Night Distribution Percentage

[76mm]

Before this thread's imminent disappearance from the first page, I wanted to ask again whether this feature is working as intended in PzC or will be patched?

[Mr Grumpy]

If that answer is not going to be posted here by the JTS team you might want to contact Rich at JTS Support and ask him?

If you find out the answer could you please post that info here please. 

[76mm]

If that answer is not going to be posted here by the JTS team you might want to contact Rich at JTS Support and ask him?

If you find out the answer could you please post that info here please. 

David and Ed each commented here, and David said he would look into it, so I'm guessing that they're busy ATM but will respond sooner or later, so I'll wait a bit before bugging Rich.  But it would be good to know the answer!

[Volcano Man]

Well to be clear, the feature IS working as intended, as it was originally designed (in both cases) at least.

That is, in FWWC series, if the value is non-zero then assaults are disrupted. Specifically I mean that sucessful assaults take the hex, but the attackers get disrupted afterwards. Originally the feature was developed for FWWC in F14, and this behavior is how it was originally intended; the idea being that in WW1 night assaults would always cause disruptions because of the lack of radios, which makes night coordination very difficult.

In PzC, night assaults never disrupt. This is original behavior before Night Disruption was added, so basically, it is also working as the original PzC rules intend.

The unknown here is whether or not (in PzC) if the non-zero Night Disruption should be changed to check for night disruption after a successful assault, when the attacker advances, as if they conducted a normal move. That is not up for me to say though.

I simply wanted to be included in the loop on any discussion here, so that I can remind that it works differently in FWWC. Its always risky to change a feature that is shared by two different systems, but I wasn't implying that there would be any changes.

[Strela]

Some quick commentary for all.

Firstly, I have not had time to delve into this in any depth to date. I see there is some expectations for me to do that.

Ed has rightly called out that the night disruption was initially a FWWC feature of which the movement aspect was carried across into PzC back in 2011 (approx). I, personally was never involved in that decision or the rationale for the application to the PzC engine. That said, it was a good feature and it makes sense it came across.

From the testing others have done here and my observations to date, the auto-disrupt and night assault was not implemented in the crossover between series. As Ed mentions the disruption was included due to the difficulty of coordination before widespread radio usage.

I'd be happy to hear the pros & cons for including it in any future updates, but to be clear, I believe only the movement impacts are currently in the PZC series.

David

[Green]

Thanks for clarification, David.

Not sure if there are any 'pros' but the main 'con' for the status quo is that when using Night Move Disruption the situation often arises where a unit is seemingly less likely to Disrupt when assaulting an adjacent hex than it would be by simply moving to an unoccupied adjacent hex. This becomes more pronounced when the Night Move Disruption % is high (say 60 or 70%).

Taking advantage of this 'feature' has always felt gamey to me. Of course the unit still has the normal chance to disrupt for assaulting at night and the fatigue gain that goes with that, but it seems to fly in the face of logic. Automatic disrupt would seem to make more sense, to me at least.

Having said that, it has been this way for a long time an until now it was not seen as a big issue. It is certainly a long way down my own wish list of things I would like you to be looking at, but that is another story.   

John

[76mm]

I'd be happy to hear the pros & cons for including it in any future updates, but to be clear, I believe only the movement impacts are currently in the PZC series.

Guys, thanks for the feedback.  But I think the quote above is the crux of the issue, because as far as I can tell, the "movement impacts" of night assaults are not actually included in PzC.

I just ran a test from some saved night turns.  In the test, I ran 23 "successful" assaults (ie, the hex was taken) involving 46 attacking units.  In those assaults, *none* of the A or B units were disrupted after moving into the hex; two C/D level units were disrupted after the move, but I'm not sure it was because of the move (eg, they might have crossed a fatigue threshhold, etc.).

This is consistent with my overall experience--night assaults simply do not disrupt units (at least, any more than day assaults).  

I don't think that this is realistic...I think that any night assault, successful or not, taking the hex or not, would have a *very* high chance of disrupting a unit...perhaps a high-quality unit should be able to pull off an assault without disrupting every now and then, but not often.  Or if FWWC works in some other way (I don't have any of those games), at least have PzC work like FWWC, which sounds better.

Also, as to one of Ed's points, I don't think that radios (or the lack of them) is really the issue--the issue is that it's dark out there--regardless of how well "coordinated" you are, moving (much less attacking) in the dark is inherently very difficult, even for highly-trained units.  I don't think there should be any real difference between WWI and WWII games on this issue.  

Would be interested to hear if other players have different experiences or opinions of night assaults... Not the end of the world either way, but I at least want everyone to understand how night assaults currently work, so that a fix is at least considered...

[Strela]

Thanks both, very good points.

The one that really resonates with me is that assault can be used as a defacto 'safe' move.

That shouldn't be the case and at a minimum the normal night movement rule (with modifiers) should be calculated for any assault that results in the assaulting unit not disrupting due to combat.

Here is the current night movement rule;

Night Movement Rule

All units moving at night not by Travel Mode on roads or rail lines, or Rail Mode on rail lines can become Disrupted based on the probability given by the Night Movement Disruption Parameter Data Value. This probability is applied each hex the unit moves not by the stated restrictions. The disruption probability is modified by the Quality of the unit according to the following modifiers:
• The probability for Quality A units is multiplied by 0.25.
• The probability for Quality B units is multiplied by 0.50.
• The probability for Quality D units is multiplied by 1.50.
• The probability for Quality E units is multiplied by 2.00.
• The probability for Quality F units is multiplied by 4.00.

We would probably either go the FWWC path and have auto disruption for a night assault or apply the above night movement rule to determine disruption post the assault movement. Using the above rule rewards better morale units and vis versa poorer units. That way every assault has to go through two disruption checks.

One other wrinkle is whether the second check (for night movement) is not done if the unit assaults while in column while on a road. An interesting and risky option.

But all in all, I think we need to look at the 'safe move' via assault to start off with...

Please keep the input and debate going and I can then decide what we can propose to John. We will have more chance of it being included if we mirror the current FWWC methodology...

David

[ComradeP]

It's never a "free" move, as it still requires a target to assault and suffering assault losses and related Fatigue.

It sounds like a very situational issue. For example: a high quality attacker assaults a frontline weakly held by low(er) quality units at night, requiring the defenders to reposition and thus Disrupt from movement.

Could that be an issue? Sure, but the question is if this happens because of a lack of automatic night disruption or is the expected result given the difference in unit quality in the example. High quality forces also tend to be better at firing than assaulting.

Though I can see why night assaults are disruptive for large masses of men in WWI, night turns cover 4-6 hours instead of 2 for daylight turns, so progress is already very limited compared to day turns. As any rule is an abstraction that covers a lot of possible situations, it covers situations where a night attack would be very difficult (a densely forested area with significant elevation differences) or not that complicated (a carefully prepared artificially illuminated attack on fox holes in the open in front of your line). If an assault lasts 1-2 hours per normal rules, abstracted by movement points required, there's still 2 hours for units to figure out where everybody is before the start of the next turn. Or for a careful 4 hour night attack.

I think a nighttime Blitzkrieg against a strongly held line isn't likely to succeed if it wouldn't succeed in daytime.

Though I feel the night time disruption percentage is a bit too punishing for low quality forces and forgiving for high quality forces currently, I would be against automatic disruption for night assaults post-WWI.

I rarely assault anything at night aside from Disrupted Isolated defenders. I can see that there could be situations where no automatic night disruption can cause issues, but they're uncommon.

The additional Fatigue will over time be a problem for high quality formations, and it's quite risky to exploit a breakthrough at night even along a road.

[Fhil]

I have to absolutely agree with ComradeP, it must be a very situational thing and not something that is constantly happening accross all games and scenarios. Maybe some SS A quality Kursk scenario and such?

It´s never ´free´as pointed out - higher Fatigue for actions at night. 
Night assault were happening throughout the war everywhere on all fronts, when the assault was successfull, that unit probably was preparing for a morning counterattack by the enemy...now automatic disruption probably does not give a chance to take the hex at all if I´m right.

Also another thing I have to agree with ComradeP is that part with the rule being too punishing for the low quality units and forgiving to the good ones.

I always saw this rule´s best use being split in the pdt for each side (one side was usually more ´at home´in the country/area than the other) but it´s not such a big deal if it´s one value for both sides. If it´s just too high, D-quality units (most of soviet army) are punished hardly, while Germans can move with only occasional distuprions. I´mm still happy I´ve convinced you guys back in the day to include the rule with no movement points substracted after becoming disrupted  , games are played far better these days).