RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment

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RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 1/5/2008 1:29:48 PM

Twotribes

Posts: 6929
Joined: 2/15/2002
From: Jacksonville NC
Status: offline

I was under the impression real large formations are actually counter productive. The game begins penalizing you if you have to many stack points together on the attack.

(in reply to Widell)

Post #: 31

RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 2/23/2008 11:59:34 AM

Herode_2

Posts: 188
Joined: 10/30/2007
Status: offline

Yes, that's a point and it would be the main critic I would give to Grymme's OOB : his units are very heavy. I favour light to medium units ranging from 40 to 60 stack points. By exception, second line units as artillery can stack much more, as they are not supposed to go in close combat, this is seldom a problem.

Also, having more light units gives more flexiblity on the line front (breakouts, reserve moves, concentric bonus etc.)

(in reply to Twotribes)

Post #: 32

RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 6/17/2010 2:19:58 AM

SKY6A

Posts: 6
Joined: 6/17/2010
Status: offline

Hi All,

Late-comer to this topic, but I just bought the game last week. One of the things I particularly love about it is precisely this ability to tinker around with troop mixes and command structures, but I still find myself wanting to recreate historical equivalents as much as possible--just an aesthetic thing, I guess.

So has anyone figured out what each strength point represents? One strength point of "Rifle," for example; is that a platoon? A company? What? I'd imagine it may be different for each subformation type, but if anyone has some general rules of thumb, it would make it easier to recreate historical units and test them out.

Thanks!

(in reply to Herode_2)

Post #: 33

RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 6/17/2010 9:57:38 AM

Josh

Posts: 2576
Joined: 5/9/2000
From: Leeuwarden, Netherlands
Status: offline

Not sure if I'm qualified enough to answer this. But a strength point doesn't have a "fixed" strength... if you know what I mean. It depends on the scale of the scenario, so in a very large scenario one strength point could indeed mean one soldier because in that scenario each counter/unit would represent a platoon/company, whereas in other scenarios a "strength point" would represent a company because each counter/unit represents a corps/division.
So, 1 point does not equal 1 tank/soldier/gun, but it can vary depending on what the scenariowriter wishes.

Whatever the case though, the max unit density penalties stay the same. So �berkiller stacks are prevented. More than 100 points in an hex gets you a penalty, and attacking with more than 100 from one or two hexes gives you a penalty too.

Discussion of "historical" units has been discussed before (ofcourse) Some scenarios have outstanding units in them. Just check the Fall Blau AAR by Grymme.
For random scenarios I use Inf units, that is slow foot or horse soldiers with some mortars/ Mg's/ AT guns, and fast moving armoured units (tanks, tankhunters, vulnerable in woods though), and some recon units (armoured cars with some Inf). Remember each armoured unit (each tank-point) can carry 5 Inf points without becoming a "foot-unit"... put six soldiers on a tank and it becomes a foot-unit. (probably overweight soldiers

)

(in reply to SKY6A)

Post #: 34

RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 6/20/2010 4:41:04 AM

SKY6A

Posts: 6
Joined: 6/17/2010
Status: offline

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the reply. After doing some more searching, I did find a pretty in-depth discussion of this very topic, and it seems to be the consensus that the strength points are purely abstract and do not correspond to units at all--not even in a relative way.

I have to say that this is my only real disappointment with AT. I mean, I understand that the designers wanted to keep the scale unspecified in order to allow a variety of scenarios. But it would have been nice if RELATIVE strengths of different types made more sense. In a random game, for example, a Rifle point seems to represent about a company, while a Tank point seems more like a regiment. This gives infantry some "granularity" as it takes losses, since each point represents a smaller unit. But with armor, it is much more an all-or-nothing situation, since each point seems to represent so many tanks.

Oh well, I'm sure there were considerations of which I am unaware. And third parties have produced some much more proportionate relationships in individual historical scenarios. I just wish I could use Capt Cruft's Ostfront masterfile to generate random games. That would be cool!

(in reply to Josh)

Post #: 35

RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 6/20/2010 9:42:02 AM

Josh

Posts: 2576
Joined: 5/9/2000
From: Leeuwarden, Netherlands
Status: offline

"I just wish I could use Capt Cruft's Ostfront masterfile to generate random games. That would be cool! ..."

Yeah that would've been something eh? That would add something to the game.

You're right about abstract strength points, but apart from thinking of one "tank-point" as a "tank-company" or whatever, the same with Inf-strengt points.... *one thing* stays the same all the time; the max size of an unit in a hex, or the max size of an attacking unit, without getting a penalty. So me personally I don't ever make units of say 10 tanks, or an Inf. unit of 80 points, smaller units are the key of the game. Smaller and much more flexible.

I don't know what the status is of Victor's next game(-s), maybe in AT2 we will be able to get random games with historical maps and units and leaders.

(in reply to SKY6A)

Post #: 36

RE: Army Organization and Unit Compliment - 6/21/2010 8:44:01 PM

Jeffrey H.

Posts: 3154
Joined: 4/13/2007
From: San Diego, Ca.
Status: offline

Yeah, it would be interesting to say the least to see the AI navigate it's way through the various detailed units. I would not expect the results to be all that 'real' but it should be interesting to see.

_____________________________

History began July 4th, 1776. Anything before that was a mistake.

Ron Swanson

(in reply to Josh)

Post #: 37