--- POLL --- Armies vs corps

[SMG42]

After some PBEM, where I noticed that neither my opponent nor me built armies and preferred corps, I would like to know what is your position, you the players on that.

For me, armies are slightly less advantagous, if you take into account all the cons and pros, compared to corps.

My position would be to reduce a bit their cost. Something like 100 MPP for a corps and 185 for an army would balance the thing I would say.

Debate open, fire away!

[Tancred]

This is one of the weak points of the game: that you can have both. It's definitely confusing as it is, and an undesirable, inherited feature from 'Clash of Steel'. I would do away with armies completely (except in the case of the USSR, which considered corps as armies) and stick to corps. Hubert please note.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

I think it depends on what side you play... the relative price of an army is higher than for a corps... but being an Axis Attacker in Russia you might want armies around Leningrad to deliver a quick punch.... and Armies are better to protect important cities, i.e. Kiev and Minsk during the german retreat from Russia.

And I think as Russia corps are way better, esp. for delaying the german advance in the early stages of the war.

[CharonJr]

Well, IMO corps are the better bang/buck most of the times. From what I have seen in the formulas they defend as good as armies (for half the price) while attacking half as good. Actually 2 attacks from corps are likely to be a tad harder than 1 attack from a army due to already lowered strength/entrencement values of the defender after the first attack.

But in the right circumstances (lack of space - e.g. lowcountries or the defender not just sitting there but counterattacking) armies should be the better unit.

The AP of 3 for a corps in contrast to just AP 2 for an army is another advantage of a corps.

Due to this I tend to agree that armies should be cheaper (e.g. lower their costs so that an army and 1 point of movement improvement cost the same as 2 corps i.e. 200MPP).

@Hyazinth - Why whould an army be better for defense ? From what I have seen in the formulas (and I can be wrong there) a corps should be just as good at "pure" defense than an army.

CharonJr

[Tancred]

I take the point of armies being better offensive units, but what I object to is the inconsistency of land units more than anything else. The best solution would be to have the game with divisional units only, but sadly the small map does not allow this. If stacking was allowed, then you could have several corps in a concentrated area, thus replicating the effect of having an army or two. Maybe Hubert should have considered this.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

@Hyazinth - Why whould an army be better for defense ? From what I have seen in the formulas (and I can be wrong there) a corps should be just as good at "pure" defense than an army.

CharonJr [/QB]

Good point. Basically it seems that you right here.... although I get the impression that armies make it better in the defense that corps, but this seems to be a subjective observation.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

@ Tancred: that will be the next generation game unit.. in comparison to SCI everyone can see that SCII is moving in the right direction. The next step in evolution might be that for every land unit (whatever it`s called) the player can buy Infantry divisions, artillery support, air defense, anti tank detachments, supply machinery, motorisation, tech level and so on... i.e. the player can decide to put 5 divisions in the 14th german army, as well as an artillery unit and a tank destroyer detachment. Artillery unit means that entrechment is lowered by 1 before the infantry attacks... and the infantry attack value results of the amount of division and tech level... as you can see, there are numerous possibilties. Just imagine: you click on the unit and see a window popping up.. and you can decide what you attach to that unit. If it is lying in Brest over the whole war, it might not be much except 1-2 divisons and air defense.

I think Hubert`s dedication to programming will enable us to play that system (or a similar one)sooner or later

[Boron]

I tend to think that corps are better too.

Advantage 1, as already mentioned: +1 Movement

2 Corps for the cost of one army and they are quicker, so you can try to swarm your enemy and flank and encircle him. The 3 Movement (4 with Motorization 1) makes also river crossing much easier.

Advantage 2: 2 Corps instead of 1 Army, so vs. some enemies 1 Corps will survive where the Army would have been dead. It seems that upgraded Tanks do about 6-8 Damage to a Corps or an Army, there is no or little difference. Similiar it seems with Airforce.

I think just lowering the cost for an Army to 160 MPP or so would do the trick though.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Hyazinth von Strachwitz:

@ Tancred: that will be the next generation game unit.. in comparison to SCI everyone can see that SCII is moving in the right direction. The next step in evolution might be that for every land unit (whatever it`s called) the player can buy Infantry divisions, artillery support, air defense, anti tank detachments, supply machinery, motorisation, tech level and so on... i.e. the player can decide to put 5 divisions in the 14th german army, as well as an artillery unit and a tank destroyer detachment. Artillery unit means that entrechment is lowered by 1 before the infantry attacks... and the infantry attack value results of the amount of division and tech level... as you can see, there are numerous possibilties. Just imagine: you click on the unit and see a window popping up.. and you can decide what you attach to that unit. If it is lying in Brest over the whole war, it might not be much except 1-2 divisons and air defense.

I think Hubert`s dedication to programming will enable us to play that system (or a similar one)sooner or later

Basically the old War in Russia has been such a game already.

And Soldiers of Empires 2 might have it too.

http://www.igorlab.com/

I prefer the system of SC 2 though, WiR and SoE are too much MM. SC 2 has a good balance between MM and (abstract) realism.

Finally there is Hoi 2 where you can at least attach brigades to divisions and where you can stack multiple divisions too.

But at least for me SC 2 is superior to Hoi 2 because Hoi 2 has a really lousy AI, sometimes quite annoying MM and it seems to need a lot of resources, so once the war starts the game crawls. This is bad because during reinforcement periods or the winter you can't do much so you are basically forced to play 2-3 hours for 1 winter virtually doing nothing.

[JerseyJohn]

There was an SPI game from 1971 or so on the Napoleonic Wars that handled this pretty nicely. Corps moved quickly and had the ability to combine into armies. Armies were much slower but substantially more powerful.

I liked that system and would like to see it in this game also.

Suggestion to Hubert:

Say there's a 1 movement point cost to combining two corps into an army and it then has a +20% combat bonus. If, after combining there would be a net 1 movement left, it can attack an adjacent tile that same turn.

No movement penalty for separating; corps can recombine with other corps the same turn they've separated -- the comine cost of 1 movement point applying, recombined corps can attack if the army has 1 net movement point.

Armies can be assigned numbers by the computer as per availability. Each country would have to work within it's allowable army limit -- representing the number of specialized units that would constitute an army.

I'd use the same system for tank corps; making tank and panzer armies possible.

Working out the details should be an easy task for the computer.

[Lars]

As the game plays out, you really only rebuild Armies if they get wiped out as they are cheaper then.

Corps, you build them like popcorn, because you need something to garrison all those podunk towns or hold the flanks.

Think the game is pretty well self-balancing in this regard. You see a formation of Armies coming at you, you pretty much know where the main effort is. Wouldn't want to trade Corps running all over the map for Armies running all over the map.

[LampCord]

I always buy corps first. But as Axis vs. AI, I usually hit the build limit early in my war with Russia and then I have to buy armies if I want more troops.

[JerseyJohn]

A simple solution would be to have armies 220% the combat value of corps instead of the current 200%.

That would represent the extra units attached to them and make them the ground unit of choice.

[PeterX]

What the game needs, IMO, is a sub-unit for armor as well as infantry. Like a Kampfgruppe.

[Hyazinth von Strachwitz]

And special garrison units, or in other words cheap crap units for guarding cities.... I know that buying a korps at tech level zero isn`t to expensive, but it is still a full fighting unit.... and this guardian units with limited fighting capabilities shouldn`t count on the soft build limits... or just half.

[ May 03, 2006, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: Hyazinth von Strachwitz ]

[LampCord]

Yeah, it would be nice to have a half corp sized garrison unit to put in cities that doesn't count against the build limit. As it is, I just use the corps of the minor countries but there aren't enough of them.

[Panzerkeil]

And there aren't enough German units either. That's why they Romanians, Hungarians, et al guarding their flanks at Stalingrad.

Noob question: Is the garrisoning of cities in Russia necessary to prevent partisans? I am presuming it is, but I'd like a definitive answer. I haven't played as Axis yet.

[JerseyJohn]

I've just posted a suggestion on this subject in a separate thread. Hope it will generate some feedback and ideas and a response from Hubert.

[jon_j_rambo]

If you guys want "Historical Accuracy", then their should be a limit on the number of troops any country can field based on population. Eventually, the Germans threw out their kids & old men to defend stuff. This idea of revolving door Corps at a cost of 60 MMPs, is a joke.

[JerseyJohn]

Brother Rambo,

During the war, most of the Axis occupation troops weren't German. In the east they were Ukranians and Balkans. There were also French and Spanish in German uniform along with non-soviet Russians other than the Ukranians.

In 1944 there were something like 12,000,000 Axis troops in Europe, and most of them weren't Germans.

Axis second line occupation troops makes a lot of sense.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Panzerkiel:

And there aren't enough German units either. That's why they Romanians, Hungarians, et al guarding their flanks at Stalingrad.

Noob question: Is the garrisoning of cities in Russia necessary to prevent partisans? I am presuming it is, but I'd like a definitive answer. I haven't played as Axis yet.

You need to put a garrison in to keep a partisan unit from grabbing a city for nothing. To really keep them down you need to scatter a couple around the hinterlands too.

[Panzerkeil]

That's what I was suspecting to be true. Thanks, Lars.

[SMG42]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Brother Rambo,

During the war, most of the Axis occupation troops weren't German. In the east they were Ukranians and Balkans. There were also French and Spanish in German uniform along with non-soviet Russians other than the Ukranians.

In 1944 there were something like 12,000,000 Axis troops in Europe, and most of them weren't Germans.

Axis second line occupation troops makes a lot of sense.

sorry, its plain wrong.

French men under german uniforms were in the SS (FrankReich brigade then Charlemagne division). They were elite units (the remnant of these french SS fought in Berlin in 45)

Spanish volunteers were in the Azul (= Blue) Division on the ost front. That's all.

You can add ost battalions also, russian POW gathered in small units, with a core of german watchdog soldiers, they fought very poorly and were not used for police/garrisoning.

[JerseyJohn]

A difference of opinion here.

The Germans used for garrisons were not of frontline quality. Often they were convalescent, recovering from wounds.

Non-German units were built around them, drawn from the various territories conquered by Germany. After Kursk, as the Germans withdrew from the USSR, naturally frontline troops had to be used to fight partisans, in large part because there were a lot more of them after the German defeats.

In the Balkans the SS recruited Moslems and they were used in an anti-partisan role. They also recruited garrison troops from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

The French in that SS brigade were the last defenders of the Reichs capital. But you're taking specific units and making it seem that those were the only places people of those nationalities were fighting. That's totally wrong.

Sorry that what started out to be an interesting subject has turned into the usual nit-picking. Okay, I give up, 99% of the troops that fought for Germany were German, and there's also an Easter Bunny.

-- Please read my post further down (Pg 2 of this thread) quoted from a book on non-Germans who fought for the Reich during WWII.

[ May 03, 2006, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[anoldman]

Hmm.. Not a grognard so can't comment on alot of the above, but from a *game* perspective, I also find that I have never purchased an Army, only Corps.

Two Corps means one can hold the city, and one can cut off supply behind the enemy, or maybe just hold a flank.

If I had an option to split all of my Armies into Corps, (even if it cost say 25mp or so), I think I would do it. Maybe the 5 units per HQ would give me pause...?

Just my two-cents and I am not a SC2 tactical genius by any stretch so take it for what its worth...

--AOM :cool: