My first post!
I'm very new to the game. In fact I only played one 1936 campaign and the Ardennes scenario.
To Kanitatlan:
Great threads (both this and the old one, the only ones I've read).
I was just thinking that as artillery brigades are more useful in a war of attrition, it would be more usefulness in multiplayer as I would imagine (though never having played multiplayer I can't be sure) that by having another player as an opponent greatly limit one's ability to achieve a battle of annihilation (ie encirclement).
Also, is it true that the battle matrix, like a unit AT dealing more damage than normal (as in normal attached) against armor but not against other units? Like say fighting with 10% more efficiency or 10% more hard attack from the already increased hard attack? If it's not implemented then what exactly is the difference between brigades that have the same stats, like Advanced SP-artillery and Advanced SP-rocket artillery?
In a (futile) attempt to improve my skills and understanding of the game mechanics, I've been digging around the forums and hoi2wiki. I read both this thread and the first brigade one (though didn't read many of the long posts entirely)
I have been thinking of a possible new system for a newer game or an add-on to Hoi2 to make brigades worth more, as I agree they don't seem to worth much. I want to post it here (sorry for 2month+ necro, but hey, you've seen worse) to hear comments from the pros before even considering posting at other places.
Personally I agree that brigades (and armor/mech/motor/air force/navy) are things industrialized nations field to turn their industrial might into fighting power so while costing more ICdays they get more per manpower. This means it shouldn't be a waste brigading every single division and the equation should not be curve but linear.
Someone said in the first thread that each division had a group of attachments (engineers, anti-air, anti-tank battalions I think it was, and an artillery regiment). This was where the game division's hard attack and air attack and defense are as well as the ability to cross a river at all (ie not suffering a 100% penalty).
Meanwhile things with the size and power of separate brigades as shown in the game were not attached to individual divisions but to the corps headquarters, which would then be used as needed.
So what if we add the ability to attach brigades to the general. A few things I have in mind are:
1) Each general can effectively command the same amount of attachments at the same time as he can divisions. A Major General can command one division and one brigade. A Lt General can command three division and three brigades, and so on.
This increases the firepower potential of a single stack, so would in theory help the little countries with few leaders get more out of the larger stacks they have. Under this system a 12 division formation under an FM can actually have 24 brigade attachments.
2) The brigade that the general command now improves ALL divisions under his command. I think there could be two ways to do this:
a) For every hour (or a few hours) of combat, each brigade attached to the commander would randomly choose a division under that commander to attach to, and give that division its bonus. This (sort of) reflects on the equipment can only be used to support one division at any given time. While the total attack/def stays the same, the interesting thing comes with engineer and armored car. If a LG commanding an assault has an engineer brigade and three different types of unit, say an armor, a motor, and an infantry, then the duration that engineer brigade is assigned to one of the divisions simulates that division being given the corps equipment and ordered to lead the assault across the river in trying to make a beachhead while the other units support. Each assault would be different in attacking stats though I'm not sure it differs enough to matter, not having done the calculation.
As for armor car with its organization bonus, it would be interesting when a unit that has been hit long enough its organization decreased to less than 5% and so stop shooting suddenly gets the armor car from the corps, pulling it back in the fight for a tiny little while.
Though this is most realistic (to me) it doesn't increase the efficiency of brigades. That is unless of course we make additional changes taken from b).
b) The other way would be that it simply increase the stats of all units under the commander. Either something like i) increase/decrease the stats all divisions by a fraction of the amount it would if it was attached to the division say a base of 10% with a 10% increase per skill level of the commander ii) multiply the increase of the attachment by 1 + (the skill level of the commander/X), say x=2 for now, and then divide the increase between the units
The problem with i) is that with all others are equal, in a FM of 2 skill with 1 artillery attached commanding 12 infantry has more firepower than a FM (or 3 LG or 9 MG) of 2 skill with no attachments commanding 12 infantry with 3 of them having attached artillery (since base 10% + skill 20% = 30% per unit and there's 12 units, giving a total of 360% or 3.6 artillery brigades). But at the same time a MG with 2 skill attached with 1 artillery would only give the division he commands 30% of the artillery's power when if it is attached to the division instead would give it 100% of its power, even though the engaged troops are 1 division and 1 artillery brigade on both sides. With this system, while it is always worth attaching brigades to FM of any skill level, it is not worth attaching brigades to General with 0 skill, LG with 2 skills or less, or a MG with 8 skill or less (which pretty much means all MG).
The problem with ii) is that the total change stays the same even as the formation gets larger, so the percentage change gets smaller and smaller. Though it does reflect the fact that the corps attachment have to spread out its firepower to support the entire corps during the entire battle and is at least partially compensated by the fact that higher ranking generals can command more attachments, it also means that attaching stuff like artillery would spread out its speed penalty across the units, which is a bit unrealistic.
Though a simple solution would be that the speed penalty would not change but be equally distributed.
Both i) and ii) increases brigade efficiency by the skill of the general, making both the brigade more efficient and good generals more valuable. Another trait could be made to increase the base change of brigade attachment if system i) is used.
3) A general can have multiple numbers of the same detachment. I'm not sure this should be implemented, or if it is how many of the same should be allowed. It depend on balancing I guess.
On one hand if it is not implemented but instead restricted so that a general can only a brigade or the same kind, then there's more benefit in researching all the brigade types as a FM can command 12 different brigades.
On the other hand if allowed a player could in theory mass a total of 24 heavy armor brigades under one FM for awesome firepower, and would be (sort of) realistic in being another form of force concentration.
Perhaps somewhere in the middle, like a general can command up to two of the same kind of brigade.
The most skilled level commander I have personally seen (which is one single 1936 campaign ><) is one with skill level of 5. He would actually give to his formation an additional amount of firepower equivalent to 86.4 brigades or 48 brigades for systems i) and ii) respectively. Let me make a chart from that down, assuming all generals command the maximum number of attachments
system i)
Field Marshal (commanding 12 brigades)
Skill 5 - 86.4
Skill 4 - 72
Skill 3 - 57.6
Skill 2 - 43.2
Skill 1 - 28.8
Skill 0 - 14.4
General (commanding 9 brigades)
Skill 5 - 48.6
Skill 4 - 40.5
Skill 3 - 32.4
Skill 2 - 24.3
Skill 1 - 16.2
Skill 0 - 8.1
Lieutenant General (commanding 3 brigades)
Skill 5 - 5.4
Skill 4 - 4.5
Skill 3 - 3.6
Skill 2 - 2.7
Skill 1 - 1.8
Skill 0 - 0.9
Major General (commanding 1 brigade)
Skill 5 - 0.6
Skill 4 - 0.5
Skill 3 - 0.4
Skill 2 - 0.3
Skill 1 - 0.2
Skill 0 - 0.1
system ii)
Field Marshal (commanding 12 brigades)
Skill 5 - 48
Skill 4 - 36
Skill 3 - 30
Skill 2 - 24
Skill 1 - 18
Skill 0 - 12
General (commanding 9 brigades)
Skill 5 - 31.5
Skill 4 - 27
Skill 3 - 22.5
Skill 2 - 18
Skill 1 - 13.5
Skill 0 - 9
Lieutenant General (commanding 3 brigades)
Skill 5 - 10.5
Skill 4 - 9
Skill 3 - 7.5
Skill 2 - 6
Skill 1 - 4.5
Skill 0 - 3
Major General (commanding 1 brigade)
Skill 5 - 3.5
Skill 4 - 3
Skill 3 - 2.5
Skill 2 - 2
Skill 1 - 1.5
Skill 0 - 1
Okay now let's return to the orginal brigade vs non-brigade by equal manpower.
5 Infantry with a general of skill 2 (being sort of in the middle and able to command 5 infantry) attached with 2 artillery brigades (using the last solution of 3)) and the other 3 attached to infantry.
VS
6 infantry with a general of skill 2
Randomly using 1945 Infantry and Semi-modern artillery
Infantry - SA 18 HA 6
Semi-modern artillery SA 8, HA 3
Total attack would then be
6 infantry = SA 108 HA 36
system i)
5 infantry = SA 90 HA 30
3 artillery = SA 24 HA 9
2 artillery + general bonus = 3 artillery = SA 24, HA 9
total = SA 138 HA 48
system ii)
5 infantry = SA 90 HA 30
3 artillery = SA 24 HA 9
2 artillery + general bonus = 4 artillery = SA 32, HA 12
total = SA 146 HA 51
If the two fights then
6 infantry deals 21.6 SA per target while
system i) deals 23 SA per target
system ii) deals 24.3 SA per target
If we double the number of troops involved and go to Field Marshal skill level 2
12 infantry = SA 216 HA 72
system i)
10 infantry = SA 180 HA 60
8 artillery = SA 64 HA 24
2 artillery + general bonus = 6 artillery = SA 48 HA 18
total = SA 292 HA 102
system ii)
10 infantry = SA 180 HA 60
8 artillery = SA 64 HA 24
2 artillery + general bonus = 4 artillery = SA 32 HA 12
total = SA 276 HA 96
if they fight
12 infantry deals 21.6 SA per target while
system i) deals 24.3 SA per target
system ii) deals 23 SA per target
Both system now give a significant increase in fighting power to the formation who's general has brigade attachments. The increase in fighting power lowers when more troops are involved for system ii), while in system i) the more troops involved the higher its advantage.
I'm not sure how accurate that would be historically. When more troops are involved there will be more guns to bombard an area of higher troop density if the increase in the battlefield area is not proportional to the increase in troop number. On the other hand if the area increase is greater than troop increase, then the guns will do less damage even though there's more of them because there's a less density per gun. I don't know enough to say which was the case if either.
Another bit of realism is that for nations that had very few heavy equipment like tank and artillery concentrated their equipments in the high ranks for general deployment instead of giving them to each division. At least this was the case for China in WWII IIRC.
As with either system giving the equipment to the general is more effective than giving the equipment to the division, a player would also do so and only give any extra to divisions.
But my personal favorite thing about this system is that it increases brigade's efficiency to make them worth while at the same time makes a good general more important, which I think is the case.
Now then I'm done and wish to hear how the veterans of this game feels about this system, and maybe some more tweaks here and there, or point out other flaws in it, maybe how to fix it, or a plain IT DOESN'T WORK AT ALL YOU NEWBIE is fine.
