First World War Campaigns - More insight into combat odds

[ComradeP]

It actually *is* in the manual

The description in the manual is clear, what I meant was that the way it works in practice isn't always clear. If the low and high casualty modifiers, and the associated randomness thrown in at the end, are far apart, it can become highly unpredictable. That's both a good and bad thing, as you will never know precisely how good your assault will be, firing can give you more stable results on the long term (depending on how good your soft/hard attack values are relative to the defence value of the target, obviously).

You could calculate where the low and high casualties are for the assault you're planning, but there's still substantial randomness involved. Twice even, first with determining what casualty figure is used between the high and low values and then for determining what the actual casualties are.

That's also why you need to get a feel for it, as if it would be as simple as a CRT, you would get immediate feedback as to why a certain result happened (for example: you rolled a four and the result is A1-D1R). Currently, you get feedback on casualties, but the assault having a bad or good result doesn't always directly relate to the forces involved.

It isn't immediately clear how bad, mediocre or good your roll was relative to the forces involved.

The randomness can make removing defenders from strong defensive positions a pain, also because both sides use the same stacking limitations, based on a single hex (this is the only serious wargaming series I can currently think of which imposes such a penalty on the attacker).

Basically, the calculations used are in the manual (for assaults, direct fire is trickier to calculate), but you don't see the system at work when you attack (as the calculations determining the result are not displayed), it remains abstract.

[BigDuke66]

Speaking of strong defensive positions, is the terrain for assault calculation irrelevant?
I don't see any sign that the terrain is used as modifier, only the hexside seems to be a factor.

[ComradeP]

The terrain reduces incoming fire, it doesn't have an effect on assault odds. At least no effect that shows up in the game, odds are the same when attacking a unit in -5% or -20% terrain.

Bunkers, forts and pillboxes multiply defensive and offensive firepower directly and those have an impact.

You can see the difference: when moving a unit into regular terrain, the defense value in the unit information screen isn't modified. When you move the units into fortifications, it is modified. It is also modified by the frozen penalty (if any applies), for example.

[Mr Grumpy]

I personally like the randomness of the high and low "dice rolls" and although of course it is a bit annoying when you don't take a hex that you should, over time you will be rewarded by holding a hex that you should have lost and most results do fall into the average zone.

With enough experience you will know that although you set up the assault correctly you just got a bad dice roll rather than thinking there is something wrong with how assaults are resolved.

Any system where the results are very predictable would make for a more boring contest IMO

[Volcano Man]

It actually *is* in the manual

The description in the manual is clear, what I meant was that the way it works in practice isn't always clear. If the low and high casualty modifiers, and the associated randomness thrown in at the end, are far apart, it can become highly unpredictable.

That is precisely why the Optional Assault Results optional rule exists.

"Optional Assault Results – when this rule is selected, each assault result is calculated as the average of two normal assault results. This has the effect of reducing the variation in results."

IMO there are things you need to know and things you don't need to know. It is really quite simple when you boil it down: use the most strength and assault power that you can, and try to use the best quality units, and then hope for the best (die roll). (Rhetorical) What else could you do, other than trying to stack the odds in your favor to give the utmost optimal results? You can do this already with the general description on how it works, and you can remove most of the variation in results with the use of the Optional Assault Results rule. Unless of course you are operating under the idea that all the details need to be known so that they can be critiqued and "improved" and that is simply the wrong philosophy to have IMO. What is broken should be obvious, otherwise it is picking it apart at the molecular level for the sake of doing it (because everything can, theoretically, be improved, but not everything actually needs to be improved because additional complexity does not always mean different results). But I guess that is the difference between some wargamers. I have learned to be happy with the assault resolution since Smolensk '41. Just sayin'. ;)

In any case, if you want to know more about the details then you will have to email JTS and ask, but I know he intentionally tries to provide only just enough information to figure out what you need to do while trying not to bog the manual down in exact calculations. That said, Rich or John may share the information if you ask for it, but it just depends on how busy they are.

In regards to terrain, only the hex side terrain applies. This is because it is understood that the attacker and defender are (temporarily) occupying the same hex and so neither side gets a benefit from the target hex's terrain. The hexside modifies it in favor of the defender since it is understood that it would impede the attacker's approach.

[ComradeP]

I agree that there should always be some randomness, it is after all what keeps things interesting.

However, I also feel the statistical average of rolls should be the average of your results, roughly. As you'll be firing a lot more than you'll be assaulting, it is quite possible to get a couple bad assault rolls which completely halt your offensive.

In a campaign, this is a minor inconvenience as you have plenty of turns and can keep trying, but in smaller scenarios it can mean you lose purely due to die rolls, which isn't much fun. That's also one of the reasons why placing a large stack in objective hexes in those scenarios can be very effective: it's often not possible to remove them in a timely manner. Gamey? Sure, in a way, but it can be the most efficient way to win and in my opinion the system encourages such behaviour with the way assaults work in combination with both sides using the same stacking limits (that's the main thing leading to the large stack strategy being so effective, by the way, not the way assaults work).

[Fhil]

I agree that there should always be some randomness, it is after all what keeps things interesting.

However, I also feel the statistical average of rolls should be the average of your results, roughly. As you'll be firing a lot more than you'll be assaulting, it is quite possible to get a couple bad assault rolls which completely halt your offensive.

In a campaign, this is a minor inconvenience as you have plenty of turns and can keep trying, but in smaller scenarios it can mean you lose purely due to die rolls, which isn't much fun. That's also one of the reasons why placing a large stack in objective hexes in those scenarios can be very effective: it's often not possible to remove them in a timely manner. Gamey? Sure, in a way, but it can be the most efficient way to win and in my opinion the system encourages such behaviour with the way assaults work in combination with both sides using the same stacking limits (that's the main thing leading to the large stack strategy being so effective, by the way, not the way assaults work).

Placing a large stack in objective hexes being an effective tactic - I agree, that´s why I also like the Alt Fire rules - bigger the stack, more casualties

[BigDuke66]

I think Ed is so far correct that there are things you need and need not to know, problem is that when going through the manual and playing the game there is some form of "disconnection" as one tries to bring the things read in the manual together with what happens on the screen and further more how to do things in the game.

Just take my question as example, I the term "odds" isn't once used in the main manual and in the program manual all you get is:
"Selecting Show Odds will display the odds of the current assault which shows
the advantage or disadvantage held by the attacking player."
And I went through the complete manual and noted any modifier or other think I have to consider when doing things in the game like fire combat, assaults, etc.. and still I feel I just have puzzle pieces that I have to bring together to form a picture to get a clue what goes on and how to do things

With the example above and some screen shots the process and the things I have to consider a brought much closer together.
This way of explaining things could be really good at many points in the manual and not only in this but also other series like the CW or Napi series.

The FWWC manual has some example calculations behind the supply section but to be honest that is the worst point in the whole manual because there are just calculations and no explanation of the various values used in that calculation, what gives no clue of how things are put together.
It's the opposite of the rest of the manual, as it shows a complete picture without being able to see the pieces used in it.

@Fhil
What Alt Fire rules?
The fire is handle this way:
Fire Against Soft Targets
When a stack of soft targets is fired upon, then one randomly selected target in
that stack receives the majority of the fire while the other units in that stack
receive fire proportional to their strength relative to the total stack.

[Mr Grumpy]

That's also one of the reasons why placing a large stack in objective hexes in those scenarios can be very effective: it's often not possible to remove them in a timely manner.

Well that might work in PzC, but I lost a scenario once because I didn't check my stacking limits and when my stack could not retreat the extra losses I suffered gave the game away, also FWWC use a modified version of the Alt fire rule and overstacking will lead to horrendous casualties and units quickly becoming broken and hence easy to assault away.

I agree there can be some disconnection between the manual and the game, but I found that once I understood how the basics worked I have not really referred back to the manual and rely on my playing experience to answer the grey areas in the manual.

So my advice would be to not dissect the manual so much and keep playing to gain experience and after a while you will forget the manual exists! LOL

[ComradeP]

@Fhil
What Alt Fire rules?
The fire is handle this way:
Fire Against Soft Targets
When a stack of soft targets is fired upon, then one randomly selected target in
that stack receives the majority of the fire while the other units in that stack
receive fire proportional to their strength relative to the total stack.

In practice, that means more units will take losses. Otherwise, losses are taken by a single, selected, target with the exception of enemy artillery fire during your turn (artillery opportunity fire).

One thing that can be annoying is that a firing unit doesn't always take casualties from return fire, as the unit selected for that seems to be randomized. For example: In Panzer Battles, this means my hidden units often take losses whilst the unit that is actually visible and is firing doesn't take any.