quality v quantity / inf v mec...

[Mediator]

Are you shure that hard attack is applied against the mec? I heard that minimum from hard and soft (or maximum?).

That's just manual nonsense. Mech Inf = hard target.

 

[seattle]

Mech vs. Mot

I don't use Mechs at all.
Maybe because I don't know better.

My problem is the following:

For attacks I use tanks, for defense infantry.
For encirclement infantry is just too slow, that's why I use a lot of Mots.

The advantages of Mots towards Mechs are the lower cost, lower oil consumption and BETTER DEFENSE value (if I'm correct).

Why would anyone use anything else than tanks for attacks? In mountain and urban terrain Mechs and Mots are as useless as tanks, so in this exception of course infantry to attack.

As I don't intend to attack with Mechs, I go for Mots. Defense is the most important value for securing provinces.

----------------------------

So, where is my error?

 

[Mediator]

So, where is my error?

Your error lies in:

1.) mech=hard target and mot=soft target.

When you look at the infantry values, you notice that they have a much higher SA than HA. So your mech defense needs to withstand only half or less the attacks of your mot when dealing with infantry.

2.) For survival, it is more important to have high attack values than high defense (Math Guy made the calculation somewhen in the past). So have a look at the combat stats.

3.) Compare air defense.

 

[seattle]

Your error lies in:

1.) mech=hard target and mot=soft target.

When you look at the infantry values, you notice that they have a much higher SA than HA. So your mech defense needs to withstand only half or less the attacks of your mot when dealing with infantry.

2.) For survival, it is more important to have high attack values than high defense (Math Guy made the calculation somewhen in the past). So have a look at the combat stats.

3.) Compare air defense.

Oh, that's right. Forgot that the enemy mainly uses infantry and their SA/HA value is more important than your defense value.

 

[unmerged(21924)]

Did Mathguy say that?

Your error lies in:

1.) mech=hard target and mot=soft target.

When you look at the infantry values, you notice that they have a much higher SA than HA. So your mech defense needs to withstand only half or less the attacks of your mot when dealing with infantry.

2.) For survival, it is more important to have high attack values than high defense (Math Guy made the calculation somewhen in the past). So have a look at the combat stats.

3.) Compare air defense.

I think I read a post by mathguy saying that, in terms of manpower, defense was more important. He said the E-brigades made more sense if lack of manpower was likely to be an issue, and did a very cool analysis of why, which I understood but couldn't re-state.

It would be an interesting project to collect all of Mathguy's analyses and post them in one thread, I really like the way he breaks things down. Maybe I'll ask him someday.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

Since I'm going to be fighting for berlin with alot of units stacked, I was wondering what the stacking penality looks like. If you attack or defend with 3 units of 12 divisons each with FM leaders, do you still get stacking? even when the 3 leaders combined can command the max ammount of units, or is stacking strictly for number of units in a province no matter whose in command?

You can only effectively have 24 div either attacking or defending in any province. The 24 div should be divided into 12 div stacks each under a FM for maximum efficiency. Any stack greater than command limits loses the skills for that general (Kesselring skill 4 would have zero instead of 20 if Kesselring commanded 13+ div). Any div past 24 gets a -75% penalty.

Download or print Fiendix's Leader effects (land,sea and air) .

 

[Mediator]

I think I read a post by mathguy saying that, in terms of manpower, defense was more important. He said the E-brigades made more sense if lack of manpower was likely to be an issue, and did a very cool analysis of why, which I understood but couldn't re-state.

It would be an interesting project to collect all of Mathguy's analyses and post them in one thread, I really like the way he breaks things down. Maybe I'll ask him someday.

Well, have a look
here. He sums it up quite nicely.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

Well, have a look
here. He sums it up quite nicely.

I didn't see anything specific in that thread about the question of whether it's better to have higher defense (eng. brigade) or higher attack (arty. brigades). It was more about what the game model could and should be. It did not seem to directly address this game question that others are posing in 1.06

I know that some of his ideas are being used in 1.06 but I see nothing in that thread that specifically answers the question of whether to build high attack div or high defense div.

 

[unmerged(28080)]

You spent too much time and resources on researching Nukes & Rocketry and to little on building up your army. Like mentioned by others if you haven’t already, start to pump out as much inf as possible until you are able to stabilize the front.

 

[korny]

Your already defeated, you just dont know it yet...

I usaully have for Russia:

120+ INF divisions (20 armies of 6 inf each - 1 EN, 1 AA, 1 AT, 1 ART, 2 Normal )
24+ tank divisions ( 6 armies of 4 tanks - 1 EN, 1 AT, 1 AA, 1 ART)
24+ mech inf (same as tanks)
12+ tac bombers

All lead by FM's...

The infanty just form a big line(2 inf armies in each territory strung along the front) and start marching forward while the armored and mech encircle and deal with hot spots..

 

[unmerged(14603)]

...snip... I know that some of his ideas are being used in 1.06 but I see nothing in that thread that specifically answers the question of whether to build high attack div or high defense div.

The relative values of GD, SA and HA depend on the situation you face. In the most simple example where you always face one vs one combat against a soft target then a case could be made that SA is more valuable than GD based on the way the combat model works.

At ground_def_eff = default 80%:

1 Inf SA=30 GD=10 vs 1 SA=10 GD=30 results in 6 vs 2 hits/hr. Higher SA wins.

So if a base infantry unit of SA=10 GD=10 is faced with choosing between adding 20 SA or adding 20 GD then the advantage goes to the SA because each used GD = .8 SA. Also any unused GD is worthless.

However what happens when those units face a hard target? Suddenly the SA is meaningless but the GD still counts. So if you face hard targets more than 20% of the time then 1 used GD becomes more valuable than 1 SA (unused GD is still worthless).

The situation gets far more complicated when there are different costs associated with adding SA or GD (like with brigade choices). Is the extra cost of IC's or manpower worth the extra attack or defense? Obviously that depends on how much manpower or IC's you have but generally speaking there is a powerful advantage in numbers (dogpiling). Once you overcome your opponents's GD then every shot hits. So to carry the example further by assuming the higher SA unit cost 2 times as much:

1 Inf SA=30 GD=10 vs 2 SA=10 GD=30 results in 6 vs 12 hits per hour.

Facing 2 times the opponents did not result in going from suffering 2 hits/hour to 4 hits/hour; instead it goes to 12 hits/hour because the extra opponent scored hits with all his shots. Clearly the lower cost unit is a better IC value in this example (assuming everything else equal including speed, supply consumption, etc.).

In HOI adding a brigade won't double costs but it certainly will increase them significantly. If the difference in costs results in building proportionally less units then brigades are not a good value and artillery brigades are worse than engineers. The problem with such a conclusion is that there are many other factors involved (beyond initial IC cost) in deciding exactly how many units you can build and maintain.

So the most honest answer is it depends...

 

[unmerged(6780)]

In terms of infantry, mech is always best, followed by mot, then regular infantry. Mech has the best defence and attack values and benefits from more tech, in general, and it's faster. Motorized is slightly better, on balance, than regular infantry only because it's faster and can be used as cheap mech inf in the exploitation role, though regular inf generally lasts longer in combat.

Of course, all that is not taking situational modifiers into account, but merely a straight comparison.

As for Math Guy's treatise on defence values vs attack values, well, that's his opinion. Until it's comfirmed by the designers, I'd take it with a grain of salt.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

The relative values of GD, SA and HA depend on the situation you face. In the most simple example where you always face one vs one combat against a soft target then a case could be made that SA is more valuable than GD based on the way the combat model works.

At ground_def_eff = default 80%:

... <snip>

From your combat damage posting that you provided a link to:

Example: Inf vs Inf (soft vs soft) SA = 10, GD = 8. Expected average strength damage per hour = ((10-8)*.15) + (8*.2*.15) = .54

Two questions:

When land doctrines and inf research are done, inf have 24 GD while inf-eng have 32 GD. Without an arty brigade, only a very advanced tank has SA>24 and no units have SA>32 (based on a 1946 saved game with all those kinds of research done). I was using a spreadsheet to test various units with and without an arty brigade against inf and inf-eng. The first part of this equation can give a negative number. Is that set to zero for this calculation?

The second part of this formula seems to increase the amount of damage that a higher GD unit gets when contrasted with a lower ground defense unit. Substituting 24 instead of 8 for inf div and 32 instead of 8 for inf-eng div, the second part of this formula gives inf-eng 1/3 higher average strength damage. These are the hits that get thru despite the ground defense of a div.

Am I understanding this correctly ? How can better ground defense result in higher 'Expected average strength damage per hour' ?

 

[Mediator]

@ john

To clarify the things for this formula:

Each soft attack has a chance of inflicting .15 strength damage.

Each GD point has a chance (unmodified) of 80% to stop a SA point once.

Looking at the formula, it consists of 2 parts:

The first part shows all SA point which are higher than the GD and automatically score full hits (0.15 strength damage). In this case you compare the 10 SA to 8 GD which means 2 SA points will cause full damage anyway. When GD is higher than SA this part of the formula will be zero.

The second part of the formula gives the statistical damage you can achieve with 8 SA against 8 GD considering that each SA has a .2 chance of penetrating the GD an scoring a hit for 0.15 strength damage.

The formula should be when GD < SA (mathematically):

((SA-GD)*0.15)+(GD*.2*.15)

and when GD > SA:

(SA*.2*.15)

This shoes that GD points above enemy attack value are useless (as mikel explained).

 

[unmerged(3221)]

Thanks for the clarificiation.

I am starting to reassess my initial thought that it's a good thing to build eng bde to increase defense as it looks like they only add to the defense in a few situations when you play a major power and do all the inf. research. That leaves the eng. bde benefits of river crossings and attacks against forts as the primary benefits of using eng. bde.

 

[unmerged(14603)]

Thanks for the clarificiation.

I am starting to reassess my initial thought that it's a good thing to build eng bde to increase defense as it looks like they only add to the defense in a few situations when you play a major power and do all the inf. research. That leaves the eng. bde benefits of river crossings and attacks against forts as the primary benefits of using eng. bde.

Mediator answered your previous questions (more clearly than I would have) so I won't.

Generally speaking your observation is correct. However you need to evaluate each specific situation.

Where extra defense helps is when you are facing opponents who have more units than you do. For example, as Germany versus the Soviets, you could be facing many 1 v 2 or worse battles where you may get dogpiled. Brigades allow you to get the extra defense without investing as much manpower (which may be scarce for Germany). They also allow you concentrate significant fighting power without exceeding command limits. But in the final analysis they tend to increase your chances of getting dogpiled because you will probably build less total units.

Getting dogpiled is a very serious disadvantage. Not only does your opponent get 100% hits when he exceeds your GD, but your hits are being absorbed by more units so the damage per unit you are suffering versus him can quickly become catastrophic for your forces. Unfortunately it is an easy way to exploit the AI who does not understand this situation. Once a human player understands the impact of dogpiling, the AI is an extremely easy opponent to beat.

 

[Mediator]

There is another thing to consider:

You can have EITHER an ENG brigade OR an ART brigade in the combat. Meaning you can either aborb more damage or dish out more damage.

It will not help you a lot when you can absorb quite a lot of damage when on the other side you cannot inflict enough damage to win the battle.

An Inf.ENG in vanilla has with full research 8 HA / 16 SA / 32 GD.
An Inf.ART in vanilla has with full research 15 HA / 34 SA / 24 GD.

With both HA values you will have a lower HA than Mech. Inf. (24), Adv. Heavy tank (24) and Impr. Med. tank (20) has GD. However with the SA from the ART brigade you will overcome the GD of ENG infantry as well as of of normal infantry even when at 75% efficiency

Staying power is only relevant when it is a close decission. In HOI you can avoid close decissions by big numbers, be it with quantity of troops or with absolute attack values.

Besides that you could put it a little simplistic:

Do you want to be the hammer or the nail?

 

[rado907]

Make a lot of ordinary inf. They only cost MP (IC cost is pretty low). They also get ready pretty quickly.
Just use them to hold the front. An army of 9 infantry dudes is not that easy to cut through without armor.

 

[unmerged(5955)]

Hello,

This is a most helpfull discussion for newbs like moi. <grin>

Something I've wondered about attached brigades:

If you attach, say an Eng brigade to a Panzer Div, then put that reinforced division in an army of, say 3 Panzer, 1 Mech and attack across a river with that army do ALL the divisions in that army get the benefit of the engineers? Or only the one division, while the rest suffer?

PBI,

So, if I attach brigades to armor that slows the armor down? What about if/when I've researched enough techs to have SP Arty?

[[Quote:I rarely attach brigades to my armour, as I want my armour (and mot, and mech) to retain their speed. ]]

Thanks muchly.

 

[unmerged(26982)]

If you attach, say an Eng brigade to a Panzer Div, then put that reinforced division in an army of, say 3 Panzer, 1 Mech and attack across a river with that army do ALL the divisions in that army get the benefit of the engineers? Or only the one division, while the rest suffer?

No unit "suffers" because it is engineer less, but only that unit [IIRC] gets the engineering bonus.

And you can check out the stats when you build your units. Just click and look, click and look, etc. etc. I basically use engineer and artillery brigades. I do well enough with them. Every so often I will play around with other ones. I rarely build AA brigades, though. If I need them, it means my fighters arent doing my job and if I dont have total air superiority, then all is lost. o