TOE, attack types and probability of success (Full Version)

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Hoggorm -> TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/30/2019 5:16:06 PM)

Hi again,

1 - I have never played the full campaign, so I do not know how relevant TOE is in the smaller scenarios. I do not understand the TOE setting very well. I understand it has something with how much reserves a unit will receive compared to another unit?

I was wondering what considerations are taken when adjusting the TOE as I see many players do.

2 - I find it hard to figure out if I should use a deliberate or hasty attack. It appears as my unit with a CV of 8 should easily win over a Soviet unit with CV of 1 or 2 or even 3, so I try with a hasty attack. The enemy hold the position. Attacking another unit with the same relative CV values I attack with a deliberate attack (learning from my previous error) and now I win with an odds of 23:1 (!) so a hasty attack should have been more than enough.

Now I understand there are some variables involved that I do not see, but I was wondering what you experienced players generally think and how you choose whether to use a deliberate or hasty attack.

Does it all comes down to experience and intuition?



Telemecus -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/30/2019 5:53:53 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hoggorm
1 - I have never played the full campaign, so I do not know how relevant TOE is in the smaller scenarios. I do not understand the TOE setting very well. I understand it has something with how much reserves a unit will receive compared to another unit?


It would be easier to comment on common advice for the campaign game and then you can work back to see if it applies at all. My suggestions relate to the Axis side not the Soviet side.

Each unit will have a class of ToE listing the manpower and equipment it should have - at least when its actual ToE is 100%. This periodically does change for each unit and you should check if its ToE class will change in a turn soon (listed in commanders report). If the actual ToE is lower than the max ToE set for that unit, during the logistics phase ground elements of that type will be taken out of your pool (the middle column in your production screen) and added to units - starting with those on refit first. During the logistics as well AFVs and aircraft produced in your factories will be added to your pools, they are produced on a fixed schedule. For all other equipment (artillery, rifles etc) the AI will spend arms points producing equipment it thinks you will need given your current surpluses and shortages. To create ground elements it will also remove the spare manpower it needs from your pool.

If you left all of your max ToEs on 100% which is the default you would not notice too many problems at first. During Blizzard you will notice that many of your front line units do not receive the replacements they need but stay in the pool. However this problem eases towards the end of blizzard. But, at least in older versions of the game, you would find the AI has spent many of your arms points creating artillery (expensive) to replace what you have lost, but not the infantry replacements which suffer badly in the blizzard. Your infantry divisions can function with less artillery, but not without infantry replacements. This means they remain unready or depleted until your factories create new arms points that you can use to create the infantry you will be most short of. Soon after that though you will find your German and Finnish manpower pools empty - not all of your units can have their full 100% ToE. If you do not cap some, you will leave the AI to choose which ones manpower goes to, and they may not be the best ones you really want them to go to.

Common advice to Axis players is to place all your SUs that need arms points to replace elements in them on the max 20% ToE which is the lowest the program will allow you and to do this from turn 1. (Note some SUs need AFVs not arms points to create them and can be treated differently). The aim is to stop the AI producing replacement artillery etc - instead you are saving as many arms points as possible to create the infantry replacements you will need at the end of the blizzard. Only when that is done and you know you will not be left with zero arms points to replace the infantry you lost in blizzard can you start raising the max ToE on those SUs like artillery again which you will then need as manpower will be scarce after that. (Note this was advice developed on testing the game in much earlier patches and so some of this advice may need to be moderated now.)

Other advice relates to the size of your army during blizzard. You will lose a proportion of the men you leave in the field to the effects of weather. If you can leave fewer men out in the blizzard (by choking replacements) then you will lose fewer men that way. Whether you think you can afford to artificially reduce the size of your army during blizzard and still hold the places you want to during the Soviet offensive is down to your plan and skill and judgment to execute it.

You have many SUs that withdraw. There is no point giving replacements to support units that will take replacements away from the war of the east to presumably fight in the war in the west instead. You can also try to reduce replacements to on map units that are withdrawing but if they are under 75% ToE when they are supposed to withdraw then they will remain on refit on the west edge of the map unchoked until they get 75% ToE.

Given that you will eventually have manpower shortages, and soon for Germany and Finland, you will want to decide where manpower replacements go to. For example do you need to leave some army recon airbases or RHG HQs on 100% manpower if it means your elite combat units have fewer men.

You may eventually have other shortages - like not enough tanks to replace your missing ToEs for units that use them. Again choking replacements for less important units ensures they will go to more important units.

You can use max ToE settings tactically too. You may have choked one of your less good units from receiving replacements. But if you know it will be in a key battle next turn, increasing its ToE to allow it more replacements will be a way of making it stronger for then.

There are other smaller points too.

I guess how it relates to your scenario is where your manpower and arms points are at, and which periods of the war they will be covering?

One important point to note if your max ToE setting is set below your actual ToE. It will not then take ground elements out of your unit (unless your ToE is over 100%). It will only not send replacements to it. So even if many units have a max ToE of 20%, few of them will ever get an actual ToE close to that.

Post 961 in this AAR http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4250683&mpage=33 contains a spreadsheet detailing the max ToE setting for every unit for every turn in that game. If you want to see detail for comparison in another game you can use that resource.



Telemecus -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/30/2019 6:23:10 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hoggorm
Now I understand there are some variables involved that I do not see, but I was wondering what you experienced players generally think and how you choose whether to use a deliberate or hasty attack.

Does it all comes down to experience and intuition?


Although there are variables you do not see and experience and intuition can help, nevertheless it helps to know more of the formula for battle success under the hood.

click on 1.9 in the first post here http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4317692

You can use soft factors to tell what a units experience or morale is like. Get to know who are your good commanders, and who your enemies good commanders are and where they are. Use air recon, air bombing, or probing moves and attacks to find out about your enemy. Knowledge is never perfect, but you can increase your chances of knowing what the final battle result will be.



No idea -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/30/2019 9:43:59 PM)

My rule of thumb is that you can hasty attack if your CV is 3 times that of the enemy, while you are better with a full attack with twice the CV. Of course, lots of things affect this (previous bombings, reserve units, fatigue, attack across river...) but I think it is a good “rule”



Hoggorm -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/30/2019 9:52:31 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

It would be easier to comment on common advice for the campaign game and then you can work back to see if it applies at all. My suggestions relate to the Axis side not the Soviet side.

Each unit will have a class of ToE listing the manpower and equipment it should have -...-


Thank you for that long and good explanation! I'll have to experiment a bit with it as I have some problems seeing the immediate effect of changes I do. But that might just be because the effects take some time to show itself?


quote:

ORIGINAL: No idea

My rule of thumb is that you can hasty attack if your CV is 3 times that of the enemy, while you are better with a full attack with twice the CV. Of course, lots of things affect this (previous bombings, reserve units, fatigue, attack across river...) but I think it is a good “rule”


That sounds like a good rule of thumb to start with at least.



56ajax -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/30/2019 11:05:27 PM)

Playing as the Soviet I tend to run out of Armament Points (used to build equipment) by Dec 41 so i reduce all Support Unit TOES to 80%. This is to ensure that equipment goes to Divs and Brigades and not support units.

I also reduce the TOEs on all pocketed out of supply units. Even if i open the pocket it is rare that a unit will escape and thus i do not want reinforcements rushing in for the surrender ceremony.



joelmar -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 1:36:55 AM)

Another thing to take into consideration when deciding between hasty and deliberate is the result you need.

Low odds attacks (like 2:1 or 3:1) usually result in retreat. High odds attack have much better chance of routing or even shattering.

With this knowledge, take this situation: you are facing an infantry div in a clear hex with a defensive CV of 3. Behind that unit there is a level 2 fortified hex in a swamp with a 1 CV unit as garrison. You decide to attack the inf div using a 12 CV infantry div and you go for a hasty attack. Basically that means 12/2 (CV halved on hasty attacks) = 6, which is twice the CV of the inf div you are attacking, so in theory a 2:1 attack. All is well, good odds, should succeed. And it does, result = retreat.

But the enemy retreated into the fort, so you are now facing 2 units with a total of 4 CV in a fortified swamp hex. That has a potential of taking much more power to clear than if you had simply made the initial attack with a deliberate attack and routed the 3 CV infantry far away.

Of course you could also decide on making the hasty attack with 2 divs instead of using 1 in a deliberate attack, and then still have MP's in those 2 divs to continue on.



56ajax -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 5:14:27 AM)

and remember CV as displayed on the counter is rounded down eg 4.9 will be displayed as 4.



Bear1888 -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 11:11:33 AM)

very intresting stuff about CV and attacks. thanks you guys.



Hoggorm -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 2:16:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bear1888

very intresting stuff about CV and attacks. thanks you guys.


I agree. Thank you all!



Crackaces -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 2:25:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: joelmar

Another thing to take into consideration when deciding between hasty and deliberate is the result you need.

Low odds attacks (like 2:1 or 3:1) usually result in retreat. High odds attack have much better chance of routing or even shattering.

With this knowledge, take this situation: you are facing an infantry div in a clear hex with a defensive CV of 3. Behind that unit there is a level 2 fortified hex in a swamp with a 1 CV unit as garrison. You decide to attack the inf div using a 12 CV infantry div and you go for a hasty attack. Basically that means 12/2 (CV halved on hasty attacks) = 6, which is twice the CV of the inf div you are attacking, so in theory a 2:1 attack. All is well, good odds, should succeed. And it does, result = retreat.

But the enemy retreated into the fort, so you are now facing 2 units with a total of 4 CV in a fortified swamp hex. That has a potential of taking much more power to clear than if you had simply made the initial attack with a deliberate attack and routed the 3 CV infantry far away.

Of course you could also decide on making the hasty attack with 2 divs instead of using 1 in a deliberate attack, and then still have MP's in those 2 divs to continue on.


Just a small caveat to your thoughts.

There are two conditions for a shatter/rout result.

quote:

...retreat may shatter at the conclusion of the combat instead of retreating if it is extremely
weak due to a combination of low morale, experience and TOE percentage and is no longer
considered a viable combat unit ...
So if a 2:1 attack forces a retreat and that unit goes into an unready state .. it will shatter instead. In the 8MP game on turn 63 I began to notice this .. and this might indicate strategically a real manpower problem

Then there is what you point out:

quote:

A combat unit that is in Supply and forced to retreat will rout at the conclusion of combat if the final combat value odds ratio is greater than the morale of the unit. For example, at the conclusion of a battle, a unit with morale of forty will rout if the attacker’s adjusted CV is greater than forty times the defender’s adjusted CV. The exception is that if a unit has a valid hex to retreat to, then it will not be susceptible to a rout as long as it passes a check where the unit Morale is greater than or equal to 40+die(15).
This means that units with morale that is 55 or greater will never rout...


The above about morale of 55 is not entirely clear it just means that morale of 55 or above will not rout if there is a place to retreat. There is some calculation made when retreating through ZOC's that can cause a rout instead. I have an example where a panzer division with a morale of 90 routed. My thought is that it went through the 'no place to retreat code" and routed instead. Some of these software behaviors are not documented clearly.




Crackaces -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 2:37:26 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bear1888

very [interesting] stuff about CV and attacks. thanks you guys.


Also know there is non-alt CV games and alt-CV games. Alt-CV the combat numbers are quite a bit higher and take in account factors not represented in the non alt CV game. The combat engine is no different -- just the accounting of factors is much different.

The other thing not mentioned yet in this thread is firepower. Unlike the typical war game where you calculate odds and take your chances on a combat results table, WITE has a complex firepower system where each device/squad uses its weapons vs a random device/squad. These devices have rate of fire, blast, anti-armor and anti-infantry ratings that are applied in a combat system that uses an algorithm ranking firing devices by ranges. A very key concept is that a disrupted result means that the device or squad no longer applies their CV value when the smoke clears, So one side disrupting more units then the other side can cause the adjusted value to tilt considerably lop sided. Non supported Soviet infantry units in the open vs a Panzer division with support units nearby might be smashed with a an initial 1-1 attack or less while a unit sitting in a fortified swamp might take CV 5-1 because as the smoke clears the attacking devices suffered much more disruption than the defenders.

This takes some getting used to ...



joelmar -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 3:09:04 PM)

@Crackaces: my comments were rule of thumb and general of course and not to be taken as anything certain, as with so many parameters and multiple dice rolls involved, attacks are never certain in this game exactly like they aren't in war.

That said your comments are very instructive so thanks for those precisions.

For the firepower and good combinations of SU's attributions in attacks to maximise possibilities, that is a realm that I'm aware of but I still have to investigate. I guess watching battles at level 7 is a must, I should follow your lead in this :-) It's a long process of course.

I certainly like to disrupt with air ground attacks before attack by ground units for that reason, and most of the time I assign SU's to attacks anyway, so I still benefit from it, but with better knowledge of SU's effect this could be maximised. And diminish attacking losses too.



Crackaces -> RE: TOE, attack types and probability of success (5/31/2019 7:16:26 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: joelmar

@Crackaces: my comments were rule of thumb and general of course and not to be taken as anything certain, as with so many parameters and multiple dice rolls involved, attacks are never certain in this game exactly like they aren't in war.

That said your comments are very instructive so thanks for those precisions.

For the firepower and good combinations of SU's attributions in attacks to maximise possibilities, that is a realm that I'm aware of but I still have to investigate. I guess watching battles at level 7 is a must, I should follow your lead in this :-) It's a long process of course.

I certainly like to disrupt with air ground attacks before attack by ground units for that reason, and most of the time I assign SU's to attacks anyway, so I still benefit from it, but with better knowledge of SU's effect this could be maximised. And diminish attacking losses too.


Then on top of that .. you can assure battles 1-5 . with battles 6-10 at risk because the SU's have already been used! So optimization does yield results ..you do not want overkill in your battles but you want to be assured given the famous GG die rolls that the results will fall within a spectrum of success. Sometimes that means overkill and in reality the results are very close because of "bad" die rolls.



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