Next Generation OOB: suggestions re Efficiency, Concealment, and yes--Combat

[Celeborn]

A few thoughts for our beloved devs:

1) Efficiency gain/loss affects all units equally, a curious constant in a game that has evolved considerably. Suggest Elite units continue to recover 7 as under the current system but limit conscripts/militia to a max of 5. Better still would be to also factor Experience into Recovery as experienced units were typically able to get their act together faster. It would also be interesting to see medical-type units or leaders who can accelerate recovery (they can already inflict Shock...)

2) Allow additional units to hide in woods, towns etc. At present this is limited to infantry type units and I believe very small AT guns. Based on all of the historical accounts I have read this should include all AT guns. I would also make ANY unit in these terrain types hidden from air, or at least non-recon air. That transports, bombers etc can spot artillery in forests makes my head spin

3) At risk of provoking a firestorm I have felt for some time that non-artillery ground combat seems to favor attacking more than it should and that this is particularly evident when defending from historically advantageous terrain and/or if substantially entrenched. Not knowing the exact calculation it is hard to say if this is because of some excessive weight given to Experience, Efficiency etc but there have been countless instances where my entrenched and rested defending units in woods, towns etc were made short work of by attackers who did not have any kind of flanking or leadership bonus. As a rule-of-thumb I would say that when an attacker and defender are equal in terms of Experience, Efficiency, Strength and Attack/Defense values, an unentrenched defending unit with no terrain benefit should suffer only half the casualties of the attacker on average. I admit that it is possible I am suffering from observation bias and so perhaps the better thing would be to just share the combat calculations and see how what the community thinks.

Steve

[Erik2]

Good post.
I would add the ability to recon/special units to block supply, maybe even change hex ownership.

[JoaoLuisAngelo]

@ Celeborn/Steve
I don't have the experience to make substantive comments, but I have looked into the terrain.csv files.
As you probably know Woods/Forest, Villages/Towns, etc. have Cover and Attacker/Defender modifiers.
It could be these aren't impactful enough for the results you're expecting but there's something else that depends on the scenario designer: generic Village tiles (and Desert Village) only have Cover modifiers which means that they're not as good a defensive terrain as Town or City tiles.

@ Erik
I didn't really elaborate on this when you mentioned it previously, did I?
IRL recon units absolutely are able to shoot supply trucks or blow up rail tracks and thus disrupt enemy logistics.
Question is what is being modeled here and what makes recon units different from other units?
In OoB they don't need/draw supply and don't lose efficiency when behind enemy lines (they can even recover efficiency). They pay for it by not taking ground or cutting supply. IMO it's a decent trade-off.
Then again look at the implications of your proposed change: will they also be able to take VPs? Should they?

[Erik2]

Some scenarios dealing with special forces you want them to be able to capture objectives.
Designers usually solve this by creating triggers that do this.

I mentioned recon units because many players usually do not purchase them unless they have 2 command points left.
Same can be said of the various special units like Marine raiders and British SAS units.
But I agree, personally I use recon units for the tasks you mentioned.

[JoaoLuisAngelo]

(...)
I mentioned recon units because many players usually do not purchase them unless they have 2 command points left.
(...)

I'm spoiled The U.S. has the wonderful Willys jeeps that only cost 1 CP. Mind you IIRC I only could find a reason to buy/deploy them in the very last Tokyo scenario (does it show I've only played the U.S. Pacific campaign?).

Ze Germans have the special Zundapp but IIUC it's only one unit?

Maybe if everybody had access to a Willys equivalent at 1 CP the recons would see more love...

On a completely different note, what if normal units had the possibility of one intermediate waypoint for their movement? I'm thinking that to avoid exploitation the final destination would have to be at least as far from the starting point as the waypoint. That would prevent advancing and then doubling back. Just doing my bit to add bugs to the game :p

[Celeborn]

By recon/special I think we are talking about units with "fleeting presence" attribut, which historically were often involved in supply interdiction. Given their relatively small numbers compared to regular units I would require them to spend a turn without moving to block supply and only through their hex. I think the "fleeting presence" attribute should continue to preclude hex control, though again could perhaps see an exception made if the unit spend a couple turns without moving.

I wish they also had the ability to destroy rail hexes a la destroying bridges, though this would seemingly require giving at least engineers/Bautruppen the ability to repair rail.

Good post.
I would add the ability to recon/special units to block supply, maybe even change hex ownership.

[Celeborn]

Indeed terrain does offer "Cover" and modify attack/defense, but as you aptly noted I have not felt that these modifications have resulted in the impact their notional numerical factors suggest.

One idea that occurred to me was to increase the maximum benefit for entrenching, ie allow units to go to 15 or even 20 with commensurate additional benefit. This would significantly incentivize entrenching and make engineers and others with the "Digger" trait more valuable. There could also be a level of entrenchment at which point flanking bonuses are negated (hello Stalingrad)

@ Celeborn/Steve
I don't have the experience to make substantive comments, but I have looked into the terrain.csv files.
As you probably know Woods/Forest, Villages/Towns, etc. have Cover and Attacker/Defender modifiers.
It could be these aren't impactful enough for the results you're expecting but there's something else that depends on the scenario designer: generic Village tiles (and Desert Village) only have Cover modifiers which means that they're not as good a defensive terrain as Town or City tiles.

@ Erik
I didn't really elaborate on this when you mentioned it previously, did I?
IRL recon units absolutely are able to shoot supply trucks or blow up rail tracks and thus disrupt enemy logistics.
Question is what is being modeled here and what makes recon units different from other units?
In OoB they don't need/draw supply and don't lose efficiency when behind enemy lines (they can even recover efficiency). They pay for it by not taking ground or cutting supply. IMO it's a decent trade-off.
Then again look at the implications of your proposed change: will they also be able to take VPs? Should they?

[StuccoFresco]

Indeed terrain does offer "Cover" and modify attack/defense, but as you aptly noted I have not felt that these modifications have resulted in the impact their notional numerical factors suggest.

One idea that occurred to me was to increase the maximum benefit for entrenching, ie allow units to go to 15 or even 20 with commensurate additional benefit. This would significantly incentivize entrenching and make engineers and others with the "Digger" trait more valuable. There could also be a level of entrenchment at which point flanking bonuses are negated (hello Stalingrad)

I wouldn't allow units to entrench to 10+ on their own, but giving a trait to Engineers to permit it to units around them is a good idea.

Generally, attacking is made much easier by the lack of "opportunity fire" and the turn-based system, which is a core game mechanic and won't change. This is MUCH worse in naval warfare where defending units don't even fire back (baffling decision IMHO).

OP's point number 1 is interesting: limit efficiency recover by experience is realistic.

[cutydt02]

The idea of different efficiency by exp stars are surprising. Fresh units can recovery only 4 eff/turn but 3 stars is 7 and at 5 stars, 50% to regain 1 eff/turn without resting ? I mean we should have more kinds of reward for elite units. Like aircrafts can last longer, tanks increase percentage to break X point of entrenches, flamm tanks increase percentage to force enemy infantries to retreat…
OoB is very, very predictable compares to PC. A little gacha should be considered.

About the hiding of units in forest, it should be from air only because currently there’s no penalty of tanks in rugged terrain (one more, as PC). A surprised tank unit is very lethal and i hate the idea of splitting my force thin just to search for every hex.

Defenders suffer half than attackers ? Only when they’re well prepared (entrenches) and gain benefit from terrain (we already have this mechanic). I meant this is a turn base game, defenders are not always defenders, may both just march to a plain and be in surprising situation, etc…..

Scout can cut off supply ? No, this should not be. They can demolish city or ambush bridge to decrease supply point but they should not directly capture hexes. As i told before, split too thin around the map to search for hidden enemies is a very bad idea in term of gameplay. If you guys play PC2, the ability to surround bunches of enemy forces by scout is very broken.

[Erik2]

Interestingly, in the early versions of OOB naval units would return fire when attacked.
I wish the devs would reactivate that functionality.

[StuccoFresco]

Interestingly, in the early versions of OOB naval units would return fire when attacked.
I wish the devs would reactivate that functionality.

I wish that too, it doesn't make sense.

[Celeborn]

Wow I had no idea naval units could once fire back...makes a lot of sense for guns (if not torpedoes)

Interestingly, in the early versions of OOB naval units would return fire when attacked.
I wish the devs would reactivate that functionality.

[cutydt02]

Interestingly, in the early versions of OOB naval units would return fire when attacked.
I wish the devs would reactivate that functionality.

I dont beleive that a battleship can return fire to all attacked ships in every direction simultinously with maximum firepower. That makes no sense bro.
If devs bring this mechanic back, i wish it’s a trait for large enough ships and the return power is lower than its’s normal attack. Else the mechanic is completely broken, you will never touch a Battleship by destroyers or cruises.

[Erik2]

Agree, the number of return fires need to be kept to 1 for smaller ships and maybe 2 for battleships and large cruisers.

Or add the same efficiency mechanism used for artillery as the number of counter-battery fires increase.

[Celeborn]

When attacking a powerful ground or air unit you have to accept that the first unit will take it on the chin but that each additional attacking unit faces better prospects, esp once you get to a third or fourth attacker. Why shouldn't this apply to naval as well?

Interestingly, in the early versions of OOB naval units would return fire when attacked.
I wish the devs would reactivate that functionality.

I dont beleive that a battleship can return fire to all attacked ships in every direction simultinously with maximum firepower. That makes no sense bro.
If devs bring this mechanic back, i wish it’s a trait for large enough ships and the return power is lower than its’s normal attack. Else the mechanic is completely broken, you will never touch a Battleship by destroyers or cruises.

[cutydt02]

Bro, ground units have many weakness to exploit. Efficiency, supply line and flank mechanic. Your regular units can flank and cut off King Tiger without much calsualties, without fighting to die. All of those methods don’t exist in naval battle right ? Not to say combine unit, support fire, entrenches and terrains. A weaker unit has many ways to avoid direct battles but not a ship, except for submarine.
The nearest mechanic is artilleries, they don’t counter battery too.
We need more complicated mechanic else naval battle can be a mess with counter fire.

[StuccoFresco]

The current method of naval units being sitting ducks is worse than this. Just dropping proficiency drastically after each attack would solve the issue: the first OpFire will be on point, the successive ones will be more and more ineffective.

[cutydt02]

The current method of naval units being sitting ducks is worse than this. Just dropping proficiency drastically after each attack would solve the issue: the first OpFire will be on point, the successive ones will be more and more ineffective.

Then naval battles will be much much longer than it should be. Not to say we even more rely on aircrafts from carriers than ever. It’s not only the story between battleships, Submarine is already underpower and carriers too OP that other ships only need to hold the line. Bomber/torpedo aircrafts remain OP because of original OoB mechanic allowing them to fly for so long.
=> Naval is broken and can’t be fixed and need major updates to really be a thing.

[Erik2]

I have modded air units doubling their movement and halved the number of turns before refueling.
This simple fix works fine for me.

[StuccoFresco]

I have modded air units doubling their movement and halved the number of turns before refueling.
This simple fix works fine for me.

I did the same in my mod: I didn't like treating planes like helicopters. It makes for a much more "realistic" sortie/resupply cycle and rewards a better target selection and more accurate scouting.