Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: MVP7

Considering the scale of the game I think the most accurate description would be the concentration of artillery including stockpiling of ammunition and high level of planning/coordination.

The typical Corps sized infantry force that occupies a single square in SC:WW1 would have both light and heavy artillery with it. No "hex" would be manned just by infantry and light artillery without any heavy artillery, air elements or cavalry. Units like Detachments and Garrisons are relatively weak on offense and I assume that is because they have relatively small amount of artillery compared to Corps sized units.

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As a historical example, at battle of St. Quentin Canal in September 1918 the Entente forces started an assault on German line with "56 hour" artillery bombardment. The British has amassed over 1600 artillery pieces (1,044 field guns and 593 heavy guns and howitzers) for a 10.000 yard long front, which fired almost a million shells during the last 24 hours of the bombardment. That heavy gun concentration is still not even close to the total amount of guns the British had, but the number of involved guns, the prepared stockpile of ammunition, and the degree on preliminary planning was obviously well beyond the normal level.

The advancement in artillery technology and doctrine at St. Question was also obvious. At the start of the war in 1914 the artillery was largely light direct fire support with the larger "siege" guns rare and underdeveloped. The artillery shell consumption had been severely underestimated resulting to stuff like the 1915 Shell Crisis.

At battle of Somme in 1916 the massive Entente artillery bombardment of over 1,6 million shells failed to destroy the German fortification (apparently they used shrapnel shells among other mistakes). The tech and doctrine had improved significantly but were far from perfect.

However at St. Quentin the well planned bombardment included special fuses for destroying the barbed wire, gas shells for hitting the enemy artillery, supply and HQ units, as well as creeping barrages to support the infantry assault. All that allowed the Entente to break through the Hindenburg line with relative ease. I think it's safe to say that in the end it was the artillery that won the battle and the war (on the battlefields at least).

This kind of well prepared large artillery operation is what I assume the in-game artillery "unit" represents, rather than just a literal collection on guns. With slowed down development of artillery in the latest patch of SC:WW1 the pace of artillery development seems to better match the historical course, although the research of ammo production could be still be slower for it to be maxed closer to the end of war.

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The maximum amount of ammo per artillery unit could be slightly lower because two artillery units can still neuter any fortification in the game from full strength in a single turn without any input from the defender before the attacker can take over with minimal losses. At St. Quentin Canal it doesn't seem like the Entente had any massive advantage in the numbers of infantry but they still won (which is pretty remarkable considering the losses the attacker would typically suffered just couple years earlier). Even though they won, they still suffered about 24,000 casualties to the Germany's 36,000. That is far more relative casualties than you will typically suffer taking a hex after a (fully upgraded) artillery preparation in-game.

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If I have understood correctly, the different types of artillery units in SC:WW1 exist for use in smaller scale scenarios where differentiating between artillery types actually makes sense (i.e. "Move this heavy artillery brigade from this village to that field"). On strategic scale you are not really going to say "Lets send all the 155mm guns to Somme and leave nothing but 75mm to the rest of the front". At strategic level the artillery will move and operate as a part of larger formations and at most you will have a relatively high concentration of well prepared and organized heavy artillery at specific part of the the front, rather than permanently independent massive artillery formations with exclusively big guns moving around freely.

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ORIGINAL: MVP7

I'm still pretty sure it's not as clear cut as Corps has 75mm and Artillery has 155mm but rather a more abstract top-down representation of the strategic capabilities. The total number of artillery units in-game is probably more closely tied to balance than exact historical artillery formations and total number of guns.

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In general a WW1 Corps will have couple infantry divisions and often some corps troops. While the corps troops might include artillery, most of the guns would be under the infantry divisions. Here's UK 'X Corps' for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corps_(United_Kingdom). In 1918 the Corps included two Divisions (29th and 30th), Signal corps, Cyclist battalion and Heavy Trench Mortar Battery (these have about 2km range). The divisions themselves had variety of guns from Horse Artillery Brigades to 18-Pounder Brigades to Heavy Batteries with guns like 'BL 6-inch gun Mk XIX'. Mortars were present on Brigade and Division levels.

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Realistically any Corps in the game would have plenty of light and medium guns/howitzers as well as some heavy guns. Under normal circumstances these would be used to defend and support any local actions, which is where the overall units stats and that de-entrenchment (a concept which also shouldn't be interpreted too literally) comes from. For large scale operations some extra artillery units could be detached and concentrated into a small area, large amount of ammunition could be prepared and the use of artillery fire could be planned and coordinated to much higher degree than normally. That's what the artillery "unit" in the game best represents. It's not a literal Army Corps sized collection of all the heavy artillery of the nation, any more than a HQ unit is a dude with a table and a map.

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The way I imagine infantry attacking ships in harbor is also a bit more abstract: Partially it's just field artillery setting up and peppering the ship, but the ship (or rather a group of ships) has also obviously been caught with it's pants down. The ship has to leave in hurry and some supplies are not loaded in time, some crew is stuck in the fighting and never makes it back to the ship. Maybe the attackers commandeer coastal guns and turn those on the ship. Maybe some valiant officer leads a small group on a row boat to attach a bomb to the side of the ship in middle of the night. Overall it would be less realistic if ship could remain in harbor and not suffer from the enemy corps occupying the city.

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ORIGINAL: MVP7

Germany does seem get the short end of the stick when it comes to total number of artillery units. Another anomaly is that UK gets more artillery units than the French even though the French had far more guns by the end of the war.

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Couple thought regarding your build limit testing:

France, Britain and Germany pay the same for artillery research which is a big MPP sink over the course of game. Reducing the number of guns available to France and UK that much means they end up paying almost twice as much as Germans to keep up in artillery tech (The rest of the majors will likely to be lagging behind anyway).

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I think one of the UK guns is generally needed in Africa which limits the number of Entente guns on the Western Front to 3 with your limits. Meanwhile the CP can concentrate all 4 German guns there and can even operate the A-H guns there. CP in general can operate its forces around much more easily than the Entente which is very convenient.

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Italian, Serbian, Ottoman and to lesser extent A-H and Russian artillery techs tend to lag behind. With just 5 shells per gun you'll struggle to make any advances even in the late war without concentrating most of the artillery units in one place and Russian probably doesn't even have the units for that with the limit set to 2 (Meanwhile it could be facing up to 8 Ottoman, A-H and German guns).

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Personally, on top of your changes, I'd make the shell limit 8; Set artillery limits to UK=3, France=3, A-H=3, Russia=3, Italy=2, USA=2. What CP loses in numbers it can somewhat mitigate with easily mobility between Eastern and Western Fronts. Raising German number of guns to 5 doesn't sound impossible but they would be capable of deploying those early and have them researched very fast which might be the reason they have such a low limit in the first place (together with the easy operating).

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ORIGINAL: MVP7
France, Britain and Germany pay the same for artillery research which is a big MPP sink over the course of game. Reducing the number of guns available to France and UK that much means they end up paying almost twice as much as Germans to keep up in artillery tech

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

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ORIGINAL: MVP7
France, Britain and Germany pay the same for artillery research which is a big MPP sink over the course of game. Reducing the number of guns available to France and UK that much means they end up paying almost twice as much as Germans to keep up in artillery tech

This isn't a big deal in the long run. The total number of guns is far more important. Entente has an advantage here, regardless of what someone said about shuffling. Germany has the benefit that because artillery can conquer any single hex, Verdun and Warsaw are targets to fall early. But in the long run it's a bloodbath of artillery on each side destroying units. The entente simply have more artillery and can do more damage each turn.

If you're concerned about how much the tech costs you're also overlooking the extremely generous free artillery units the Entente gets, especially Britain. Hell they even get a free artillery in Iraq later I believe.

The nations the aforementioned tech costs are a "big deal" for are Ottomans and Italy. They start late and have tiny economies which strain hard to both buy the tech and the guns (300 MPP each plus upgrade costs). Italy could potentially buy two artillery and the Ottomans three. But it's not particularly realistic that these units show up with upgrades and increased shell production in time to be anywhere near as valuable as say 'a German artillery piece upgraded and in position to fire 10 shells at Verdun in June 1915'. Ottoman upgraded artillery probably won't realistically appear until late 1916, assuming the Entente player pressures them at all (they should).

So basically the Ottomans get zero artillery when it matters most (1915-16).

The greater number of artillery corps available is one of the greatest Entente advantages in the game and shouldn't be underestimated*

*I should note that Bulgaria does importantly add one artillery for Central Powers. Romania and Spain (cringe) can get one each. And I think the USA gets 4? Greece can buy one artillery too which makes it imperative to conquer Greece quickly if they join the Entente.

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

I think one simple improvement would be to lower the maximum tech level of Gas/Shell production to 2 (from 3) and decrease the maximum invested in that tech from 3 to 1. Maybe also increase the tech cost to 125.

Historically the WWI nations were slow to recognize they would run out of shells, but in my games I make gas/shell production a priority and I often invest 3 chits into it.

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ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

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ORIGINAL: MVP7
France, Britain and Germany pay the same for artillery research which is a big MPP sink over the course of game. Reducing the number of guns available to France and UK that much means they end up paying almost twice as much as Germans to keep up in artillery tech

This isn't a big deal in the long run. The total number of guns is far more important. Entente has an advantage here, regardless of what someone said about shuffling. Germany has the benefit that because artillery can conquer any single hex, Verdun and Warsaw are targets to fall early. But in the long run it's a bloodbath of artillery on each side destroying units. The entente simply have more artillery and can do more damage each turn.

If you're concerned about how much the tech costs you're also overlooking the extremely generous free artillery units the Entente gets, especially Britain. Hell they even get a free artillery in Iraq later I believe.

The nations the aforementioned tech costs are a "big deal" for are Ottomans and Italy. They start late and have tiny economies which strain hard to both buy the tech and the guns (300 MPP each plus upgrade costs). Italy could potentially buy two artillery and the Ottomans three. But it's not particularly realistic that these units show up with upgrades and increased shell production in time to be anywhere near as valuable as say 'a German artillery piece upgraded and in position to fire 10 shells at Verdun in June 1915'. Ottoman upgraded artillery probably won't realistically appear until late 1916, assuming the Entente player pressures them at all (they should).

So basically the Ottomans get zero artillery when it matters most (1915-16).

The greater number of artillery corps available is one of the greatest Entente advantages in the game and shouldn't be underestimated*

*I should note that Bulgaria does importantly add one artillery for Central Powers. Romania and Spain (cringe) can get one each. And I think the USA gets 4? Greece can buy one artillery too which makes it imperative to conquer Greece quickly if they join the Entente.

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with this, especially the fact that the Entente can field much more arty later in the game.

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ORIGINAL: MVP7
increasing the cost of the research by 25 would mainly hurt the poor majors I think.

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

I am a bit confused by the USA having a maximum of 4 artillery units. Apart from completely tipping the balance against the Germans on the Western Front if they join the war early, did the USA bring over any heavier artillery themselves, or did they rely mainly on purchasing British and French guns?

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

Logistics sounds cool. I still think the rate of shell replacement is more important than total stored shells. Gas/shell tech investment rate should be slowed down. And maybe artillery should start with 0 de-entrenchment and only reach 1 at level 2? Not sure, that could make trenches TOO effective in 1915, but currently around mid 1915 it becomes a slog fest of death OR both sides back off with a true "no mans land" hex row that neither side ventures into. The reason that artillery is so powerful is NOT because of their total shell supply but because it de-entrenches 1 level per shot with no limit. If you spend 10+ shells on one unit, yeah it takes damage and has low readiness, and it will die, but you used a ton of shells which you won't immediately get back. The enemy gets a breather. Far more efficient (except when dealing with forts cities) is spending 2-3 shells to de-entrench the enemy and then having those shells ready again next turn. You can easily kill a unit with no (or just low) entrenchment and take minimal losses in the attack. Yes total shell capacity does have an effect particularly when the enemy retreats (artillery might reach their cap and "waste" some shell production). It's a cool addition but I don't think it would solve the problem.

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ORIGINAL: mdsmall

I think the automatic 1:1 ratio of shells fired to de-entrenchment achieved (at artillery tech 1 and above) is the nub of the problem. One approach would be to reduce the effectiveness at de-entrenching per shell fired at a uniform ratio, as suggested by Chernobyl and This End Up. For example, at 0 artillery weapons, you could have 0.25 de entrenchment per shell fired; 0.5 at 1 artillery weapons and 0.75 at 2 artillery weapons. This would have the advantage of giving even artillery at 0 tech some capacity to de-entrench, if they fire most or all of their shells.

Another approach would be to have diminishing de-entrenchment effects with the number of shells first (as discussed higher up in this thread). For example, say at artillery weapons 1, the first two shells fired would de-entrench at 0.5 per shot; the third and fourth shells would de-entrench at 0.4 per shot; fifth and sixth at 03. per shot and so on. Thus, an artillery piece with 10 shells could de-entrench by 3, if it fired all its shells. This would still make artillery useful, especially in conjunction with infantry or air attacks, but a single piece could not completely de-entrench a corps in 5 or 6 level fortress. It also strikes me as a bit more realistic.

However you do it, If you diminish the combat effectiveness of artillery, I think you could achieve most or all of what has been suggested in this thread.

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

Summary of artillery ideas:

4) Make artillery's effectiveness more directly related to its readiness (right now it doesn't really matter if it's attached to a HQ or not or even at full strength; it still de-entrenches fully and even does damage)

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

3) Reduce total number of artillery corps available for select nations, perhaps eliminate a couple events where nations get free artillery (stockwellpete)