, etc wide combats, having a 40 wide leave the battle is going to be taking a greater chunk of the attacks out of the combat, and reduce the division count on that side of the battle by a comparatively greater percentage. This means your attack concentration advantage is greatly lowered, while the enemy is going to be much more able to concentrate their attacks against you.

40 wide divisions have a smaller total raw org pool, which both caps the maximum e-org pool you have and leaves them vulnerable to things that deal raw damage to your org pool. Like enemy CAS, or attrition. Getting caught trying to push through the pripyat marshes with 40 wide divisions is going to quickly drain their org if you cannot offset the attrition.

Yes, 40 wide divisions are potent offensive tools, but they are not the be all and end all of template design. There are reason to go both higher and lower.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I have investigated combat width in great detail, it is something I believe I know a thing or two about.

Can you post the data here?

 

[el nora]

Can you post the data here?

CorpseFool's Reddit post on combat width

Holy hell is the automatic preview not helpful. We don't want to see the entirety of the thread.

 

[Harin]

40 wides can still lose a battle where an equivalent width of smaller divisions would have won through raw org grinding. The width of the division is only one of the factors. I have investigated combat width in great detail, it is something I believe I know a thing or two about.

I disagree with the blanket statement that it is better to make 40w divisions. 40 wide divisions have some specific qualities to them which can be considered weaknesses. These include vulnerability to the width of the combat, where 40 wide divisions in 20, 40, or 60 wide battles would only be able to fit 1 division and would lose the battle immediately upon its defeat. Similar limitations surround 100 wide battles where you're still stuck with only using 80 width compared to the enemies 100. Or 140 wide battles where you have 120 width compared to their 140.

Even in 80, 120, 160, etc wide combats, having a 40 wide leave the battle is going to be taking a greater chunk of the attacks out of the combat, and reduce the division count on that side of the battle by a comparatively greater percentage. This means your attack concentration advantage is greatly lowered, while the enemy is going to be much more able to concentrate their attacks against you.

40 wide divisions have a smaller total raw org pool, which both caps the maximum e-org pool you have and leaves them vulnerable to things that deal raw damage to your org pool. Like enemy CAS, or attrition. Getting caught trying to push through the pripyat marshes with 40 wide divisions is going to quickly drain their org if you cannot offset the attrition.

Yes, 40 wide divisions are potent offensive tools, but they are not the be all and end all of template design. There are reason to go both higher and lower.

I read your Reddit post that el Nora posted above. First, thanks for taking the time to write something so clearly and understandable. Was there a reason you chose to use 200 attack and 200 defense for the divisions in your tests? Do you think making 40w divisions in the game and using their attack, defense, and breakthrough numbers would change the results enough to change any conclusions you made?

I ask, because a 40w defensive infantry division that has more defense than the combined attack power of two 20w attacking infantry divisions and the 40w's attack power is greater than a single attacking 20w's breakthrough can be a game changer. The defending 40w would receive no effective hits, while landing quit a few of its own on the defenders. I realize two 20w attacking one 1 40w is a mismatch, but during combat rounds, this matchup would occur quit often and the 40w would suffer little for it.

I do not have your math skills, so am I overlooking something?

 

[Timmysoboy]

My favorite suggestion is still to leave general combat width the way it is, but to also give benefits to smaller division sizes (can choose tactics more frequently).

 

[Corpse Fool]

I read your Reddit post that el Nora posted above. First, thanks for taking the time to write something so clearly and understandable. Was there a reason you chose to use 200 attack and 200 defense for the divisions in your tests? Do you think making 40w divisions in the game and using their attack, defense, and breakthrough numbers would change the results enough to change any conclusions you made?

I ask, because a 40w defensive infantry division that has more defense than two 20w attacking infantry divisions attack power and more attack power than a single attacking 20w's breakthrough can be a game changer. The defending 40w would receive no effective hits, while landing quit a few of its own on the defenders. I realize two 20w attacking one 1 40w is a mismatch, but during combat rounds, this matchup would occur quit often and the 40w would suffer little for it.

I do not have your math skills, so am I overlooking something?

Thank you, I'm glad you think it was clear and easy to understand.
200 attacks and 200 defenses was arbitrary, I could have picked any numbers and made the same point. Towards the end of the post I did venture towards raising the defenses compared to the attacks and how that may impact the results of the battle.
I wanted to stay within a theory space to specifically avoid talking about this or that 'meta'. Meta is going to be constantly changing and I wanted my guide have a bit of longevity to it, while also giving people the tools to go out and adapt to whatever the circumstances are.
I do not think using the actual stats from live battles would affect my conclusions. My conclusion was ultimately and simply that stat concentrations matter, it is another mechanic that players can use to interact with the game. That said, I have considered making a part 3 that did use live stats to try and give the people that had difficulty with the theoretical divisions more help with understanding. I just haven't done that yet.

I'm not really sure I understand the point you are trying to make with your example. Yes, the attackers are going to lose handily. That has a lot more to do with the attacker being infantry than it does anything else though. Infantry have such low attacks, as well as little to no armor/hardness/breakthrough that it is very easy for almost any defending template to defend against them. A single basic 20 wide division of just 10 infantry can hold their own against a 14/4 attacking them. Width matters, because of the concentrations of the stat you can achieve with larger divisions. But if you're trying to stack breakthrough or attacks it doesn't really matter how big the division is, infantry have terrible breakthrough and attacks.

 

[Corpse Fool]

My favorite suggestion is still to leave general combat width the way it is, but to also give benefits to smaller division sizes (can choose tactics more frequently).

The whole tactics system should be reworked, it doesn't seem to function very well. I'm still in the middle of making a part 2 to my recon is bad post, but as far as I've gotten with it it isn't looking good for tactics. Giving smaller divisions the chance to roll tactics more often isn't really much of a buff either. When they changed tactics rolls from 24 hours to 12 hours, I considered that to be a nerf to tactics and recon instead of a buff. I would imagine making the intervals even smaller would continue the trend of devaluing each roll.

But the idea of giving smaller templates some sort of bonus has merit. Perhaps there could be a "shadow" battalion in each template that has a high basic org or recovery or some other averaged stat. Adding more battalions to the division which would presumably have less org/recovery than that shadow battalion would then pull the average stats down more. In this way, smaller divisions would have a greater advantage.

 

[AFilthyCasual]

The game mechanics make 40 width much stronger than two 20 width divisions because that 40 width divsion will always attack one unit in concert where as two 20 width will likely attack two different. This is incredibly flawed. In addition, while there may be a few limited exceptions, 40 width is not historical. Some historical divisions may be approximated as somewhat higher than 20, but restricted by the combat width metric of 80, divisions should be capped not much higher than 20. 40 width should be banned or a limit placed similar to special forces.

40 width is historical from a manpower perspective but not a battalion count.

A 40 width infantry division can be anywhere from 16-20,000 men, which is apt since fully-manned triangular infantry divisions historically came out to around 18000 men regardless of country. But this was done with just 9 Infantry and 3-4 Artillery battalions plus a plethora of supporting units; the lack of support troops in divisional manpower in HOI4 means any division with a historical battalion count will be smaller than a real one with the same number of battalions.

Divisions with historically accurate battalion counts are, frankly, ahistorically cheap and easy to raise and equip. 40 widths are a significant investment that is more applicable to reality.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

40 width is historical from a manpower perspective but not a battalion count.

A 40 width infantry division can be anywhere from 16-20,000 men, which is apt since fully-manned triangular infantry divisions historically came out to around 18000 men regardless of country. But this was done with just 9 Infantry and 3-4 Artillery battalions plus a plethora of supporting units; the lack of support troops in divisional manpower in HOI4 means any division with a historical battalion count will be smaller than a real one with the same number of battalions.

Divisions with historically accurate battalion counts are, frankly, ahistorically cheap and easy to raise and equip. 40 widths are a significant investment that is more applicable to reality.

Well, Military Hstory Visualized contends otherwise. Total manpower counts also do not count non combat personnel that are not modeled in the game.

 

[Synicus]

I think it does, for most line type non-coms like officers ect. Otherwise we'd have manpower along the supply line.
Due to trench warfare, division grew over time. The colonel and 20w had an easier time moving about in the trench.
The brigade numbers might be off it really doesn't matter, our division designer is neat and simple. imo.

 

[demon72]

...as the main reason why I uprade some of my w20 INF to w40 at some point of the game is not even part of this discussion, I will add this one:

the lack of (historical) generals!

Even as DR I have just about 5 historical INF-Generals, one for para and two (should be) FM, from which I missuse one for Mountain and one for Marines!

If these guys reach their command-limit, I start upgrading to larger divisons.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

...as the main reason why I uprade some of my w20 INF to w40 at some point of the game is not even part of this discussion, I will add this one:

the lack of (historical) generals!

Even as DR I have just about 5 historical INF-Generals, one for para and two (should be) FM, from which I missuse one for Mountain and one for Marines!

If these guys reach their command-limit, I start upgrading to larger divisons.

There is a mod form that, at least for Germany.

 

[demon72]

There is a mod form that, at least for Germany.

...do you know the name of that mod?