Combat Display (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Decisive Battles: Korsun Pocket



Message

snoopreg -> Combat Display (2/19/2004 5:27:10 AM)

Can someone please explain tutorial 4? I cant understand the whole thing!



Rob Gjessing -> RE: Combat Display (2/19/2004 7:30:13 AM)

Well what bit dont you understand specifically? The part on reviewing your units? The divisional integrity? The combat diplay? shifts? Crts?



snoopreg -> RE: Combat Display (2/19/2004 8:13:33 AM)

I dont understand shifts and, bonuses and odd route things.
This is my first wargame so be easy on me[:)]



Rob Gjessing -> RE: Combat Display (2/19/2004 1:49:22 PM)

Always easy on Newbies.. shifts are easy to understand but hard to explain.. Im sure we have covered it somewhere in other posts.. but it will probably take me just as long to try and find the post as what it will to explain it again here ;) So here goes (btw be sure to check out Run5 and the forums there - there is a wealth of info over there to assist newbies like yourself..

Ok Im going to do a straight brain dump here.. so I apologies if I dont explain it very well, but Im sure others will follow me and pick up any peices that I either miss our of or leave confusing.

When you attack someone you attack as whats called 'odds'. The Odds that you attack at are a reflection of your units comparative strength against the enemies. So if all of the attack strengths of my units add up to 60 and all of the defense strengths of your units add up to 10, then I will be attacking at odds of 60 to 10 or 6-1. Follow? So the raw power of your units compared to that of the defenders determines how successful your attack will be.

But it doesnt end there. After obtaining the raw odds, you then have whats called 'shifts'. There can be positive shifts and negative shifts. A shift will slide the odds either up or down depending upon of its positive or negative.

Lets talk about positive shifts. The most common way to get a positive shift is to use ART in your attack. You can use a maximum of 4 ART peices in an attack, some ART gives you a +1 shift, some give you a +2 shift and in the rare occassions for very strong ART units you can get a +3 shift. So lets say you throw 4 ART units each with +1 shifts into your assault.

So going back to our attack at 6-1, adding 4 x +1 shift ART will take the odds up to 10-1. See how it works? A shift will shift the odds +1 in your favour. So at 6-1 adding 1 x +1 ART to your attack will take it to 7-1. Adding another one will take it to 8-1. As you can see ART really helps your assault and it is very rare that you will lead a successful assault without the use of ART - those rare instances are where you really have overwhelming forces. And in our example here of raw odds of 6-1 (60 attack against 10 defense) would be very very rare. Usually the raw odds will be around 2-1 or 3-1 if you are very very lucky. So ART really helps out by quickly shifting the odds up.

The other way to get a positive shift is (and Im only explaining this in very basic terms - there are some more detailed rules around this) to attack from various angles. If you attack from different directions into the same hex, then this is another way to obtain positive shifts. This is to reflect that its harder for a unit to defend if its being outflanked and assaulted on more then one front/direction. You wont always get a positive shift from doing this though, any attacking units will only give you a bonus shift if themselves are not enaged from another direction.

Look at the example below.. we have E as the enemy and A as the attacker. In this example we have the Attacker attacking from 2 directions, north and south lets say. They will get a bonus shift for this.

A
E
A

Looking at this example below though, the southern Attacker is enaged by an Enemy to its own south. So the Attacker in this instances will NOT get a bonus shift.

A
E
A
E

Follow? You can tell when you are going to get a positive shift from the direction you are attacking in from looking at the COMBAT display screen - the one where it shows what the ods are for the attack.. the screen where you press the Red button to make your attack. If you look at the bottom right of the screen you will see the defenders hex with some triangles around it.. Green ones mean that the attacker can get a positive shift if they attack from that direction.

The other way you can get positive shifts is to assign Leaders, Air Combat or Off Board Barrage to the assault. This works similar to ART, you get a +1 shift for each of these bonus' that you had.

Ok lets talk about Negative shifts in combat now. There is usually/always a -4 shift to all combat - this is to reflect that the defender is usually always at the advantage. In other words, it harder to attack then defend. So our Raw odds of 6-1 as defind above would actually be 2-1 due to the -4 defense shifts. Also there are sometimes negative shifts associated with the type of terrain that you are defending in. So the terrain can add another -1 to the odds. And then on top of that, if there is any defensive ART in range, they will automatically be called upon to add some negative shifts also.

On top of all of that, if there are elite units attacking or defending, they too can add shifts. And then there are things like Shock and Anti-Shock (through the use of Tanks, Anti-Tanks and Terrain) that will also impact upon the file odds that are used in the combat.

Phew.. this is a long post. Lets use this as the starting point for your next questions..



Charles2222 -> RE: Combat Display (2/19/2004 5:14:20 PM)

Rob GJessing:
quote:

The other way you can get positive shifts is to assign Leaders, Air Combat or Off Board Barrage to the assault. This works similar to ART, you get a +1 shift for each of these bonus' that you had.


I'm not a newb to wargaming, but am to this game, somewhat. Anytime I've used barrage, and I, like you, were thinking that was different from assigning 'artillery', my artillery is selected as well. When I switch off various levels of barrage then the artillery is unselected. Understand, I've only played the Germans and maybe only the Soviets have offboard in the full scenario, but I also think the barrage shouldn't work when I individually select artillery either. The two functions seem synonymous.



snoopreg -> RE: Combat Display (2/20/2004 8:36:14 AM)

Thanks Rob and Charles, im getting the hang of this game and I very much enjoy now I understand thanks to you both[:)][:)]
Much more deep then the other stragety games I play like StarCraft and WarCraft
Ill post again, if I have further questions,
thanks gain[:)]



snoopreg -> RE: Combat Display (2/20/2004 8:57:47 AM)

Another question how do you see the results after a battle?



Tomus -> RE: Combat Display (2/20/2004 2:29:25 PM)

Rob,

Thanks for that explanation that is the best I have read so far. Very very clear.

You should write manuals for a living.

Cheers Tomus



Rob Gjessing -> RE: Combat Display (2/21/2004 12:27:11 AM)

[image]http://test.robjess.com/combat.jpg[/image]

Ok looking at the image above, this is a combat which I just set up in the Gallipoli Scenario which you can download from Run5 (end of shameless plug :))..

If we look at that image above then I will try and explain a few things.. I attempted to do this yesterday and after about 20 mins of typing the forums ate my post! :( If I get anything wrong, then anyone else please feel free to jump in and correct me.

That image is divided into 4 parts, the top part of the map where you can see the battlefield and the units conducting the attack. The next part of the image working down is where I can assign my bonus shifts, like leadership, ART etc.. and is it also from where I order the attack to go in - by pressing the Red button!

Moving to the bottom part of the image, the main area at the bottom lists what odds I have, and then the CRT for those odds in that terrain type, it also shows the enemy stack that I am attacking, which has 1 unit in it. It also summarises the shift elements in this attack (which I dont know if I will go into here right now.. I have been through it before but it may have been before these forums hit the dust and lost alot of their posts).. and then finally over on the bottom right is some info about the immediate area that is being attack - including some info about what shifts I will get if I attack from a certain direction.

Ok, now lets look at them each in more detail. The map on the top of the image, I wont go into.. we should all know what thats showing.. so lets start on the next part of the image down.. where you assign your shift bonus'.

Working left to right, we can see that it says Overrun in Green.. this means that I am able to get an overrun for this attack. Remember that when calculating if an overrun will occur ART shifts are not taken into account. Just to the right of where it says Overrun there is an Orange arrow with a bullet in it.. if you right click in this area it will give you some neato info about your attack..

Next along that row are the Reset and Max buttons. They should be self explainatory, Reset takes everything out of the combat - as if no one is attacking. Max, assigns everything to the combat - all units and all shift bonu's. Max is good to press to get an idea of the max odds you can currently get. I generally press this to throw everything into the combat and then start to remove things manually until I get the odds that I want to attack at. Note that if you hit Max and get 10-1+ odds, then you may be able to remove some units or ART from the combat and still achieve 10-1+.

Next along is a picture of a generals head, this is the leadership shift bonus, click on the graphic of the leader/general to add and remove the bonus from this combat. Next along, but grayed out in this combat is the Air Combat shift. It is not available in this combat - or this scenario that the image is from because its a WWI battle. But if there was Air combat available this turn then it would be highlighted and you also would be able to toggle it on or off to allocate it to this combat.

Moving along, is the Barrage shift. This is to reflect Off board ART barrages. This is NOT the same as the ART which is reflected as units on the battlefield.

The next one along is for the normal run of the mill ART units.. so under stand the difference between these two.

The next button is the button that looks like an X - this is the button to centre the map on the combat. Moving along is the cycle through units button so that you can manually add or remove the units from combat (you do this by click on the units yellow radio button to select or deselect the unit for combat as you normally do to select them as part of a stack. Then there is the cycle through ART units, so that you can choose to include or exclude specific ART peices for the combat.

The next button we should all be familar with and thats the Execute Combat button - its gives the orders to attack! And finally along the row is the Exit button which enables you to exit the combat without attacking. How many times have you pressed the Execuate Combat (Attack) button my mistake when aiming for this one? I have :(

Ok looking at the bottom of the image now, the main part on the left, shows the stack/units being attack - there is only one in this instance.

Next along is a summary of the attack strengths and shifts.. arhh what the heck Im on a roll.. I will do my best to explain this to you now :)

ok it tells us the Terrain type the combat is being conducted on as "Gully" and then it tells us that the hex actually has a name - so it must be an objective "Monash Gully". Under that it says that there is an chance of an overrun in this attack, and that chance is 4/6. We know its 4 out of 6 because is we look over at the odds we can see there there is a 4 in 6 chance of getting a D result. Remember that overruns are negated if you get a * result for the defender. Because there are 2 chances of a * result out of 6 which will negate an overrun, then the chances of the overrun being successful are obviously 4/6.

Under this in the Blue bar is the defense strength of 7 compared to the Attack strength (on the orrange/red) as 60. 60/7 is 8.6-1, but I think the engine rounds down, so my RAW combat odds are 8-1.

Under that it says that there are +6 shifts. Lets look at this and you will see that I dont actually need all of those shifts and I am wasting resources.

Lets start with negative shifts - and how it impacts upon the raw odds.. Looking directly down under where it says Shifts +6 is an image of an ART piece and, I know its hard to see that it has a -2 in the ART picture. This is saying that there is an enemy ART unit which is firing support of defense and that the power of this ART unit is equal to 2 shifts. So therefore thats 2 shifts in the enemies favour - so thats -2 shifts against the attacker.

So our raw 8-1 odds are now reduced down to 6-1 because of the defensive ART.

Moving slightly to the right, there is a (hard to see) image of the terrain which has a " - " in the image. This is saying that there are NO negative shift allowances due to terrain/defense. I will talk about this a bit more in a moment for now understand that normally a defender will automatically get -4 defensive shifts. This is to reflect that the defender has an advantage. There are some things which the attacker can do to negate this advantage and thats from attacking from multiple directions and attemping to outflank etc. The attacker has done that in this instances and these has resulted in the defender having NO or " - " adjustments due to any terrain/defensive bonus. But more on this towards the end of the post.

Ok thats the defensive shifts done! In total they contribute 2 negative shifts to the attack from the Defensive ART. The combat odds are therefore 6-1 now taking account of that.

Lets look at all of those Attacking positive shifts.

Directly under the orange/red attack strength bar that has 60 on it.. are the Attacking shifts. There is +1 under the Leadership Shift because we have assigned 1 leader to the attack. There is nothing under the Air combat shift, because as I said there are no planes available. We have +1 under the Barrage shift and then we have +2, +2, and +2 for the ART shifts. So in total thats +1, +1 and +6 (for all of the ART) being in a total of +8 positive shifts for the attacker.

So how does that impact upon our odds. Well we are at 6-1 taking account of the negative shifts from the defender. If we add +8 shifts to that we end up with odds of 14-1. We know that the max odds are 10-1 so it only shows 10-1+ as the listed odds. So clearly we have 4 shifts which we are wasting. So we could take 2 of our +2 ART out of the attack and still get 10-1 odds.

Another way of looking at it is.. the raw odds are 8-1. There are +8 Attacker shifts and -2 defender shifts, so the total adjusted shifts for this combat is +6 shifts. And this is what is listed under the defense and attack strengths.

But wait thats not all there is actually more! Remember earlier on I talked about how the defender normally gets -4 shifts due to the fact that its easier to defend. Well this is true and this did happen in this combat.. but the attacker has negated this negative shifts by attacking from multiple directions.

If you look at the final part of the image, which is the bottom right, you will see that there is an image of the one hex that is being attacked, and then 2 green arrowheads and 1 orange arrow head (with a mans head above it). This shows whats called Tactical shifts. This says that the attack is coming from 3 directions. The Northern direction (orange arrow head) and then from the North West and South West directions (green arrow heads). The attacks from the NW and SW (green arrow heads) are uncontested attacks - the are not in contact with anyone else and they are able to focus their attacks solely on this assault. Because of this, they get tactical shifts from each of those directions. Each tactical shift is equal to +2 shifts. So they have 2 x +2 tactical shifts giving them +4 tactical shift bonus'. It is these +4 tactical shifts which have offset and reduce the -4 defensive shifts that the defender automatically gets. So above where we have said that the defenders terrain/defensive shifts are listed as " - " its because our +4 tactical shifts have evened them out and reduced them to " - " or 0.

The attack is also coming from the North. But the Orange Arrow head tells us that we are not getting a tactical shift bonus from the attack in this direction. We know we are not getting a bonus from this direction because the arrow head would be Green if we were! The reason we are not, is because the units attacking from this direction are engaged themselves from other enemy units (this is reflected by the Mans Head above the orange arrow head). And if you example the battlefield on the image yourself above, you can indeed see that our attacking unit from the north is infact enaged.. he is actually enaged by two other enemy units himself. So he cant get a tactical shift as he cant put 100% into the assault.

But - the fact that the arrow head is orange means that we are able to get a tactical shift by attacking from that direction if we try! We way we could do that is to move more of our units into that northern hex until we had more units in that hex then there was enemy units engaging us. We havent done that yet though so the arrow remains orange and we dont get a shift.

Just finally on this topic, if the arrow head was Red then that would mean that we are not getting a shift from attacking from that direction and we wouldnt be able to no matter what we did - for example we may be attacking across a river from that direction.

Man this is a long post - my apologies if you are fidning it boring.. but if you are I guess you would have stopped reading by now.

Just to finish up, someone asked how do u know what the results of your assault was. Well after you press the Execute combat or Attack button, you will see the Die roll and it will show you what you got, this will also be reflected on the Odds/CRT display and you will also see that the enemy unit(s) have lost some steps from the image of them in the bottom left of the display.

Good luck.. I hope that atleast makes some sense to someone and if you have any more questions sing out..



Charles2222 -> RE: Combat Display (2/21/2004 2:53:27 AM)

Rob Gjessing:
quote:

Moving along, is the Barrage shift. This is to reflect Off board ART barrages. This is NOT the same as the ART which is reflected as units on the battlefield.


Take that same display and do the following please:

1. Hit reset.
2. Assign the full barrage.
3. Hit through the arrowed artillery option (going through the onboard artillery presumably)
4. Notice how they're all lit, IOW, the barrage was being taken from the onboard artillery. If you don't believe it yet, then deselect one of the artilleries and notice the barrage goes down a step.

This rings true for the German main Korsun Pocket full scenario (which is all I've played). I don't know if it's consistent throughout, or if it just uses onboard if a nation doesn't have offboard, but it's certainly happening on my game.

Oh - nevermind. The barrage key is to the left of the key I had been using. I suppose it's true then that the Germans don't have offboard artillery, since that option doesn't light up.



rickier65 -> RE: Combat Display (2/22/2004 7:25:25 PM)

Rob,

Just wanted to say thanks for taking time to do this. I've just printed your explanation and graphic example. Excellent Job -- Thanks

Rick



vamp07 -> RE: Combat Display (4/3/2004 10:10:29 PM)

This thread is 2 months old but I wanted to add my thanks for that explanation. I just came to the forum looking for some help on this subject since I had a tough time understanding lesson 4. I found this explanation much more digestible. –Thanks



Knavery2112 -> RE: Combat Display (4/19/2004 10:33:19 PM)

Indeed. That was a very cool post. Thanks for clearing this up for many of us.



bruce205 -> RE: Combat Display (5/9/2004 12:15:38 AM)

Absolutely beautiful post Rob!!
I am newcomer to game and am currently in tutorial 7 but that helped tremendously.
Thanks again.



bo_tellin -> RE: Combat Display (11/3/2004 3:46:56 AM)

Hi to all

There is something I´m missing: I´m attacking with 3 units, with divisional integrity, and with an attack strength up to 33 , against a unit with a defence of 10, I´m attacking from one hex with red arrowhead (ok no positive tactical shifts). Then, when I see the Combat Display Panel it says 21 attack against 22 defence. Why don´t it says 33 against 10?.

Then right click and pop-up says: attack 21 defence 22 (+1 for next), what does "+1 for next" means?

Thanks in advance.



JSS -> RE: Combat Display (11/3/2004 4:13:00 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: bo_tellin

Hi to all

There is something I´m missing: I´m attacking with 3 units, with divisional integrity, and with an attack strength up to 33 , against a unit with a defence of 10, I´m attacking from one hex with red arrowhead (ok no positive tactical shifts). Then, when I see the Combat Display Panel it says 21 attack against 22 defence. Why don´t it says 33 against 10?.

Then right click and pop-up says: attack 21 defence 22 (+1 for next), what does "+1 for next" means?

Thanks in advance.


Sounds like the red hex is reducing (preventing?) attack strength from that hex.. often happens when attacking across a river.

The '+1 for next' means if you add 1 more attack strength (i.e. 21 + 1 =22!) that you'll increase the odds by +1.



bo_tellin -> RE: Combat Display (11/3/2004 1:49:59 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JSS

Sounds like the red hex is reducing (preventing?) attack strength from that hex.. often happens when attacking across a river.

The '+1 for next' means if you add 1 more attack strength (i.e. 21 + 1 =22!) that you'll increase the odds by +1.



There is nothing about in the manual. I think is reasonable, but I don´t know how is quantified the increase of the defence value, and the decrease of the attack, is it a percentage?

Thanks



Fred98 -> RE: Combat Display (11/3/2004 11:50:34 PM)

“ + 1 for next “ is defined as follows


If the raw numbers are 99:10 then that is 9:1

If you add one attacking factor then the odds become 100:10 or 10:1

ie you have added 1 and moved to the next column


As for your example that is very weird. Can you post screen shots? –



bo_tellin -> RE: Combat Display (11/4/2004 1:30:36 AM)

Ok, here it is.

As you can see, I´m attacking with 3 units with a total attack value of 33 (13+7+13), against an unit with a defence value of 9. But when I look at the Combat Display Area, I see 26 against 15, why is not 33 against 9?. I think is because of the red arrow head but I can´t find it anywhere in the manual.

Thanks

[image]local://upfiles/14531/Ig126316815.jpg[/image]



Fred98 -> RE: Combat Display (11/4/2004 6:30:40 AM)

I think you are attacking with 4 units ( there is another 1 to the north). There are 2 red arrows providing proof of attacks from 2 sides.

You are right about the red arrows. An attack across a river is halved ( - see manual )So, add up all 4 units and then divide by 2. it wil come back to 26

As for the defender, I reckon he is within divisional integrity and so his defense has increased to 15. Can't say why you cant see it. I'll test after work tonight



bo_tellin -> RE: Combat Display (11/4/2004 12:18:06 PM)

I didn´t know that attack across a river was halved [&:], i hadn´t found it in the manual [8D], this explains it all.

I have also found: http://www.robjess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=256.

Thanks a lot to all.



Fred98 -> RE: Combat Display (11/4/2004 10:50:27 PM)

I can confirm my earlier comment. The defender has divisional integrity. The defense factor is 15 but the attacker cannot see that from the unit pop up.

If you switch sides, then , as the allied player, the pop up display shows 15.

Whether a defending unit has divisional integrity is hidden from the attacker.



bo_tellin -> RE: Combat Display (11/5/2004 3:18:04 AM)

Thanks Joe. BTW, how is better playing?, Unknown Units "ON" or "OFF".



Fred98 -> RE: Combat Display (11/5/2004 3:26:36 AM)

I am not a fan of Unknown Units.

It is a reference to friendly units. You do not know their details until they come within 4 hexes of the enemy.

I don’t like it. But if you are playing against a good player, you can handicap him somewhat, if he has it “on” and you have it “off”



Page: [1]

Valid CSS!




Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI
1.078125