Balance discussion/suggestions

[ComradeP]

I'd be interested to understand more of what your seeing here. My general experience is that I can kill more with an assault than direct fire.

If your comments are correct, this is a strong reason to not include an inverse modifier for hex density for units below a particular size.

What I commented on was actually the reason why I'd favour higher or at least somewhat more "averaged" (to iron out the extreme cases of very few losses or high defender losses) assault losses and lower the direct fire losses, to bring them closer together. Currently, the majority of my non-air/artillery losses when defending come from direct fire, not assaults.

The size of the assaulting attacker is also important. I, and my opponents too, tend to assault disrupted platoons with 1-2 platoons and even though the disrupted defenders are often D, E or F quality, they might still hold out fairly well.

A test of an A quality PzG company of 142-144 men vs. a C quality Guards Rifle platoon of 50 men in the clear in Gertsovka.

Direct fire results for two shots (similar MP cost to an assault) average about 17-18 men, the lowest I've seen in 20 tests is 10 men and the highest 27 men. The results are fairly predictable and are usually 17-18 or higher. I usually take 2-3 losses, depending on if a mortar fires in support. The defender disrupts about 50% of the time, but even if it doesn't disrupt, if it takes 27 losses it's not really combat capable anymore.

Assault:

Odds 126:31 with modifier of 50.

Casualties

Attacker/defender, including defensive fire:
6/14
5/6
4/20
6/25
3/23 D
6/15 D
6/5 D
4/8
6/19
4/7
6/12
6/16
6/7
6/21
5/26 D
4/25
1/21
4/6 D
11/13
5/18 D

Average attacker losses: 5
Average defender losses: 15.
Disruption: 30% of the time.

It's a small test, but my experience with the game thus far gives me the feeling it's representative. I'd be happy to run a test with 100 results for both forms of attack if necessary

At first glance, the results might look similar, but there are crucial differences.

For starters, assaults are more costly to the attacker in terms of losses and fatigue. They also seem to attract more support fire from defenders or artillery. You might feel 2-3 additional losses are not much, but multiply that by dozens of attacks and your losses rapidly start to mount.

Another thing to note is the far greater variability in assault results compared to direct fire results, where you can consistently expect to get 17 or more losses (or perhaps 15 and more to account for grass) on the defender for most direct fire actions. Keeping in mind that the defender has no protection in the case of the test, you can see that results can become minimal for units in bunkers in villages.

That is the problem I have with the assault system when it comes to its effect on gameplay: due to the significant variability in results, you're essentially just rolling the dice and tactics don't really matter. After all, the 5/6 result was caused by the same unit as the 5/26 D result. All I did was load a save and click the resolve assault button again, the unit placement and conditions were identical.

Due to that variability, removing units from defensive positions becomes a mostly unpredictable affair. Some unpredictability is good, but this kind of unpredictability greatly influences the scenario's results when you have to assault units in bunkers. As you can't fire on units in bunkers with most units (or you can fire with 1 hex HA range units, but the low hard attack makes it inefficient), you have to rely on assaults. The situation will improve somewhat if Stuka units are less vulnerable so they can support you, but air support isn't always available and you will probably not have enough air support to help with every assault on a bunker position.

When you're assaulting, you're often committing the attacking unit to the assault for the rest of the turn unless the assaulting unit happens to start adjacent to its target and it has enough MP's to move. With direct fire, you have more flexibility. You can fire once, and then decide to move another unit in or move the firing unit elsewhere and still have enough MP's to move at least 1 hex most of the time.

Even with such a big difference in odds, the defenders also hold the attacker fairly well all things considered. Another reason to use direct fire when possible, as it tends to disrupt the defender more often (possibly because there are 2 disruption rolls instead of 1).

I don't expect the Guards Rifle platoon to fold immediately, but less variable average losses and a higher disruption chance would help without making Soviet defensive position untenable when paired with lower direct fire casualties for smaller units.