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[x] Plan: Flank Scouting
Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest
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[x] Plan: Flank Scouting
Whilst I have no strong objection to moving forward I think I fall on the long range fire side of the artillery discussion at least in the current strategic situation, with the 6th having its own supply of munitions (some kindly donated by us) and no other extant enemy armies in our corner of the theatre.
Whilst I have no strong objection to moving forward I think I fall on the long range fire side of the artillery discussion at least in the current strategic situation, with the 6th having its own supply of munitions (some kindly donated by us) and no other extant enemy armies in our corner of the theatre.
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When the munition cost is the reason to not fire artillery at long range, then using musketfire with nearly every infantry unit is a waste of munition too.
Long range artillery fire by the 10th does more damage than medium range infantry fire by every infantry except the 200th and the 72nd.
And short range shooting only has a few marginal advantages over melee, definitely not worth it when munitions are valued this highly
Long range artillery fire by the 10th does more damage than medium range infantry fire by every infantry except the 200th and the 72nd.
And short range shooting only has a few marginal advantages over melee, definitely not worth it when munitions are valued this highly
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It is true that the long and medium range penalties are the same for artillery and infantry. And that artillery has a much bigger wounding modifier. So same experience, same range shots go in favour of artillery. However long range fire from artillery does not beat same experience medium range infantry fire (+3 wounding does not overpower an extra -30 on the to hit roll) The 10th being the most experienced unit on the field offsets the range penalty some. So in a situation where we were munition constrained we'd be looking at prioritising munitions to experienced units with good traits firing into terrain that did not give maluses to hit (perhaps considering that smaller damage at longer range would be easier to recover from if the enemy was well supplied as an edge edge case.)
That said, I did wonder what our munitions stocks are like so I went back and checked what munition expenditure has been like in previous battles.
y is munitions spent assuming the munitions carried by units are counted separately from HQ munitions.
Mauvais Plain
110 (HQ) + 110 (units) - y + 59 (loot) = 143 (HQ) + 108 (units)
y = 28
Brutet
171 (HQ) + 130 (units) - y + 206 (loot) = 241 (HQ) + 130 (units)
y = 136 (doubled due to rain)
This shows us a couple of things:
We are not low enough on munitions to avoid taking any shots.
An intense fight is likely to cost slightly more than half our units' munitions capacity.
I'm not sure how large a proportion of captured munitions were from raiding HQs and whic hcomes from capturing units but I suspect that if we had not captured either of those HQs we'd be in position where we would likely not be able to fully ressuply the army after this battle.
That said, I did wonder what our munitions stocks are like so I went back and checked what munition expenditure has been like in previous battles.
y is munitions spent assuming the munitions carried by units are counted separately from HQ munitions.
Mauvais Plain
110 (HQ) + 110 (units) - y + 59 (loot) = 143 (HQ) + 108 (units)
y = 28
Brutet
171 (HQ) + 130 (units) - y + 206 (loot) = 241 (HQ) + 130 (units)
y = 136 (doubled due to rain)
This shows us a couple of things:
We are not low enough on munitions to avoid taking any shots.
An intense fight is likely to cost slightly more than half our units' munitions capacity.
I'm not sure how large a proportion of captured munitions were from raiding HQs and whic hcomes from capturing units but I suspect that if we had not captured either of those HQs we'd be in position where we would likely not be able to fully ressuply the army after this battle.
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Keep in mind that we can buy munitions pretty cheaply too.
50 munitions can be purchased for 50 influence, with us getting an extra 50 supplies.
So 1 munition is worth 1 influence.
1 Influence gets us 20 Regular Infantry.
So 1 influence gets us 1 xp on our artillery and a certain amount of dead enemies.
We don't have a full price on dead enemies, but up until now casualties have been comparable before the enemy retreat.
If we put enemy dead at being worth 50% of our own soldiers by making the enemy break sooner, causing them to attack less, then the Elves kill 16 enemies per shot, so 8 of our troops per munition.
So each XP from a long range shot costs 0.6 Influence, with 0.4 made up by the damage
I guess it doesn't actually pay for itself like I thought so that's my bad, it's actually a question of how much getting xp on our artillery is worth.
I consider it worth, because if we get a singly level up from that, that's like an additional 100 hits during the next battle, because artillery can shoot every turn and also I like preserving our soldiers beyond just the cost to replace them.
But if you do not consider it worth it to get that xp long range fire by the elves would not be worth it(if you consider this calculation valid).
....Well, the calculation certainly isn't valid, cause it would make medium range fire by the elves not worth it either(36 damage = 18 saved, when we could buy 20 soldiers for cheaper)
Not sure how to actually calculate the cost of munitions against their effect.
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Hmm. A lot of the Long-range vs Short-range discussion has involved the 10th, which is retains its effectiveness even at long range. Thus, I wonder if a compromise where only the 10th fires at long range, while our other artillery hides, would be worth considering? While the damage would be less, how much lower would it be since the 10th still shoots? In exchange for lower damage output, we save munitions and may cause Von Trotha to underestimate the amount of artillery we have, and thus have him misjudge the strength of our position.
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So, with the discussion well under way:
Plan Flank Scouting has specific movement orders for the Hussars rather than the looser format for allied units, which I'm unsure about.
Secondly, it commits far more of a force to the Rotholz flank than is warranted IMO. Rotholz is slow and punishing terrain for the enemy (4ish turns for any force to go trough, no reason to put horse artillery there from the start).
Thirdly, it commits to long-range bombardment the moment the enemies comes in close. This is a mistake for 2 reasons: 1) It gives the enemy perfect information on our artillery positioning (position information is given after a unit fires), giving him the tools to accurate plan out his approach in respective to our firing range for little damage.
Just to be clear on the payoff: We give information 1 munition for 5% of a level-up (1/20, meaning we would need 40 shots in this battle to actually profit from it next time around) and a 51% of no damage and a 38% for 2 damage. Those cost make it not worth it in my opinion. I think we should with shoot the elven artillery based on tactical considerations, rather than trying to grind with them. There isn't even a guarantee we even keep them long-term and benefit from this grinding, since the entire playerbase would switch them for a trained human artillery formation at the first opportunity (could be feasible, with us trading our artillery corps in for an equal amount of field artillery and raising the with human artillerist recruits. It's possible we could get the option trade in undesireable units for influence/ equipment later, making this grinding of limited use).
Plan Shuffle & Move Alternate: I like a lot about this plan, though I'm somewhat unsure about using the 200th as skirmishers in the open terrain. They will likely have to retreat behind a hill formation when the batteries are set up due to being such a valueable target, but there is quite a bit of time for that. Early aggressive scouting with Cavalry near Rotholz is also a decent idea, gives us a good guess of the enemy positioning and might mistakenly lead Trotha to believe we are planning to take Rotholz given our similar move of securing the advanced firing position at Brutet. It's rolling the dice, but we could lure enemy force out to position themselves for bombarding Rotholz early on, which ties neatly into our skirmisher plans.
Approving the plan:
-[X] Plan: Shuffle, and Move Alternate
Potentially giving the exact position of every field artillery unit away on turn one is unwise, and the positioning makes us inflexible if the enemy comes from the centre. This can generally assumed to be their first choice, rather than a slow flanking operations trough thick forest across unknown hills. By comparison, Shuffle Alternative gives us information and keeps our options far more open during the skirmishing phase, which is something I like to see.
Plan Flank Scouting has specific movement orders for the Hussars rather than the looser format for allied units, which I'm unsure about.
Secondly, it commits far more of a force to the Rotholz flank than is warranted IMO. Rotholz is slow and punishing terrain for the enemy (4ish turns for any force to go trough, no reason to put horse artillery there from the start).
Thirdly, it commits to long-range bombardment the moment the enemies comes in close. This is a mistake for 2 reasons: 1) It gives the enemy perfect information on our artillery positioning (position information is given after a unit fires), giving him the tools to accurate plan out his approach in respective to our firing range for little damage.
Just to be clear on the payoff: We give information 1 munition for 5% of a level-up (1/20, meaning we would need 40 shots in this battle to actually profit from it next time around) and a 51% of no damage and a 38% for 2 damage. Those cost make it not worth it in my opinion. I think we should with shoot the elven artillery based on tactical considerations, rather than trying to grind with them. There isn't even a guarantee we even keep them long-term and benefit from this grinding, since the entire playerbase would switch them for a trained human artillery formation at the first opportunity (could be feasible, with us trading our artillery corps in for an equal amount of field artillery and raising the with human artillerist recruits. It's possible we could get the option trade in undesireable units for influence/ equipment later, making this grinding of limited use).
Plan Shuffle & Move Alternate: I like a lot about this plan, though I'm somewhat unsure about using the 200th as skirmishers in the open terrain. They will likely have to retreat behind a hill formation when the batteries are set up due to being such a valueable target, but there is quite a bit of time for that. Early aggressive scouting with Cavalry near Rotholz is also a decent idea, gives us a good guess of the enemy positioning and might mistakenly lead Trotha to believe we are planning to take Rotholz given our similar move of securing the advanced firing position at Brutet. It's rolling the dice, but we could lure enemy force out to position themselves for bombarding Rotholz early on, which ties neatly into our skirmisher plans.
Approving the plan:
-[X] Plan: Shuffle, and Move Alternate
Potentially giving the exact position of every field artillery unit away on turn one is unwise, and the positioning makes us inflexible if the enemy comes from the centre. This can generally assumed to be their first choice, rather than a slow flanking operations trough thick forest across unknown hills. By comparison, Shuffle Alternative gives us information and keeps our options far more open during the skirmishing phase, which is something I like to see.
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1. Yes it does
2. It's doing exactly that.
3. If you're approval voting you need to put both your votes in the same post.
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Also @NSchwerte this actually is a solid idea. Also since Advantage has diminishing returns, it makes a reasonable amount of sense to have the 10th forgo ambush and the other two preserve it, since the 10th always has 1 advantage anyway.
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I'm not seeing those orders in the plan parts. Oh, I see there are specific movement orders for the hussars rather than Write-In orders for allied units. Since they are allied, I'm not sure commanding them like this is permited.
I do see your point here, but I'll also want to point out that we placed our artillery in the most obvious possible position. In Von Trotha's position, any of us could look at the map and point out that Durand has at least one artillery at Kinzberg.
This is why I am suggesting shooting only with the 10th, but not with the other two artilleries. We will not give up any information by doing so, he knows we have artillery there already. What he does not know is the amount of artillery we have there.
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Sure, but there is a difference between knowing "at least one artillery unit is there" and "literally all artillery units are there". We could be bluffing and have positioned an artillery unit to provide flanking fire from his point of view, given how we enjoy a reputation as an unorthodox thinker. Ruling out the later from early shooting adds information for him, allowing him to consider previously potentially risky routs safe.
I agree completely, I think I will switch my vote unless @NSchwerte changes the plan to have only the 10th shoot. @Nerdorama at least seemed open to the idea.
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von Trotha knows how much artillery we have, as he has information from the army of the west. I am also generally not sure if he would really believe that we only have 2 units of artillery
We would be losing 32,4 casualties caused each turn and quite probably prevent our elven artillery from leveling up this battle. They need 8/10 respective shots fired this battle to level up.
So if we expect 5 long range shots we give up 160 extra casualties against the enemy
I do not consider the positioning of our artillery to be a secret. There are no real alternative positions for this formation after all.
The elves do not require 40 XP to level up, they require 20 XP to level up. additionally, they already have some xp, so these points of XP can definitely be the difference between leveling up or not. So i have no idea where you get your 40 required shots number from. Also, i am shooting with the elves based on tactical considerations, namely that i want to kill the enemy as much as possible before he can reach us to preserve the lifes of our soldiers
Additionally, levels are a mechanic of have or have nots - whether you have 19 xp or 0, it doesnt matter as long as you dont reach the next highest level.
If we are going to trade the elves away, having them at a higher level will make them worth more, but generally, i do not like planning for eventualities and maybes, i care about winning the battles in the here and now and how they will effect the next few battles. The best thing we can do for our long term future is making sure to win in the here to improve our standing.
I generally do not understand how von Trotha knowing about the position of our artillery in Kinzberg is going to help him. He will know that we dont have them at the flanks once he gets his scouts on the hills after all
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Well, that's a question for @Photomajig since I don't think it's been specified since the tutorial, and kind of a lot of mechanics have changed since then
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Generally, I feel like where shooting is a waste of munitions and where it is useful fluctuates a lot.
For example, in Plan Rotholz the 31st was supposed to shoot shots equivalent to long range into the rotholz forest and this was never called a waste of munitions.
Could there be a rough treshold of shooting mali where shooting is considered a waste of ammunition?
Like, if a shot has -40 net malus, its not worth taking. If it has -30 net malus it is worth, unless there are other tactical considerations
For example, in Plan Rotholz the 31st was supposed to shoot shots equivalent to long range into the rotholz forest and this was never called a waste of munitions.
Could there be a rough treshold of shooting mali where shooting is considered a waste of ammunition?
Like, if a shot has -40 net malus, its not worth taking. If it has -30 net malus it is worth, unless there are other tactical considerations
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Well, I don't think we could find an easy threshold for shooting maluses that everyone could agree on.
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Worth it for what? for damage, long range shooting is far superior to saving for medium range. Long range shooting gets 5 less casualties from the ambush, but it deals 16 damage for each long range shot. So just shooing an ambush long range shot and medium shot does 1 more cohesion damage than shooting a single ambush medium shot, with every long range shot increasing that disparity.
There is an argument that could be made that saving the ambush is worth it because its an additional damage we can put where we want, though i am not sure that is applicable here - as far as i know, we do plan on firing immedeately once the enemy comes into medium range after all.
Well, we do know that it is above -40 because thats the malus that people are so concerned about. But it is below -20, because thats just normal medium range shooting. So i guess the real question is, is -30 considered a waste of munition? So the elves shooting enemy in forests at medium range, the 200th shooting enemies at long range, a trained infantry that lost a 100 troops shooting at medium range
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That is only accurate if you assume artillery can only go behind the main infantry line, which isn't safe for him to assume. It's entirely imaginable that an unorthodox hob with a penchant for flanking places artillery on the flanks for an ambush.
Ok, but shooting for 0-1 damage doesn't help us win the battle. Loosing out on a stealth ambush and giving our entire artillery battery away has very, very limited tactical benefits. The only reason to shoot with them now is to grind XP, which I don't think the battle would provide enough off to matter for the next. That is an operational concern rather a tactical one, since a 1 damage shot can hardly affect the battle.
We can also not say that using every bit of ammunition for xp is best for our chances going forward. What if this reduces the ability of Arné to supply a more important campaign? What if we face a situation where we have to use much more munitions, like during a siege? What about another battle in the rain?
If we always take every shot with the artillery we bind ourselves to a considerable munition strain. I think we should follow the general practice of firing when tactically advantageous, rather than to trying to level up every time, especially as sufficient xp comes in increasingly delayed times.
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This assumes all damage distribution is equal. Shooting at long ranges looses the ability to use the ambush dmg bonus for a specific target for the sake of low damage against a random one. The ability to use additional damage when needed rather than dealing it against a scout is worth more than +1 cohesion damage if you ask me.
Hmm, how do you get 32.4 casualties for the two elven artillery? My numbers are lower, they are propably off... I still have not managed to fully wrap my head around how the casualties are calculated from hits. There was a basic casualty level (3 or 4?), onto which the wounding of the weapon is added, and a d10 is rolled? Right?
Yes, but he does not know where they are, or that they are ready to fire. Giving up that information matters, since if he believes we are still moving 3/4 guns into position, he might wrongly assume he has a window of opportunity to advance.
Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I am proposing we don't shoot with all artillery this turn. If it turns out that Von Trotha exposes juicy targets to our long range artillery, we could decide to open fire on a future turn if we want to. We are not making decision for 5 turns here.
I really do think you are focusing to much on the math, and too little on playing our opponent. Let's put ourselves in Von Trotha's shoes: if he is competent and suspects we have artillery at Kinzberg, what could he choose to do? One option would be to send a unit that is expendable or resistant to artillery shots (eg. a Halfling, which he does not have, or a Defensive Genius, which he likely has) forward into our range to bait out Ready Fire shots. That is what I would do if we were attacking him. With your plan, we would be shooting all our artillery at the unit Von Trotha choose to expose, revealing our artillery positions and "wasting" the Concealement advantage on a suboptimal target. Now knowing the position of our artillery, he chooses the safe, but slow route through Rotholz or the Western Forest for his army. We only get one turn of shooting, against a unit he specifically chose to sacrifice.
On the other hand, what may happen if he chooses the same tactic, but we only fire 1/3 guns? He might see that only one of our cannons fired, conclude that as a aggresive Arnese Hob, we are likely pushing our cannons into forward positions, and choose to try to use this perceived window of opportunity to quickly move his troops towards us along the road. We open fire with all guns a few turns later, and get 3-5 turns of long range shooting at his now commited army.
Look, I am not saying this will specifically happen, but I do say it is a possibility. By choosing to not fire all guns this turn, we may end up doing more damage in total, if it leads to our enemy misjudging the situation. We should not focus too much on mathematical calculation, but also try to predict what a competent opponent might do.
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It's a base of 7 + wounding, with an effective cap of 9. Multiplying artillery hits by 0.9 is a functional enough approximation.
It should also be noted that this damage is spread random, rather than deliberate. Just to illustrate the worst case scenario: If the enemy rolls an inspiring CO , even dealing 1-2 damage would be wasted in terms of slow attrition. Against a defensive geniuses, even rolling high on the ambush wouldn't accomplish much. A better strategy would be a more focussed fire on specific units we can identify as important, rather than long ranged ready fire against what is probably going to be a cavalry/elven scout.
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That's I think an even more solid argument, the fact that a long-range shot is likely only to hit the odd scouting unit rather than those more central to whatever plans he's developing.