Rebalance Fortification - Add some sort of counter to it.

[Earthrise]

Yes, the rate at which the GodEmperor produces updates dissuades me from starting a serious game yet 

[Vasious]

Thanks Jorgen, I haven't summoned up the courage to try the C# version yet.  I thought I'd read Steve mention Combat Engineers for attacking fortifications somewhere, but can't find it now, so maybe it was just wishful thinking 

VB has Combat Engineers for attacking PDCs so Combat Engineers in C# having some role in Fortification busting one day might not be too much a stretch

[MarcAFK]

Thanks Jorgen, I haven't summoned up the courage to try the C# version yet.  I thought I'd read Steve mention Combat Engineers for attacking fortifications somewhere, but can't find it now, so maybe it was just wishful thinking 

I have not played the game for real either... I just muck about trying stuff out for fun using Space Master for most testing... 

Somebody has to do it.
We can't all spend 90% of our time messing around with creating ground units but without ever getting round to using them.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Thanks Jorgen, I haven't summoned up the courage to try the C# version yet.  I thought I'd read Steve mention Combat Engineers for attacking fortifications somewhere, but can't find it now, so maybe it was just wishful thinking 

I have not played the game for real either... I just muck about trying stuff out for fun using Space Master for most testing... 

Somebody has to do it.
We can't all spend 90% of our time messing around with creating ground units but without ever getting round to using them.

Who said I'm not using them... I have...

I play against myself doing all sorts of test and mock up battles... it is quite fun until the game are stable and feature complete for me to feel comfortable spending a few month or even a year on a single campaign.

[Energyz]

Bumping this thread, I also think fortification are too powerfull right now. Even RP-wise it's not that great, as I can't beleive any amount of entrenching will allow soldiers from the 2200 to protect themself from powered infantry, future tech bombers and ultra heavy tanks.

[Kristover]

Bumping this thread, I also think fortification are too powerfull right now. Even RP-wise it's not that great, as I can't beleive any amount of entrenching will allow soldiers from the 2200 to protect themself from powered infantry, future tech bombers and ultra heavy tanks.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that - 'Fortifications' in this case I have always interpreted to mean the full range of protections measures that a unit could employ to make themselves harder to hit rather than just physical fortifications like bunkers and pillboxes.  Certainly those would be easy to defeat - they're relatively easy to defeat now in 2020 with the right ordnance.  BUT, what does make it difficult now are camouflage (some of it is actually quite advanced now), GPS jammers, self-protection cannons like the CRAM employed today by the US Army,- then you start getting into the future stuff like personal shields, super-dense materials, nano-drones, etc....it will be the whole build a better sword, somebody builds a better shield, prompting someone to build a better sword argument of military technology. 

All that being said, I think from a game perspective it isn't good to have such a tough nut to crack that space bombardment is the ONLY option.  Planetary invasions against a similar tech force SHOULD be very hard to pull off unless you have complete space superiority, outnumber them by at least 3:1, and have a good commander leading them....and even then it should be a bloody affair.  One suggestion I would forward to Steve and already mentioned here is combat engineers.  I think it would work better as a capability you could add to units rather than a separate unit category like construction engineers.  There could even be a tech line associated with it at each level negates a certain fortification amount - base tech negates 10% of fortification bonus or reduces effective enemy fortification by 3 points or something like that.  I think I like it as a capability better because it allows me to design a broader array of units - put it on a medium vehicle and I now got an Engineering Assault Vehicle for breaching fortifications.  Put the capability on a powered infantry unit and now you got a special operations force.  You would have to work out how much of a formation has to be comprised of engineering capability in order to confer the bonus to the unit and/or if the bonus gets conferred in a support relationship situation like a direct support artillery unit supporting a infantry unit.

[Zincat]

I have not really messed with this yet.
Conceptually however, I feel that conquering planets should be very hard if the defenders are sufficiently entrenched.

If the enemy has high fortification, either through terrain or construction etc, it's very likely that a 3:1 attack could fail. Even horribly so.

I would say that it's entirely reasonable to expect, in that situation, that the attacker requires heavy support from orbit. Or a balance of forces much higher than 3:1.

Modern warfare is in fact very much dependent on external (air or naval) support, and it's reasonable to expect that a future tech war would require this even more.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The way that is works right now and everything are equal on both sides and the world is a normal one where max fortification for infantry are 6 then a 3:1 advantage in strength would be a quite even match with a slight advantage to the attacker.

The attacker will hit 1/6 shots but also have x3 the number of hit points and that evens out to be roughly equal... But the attacker also get some evasion so a 3:1 strength advantage should in general win given all else equal.

Say you attack with 6000 units of infantry and the defender have 2000 of equally good and trained infantry to defend with.

Before you say that it is too difficult to attack you have to look at what the difficulties actually is and how good the enemy forces composition is versus yours etc... there are so many factors that can influence this outcome both positive and negative.

As I said before... if defences are not strong enough then there is no point in defending and using resources to do so in the first place. I think that defences is OK, certainly not too strong in any way. If you think that and you have experienced it you need to look at what factors made this experience in the first place.

[Alsadius]

Yeah, the historical rule of thumb is that you need a 3:1 force ratio to defeat a fortified line. Assuming for simple numbers that you're using forces that consist entirely of on-tech PW infantry (so every hit kills), and that every shot hits in the absence of fortification, consider a 3:1 advantage against fort-6 infantry:

Code: [Select]

Start: Attacker 3000, Defender 1000. 3000 shots=500 hits=500 deaths, 1000 shots=1000 hits=1000 deaths.
After 1 round: Attacker 2000, Defender 500. (omitting for brevity)
After 2 rounds: Attacker 1500, Defender 167.
After 3 rounds: Attacker 1333, Defender defeated.
So the attacker loses 56% of their forces to take the planet, with a 3:1 advantage. The defenders fall, but they take out 167% of their own weight in the process.

Let's try again with 2.5:1 advantage:

Code: [Select]

Start: Attacker 2500, Defender 1000.
After 1 round: Attacker 1500, Defender 584.
After 2 rounds: Attacker 916, Defender 334.
After 3 rounds: Attacker 582, Defender 182.
After 4 rounds: Attacker 400, Defender 85.
After 5 rounds: Attacker 315, Defender 19.
After 6 rounds: Attacker 296, Defender defeated.So 2.5:1 forces still win, but they're almost destroyed in the process, and the defender killed 270% of their own weight in the process.

Let's say the defenders are only self-fortified, so x3, but the attackers are only 2:1 advantaged.

Code: [Select]

Start: Attacker 2000, Defender 1000.
After 1 round: Attacker 1000, Defender 334.
After 2 rounds: Attacker 666, Defender 1.
After 3 rounds: Attacker 665, Defender defeated.
So basically, an attack of equal force composition, without orbital/fighter support, should be 3:1 advantaged against CON-fortified troops, and 2:1 advantaged against self-fortified troops. You'll lose a bit more than you kill, even so, but you'll take the planet. That seems pretty fair to me.

Don't forget the great advantage of the attacker - force concentration. You can pick your targets and pile up forces at them. The defender needs to be strong everywhere, and thereby spreads their forces into penny packets that can be gobbled up by attackers. Tests which don't consider that are inherently incomplete. (They can still have a lot of value tactically, of course, but they don't cover the strategic side).

[Pedroig]

The way that is works right now and everything are equal on both sides and the world is a normal one where max fortification for infantry are 6 then a 3:1 advantage in strength would be a quite even match with a slight advantage to the attacker.

The attacker will hit 1/6 shots but also have x3 the number of hit points and that evens out to be roughly equal... But the attacker also get some evasion so a 3:1 strength advantage should in general win given all else equal.

Say you attack with 6000 units of infantry and the defender have 2000 of equally good and trained infantry to defend with.

Before you say that it is too difficult to attack you have to look at what the difficulties actually is and how good the enemy forces composition is versus yours etc... there are so many factors that can influence this outcome both positive and negative.

As I said before... if defences are not strong enough then there is no point in defending and using resources to do so in the first place. I think that defences is OK, certainly not too strong in any way. If you think that and you have experienced it you need to look at what factors made this experience in the first place.

Except that is not correct formula, given your "everything else equal" no terrain modifiers for anything, no environmental modifiers for anything...

Chance to hit a fortified target is 20%*(Morale/100)/Fortification level
Chance to hit a unfortified target is 20%*(Morale/100)*to hit modifier

So the attacking infantry 6.67% versus self-fortified defending infantry 12% with equal morale.  Attacking infantry 3.33% versus full fortified defending infantry 12%. 

Except that there is a Terrain Fortification factor which the attacking force CANNOT overcome.  Only three of these are penalties to the defenders, so makes the attacker's job easier.  If we look at lowest positive modifier and the highest we get the following:

Attacking against full fortified Chapparal infantry 2.78% hit chance.
Attacking against full fortified Jungle Mountain infantry 1.11% hit chance.

Meanwhile, those defending infantry are hitting the attackers still at 12%.

[Ektor (OP)]

I have a question though: were the units with the appropriate level of training?

There were no commander bonuses assigned to any of the units, so the tests wouldn't be fouled by exceptional commanders.

You should pretty much never attack with infantry from my understanding of the combat rules.

Try MED Vehicles with Medium armor and Medium Autocannons and Medium anti-tank or Anti-personal depending on enemy. Then support them with a formation with a lot of medium bombardment and maybe some AA if you think enemy will have air (but NPR's don't from what I've seen so you never really need them).

No. That won't work, for the same reason attacking with artillery didn't work. Vehicles can't provide enough shots per round to be effective, a standard "tank" vehicle with one CSAP and one MAV would have 7 shots per round, but would cost around 4 BP. That would mean, in the standards of my test, around 30 tanks that would fire 210 times, compared to the 3500 times an equivalent CSAP armed infantry element would. They were getting about 30-40 kills per round with 3500 shots, that's a 1.16% chance to kill, with 210 shots that would amount to only 2 or so kills. If you read my post you'll see I actually tried medium bombardment, it's useless.

Just throwing ideas out there

Orbital Support?
Nukes?
STOs put on a moon in range providing fire support?
Your own defensive line protecting heavy &Long Range Bombardment?

All of the Above

So your own infantry and CSW in front line defensive, dug in as quickly as possible themselves
with Bombardment supporting, along with Orbital Bombardment and CAS from Fighter Pods. and an armoured element in reserve

The defender can reinforce, or resupply so the aim is to wear them down and once they seem to be out of supply attack with the armour.

I tried orbital support, it didn't work. A single ship to use orbital bombardment would cost more than the entire infantry formation being bombarded on the first place. I can just built twice and many and then they'll be even harder to uproot. There's also the question of collateral damage, which also is the reason I didn't try nukes. I'm assuming a homeworld invasion where you actually want to maintain the infrastructure and population instead of wrecking everything. You have always been able to nuke everything from orbit in Aurora, I'm just exploring what happens when you don't want to do that.

As for the second part of your post, it really seems like you didn't properly read what I wrote. It took a 160 cost infantry battalion with a 127 cost element of construction vehicles roughly two years to fully dig in. In any realistic scenarios, your infantry will be dead and buried long before they can dig in themselves. I literally tried CAS from fighter pods, it's right there in my post. It doesn't work. Attacking with armour won't work either for the same reasons I've talked about to the poster above you.

A civilian garrison of infantry can easily have a heavy armor division dropped on its head, with orbital bombardment support to boot.

Which won't do anything to them if they had full 6 points of fortification because the heavy armour and the bombardment would only have about a 1% chance to hit.

My take away from this is that Steve has coded the ground mechanics to resemble the battle of the Somme. And I'm alright with that.
Some more tests using the Mark IV and proper combined arms tactics would be appreciated. I'll see if General Monash is available to command the Corps.

I'll be doing that later today.

The way that is works right now and everything are equal on both sides and the world is a normal one where max fortification for infantry are 6 then a 3:1 advantage in strength would be a quite even match with a slight advantage to the attacker.

I'll test this properly today, but from what I've seen, it would take lot more than 3:1 advantage to win, I'd wager on around 9:1 and that would still be with heavy casualties.

Yeah, the historical rule of thumb is that you need a 3:1 force ratio to defeat a fortified line. Assuming for simple numbers that you're using forces that consist entirely of on-tech PW infantry (so every hit kills), and that every shot hits in the absence of fortification, consider a 3:1 advantage against fort-6 infantry:

That's not how it works. Two unfortified infantry units will only hit with about 10% of the shots they fire. Instead of just talking out of my arse, I'll run a test with the ratios you've proposed to see whether that actually works or not.

[Bremen]

That's not how it works. Two unfortified infantry units will only hit with about 10% of the shots they fire. Instead of just talking out of my arse, I'll run a test with the ratios you've proposed to see whether that actually works or not.

It doesn't make a difference, for what it's worth.

As a quick rule of thumb, taking 1/x damage will mean the enemy needs SQRT(x) times more units to defeat you, if all other factors are equal. So if we assume the attacker received no defensive bonus and the defender received a fortification of 6, then the attacker needs 2.45 units per every defender to win (or rather, at that point they would statistically eliminate each other). This is true whether the base chance to hit is 10% or 100%.

However, that's not the case. Unfortified infantry have a hit modifier of .6, which means an additional 40% of incoming attacks miss. This is equivalent to a fortification of 1.67. So fully fortified infantry are only 3.59 (6/1.67) times harder to hit than attacking infantry. This means that you need 1.9 times as many infantry on the attack as on the defense.

If you attempt to verify these numbers in game, also remember that planetary terrain gives additional benefits/penalties to fortification.

[SevenOfCarina]

No. That won't work, for the same reason attacking with artillery didn't work. Vehicles can't provide enough shots per round to be effective, a standard "tank" vehicle with one CSAP and one MAV would have 7 shots per round, but would cost around 4 BP. That would mean, in the standards of my test, around 30 tanks that would fire 210 times, compared to the 3500 times an equivalent CSAP armed infantry element would. They were getting about 30-40 kills per round with 3500 shots, that's a 1.16% chance to kill, with 210 shots that would amount to only 2 or so kills. If you read my post you'll see I actually tried medium bombardment, it's useless.

Perhaps, but the tank forces are also 256x as survivable against PW and CAP, which is what the infantry will largely be using, and they'll last much longer. Additionally, you're far more likely to be limited by troop transport capacity in any invasion, considering transport bays cost four times as much as the infantry formations they can move. So it will realistically be more like 210 shots to ~1500 shots. Plus you could always swap out the MAV for anther CAP, giving you ~500 shots for that equivalent cost.

[Ektor (OP)]

Perhaps, but the tank forces are also 256x as survivable against PW and CAP, which is what the infantry will largely be using, and they'll last much longer. Additionally, you're far more likely to be limited by troop transport capacity in any invasion, considering transport bays cost four times as much as the infantry formations they can move. So it will realistically be more like 210 shots to ~1500 shots. Plus you could always swap out the MAV for anther CAP, giving you ~500 shots for that equivalent cost.

I'll test both heavily armoured forces and infantry forces, then. Not accounting armoured survivability is a hole in my methodology.

[Alsadius]

Yeah, the historical rule of thumb is that you need a 3:1 force ratio to defeat a fortified line. Assuming for simple numbers that you're using forces that consist entirely of on-tech PW infantry (so every hit kills), and that every shot hits in the absence of fortification, consider a 3:1 advantage against fort-6 infantry:

That's not how it works. Two unfortified infantry units will only hit with about 10% of the shots they fire. Instead of just talking out of my arse, I'll run a test with the ratios you've proposed to see whether that actually works or not.

There's a reason I said "for simple numbers". If we assume a 10% chance to hit baseline(thus 1/6 of that, or 1.67% chance for the attacker to hit), and run the same test as my first one, you get similar enough numbers. I used Excel, so fractions just carry through, but it shows 1692.08 remaining attacking forces out of 3000. This is actually much better for the attacker - compare to the 1333 survivors in my above example. Using those numbers, 2450 attackers is the minimum needed to beat 1000 defenders, FWIW.

Of course, this is a model, and a model is only as good as the assumptions. Perhaps my assumptions are crap. But a 6:1 hit ratio demands about a 2.5:1 force ratio - it's the square root of 6, actually, which is a good clean mathematical result.