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C.O.R.E. Tech Tree: Land units, techs and doctrines

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Problem is that those tank brigades will be "glued" to infantry divisions and therefore their speed (main advantage of armoured/mechanised units) will be lost.
edit: i.e. Russians were fielding many independent tank brigades.
 
McNaughton said:
Planned theoretical replacement would be...

Artillery = Artillery
Anti-Tank = Armour
Anti-Air = Air Cooperation
Engineer = Engineer

Anti-Tank weapons would work their way into the Artillery brigade. An artillery brigade would be a formation incorporating the three branches of artillery, being, Artillery, AA, and AT, with the main focus being Artillery (divided 50:30:20 or so). With these units incorporating a more broad selection of equipment, the values can be increased a lot more, making them actually being worth the extra MP and cost. Instead of artillery brigades getting stronger once per Gold tech area, potentially three techs (A, AA, AT) will improve the brigade.
Click to expand...

AT:

AA brigades got indeed limited use, but it can't be said about AT brigades - players use those quite often. On the other hand, historically AT brigades can be considered both tank destroyers like Hetzer or M-10 and towed guns units, like 88mm AT batteries, ZIS-3 divisional guns or 17-pounders, but those weapons were rarely (if ever?) used on the brigade level.

So - from historical point of view AT brigades should be out, from gameplay point of view - they shouldn't. I prefer the first option. :) I would like to see some more players opinions though...

AA:

More on AA brigades changed to Air Support... If we consider it only recon-army support air techs, then use of those brigades will be very limited. During the WW II there was no revolution in air recon conducted for land units, planes were changed from biplanes to machines like Fw-189, but whole idea remained the same. Revolution happened in effectivenes of close support of advancing troops, but this is already represented by close support planes and medium bombers tactical ability. So either those brigades will have practically keep same stats whole war (read - players won't use them as it is with AA), or will represent close support planes (which makes some air units redundant). Not sure what to do with that...

Art:

Currently artillery brigade is very useful. It practically doubles SA value and is not that hard to build. Adding to it even more benefits (AA fire, more serious AT capability) should be balanced by higher cost, probably more connected with artillery techs (like +5 days in case of some new weapons).


Engineer:

Engineer brigades are currently the best of all 4 types of extra units. Speed is the most important aspect of game - while AI is rarely able to use it, human players are great in that. So, engineers not add much to attack/defence ratios - but even 1 point of mobility more is very important. There is also not much to mod here - rising speed of land unit by 1 is good and acceptable, but by more then 2 - may cause strange results, like very fast infantry or uber-fast mechanized corps. Right now after all upgrades tank division armed with advanced tanks can have speed 12, with post war tanks - 15, and with MBT - 16. Add to that proper minister (+10% speed) and leader (panzer leader), and engineers with more then 2 speed points.. Hmmm... bit too fast for me.

Engineers give units some river attack bonuses as well, as well as few other stats modifications. We can add some more, but IMO engineers are right now very usefull even without more benefits.
 
I like the idea of making the AT brigade armor-oriented but tend to disagree about AA brigades not being useful. Facing the American or Soviet air forces when you play a minor (example Finland) or use small island garrisons (example Japan) then the extra AA can make a real difference.
 
There is only one question in CORE's tech trees that currently annoys me.
I mean infantry tank battalions and heavy tank battalions techs. Those techs are very correct from historical point of view but also are not adaptable from "game engine" point of view since they cannot be "deactivated". I ususally don't use those techs (simply because they raise the price and are slowing my units) and it piss off me when I "get blessed" with one of those techs (by random event or from my allies).
Unfortunately I have no idea how to do it, but I would like to see that problem solved in next CORE betas....please. :)
 
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Maybe for armour brigades attached to infantry there should be a tech that let's you make infantry an infantry model that has an armoured brigade attached to it. This would create some kind of model 2 infantry (the 1st being '44 infantry) that would have higher SA, HA and possibly speed but be of course, much more expenaive to build. Of course I'm sure the AI would find some way to screw this up. :p
 
Has there ever been discussion over making a tech/event that simulates Hitlers decision to reduce the Panzer regiments from 2 to 1 so to make more divisions? If I remember correctly he was so impressed by them after Poland (or France, i can't be sure) that he ordered more by reducing the amount of tanks in each division.

Perhaps drop a 1/4 of most of the attack/defence values, but make PZ Divisions cheaper and quicker to build.

Just a thought anyway if you haven't already considered it.
 
Shadow Reaper said:
Has there ever been discussion over making a tech/event that simulates Hitlers decision to reduce the Panzer regiments from 2 to 1 so to make more divisions? If I remember correctly he was so impressed by them after Poland (or France, i can't be sure) that he ordered more by reducing the amount of tanks in each division.

Perhaps drop a 1/4 of most of the attack/defence values, but make PZ Divisions cheaper and quicker to build.

Just a thought anyway if you haven't already considered it.
Click to expand...

The German 1940 Pz div went from 4 PZ bn with 2.5 inf bn to a 1941 model of 2 Pz with 4 inf bn. The .5 is the smaller motorcycle battalion which was eventually abandoned around 1942 when that kind of unit was incorporated into recon units. For Barbarossa Germany had 19 PZ and 15 motor inf div. That's only 38 Pz bn while there were ((19*4)+(15*6)) = 166 motor inf div, with just a few of those having halftracks.

The appropriate change could be smaller ground defense (fewer Pz) (-2 GD); unchanged or higher soft attack (+1); lower hard attack (-2). IC should be around 1/4 less but build time should not change. Figure that the other combat elements (Arty, AA, AT, recon, and combat engineers add an equivalent of say 2 bn to the 6 major combat bn, so the change is from 4/8 armour to 2/8 armour). To me build time should represent training, not producing tanks and guns, so that should be unchanged.

Two problems remain. This is a country specific unit. Maybe CORE can handle the technical changes, but how well could the AI handle it? Other countries also changed their armor composition a lot during the war. The Americans started out with a 6 Pz with 3 motor model but quickly changed to 3 and 3. The Russians started out with massive mech corps then changed to tiny 50 tank brigades for a year before gradually going back to bigger sized units. Are other countries also going to get these kind of changes?

The other problem relates to how effective these 1941 model Pz were in combat. Guderian and a few others always wanted more Pz in each Pz div but Germany would have never been able to produce this kind of div in sufficient quantity. Other generals felt that the 1941 model had as much combat effectiveness as the 1940 model. So maybe no change is needed.
 
One other thing you must take into account, is that in 1939/1940 over 50% of all German AFV's in divisions (probably close to 60%) were PzKpfw.I and PzKpfw.II tanks. In 1941, most of the AFV's in divisions were PzKpfw.III, PzKpfw.38, PzKpfw.IV. Technically, the strength of German Panzer Divisions was greater, with fewer tanks, in 1941 then in 1940.
 
While historicly, a single BDE sized attachment to a division of a particular type (all Eng, Armor, etc.) was not usually done, we are stuck with it n game terms. To simulate normal Division and Corps assests, I think there should be a base value of a BDE (including AT, Anti-Air, Eng, Arty stats) plus some additional emphasis on a specialty.
 
In concert with brigades, how about we do a few changes for units?

Currently we have a few second generation units (i.e., for Infantry 44 and Cavalry 44), but I think we could expand on these.

First. In 1936, many nations still used the Square system of setting up divisions. Basically, a division was composed of 2 Brigades, each of 2 Regiments (4 regiments in all), etc... This resulted in a large unit, with a lot of firepower, BUT, the main problem was that they were not easy to use in the field. They would have greater MP, cost, SA and GD, but lower ORG.

Second. This would be the Triangular Division, the most common WW2 unit. This would have less GD and SA then the Square division, but will also have lower MP and cost (less men, less rifles), but higher ORG (easier to command 9 Battalions then 12+).

Third. This would be an optional unit, basically a lot of nations eventually went dual. Either two regiments of three battalions, or three regiments of two battalions. Only a few nations went this way, most retaining the Triangle Division. This is basically an emergency unit, used by nations in desperation. This would have lower GD, SA, MP, and cost, and equal ORG as a Triangular division.

ALSO, I was thinking about Militia units, and how much of a wide variation of forces this unit covers.

First. This should represent basic units, such as emergency Home Guard and local forces. Basically, this would be a brigade sized unit, with all of the small arms equipment that a regular infantry unit would have, but lacking in support. This unit should be about 1/3 the strength of a Triangle Infantry Division.

Second. This should be what many people are talking about, as the late war militia units which were basically regular units, except equipped with troops and equipment which was sub-standard. Their SA, GD, ORG, MP, cost, will be slightly lower then a regular division (based on the fact that they GENERALLY used older heavy equipment).
 
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Good idea McNaughton,
this is what the first of the italian only land doctrine do, but I think that is a good idea to expand that choice to all countries, since Italy wasn't the only one nation to use a rectangular division at the start of the war...
 
I was thinking today, and came up with some other stuff...

A new Infantry Type (ranked from first to last)

Colonial Division - Basically a Triangle Division with slightly less SA, and less ORG. This can solve the dilemma in the game having Colonial divisions represented as regular infantry, or as militia (something that they didn't fit in before)

Square Division (same as above)

Triangle Division (same as above)

Dual Division (same as above)


Other Units: Special units (Parachute, Mountain, Marine) actually were rarely in divisional form until well into the war. Most units were actually brigade sized. They would have a 40% reduction of SA, HA, GD, MP and cost, but keep the same level of Organization (representing that these were still highly trained, yet smaller units). The second generation unit would be forming them into entire divisions. Some nations will already have divisional techs (only for mountain divisions), but most should start with just Brigaded special divisions.
 
I don't think it's a rewarding path to introduce lots of different models for infantry. AI isn't good at choosing and maintaining models.
Even for the player the advantage is minimal. He is likely to choose one or two he likes. And I think that is historical. Armies don't go around and organize lots of different unit types.

However you can make these into doctrines, no need for country specific ones, and thereby offer some variation. That is, if you get the AI to properly research those.
 
McNaughton said:
(...)Other Units: Special units (Parachute, Mountain, Marine) actually were rarely in divisional form until well into the war. Most units were actually brigade sized. They would have a 40% reduction of SA, HA, GD, MP and cost, but keep the same level of Organization (representing that these were still highly trained, yet smaller units). The second generation unit would be forming them into entire divisions. Some nations will already have divisional techs (only for mountain divisions), but most should start with just Brigaded special divisions.
Click to expand...

Well, it's not really possible to do. Right now, most of the units attack/defense power comes from upgrades, not from basic line of stats. This means, that changing initial stats got minor effect on the final units stats. Dropping SA and GD by 40% doesn't really matters, when initial SA and GD are 5-8.

That's why current paratrooper units (which BTW, uses, exactly as you suggest, brigade as first possible model) got lower SA/HA/GD, but also seriously (25 org points) lower organization, which represents their inability to fight in long battles without replacements. As currently org affects only ability to soak up casualties and stay in fight, it's quite good to represent smaller units with limited support but powerful "fighting core".

We can use that system in moutain/marine units if you like, although I'm not sure if there is historical precedence (maybe Japan marine units?) for that.

About square/triangle/dual system - sure, I'm very interested in adding it. Check the wiki thread on that matter.
 
You know how the carrier air groups show up as TOR in the tech descriptions? That TOR is defined in an entry in text.csv. I became aware of this because the TGW mod uses paratroopers as light infantry but the tech entries show changes for LGT, not PAR.
 
Gwalcmai said:
You know how the carrier air groups show up as TOR in the tech descriptions? That TOR is defined in an entry in text.csv. I became aware of this because the TGW mod uses paratroopers as light infantry but the tech entries show changes for LGT, not PAR.
Click to expand...

Didn't know that! I checked once text.csv file for "tor" phrase, but look like I missed that.
Great, we can replace it with CAG then. :)
 
There has been a posting on a german forum mentioning that there is a lack of Techs decreasing discoring chance for enemies.
My impression that you always get maximum information about the enemy, contrary to vanilla hoi. Why is that so?
 
The 75 AT should have a better hard attack than a 50 AT. The 75 AT is different in kind from the 50 AT and should not be subject to a deactivation choice. There is a series of three choices of AT guns (37 or 40, 50 or 75, 85 or 90) which then leads to one of three levels of tank destroyers. These kind of choices would seem to represent differences in degree, not in kind, between the AT guns.

The problematic choice here is the deactivation choice between the AT 50mm and AT 75mm which then lead respectively to the Light 50 tank destroyer and the Medium 75 tank destroyer. Both of these tank destroyers have the same +1 HA which doesn't make sense to me as a 75 AT gun was much more effective than a 50 AT gun. A 75 and 50 AT were much different historically. A 75 AT is different in kind, not in degree, from the 50 AT.

The 50 AT and 75 AT give the same +1 HA to all units except that the 75 AT gives +2 HA for AT brigades, so the only benefit of a 75 AT over a 50 AT is for units with AT brigades. That doesn't make sense as a 75 AT was a much better gun than a 50 AT. The 75 AT should have a better hard attack than a 50 AT which it now does not have in 0.7 except for the AT brigades.

While the other kinds of decisions do seem to represent small differences in degree and should not be changed, this 50 or 75 choice is a difference in kind, not in degree. The other ATs have a 10mm differential while this choice is a 25mm diffential. This deactivation choice should itself be deactivated.

Since most major countries developed first a 47 or 50 AT and then 75 AT guns, I do not understand why there has to be a choice between them. One should be able to research both as this would also give the 75 AT more hard attack than just a 50 AT (a series of two +1 HA increases instead of having to choose between the 50 or 75 AT guns and just getting one +1 HA increase for whichever gun is chosen).

By being able to research both the 50 AT and the 75 AT, this would increase the HA of inf and motor inf by +1, the mech inf by +2 (+1 for the AT and +1 for the tank destroyer), and an AT brigade by +1 HA (anyone building AT brigades would always opt for the 75 AT rather than the 50 AT). Alternatively the HA values could remain unchanged by using 0.5 instead of 1 for each division step with 1 for each AT brigade step. This would not change the net AT values for these units but would require a text change similar to that used by armor and aircraft. Whatever way it is done, the 75 AT should have a better hard attack than a 50 AT, and in 0.7 it does not except for the AT brigades.
 
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