Increasing casualties during combat

[unmerged(74599)]

I am interested in how Defensiveness and Toughness increases will unbalance things. Perhaps you can outline more what you mean?

 

[theokrat]

I am interested in how Defensiveness and Toughness increases will unbalance things. Perhaps you can outline more what you mean?

Thats a complicated buisness. The effect of these parameters depend on the size of the attacking army, the size of the defending army and their repective attack values (and modifiers). Since those are not equal for all conflicts and not all conflicts are symetric its bound to favour some parties. Although i could not immidiatly say who is favoured.

 

[unmerged(74599)]

In the general aspect, does increasing Defensivness favour mass. So as to say, if one were to increase defensiveness overall, this would advantage SU further in a contest with Germany, as her superior mass of units would be more effective overall. Is that what we are saying, when we say that increasing defensiveness leads to unforseen imbalances?

 

[unmerged(55694)]

It should be remembered that increased casualties will kill Germany in the grand strategic sense, if there is no concurrent increase in the manpower available.

well, of course, this is moddable. i've modded MP production for all countries as well as other MP functions as part of my effort to simulate realistic number of casualties and MP drain.

 

[unmerged(55694)]

In the general aspect, does increasing Defensivness favour mass. So as to say, if one were to increase defensiveness overall, this would advantage SU further in a contest with Germany, as her superior mass of units would be more effective overall. Is that what we are saying, when we say that increasing defensiveness leads to unforseen imbalances?

yes, at least at the start of the war. you would have to inc toughness proportionally to defensiveness to give both attacker/defender no advantages. this should NOT inc casualties since the same number of hits will still be required to win the battle (all other variables remaining constant), but it will inc battle length.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Changing defensiveness and toughness has very complicated effects and very few general principals can be established.

There is one very important side issue to get out of the way first which is the Russian GDE penalties. Changes to def/tou will have very different effects on Russia whilst GDE penalties apply. In fact, while GDE is 0.6 or less Russia benifits if def/tou are reduced so mess about at your own risk.

More generally increasing def/tou will be most beneficial to a country that suffers more from its units def/tou being exceeded. This usually means a country that is being defeated. Therefor increasing values will probably increase total German losses in the early years.

You could also claim that increasing the values reduces the effects of overstacking in attack. This likely to be a modest effect but will produce a small benefit.

The biggest effect would be if you changed the pattern of def/tou between units and between the two of them. Personally I would keep well away from them and the only change I would consider is to set both to either 0 or infinite.

One point to consider is that the coupling between random targetting and def/tou is probably the largest source of random variation in combat. Other random effects are based on such a large number of different chance events that they reliably even out. Whilst I generally treat combat as a fairly deterministic process (ie the results are predictable) this is only because I only fight to conclusion battles which I will win be a significant margin. These random effects may be significant for some players in which case fiddling may be quite disruptive.

 

[Kanitatlan]

yes, at least at the start of the war. you would have to inc toughness proportionally to defensiveness to give both attacker/defender no advantages. this should NOT inc casualties since the same number of hits will still be required to win the battle (all other variables remaining constant), but it will inc battle length.

Proportianate increase is not enough. Explaining this may be a good way of demonstrating why the issue is so complex. If I take a simple example of 2 divisions attack 1 all at 100% combat efficiency (ie no modifiers). Let's also assume they are 100% soft targets and we have units scores as follows.

20 SA
16 Tough
16 Def

In one round of combat the defender will score 24 effective hits against one attacking division (16 defended and 4 undefended counting double = (2 x SA)-Tough) and the attackers will score 64 effective hits against the defender

If I increase both Tough and Def to 20 then the hits ratio changes from 24:64 to 20:60. As you can see the proportianate change has reduced the attackers casulaties by a larger percentage than those of the defender.

This beautifully illustrates the problem. The effect of changing this scores depends on whether you have the advantage in a combat or not. The side with the advantage will generally gain more benefit from increased scores. In the final analysis tamper with these scores at your peril. It is not a route to "increasing casualties", it is a route to changing casualties in various unpredictable ways.

p.s. This also demonstrates how def/tou values aren't a very good game mechanic. They are so hard to tune to achieve a given effect that you can't use them to introduce useful behaviour into the game.

 

[unmerged(74599)]

So the effect of Defensiveness and Toughness are not proportional but cumulative and quantative. So when increasing defensiveness and toughness, while attempting to preserve the general balance between unit types, one increases them by the same factor, say 10, and not as a ratio. I add 10 to Defensiveness, and 10 to Toughness all around, as opposed to adding 10% to all factors.

To get where I am going I will need to explain. My main concern is increasing battle length, not increasing casualties, specifically to give players more control in MP. Battle dynamics as they are heavily advantaging the attack in MP because of the ergonomics of the game, this in turn causes more pausing as defenders need to pause, see what is happening, and then plan counter-attacks, or reinforcements.

Increasing battle length, even slightly should have two effects I believe; one, it will allow defenders use the support defence command more effectively; and two, make more effective use of counter-attacks, without pausing the game, constantly.

 

[theokrat]

In the general aspect, does increasing Defensivness favour mass.

you cant even say that. Lets say its 0, then any attack is valued the same, regardless of the amount of troops.
If its just the same as the attack of the other guys troops, then mass is favoured, as it will increase the cahnce of double targeting.
If you raise it further than you will chancel that out. doubling it means you might need four or more units to exceed it. Even a mass army like the soviets can have difficulties doing that. Raise it to ten times the attack and it becomes vastly impossible.

 

[unmerged(55694)]

no way to inc battle length without effecting casualties because there in no direct relationship between these two factors in battle calculations... at least that i know of. i suppose if you wanted to crunch numbers and accept probability over certainty (since the combat engine uses random "dice rolls" for attack values) then you may be able to make some adjustments to unit data to get the results within reason. GOOD LUCK. sounds like fun

 

[theokrat]

There is one very important side issue to get out of the way first which is the Russian GDE penalties. Changes to def/tou will have very different effects on Russia whilst GDE penalties apply. In fact, while GDE is 0.6 or less Russia benifits if def/tou are reduced so mess about at your own risk.

I am not sure about this. In theory this would mean that Russian Militia last longer than Russian INF, something i was not able to see. I am not sure what GDE does exactly.

p.s. This also demonstrates how def/tou values aren't a very good game mechanic. They are so hard to tune to achieve a given effect that you can't use them to introduce useful behaviour into the game.

I like to think of these values in the following way:
If two tanks meet one tank than the two tanks do not have only double the firepower (and double the hitpoints, resulting in the famous squared behaviour), but even more: the one tank can only face one other tank, exposing its weaker flank or even rear to the other one- thus the firepower of the two tanks is increased. A third tank might have the same situation as the second etc.
Same with infantry- one can take cover behind a rock, but thats only going to save you from one guy, not a possible flanking. Also the two men can cover each other while advancing, surpressing the one.

A similar thing on divisional level: its not a problem to fight into one direction, but against more than one divsion its becoming difficult to maintain a lsolid line and keep the rear stuff (Mashs, hqs, artellery, supply stuff) unexposed to the enemy. So for me the parameter defensiveness reflects the abilty to sustain overwhealming fire, eg by counter ART or shelling a part of the front where your forces are weak.

 

[Crusher Bob]

A lot of the math for how this all works was done many moons ago by Mithel and some other guys. You can try looking at the thread for the starfire mod where some of it might be discussed. I just don't remember; most of the math and discussion was hashed out 3-4 years ago.

 

[Kanitatlan]

If you simply wish to increase battle length without changing casualties then the obvious place to go is GDE. The base values of GDE of 0.8 and 0.6 (with and without defence) can be increased to reduce casualties. In practice a value of 0.8 really means a casualty rate of 0.2 and increasing GDE simply reduces the rate at which casulties and org loss occurs.

Specifically, if you make GDE values 0.9 and 0.8 then battles will last twice as long BUT you need to heed my earlier advice about the Soviet GDE event sequence as these will need to be adjusted in the same way.

Beware, changing GDE to increase battle length is not completely neutral since any change to battle length will automatically result in more night fighting due to the tendency to start attacks at dawn. Increased night fighting will favour the defender and those following the infiltration doctrine tree. Japanese night fighting modifiers in the later years can create horrific consequences.

I am not sure about this [GDE]. In theory this would mean that Russian Militia last longer than Russian INF, something i was not able to see. I am not sure what GDE does exactly.

The functioning of GDE is fairly clear and is similar to the way it worked in HOI1. GDE was a primary national variable in HOI1 and tech improvements that adjusted it were subject to exploits (my German mechanised AAR exploits HOI1 quite nicely). Whilst the difference in performance between Russian infantry and militia is quite subtle and hard to spot the whole issue is much clearer when comparing the performce of Russian infantry with poor GDE with Russian allied infantry which does not.

I have also done experiments which nicely illustrate the rise in casualties that unit suffer when defence is exceeded just prove it works how we think.


I like to think of these values in the following way:
If two tanks meet one tank than the two tanks do not have only double the firepower (and double the hitpoints, resulting in the famous squared behaviour), but even more: the one tank can only face one other tank, exposing its weaker flank or even rear to the other one- thus the firepower of the two tanks is increased. A third tank might have the same situation as the second etc.
Same with infantry- one can take cover behind a rock, but thats only going to save you from one guy, not a possible flanking. Also the two men can cover each other while advancing, surpressing the one.

A similar thing on divisional level: its not a problem to fight into one direction, but against more than one divsion its becoming difficult to maintain a lsolid line and keep the rear stuff (Mashs, hqs, artellery, supply stuff) unexposed to the enemy. So for me the parameter defensiveness reflects the abilty to sustain overwhealming fire, eg by counter ART or shelling a part of the front where your forces are weak.

Whilst this description is a good anecdotal explanation of what might happen, military statistics are extremely clear. Analysis of historical casualty rates show a number of profound effects.

As the force ratio rises the casualties inflicted per unit of force by the larger force drops away with a rule of thumb that force ratios about 5:1 bring to discernable increase in the weaker sides casualty rates. The statistics on this are quite clearcut BUT it is important to appreciate these are force ratios, ie counts of men and equipment, not effective combat capability ratios.

There is limited evidence for something different happening at very low force densities but this is quite hard to pick out. Low force densities tend to give the larger force significant tactical advantage as if they have outmanoeuvred the weaker side at an operational level. Analysis has always tried to allow for tactical advantage and hence the effects of low force density are hard to separate. Low force desnity situations are not simulated at all in HOI2.

A clear cut lesson of history is that increased firepower reduces force density and reduces casualties. A doubling of the firepower of a division should improve its GDE so that casualties per unit of firepower decrease to less than half. In HOI2 we have the opposite effect.

Overall the HOI2 combat model has some significant weaknesses but these are principally focused around high force ratios where the game impact is rather less. It does, however, disproportionately reward good players against the AI.

Changing the subject slightly - consider the following examples of casualty rates for the attacker in a 1:1 combat. All examples are for 1939 infantry with combat efficiency of 100% for both sides

1 vs 1: rate 12
2 vs 2: rate 14.26
3 vs 3: rate 14.78
4 vs 4: rate 15
5 vs 5: rate 15.14
6 vs 6: rate 15.23
7 vs 7: rate 15.29
...
24 vs 24: rate 15.53

This is a rather odd feature of HOI2 combat, bigger battles generate higher casualty rates as a result of the spread of random targetting. This is an effect of the defensiveness/ toughness rules and the way casualties increase disproportionately as you get shot at by more enemies.

Another side effect is the 1 vs 1 example was a fair fight whilst the fact that defensiveness is higher than toughness makes the battles biased against the attacker for higher force ratios with the defender suddenly gaining a 5-6% advantage.

 

[unmerged(55694)]

dude, you've got too much time on your hands if you can write threads that long.