QB Troop Quality Observation

[von Lucke]

When setting up Quick Battles, with the Purchase Units option set to Automatically, and troop Quality set to Medium, invariably I seem to get 80-90% Green with a smattering of Conscript. The manual sez Medium should yield Regular and Green --- evidently the AI disagrees when allowed to choose on it's own.

Tried this x10 (OK, not exactly scientific), German, June 1941 (arguably, the high point of experienced Heer troops in WW2), and still end up with the Green / Conscript mix --- occasionally there will be a Reg LMG or FO. Perhaps a little tweaking is in order?

[Guest Panzer Boxb]

von Lucke, I just went through the process of setting up for two QBs in June 1941. First time I saw what you described. The second test yielded a mostly Regular group with a smattering of Green and Veteran elements. What other parameters were you using?

[von Lucke]

Just tried again: 400 pt Axis Probe / June 41 / Central / Combined Arms / German Infantry (varied this to Mech, Cav, Security also) / Medium Quality / Purchase Auto / Fit / No Casualties / No Handicap / Standard Rarity. All map parameters random.

Just tried two more times: Usually get about a company + some armored cars + FO. Usually breaks down as 80% Green / 10% Conscript / 10% Regular. Usually the Reg is some support unit, like an HMG or mortar, or FO. Kinda sucks when one of yr two AC's is Conscript though.

Edit: Tried this with SS troops: With them, I get the expected 80% Reg / 10% Green / 10% Vet. Then went back to regular heer, and they were 80% Green again!

BFC please fix or do sumfink!

[ September 25, 2002, 07:02 AM: Message edited by: von Lucke ]

[frontovik]

Yeah, I noticed this too. Every time I let the computer buy my forces it always chooses the lowest troop quality available. Granted I have not played enough QBs with auto purchase (about 5) for this to be statistically (sp) significant. I many cases I think it is even appropriate (Russians 41-42, or when TQ set to high) but it is very annoying to consistently get green germans in August 41 when troop quality set to medium (not buying SS or mech). The other thing I noticed is that when I generate a QB and set troop quality to random a simliar situation occurs, out of three battles I got conscripts twice and green once (all as axis) and the AI got conscripts all three times. Just wondering if I have had bad luck in my troop quality results or if others are noticing this trend as well. :confused:

[Moon]

Keep in mind that CMBB introduces some randomness with regard to troop quality. AFTER the purchase, a certain percentage of units gets assigned a lower quality level, and a certain percentage gets a higher one. This is determined at random. The percentages are equal, meaning that they balance each other out on average.

Martin

[Guest Panzer Boxb]

What I think he is saying, Moon, is that the overwhelming preponderence of troops selected are of the lowest caliber, such as almost all green when Medium is selected as the troop quality. The question is, does the algorithm for unit select automatically default to the lowest available quality in a given range?

Now, in my second test cited above the only specification I made for troop selection was setting the quality to medium. What I received was a German Security Company, a platoon of 222's, a platoon of Panzer IV-D's, and some misc support. The were predominantly Regulars with some variance as per the norm.

[aka_tom_w]

thanks for the reply Moon

BUT...... If I may ask.....

CMBO vs CMBB

Is a Reg Inf unit in CMBB that SAME as a Reg inf unit in CMB0?

There are (if I am not mistaken) 6 levels:

Elite

Crack

Vet

Reg

Green

Conscript

In CMBO

is an Elite Tank Crew in CMBB the SAME as an elite Tank crew in CMBO???

I thought that a Reg Inf Unit in CMBO would have the same data now as a Green inf unit in CMBB??

have there been any changes like that?

I thought many folks agreed that a Vet unit in CMBO would be the Same as a Reg unit in CMBB??

or am I just delusional??

thanks

-tom w

[ September 25, 2002, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[frontovik]

I understand that a certain % of troops (somewhere between 10-15%) will be one experience level higher and that the same percentage will be one lower.

However, my issue is with the frequency that green troops (as the bulk of the troops) appear. So anyway to satisfy my curiosity I ran some tests.

I set up a QB and ran it 25 times checking the troop quality of both sides.

Parameters were:

Date: August 1941

Region: Central

Force Mix: Inf Only

Nationality: German/Soviet

Division Type: Infantry

Quality: Medium

Purchase Units automatically

All parameters were the same for both sides and for all iterations.

Results:

German

Received Green troops 14 times (56%)

Received Regular troops 11 times (44%)

Soviet

Received Green troops 15 times (60%)

Received Regular troops 10 times (40%)

In 20% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior to the germans.

In 76% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior or equal to the germans.

Now this raises a few questions. Is it really reasonable to assume that approximately 50% of the german infantry divisions consisted of green troops in August 1941? Obviously of no consequence if the AI is soviet and you buy your own stuff, but playing as the Russians there is a 50% chance you will face green troops and only a 24% chance that the germans will have a superior troop quality. This does not strike me as historically accurate!!!.

Not sure if this discrepancy occurs in other years/monthes/nationalities/force mixes/division types but it potentially can make games vs. AI significantly less challenging than they should be, unless you buy the AI’s forces which sort of spoils the surpise.

But wait, there’s more…

Ran the same test (25x) with troop quality set to random (all other parameters set the same) and got following results:

German:

Crack: 8 (32%)

Veteran: 5 (20%)

Regular: 3 (15%)

Green: 9 (36%)

Conscript: 0 (0%)

Soviet:

Regular: 8 (32%)

Green: 9 (36%)

Conscript: 8 (32%)

In 16% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior to the Germans.

In 28% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior or equal to the Germans.

Despite the hordes of crack legions and an excess of greens, I liked these results better, and I guess that if you want a more realistic/historical game you are better off choosing random troop quality for the AI

None the less I believe that there are imbalances here (historical as well as game balance) that probably should be addressed!!

[frontovik]

Oh wait, I forgot that (IIRC) soviets squads before 1944 are considered one level below the germans (soviet green = german conscript), which does make a difference in game balance, but does not excuse the hordes of half trained german infantry wandering around the russian steppe!!

[Agua]

Originally posted by frontovik:

Oh wait, I forgot that (IIRC) soviets squads before 1944 are considered one level below the germans (soviet green = german conscript)

No, I believe the relative relationship you are referring to is that the command delay for Soviet troops prior to 1944 is the same delay to be expected for German troops of one experience level lower. I've seen nothing that I recall which indicates that qualities such as inherent morale and firepower are not identical across nationalities. I think only the command delay differs.

[frontovik]

Oops, well I was going off memory, disregard that blurb of mine and return to my original observation

[ September 25, 2002, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: frontovik ]

[tabpub]

Exactly. P 216 describes it as "Soviets are equal to Germans in order delay efficiency (for an equal experience level) starting in Jan 1944. Before that, Soviets order delays are one experience level lower than for a German unit of the same experience (ie. Soviet Regulars have similar delays as German Greens).

Now, as to the preponderance of Green in the QB selection process, I believe that it was stated that the Strat AI is a bit of a bargain hunter and will tend toward the cheaper troops. If that is not what you are looking for, then hand select. Or increase experience.

[aka_tom_w]

I thought it was mentioned or discussed by Steve that the Game would be picking WAY more Green and Conscript forces and the players "should" get used to using these kinds of units because their behaviour was/is considered WAY more realistic.

There was some suggestion that Elite Crack and Vet forces were VERY rare and using them all the time was somehow tantamount to gamey cherry picking. EVEN Reg inf units were suggested to be on the "gamey" side as a much more realistic "in-combat" reaction and behaviour was attributed to GREEN units in the game?

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

-tom w

[tar]

I wonder if the original problem had anything to do with there only being 400 points availble for the QB? Maybe there weren't enough points to be able to buy whole units at higher than green quality?

[Andrew H.]

I don't think that a 50-50 split between regulars and greens for the german army in June '41 is unrealistic - that's really a huge number of non-green troops. By contrast, I've always believed that US troops in CMBO should be more than 90% green, at least through the summer of '44. If you use the US troops as a a baseline, you can sort of appreciate how the 50% regulars number really is a lot.

I am a little concerned about the German conscripts, though, and I wonder if this could be tweaked to eliminate random conscripts until, perhaps, '44 or '45. In general, I like that troops have the 10% variance at the margins, but I don't think that it should apply in situations where, historically, there weren't any conscripts.

While I like that "medium" appears to be a 50-50 mix between green and regular, I think I would like it better if the troops were actually mixed more - that is, rather than medium meaning a 50% chance of getting a green company or a regular company, medium meant that you would tend to get a company with, say, a regular platoon, a green platoon, and a platoon of mixed regular and green squads.

A small percentage of vet units - perhaps a squad or a couple of support weapons would add some variation, but I don't think that there should be conscripts until, historically, there were conscripts. Maybe the presence of vets could be counterbalanced by more greens?

It may be true, especially earlier in the war, that it is more realistic to have most units in a battalion be green *or* regular, since it's probably unlikely that one platoon in the battalion was more or less experienced than another platoon, particularly given the German replacement system. It might be more common later in the war, when units were disbanded, but I don't really know how that worked in detail - i.e., whether a vet or regular platoon would be mixed in with green platoons, or whether the individual men were parcelled out.

I like playing with mixed green/regular units, though, because it adds an extra tactical element to the game - you want to have the green troops do the suppressing, while the regulars do the advancing and assaulting; vice versa doesn't work nearly as well. To some extent, the normal QB variation means that you have to do this in the game now.

I have no idea how hard any of these ideas would be to implement. Mixing greens and regulars is something that would be "nice," but it might even be ahistorical. Having German conscripts regularly show up in "Medium" quick battles in the first half of the war is ahistorical, though, and should probably be fixed, if possible.

I do believe, though, that people should get used to playing with more green troops - it's realistic, and, more importantly, it's the Right Thing to Do.

Also regular troops are gamey.

[von Lucke]

Bearing in mind the previous comments, I did a little more experimentation. This time I set Date / Region / Nationality - Div Type / Battle Type to Random, as well as the other settings.

Originally posted by tar:

I wonder if the original problem had anything to do with there only being 400 points availble for the QB? Maybe there weren't enough points to be able to buy whole units at higher than green quality?

I counted backwards from a Force Size of 1000, and after generating 10 QB's per, it appears as though this is so. The smaller the points, the more inclined the AI is to go with lower quality troops in order to fill out it's roster.

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I thought it was mentioned or discussed by Steve that the Game would be picking WAY more Green and Conscript forces and the players "should" get used to using these kinds of units because their behaviour was/is considered WAY more realistic.

There was some suggestion that Elite Crack and Vet forces were VERY rare and using them all the time was somehow tantamount to gamey cherry picking. EVEN Reg inf units were suggested to be on the "gamey" side as a much more realistic "in-combat" reaction and behaviour was attributed to GREEN units in the game?

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Yah, it's been discussed back-and-forth several times. And while I agree that Green troops prolly make for a more "realistic" experience, I don't believe this has ever been the Official Party Line from BFC.

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

Lots of things that I agree with

However, in game terms, I still consider Regular as the base-line in CMBB, and when choosing Medium force quality, I'd expect to see it better than 20% of the time (for small battles). If I wanted to play Green troops, I'd choose the Low quality setting.

I'm looking at this purely in terms of whatever randomizer the AI is using to choose Force Quality for the Medium setting. As it stands, if you want to play a small battle with Regulars, you'll just have to buy them yourself --- which eliminates the whole random aspect. Plus which, if done manually, yr only allowed Regular or Green.

Which brings up the other question, should the AI be allowed to purchase Conscripts on the Medium setting? Now that strikes me as gamey. Shouldn't the spread on Medium be Vet / Reg / Green?

[ September 26, 2002, 10:52 PM: Message edited by: von Lucke ]

[von Lucke]

Throwing this thread a life-preserver in this sea of w00t!