speculation: support brigades

[Mevsrei]

This topic is about speculation what might be the possible support brigades in the game.
Currently known are these:

1. Engineers: Were also shown in one video, they give a bonus to terrain passability.
Possibly also a bonus to attacking fortified positions and/or faster fortification.
2. Recon: Most likely they affect the "Recon" stat (see "Base Stats" in the picture). What this stat affects isn't known yet.
Possibly better/more accurate identification of enemy troops (strategic) and/or a bonus to combat effectivness of other units.
3. AT-guns: Pretty much self explaining, will most likely add "Hard Attack" and "Piercing".
4. Artillery: Most likely adds to "Soft Attack".

Aside from the possibility to add multiple support brigades of the same type (like 3x AT and 2x Arty), 4 different types are a small number for 5 slots. So let's add the the support brigade that is most likely (to not say definitelly) in the game.
5. AA: Adding some air defense to the division.

Now, we have 5 different types for 5 slots, which would be still a bad design if that would be the limit. If you have X "upgrades" for exactly X slots in a game, players tend to just use one of each. Yes, some will think about leaving out option A to have 2x option B, but that's still an exception. So from a game design perspective, if you want players to think about the composition of something and not disregard it with a "default one of each" you give them at least one more (meaningful) option, so there is allways at least one they can't use.
This is just an explanation for you, since I'm pretty sure the developers know this simple fact themselfs.

Now we come to my main point... SPECULATIONS.
What could these +1 options in form of support brigades be? Maybe your idea is something the developers didn't think about and only add it, because you expressed your idea here.

My current toughts are:
Rocket Artillery: Less average combat effectivness than artillery, but better specialized boni. Credit to the people in this topic: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...between-rocket-and-standard-artillery.851113/
Military Police: Big bonus to "Surpression" and a small bonus to "Organization".
Mobile Radar: Adds a small bonus to any AA (support or tank variant) in the division.
TRAR: (Tank Recovery and Repair) A very small amount of tanks (and variants, maybe equipment) lost in a battle are given back to the division after the battle.
Medical Brigade: A bigger amount of lost manpower (from this division) trickles back in the global pool.
Supply: Slightly increases the throughput of supplies to the division. Adds a small amount of time before a division is "out of supplies" if cut off.

Soooo, what might you add? I'm interessted!

 

[safe-keeper]

Random musings, pretty much point-by-point.

Shovel/Engineer: could perhaps affect dig-in time/ability, fort attack, movement and assaults across rivers, and maybe also vehicle repairs.

Binoculars/Recon: I believe there is an ambush/surprise attack system in the game, and recon could counteract this. Could also affect attack, and perhaps movement across the map, since I believe it did in HOI3.

Direct artillery and howitzer: as you say, probably an AT gun and a soft attack artillery gun. Wondering how this works with tank divisions. Are the guns assumed to be towed, do you need trucks for them to not cause a speed penalty? Or do they slow the division down?

While I hope there are more than five things to choose from, I actually disagree about your "one of each" observation. Far from every division is going to have five slots (as indicated in the screenie above ), secondly, some divisions will be more specialised than others. If you're invading a country without a significant tank force, you may not bother with AT guns, for example.

 

[Centurion1973]

I expect, that fast divisions will use either motorized or SP artilery. For motorized, you would need artilery + trucks.

 

[potski]

Some clarification on terminology. The boxes aren't filled with brigades. Instead, the vertical groups are the brigades.

So in that screenshot there are four brigades - the Support Brigade (left most vertical group with black background), and three Combat Brigades enabled.

Except for the Support Brigade, the boxes within each group are known as Battalions.

I have to say that for some countries "Regiment" makes more sense for the vertical groups. Japan square divisions for example had two brigades, but I think two vertical groups wouldn't represent their size - each brigade had two regiments, with three infantry battalions and one heavy weapons battalion each. So it might make more sense for JAP to have a 1936 Infantry template with four vertical groups. Nevertheless, "brigade" is the official name, even if we understand that it could represent a Regiment.

The boxes in the Support Brigade are not necessarily Battalion sized:

... except the left-most column are Support Units of varying sizes

So that implies the possibility that you might have the option to attach different amounts of artillery within a Support Unit. But if that was the case I would expect the interface to give some indication of this, for instance if you could click on the Art Support Unit and select whether there are 30 or 50 guns, then maybe that number should be visible, for instance to distinguish between a standard template and one with extra artillery attached.

So I don't think that is what is meant, just that some Support Units have say 36 guns (such as Art), while others might have 18 (such as AT), some might have 100 men but others 1000. And IRL these formations were called a variety of names that the devs didn't want an argument about.

So if we assume there is a fixed size number of artillery pieces in the artillery unit in the screenshot, regardless of whether that template is German or French, then I don't think it necessarily follows that the only option to increase artillery is to use 5 XP to open up the fifth slot in the Support Brigade. You might be able to attach Artillery etc to one of the existing three combat brigades. Or, given the right hand brigade only has one slot and that would be an odd brigade to only have a single infantry battalion, then I assume this is there for you to attach an additional ART, ENG or AT for specialisation of units. For example to represent a Div which temporarily has Corps/Army assets attached.

So you could have a Div which has been deployed with the template above. You then swap that Div to use a new template you created with the right hand brigade enabled (25 XP) and the battalion slot occupied with ENG. The Div will pause while the logistics system fills up its new battalion with Engineers and their equipment ready for say an assault on a fortified province or a river crossing. Once done, then revert back to the standard Div template and the Engineers and their equipment go back in the stockpile. It's a bit of micro, but I think just about adequately represents this sort of thing if people want to do it. Or want some flavour with some Divs having Rocket Artillery or Sp.Art attached etc.

I doubt there will be any types of units to go in any of the slots which were not in HOI3. And it is possible there will be no MIL, GAR and these Divs are just represented with Inf battalions with little training and less/no Support Brigade units.

I prefer this to be kept as simple as possible. Effects of field hospitals, mobile radar, tank workshops etc abstracted in the tech tree. They serve little useful purpose as unit slots in the Div template, if they cannot engage in combat.

 

[Mevsrei]

Some clarification on terminology. The boxes aren't filled with brigades. Instead, the vertical groups are the brigades.

So in that screenshot there are four brigades - the Support Brigade (left most vertical group with black background), and three Combat Brigades enabled.

Except for the Support Brigade, the boxes within each group are known as Battalions.

I have to say that for some countries "Regiment" makes more sense for the vertical groups. Japan square divisions for example had two brigades, but I think two vertical groups wouldn't represent their size - each brigade had two regiments, with three infantry battalions and one heavy weapons battalion each. So it might make more sense for JAP to have a 1936 Infantry template with four vertical groups. Nevertheless, "brigade" is the official name, even if we understand that it could represent a Regiment.

The boxes in the Support Brigade are not necessarily Battalion sized:


So that implies the possibility that you might have the option to attach different amounts of artillery within a Support Unit. But if that was the case I would expect the interface to give some indication of this, for instance if you could click on the Art Support Unit and select whether there are 30 or 50 guns, then maybe that number should be visible, for instance to distinguish between a standard template and one with extra artillery attached.

So I don't think that is what is meant, just that some Support Units have say 36 guns (such as Art), while others might have 18 (such as AT), some might have 100 men but others 1000. And IRL these formations were called a variety of names that the devs didn't want an argument about.

So if we assume there is a fixed size number of artillery pieces in the artillery unit in the screenshot, regardless of whether that template is German or French, then I don't think it necessarily follows that the only option to increase artillery is to use 5 XP to open up the fifth slot in the Support Brigade. You might be able to attach Artillery etc to one of the existing three combat brigades. Or, given the right hand brigade only has one slot and that would be an odd brigade to only have a single infantry battalion, then I assume this is there for you to attach an additional ART, ENG or AT for specialisation of units. For example to represent a Div which temporarily has Corps/Army assets attached.

So you could have a Div which has been deployed with the template above. You then swap that Div to use a new template you created with the right hand brigade enabled (25 XP) and the battalion slot occupied with ENG. The Div will pause while the logistics system fills up its new battalion with Engineers and their equipment ready for say an assault on a fortified province or a river crossing. Once done, then revert back to the standard Div template and the Engineers and their equipment go back in the stockpile. It's a bit of micro, but I think just about adequately represents this sort of thing if people want to do it. Or want some flavour with some Divs having Rocket Artillery or Sp.Art attached etc.

I doubt there will be any types of units to go in any of the slots which were not in HOI3. And it is possible there will be no MIL, GAR and these Divs are just represented with Inf battalions with little training and less/no Support Brigade units.

I prefer this to be kept as simple as possible. Effects of field hospitals, mobile radar, tank workshops etc abstracted in the tech tree. They serve little useful purpose as unit slots in the Div template, if they cannot engage in combat.

I generelly agree with you except: "Effects of field hospitals, mobile radar, tank workshops etc abstracted in the tech tree. They serve little useful purpose as unit slots in the Div template, if they cannot engage in combat."
If the TRAR (or tank workshop) gives back 100% of lost equipment after the battle, would you still say that it isn't worth to swap out one Recon or AT unit for this bonus?
Or if the supply unit could allways put any amount of supplies through no matter the infrastructure? Still not worth it?
If they are useful or not is a thing of balance, not a thing of definition.

I also agree that most stuff should be represented in the tech tree, but one doesn't exclude the other.
If there is a medic-tech it could give a global bonus to every division while also increasing the bonus of the medic-support-unit.
Only because their is a dedicated support unit, doesn't mean other units have not something similiar included, just in a much smaller amount.
E.g. Each unit may have 1 medic per 20 soldiers, so a 20000 man division would have 1000 medics by default. Now the support unit adds another 1000 medics.
2000 medics is better than 1000. No matter how many a tech adds globally, a division with a medic-support-unit would have that bonus doubled.

And just in case the argument follows that they game would need to have to track medics in a division. No it doesn't. It would just be like: Medic-Tech adds 1% global, adds 5% to medic-support-unit.

 

[mdw1985]

Hmmm

There are plenty good things i like to see:

AA
Military Police
Armoured Car Brigade
Logistics
Assault Engineers
Radar Intelligence
Rocket Artillery
Mobile Hospital
Commandos

 

[mdw1985]

And i would love to see ship upgrades like in DH, where you could add extra stuff in limited slots

 

[potski]

I also agree that most stuff should be represented in the tech tree, but one doesn't exclude the other.

Agreed. But while many players would like this sort of micro, many would not. I'm not saying one is right, the other is wrong. But think of it this way - how does the Japan AI intelligently decide that the square Inf Divs it starts the game with should be replaced with triangle Divs? If it compares the combat stats of the two templates it is bound to pick the square every time, surely? So you have to hardcode this into the AI to get Japan to make that change in 1941.

So I can imagine the following. The AI is hardcoded to include a Mobile Hospital in all Divs for Majors except MIL. But some clever player who knows the game mechanics sits and works out the maths that the benefit of the MP/factories used to build the Hospitals and supply them is not worth it. So a "clever strategy" is published in the forum to build all of your Divs without Hospitals, so the player has an advantage over the AI. It can't go into combat details or use Intel to tell it that the player is not using Hospitals and maybe it should learn from that and do the same.

One of the things I hated about TFH was the combined arms bonus rules. As soon as players knew these rules they would just build Divs that were AI killers, compared to the Divs that the AI would receive in 1936 and would build following the normal production script. So the production script was changed and every AI country was then producing Inf Divs with both Art and AT brigades attached. There was no flavour/immersion any more, INF Divs had to fit an exact pattern to get the bonus, and they were all the same.

So if the Hospitals did give a useful boost to stats, then the AI would just be scripted to produce every Div with a Hospital. In that situation you may as well just abstract it as a tech.

 

[Kadanz]

1. Engineers: Were also shown in one video, they give a bonus to terrain passability.
Possibly also a bonus to attacking fortified positions and/or faster fortification.

Or maybe they're lost uni graduates which took the wrong boat, in which case you'll get a huge leadership penalty.

 

[bruebottom]

Agreed. But while many players would like this sort of micro, many would not. I'm not saying one is right, the other is wrong. But think of it this way - how does the Japan AI intelligently decide that the square Inf Divs it starts the game with should be replaced with triangle Divs?

Most likely it is scripted in the ai files. All that needs to be done is to replace the Infantry (1936) template with an Infantry (1941) template and the game engine will then convert over all the old structured divisions to the new structured divisions. It should be no different from a human player who decides to remove one battalion from the division template.

 

[BestOfTheWest]

I would always expect a Division of a modern "Western" power to come along with some kind of field hospital (Chinese militias probably not, but the Chinese society always had many doctor's), so I don't think it should be included as a "support Battalion" but modeled through technologies.

It would also be bewildering for one division to have a medical support batallion while others haven't.

 

[safe-keeper]

Yeah, if something is considered to be with every division, it makes little sense to force players to have to add them through micro.

 

[Mevsrei]

Agreed. But while many players would like this sort of micro, many would not. I'm not saying one is right, the other is wrong. But think of it this way - how does the Japan AI intelligently decide that the square Inf Divs it starts the game with should be replaced with triangle Divs? If it compares the combat stats of the two templates it is bound to pick the square every time, surely? So you have to hardcode this into the AI to get Japan to make that change in 1941.

So I can imagine the following. The AI is hardcoded to include a Mobile Hospital in all Divs for Majors except MIL. But some clever player who knows the game mechanics sits and works out the maths that the benefit of the MP/factories used to build the Hospitals and supply them is not worth it. So a "clever strategy" is published in the forum to build all of your Divs without Hospitals, so the player has an advantage over the AI. It can't go into combat details or use Intel to tell it that the player is not using Hospitals and maybe it should learn from that and do the same.

One of the things I hated about TFH was the combined arms bonus rules. As soon as players knew these rules they would just build Divs that were AI killers, compared to the Divs that the AI would receive in 1936 and would build following the normal production script. So the production script was changed and every AI country was then producing Inf Divs with both Art and AT brigades attached. There was no flavour/immersion any more, INF Divs had to fit an exact pattern to get the bonus, and they were all the same.

So if the Hospitals did give a useful boost to stats, then the AI would just be scripted to produce every Div with a Hospital. In that situation you may as well just abstract it as a tech.

This argument stands no ground.
If it is like you say devs can save their time an just make 3 different division types. Done.
And even there will be a "perfect" composition to have an advantage over the AI.
Second point is, you think only black and white. If any unit would be the allround choice it is badly balanced.

They are meant to have different impacts and are more or less usefull in different situations. Like manpower saving isn't much needed for UDSSR which may use other support brigades.
So one nation depends more on it than the other, BAM, they use different support units.

 

[Mevsrei]

Yeah, if something is considered to be with every division, it makes little sense to force players to have to add them through micro.

Some people seem to miss the point here. A division that has no dedicated support medic unit still has some medical units by default, just way less.
So if you dont give them engineers do you also think there is not one guy who can dig a hole in the whole division?
Every tank crew can try and clear their path with different tools. A dedicated engineer unit will still do the job faster.

Edit: To guide this discussion back on topic, let's agree that some suggested support units are not necessary. What would you like to see as support units? What would you see as useful addition?

 

[potski]

This argument stands no ground.
If it is like you say devs can save their time an just make 3 different division types. Done.
And even there will be a "perfect" composition to have an advantage over the AI.

How many different variations of Infantry Div did the AI produce in HOI3?

A division that has no dedicated support medic unit still has some medical units by default, just way less.

Abstracted with the default, so just abstract the more advanced medical support? Otherwise where does this end - on map hospital ships you have to build at a dockyard and move around to an overseas campaign?

So if you dont give them engineers do you also think there is not one guy who can dig a hole in the whole division?

It's possible to have three or more types of engineers :
- combat, who set/clear minefields, use HE against fortifications etc.
- bridging
- build/repair of facilities

War in the Pacific has specific types for supporting airbases and ports, probably 6-7 different types of Engineers in total.

podcat already said that they are not trying to emulate Gary Grigsby, so I don't believe there will be any increase in the number of unit types, especially to include non-combat types.

 

[Mevsrei]

How many different variations of Infantry Div did the AI produce in HOI3?



Abstracted with the default, so just abstract the more advanced medical support? Otherwise where does this end - on map hospital ships you have to build at a dockyard and move around to an overseas campaign?

It's possible to have three or more types of engineers :
- combat, who set/clear minefields, use HE against fortifications etc.
- bridging
- build/repair of facilities

War in the Pacific has specific types for supporting airbases and ports, probably 6-7 different types of Engineers in total.

podcat already said that they are not trying to emulate Gary Grigsby, so I don't believe there will be any increase in the number of unit types, especially to include non-combat types.

Ok, you are right. I agree that we don't need to make this part too complex.
Tough I still think that there should be at least 6 meaningful options for the 5 slots. (Regardless of what those might be.)

 

[Denkt]

I think most support brigades numbers are based on how large the division is, a larger division need more support then a smal one.
Superior firepower doctrine probably increase the size of the support brigades giving this doctrine a noticable advantage.

 

[xerxesking]

Suggestions for other support battalions (since its battalion sized units, not bde sized)

A attached tank battalion: since the majority (50-60%) of the tank units in the war were attached to infantry divs as support, it seems like it should be a thing. adds some hard attack and such to an infantry div. I see it as a good way to extend the use of older model tanks no longer needed in the armd divs.

foreword supply group: increases the amount of supplies being held at the div level, increasing the time it takes to run out of supplies. (aware it was suggested above, but felt it was a good idea and might be wroth repeating)

MASH unit/field hospital: reduced attrition form all sources (a combination of prevention by better care for troops, and casualties being dealt with at div level returning to duty faster,

battlefield recovery/wreck mechanics team: reduces attrition for armoured units (again, better maintained and better first line support), alternately, the BN is able to re-commission a certain number of knocked out tanks, more if you win the battle (and thus hold the battlefield).

commando units: not sure how "historical" this one would be, but I was thinking of something like the SAS and rangers being used in a SF/strike role, disrupting enemy rear areas and increasing their Org loss (or equivalent)

Signals units: increased C2 ability, either increasing Org levels or increasing the commanders bonus to the unit.

 

[Denkt]

You can attach tank battalions to a normal infantry division so no need for special support tank battalion.

Commandos could work like an opposite reacon that reduce the enemy reacon stat, maybe also increase org loss as said above.

 

[tommylotto]

I read the statement by podcat on the varying size of the support units in the left most column to mean that you could attach varying sizes of each type of support unit in that slot. For example, you could have a battery/company of artillery, a battalion of artillery, a regiment of artillery or maybe even a brigade of artillery in that artillery slot. However, I concede that his statement might mean that the various support units come in one size only but the different types are different sizes -- such as artillery comes in regiment size, anti-tank comes in battalion size, etc. However, I would prefer the first interpretation as it give you much more control to customize your divisions. Not only do you need to decide what type of support your divisions get, but how much of each support types each division gets and that you can afford.

I agree with potski that the battalions in the divisions should just stick with those battalions involved in the fighting. There is no need to represent signal units, medical units, recovery units or supply units. Though I tend to disagree with him on the usefulness of various battalion types. More the merrier, I say. Give me motorized mortar battalions, flame tank battalion and amphibious heavy AA/AT battalions.