Role of artillery in the game

[gunnergoz]

While I realize that artillery is a tactical and operational arm, I could see it having an outcome if it were represented as a doctrine or unit improvement that is researched like any other technology. This could replicate the massed artillery used by some armies or the highly developed artillery coordination developed by others. What, if any, role does artillery play in this game? Or should it?

[firepowerjohan]

You could say Artillery is included in the research in Commander - Europe At War. Infantry Research Area has 3 technologies

attack
defence
anti-tank

where attack technology improve ground attack and shock attack, so you could say Artillery is abstracted and put into the infantry attack Technology.

[IainMcNeil]

It might actually be better represented in the shock values for infantry. Shock attacks occur before the real battle and reduce the enemies ability to fight, so improved artillery increases the infantry and armoured units shock attack.

[gunnergoz]

OK, thanks for the replies. It sounds like the game is a bit more abstract than what I had originally thought. Not a flaw, just a stylistic choice by the designers.

[IainMcNeil]

It's more a result of the scale of the game. At the level we're talking about atillery would not really be able to fire from one hex to another, and the size of an artillery formation just would never fill a hex at this scale.

[luckyluck]

uh






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[gunnergoz]

Actually, scale has noting to do with artillery's historic effect on the battlefield. The question is, is artillery as a combat arm of sufficient importance to be in some specific way represented in to a strategic game.
I would say, yes. Armies have used artillery in different ways and have had widely different outcomes from its use. It is called the King of Battles for a reason. This is not to say that we have to have artillery counters in a strategic game, but we do have to somehow represent its effect on the battlefield. Simply calling it "shock effect" is misleading, since other factors can induce shock effect, e.g. air power, chemical weapons, intensity of operations, etc.
All I'm pointing out is that, were I designing a similar game, I would have accounted for artillery as an area to research, which would give enhanced combat effectiveness to the other combat arms (infantry & armor).
Then again, I'm not designing this game...only giving my 2 bits worth...

[SMK-at-work]

If you were to include artillery as an area of research, what would be the historic basis you would use for various levels of efficiency as it got better?

[James Taylor]

Just a short outline

1. Command & Control...ie coordination, ammunition supply.
2. Forward Observer orientation and the usage of map grids for more accuracy
3. Time on target reduction/ defensive "on call" and the usage of patterns, area denial, and different ammunition types, range finding.
4. Mobility doctrine...shoot and scoot, in/out battery efficiency.
5. Airburst proximity fuse and counter battery effectiveness, multi role capabilities.

Maybe not in the best order, perhaps a little redundant, but you get the idea.

[firepowerjohan]

One of the things that is very defining in a game like this is the scale and the abstraction. We have along the way had several crossroads where we had to choose which way to go, and this also taking into consideration user friendliness, feedback and how large stress, workload and game time required to play a game with certain rules and features.

Things as
* air combat model
* strategic combat
* convoy+raiding model
* unit types and roles

have had alot of different ways to do it. The main thing is the realism vs playability issue. Sometimes it is more fun to make a game less realistic in order to provide more complexity and options for the players. One such thing for instance, would be to have different armour types (light, medium and/or heavy) moving around the map separately and also separate artillery (self propelled also). But what pleases the casual gamers and more arcadish players upsets the hardcore players and history experts. Also, if doing it the other way around abstracting too many things then the history buffs would be pleased but from a players standpoint such game might get thin with too much stereotype or worse luck factors that decide a game. So it is also complexity vs luck. Another thing is the strain for players. Some ideas are very nice stand alone but when combining too many of them can make the game too overwhelming. I do not want to point finger at any game out there, but I played some RTS WW2 where it despite having great details and good realism just became too much, too overwhelming. That is also the difficulty, some players want to be able to finish a game in 3-8 hours while some players like to have a depth that (like in empire building games) means a game can have a total time of 20-100 hours i.e huge!

[SMK-at-work]

Personally I don't have a problem with artilery being included as a "shock" value for infantry units - I quite like the idea in fact, as long as the Sov's get to have something the equivalent of their artillery divisions that they can move between formations.

And I think it would be compatable with the research model Seamonkey would liek to include - eg a division with "x" amount of artillery might get higher shock values with increased artillery tech.

SP artillery is mainly confined to mechanised/armoured units anyway AFAIK, and so can "simply" be arty that has the same movement as the rest of the division - ie it can be factored in as part of the "shock" value of an armoured or mechanised division - and again the shock value could alter with increasing artillery tech to reflect it's contribution. Andy advantages of having SP arty with an infantry division, where it did occur, is IMO, not worth representign at this kind of scale.

[gunnergoz]

Well, it's clearly abstracted and the design is set, so the argument is pretty moot. The proof will be in the game's fun and feel.

[vveedd]

Personally I don't have a problem with artilery being included as a "shock" value for infantry units - I quite like the idea in fact, as long as the Sov's get to have something the equivalent of their artillery divisions that they can move between formations.

I agree.