Serbia '14

[Volcano Man]

I read a lot about the Austro-Hungarians, and nothing I came across would point to them being comparable to the early 1914 French. The early war French were something else entirely. What you will find is that you will often prefer the assault with A-H because its the best way to get things done and the best way to cause casualties, when the enemy has been disrupted by mass MGs and some field guns. This is true especially against the Serbs, but that doesn't mean they should have assault values of 10 or 11 in my view (keep in mind too that the early war French have -1 defense, and -1 soft attack compared to the A-H, so their assault value is much higher to reflect that too).

Furthermore, I can't see the A-H having higher assault ratings than the Germans, since they were essentially very similar to the Germans in many ways, but they wouldn't be superior (identical at best, which is currently true for the German ethnic units). And giving the A-H a higher assault rating would also make them too similar (on average) to the Russians at 9 (who have a -1 defense), and that wouldn't be right either. Essentially, the defense value has to be factored into the assault at a 1:1 (single battalion vs. single battalion comparison) - so the Russian assault total is 14 for one battalion, while the A-H assault total is 13 for one battalion, which is a good sanity check that I did when coming up with the values.

These are general observations too, the OOB is actually a bit more detailed than that.

There actually ARE some A-H units with assault strength of 8, but these are the German ethnic units (pretty sure there is something in the notes about it). Also the Serbs vary as well, depending on the "ban". 1 Ban units are 8, 2 Ban units are 7, and 3 Ban units are 6. So, man to man, average A-H battalions are the equal of 2 ban Serb units (not factoring in quality/morale), while 1 ban is superior, and 3 ban is inferior. German ethnic A-H units are equal to 1 ban (again, independent of quality/morale). This is right on the mark to me. Then combine this with the fact that the A-H almost always outnumber the Serbs everywhere. So, in many cases the A-H will have a higher assault than the Serbs they are facing, but on average they will likely be equal, which is about what my experience says is correct.

It's all very carefully thought out and detailed, and in my opinion its near perfect (certainly not in a state that I will be easily convinced to change unit values).