Rebalance Fortification - Add some sort of counter to it.

[Ektor (OP)]

I also realize now I ran these tests on Earth, with has a 25% bonus to fortification and a 50% penalty to-hit. So next time I'll run the tests on the moon.

[Droll]

I also realize now I ran these tests on Earth, with has a 25% bonus to fortification and a 50% penalty to-hit. So next time I'll run the tests on the moon.

what do you mean 50% penalty to hit? from where?

I know that this makes infantry able to have an effective fortification of about 7.5.

[Pedroig]

I also realize now I ran these tests on Earth, with has a 25% bonus to fortification and a 50% penalty to-hit. So next time I'll run the tests on the moon.

It will make it worse because Environmental Factors multiple the Fortification Level in the denominator of the equation...

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think there is  reason why Steve have chosen the numbers he have... in general if you have a 3:1 advantage you will have a reasonable chance the win if the terrain is not too problematic.

Obviously it is very difficult to know WHEN you reach that so bringing an even greater odds is almost a must, the same as in real life.

I know how the math of the combat work and how the terrain work... we had these discussions on these forums dozens of times in the past doing all sorts of theory crafting battles... 

I was rather simple and explaining things in a broad stroke... as there are so many factors that can influence a battle it is VERY difficult to know before hand how strong you are and how strong the enemy really is before you actually engage.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I also realize now I ran these tests on Earth, with has a 25% bonus to fortification and a 50% penalty to-hit. So next time I'll run the tests on the moon.

It will make it worse because Environmental Factors multiple the Fortification Level in the denominator of the equation...

not to mention you are also using garrison troops that are especially trained to fight in the terrain... this will increase the value of those troop quite allot too. 

We can't judge a system based on the extremes either, that makes very little sense.

[Father Tim]

Yes, there shoud definitely be a reduction in the level of fortification due to combat, bombardment, and air/space strikes even if no units are destroyed.  It should be possible to whittle down the enemy's entrenchments (to some minimum level) with preparatory strikes before the main attack goes in.

[Ektor (OP)]

not to mention you are also using garrison troops that are especially trained to fight in the terrain... this will increase the value of those troop quite allot too. 

I'm... not?

First test was run, on equal terrain.

Total Defender Cost: 312
Total Attacker Cost: 317

Total Defender Troops: 800 PW Infantry + 10 Construction Vehicles + some Supply Vehicles that stayed on the rear.
Total Attacker Troops: 1600 PW Infantry + some Supply Vehicles that stayed on the rear.

The combat test was ran for 52 rounds, these were the results:

Defenders: 1428 kills
Attackers:  426 kills

We can see here that the fortified defenders killed at lot more enemies, even if heavily outnumbered. The attackers would need roughly double the inflicted casualties to win, so I'd extrapolate this data and say you need a 4:1 advantage at the least to overcome completely fortified positions. This isn't taking in account terrain nor vehicles, though, just an infantry vs infantry battle.

[Pedroig]

But the numbers DO reflect the environment, which is unfair on the moon, even if troops are trained identically.

[Ektor (OP)]

Why is it unfair on the moon? It's barren terrain with no modifiers. It's also not low gravity for human standards, neither does it have extreme pressure. I don't see why the moon wouldn't be an ideal testing ground.

[Pedroig]

Low Grav/No Atmo are not modifiers?

[Ektor (OP)]

The moon is not low grav. And I don't think there's a modifier for no atmosphere. I'm going to add one just in case. Even if this were the case, it would affect both armies equally, and thus mean nothing.

[Bremen]

not to mention you are also using garrison troops that are especially trained to fight in the terrain... this will increase the value of those troop quite allot too. 

I'm... not?

First test was run, on equal terrain.

Total Defender Cost: 312
Total Attacker Cost: 317

Total Defender Troops: 800 PW Infantry + 10 Construction Vehicles + some Supply Vehicles that stayed on the rear.
Total Attacker Troops: 1600 PW Infantry + some Supply Vehicles that stayed on the rear.

The combat test was ran for 52 rounds, these were the results:

Defenders: 1428 kills
Attackers:  426 kills

We can see here that the fortified defenders killed at lot more enemies, even if heavily outnumbered. The attackers would need roughly double the inflicted casualties to win, so I'd extrapolate this data and say you need a 4:1 advantage at the least to overcome completely fortified positions. This isn't taking in account terrain nor vehicles, though, just an infantry vs infantry battle.

That's not how the numbers work. Remember, it's a square root function; if the attackers are dealing half as much damage as needed, then they need SQRT(2) times as many units to win; that's only 42% more. So 2,272 infantry in your example, and that still seems higher than it should be.

[Ektor (OP)]

Second test using 4:1 attackers to defenders. This one was over very very quickly, due to the large amount of attackers, breakthroughs happened, which killed a lot of fortified infantry very fast.

The combat lasted 6 rounds

Attackers: 774 kills
Defenders: 367 kills

I also noticed that the attackers seemed to have an accuracy of ~0.5% whilst the defenders had an accuracy of ~10%.

That's not how the numbers work. Remember, it's a square root function; if the attackers are taking double the damage, then they need SQRT(2) times as many units to win; that's only 1.42:1 advantage.

Sorry, I'm not good enough with mathematics to understand what you're trying to say, but I trust you. The thing is, though, the attackers aren't taking double damage. Given the hit rates of fortified infantry vs non fortified infantry, they're taking ~20x as much damage.

[Bremen]

Second test using 4:1 attackers to defenders. This one was over very very quickly, due to the large amount of attackers, breakthroughs happened, which killed a lot of fortified infantry very fast.

The combat lasted 6 rounds

Attackers: 774 kills
Defenders: 367 kills

I also noticed that the attackers seemed to have an accuracy of ~0.5% whilst the defenders had an accuracy of ~10%.

That's not how the numbers work. Remember, it's a square root function; if the attackers are taking double the damage, then they need SQRT(2) times as many units to win; that's only 1.42:1 advantage.

Sorry, I'm not good enough with mathematics to understand what you're trying to say, but I trust you. The thing is, though, the attackers aren't taking double damage. Given the hit rates of fortified infantry vs non fortified infantry, they're taking ~20x as much damage.

Well, 42% more than you had. Still seems higher than it should be, I'm not sure why, but vs fortification 6 with no terrain bonus twice as many infantry attackers should win (barely)

Fortification 6 shouldn't be resulting in 20x as much damage without some enormous terrain modifications; I don't know what's up with your testbed.

[Ektor (OP)]

Yeah, sorry, that's a miscalculation on my part.

Here's the same 2:1 test done on Earth instead of the moon:

The combat lasted 60 rounds

Attackers: 142 kills
Defenders: 753 kills

So here the defends damage the attackers around 5x as much, but the total casualties are much lower than the test on the moon because of the rougher terrain.

I still have to test 4:1 on Earth and combats using armour, but I'll leave that for later.