Some ground combat mechanic reflections!

[swarm_sadist]

I would say that the biggest pet peeve I have with the new system is that the "defender" have no real advantage when both sides have max entrenchment. There are little incentive for the "attacker" to put any troops in offensive line until they whittled down the defender from the entrenched position which give the "attacker" as much of an advantage as the "defender". Drop the troops and keep them in support line until max entrenchment kicks in and then fight. The only thing you sacrifice is time, which of course can be a problem.

I think there at least should be some restriction on the availability of the entrenchment bonus on the one that want to attack rather than defend. Right now there are no real difference in stances, just fighting.

There should perhaps at least be a stance on the troops such as defending or attacking, if both forces are on defensive stance only artillery and airstrikes can be performed. If you elect to attack you will suffer a big penalty to the entrenchment bonus, perhaps as much as 75% so armoured forces rather be set at offensive to at least be able to do breakthroughs and give up the entrenchment bonus.

There should always be some bonus to defending. Terrain seem to effect all sides equally so it give no direct advantage to the "defending" side as there are no defending or attacking position except for offensive and defensive line. No real home advantage bonus so to say.

Umm, why would you ever let the enemy land peacefully and dig in? Wouldn't you get half of your forces to instantly attack the enemy "beach head" to avoid this? I mean, as long as the enemy fleet isn't blasting your ground forces at the same time.

Haven't looked at the Updates in a while so I can't remember if there was a penalty or cost to units invading, but the defender should be able to outnumber the enemy.

[QuakeIV]

In general the only thing the enemy ground forces would be hoping for is to buy time regardless, so its not like being whittled down very slowly is actually a particularly bad outcome for them.

e:  Also I kindof agree with the guy saying that we should hold off asking for modifications to things until we have actually played the game for a while.  Second guessing and theory crafting before we have even actually played it is kindof pointless because its pretty unlikely that we will be able to figure out how it would actually work just by guessing.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I'm mostly looking at a scenario where you might have several factions starting at Earth for example... now the stronger faction will basically always win the ground-war as there are no real way to defend as both will be at maximum entrenchment. There are not really any home defence position in this case so the stronger force will win if it is just a bit stronger. It probably should take a fair bit of higher strength to beat someone in that scenario.

It might to some degree work when someone is attacked in a colony and someone are landing forces there as the defender are entrenches and the one landing is not.

[Garfunkel]

While that is a problem, it's not anything new. In VB6, if you have multiple factions on Earth, the one with the largest ground force will win. In a close-run situation, ground commanders can sway the outcome a little bit. At least C# will give us better multi-faction ground battles, meaning that smaller powers can gang up on bigger powers.

[Zincat]

I too am in the wait and try camp.
I feel that the changes to c# aurora are so massive, I need to try the game before commenting on ground combat balance

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

While that is a problem, it's not anything new. In VB6, if you have multiple factions on Earth, the one with the largest ground force will win. In a close-run situation, ground commanders can sway the outcome a little bit. At least C# will give us better multi-faction ground battles, meaning that smaller powers can gang up on bigger powers.

You still had Garrison units that were for those situations when you needed to defend rather than attack, having a big number of those cheap units made it possible for a weaker side to properly defend themselves cheaply.

[Father Tim]

Personal Weapon Infantry, and Personal Weapon (Light) Infantry, should perform the same function for C# Aurora.  They are fast & cheap to produce, and entrench quickly for incerased defence.  They may not be any good for counter-attack, but neither were Garrison battalions.

[Bremen]

Personal Weapon Infantry, and Personal Weapon (Light) Infantry, should perform the same function for C# Aurora.  They are fast & cheap to produce, and entrench quickly for incerased defence.  They may not be any good for counter-attack, but neither were Garrison battalions.

Not really? Personal Weapon Infantry (normal and light) are definitely good for absorbing fire and also providing some anti-infantry firepower, but they're not really defense oriented in a same HW start - the point was that since an attacker's units can keep their fortification bonus and still fight, there isn't any unit that's better on the defense than the offense.

For attacks on separate planets this is less true, since transport is an issue and heavier units are likely going to provide more combat power per ton. But in situations where tonnage doesn't matter and the units are already fortified, infantry units are equivalent whether attacking or defending.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Yes... in the new mechanic there are no real defender or attacker, there are just simply fighting.

So two sides that are at peace and suddenly in war both fight from the same level of fortification etc... there are no real defensive or offensive units in that regard and neither can you bunker up in defensive stance in any way.

I think there perhaps should be a clear attacker and defender in any given moment. In general it should take quite a bit more s strength to conquer someone who are just defending their territory. In "reality" it always does. Two sides that don't want to attack should at best engage in skirmishing fights. I even think it should be possible to have local peace.
Let's say you play an Earth multi faction game and two factions want to fight a limited war over some colonies. They don't want to start WW3 back on Earth for the control of a couple of million people in the colonies.

There should basically be three engagement levels, offensive, defensive and stand down mode on each world.

[Garfunkel]

Yes... in the new mechanic there are no real defender or attacker, there are just simply fighting.

Which is a good thing. Since at least WW1 (perhaps even earlier but I'm not an expert in early modern warfare) battles have not been strictly about an attacker and a defender. Popular culture and pop-history still uses those terms liberally despite it being very misleading. Even in conflicts as ludicrously lopsided as the 2003 Iraq invasion by USA, Iraqis did perform a handful of counter-attacks, and if you go down to the tactical level, almost all modern battles are a mixture of attack and defence.

I think there perhaps should be a clear attacker and defender in any given moment.

I disagree. Aurora ground combat is still very abstract. It's certainly not simulation-lite style like space combat is. It's not a problem that both sides can remain fortified because the fortifications are just an abstract concept of how well the force utilises both natural and constructed features of the planet they are on. Remember, even millions and millions of troops would only use a tiny little blip of a planet's surface.

the point was that since an attacker's units can keep their fortification bonus and still fight, there isn't any unit that's better on the defense than the offense.

This isn't really a problem either. In VB6, the divide between attack strength and defence strength was always ridiculous and extremely difficult to justify from "realism" or even "story" perspective. How can a garrison unit be decent on defence but have literally zero attack ability? How can mobile infantry be better at defending than attacking, when projectile weapons are equally lethal/powerful regardless of circumstances? We had to come up with all sort of silly justifications for why assault infantry was good at assault but bad at defence and so on and so forth, or just ignore the whole thing, as evidence by many player AARs here that gloss over ground combat.

You still had Garrison units that were for those situations when you needed to defend rather than attack, having a big number of those cheap units made it possible for a weaker side to properly defend themselves cheaply.

But just defending would not end the war and the stronger power could just as easily spam garrison themselves and since the weaker powers could not join forces, the conclusion was always the same and the only variable was the length of the ground war - eventually the stronger power would win. At least C# fixes this by allowing the weaker powers to join forces as I said, meaning that multi-faction starts on Earth will have a modicum of balance by default if you're going with 3+ factions.

Let's say you play an Earth multi faction game and two factions want to fight a limited war over some colonies. They don't want to start WW3 back on Earth for the control of a couple of million people in the colonies. There should basically be three engagement levels, offensive, defensive and stand down mode on each world.

This is an entirely different thing and I agree. It was asked for earlier, I recall. While it's a fairly niche thing, it would be very useful for multi-faction Earth starts, to have a situation where even the rear support formations would not engage other powers.

Remember that:

Ground forces can be assigned one of four field positions; front line attack, front line defence, support and rear echelon. Units in support and rear echelon positions cannot directly attack hostile forces but if they possess elements with bombardment weapons they may be assigned to support a front line formation. Support and rear echelon formations can also potentially provide anti-air cover (more in a rules post on ground-space interaction) and supply to front line units. Only formations with all elements supplied can be placed in front line attack mode. Formations placed in front line attack mode lose any fortification bonus.

So if both sides have all units in support or rear echelon, there is no combat taking place since there are no front line units to utilise that support. And if both sides put all their units in front line defence, then there is only bombardment attacks. If one side attacks, then the attacking units cannot use fortifications.

So yeah, it is useful for attacker to first fortify as much as possible, to minimise casualties from defender bombardment, but if they want to capture the planet, they can't just hide in their fortifications.

[Bremen]

So if both sides have all units in support or rear echelon, there is no combat taking place since there are no front line units to utilise that support. And if both sides put all their units in front line defence, then there is only bombardment attacks. If one side attacks, then the attacking units cannot use fortifications.

So yeah, it is useful for attacker to first fortify as much as possible, to minimise casualties from defender bombardment, but if they want to capture the planet, they can't just hide in their fortifications.

That's not how it works currently, that's how we're saying it should work. Currently if both sides have units placed in front line defense, they fight each other as normal while both benefiting from their fortification level; the advantage of front line attack is the chance of breakthroughs.

The idea that if both sides have no units set to front line attack, then units on front line defense should just exchange bombardment fire is literally the suggestion we're making.

[Garfunkel]

Found it:

Currently if both sides have units placed in front line defense, they fight each other as normal while both benefiting from their fortification level; the advantage of front line attack is the chance of breakthroughs.

Oh my, are you sure of that? I must have missed that change because I thought front line defence was only shooting at enemy attackers.
Nevermind, it's in the original ground combat rules post. I totally forgot about that.

[Bremen]

Currently if both sides have units placed in front line defense, they fight each other as normal while both benefiting from their fortification level; the advantage of front line attack is the chance of breakthroughs.

Oh my, are you sure of that? I must have missed that change because I thought front line defence was only shooting at enemy attackers.

Admittedly it's hard to pin down since the ground combat details are scattered around through several threads, but at the very least events in the current test campaign indicate it's the case:

Following the armoured attack, the Imperial and Necron forces both mounted local attacks along the line without ever moving on to the strategic offensive. Imperial casualties were high due to their complete lack of fortified positions. During the first six hours after landing, the Imperial Guard lost eleven hundred Guardsman, a hundred anti-vehicle Lascannons, fifty-two Chimera light attack vehicles, fourteen Hydra Flak Platforms, thirty-six supply vehicles, a Leman Russ Battle Tank and a Leman Russ Annihilator. Beyond the immediate combat losses, the Regimental HQs of the 2nd Mordian and 4th Valhallan were both overrun, preventing their commanders from using their skills to direct the battle, and four Vox Caster units were destroyed, reducing the ability of the surface forces to direct orbital bombardment support. The Imperial forces fought bravely, supported by fire from the ships in orbit, and destroyed forty-four Centurions, six Decurions, six Praetorians and seventy-five supply bots. Counter-battery fire from heavy mortars destroyed a pair of Necron artillery pieces.

General Leman Cain, directly commanding the Cadian Corps and senior officer on the surface of Procyon, ordered all units to pull back from the front line. Continuing a direct assault would result in many thousands of casualties and the final outcome would be in doubt. The Imperial forces would establish fortifications to rival their opponents before General Cain would countenance further large-scale operations. He was well aware the Necron forces could leave their fortifications and launch an offensive before his own forces could dig-in, but that would allow a fight on equal terms. Given the defensive nature of the Necrons tactics in space, he doubted they would sacrifice their current advantage for an uncertain offensive.

After a month of effort, each Terran formation was fortified to the limit of its inherent capabilities. The two Ordo Machinum formations did their best to improve those fortifications but they were relatively small compared to the vast array of Guardsman and armoured vehicles. Each of the two formations had a fortification capacity of 4500 tons, which mean they could fortify 4500 tons of ground forces to the maximum possible within ninety days. There were 365,000 tons of ground forces on Procyon. One of the troop transports returned to Terra to load two more armoured formations, the Palladius Armoured Regiment and the Paragonian Tank Regiment, so the vehicles of the Ordo Machinum did their best while the Terran forces waited for reinforcement.

After eight months of inactivity, the attack was resumed on November 4th.

I think it was events in that campaign that sparked the current suggestion. So if we're wrong, then there's no need for that particular suggestion at least.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Yes... in the new mechanic there are no real defender or attacker, there are just simply fighting.

Which is a good thing. Since at least WW1 (perhaps even earlier but I'm not an expert in early modern warfare) battles have not been strictly about an attacker and a defender. Popular culture and pop-history still uses those terms liberally despite it being very misleading. Even in conflicts as ludicrously lopsided as the 2003 Iraq invasion by USA, Iraqis did perform a handful of counter-attacks, and if you go down to the tactical level, almost all modern battles are a mixture of attack and defence.

I think there perhaps should be a clear attacker and defender in any given moment.

I disagree. Aurora ground combat is still very abstract. It's certainly not simulation-lite style like space combat is. It's not a problem that both sides can remain fortified because the fortifications are just an abstract concept of how well the force utilises both natural and constructed features of the planet they are on. Remember, even millions and millions of troops would only use a tiny little blip of a planet's surface.

the point was that since an attacker's units can keep their fortification bonus and still fight, there isn't any unit that's better on the defense than the offense.

This isn't really a problem either. In VB6, the divide between attack strength and defence strength was always ridiculous and extremely difficult to justify from "realism" or even "story" perspective. How can a garrison unit be decent on defence but have literally zero attack ability? How can mobile infantry be better at defending than attacking, when projectile weapons are equally lethal/powerful regardless of circumstances? We had to come up with all sort of silly justifications for why assault infantry was good at assault but bad at defence and so on and so forth, or just ignore the whole thing, as evidence by many player AARs here that gloss over ground combat.

You still had Garrison units that were for those situations when you needed to defend rather than attack, having a big number of those cheap units made it possible for a weaker side to properly defend themselves cheaply.

But just defending would not end the war and the stronger power could just as easily spam garrison themselves and since the weaker powers could not join forces, the conclusion was always the same and the only variable was the length of the ground war - eventually the stronger power would win. At least C# fixes this by allowing the weaker powers to join forces as I said, meaning that multi-faction starts on Earth will have a modicum of balance by default if you're going with 3+ factions.

Let's say you play an Earth multi faction game and two factions want to fight a limited war over some colonies. They don't want to start WW3 back on Earth for the control of a couple of million people in the colonies. There should basically be three engagement levels, offensive, defensive and stand down mode on each world.

This is an entirely different thing and I agree. It was asked for earlier, I recall. While it's a fairly niche thing, it would be very useful for multi-faction Earth starts, to have a situation where even the rear support formations would not engage other powers.

Remember that:

Ground forces can be assigned one of four field positions; front line attack, front line defence, support and rear echelon. Units in support and rear echelon positions cannot directly attack hostile forces but if they possess elements with bombardment weapons they may be assigned to support a front line formation. Support and rear echelon formations can also potentially provide anti-air cover (more in a rules post on ground-space interaction) and supply to front line units. Only formations with all elements supplied can be placed in front line attack mode. Formations placed in front line attack mode lose any fortification bonus.

So if both sides have all units in support or rear echelon, there is no combat taking place since there are no front line units to utilise that support. And if both sides put all their units in front line defence, then there is only bombardment attacks. If one side attacks, then the attacking units cannot use fortifications.

So yeah, it is useful for attacker to first fortify as much as possible, to minimise casualties from defender bombardment, but if they want to capture the planet, they can't just hide in their fortifications.

No modern warfare have really changed the nature of fortification, knowledge about home territory or terrain as great defensive obstacles. There are many proof of concept for that in modern times. It is only when you fight in terrain devoid of defence such as the dessert or great plains that it is difficult to defend properly.

When we have seen great and quick destruction of enemy forces they have been done with overwhelming force, more or less.

As the game allow full fortification and the possibility to attack the enemy defensive line these things really don't come into the light at all.

The most simple solution would be three flags... offensive, defensive and none engagement.

None engagement
No units can be in the attack front line position. If you are engaged in defensive or offensive combat all your to hit for this 8h period is reduce by 90%. No combat will occur if all sides are at none engagement level. Breakthrough chances are doubled against your forces. You pay no supply for combat this ground combat turn.


Defensive stance
If the opponent is in either defensive or None Engagement you will only perform skirmishing attacks and only pay 15% supply cost for any action your units take. All attacks are reduced by 90% chance to hit except for bombardment and airstrikes that are reduced by 80%.

If a defensive stance army is engaged by a force in Offensive stance normal combat occurs for the defensive army.


Offensive stance
Normal combat occurs, armies in Offensive stance may only count 25% if its fortification levels and units in defensive fronts attacks are reduced by 25%. The army does however not loose its fortification levels if it has them and are in defensive front line.




A side must have ALL units in the same stance, so you can't choose to have some units in one stance and so forth. It is the operational stance of the entire army or nation on that planet.

Two sides in defensive stance will eventually conclude a war, but it will take for ever and the side with the best bombardment and air support will probably win eventually. But losses might be so low that replacing them forever might be a thing.

I think this would be a simple solution if this actually becomes some sort of problem. It does not really change the current mechanics at all and would be an abstraction to the intensity of the war.

[Father Tim]

This isn't really a problem either. In VB6, the divide between attack strength and defence strength was always ridiculous and extremely difficult to justify from "realism" or even "story" perspective. How can a garrison unit be decent on defence but have literally zero attack ability? How can mobile infantry be better at defending than attacking, when projectile weapons are equally lethal/powerful regardless of circumstances? We had to come up with all sort of silly justifications for why assault infantry was good at assault but bad at defence and so on and so forth, or just ignore the whole thing, as evidence by many player AARs here that gloss over ground combat.

I'd say that depends entirely on the fiction you're supporting.  Insectoid or mechanical races might have Garrison units literally incapable of offensive action, like trapdoor spiders or solar-powered radiation emitters.  Assault Infantry might be suicidal warrior-caste individuals who are honour-bound to charge their enemy head-on, and never retreat.  Maybe Mobile Infantry are combat engineers who can lethally booby-trap a leaf with two matchsticks and a piece of string, but don't spend a lot of time in markmanship training.

Personally, I'm going to miss only building Garrison and Assault Infantry (& Replacements) for my actual fighting strength, and using everything else for decoration.  Reducing the puzzle to two pieces made the math easy and predictable.

But being able to build literally thousands of different unit templates is going to keep me amused for months.  The options to model specific fighting forces in incredible detail means I am never again going to be able to send a 'standard division' to invade my neighbours.

I'm still sad, though, that my regiment of pike is going to be exactly as effective on attack as defense. . . as will my company of berserkers.