Normandy Patch Update

[FroBodine]

Great point, Gerry. This should definitely be added to the tutorial. It's a very important lesson to learn about the best locations (hexes) to be in for effective fire.

[nim8or]

David, I would say then that the Getting Started file should be changed to educate people. In the Kraut Corner area there is only one hex where the  Americans can affect Kraut corner with effective fire. Nothing like that is mentioned. Neither is the fact that most fire in bocage territory is so reduced (50%).

Just learning to more and fire is not enough when there is only one hex where fire is effective from.

I agree with Gerry. I've been trying to fully understand combat results and modifiers and while making progress, I'm still not there. I set up a small test scenario to test combat results on various terrain (without improvements, bunkers, etc.) and when looking at the combat results (disabling on-map results) I still can't make the numbers total up, or perhaps they do I just don't understand what the display is telling me. For example, results from the 3rd Mech Corps firing at a disrupted squad in an adjacent hex (clear firing into grass so -5% mod):

Target unit: Unknown, 3rd Mechanized Corps
      Loss of 3 men to target unit
      Range = 1 Modifier = -5%
      Fire =  33 (mod 50%)

What does the (mod 50%) mean? 50% higher?

(Fantastic game BTW - I'm just trying to understand the mechanics)

[GerryM]

Maybe the way Bunkers/Pillboxes is not buggy but what about DISRUPTION results rarely happen (especially for units in bunkers) and BROKEN results are as rare as it gets.

I think Inf can be pushed a bit to hard in PzB, no matter offense or defense. This needs tweaking in my opinion like many players already said (Look at all those threads about the topic).

A "Gamey", unrealistic, approach that produces "winning" results is not like a comprehensible approach that works as you would expect it in a realistic way.

Thanks Wiggum,

Firstly we're looking at disruption/broken and I'll layout how it works in due course.

What I'm particularly interested is some examples of 'a comprehensible approach that works as you would expect it in a realistic way'

This would assist me to understand where you (and obviously others) are being forced into 'gamey & unrealistic' actions.

We have prided ourselves on trying to have players 'discover' tactics that were used historically and that is obviously not working based on your commentary. I also want to understand whether your thoughts are only related to bunkers or are broader, covering off other games systems.

Thanks,

David

David:

Here is something I think is unrealistic. One recommendation was to leave an escape hole for defenders to run away otherwise they will fight to the death. Would an attacker in RL not just surround the bunker completely? When surrounded and massively outnumbered would the defenders not surrender?

Thanks,
Gerry

[Gregor]

[quote pid='408336' dateline='1453561748']
David:

Here is something I think is unrealistic. One recommendation was to leave an escape hole for defenders to run away otherwise they will fight to the death. Would an attacker in RL not just surround the bunker completely? When surrounded and massively outnumbered would the defenders not surrender?

Thanks,
Gerry

[/quote]

Its actually two approaches that I think is valid when trying to take out bunkers and they both have RL realistic similar tactics as I see it.

The first are a tight surrounding. When all defenders are disrupted you assault in small teams. Then half of the defenders surrender each turn. In addition some are killed in the assault. This usually takes several assaults 3-5 usually. So its a valid tactic if you have a lot of troops nearby. I think of this as a representation of small assault teams clearing out all the defensive positions one by one.

The second approach suggested by David and others are assaulting while bunkers are not surrounded so they retreat out in the open. I think of this as a realistic representation of the defending troops retreat to try to get back to their own lines in the direction they believe gives them the best chance to survive. This is the best approach when you not have enough troops to assault many times locally or if you have much ranged support that will kill off the retreating enemies out in the open.

[ComradeP]

nim8or: I'm assuming you're firing at the 3rd Mechanized Corps unit? You're probably doing it with an A quality unit, which receives a 20% quality firepower bonus due to being A quality (as documented in the manual), which is multiplied by the quality fire modifier of 2.5 (also mentioned in the manual, it's normally 1 in PzC but 2.5 in PB) to 50%.

[nim8or]

nim8or: I'm assuming you're firing at the 3rd Mechanized Corps unit? You're probably doing it with an A quality unit, which receives a 20% quality firepower bonus due to being A quality (as documented in the manual), which is multiplied by the quality fire modifier of 2.5 (also mentioned in the manual, it's normally 1 in PzC but 2.5 in PB) to 50%.

Thanks Comrade, that makes perfect sense. I knew about both modifiers, but didn't put everything together. I didn't realize the firepower bonus was multiplied by the quality fire modifier; that's significant! 

For learning and understanding, it would be wonderful to have a detailed results display available, listing every modifier applicable to the event, rather than the summary total we now have (as an option available for selection).

[ComradeP]

I didn't realize the firepower bonus was multiplied by the quality fire modifier; that's significant!

This is also why elite German units are so much better than regular D quality Soviet Rifle units (SA: 5, adjusted SA of 4 due to being D quality) or Commonwealth infantry, which have low SA values.

All modifiers are added or substracted in order to get to the modifier you see in the results overview, there are no seperate categories that are applied in a certain order.

For example: an A quality unit with an SA value of 11 firing through a hedgerow (-50% hexside modifier) doesn't have an adjusted SA value of  11x1.5=16.5 times 0.5 is 8.25, but of 11x(1.5-0.5)=11.

A C quality Commonwealth infantry unit with an SA value of 6 firing through a hedgerow has an adjusted SA value of 3.

This is why elite German PzG units still perform well when firing through hedgerows whilst compared to them Allied infantry units have the effectiveness of natives armed with spears.

By the way: it is worth noting that the quality fire modifier only applies to positive values, so D quality units don't suddenly have a -50% penalty.

[wiggum]

Maybe the way Bunkers/Pillboxes is not buggy but what about DISRUPTION results rarely happen (especially for units in bunkers) and BROKEN results are as rare as it gets.

I think Inf can be pushed a bit to hard in PzB, no matter offense or defense. This needs tweaking in my opinion like many players already said (Look at all those threads about the topic).

A "Gamey", unrealistic, approach that produces "winning" results is not like a comprehensible approach that works as you would expect it in a realistic way.

Thanks Wiggum,

Firstly we're looking at disruption/broken and I'll layout how it works in due course.

What I'm particularly interested is some examples of 'a comprehensible approach that works as you would expect it in a realistic way'

This would assist me to understand where you (and obviously others) are being forced into 'gamey & unrealistic' actions.

We have prided ourselves on trying to have players 'discover' tactics that were used historically and that is obviously not working based on your commentary. I also want to understand whether your thoughts are only related to bunkers or are broader, covering off other games systems.

Thanks,

David

What i mean is this:

Currently you have to understand the ingame Mathematics behind a combat situation rather then having to understand the situation in a military way. Knowing all the numbers and modifiers is worth a lot more then knowing real world tactics.

I mean, the FIRST tutorial has a victory hex that can only be effectively targeted by one other hex (due to modifiers).
Its not clear to the average player why without going deep into the Mathematics behind a combat situation.

I would expect HMG platoons to effectively suppress (DISRUPT) a static enemy.
Even when the enemy is in the open you hardly if ever see a DISRUPTION result from HMG platoon fire even on small (below 10) enemy units.

For me, a 15 men unit inside a bunker that takes 10 casualties should be BROKEN.
Ingame, its mostly not even DISRUPTED.

As others already wrote, in reality the hardest thing was to get close to a fortified position. A few well aimed MG bursts from a HMG that wounds 5 men of a Inf platoon and that platoon mostly bogged down, ingame this should be represented with the BROKEN status.

Currently, ingame i can run circles around fortified positions with my platoon while taking maybe 0.5 casualties per hex move and if i get unlucky i get DISRUPTED (unlikely).
But assaulting such a position, even when the defenders are surrounded and reduced to below 5 men and i assault with 180, can take 3 turns till the assault succeeds...if ever. And even if the assault deals another 2 casualties to the enemy...they most likely still dont get DISRUPTED although the player would expect them to be BROKEN by now.

I can pound the defenders in a bunker hex with 4 naval artillery units (ships) and rocked artillery and i would be lucky to see a DISRUPTED result. In any other game you would assume such a barrage would suppress the defenders at least, making their fire very ineffective for one turn (30min) at least. And even when i see such a rare DISRUPTED result, next turn its mostly gone again...(which is maybe realistic because 30min are enough to recover but because DISRUPTION results are so rare and there is no SUPPRESSION effect simulated it just dont feels right).

Sorry but i think you really need to look into the whole DISRUPTED/BROKEN mechanics again, currently its counter intuitive.
Mostly, i thinks thats because SUPPRESSION is not simulated (which would be needed for this level), instead PsB uses the same DISRUPTED/BROKEN mechanic as PzC but with changed Mathematics...but these Mathematics still dont seem to fit the scale of the game.

[Nemo84]

I fully agree with Wiggum on all three issues.

At no point does the game or the tutorial ever inform the user how these modifiers work and worse of all when a unit is literally incapable of harming its target due to -100% combined modifiers. As far as I know there is no method of seeing the combined modifier before I even shoot except with a lot of manual calculations. This seems a major oversight in the UI design.

As for disruption/broken status, units do indeed seem quite content to fight to the last man. I constantly read historical accounts of entire battalion+ sized formations stalling on the attack because the lead platoons take 10-20% casualties in a short time. Yet in the game, a company sized formation that takes 60 casualties (50%) in 30 minutes only has a 80% chance of taking a morale test and if it's an A-quality unit that test most likely has only a 16% chance of resulting in a disrupted status. That's 13% chance that a unit which is literally halved in a matter of minutes will be disrupted.
Even an E-quality company, which is considered "inferior", only has a 66.6% chance of becoming disrupted in this situation.

This is also what is causing such massive casualty figures for most battles. Instead of companies bogging down, rallying, bogging down again, withdrawing, routing,... and so on, units at 10% strength literally throw themselves endlessly into the fight until they dissolve. Units, especially under AI control, do not seem capable of withdrawing or faltering. When I played the Carentan scenario, 2 entire battalions of Panzergrenadiers with all their support formations (1500 men, 80 vehicles and 100 guns) literally dissolved themselves fruitlessly attacking my defensive line, with only 7 men and 1 gun total ever routing to the rear.

As for bunkers, I think my opinions on those have been quite clear in the past. In other realistic wargames, the challenge of a bunker is closing with it. The MGs and guns will endlessly suppress your men, and you can't suppress them back except with heavy tank or artillery fire. However, once the bunker is surrounded it is easily dispatched. In this game, the exact reverse is true. The 250m hex scale could be a factor in this, but it still feels extremely unrealistic and unfun.

[FroBodine]

[quote pid='408345' dateline='1453571116']
I agree with Gerry. I've been trying to fully understand combat results and modifiers and while making progress, I'm still not there. I set up a small test scenario to test combat results on various terrain (without improvements, bunkers, etc.) and when looking at the combat results (disabling on-map results) I still can't make the numbers total up, or perhaps they do I just don't understand what the display is telling me. For example, results from the 3rd Mech Corps firing at a disrupted squad in an adjacent hex (clear firing into grass so -5% mod):

Target unit: Unknown, 3rd Mechanized Corps
      Loss of 3 men to target unit
      Range = 1 Modifier = -5%
      Fire =  33 (mod 50%)

What does the (mod 50%) mean? 50% higher?

(Fantastic game BTW - I'm just trying to understand the mechanics)
[/quote]


I messed up the quote above, but anyway . . .

nim8or - where do you see these combat results?  Is there an option in the menus to see these more detailed results, rather than just what is shown on the map above the target (e.g. 2 men, 1 vehicle, etc.)

Thanks!