WWW: The German player does not use artillery

[Alex_brunius]

On the other hand in HOI3 if you have 1 infantry and 4 artillery in a division you have a "frontage" of 1 compared to a mostly normal division (say 3 infantry and 1 artillery) of 3 and I am not sure a 1 frontage division would last very long vs a 3 frontage division given how the combat simulator works (I have not done the experiment however).

It doesn't have to last long on it's own since it has superior attack values and since you can easilly fit 2-3 times as many in key battles grinding down the enemy divisions before you even lost half org ( all else equal ).

On very spead out fronts though or 1vs1 infantry was superior in HoI3, so this was a quite reasonable balance.

 

[Kovax]

It doesn't have to last long on it's own since it has superior attack values and since you can easilly fit 2-3 times as many in key battles grinding down the enemy divisions before you even lost half org ( all else equal ).

On very spead out fronts though or 1vs1 infantry was superior in HoI3, so this was a quite reasonable balance.

In HOI3 fitting in 2-3 times as many divisions due to the limited Frontage still resulted in a significant number of INF brigades in the fight, in which case stacking penalties quickly became another limiting factor. The absurd amount of Artillery behind each brigade of basic grunts in such mass assaults was still supporting a large Infantry attack in total. One on one, such divisions weren't durable enough to face a mostly infantry-based division, particularly if also being attacked by air, they were only effective in numbers. It worked a bit oddly, and I wasn't pleased with how one could exploit the system like that (it seems that Mulitplayer is all about exploiting the system), but it worked well within normal limits. Of course, when you exceeded those limits, things got strange.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Indeed Kovax. My original point was that artillery vs infantry is hard to balance and Im not surprised it's still being worked on.

 

[Kovax]

My suggestion for balance would be to give it a modest amount of actual Attack power, along with a modifier to the division's soft attack. It would then work best in some ratio with Infantry (somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1, so it's viable with either), but would still provide some soft and hard attack if used outside of that ideal. Depending on techs and doctrines, divisions with either 2, 3, or 4 Infantry brigades per ART would be better for a given situation.

 

[Praetori]

Indeed Kovax. My original point was that artillery vs infantry is hard to balance and Im not surprised it's still being worked on.

Artillery is a divisional component that needs lots and lots of logistics to become truly fearsome. Infantry can make-due and ammunition can be supplied to the units currently serving on the fronline.
The big-guns however are virtually useless the moment they don't have enough horses or vehicles to move around or enough ammunition for lasting barrages. I'd like to see that trade off represented in-game somehow where the effectiveness of infantry-heavy divisions doesn't decrease as much as artillery-heavy divisions (given the same supply-footprint). Large concentrations of artillery should be much more effective if properly supplied and utilized but quickly lose the advantage when out of supplies.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Artillery is a divisional component that needs lots and lots of logistics to become truly fearsome. Infantry can make-due and ammunition can be supplied to the units currently serving on the fronline.

If we want to take the HoI4 supply model seriously, then a large part of the cost of artillery should represent its very expensive and bulky ammunition. Without ammunition it just doesn't work. So ideally you give artillery a very high soft attack value but also a very high attrition value that applies when it is in combat. That way you get a big bang from the artillery, but if you don't spend the IC to replace it constantly, then this firepower will wither away quickly. If you are operating it in an area where you don't have good supply, then good luck keeping up your artillery firepower. Lack of supply status will make the artillery attrition even worse.

If "attrition from fighting" is a thing in HoI4 (and it should be if equipment represents in part ammunition), then in analyzing balance, we might need to start thinking about how many total soft or hard attacks we can expect to get out of a piece of equipment on average before it will statistically need replacement.

 

[kalauer]

In todays WWW, we saw at 13:45 that there are artillery battalions as well as artillery Support companies (of the latter, only one can be used, the first one seems to follow normal battalion rules).

Besides the different stats, what is the core difference regarding the mechanics? Is there some sense to make out of it regarding real Military Setups?

 

[tom_jones]

Artillery shouldn't give a larger ORG hit to the unit that has it than what it can quickly inflict on an opponent.

Do we know for a fact it does give larger organization hit than what it can quickly inflict (while at it, define "quickly") or you're simply speculating here?

 

[Praetori]

Besides the different stats, what is the core difference regarding the mechanics? Is there some sense to make out of it regarding real Military Setups?

Well it's not entirely clear but support units (they're not companies per-se) are said to take on the special attributes of their parent division thus support artillery for armor would be mechanized, engineers or artillery in a para division would be glider pioneers or artillery and so forth.

 

[Kovax]

Do we know for a fact it does give larger organization hit than what it can quickly inflict (while at it, define "quickly") or you're simply speculating here?

At this point, I'm not absolutely sure that doesn't, but it looks that way, and it's going to be rebalanced anyway. The point is that Artillery, because it's expensive, needs to be more effective, not equal. If it reduces your own ORG just by its presence, then it has to over-compensate for that, otherwise it's pointless to add it. Giving it a huge "one shot" bonus which also reduces its ORG at the start of a fight might work (except that units fight at full strength even when down to their last sliver of ORG), and then it has to be at full ORG to regain that bonus; meanwhile its effect is relatively light. That way, it represents the initial bombardment and support phase, and when ammunition runs low and/or the division has to advance, then the heavy guns become less important than the lighter and more mobile artillery of the smaller detachments.

 

[Praetori]

At this point, I'm not absolutely sure that doesn't, but it looks that way, and it's going to be rebalanced anyway. The point is that Artillery, because it's expensive, needs to be more effective, not equal. If it reduces your own ORG just by its presence, then it has to over-compensate for that, otherwise it's pointless to add it. Giving it a huge "one shot" bonus which also reduces its ORG at the start of a fight might work (except that units fight at full strength even when down to their last sliver of ORG), and then it has to be at full ORG to regain that bonus; meanwhile its effect is relatively light. That way, it represents the initial bombardment and support phase, and when ammunition runs low and/or the division has to advance, then the heavy guns become less important than the lighter and more mobile artillery of the smaller detachments.

It's a bloody strange mechanic if arty reduces your own ORG. It's not like the artillery was the main organizational issue nor did front-line infantry get disorganized and lose their own fighting prowess if something went wrong with the arty. It's more likely to have the front line infantry battalions lose ORG if the field kitchen takes a wrong turn than the if the artillery boys manage to sink their guns in a swamp.
But I guess it's the effect of divisions being the average of all the units in the template, but once built on-map that sub-unit tracing is gone and instead just the stats.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

It's a bloody strange mechanic if arty reduces your own ORG.

As far as I can tell, ORG is really the average ORG. Like if I have a division with one brigade or two brigades, they have the same ORG, right? So to get from ORG to "number of hits the div can take before retreating", you'd need to multiply by something proportional to strength or hitpoint value. Things like movement into enemy provinces should reduce ORG directly though.

So adding ART might not decrease the number of hits you can take but could decrease how far you can advance before you need to reorganize (with rough terrain having a bigger ORG hit)?

I'm actually a fan of ART adding very few "hits before retreat" and thereby dropping the average ORG of a division.

 

[Praetori]

As far as I can tell, ORG is really the average ORG. Like if I have a division with one brigade or two brigades, they have the same ORG, right? So to get from ORG to "number of hits the div can take before retreating", you'd need to multiply by something proportional to strength or hitpoint value. Things like movement into enemy provinces should reduce ORG directly though.

So adding ART might not decrease the number of hits you can take but could decrease how far you can advance before you need to reorganize (with rough terrain having a bigger ORG hit)?

I'm actually a fan of ART adding very few "hits before retreat" and thereby dropping the average ORG of a division.

The strange thing about an average ORG though is that if you make a hypothetical scenario where you have two defending divisions with an equal number of infantry-brigades but only one of them having artillery being attacked then the division with artillery might deal more damage to the enemy but will retreat sooner than the one without. If that's the case then it's strange indeed and creating line-infantry divisions with just infantry and artillery divisions with mostly artillery would be ideal for holding the line against enemy breakthrough attempts.

 

[tom_jones]

At this point, I'm not absolutely sure that doesn't, but it looks that way, and it's going to be rebalanced anyway. The point is that Artillery, because it's expensive, needs to be more effective, not equal. If it reduces your own ORG just by its presence, then it has to over-compensate for that, otherwise it's pointless to add it.

I was paying attention to the unit stat screen in today's stream trying to figure the effect out, and it appears that, for British unit, adding artillery support decreased their organization by ~5% (roughly 3 points drop, to 55 or so organization) while granting ~20% bonus to soft attack (24 points added, resulting in 115 or so attack total) As such on paper it seems like a pretty fair trade-off that makes artillery useful addition, production cost and all. The penalty would be even smaller for the German units, which have something like over 80 organization base, thanks to their doctrine choices.

For what little it's worth, German units seem to have trouble standing up to British units equipped with artillery in the Italy fight, though that picture is muddled with presence of Italian troops and then support issues (for the British) in the latter part around the north. But with the landing of large American group there I think German player will have to direct quite a chunk of his army there to contain them, so we'll get opportunity to see how different compositions actually stack against one another.

 

[Kovax]

It would be interesting if there were some other stat besides ORG and STR to represent ammo depletion, or other factors. In essence, the unit could defend at "normal" strength, move, and do whatever else that a fully "ready" unit could, except that it wouldn't get the massive initial firepower bonus. Using the bonus would deplete that stat rapidly, so you could only use it sporadically, representing the time to restock ammunition.

By using ORG, the whole division's endurance in combat would be affected (because it's an average of all the constituent brigades). One way or another, I really hope that Paradox figures out a way to represent it realistically, rather than in a heavily stylized "gamey" manner.

 

[Praetori]

It would be interesting if there were some other stat besides ORG and STR to represent ammo depletion, or other factors. In essence, the unit could defend at "normal" strength, move, and do whatever else that a fully "ready" unit could, except that it wouldn't get the massive initial firepower bonus. Using the bonus would deplete that stat rapidly, so you could only use it sporadically, representing the time to restock ammunition.

There is. Representing poor artillery ammo or units not serviceable by not being fully stocked on artillery equipment.
It's a bit of a mind bend to see only 30/38 guns (represented by a little picture of a howitzer) and then realize that it can mean both guns lost or otherwise not usable due to a shortage of ammo, worn out barrels and whatnot but it probably works. You build new guns with IC and replace what's being attritioned or lost through action or movement (the two former could be seen as wear'n'tear as well as ammo and losses).

 

[dadiman260]

Like i said earlier trying to balance arty by making it competitive with other units is pointless what arty needs is % bonuses/negatives in certain conditions thats the best way to balance it other wise good luck because its impossible to balance something like artillery that is heavily dependent on the conditions its fighting in what also applies to most units in the game. In ww2 allot of inf was participating but the real weapons that were winning the war were few, things like artillery, tanks and planes. The real skill was not balancing those units but it was how they were used as displayed by Germans utilizing blitzing tactics which heavily relied on highly mobile tank devisions.

 

[tom_jones]

The real skill was not balancing those units but it was how they were used as displayed by Germans utilizing blitzing tactics which heavily relied on highly mobile tank devisions.

The game seems to implement this by providing certain bonuses (breakthrough etc) to specific unit types like tanks if you choose blitzkrieg tree doctrines. Which effectively means that similar units will perform differently in 'hands' of different nations, based on tactics they'll pick. I wouldn't be surprised if artillery similarly gained extra strength with choices of firepower-related doctrines, reflecting the nation's prowess at utilizing it to the best effect.

 

[Praetori]

The real skill was not balancing those units but it was how they were used as displayed by Germans utilizing blitzing tactics which heavily relied on highly mobile tank devisions.

The game seems to implement this by providing certain bonuses (breakthrough etc) to specific unit types like tanks if you choose blitzkrieg tree doctrines. Which effectively means that similar units will perform differently in 'hands' of different nations, based on tactics they'll pick. I wouldn't be surprised if artillery similarly gained extra strength with choices of firepower-related doctrines, reflecting the nation's prowess at utilizing it to the best effect.

The thing with the commonly named blitzkrieg is that it's a bit of a popular misconception. The German success didn't specifically rely on tanks or even the famed "combined arms" and artillery working together. It was rather the effect of having a well trained army with a well educated officer-corps employing decentralized command with mission-type tactics and a lot of leeway given for improvisation and coordination with other units in combination with all out warfare employing CAS in direct support roles.
The Germans didn't even have armor or even dedicated artillery-support in a lot of schoolbook "blitzkrieg" cases (like Norway, Meuse crossing, Greece etc) and still they prevailed in the early parts of the war because they fought opponents who were ill prepared at meeting the flexible mission-type tactics and decentralized decision making.

Not that it matters because people of this day and age expect blitzkrieg to exist as a "tactic" and tanks to be a integral part of that which makes perfect sense in a game in both name and style (everyone knows what is intended).

In any case what I meant to say is that the Germany in the WWW not using artillery so early in the war is not as unbalanced as it might seem but being on the offensive as he was back then I WOULD be more concerned had the opposing forces had plenty of artillery (which they seemingly didn't).

That being said it's not like the involved forces historically performed worse when supported by artillery in general (so in most cases it should be a bonus and rarely a drawback as far as combat stats go) but there are known cases (on all sides of the war) of artillery actually diminishing the operational or tactical advantage by forcing friendly attacking units to wait with exploiting a breakthrough because of friendly artillery doing their "thing". And then there's the numerous cases of friendly-fire by arty which when looking at regimental or divisional scale artillery formations even broke the back of some advances in key moments during the early part of the war (this was especially troublesome for Soviet formations at certain stages due to compartmentalization and poor communications but it happened on all sides). For defense however there's really nothing bad with having a couple of artillery battalions at your disposal compared to not having them (thus more ORG sensitivity when artillery is added would be outright stupid).

 

[Acaios]

Artillery shouldn't give a larger ORG hit to the unit that has it than what it can quickly inflict on an opponent. Combats in HOI are decided mainly by ORG, not by STR, so if ART costs twice the IC and doesn't inflict enough ORG damage to more than make up for its own lower ORG, PLUS what another INF brigade in its place would inflict, why would you build it instead of INF? On the other hand, it shouldn't be so overpowered that you build divisions with one line brigade to provide frontage, and the rest ART.

Artillery is best used as a "force multiplier", which means that it should provide a percentage boost to the line units. To put it another way, a multiplier isn't effective unless you have something to multiply. Using a brigade of heavy ART to boost the effectiveness of your INF brigades is realistic, using a brigade of INF merely to screen your massive wave of ART is not.

this.

In BICE arty has really really poor stats (1 or 2 soft attack, something like that), but it greatly improve the terrain bonus. i think this is the most effective way to represent arty in game.