Unit stats and modifiers werid?

[Creet]

Hello,

I am playing DH Full on Steam and try to save Germany in 1944 scenario. Although game is more complex than HoI 2,something is a bit off for me during land combat.

1) Units seem to be extremally effective in attack. On Eastern Front it's not uncommon that 20-25 soviet divisions are winning over my 15-20 when crossing river. And vice versa. But what else to expect when in attack infantry 42 - most common unit for both sides has 35 def vun. stat vs 40 att vun. stat. So an infantry division is only ~15% more prone to take losses when attacking, than when deffending. For me it should be at least 30-40%.

2) Terrain modifiers are also strange. Inf '42 has 81% of basic attack in hills and 114% of defence. 81/114 gives us 71%, or, in other words - 29% additional edge for defender. In mountains its 63% and 88% (so 12% penalty for defending in mtn!). 63/88 is also 71%. So it doesn't matter where we defend. Screw Carpathia mountains line of defence...

3) Not to mention that mountain infantry has the same modifiers in hills, and only 10-15% better in mountains. This, with the fact that their base stats are lower makes them totally useless from March to October. Only in frozen, snowy conditions they are really better than regular soldiers. I guess Alps or Ural in July are piece of cake for everyone....

I would like to ask You for opinions on this subject and if it's possible to change that modifiers during ongoing campaign.

 

[Altruist]

[...] mountain infantry has the same modifiers in hills, and only 10-15% better in mountains. This, with the fact that their base stats are lower makes them totally useless from March to October

... and better org, faster movement and less or no fuel needs (because they lack heavy equipment).
But if you find Mtn-units useless, don't build them. I guess there is a reason why there were only very few divisions in each army.

About attack/defense values, you forgot eg. the dug-in bonus (which is huge). But it is true, you no longer need a 3:1 ratio for attacking like in medieval times. Then again... to really gain territory or tactical advantage, you do because otherwise your breakthrough won't get far before having not enough org. But you are saying, it is too easy to attack and it should be made more difficult? That's not my experience. On the contrary, sometimes defensive boni can heap up that it is almost impossible to defeat the defender in a good position.

 

[Creet]

... and better org, faster movement and less or no fuel needs (because they lack heavy equipment).
But if you find Mtn-units useless, don't build them. I guess there is a reason why there were only very few divisions in each army.

About attack/defense values, you forgot eg. the dug-in bonus (which is huge). But it is true, you no longer need a 3:1 ratio for attacking like in medieval times. Then again... to really gain territory or tactical advantage, you do because otherwise your breakthrough won't get far before having not enough org. But you are saying, it is too easy to attack and it should be made more difficult? That's not my experience. On the contrary, sometimes defensive boni can heap up that it is almost impossible to defeat the defender in a good position.

Still inf having the same bonus over attacker in hill and in mountains is not ok. Next thing I noticed are unit hard att and soft att stats. My inf'42 has hard attack = 7, mot - 3, mech -3, arm -9. So my foot soldiers are over two times better at dealing with horde of T-34s than same soldier in trucks or IFVs. And only 23% worse than division of over 200 Panthers.

 

[Altruist]

Well, first off your inf'42 has a hard attack of 4. ARM-41 has an hard attack of 8.
The 7 of your infantry you get to due to several other techs and events. The improvement in fighting off tanks was urgently needed (historically) for the infantry, so they got upgraded with better stuff and anti-tank-guns. Historically the Wehrmacht tried NOT to use its tanks vs other tanks (if it was avoidable) but the main bulk of fighting tanks was, indeed, done by the infantry. As an operational example: Rommel usually tried, with the help of his tanks, to lure the enemy tanks into range of his anti-tank brigades which were part of the infantry.

Here a list of the standard values for every unit in DH.

MOT having only a basic value of 3 hard attack... they are sitting in lorries. Motorized means they are fast, not that they are better equipped dealing with tanks.
Panzer and MOT, when you are playing the Wehrmacht, were used to support flank attacks and exploiting them with breakthroughs to encircle the enemy. The less they get into fighting, the better they work in their role. The heavy fighting is done by the foot soldiers, the infantry. And there are 2 important reasons for that:
1) After all, the "almighty" Wehrmacht was barely motorized and there were only enough resources to get them armored spearheads and not an armored army in entirely.
2) Tanks alone are quite vulnerable and need (motorized) infantry and (motorized) artillery support... surprisingly stated this way by a tank maniac like Guderian already before the war and made to doctrine by the Wehrmacht.

There isn't really a reason to be, well, somehow you seem to be offended. DH isn't without flaws and no game can be but being myself a strat & tact gamer and historically quite interested, I rather think most values in DH really add up and are quite well balanced. Actually one of the best games in that genre IMHO.

> I am playing DH Full on Steam and try to save Germany in 1944 scenario.
Well, that's certainly quite an insane difficulty level, I definetly have to admit. Good luck.

 

[Creet]

Well, first off your inf'42 has a hard attack of 4. ARM-41 has an hard attack of 8.
The 7 of your infantry you get to due to several other techs and events. The improvement in fighting off tanks was urgently needed (historically) for the infantry, so they got upgraded with better stuff and anti-tank-guns. Historically the Wehrmacht tried NOT to use its tanks vs other tanks (if it was avoidable) but the main bulk of fighting tanks was, indeed, done by the infantry. As an operational example: Rommel usually tried, with the help of his tanks, to lure the enemy tanks into range of his anti-tank brigades which were part of the infantry.

Here a list of the standard values for every unit in DH.

MOT having only a basic value of 3 hard attack... they are sitting in lorries. Motorized means they are fast, not that they are better equipped dealing with tanks.
Panzer and MOT, when you are playing the Wehrmacht, were used to support flank attacks and exploiting them with breakthroughs to encircle the enemy. The less they get into fighting, the better they work in their role. The heavy fighting is done by the foot soldiers, the infantry. And there are 2 important reasons for that:
1) After all, the "almighty" Wehrmacht was barely motorized and there were only enough resources to get them armored spearheads and not an armored army in entirely.
2) Tanks alone are quite vulnerable and need (motorized) infantry and (motorized) artillery support... surprisingly stated this way by a tank maniac like Guderian already before the war and made to doctrine by the Wehrmacht.

There isn't really a reason to be, well, somehow you seem to be offended. DH isn't without flaws and no game can be but being myself a strat & tact gamer and historically quite interested, I rather think most values in DH really add up and are quite well balanced. Actually one of the best games in that genre IMHO.

> I am playing DH Full on Steam and try to save Germany in 1944 scenario.
Well, that's certainly quite an insane difficulty level, I definetly have to admit. Good luck.

Am I offended? Rather suprised. Approach to unit balance in DH leads to quite different combat style then in HoI2Armageddon/AoD. From my perspective, Armor is useless in terms of combat eff vs oil and supply consumption. They eat oil even when stationary, so to disband them and get manpower and oil for Luftwaffe seems to be good idea. 15-20 of 'fast' units in total is enough for making local pockets.

To tell why I am not so convinced to this new unit mechanics - during my campaign I did standard manouver of pulling back on east to deal with the west. And the weakest point of my new Konigsberg-Constanta line of defence is... Carpathia mountains. Terrain not giving better bonuses than hills, and slowing my Arm divisions so they can't be fast enough to support defence before big battles are so one-sided that it's massacre of defenders. So Red enemy broke into Slovakia somewhat easy, when on plains of Poland and southern Romania was stopped.

On the other hand, in Italy, UK was driven back to Sicily mainly by my Inf force with relative ease. Mountains didn't help them so much after breaking first dug-in line.

And when it comes to historical approach - bare Wehrmacht Inf division was horse supplied bunch of poor grunts in late '44. They did not have much of AT weaponary and were easy target for Soviet Arm/Mech divisions or Western units. We should not confuse being saturated with panzerfaust/schreck individual weapons (good at close distance, so maybe big bonus for urban/mtn combat?) and serious AT cannons of caliber 75+. I know that late in a war, taking out waves of T-34s and M4s was job for TD/AT guns, and yet again, I am talking about naked Inf div, without additional brigades.

In my opinion there is no way that Panzer division at full strength (200+ Pz V tanks) is only about 20-25% better in taking out hard targets than Inf Div. And no way that this naked Inf diff is over two times better in that job than Panzergrenardier div.

 

[Pasha]

Am I offended? Rather suprised. Approach to unit balance in DH leads to quite different combat style then in HoI2Armageddon/AoD. From my perspective, Armor is useless in terms of combat eff vs oil and supply consumption. They eat oil even when stationary, so to disband them and get manpower and oil for Luftwaffe seems to be good idea. 15-20 of 'fast' units in total is enough for making local pockets.

To tell why I am not so convinced to this new unit mechanics - during my campaign I did standard manouver of pulling back on east to deal with the west. And the weakest point of my new Konigsberg-Constanta line of defence is... Carpathia mountains. Terrain not giving better bonuses than hills, and slowing my Arm divisions so they can't be fast enough to support defence before big battles are so one-sided that it's massacre of defenders. So Red enemy broke into Slovakia somewhat easy, when on plains of Poland and southern Romania was stopped.

On the other hand, in Italy, UK was driven back to Sicily mainly by my Inf force with relative ease. Mountains didn't help them so much after breaking first dug-in line.

And when it comes to historical approach - bare Wehrmacht Inf division was horse supplied bunch of poor grunts in late '44. They did not have much of AT weaponary and were easy target for Soviet Arm/Mech divisions or Western units. We should not confuse being saturated with panzerfaust/schreck individual weapons (good at close distance, so maybe big bonus for urban/mtn combat?) and serious AT cannons of caliber 75+. I know that late in a war, taking out waves of T-34s and M4s was job for TD/AT guns, and yet again, I am talking about naked Inf div, without additional brigades.

In my opinion there is no way that Panzer division at full strength (200+ Pz V tanks) is only about 20-25% better in taking out hard targets than Inf Div. And no way that this naked Inf diff is over two times better in that job than Panzergrenardier div.

I agree with some of your points. I've boosted some of the stats for MTN, MAR, and even CAV to make them more valuable and useful. I.E., MTN units attack and defend much better in mountains, hills, and cold weather. I gave CAV a slight movement boost in hills. MAR have increased states in Jungle, Marsh, River Attacks. I also nerfed naval bombers making them far less effective while increasing ship AA effectiveness. I don't even use them in my games.

 

[Altruist]

Well, the problems with units and mountains are several:
# no modern army can really fight in pure mountains
# MTN hasn't really better weaponry than the standard units but worse and less... but at least it is specialized to be light to get it somehow up a steep slope with much work
# without roads there just won't be much fighting in mountains nor much munition for prolonged fights.

Due to lack of supplies no regular army, nor MTN, can really operate in mountains... or only for a very short while.

So, the most realistic thing would probably be to give MTN dugged into mountains a very huge bonus which would make them almost invincible. Even more realistic would be not to give MTN boni but all other units much worse stats in mountains. Nevertheless in reality an enemy army would probably just pass them and cut them off from any supplies to starve them out, either by lack of food or munition.

In game terms this is rather dull, complicated and lengthy... for a territory: mountains which is basically useless.

There are/were special regions like the Finnish army in the winter war. But there they were operating with a functioning hinterland supplying them. Or the Swiss who basically threaten to destroy their infrastructure in case of an invasion. And, of course, strategic passes over or thru a range of mountains.

To sum it up: There are reasons why in WW2 MTN played only a very minor role. To enhance this, it would be like introducing a kind of minigames for the mountain regions and this is IMHO not worth it. Especially since DH is already borderline in terms of learning curve. Every addition, every further special rule might get it as closer to the best simulation as it might get if further away from a playable game.

I agree with some of your points. I've boosted some of the stats for MTN, MAR, and even CAV to make them more valuable and useful. I.E., MTN units attack and defend much better in mountains, hills, and cold weather. I gave CAV a slight movement boost in hills. MAR have increased states in Jungle, Marsh, River Attacks.

That seems a good compromise.
And I stop my rant now *grin

 

[Altruist]

[...]
3) Not to mention that mountain infantry has the same modifiers in hills, and only 10-15% better in mountains. This, with the fact that their base stats are lower makes them totally useless from March to October. Only in frozen, snowy conditions they are really better than regular soldiers. I guess Alps or Ural in July are piece of cake for everyone....

I still had this statement in the back of my mind, additionally my own assessment that any special forces: MTN, MAR, PAR and to an extent all other units which aren't standard infantry, are usually only good in "special" situations but in general warfare, when also considering cost and upkeep, inferiour to infantry.

Inspired by this fantastic AAR: Blue Sky, White Sun, And A Wholly Red Fort: Asia's Liberation Wars I started a game playing China. Quite impressive. Action right from the start (1933), a horrible starting position, huge dissent and getting worse, a vast army completly outdated, understrength with your best units blocked and not avialable but demanding supplies for which you have exactly 3 available IC, warlords everywhere, Europeans and Japanese meddling into your affairs and demanding or already occupying your territory... and then this Mao, master of guerilla, stomping thru your regions and taking them over. Playing 1933 Germany seems like a cakewalk in comparison and I needed to lower the difficulty level to "normal" to see any chance at all and not going down very quickly. Well, I digress (but I am so astonished not having found this Jewel before).

Nevertheless (my) China seems to have reached a small break fighting for sheer survival which allows to think about how to organise the army. Due to the lack of good research teams, lack of many other things and the terrain wouldn't be very suitable anyway, even a German kind of army based on infantry with armored spearheads seems difficult or rather out of the question, nor would there be much of air support and of U-boats only one tech team has ever heard and that has a skill of "1" to research this fabled thing (China starts witthout a single tech in subs).

But China has one advantage over Germany and that advantage is almost infinite: manpower. And already having quite a big infantry army, at least after you manage to unify it. The big task is not really how many more to build but how to restructure and reorganise this existing army. And here DH or in my case DH Edge of Darkness 2.2.22, excells because it allows a wide variety of upgrading and/or changing existing units (and while I think that the result is a bit overpowered and would profit from a bit of finetuning, it is a great and even realistic feature).
So the question was what all my militia and 1914 infantry should evolve to?

Something cheap. Nothing fancy. Even the upkeep needs to be low or it will be ruinous to the small Chinese industry and forbidding any development.
Technology is an uphill battles on several frontiers. Many basic techs are plain missing or from the 19th century. Tech teams are plenty but most at a skill level of "1". Those few with a skill level of "4", the highest in China, are treated like geniusses.
So any needed techs for that new army, for the few planes and those few ships from the 19th century, must be kept at a minimum and as streamlined as possible.

Conclusion:
No fancy brigades, too expensive nor can the few research spots be spared for it. With the vast MP-pool there is also no reason why not just take one additional infantry instead (which, apart form special circumstances is superiour anyway).
To my surprise I then noticed that the best tech China possessed for units are 1925 mountain and 1928 cavalry. All the more astonishing since main China at the start in 1933 hasn't even a sinlge mountain unit and only one lone cavalry. So I gave infantry, cavalry and mountain units a closer look (yes, now we are at the topic of this thread):

(excuse the horrible quality but my skills with graphics are just that bad)

Techs for mountain-25 and cavalry-28 units are existing, infantry 1926 still needs to be researched... and I am not sure wether it will be not also the ending point for the Chinese modernizing program for quite some time because the 1931 model needs an additional 0.3 fuel, a steep 30% raise in upkeep which seems horribly expensive for the moment.

The comparison proved to be rather a surprise to me.
I had thought cavalry much better and mountain units much worse. But looking closely cavalry is in 4 region types out of 8 worse than infantry and in 3 out of 7 weather conditions. Which makes it a rather highly specialized unit, absolutely great and superiour in desert warfare and of tactical value due to its 33% higher speed but should be rather sparingly used in many other circumstances. The other advantages of cavalry: the best defense values in combat and vs air, the higher suppression, are fine but come at the steep price of 2.8 supplies which is exorbitant expensive in comparison to infantry. So, no grand cavalry army as I initially had envisioned but only a few units for the huge desert regions of China and in general warfare as a tactical replacement for motorized and armored units (bad but better than nothing). The good thing, though, cavalry units can be upgraded dirtcheap from militia to the newest and best model.

The next surprise came when looking at mountain units.
12% better org, 23% better morale, same combat values than infantry or better when it comes to air, the 1925 model is the last which comes also with much better standard defense values. In all terrains and all weather situations the mountain unit is better(!) except in "clear" and "plains, urban" where it is equal to infantry (which means still better when also considering the better org and standard defense values). And all this for a supply need which is even 12.5% lower than of the most basic infantry unit.
The cumulative and multiplicative effects in combat are huge, as a rough estimation including terrain, weather, org, offense vulnerability, I'd value mtn in comparison to infantry:
2.2 times better attacking mountains, snow (best situation for mtn-units)
1.23 times better attacking plains, clear (worst situation for mtn-units).

Conclusion:
MTN-units fight better in all situations, minimum 1.23 upto 2.2 times while moving faster in 6 out of 8 terrains with additional boni in all weather conditions except clear.
Infantry can equip 2 brigades while mtn only 1 and with less variety to choose from.
Infantry is cheaper to build but minimum 12.5% more expensive in upkeep and more so with later models.

Usually it would be safe to say, the overall excellent values of MTN-units are definetly not overpowered due to its much higher production cost but let's take a look at the upgrade & reinforce system of DH (numbers from my present China game, so usually different for you but the ratios should be transferable):
Upgrading infantry 1914 all the way upto 1926 costs barely 10 IC (with the usual differences due to tech, policies and assuming cheap upgrading by prior research of at least 1 model ahead).
Upgrading infantry to a mountain unit costs 140 IC, still (too) cheap but in comparison much more expensive. But with the compounding effect that in DH upgrading happens partly automatic while bringing understrangth units to full strength (0.5 upgrade for 1 reinforce in DH, 0.75 in EoD) and China having lots of old understrength units, the upgrade costs for units of 10-50 strength can be lower by upto 50%, say 70 IC or completly free when you have enough batttles and time to just wait until repeated reinforcements have over time completly upgraded your units.

Due to the effects of possible upgrades, the cheapest way to build a new infantry is by building 1 militia and upgrading it to infantry, in my game as of now that would cost 459 IC, 165 days and an additional 0.8 supply upkeep/day (overpowered exploit because it is cheaper than actually building an infantry: 511 IC, 165 days) . Considering that MTN-units are 1.23 upto 2.2 times more powerful than infantry, the same effect I get in (my) China when upgrading 1 upto 5 infantry to MTN-units, costing 70 to 350 IC with 0.1 to 0.5 less needed supply.

And I look at China, with a spark in my eyes, and think: Yes, I've found the holy grail. That is the plan. The country with the most powerful MTN-army and the cheapest upkeep my China will once become. Shall the Japanese dare to attack us even one more time and we'll kick their asses until right out of Korea (half mountains) and you'll be thankful for the sea protecting your mainland (full of mountains) and China not having any fleet.

 

[Altruist]

Mmmh, I've noticed something strange.
So I have indeed started to mass-upgrade infantry to mountain-units. So far i did it purely via the reinforcement-slider since most units were quite under strength. Worked fine. After a while I had 15 MTN-units just from reinforcing (due to the upgrade effect of reinforcing). Then I decided to give it a break, set the reinforcement slider to zero (the upgrade slider was at zero anyway) and used the IC to build a few more factories.
Now, around 2 month later, I have 37 MTN. They just continue to upgrade. Which is double strange. Not only that the reinforcement and upgrade sliders are both at zero, most of those units have been reinforced to 100% for quite a while, thus no further upgrade should happen even if I would invest into reinforcement.

Anybody knows what's going on? Is there a known bug?

 

[Pasha]

Mmmh, I've noticed something strange.
So I have indeed started to mass-upgrade infantry to mountain-units. So far i did it purely via the reinforcement-slider since most units were quite under strength. Worked fine. After a while I had 15 MTN-units just from reinforcing (due to the upgrade effect of reinforcing). Then I decided to give it a break, set the reinforcement slider to zero (the upgrade slider was at zero anyway) and used the IC to build a few more factories.
Now, around 2 month later, I have 37 MTN. They just continue to upgrade. Which is double strange. Not only that the reinforcement and upgrade sliders are both at zero, most of those units have been reinforced to 100% for quite a while, thus no further upgrade should happen even if I would invest into reinforcement.

Anybody knows what's going on? Is there a known bug?

This is a WAD and in my opinion, a good thing. As your units receive new equipment and the training associated with the supplies slider, they will upgrade automatically regardless how much IC you dedicate to upgrades.

 

[Altruist]

WAD?

 

[Pasha]

WAD?

Sorry, WAD = Works As Designed.

 

[Eginhard 38]

Yes. Upgrade is also made, slowly, through supplies.

 

[Altruist]

Thanks for the info and excuse my ignorance abotu some (probably rather common) acronyms.

As your units receive new equipment and the training associated with the supplies slider, they will upgrade automatically regardless how much IC you dedicate to upgrades.

But I thought that upgrades would only happen
a) thru funding via the slider "upgrades"
b) and in DH full also as a sideeffect via "reinforcements" by a certain percentage (according to misc.txt 1% reinforce adds 0.5% to upgrade progress in DH Full and 0.75% in EoD)

And usually this is also the case, at least a unit will not upgrade completly on its own just without any funds.

But what I experience at the moment: It seems, once you have put ICs into reinforcements and the upgrade process for a unit has started (or perhaps has passed a certain threshold), it continues even after completly stopping any funding.

My understanding was that at least some continues IC-investment into "reinforcements" would be needed.

My 2nd understanding was, that in many cases upgrade via reinforcement alone wouldn't be sufficient. If you fill up a unit of half strength, only 25% should go towards upgrades (in DH Full). After the unit reaches 100% strength, it should be stuck at the then reached percentage of upgrade. To raise this further either additional investment into upgrade would be needed or more later reinforcements due to further battles and strengthslosses which needs to be filled up.

In my above described case it looks, though, as if the upgrade process continues even when 100% strength are reached. And all this, as mentioned, without zero IC in reinforcements or upgrades since roughly 3 game month. When I stopped funding I had 15 MTN, now I have 47 and still every few days more units finish upgrades. It's not only MTNs, also cavalry and brigades still upgrade.

 

[Pasha]

Thanks for the info and excuse my ignorance abotu some (probably rather common) acronyms.

But I thought that upgrades would only happen
a) thru funding via the slider "upgrades"
b) and in DH full also as a sideeffect via "reinforcements" by a certain percentage (according to misc.txt 1% reinforce adds 0.5% to upgrade progress in DH Full and 0.75% in EoD)

And usually this is also the case, at least a unit will not upgrade completly on its own just without any funds.

But what I experience at the moment: It seems, once you have put ICs into reinforcements and the upgrade process for a unit has started (or perhaps has passed a certain threshold), it continues even after completly stopping any funding.

My understanding was that at least some continues IC-investment into "reinforcements" would be needed.

My 2nd understanding was, that in many cases upgrade via reinforcement alone wouldn't be sufficient. If you fill up a unit of half strength, only 25% should go towards upgrades (in DH Full). After the unit reaches 100% strength, it should be stuck at the then reached percentage of upgrade. To raise this further either additional investment into upgrade would be needed or more later reinforcements due to further battles and strengthslosses which needs to be filled up.

In my above described case it looks, though, as if the upgrade process continues even when 100% strength are reached. And all this, as mentioned, without zero IC in reinforcements or upgrades since roughly 3 game month. When I stopped funding I had 15 MTN, now I have 47 and still every few days more units finish upgrades. It's not only MTNs, also cavalry and brigades still upgrade.

Correct. You can allocate 0 IC to upgrades and reinforcements and your units will still (slowly) upgrade as long as they are receiving supplies. This was enabled in the 1.02 or 1.03 patch many years ago.

 

[SpaceViking]

All units will upgrade slowly (really slowly) even if you invest nothing via the upgrades slider. Not sure what happens if you click on "Don't upgrade this unit".

By the way, MTN units get even better later. The MTN equivalent to the same year INF use less or even NO oil plus all the other better stats. This is HUGE for many countries.

Where MTN falls down is in producing them. They take more IC plus something like twice as long to produce new. You can go the upgrade route of course but most of the time that is IC not being spent elsewhere and time. Still, later in the game converting INF to MTN can make sense especially if you are running low on manpower and/or oil but have lots of excess IC (or time via the supplies route). I had one game as Germany where I pretty much ran out of oil in late 1945. I've seen the AI do this, too.

MTN can also only have one brigade attached which is not normally a problem as I doubt many people ever do that.

 

[Altruist]

Correct. You can allocate 0 IC to upgrades and reinforcements and your units will still (slowly) upgrade as long as they are receiving supplies. This was enabled in the 1.02 or 1.03 patch many years ago.

Ah, ok, I missed that. Thanks for clarifying.

By the way, MTN units get even better later. The MTN equivalent to the same year INF use less or even NO oil plus all the other better stats. This is HUGE for many countries.

Yup, that's why am upgrading my inf to mtn, see my comparison of inf-mtn-cav above.

Where MTN falls down is in producing them. They take more IC plus something like twice as long to produce new.

My 47 MTN with more to come... were basically free upgrades from INF so far because most units were at 33% strength. I've only invested into reinforcement, not a single IC into upgrade.

Even if you need to pay the full upgrade price, as I mentioned above, if the shown upgrade prices within DH are correct they need "a bit" of finetuning. Some examples (values are from my China game and running Edge of Darkness but it is similar in DH full):

475 IC, 190 days: 1 infantry produced normally
334 IC, 184 days: total cost and time for producing 1 militia and then upgrading to infantry

1197 IC, 315 days: 1 MTN produced normally
465 IC, 270 days: total cost and time for building 1 militia, upgrading to infantry, upgrading to MTN

This means establishing MTN-units via an upgrade chain is even cheaper than normally producing 1 infantry and MUCH cheaper and faster than 1 normally produced MTN... which is obviously completly unbalanced.

MTN can also only have one brigade attached which is not normally a problem as I doubt many people ever do that.

Hehe, in my process to transform the multitude of Chinese infantry into MTN, at one point I did realize that this would restrict them to 1 brigade. The result: The new and rare special forces might become ordinary infantry. Because sometimes, as rare as it is, equipping 2 brigades is very valuable: attacking a region with 6 forts that can only be reached over a river (Gibraltar, Singapore, partly Shanghai) can, when sufficiently defended, be a nightmare. It really helps using your best officer with trait fortress buster and giving him your best units which are infantry equipped with superheavy artillery (60% bonus + 2 softattack) and an engineer brigade (38% bonus: 20% river crossing, 15% fort attack, 3% urban or mountain).
While MTN-units have a better base attack vs forts and mountains, they neither can deploy super heavy artillery nor 2 brigades. One of the very few incidents when MTN are not superiour to infantry.

But in general you can usually get around it via other tactics, especially if you lack the expensive superheavy artillery good for nothing else. In the case of Gibraltar and Singapore the best approach is probably a continues attack with alternating units to wear down the org of the defenders. And Shanghai additionally allows a brute force approach with a hellish lot units from several sides. .
Nevertheless, when those spots are adequatly defended, it is always an endevour to conquere them. Kudos to the British Imperialists for finding and fortifying such splendid spots. Gibraltar has never been conquered but survived even one of the longest (if not longest) sieges in history and the conquest of Singaporeby the Japanese was an astonishing military feat previously not thought possible.

 

[SpaceViking]

The SH artillery is SOOO tempting every game but I know it is a trap and wasted IC much better spent elsewhere. Too bad they aren't special for doing something like shore defense aginst amphibious assaults or something.