First World War Campaigns - More insight into combat odds

[BigDuke66]

I was just trying to elaborate how good or bad assault are in certain situations and for that I play against myself and check the combat odds.

Now is anyone able to tell me how the combat odds for an assault are calculated because I don't look through the values I get.

Here a test under normal conditions and without any terrain interfering, a German infantry unit assaults a French infantry unit from a clear hex to a clear hex:


And the assault odds are like this:


So how is 1500 calculated from the German unit that has 1065 men and that seems to have no modifiers?
And how the French unit that has 1919 with 1039 men.
What has to be taken into account is the efficiency but with only 2% men missing that can't have to much impact.
Besides that I guess maybe also the assault values have to be considered, Germans have 7 and the French 11 but still I can't put a calculation together that fits.

[ComradeP]

Sadly or fortunately depending on your perspective (you either want to know how everything works and why, or want to prevent the game from becoming an exercise in mathematics) how the combat system works isn't particularly clear.

One of the unfortunate consequences, regardless of on what side of the debate you are, is that it's difficult to comment on what could be improved, as we don't know what is causing the result we see.

[Volcano Man]

It actually *is* in the manual, the assault factor is determined from not just the assault rating, but also the defense rating of both sides. The section you are looking for is "Assaulting".

There are ton of variables involved, and the section is quite large. But the Assault Resolution subsection does say that the main assault value is derived from both the assault and defense values, so it isn't just the assault value of 7 and 11 (in this example) being taken into account. IIRC the French defense is 4 (if it is early war) and German defense is 6 so this (intentionally) removes *some* of the 7 vs 11 overmatch in this example. I presume this is why the values don't make sense to you because you thought it was only comparing assault factors.

I hope that helps.

[Mr Grumpy]

Here is the text from the manual, the text in bold does not apply in your example.

"To resolve the assault, the total assault value and the average defense value of the attacking units, as well as the total assault value and the average defense value of the defending units, are calculated with the modifiers mentioned applied to the assault values.

Total assault values are calculated using the individual assault values of each unit times its strength, with vehicle and gun units having their strength value multiplied by 10. Average defense values are calculated by taking a weighted average of the defense values of the individual units based on their relative strength.

Then two Combat Results are applied: one using the assault value of the attackers against the defense
value of the defenders, and the other using the assault value of the defenders against the defense value of the attackers. The Low and High Combat Values used for these Combat Results is determined by Parameter Data (see the Parameter Data Dialog in the Main Program)."

Assaulting successfully is something you just get a "feel" for, but obviously if you have good odds and your units have low fatigue and high assault ratings and your opponents units are disrupted, then you will almost certainly take the hex, the skill lies in the grey area when you might not have all these factors in your favour.

[Ricky B]

And I would guess it then simply rounds the values off.

So for the German assaulting, you have 1063*7/5=1488. French defense is actually 5 in the early campaign.
For the French defender, you have 1039*11/6=1904.83.

So it looks to me like there is some other small factor included, at the same value for both as the lower value comes out 12 higher and the higher one at 13 higher.

By the way, this question comes up about once a year!

[BigDuke66]

The small factor missing could be the effectiveness, but I think that should only work for fire combat and not for assaults.

But I think we are close enough, didn't think that the odds are calculated like the described under the Assault Resolution chapter, thanks guys for pointing to that.

I have written that example now into the pdf together with some other notes.

[Volcano Man]

Yes, unit quality does play a role. This is mentioned in the "Unit Modifiers" sub section of the Assaulting section of the rules. :)

[BigDuke66]

Yes but a C doesn't give modifiers, I think they would also be listed in the odds window.

[jim pfleck]

I will admit that I really more on what I have learned from observation than on the math, especially because in this game I try to err on the side of overcommitting to a melee. As a rule of thumb, do not melee any infantry battalion that is not disordered, and try to melee with 2 battalions even against a disordered infantry unit. The penalties for lost melees as an attacker can be so high that I err on the side of overkill. The downside is that now, after the melee, win or lose, you have a nice fat stack for the enemy to shoot.

[Mr Grumpy]

I will admit that I really more on what I have learned from observation than on the math, especially because in this game I try to err on the side of overcommitting to a melee. As a rule of thumb, do not melee any infantry battalion that is not disordered, and try to melee with 2 battalions even against a disordered infantry unit. The penalties for lost melees as an attacker can be so high that I err on the side of overkill. The downside is that now, after the melee, win or lose, you have a nice fat stack for the enemy to shoot.

Yes I agree, with enough experience you get a gut feeling for what assaults will be likely to succeed and which have little chance of success, but even I am surprised at times.