Artillery too strong?

[Lucky1]

I have recently been favoring a strategy emphasizing artillery and am coming to the conclusion that they are a bit too strong. I think the issue might be that the world standard is simply too high - it is pretty easy to get artillery to level 8, 9 and even 10. Then, one can churn them out ever second turn. In addition, they can protect against amphib invasion!

I am curious what others think. While artillery certainly did play a major role in the Eastern front (one battle had Russian artillery a mile deep along a front of 50 miles), I am finding that my builds are heavily skewed toward arty. Maybe another solution would be to have Russian arty start at a lower level of tech. Another forum member has suggested that they have longer builds.

Any comments or thoughts?

[WanderingHead]

Artillery has been weakened in patches, particularly in Global Glory. I felt they were about right the last few times I played, but if they need a fix I would suggest that the world standard is the right way to do it.

[Lucky1]

Correct me if I am wrong (very possible), but I seem to recall that artillery no longer targets opposing artillery in its first round of attacks. If this is the case, was the purpose to weaken or strengthen it as a unit? Did it used to solely target artillery in the first round of attacks? Or did it simply give them priority (spilling over to other units if there were sufficient numbers)? Anyhow, pending additional info on this point, I would suggest that a fair drop in world standard is warranted. Playing Global Glory under the beta patch Russia can easily have 45-50 artillery by mid to late 1941, sometimes with 6 evasion and 7 attack (usually on near tech parity with Germany arty, at any rate)

[GKar]

Since 1.02 bombardment attacks don't stack anymore, so one bombardment attack won't help the next to make damage, thus getting rid of the somewhat exponential effect. I thought that was enough, but then I don't have enough experience in current AWD.

[Lucky1]

A number of issues have been raised in the 1.03 beta post that are of relevance to this post. Although I initially was leaning toward a reduction in the world standard and starting quality of artillery, I am wondering whether a more appropriate change might be to increase their build time by one (50%), rather than to mess with their current strengh under 1.03. There are a number of factors in support of this argument:
 
1) they seem to be much more powerful than infantry at the same level. In my experience, massed artillery will tend to beat massed infantry which cost the same.
2) they are used to counter amphib invasions. Currently, arty can be produced en masse and sprinkled throughout vulnerable territories (the Med, England, India and Australia come to mind in the early game and Europe and Japan come to mind in the late game.This is important because amphib invasions are less flexible  under popular scenarios like Global Glory due to port influence on transports (i.e. you are more able to attack certain areas than others).  Combine this with reduced number of air units (fighters and heavy bombers have become more expensive), and a -1 penalty for long range air attacks (GG only?), artillery is less vulnerable to air attack than hitherto had been the case.
 
I am curious what others think.

[Tom Grosv]

ORIGINAL: Lucky1
1) they seem to be much more powerful than infantry at the same level. In my experience, massed artillery will tend to beat massed infantry which cost the same.

I've been intrigued by this thread and that posted by Mr Freeze (?). I think there may be something more fundamental wrong with artillery in this game than tweaking can fix. I shouldn't really get involved as I've only played one PBEM game which I got beaten at and I've never played GG but, what the heck; not so many people post as they used to here.

When I recall the WW2 board wargames I played 25-30 years ago I think that artillery was always a powerful but vunerable asset. The concept was that you had to screen your artillery with front line units, usually infantry, so they could be left unmolested for long enough to damage the enemy. If you failed in this and the enemy got amongst your artillery it was usually pretty devasting to you - artillery just weren't able to defend themselves very well if the enemy got too close. I'm not an expert on military history and tactics but I believe this to be modelled on reality.

Artillery in WAW doesn't appear to be like this, though I have to accept I may be making the wrong comparison - perhaps the scale of the game is so vast and the units so large that in fact artillery is a completely different concept.

Anyway, I set up a scenario to test what Lucky1 was claiming. I got 25 German infantry (7/7) to attack Kursk containing 25 artillery (8/6). The railway in Kursk was completely damaged and no units were Veteran or Elite. Sigint for both Germany and SU was 14. I fought the battle 3 times as follows (with overall PP lost to both sides) -

1. G Dmg 10 Inf / SU Dmg 11 Arty (10 v 11)
2. G Dmg 12 Inf / SU Dmg 8 Arty Dest 1 Arty (12 v 10)
3. G Dmg 7 Inf / SU Dmt 11 Arty (7 v 11)

G won the battle of course but in terms of attrition damage SU only came off slightly worse than G. It doesn't seem very realistic that the German infantry with no opposing infantry/armour units in front of them would not close with the enemy artillery much more quickly and wreck havoc.

I then ran the test again but added 5 SU infantry (7/7) to Kursk. Result -

1. G Dmg 12 Inf Dest 1 Inf / SU Dmg 8 Arty 1 Inf (14 v 9)
2. G Dmg 12 Inf Dest 1 Inf / SU Dmg 6 Arty 2 Inf Dest 2 Arty (14 v 12)
3. G Dmg 6 Inf Dest 4 Inf / SU Dmg 6 Arty Dest 1 Arty (14 v 8)

OK, the Germans overall were outnumbered but they outnumbered SU front line units 5 to 1 and you would have thought that a large part of their attacking infantry would have been unopposed and closed with artillery but that isn't modelled. The Germans again made SU retreat from Kursk but clearly they lost from an attrition point of view.

Does the above feel right to everyone? I think I share the unease of some players that artillery is perhaps a problem.

It's always nice for players to offer a solution if they think they see a problem so mine would be -

1. Only as many artillery as there are friendly infantry/militia/para/armour in the region can fire at enemy troops. That means that no player would ever generally want their total artillery to exceed their total infantry/militia/para/armour. Would that stop Mr Freeze's GGWAW Artillery Game?

And, possibly,

2. Artillery defend with -1 evasion when attacked by infantry/militia/para/armour.

Anyway, just an opinion.

[Lucky1]

OK. Tom's results surprised me a little, so I set up the same experiment, but with the following details:
 
Version 1.03
 
Germany attacks from Kursk to Stalingrad
German Sigint is 12
German uses 25 infantry at 7/7 evasion/attack
Russian rail is undamaged (unlike Tom's experiment)
Russia has 25 artillery at 6/8 evasion/attack
Russian Sigint is 9.
Both sides have full supply.
Summer.
 
The Results:
 
Germany (damaged/destroyed) : Russia (damaged/destroyed)
10/0 : 6/0
9/0 : 8/0
10/0 : 5/0
10/0 : 9/0
7/0 : 11/0
11/0 : 10/0
12/0 : 6/1
6/0 : 9/1
3/0 : 13/0 (!)
13/0 : 7/1
 
While taking the territory, Germany 'won' the battle only 3 times out of ten when attrition is factored in. This is consistent with the odds calculator, which always showed attacker losses as 10.47 to defender losses of 8.34.
 
 

[Lucky1]

Argh. My message timed out.
 
Anyhow, I redid the experiment, with the artillery attacking infantry. Otherwise, all the scenario details are the same.
 
In this instance the odds were 11.44 losses (attacking arty) vs. 9.38 (defending infantry)
 
In all attacks but one (out of ten), the artiller sustained higher losses than infantry. Due to timeout issues, I will post the results later. But four of the results were 13 damaged arty vs. 11 damaged infantry. These were typical, altough there were three instances of 13 damaged / one destroyed arty vs 9 damaged  infantry.
 
In short, it seems that artillery performs at rough parity with infantry  (when one considers both attacking and defending capabilities). Perhaps it is only minimally worse. But, when one factors in its importance in staving off amphib assaults, I still think an argument could be made to make it more expensive or slightly weaker (because of its greater versatility and defensive importance). 

[WanderingHead]

I was a bit surprised at the results. I would agree with the conclusion from the experiment, my preference would be for more damaged artillery.

I would suggest that the remedy is reduced artillery evasion. As a general rule (not necessarily exactly true), the effects of evasion are more significant for non-bombardment shots (e.g. inf vs art) than it is for bombardment (e.g. art vs art, or air vs art), so the impact of the evasion reduction would be mostly when other land units get to fire on artillery.

Of course, there will be other effects. Beaches will be a bit harder to hold and the like, since while the effect of evasion reduction for art is mostly when other land units fire, it does still make it a little more susceptible to air bombardment.

Note that in v1.020 starting evasion of all artillery units was reduced from 6 to 5. So this road has already been travelled somewhat (I made the same arguments then as above).

I'd be interested in the perspectives of more old timers. I don't think there have been a lot of complaints recently, although I do feel that the experiment is good evidence that a tweak might be good.

[Forwarn45]

I think the fact that you need infantry to take and hold the territories is somewhat critical and prevents relying too much on artillery. Further, the vulnerablity of artillery to air suppression remains important. Both of these have been noted. That being said, perhaps artillery is still a bit more favored than it should be - but only a little. I think it's reasonable to leave as is. But I don't mind a small change - such as a small penalty to its effectiveness if there are insufficient other ground units present.

[Hakmeister]

Why not just cut artillery range down to 2 from 3?  What effect would that have?

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Forwarn45
such as a small penalty to its effectiveness if there are insufficient other ground units present.

I don't really like that. I would rather that it flow naturally from the existing rules (which, with tweaks, I think could be possible)m instead of being another special purpose rule.

ORIGINAL: Hakmeister
Why not just cut artillery range down to 2 from 3? What effect would that have?

That makes artillery less complimentary. What is desirable (IMO) is that artillery fires first (as now, where it fires at range 3 and 2), but rarely causes damage on its own. It should mostly help the later units that fire at range 1 (e.g. infantry) to cause damage.

I'm not sure I'd want to take such a big step, but I would propose consideration of
1) artillery starting evasion reduced to 4 from 5 (and reduce WS)
2) "damage from suppression" level increased to 6*durability (from 5*durability) (for most units, 18 instead of 15)

These two changes are intended to
a) make artillery more vulnerable to other ground units
b) leave artillery with about the same vulnerability to air units
c) make other ground units less vulnerable to damage from just artillery

[Lucky1]

I'd be willing to playtest the changes, if needed.
 
Cheers,
 
Sean

[Forwarn45]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead
I'm not sure I'd want to take such a big step, but I would propose consideration of
1) artillery starting evasion reduced to 4 from 5 (and reduce WS)
2) "damage from suppression" level increased to 6*durability (from 5*durability) (for most units, 18 instead of 15)

These two changes are intended to
a) make artillery more vulnerable to other ground units
b) leave artillery with about the same vulnerability to air units
c) make other ground units less vulnerable to damage from just artillery

I don't like number 2 at all because it also affects air effectiveness and other aspects of combat - assuming I am understanding it right. Number 1 seems a little too much at this point for (what I think of as) a small problem - unless the world powers are given research progress to be almost at level 5.

[GKar]

ORIGINAL: Forwarn45

I don't like number 2 at all because it also affects air effectiveness and other aspects of combat - assuming I am understanding it right. Number 1 seems a little too much at this point for (what I think of as) a small problem - unless the world powers are given research progress to be almost at level 5.

I'm a sceptic about this as well.

[Lucky1]

From the comments of GKar and Forwarn 45, it seems that it might be most appropriate at this point to contemplate a (but I would suggest, significant) reduction in the world standard for artillery. Although my experiment was using artillery 6/8, in most my games played artillery gets to 6/9 or even 6/10. Infantry RARELY gets to 8/8, if at all..... Perhaps later today I will run the same experiment with artillery at 6/9 vs infantry at 7/7.

[Lucky1]

Ok. Here is the experiment again, this time with the following details:
Russia and Germany both have SigInt of 12
Rail is undamaged
No experienced units
German infantry is 7 evasion and 7 land attack
Russian artillery is 6 evasion and 9 land attack
 
Germany attacking Russia
Odds: 13.24 German (inf) losses to 6.78 Russian (arty) losses
14/0 : 6/1
11/0 : 5/0
16/0 : 5/1
10/0 : 5/0
13/0 : 9/0
 
Russia attacking Germany
Odds: 9.95 Russian (arty) losses to 11.22 German (inf) losses
7/0 : 14/0
8/0 : 11/0
8/0 : 11/0
7/1 : 7/0
8/0 : 11/0
.
 
From the above numbers, it seems obvious to me that artillery is by far a superior defensive and offensive investment (throw in an armour unit or two to actually take the territory) when compared to infantry. I don't know how the two additional remedies proposed by Wanderinghead will affect game play in reality. As GKar and Forwarn45 implicitly warn, we don't wish to make artillery useless. But, it only took 12 tech points to get Russian artillery from 8 to 9. Level 10 is only 12 points away. By contrast German infantry at level 7/7 needs approx 22 points to get to the next level.... With this in mind, I really think that at very least a large reduction in WS for artillery is order....
 
 As mentioned, I would gladly play test.
 
 

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Lucky1
As mentioned, I would gladly play test.

I can send you a file, but I'd like to have some confidence we have reached a reasonable test case first.

I've long had the position that suppression could be better implemented. It is difficult to make it seem to behave well in all situations. Lebatron also subscribed to this ... that is why he essentially completely changed it in his "UV 2.0" mod.

Personally, I think it is fairly good now. Fairly close.

What I've always wanted out of suppression is that it does little good on it's own, but is very beneficial if followed up with regular attacks (e.g. infantry attaacking units that have already been suppressed by artillery) I think that my proposals above do that fairly well for artillery ... the unintended consequence, however, is all other forms of suppression (op-fire and air-to-land). But I think they would still be OK.

Anyway, short of my previous proposal is the following:
1) change artillery Evasion World Standard to 4 (from 5) (don't change starting levels, only the WS)
2) change artillery Land Attack World Standard to 8 (from 11)

[Lucky1]

Keeping in mind that it would be impossible to please everybody (my picky self included), I think what you are currently proposing is probably a fair improvement to the current situation. I think at the suggested levels, artillery will not be so emasculated as to be eschewed as a unit. At the same time, it will not become the late game super arty.

[GKar]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

Anyway, short of my previous proposal is the following:
1) change artillery Evasion World Standard to 4 (from 5) (don't change starting levels, only the WS)
2) change artillery Land Attack World Standard to 8 (from 11)

Sounds good to me, I always wondered why artillery's land attack had such a unique high world standard anyway.