tank vs infantry

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dust off
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Post by dust off »

After looking through the units' stats pages, I think that you possibly made tanks too strong vs infantry. The unrealistic consequence of people building ground armies almost exclusively of tanks might be deminished by the close defence/attack value of infantry. But, there is a case for close defence to be effected in mountainous terrain too (on your stats sheet close attack/defence is characterised as urban/forest only). Russian armour had a hard time in Afghanistan. More importantly, the later generation tanks have close att/def values similar to infantry, and I find it hard to imagine that unsuported tanks would ever have much success in close fighting against professional infantry.
What do other people think about this?

Also there is a problem of counting all mechanised infantry as hard targets only. A deployed inf btn in defence should not get wasted by a tank attack that massively out-punches it on hard attack values alone. Even if allthe IFV's got wasted, the tanks may have trouble gatting all the grunts in their fox holes??
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Ashbery76
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Post by Ashbery76 »

The game does'nt represent individual tanks but divisions, so an armoured division would have more than just tanks.

"1st(UK) Armoured Division comprises three brigades. Until earlier this year all 3 brigades were configured in the same way, each having 2 tank regiments and 2 armoured infantry battalions. The tank regiments are in the process of being equipped with our most recent main battle tank, Challenger 2 (link to equip) whilst the infantry are equipped with the Warrior Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle".
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Post by dust off »

Thanks Ashbery, that's a one way of looking at it, and that way of looking at it could be taken to the batalion level, which from what I gather will be the unit size on smaler maps.

But, we could be mistaken to think along these lines, because it looks like unit strenght is represented by the number of tanks or (not and) infantry in that unit. And it seems that to get combined arms groups with the gameplay you then group together yourself batalions into larger regiments divisions. (regiment and divisions into corps on world map). Hence my concern that if ifantry are too weak there might be the unrealistic tendency to produce only tanks instead. (please correct me if I am mistaken)

Either way Ashbery, what do you think about having the close combat values, where infantry are more able vs tanks, applied to mountainous terrain as well as urban and forests?
IBK02
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Post by IBK02 »

Ashberry has a point...however, it is necessary to realize the true importance of infantry. Tanks without infantry support (and vice aversa) greatly limits their capability. All it may take, is one guerilla with the latest anti-tank rocket to immobilize, greatly damage, or destroy the best protected armor.
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Post by dust off »

There has been no BattleGoat response to this thread as yet. However, if they added between 3-5 points to all infantry close attack and close range defence values then this might better simulate the balance between these different units. And it might avoid players deploying tank armies to jungles - might even make them consider bypassing cities, another key operational consideration.

It would also be nice to know if mountainous regions will invoke the close range values?
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

Sorry that I’ve been quiet on this so far but I’m waiting on some design notes from George about close combat. I can tell you that none of these numbers are set it stone and we’re counting on the beta testing and more review on our own to tweak the balancing. I can also tell you that the intent is for infantry units to be able to stand up to tanks much better when the can force close combat vs. regular combat by fighting in cities. When not engaged in close combat, all terrain types do also have a modifier so that mountainous terrain might still give the effect your looking for once all the variables are set.

On the second issue you mentioned of treating all mechanized infantry as hard targets, this was discussed previously and it was decided that this was the best solution. I realise that it may have some troubles with the fact that just by destroying the IFVs you kill the whole battalion but the unit simply must be either hard or soft and a battalion of M2s certainly sounds hard to me.

As for Ashbery’s comment that we intend one tank battalion to represent a mixed battalion focused on tanks, yes, that is what we’re trying to do. However, the stats do actually read as if a tank battalion at strength 54 has nothing but 54 tanks. These are some of the design decisions that had to be made so that it was possible to actually complete the game this century

So for the question of if mountains will invoke close combat… I’m waiting for an answer from George.
Chris Latour
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Post by dust off »

Quote: "...none of these numbers are set it stone and we’re counting on the beta testing and more review on our own to tweak the balancing. I can also tell you that the intent is for infantry units to be able to stand up to tanks much better when the can force close combat vs. regular combat by fighting in cities."

MUSIC TO MY EARS :grin:
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