Lance Runolfsson Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 How do you decide whether to reinforce a unit or not? The best I can tell an 8 strength unit with one experience bar is probably close to as good as a 10 strength unit with no experience. Has anyone figured out what the real break point is between experience and strength? Or have any handy algorithms that help to decide how many time to click that reinforcement button? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuniworth Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 Interestin...this is good to know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gengisjon Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 I did a little research on this earlier. The combat formulas are all in the users manual and I built a spreadsheet to calculate combat results. I don't know if they have been updated for the newer versions but I will see if I can find my original spreadsheet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lance Runolfsson Posted January 21, 2003 Author Share Posted January 21, 2003 There is clearly an optimum way to build experience. I can never get any of my units past 1 experience with out them being so weak that they are tactically useless. Yet the AI manages routinely to have units maxed out on experience that are powerful in strength as well. Maybe the deal is that you have to repeatedly make attacks against weak units where you will inflict but take no casualties yourself? I think Rambo has this cracked there are some tantalizing references to his having very experienced units in some of his posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konstantin V. Kotelnikov Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 One way to make sure you reap the benefits of experience... Don't wait until they are 2 or 3 strength to reinforce them. Suddenly those 7 or 8 points you add turns the entire army green. Often what I do is only add 1 or 2 points at a time. It allows you to restrengthen without losing too much experience. Works wonders. It leads to some 3+ experience units fairly quickly if you do it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Reale Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 Originally posted by Lance Runolfsson: Yet the AI manages routinely to have units maxed out on experience that are powerful in strength as well. It's very simple, the computer cheats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 Konstantin Good approach. Whenever possible I like to take significantly weakend units out of the line and place them in rear areas to rebuild them slowly, as you recommend, maintaining their as much of their experience levels as possible. Agreed that below five or six points makes it more difficult, first for the amount of time consumed in doing it slowly, and secondly because usually a lot of the experience is lost anyway by the time they're brought back to full strength. Tony I've always felt many of the DOS programs, including Clash of Steel, has the computer routinely bending things in favor of the AI. Including outright cheating, but I think that's more in the nature of an overload because I've seen units transform, were infantry corps conduct air attacks. At that point I restart and usually it clears up. If it isn't an overload I hate to consider the other possibility! :eek: [ January 22, 2003, 02:45 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gengisjon Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 Tony - What level do you have the AI set to? If I remember correctly the higher levels add exp. Also if you play with fog of war off you will see the computer use the strategy described here - adding a couple of points instead of maxing strength out. I would imagine that built into the program is an algorithm that figures out the best exp. vs. strength combination to maximize the reinforcing of units. With a little work this could probably be figured out since all of the formulas have been provided. (With that said there is always the possibility that the computer cheats ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konstantin V. Kotelnikov Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 I don't think the computer cheats in SC. If you notice it loves to attack. It makes lots of attacks that a human player wouldn't. I have seen on the russian front the computer attack experienced tank corps with unexperienced infantry corps, rumanians attack everything including their mother, italians sieging Riga, and on & on. The order of it's attacks always seems: Air Panzer Armies Corps Occassionally it will do something out of that order if a variable changes, i.e. a unit is destroyed. All those attacks can build up the experience very quickly. And of course there is the difficulty setting which will give them +1 or +2. AI cheating was awful in East Front. For some odd reason the computer artillery always guessed correctly the hex you were moving to. Sneaky little devil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Reale Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 I have the AI on normal no experience for the computer. I've played both sides against the AI. Result? The computer side always gains experience quicker and loses less when you re-build. I've been playing games ( board and computer ) for close to 30 years. I'm by no means an expert player, but I've been around and I've been wrong. Regardless of how the game plays out, it is very addictive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KDG Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 I'd always expect the computer to gain expierience faster as it knows the exact equations for gaining it. Which battles to fight, etc. I would like some info on how much to reinforce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 Konstain, If you do as you said you will whind up with better units, but wasting a lot of turns, like if you reenforce every other turn with unit's that are at like 7 or 8 str. seems like a waste of turns they could be attacking, does it not? Prehaps i am wrong. I do think it is an interesting topic since experience helps ALOT when breaking those tough cities in russia such as Lenningrad, or in the Urals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wachtmeister Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 Antoher factor to consider regarding unit experience is what I call the "snowball effect". This effect works mainy in the Axis favor, especially for the 1939 Fall Weiss Campaign. In Fall Weiss, the Axis, AI or human, quickly blows Poland, France and Denmark away, ending up with a hard core armed force, where virtually every unit has L1 - L3 experience. Further conquests of some combination of Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway, Vichy France, Spain, and/or Sweden provide additional "hard core" units. When these experienced units attack, for example, Russia, they usually inflict two or even three times more damage than they receive, so that the Axis attackers lose less exprience per reinforcement, than the defenders. They are also much more likely to eliminate dedenders, and receive the 1/2 point experience bonus. Thus, the "snowball" - experienced units, properly used, tend to increase experience level. Relatively inexperienced defending units tend to lose experience. An added advantage is the fact that defensive success only adds 1/2 the experience compared to offensive success. Throw in some advanced technology, and the Axis can become nearly (but not completely) unstoppable, at least on a unit for unit basis. This experience momentum in each direction, is the main reason Russia needs every MPP it gets to build those swarms of corps for the defence of the "Motherland". The entry of the Siberian army is key, since those units all show up with L1 experience. It is also why it is necessary for UK and USA units to hit any available axis city, port, or other relatively "easy" target, in order to gain as much experience as possible before opening the 2nd front. Any time the opportunity arises to severely reduce or eliminate an experienced enemy unit, it should be taken, if at all practical. Even if the short term cost is high, the long term pay-off is usually worthwhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Night Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 HQ's are really the only units that i have played with that were able to keep up a huge Exp. backing and of course be very effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 Originally posted by Tony Reale: It's very simple, the computer cheats. Ouch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Reale Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 Originally posted by Hubert Cater: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Tony Reale: It's very simple, the computer cheats. Ouch! </font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Cater Posted January 24, 2003 Share Posted January 24, 2003 To be honest, I thought it was pretty funny Hubert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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