Individual Weapon cost

[guachi]

Something I'd been curious about for awhile - how much does an individual weapon in a squad cost?

This may have been (and likely was) talked about before, but here goes...

Calculating individual weapon cost isn't difficult, just time consuming.

Methodology -

I purchased one of every squad type at platoon level for each of the 6 experience levels and added up the six numbers for each squad type. I chose a base time of March 45 (except when I needed a US Rifle 44 squad) to not have any differences in squad cost because of changes in inherent squad abilities (like Panzerfausts).

I used one squad of every experience level and added them to amplify any differences in weaon cost. Any decimal cost of a weapon (say, a Rifle costing 15.4 pts) would be masked by the fact that costs are only given in integers if I used ony one experience level.

In any case, here are my findings.

All point costs are given as a SUMMATION of the point costs for each experience level for that particular weapon.

German -

K98 Rifle - 18 pts

MP40 SMG - 18.75

MP44 - 22

MG42 LMG - 49.75

All the above costs are approximate as the numbers never added up perfectly, but they should be pretty close.

American -

Garand - 19

Carbine - 19

SMG - 19

BAR - 25

Yes, the Garand, Carbine, and SMG really do cost the same. The BAR is 25 pts for Paratroop, Glider, and Rifle 44 squads; but 29 pts for a Rifle 45 squad. I don't know why, though.

British -

Lee-Enfield (or whatever their rifle was) - 17 1/3

Sten SMG - 17 1/3

Bren - 40

Take into account that British squads have no inherent AT capability like American (rifle grenades) and Germans (fausts) do.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of these numbers, but maybe somebody else will have some thoughts.

Jason

Oh, I didn't use engineering squds in my calculations because of the inherent capabilities of engineers. It would be interesting to plug inthe above numbers and figure out how much the engineer capabilities cost.

[JasonC]

Not entirely clear on what your figures mean. I take it if you write down "rifle - 18 pts" what you mean is that the -average- cost of 1 conscript, 1 green, 1 regular, 1 veteran, 1 crack, and 1 elite rifle - is 3 pts for that man.

It seems ~3 points is the cost for a man with an "ordinary" personal weapon, and that SMGs, carbines, all kinds of rifles - are all "normal" in that sense. While MP44s cost 0.5 pts extra each. About - a little less than those figures for regulars, presumably, and a little more than it for veterans.

I'd suggest instead just getting accurate figures for -regulars-. I expect the effect of skill level on cost is uniform for all weapons (e.g. 1.25 times cost or whatever it is). It is hard to make use of the "cumulative" figures, because one normally buys near-regular qualities and one needs to compare the point costs to other, non-squad infantry items. So a per man cost for regulars might be more useful.

For what it is worth.

[guachi]

When I write '18 pts', I mean that if you add up the cost of 1 conscript, one green, on regular, one veteran, one crack, and one elite soldier equipped with that particular weapon, the total cost is 18 pts.

The biggest reason I used total cost is that it gets rid of lots of decimals. Writing '19' is better than writing '2.64' for instance.

And, yes, the geometric cost increase from one experience level to the next is uniform for weapons. The cost increase is NOT uniform for all units, though. Artillery spotter costs, for instance, are far more impacted by experience than tanks are.

In any event, I have computed the costs for regular soldiers.

German

K98 - 2.54

MP40 - 2.64

MP44 - 3.10

MG42 - 7.01

American

Garand - 2.68

SMG - 2.68

BAR - 3.53

British

Lee-Enfield - 2.44

Sten - 2.44

Bren - 5.64

I am unsure why there is no (or little) cost difference between rifles and SMGs.

Jason

[Slapdragon]

Because a rifle and SMG are not that far off in killing power if you take into account the rifles over 100 meter to 300 meter range band, and the SMG's under 75 meter range band. Properly used, the SMG squad wipes the deck with the rifle squad. At 150 meters, it is impotent except for its SAW.

Now, there are several problems with your figures. First - there are no all SMG allied formations that you can look at to get a SMG's price. You are left with second order deduction.

The deduction would work, but the equation is not strictly linear since a squad carries more than rifles, meaning you have a hidden and unaccounted variable. That variable is the AT weapons the the possibility of things like gammon bombs. Thus the K98 likely suffers more than the charts make it look because of the superior faust variants, while the carbine, allied SMG, and BAR are difficult to decode from within the squad because you only get 1 or 2 per squad in all but two formation types.

An additional confounding variable is the fact that 12 unarmed men are worth something without weapons, and get a factored value before the weapons are heaped on. This can make the weapons appear closer in value than they are.

[Jarmo]

Comparing -45 variety Waffen SS rifle squad and heer rifle squad, we find that MP44 and Kar98 cost exactly the same.

Both squads have the same price tag, the only difference is SS having one more 44 and one less Kar.

I'd love to know if there actually is any formula behind infantry unit costs...

[Wreck]

Don't forget that it is impossible in CM to see the true price of any infantry squad, because you must always buy it as part of a platoon. Instead you see the discounted (and then rounded) price.

This explains why you are not getting exact numbers for the regular squads.

It also explains how you found that K98s and MP40s are not the same price. Different squads cost different amounts, and when in formations will thus sometime round off differently.

[JasonC]

Here are the cost relationships I see -

Men with rifle, SMG, or carbine - 2.6

MP44 men - 1.2 times the above or 3.12

BAR and Bren gunners - 2x or 5.2

MG42 gunners - 3x or 7.8

HQ team members - 2x cost, but

Pistols - 0.5x cost

Maybe. Maybe HQ members are just 4.5 points regardless of armament. The two give the same result for 1 pistol platoon HQs. It is somewhat confused by discounts for large unit purchases, but the above is not misleading.

Green quality - above x0.8

Conscript - Green x0.8

Veteran - above x1.2

Crack - Vet x1.2

Elite - Crack x1.2

Company discount - ~14/15 standard cost (might be 15/16 cost and some rounding effects)

Battalion discount - ~7/8 standard cost

I see no sign of Brens costing more than BARs. It is within rounding. Both seem to count as "2 men". MG42s seem to count as "3 men". The extra cost of MP44s over rifles or SMGs is the same multiplier as the cost for +1 quality level. Since few MP44s are in each squad, this ~1/2 point per man cost usually makes little difference, and sometimes a single MP44 can be lost in the rounding to the nearest point.

The applications of the 0.8 and 1.2 quality cost factors seem to be rounded at each step. Thus an 18 pt HQ made green costs 18x0.8 = 14.4, rounds to 14. A conscript then costs 14x0.8 = 11.2, rounds to 11. Not 18x0.8x0.8 = 11.52 rounded to 12.

No difference seems to be made between SMG costs, rifle costs, M-1s vs. Enfields or K98s. There is also, of course, no ammo difference with the default ammo levels, which probably masks the longer term utility of rifle accuracy.

That's how I see it. Simple rules, and they fit the data seen, to within an odd point here or there.

[guachi]

One poster wrote that SS Rifle 45 squads cost the same as a regular rifle 45 squad. That is untrue. The problem has to do with the dropping of decimals by the CM cost routine.

The two squads cost the SAME at all experience levels except Elite, where the SS squad costs one more point. This is a clear indication that MP44s cost more than K98s (albeit a very small amount).

If you only compare costs at one xp level, you will get nothing but errors.

That is why I had to use the total cost of one squad of each experience level. It was the only way to see any small differences. It was ALSO the only way to make sure that any similarities were not caused by dropping decimals.

You are more than welcome to repeat the math I used. Here is what I did. All cost are for one squad of each xp level purchased at platoon level and added up.

VG SMG and Fusilier SMG contain nothing but SMGs.

VG SMG = 150. 150/8 = 18.75

Fusilier SMG = 169. 169/9 = 18.77

So I assumed that SMGs cost 18.75.

VG Hvy SMG units have 6 SMGs and 2 MG42s so I can calculate the cost of MG42s.

VG Hvy SMG = 212.

6*18.75 + 2*(MG42 cost) = 212

2*(MG42 cost) = 99.5

MG42 = 49.75

Using the above two numbers I can now calculate the cost of K98 rifles using squads that contain no MP44s (because I don't know their cost yet)

Plugging the costs calculated above gave me K98 costs of (using four different squad types):

17.8, 18, 18, 18.1.

So I assumed Rifles cost 18. And the similarity in the Rifle costs gives me confidence that my SMG and MG42 costs are fairly accurate.

From here, I can calculate the remaining cost of the MP44. Four different squad types gave me costs between 21.9 and 22.4.

So I settled on a cost of 22 for MP 44.

American squad weapons.

Paratroop and Glider squads differ by only the number of Rifles so I can use that to calculate cost of a Rifle, 19.

Glider and Rifle 44 squads are identical in cost across ALL xp levels, eventhough squad composition is different (except for the one BAR). The easiest way for this to be is if Rifles, Carbines, and SMGs all cost the same. That is, 19 pts. And thus the BAR costs 25.

Although that still doesn't explain why the BAR in a Rifle 45 squad costs 29.

British -

This was the easiest of all. Rifle and Airborne squads cost the same at all xp levels. Subtracting one from the other shows that Rifles and SMGs cost the same. Using that identity, I could subtract a glider squad from an Airborne squad and find the cost of a Rifle/SMG, which turned out to be 17 1/3. From this I could calculate the cost of a Bren, which is 40.

I didn't really want to go into all of this math, but some people seemed to be questioning the validity of my numbers. They may very well be wrong, but at least you can see more precisely how I derived them

Jason

[ 09-18-2001: Message edited by: guachi ]

[guachi]

JasonC...

About increased cost for infantry units by xp lvl. I was fiddling around with the costs looking at the total costs for all squads by xp lvl. And I JUST noticed something interesting.

At first, I used Conscripts as a start and calculated the other xp levels as a ratio of Conscript costs. Nothing interesting popped up except that it was obviously not a geometric increase.

Then, I went with what you said about the costs being based on REGULAR troops having a base of one. And that IS the case, although not how you figured it.

Here are the costs from Conscript to Elite with Regular troops having a cost of 1.0.

.64 .81 1.00 1.21 1.44 1.69

If you are at all familiar with math,these numbers should jump out at you as they are all squares.

.8² .9² 1.0² 1.1² 1.2² 1.3²

Looking at the cost savings for buying units in platoons/companies/battalions for every single unit in the game, the numbers, when averaged, come very close to showing a 5% savings per level.

That is, buying in a platoons saves 5% of buying a unit individually (possible only for a very small number of units). Company saves 5% over platoon ,etc.

Jason

[JasonC]

It is a theoretical disagreement, about how the program actually calculates costs. You think they sums of costs over all experience levels are more accurate, or have less rounding error in them, and thus bring out small differences that are real. I disagree. For starters, I do not think the program uses any summed measure of cost over all experience levels.

I think that 0.8 or 1.2 factors are applied repeatedly to regular base costs to generate the costs for the other experience levels. And I think the numbers are -rounded- after each such factor is applied. If there were no rounding, then regular cost and cumulative cost for all experience levels would be related by one constant factor - 0.64 + 0.8 + 1.0 + 1.2 + 1.44 + 1.73 = 6.81. Each of your numbers divided by 6.81 would then be the regular cost of that item. But there is rounding, and how it hits each squad type over all 6 experience classes will be different each time, as one base cost rounds up and another down.

You can see the point I am getting at if, in your "deductions" from the cost of a given squad, you track the range of possible error as well as the figure. For instance, a regular US para squad costs 29 and a regular US glider squad costs 34, and they differ by 2 rifles. Does this mean a regular rifle always costs 2.5? It does not. Because the 29 could be, initially, as low as 28.51, and the 34 could be as high as 34.49. Or it could be 29.49 and 33.51. Thus one learns from this comparison that the cost of a regular US rifle is -between- 2.01 and 2.99, -not- that it is exactly 2.5.

At any rate, most of the important parts of the conclusion are not in doubt. Rifles and SMGs cost the same. There is not noticable difference in the cost of these vanilla weapons from type to type or nation to nation - not that is larger than rounding errors. MP44s cost only marginally more than any of the other "vanilla" personal weapons.

The biggest discrepency between your conclusions and mine concerns the squad SAWs, and especially the US BAR. You have it as only ~30% more expensive than a rifle, which is around 1 extra point each to substitute another BAR in place of a rifle. I doubt that can be right, when the only difference between a US rifle 44 and a US rifle 45 squad is one extra BAR, and the cost of the squad rises 3 points for regulars. The cost of each man in the original squad is around the same, 2.83 as regulars, counting the 1 original BAR. I consider it much more plausible that the internal CM cost formulas count a BAR man as "double the cost" of the default level that seems to be used for all rifles, SMGs, and carbines.

That means the cost of a US rifleman is more like 2.6 than 2.75, as a regular. Getting figures from squad comparisons differing only by 2 weapons leaves a large possible error, because the point cost given by CM is only telling us what the internal formulas use to within +/- 0.5 points.

How did you arrive at the idea that the BAR costs 25, except 29 if you have two of them? First off, reduce these to regular base cost figures by dividing by 6.81. Then you would have it that a single regular BAR cost 3.67, while 2 of them cost 4.26 each. That leaves the cost of the other weapons at 2.76 and 2.85 respectively. It is unlikely the cost of either type varies with squad type.

What the regulars actually tell us, though, is that 37.49 to 36.51 buys 2 BAR plus 10 standard, and 34.49 to 33.51 buys 1 BAR plus 11 standard. Which means a BAR costs between 2.02 and 3.98 more than a rifle - that is, 3 more, plus or minus 1.

The rifle 45 regular cost can then be decomposed into 6 plus or minus 2 extra for BARs, and 31 plus or minus 2 for 12 standard weapon costs. That puts the standard weapon cost at 2.58 plus or minus .17, 2.41-2.75 as a range. The rifle 44 regular cost can be decomposed into 3 plus or minus 1 for the excess of BAR over standard, and 31 plus or minus one 1 point for 12 standard weapons. This gives the same center-point and a smaller error, making the range for the standard weapon cost 2.5 to 2.66.

We can then cross check this with the US para squad. 1 BAR but only 9 standard weapons and a cost of 29. After taking off 2-4 for the excess of the BAR as before, the standard weapon cost is 2.5-2.7.

All of the US squad types are therefore consistent with 2.6 for the standard weapon cost, and something around 3 points extra for a BAR. Double is an obvious possibility. To see if it makes sense, all we have to do is see if the squad prices are consistent with "values" of 11 for the para, 13 for the gliber and rifle 44, and 14 for the rifle 45 squads - as a "weighted" "number of men" with the BARs counted twice. Dividing the regular costs by these, one gets 2.636, 2.615, 2.643. All within 1% of 2.62 "per man", with BARs costing twice as much. And that settles the anomoly you encountered with your own procedure.

Thus, US regular squad prices fit 2.62 times (men plus BARs) - US para 2.62x(10+1) = 28.82, cost is 29 check. US glider or rifle 44 2.62x(12+1) = 34.06, cost is 34 check. US rifle 45 2.62x(12+2)= 36.68, cost is 37 check.

Try the same formula on the British squads, following nothing more than Occam's razor, that the simpliest model is the most likely one. Brit glider regulars 2.62x(7+1) = 20.96, cost is 21 check. Brit standard or para squads 2.62x(10+1) = 28.82 cost is 29 check.

Does that mean that is the actual formula? No. It might be 2.65, or 2.67 (8 points for 3 men perhaps), and the rounding would be a bit different.

I don't see why anyone would care about the minute details. The basic story is most weapons cost the same, SAWs cost as much as 2 men for Allies and more like 3 men for Germans. MP44s cost only marginally more than other "vanilla" weapons, and SMGs don't cost more than rifles, at all.

For the Allies the bargains are the paras with their extra automatic weapons, and to a lesser degree the US rifle 45, with M-1s and 2 BARs, which you basically pay for but still capable.

For the Germans the bargains are high numbers of automatic weapons. The extra capability of the MP44 type is well worth the modest extra cost. 2 LMG types do pay for the 2nd MG; they are capable squads, but like the US rifle 45 you do pay for it. Whereas e.g. the Gebirgersjaegers and VG get tons of SMGs without paying more per man. They do have range limits, but you can buy almost exclusively bargains.

I have now exhausted what I have to say on the subject, and leave it to the rest of you.

[JasonC]

Interesting quachi, I hadn't noticed the perfect squares before, but that might be how they get the numbers. It is close to .64, .8, 1, 1.2, 1.44, 1.728 from a +/- 20% multiplier per level. The tail at "elite" is slightly different, by 2.25%. All the others are likely to give the same result to within rounding error.

[Michael Emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by guachi:

I am unsure why there is no (or little) cost difference between rifles and SMGs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The rifles have better long range performance,

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by guachi:

I am unsure why there is no (or little) cost difference between rifles and SMGs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The rifles have better long range performance,

Michael

[guachi]

JasonC,

You are right, of course. The actual costs are irrelevant. The important thing is the comparison of the cost of weapon X to weapon Y.

Automatic weapons are a bargain. The K98 is a rip-off having worse FP than any weapon in the game.

Squad weapons are a bargain, especially the MG42. The MG42 has good FP at all ranges and constitutes a huge % of squad FP at long ranges. In addition, squad weapons have a lower chance to be eliminated when a squad takes a casuality.

Yes, rifles do have more FP than SMGs at longer ranges. But the numbers concerned are so small as to be insignificant next to the power of any other weapon system at 250m+.

The only typical use I could see for a squad to fire at 250m+ would be a German 1/2 squad or depleted squad with an LMG42 because it still has a reasonable FP rating.

IMO, rifles should be cheaper (or automatic weapons should cost more, or both) and squad weapons should cost more. Some weapons, like the K98 are so bad that I can't imagine that they should cost much more than an unarmed soldier. A soldier with a K98 is nothing more than a body to take a bullet to keep the MG42 operational.

Interestingly, the cost of a British rifleman (who has NO rifle grenades or schrecks) is 2.5 (I actually calculated it as 2.55). The cost of a German or American rifleman (who DO have schrecks and rifle grenades, respectively) is almost exactly 10% higher.

Anyway, individual soldier costs need to be changed as automatic weapons are a bargain. It isn't going to happen for CM1, but maybe for CM2.

BTS, please fix or do somefink!

Jason

[Jarmo]

I still maintain my old opinion of SMG's.

The problem is not them being too cheap.

The problem is them being too effective at ranges of 50 meters and up.

I believe this will get a "fix" of some

sort in CM2.

[ 09-19-2001: Message edited by: Jarmo ]