Stacking penalty question

[Saltynuts]

So I finally found the battle display or whatever its called (thanks Commander!). So I've got my Spanish allies attacking with one stack of 10 units. No more. The stack is commanded by a Field Marshall, which can of course command 12 units. Yet there was a 60% stacking penalty! Sure, it was attacking out of a province that had a bunch more units, but I didn't think that mattered - I thought it was just the size of the force attacking out of that province that determined a stacking penalty in an attack situation? What gives?

Thanks!

 

[Pang Bingxun]

There are many penalties for the size of a force in battle. All have in common that only divisions in battle are relevant.

Over command limit penalty: -75% on attack and defense for any division above the command limit.

Over max amphib size penalty: -10% on all divisions on attack and defense per each division above the limit. So with 6 division attacking with only 3 allowed means -30% on all 6 divisions.

Naval stacking penalty: -2% on all divisions on attack and defense for each division above 2, so 26 divisions means -48% on all 26 divisions.

Air stacking penalty: This one applies only to the bigger one of the opposing forces, for the smaller force this penalty is always 0 und thus does not exist. For the larger force with A divisions compared to B divisions for the smaller force the penalty is 50% x (A-B)/(A). It applies to all divisions but only on attack. Essentialy it means that each division "too" much gives only 50% of its regular firpower, but it is averaged above all divisions. Also it means that if both forces are of the same size no penalty applies, so when 16 divisions are fighting 16 division no penalty applies.

Land stacking penalty: For X divisions it is (1 - (sqrt(8*X+1)-1) / (2*X)) on all divisions and only on attack. This one might be the most important one. One way to interpret it is that one should not attack or defend with less than 6 divisions and quadrupling the size of your force only about doubles its firepower. So spreading your force a bit may be rational. The credit for finding the formula for the public goes to Mor_Rioghain:

stacking penalty = 1 - (sqrt(8*X+1)-1) / (2*X)
where X is the number of units

 

[Saltynuts]

Thanks Pang. I have to tell you, I'm not quite sure how that that land stacking penalty formula works (probably forgetting the correct order of operations. Is the formula the equivalent of (1 - (sqrt(8*x+1)-1)) / (2*x)? (I added another parens set to try and make it clearer) Or something different? Maybe its 1 minus (then parens around everything else)?

 

[Pang Bingxun]

Is the formula the equivalent of (1 - (sqrt(8*x+1)-1)) / (2*x)?

No. It is 1 - ((sqrt(8*X+1)-1) / (2*X)).

 

[Saltynuts]

OK, so if I have 10 units, is the answer the stacking penalty is 40%? If so, any idea why mine showed 60% last night? Note also It was attacking a province that had only 3 U.S. units. It showed a 30% stacking penalty. Per the above I get a 33% stacking penalty - sound right?

Thanks!

 

[Pang Bingxun]

OK, so if I have 10 units, is the answer the stacking penalty is 40%?

No it is 60%. 3 divisions give 1/3, 6 give 0.5, 10 give 0.6.

 

[Saltynuts]

Ah, forgot to subtract it from one. Got it.

This high a stacking penalty surprises me for so few units. Is it just your firepower that is affected? If I can get 24 units in a province to attack out of (with an HQ), is that still generally the best option (assuming I have plenty of units to cover the front elsewhere)? I mean, as opposed to attacking 4 different times with 6 units each time to wear out the opponent, for example (or 2 units 12 times, etc. etc.).

 

[Pang Bingxun]

Is it just your firepower that is affected?

Yes, only attack is reduced.

If I can get 24 units in a province to attack out of (with an HQ), is that still generally the best option (assuming I have plenty of units to cover the front elsewhere)? I mean, as opposed to attacking 4 different times with 6 units each time to wear out the opponent, for example (or 2 units 12 times, etc. etc.).

That answer might be harder to answer than it may seem. The natural choice would be to use as many troops at once as you can. Without any good reason to act differently i would choose the 24 divisions. That way your hourly firepower would be about twice as high and this the time of the battle only about half as long, thus your losses in manpower would be only about half as long.

Regaining strenght, regaining supplies and regaining org might potentially change that. If you can regain Org very fast, than alternating the fighting forces might allow you to fight longer. This might be relevant under exception circumstances, but in 99+% of cases the full scale attack is clearly preferable. Another issue is tc-overload. If your tc only allows to attack with 6 or 12 divisions without causing overload, that might change the favour aswell. But between the start of the tc-overload and it becoming a signicant effect many days may pass. Weeks may pass for it to grow relevant, but afterwards it might also take weeks to regain proper values for supplies, org and strenght, so one should not take it lightly either. An entirely clear judgement does not seem indicated, but it properly is best for you to ignore this section and simply always go for the full scale attack.

When discussing troops of same quality, say 24 Inf1941-Art, the logic seems clear. But that may not be the case. Available leaders and their rank may influence the judgement, albeit probably not by much. What may influence judgement by a lot is huge differences in quality. Adding unbrigaded divisions to a battle fought by brigaded divisions may decrease firepower. Much more pronounced is the issue of militia. Adding them to a battle may decrease your battle performance severely. But i suppose both cases are seldomly relevant either.

What usually is relevant is that usually more than just one province can be attacked simultaneously and that most provinces can be attacked from 3 or more provinces. Attacking a probvince from 4 directions gives a +30% bonus on attack, and also on defense if i recall that corretly. For 5 directions its is +60%, for 6 it is +100%, for 7 it its +150% while for 3 it only is +10%. Attacking many provinces from many provinces helps you to maximize that bonus and to minimize stacking penalty. That way you can maximize the total attack you deliver each hour to your enemy, thereby hopefully exceeding his abilty to recover from those attacks.

But than again concentrating your attacks on a few provinces near to each other may help you gain a decisive advantage in that part of the front, thus allowing you to eliminate many divisions. In total the issue is amazingly complicated, arriving at different conclusions seems quite likely. I cannot claim not to be a bit confused myself.

 

[Commander666]

So I finally found the battle display or whatever its called (thanks Commander!).

EUREKA! Now you can learn everything about AoD because that is where the results of everything happening is visible. Well, I call it Battle Display because it displays the red/green battle bar. But opening that reveals the mystery that is AoD.

Is the formula the equivalent of (1 - (sqrt(8*x+1)-1)) / (2*x)?

Oh my Gosh! Lord, please let me never read such a horrible formula again when I'm only playing my favorite game. Well, at this point I radically disagree... I like a simpler equation: "+1 province taken = all OK".

What the heck does stacking penalty matter? If you win battle, it is totally OK. In fact, it becomes extremely desirable as a side effect of a powerful force. If you are not getting a good size stacking penalty, you simply aren't using your army very much. Instead of working with ridiculous square roots, people should be concentrating on increasing angles of attack, and "YES" increasing total attack size (READ STACKING PENALTY) to win that battle the quickest way and with least loss of org and strength to yourself.

The only time when stacking penalty matters in so much as you should actively do something about it (or make a decision what forces to commit based solely on resultant stacking penalty) is with air craft where having more gives you unfair stacking penalty and the enemy none. But if enemy land forces (or ships) are getting stacking penalty then your bigger stacking penalty to have a bigger force so you win is an inconsequential matter. Much better that one concerns themselves with the weather than the stacking penalty your attack force will produce.

Anyway, that is were you will find "lack of supply" if that condition exists... and that is something player should scrutinize. But I ignore stacking penalty as much as I ignore the obvious like a 1-ton pick up only being able to haul 1/10 of a 10-ton truck. It is a consequence of the force you gathered... and hardly anything to be afraid about. If you reduce stacking penalty by dropping out units you would weaken your attack.

This has been proven with amphibious assaults using 9 marines that far exceed the allowed limit and penalties are up at about -90 total (for EVERY marine division). But 9 marines on one attack using different angles of attack still perform far better that 3 marines x 3 attacks when the target is big (perhaps 6-9 defenders).

It seems what all this complex math is missing is a concept every experienced player is aware of: "Having lots of extra org to soak up hits" or what I describe as having "Oomph." Oomph doesn't show up in any math calculation.... but play enough and you soon realize why having BBs or CAs in a CV battle is so important (the BBs and CAs increase the org to soak up hits). But the math would wrongly figure that you only increased stacking penalty because the BB or CA, out of range, doesn't even fire. But strangely, they help significantly win the battle.

And bigger armies (attacks with bigger stacking penalty) simply have so much extra Oomph that stacking penalty is compensated for... .... .... in spite of all the precise mathematics that would show otherwise and conclude there is the optimum size over which more force yields less results. That simply is math with flawed results as regards the reality of AoD battles.

In AoD (especially Land Combat) the LAW is actually quite simple: "THE MOSTEST IS THE BESTEST". Yes, all the negative modifiers do matter, but they can all be over powered by simply adding more units - except for OVER COMMAND (EDIT: and weak units or units low on org) as those extra units actually lessen your attack.

Don't get me wrong, I don't advise just adding the mostest. One should add what is needed for an efficient win... and experience will decide exactly what that is.

But this experience is best gotten by watching the Battle Bar (and seeing what is the result of committing an additional unit or stack) as regards the Red Line... and not using math to calculate isolated parts of a most complex whole.

If the original designers had wanted us to get seriously into math to play this game I think they probably would have given a short cut to a calculator interface. But instead they designed the most phenomenal visual display that is calculating every math fact pertaining to every battle. Why re-invent the wheel when the math facts driving AoD are staring you in the face?

 

[Commander666]

PUMPING ATTACKS:

The following is an special battle tactic that further supports that increased stacking penalty is far less of a consequence than the added Oomph of the extra units producing the extra stacking penalty.

If a battle is not going so well, try dropping a whole stack from the battle. With stacking penalty reduced (and the firepower of those units gone) the battle bar immediately drops against your favor. But about 2 hours later, re-add those units to battle with Support Mission. You will get an instantaneous recovery of the battle bar AND WITH CONSIDERABLE EXTRA MOVEMENT OF RED LINE TOWARDS WINNING.

You can keep dropping out stacks, and re-entering them, several times to "pump up the battle bar towards winning". You can use same stack several times.

Logic (and math) would indicate that with dropped out units returned to battle fairly quickly, the result should be quite similar to what it was before units dropped out. What is causing the very noticeable and considerable increase in battle bar past where it was every time the same units dropped out get entered back? Clearly the answer is not "Increased stacking penalty".

There can only be one logical answer: "Pumping battles works because it is the introduction of extra Oomph that causes a major shift as the total positive of that exceeds the incurred extra stacking penalty." It is the sudden addition of extra Oomph that causes a very favorable reaction. This principle is so evident that worrying about consequential stacking penalty is the wrong focus.

CAUTION: This does not work on a battle you are losing, but it does work on a battle you probably will end up winning but it would take much longer time resulting in many extra loses. And don't go "Over Command" with the stacks you are adding back to battle on Support Mission.

 

[Commander666]

STACKING PENALTY DOES MATTER, BUT... ... ...

If I earlier gave the impression that stacking penalty does not matter, that was not intended. As a huge negative modifier in combat, stacking penalty matters very much but, for the most part, it is the consequence of gathering a large force to win.... and in that regards mostly stacking penalty is irrelevant. If you make small attack to have a small stacking penalty - and lose battle - it soon is apparent that increasing attacking units to win means that the stacking penalty is not the main concern. The main concern is firstly gathering a force big enough to win; and larger stacking penalty incurred with that is simply the consequence of army groups big enough to win battles.

 

[Expression]

So I finally found the battle display or whatever its called

And how does it look or where to find it?

 

[Pang Bingxun]

And how does it look or where to find it?

Just go to an ongoing battle. On one side all divisions of your alliance are listed, on the other side all divisions of the enemy side are listed. You can mouseover any division and all its modifiers are listed.

 

[Commander666]

You need to CLICK on the battle (so it opens to give a more detailed display). It looks RED generally, and should catch your eye.

 

[Mjarr]

So I finally found the battle display or whatever its called (thanks Commander!). So I've got my Spanish allies attacking with one stack of 10 units. No more. The stack is commanded by a Field Marshall, which can of course command 12 units. Yet there was a 60% stacking penalty! Sure, it was attacking out of a province that had a bunch more units, but I didn't think that mattered - I thought it was just the size of the force attacking out of that province that determined a stacking penalty in an attack situation? What gives?

Thanks!

Stacking penalty occurs always and essentially you can ignore it in most cases as long as you are in command limits. It's only real effect is to make brigades bit more useful and prevent 120+ division battles being over in a day as was the case in HoI2.

Only real exceptions might be really poor terrain and some other situations where simply tossing winning force at once might actually lose, usually straits, landings or well dug-in mountain\swampy areas. Of course in those cases it's going to be manpower-heavy to grind through but still doable with manual tinkering.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

It's only real effect is to make brigades bit more useful and prevent 120+ division battles being over in a day as was the case in HoI2.

And that prolongation of battles can become rather severe. 45 divisions suffer excatly 80% stacking penalty which increases the duration of battles by more than a factor of 5. Changing weather, a higher portion of night fighting, lower supplies, and less utilization of the higher org loss caused by high attack values applied against single divisions: All that may make a factor of 5 a factor 6. That still is not too bad. But a battle lasting a week may allow to shuffle in fresh reinforcements. That may then allow formations low on org to leave the battle, resta few days to regain Org and then rejoin the battle. A battle that may have lasted a day without stacking penalty may thus last many weeks.

If a severe tc-overload lasts for weeks than a strategic dimension is added into the picture. Recovering from that can take a while.

A general effect of stacking penalty is that it magnificies weaknesses. With -20% from lack of supplies 15 divisions could equal the attack from 12 divions full on suppliees if no stacking penalty applied. But as it does apply 18 divisions are required to reach 99.8 of the attack of 12 properly supplied divisions.

 

[Commander666]

Stacking penalty occurs always and essentially you can ignore it... ... ...

Now, why couldn't I have said it this simply?

 

[Commander666]

And how does it look or where to find it?

Checking the manual, I see it is called Active Combat Hot Button. When you are in MAP MODE, at top left there are 6 Hot Buttons with the last being the Force Pool (Strategic Redeployment).

The 5th button is the Active Combats and will go red/orange whenever there is any combat.
Click on it and it lists all the different combats.

NOW, click on any combat to open the "combat display" for that combat. Every unit involved in that combat is now displayed, and mousing over the units gives detailed info about everything regarding that unit.