Are veteran units too cheap?

[Bulletpoint]

Ok, open question time. I usually only play scenarios, but recently started doing Quick Battles against an opponent, so we get to buy our own troops.

I'm noticing that upgrading your troops from Regular to Veteran experience level only costs around 7.5 % extra points. That seems cheap to me. I mean, it basically costs you less than 1/10 of your troops to upgrade them all to veterans. You can have a 15 man squad of regulars or a 14 man squad of veterans - surely that is a no-brainer? Why would you ever not do that?

(apart from house rules to make the game more realistic of course..)

[Placebo]

I would agree i generally go up the scale (hardly ever down unless planning statis defence), as it is quite cheap to do with infantry.   However when a squad is wiped out by arty or concentrated fire (never my fault of course) I often think how  the extra men would have been more use as elite troops are just as mortal as consript ones.

[Bulletpoint]

It just seems to me veterans are much better than regulars. I'm thinking a 20 pct price premium might make the choice of what to buy more interesting. Or maybe make more experienced troops increasingly expensive in rarity points. After all, most wars were mostly fought by green or regular troops.

It's only in very recent conflicts that we see small all-crack forces against irregulars (as the main event, not just as isolated incidences in a much larger conflict).

Edited November 8, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Michael Emrys]

I try to tailor the quality of troops to what I believe the larger formation was like at the particular time. If it is a new division just coming on-line, or an older one that has had to absorb a lot of replacements, you won't find many veterans in my ranks at all. On the other hand, if it is a formation that has done well and been lucky enough not to suffer too many casualties, you might see quite a few veterans. But only very seldom will you find any crack level soldiers and only if I feel that they have been specially chosen and trained. And elite practically never.

Michael

[Vanir Ausf B]

I mostly buy Regulars in my QBs. They all bleed the same.

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

I try to tailor the quality of troops to what I believe the larger formation was like at the particular time. If it is a new division just coming on-line, or an older one that has had to absorb a lot of replacements, you won't find many veterans in my ranks at all. On the other hand, if it is a formation that has done well and been lucky enough not to suffer too many casualties, you might see quite a few veterans. But only very seldom will you find any crack level soldiers and only if I feel that they have been specially chosen and trained. And elite practically never.

I like your point of view, and I would like to do the same. Trouble is, when I'm playing against a human opponent, I also want a chance of winning, and if he goes with all veterans, I think I need to do the same. An "arms race" kind of situation.

Maybe a house rule would fix the problem, but still it's a bit odd to see much better troops only cost a bit more points. I thought the points value had to reflect the combat effectiveness of the unit.

[Vanir Ausf B]

The performance difference is about 10 percent in the tasks in which experience makes a difference, not 20. And there are only certain tasks it mades a difference with. You also have to weigh having fewer men to lose and less ammunition to burn so the QB prices seem about right to me.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Vanir Ausf B

[Bulletpoint]

43 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

The performance difference is about 10 percent in the tasks in which experience makes a difference, not 20.

Fair enough, but the counterargument could then be the "cowboy scenario" - two gunslingers face each other in a quick draw contest. How valuable is it to be even 5% faster and more accurate than the other guy?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Well, yeah. If a typical CM scenario were just two soldiers. Snipers are one of the few units I make Veteran

[Bulletpoint]

Well it's interesting to hear other points of view about this. Does anyone ever go down to green or conscript levels? Why/why not?

[Vanir Ausf B]

I do. Not the whole force, just a few units here and there. Why? Because they are cheap 

[A Canadian Cat]

I just buy using typical and leave what I get - nearly.  I do sometimes bump squads up from low motivation and I will drop squads down or up in experience to use up the last few points (or get back from negative values).  And I also do make sure my snipers are way above average.

I don't feel the need to make everyone veteran to satisfy an arms race.  That's what more tanks are for

[Bulletpoint]

Just for the record, my cost estimate was slightly off - a company of US infantry veterans are not 7.5 % more expensive, they cost about 8.3 % more.

Some interesting things though.

Points cost of infantry company (late) Regular, normal, Fit, 0 leadership.

Conscript: 571

Green: 651 (+80)

Regular: 744 (+93)

Veteran: 806 (+62)

Crack: 885 (+79)

Elite: 957 (+72)

 

Seems like getting to "regular" is the costliest single step. Also, as the points required to reach each additional step don't increase, it becomes become relatively cheaper to upgrade the further up the exp levels you go.

Conversely, you save 173 points going from Regular down to Conscript, that's about 23 % of the unit's cost. Going up two steps to Crack level costs you 144 points, that's a 19 % price increase over Regulars.

 

Edited November 9, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[JoMac]

On 11/8/2016 at 8:11 AM, Bulletpoint said:

Ok, open question time. I usually only play scenarios, but recently started doing Quick Battles against an opponent, so we get to buy our own troops.

I'm noticing that upgrading your troops from Regular to Veteran experience level only costs around 7.5 % extra points. That seems cheap to me. I mean, it basically costs you less than 1/10 of your troops to upgrade them all to veterans. You can have a 15 man squad of regulars or a 14 man squad of veterans - surely that is a no-brainer? Why would you ever not do that?

(apart from house rules to make the game more realistic of course..)

Yeah, if that's the case, then I have a problem with that (never noticed till you mentioned it...I only play Green w/soft factors)...So, what is the Price Differences between each Class of Troops then?...If the Price range is incremental from each other (less then %10) per Class, then there would be roughly only %20 less Vet Troops vs Green...Now, that's sounds like a problem. 

Maybe BF doesn't think there is much of a difference between Vet vs Green in RL Combat :-(

Joe

Edited November 9, 2016 by JoMc67

[Bulletpoint]

36 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

 %20 less Troops if playing Vet vs Green...Now, that's a problem for me

Actually I just ran the numbers before you posted that, see my table above. As far as I can calculate, going from Green to Veteran would mean you have roughly 19% fewer troops available.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Michael Emrys]

8 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I like your point of view, and I would like to do the same. Trouble is, when I'm playing against a human opponent, I also want a chance of winning, and if he goes with all veterans, I think I need to do the same. An "arms race" kind of situation.

Which is one of the main reasons I don't play against a human opponent. It's just a difference in style. Some people approach CM as a competitive game and that's how they get their jollies. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, it's just that I prefer to approach CM as an exercise of historical analysis and illustration. Different strokes...

Michael

[Bulletpoint]

26 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

Maybe BF doesn't think there is much of a difference between Vet vs Green in RL Combat :-(

Well I think they know very well there's a big difference, at least I sure see the difference in the results when fighting veteran VS green. The vets mop the floor with the greens. But whether or not this quality difference is appropriately reflected in the points cost, well, I don't know.

[Bulletpoint]

 

28 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

Which is one of the main reasons I don't play against a human opponent. It's just a difference in style. Some people approach CM as a competitive game and that's how they get their jollies. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, it's just that I prefer to approach CM as an exercise of historical analysis and illustration. Different strokes...

I like both things actually, but even when I play competitively, I like to keep things reasonably historically correct and believable. So I really think it's a good thing that we have the rarity system and the formation overhead cost etc. to keep people from cherrypicking.

I would just personally like to see a points system that encouraged players more strongly to play with a variety of unit qualities, with most of the soldiers being pretty low (or at least basic) quality, then some groups of veterans, and maybe a couple of rare crack troops here and there. Hardly ever any elites.

One way this could be done would be to increase the points for going up levels exponentially. Instead of charging a nearly fixed amount of points (80 points, say, per level), you could say each level cost 10 percent more than the previous level. So going from Conscript to Green might cost you, say, 80 points, but going the final step from Crack to Elite might cost you 400 points (just arbitrary numbers to give an example of the general idea).

Edited November 9, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[JoMac]

Yeah, and actually what I'm trying to imply...If Vet Troops can clean the floor vs. Green Troops, then you would think Vet Troops should cost at least 50% as much. 

Which brings us back to; "Why would you want anything less then Good Troops" in a QB Point System. 

Edited November 9, 2016 by JoMc67

[Bulletpoint]

3 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

Yeah, and actually what I'm trying to imply...If Vet Troops can clean the floor vs. Green Troops, then you would think Vet Troops should cost 50% to 2x as much. 

Yep, and that's the reason why I posted this thing in the first place. To hear other players' take on this, maybe find out if there's something I hadn't thought about.

[Baneman]

My own style when buying for a QB is to set everyone to Regular / 0 / 0.

Then I will tweak some up a tad ( a couple of HQ's to +1, a couple of squads - usually 1st squad in a platoon, to Veteran and a couple down to Green - the new guys. ).
That seems mildly more realistic - there's always some old hands and some replacements. Also, I have to think about who to use where and how, they're not all clones.

Maybe one HQ will be Vet and +1 - and they're sure to get the dirty jobs

A couple of teams might be Veterans - as others have said - snipers are much more useful if they have some skills. And someone like a schreck team might get +1 motivation because they may have to hold their ground in hiding ( but already I'm straying from realism to gamey ).

Complete armies of veterans ? No. Never happened irl, not going to happen in my force.
Each to their own of course, it's only a game.  

[JoMac]

1 hour ago, Michael Emrys said:

Which is one of the main reasons I don't play against a human opponent. It's just a difference in style. Some people approach CM as a competitive game and that's how they get their jollies. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, it's just that I prefer to approach CM as an exercise of historical analysis and illustration. Different strokes...

Michael

For the most part I'm also with, ME, regarding the above in Bold...Thou, like Bullet, sometimes I could play a competitive Game (like Chess) of a QB Purchase System. 

[JoMac]

18 minutes ago, Baneman said:

Complete armies of veterans ? No. Never happened IRL, not going to happen in my force.
Each to their own of course, it's only a game.  

Surely, you Jest...CM is not just a Game, but a Simulation (thou, I find myself questioning many aspects of it). 

Edited November 9, 2016 by JoMc67

[Bulletpoint]

25 minutes ago, JoMc67 said:

Thou, like Bullet, sometimes I could play a competitive Game (like Chess) of a QB Purchase System. 

I'd like to add that I try to play not just like a game of chess, but also in a relatively realistic way.

For example, in a recent game I started out deploying a screen of troops in an exposed location, and if I had played the game only as a game, I would just write off those guys as expendable and let them defend as long as they could.

But when things got too hot out there, I started doing suppressive fire to cover the screening troops while they ran back across a field to safety. I actually managed to get them all back to friendly lines alive and well, and this stuff is so much more fun to me than just winning the game

Edited November 9, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[Blazing 88's]

1 hour ago, Michael Emrys said:

Which is one of the main reasons I don't play against a human opponent. It's just a difference in style. Some people approach CM as a competitive game and that's how they get their jollies. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, it's just that I prefer to approach CM as an exercise of historical analysis and illustration. Different strokes...

Michael

+1