Am creating new balanced MP scenarios

[the_iron_duke]

Who would win the following circumstances:

1) A Fallschirmjager against a regular (British) infantry in open terrain?
2) A regular paratrooper against a regular (German) infantry in open terrain?
3) A Fallschirmjager against a regular (British) infantry in close terrain (in a forest or urban warfare)?
4) A regular paratrooper against a regular (German) infantry in close terrain (in a forest or urban warfare)?

This is assuming that Fallschirmjagers are better, or more elite, than other paratroopers, such as British Paras - correct assumption?

[the_iron_duke]

Yes, I'm going for three initiative points for all paratroop units and going for the C.D. bonuses I mooted.

Here's some stuff from wikipedia about Fallschirmager defensive prowess.

As elite troops they were frequently deployed at the vanguard of attacks and as the bulwark of a defence...

In the Battle of Monte Cassino, 1st Fallschirmjäger division[7] held the ground near the Monastery of Monte Cassino. After the monastery had been bombed by the Allies, the Germans moved into protected positions among the bricks and cellars. The Fallschirmjäger held out for months against repeated assaults and heavy bombardment. Here they gained the nickname "Green Devils" from the Allied forces for their distinctive jackets and their tenacious defence. Inflicting huge losses on the Allied forces, they ultimately retreated from their positions only to avoid being outflanked.

Fallschirmjäger also played a key role defending positions in France against much larger forces in 1944, even holding on to some of the German-occupied regions until the surrender of Germany.

[the_iron_duke]

Here are some stats I've come up with for paratroopers.



Any suggestions for ammo levels? In the Standard file all Paras have 4. In GCUR, Fallschirmjager have 6 while British and Soviet have 5.

Another couple of points if you have any thoughts:

- in the GCUR, British have 3 instead of 2 H.A.
- in the GCUR, the Soviet Paras have boosted S.A. and H.A., to British Para levels.

[the_iron_duke]

Some test results using these stats...

Fallschirmjager vs regular (British) infantry in open:

- Fschm.Jgr. kills 35% vs Br.Inf. kills 31%

Fallschirmjager attacks regular (British) infantry who's just entered forest hex:

- Fschm.Jgr. kills 21% vs Br.Inf. kills 19%

Regular (British) infantry attacks Fallschirmager who's just entered forest hex:

- Inf. kills 15% vs Fschm.Jgr. kills 26%

British Para vs regular (German) infantry in open:

- Para. kills 31% vs Inf. kills 31%

British Para attacks regular (German) infantry who's just entered forest hex:

- Para kills 19% vs Inf. kills 21%

Reg. (German) infantry attacks British Para who's just entered forest hex:

- Inf. kills 17% vs Paras kills 22%

[the_iron_duke]

Here's all the infantry. Oh, except for the British Commando unit - will have to resurrect that one (might be the same as Fallschirmjager stats)!



I'm liking how the stats are performing. These issues remain:

- could reduce M.G. units ammo by 1
- could reduce British HW and bridge-engineers Air Defense by 1
- paratrooper ammo levels to be decided

I might upload the EQ file, gamerules file and a small test scenario so the mod can be easily installed with the G.M.E., if anyone is interested in trying it out.

[ThvN]

I just got home, wow, it looks like I got to catch up a bit. I'll get some better comments tomorrow, I need some sleep first.

The ammo levels are always a bit 'gamey'... basically a standard load for units was ment for X days under certain conditions. In PzC, for tanks it seems the number of shells carried determines the 'ammo' , but for infantry I try to look at how supply conditions affect pure ammo counts, because of all the different weapons. For example, you can have huge amounts of MG ammo but what if a unit is only attacked by 'hard' targets? It still costs 1 ammo per combat, although some units carried very little ammo for AT weapons, so they would have 2 'anti-tank' ammo but 6 'anti-personnel'. So I have to work out some sort of compromise.

Some reasoning: Paratroopers should have little ammo, as they could not be supplied easily and carried very few of the heavier infantry weapons, so sustained combat would quickly deplete their firepower. And although a 'normal' light infantry unit might carry the same basic loads (meaning they have the same amount of ammo for personal and light crew-served weapons), they have more ability to carry the heavier equipment and ammo (mortar rounds, etc.) so they will have more 'ammo' game-wise.


I'll try to get some info about the Fj, but remember any experienced infantry unit can be very tough in defense, and late-war Fj did not even have parachutes, they were just elite infantry. So it's hard to say how good a 'green' Fj unit would be, although they probably had better training and higher fitness standards. I'll try to see if I can dig up some actual numbers.

I don't really know who had 'better' paratroopers, but such units relied on surprise and shock for effect and could be very vulnerable, so I guess how they are used makes more of a difference than pure combat skills. See the invasion of Crete and the 'Market' part of Operation Market Garden.

BTW, one point to ponder, the new SA and CD stats for infantry will give some units real trouble; any non-infantry 'soft' targets will get slaughtered easily in close terrain, and they will probably need good INI/SA in open terrain to avoid heavy casualties. Tanks and other units will have huge problems trying to damage them in close terrain, which is not a big problem, but it might become a bit unbalanced and then you have to adjust everything else as well.

[the_iron_duke]

BTW, one point to ponder, the new SA and CD stats for infantry will give some units real trouble; any non-infantry 'soft' targets will get slaughtered easily in close terrain, and they will probably need good INI/SA in open terrain to avoid heavy casualties.

Preliminary testing indicates this won't be the case - in fact, the results have gone the other way and the non-infantry 'soft' targets will actually be marginally better off against infantry in close terrain.

Standard EQ

German inf vs QF 25 Pdr in forest:

61% vs (10% x 0.6 =) 6%

German inf vs Bofors 20mm in forest:

61% vs (19% x 0.8 =) 15.2%

With my mod

German inf vs QF 25 Pdr in forest:

58% vs (17% x 0.8 =) 13.6%

German inf vs Bofors 20mm in forest:

58% vs (19 x 0.8 =) 15.2%

Also, the S.A. values I've used are actually very close to the original EQ files and so it is not that I have increased them, but rather that the GCUR reduced them a bit. I intentionally went back to the original S.A. figures to make combat in the open more deadly for infantry than with the GCUR - infantry vs infantry odds were 25/26% vs 25/26% with the GCUR, while with my mod they have increased to 31% vs 31%. The difference with my mod is that casualties in close terrain are greatly reduced. So before (with both the Standard and GCUR EQ files), infantry was actually more vulnerable in terrain than it was in the open, but I have reversed this so that an infantry in the open is more vulnerable than one ensconced in a forest or town.

Tanks and other units will have huge problems trying to damage them in close terrain, which is not a big problem, but it might become a bit unbalanced and then you have to adjust everything else as well.

Tanks attacking infantry in close terrain use their own C.D. stats, but the defending infantry use their G.D. stats. So tank vs infantry combat in close terrain is nearly the same. See the following results

With the standard EQ file:

Panzer IVH attacks British infantry who's just entered forest hex:

(31% x 0.8 =) 24.8% vs 49%

British infantry attacks Panzer IVH who's just entered forest hex:

44% vs (40% x 0.8 =) 32%

With my mod

Panzer IVH attacks British infantry who's just entered forest hex:

(31% x 0.8% =) 24.8% vs 49%

British infantry attacks Panzer IVH who's just entered forest hex:

40% vs (40% x 0.8 =) 32%

[the_iron_duke]

Here's a link to download the mod with infantry changes and game rules file. There's also a test scenario with all the infantry placed.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/87cqfe

[the_iron_duke]

To explain a bit more the reasoning for using C.D. increases for paratroopers...

I am using initiative to represent weapon range and the ability to produce suppressive fire. Hence the engineers have one initiative as their strength is their short-range flamethrowers, and the Machine Gun units have 6 as they have the ability to put out massive suppressive fire at distance, especially since they include (heavier) mortars.

Paratroopers fall more into the regular unit category in terms of ability to suppress an enemy unit with their firepower and therefore have 3 initiative.

They are skilled soldiers but don't have much in the way of heavy weapons. Although they perform well in the open, it would be playing to a regular infantry's strengths to fight them there, due to the regular infantry's heavy weapons advantage. Fighting in close terrain, however, the heavy weapons would be less useful and the paratroopers' individual soldiering skills would come to the fore, giving them an advantage against regular infantry.

On another note, the fun thing about the Machine Gun units is their massive suppressive fire. In addition to Mass Attack bonuses, attacking MG units with several units at once reduces their ability to put out suppressive fire. So they are best countered by organising simultaneous multi-unit attacks on them.

[McGuba]

ThvN wrote: Tanks and other units will have huge problems trying to damage them in close terrain, which is not a big problem, but it might become a bit unbalanced and then you have to adjust everything else as well.

Tanks attacking infantry in close terrain use their own C.D. stats, but the defending infantry use their G.D. stats. So tank vs infantry combat in close terrain is nearly the same. See the following results

That is correct, but I see another potential issue: the ambush pattern. When a unit is amushed i.e. it runs into a previously unseen enemy it uses its CD instead of its GD. And a human player can make use of this if the CD is higher than GD. E.g. now it is snowing / raining, but I know from the previous turn that there are some currently unseen tanks in front of my units - all I have to do is to advance with my infantry and it will bump into the tanks, get ambushed, and kill the enemy tanks using its CD even on clear terrain. In stock PzC CD is always lower so that ambush is always a disadvantage and never an advantage.

In spite of that, I really like your thinking and results so far, so I will give it a try. Infantry units in general have low movement so they rarely get ambushed. And following the above thinking one can say that the infantry could get close to the enemy tanks because of the reduced visibility in snow / rain. However, if you apply the same high CD values to the faster infantry units i.e. motorcycle, cavalry, bicycle, than it might be a problem. It would make them way to good units to recon unseen territory...

[the_iron_duke]

That is correct, but I see another potential issue: the ambush pattern.

I've run some ambush tests and the results aren't significantly different between the Standard EQ file and my mod.

Cromwell tank moves into open and gets ambushed by fusilier:

Standard: Tank kills (31% x 0.6 =) 18.6% vs Fusilier kills 35%
My mod--: Tank kills (26% x 0.7 =) 18.2% vs Fusilier kills 40%

Cromwell tank moves into city and gets ambushed by fusilier:

Standard: Tank kills (21% x 0.6 =) 12.6% vs Fusilier kills 35%
My mod--: Tank kills (19% x 0.7 =) 13.3% vs Fusilier kills 40%

Fusilier moves into open and gets ambushed by Cromwell tank:

Standard: Fusilier kills (6% x 0.2 =) 1.2% vs Tank kills 49%
My mod--: Fusilier kills (6% x 0.5 =) 3% vs tank kills 44%

Fusilier moves into city and gets ambushed by Cromwell tank:

Standard: Fusilier kills (6% x 0.8 =) 4.8% vs Tank kills 49%
My mod--: Fusilier kills 6% vs Tank kills 44%

[the_iron_duke]

I think it would be best to stick with the Standard EQ file and give all paratroopers 4 ammo.

Regarding the British Commando unit, here's wikipedia's description of their weapons and equipment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Co ... _equipment

It says, "as a raiding force, the Commandos were not issued the heavy weapons of a normal infantry battalion". I think they could perhaps have the same stats as the Fallschirmjager, but without the para ability (and better ammo). The standard EQ gives them 7 S.A. 6 H.A., so they could have their H.A. boosted (Fallschirmjager has 3 H.A.).

[the_iron_duke]

By simplifying infantry initiative into three categories - regular, engineers, machine-gun units - and expanding the range - from 2-5 to 1-6 - a couple of tactical maxims emerge:

Engineers

A full-strength engineer attacking an infantry one-on-one loses two suppression points and so attacks at 80% strength. If it is part of joint-attack and has supporting fire, the suppression is nullified and so it attacks at 100%. So the moral is: engineers are best used when they are part of a combined attack with other supporting units rather than operating independently.

Machine-Gun units

Attacking a Machine-Gun unit results in massive suppressive fire and a full-strength attacker may only be able to attack with 60% of their strength because of this. Additional supporting units, however, can reduce the amount of suppressive fire received to zero. So the moral is: if faced with an MG unit, co-ordinate a mass multi-unit simultaneous attack against it.

------------------

I'm thinking of looking at tanks next. One thing I'm contemplating is reducing tank v tank damage a little, making it slightly less lethal. Maybe slightly reduce H.A., increase G.D. or play with initiative (probably H.A. values). For the single-player campaign, changes such as this would have greater consequences as there is a time-limit on the scenarios.

[the_iron_duke]

Here are some statistics showing the effects of the biggest change I have made to the units - increased Close Defence values. These are the kill rates of infantry vs infantry combat using the Standard EQ file and my mod. (NOTE: The British infantry has one less S.A. in the Standard file, but in mine British and German infantry are equal).

Wehrmacht Inf attacks British Infantry in open:

Standard: 31% vs 26%
My mod--: 31% vs 31%

Wehrmacht Inf attacks British Infantry in forest:

Standard: 53% vs 53%
My mod--: 19% vs 22%

[the_iron_duke]

I'm thinking of reducing Hard Attack values by approximately 15%. Would this be be the best way to reduce tank vs tank intensity and casualty rates? It would be easy to adjust and has the least chance of affecting other aspects of game mechanics, from my understanding.

I feel the gameplay would benefit from this mild alteration.

[the_iron_duke]

Here are two tables comparing tank stats from the standard EQ file (ST) and the GCUR. The first table has all the Standard stats first followed by the GCUR changes. The second table is sorted by individual tank. I've grouped the Panzer IVH and IVJ together.

[the_iron_duke]

As an aside, I'm wondering about other modding possibilities, probably for other games/scenarios:

1) Going for even more realism and giving infantry two movement. HW and engineer units would move 1 hex and need a transport. Artillery would have zero move and could only move using a transport. It would make siting artillery units very tactical!

2) I enjoyed playing with the armies in my The Bulldog and The Eagle scenario that used a company as the unit scale and so the armies represented a single British Armoured Division versus a single German Panzer Division. The game mechanics were all skewed at that scale, of course, but they could be modded to scale. So a tank would be able to fire a distance of 2-4 hexes. Perhaps even infantry could fire a couple of hexes.

There's the following modifier in the gamerules file:

# Attack penalty per hex of range beyond 1
RangeAttackPenalty 0

So I presume it could be set so that distance reduces effectiveness, so artillery could have a greater range but the further away the target, the less damage done.

[ThvN]

Sorry about my brainfade with the tanks GD/CD confusion, I had myself confused about different issues: close terrain and initiative (not CD, sorry). The INI of infantry won't be capped in close terrain, but that of tanks and other units will be. This is because in PzC it is assumed that INI does not represent range in case of infantry. I've made some changes to terrain and gamerules (a few higher INI caps, different 'ShotsPerInitiativePoint') to try and get around this design. So upping the INI for infantry makes them very effective in close terrain vs. other units.

I'm thinking of reducing Hard Attack values by approximately 15%. Would this be be the best way to reduce tank vs tank intensity and casualty rates? It would be easy to adjust and has the least chance of affecting other aspects of game mechanics, from my understanding.

I feel the gameplay would benefit from this mild alteration.

That could work, a flat percentage would hurt the higher stats more than the lower ones, I'm guessing that is your intention? I'm testing another tweak to make combat less reliant on the INI differences of the units involved, and the fickle nature of the pre-combat INI dice roll. It might help get you some ideas and it is very easy to experiment with, just two settings need to be changed.

in the gamerules file I have:

ShotsPerInitiativePoint 10 (instead of the normal 20, this means every point of INI advantage gives a 10% advantage instead of 20%, so now you need 10 INI more to have all shots fired first instead of just five)
MassAttackInitiativePenalty 2 (to keep mass attack equally effective; this is so that a large number of units with lower INI can overwhelm opponents more easily.)
NoFuelInitiativePenalty can be adjusted to compensate.

There are some small unsolved problems, such as the fixed INI bonus for AT vs. tank/recon being less effective, and INI heroes are not as good as they used to be, but overall I haven't noticed any real issues.

As an aside, I'm wondering about other modding possibilities, probably for other games/scenarios:

1) Going for even more realism and giving infantry two movement. HW and engineer units would move 1 hex and need a transport. Artillery would have zero move and could only move using a transport. It would make siting artillery units very tactical!

I've not tried anything like it, because it might cripple the AI, but it could be interesting in human vs. human. Mobile artillery will become even more desirable, though (maybe nerf their range / ammo).

2) I enjoyed playing with the armies in my The Bulldog and The Eagle scenario that used a company as the unit scale and so the armies represented a single British Armoured Division versus a single German Panzer Division. The game mechanics were all skewed at that scale, of course, but they could be modded to scale. So a tank would be able to fire a distance of 2-4 hexes. Perhaps even infantry could fire a couple of hexes.

Will land units return fire vs. ranged attacks? I know ships do, but I don't think it can happen with land units, too. INI might become worthless in ranged attacks and it will come down to attack/defense only. And you'd be able to safely 'plink' at difficult targets without fear of retaliation (engineers in close terrain )

And remember any special traits will keep their effect: engineers would be able to 'zap' minefields and ignore entrenchment from behind a protective screen of tanks, for example. So try it out first to see if you like it; it might change how the game feels.

There's the following modifier in the gamerules file:

# Attack penalty per hex of range beyond 1
RangeAttackPenalty 0

So I presume it could be set so that distance reduces effectiveness, so artillery could have a greater range but the further away the target, the less damage done.

That's correct, I've put it at -1 as a testing setting, and I've been slowly working through the west GC's with that. It affects all ranged attacks vs. any target. So AAA as well, and when attacking a ship with (most) artillery guns nothing happens because the (naval) attack strength becomes 0. But you still used up it's attack... So I try to pay attention, but it's only a minor problem.

[the_iron_duke]

I will experiment with the initiative changes you've made.

My knowledge of the intricacies of tank performance is not massive, so if you have any ideas on the tanks... Otherwise, I'll try and blend the standard and GCUR stats.

Here's a British Commando unit I made.



I've given them one less ammo than regular British infantry to reflect their more light-footed role. They have regular infantry initiative and I've reduced their H.A. to 4 as they don't have much heavy weapons support and aren't designed to take on tanks. Their G.D. is one higher than regular to relect their elite status. Their "special ability" is that they have +3 C.D., reflecting their commando skills. This is the highest for any infantry and, uniquely, while other infantry will be down in odds attacking an infantry in close terrain, they can attack a regular infantry who has just entered a forest hex and be marginally up (although will be down against a more entrenched enemy).

[the_iron_duke]

Here are the aircraft in the standard equipment file (STD) and the GCUR file: