Huh, Assault Infantry and Garrisons? Odd. I always went for Two Mobile Infantry and Two Assault Infantry.

Garrison units are the best defense per ton of minerals / unit of wealth, and also the best and cheapest PPV (even though technically they're zero PPV -- they instead reduce unrest).  Therefore, I end up with dozens or hundreds of them throughout my empire.  Might as well use what I already have.

Now that we have genetic enhancing, let's compare infantry. This assumes that Racial Armour is 10 and Racial Weapon is 10. Cost is not compared since we do not know it yet. I am assuming that anyone willing to genetically enhance their infantry is not going to then skimp on the armour given to them, hence all GE troopers have max armour.



This was mainly for boarding combat.

@Jorgen_CAB

 --- That depends on what the Attack and Defense numbers are an abstraction of, too.

What I don't like are arguments such as tanks should have 10 attack and 5 defence value as tanks are better on the offence... this is fallacious and if I have ten tanks and you have ten tanks and nothing else and you attack me then my ten tanks are more effective in defending than yours are on attacking (on any terrain). Defending with tanks is a very real thing and tanks works even better in defence if you need to use them as such.

That is also why I fail to see what sort of operational unit would not be better while defending against a mirror unit and nothing else are influencing the battle.

I don't say someone can come up with something but I can't think of anything right on the top of my head.

I agree that under certain circumstances infantry would be more suitable to defend with, such as if vehicles are difficult to move (if the opponent have full air dominance) or you are fighting in really difficult terrain, but terrain will also effect all enemy vehicles equally if not even worse. Different types of equipment and vehicles have different applications depending on the environment is a different thing. It can very well be so that infantry in general are more resource efficient when fighting in urban environments, that does not mean that a vehicle is worthless or still usable for defence, especially versus an opponent uses of the same equipment for offence. Vehicle can still (in the real world) be a force multiplier in combination with infantry in pretty much any environment they fight in. This means that they fight more efficient in conjunction with each other than deploying them separately. The key question is always how many vehicles and tanks and how much manpower to support them is the optimal number.

Aurora 4X does not have that much interaction between units in that regard, some but not much. It is not as if an IFV can protect its infantry from small arms fire and the infantry protect the vehicle from enemy heavy anti-vehicle fire.

The current mechanic to some extent are quite realistic IF there were some restriction on fortified units to fight with enemy fortified units somehow.

A tank in Aurora C# is still more effective in defence than offence for example, they are probably more effective than infantry to against enemy infantry as their armour protection still mean they will survive more effectively against infantry per resources invested in the against enemy infantry who attack them.

Infantry in Aurora C# are as good on attack as a tank is, because they both have a 0.6 to hit modifier on attack, light vehicles actually are the best at offensive operations with a 0.4 to hit modifier which actually is better than a light vehicles self fortification value of 2 (which is weird). Fortification value of 2 is the same as a 0.5 to hit modifier... although that is if terrain does not modify it further though.

Another thought I had to simplify the current dilemma would perhaps be the following.


When a unit fire on another unit they also compare their relative fortification level and modify their to hit probability accordingly.

If a defensive line unit fire at an enemy defensive line they receive a to hit penalty based on the level of their own and enemy fortification progression.

A unit get a to hit penalty of 45% of their own progression toward their own max fortification level on that planet, plus 45% of how much the enemy progressed as well.

So if both units have max fortification the to hit penalty drop to only 10% of the original one. If you want to conduct effective operations against enemy forces you need to put them into the attacking front line.
I also believe that units in the attacking front line should increase their size so they are easier to hit than defensive line... or simply defensive, support and rear echelon positions reduce their size with the half the fortification progress. So a formation that is fully fortified only count their size as half as big while units in the attacking front line count their full size, or some such. You should still be able to use the defensive line to saturate the front line and draw attention away from the offensive units such as tanks with cheap infantry.

Quote from: Jorgen_CAB on November 19, 2019, 02:07:08 AM

It is harder to justify the better at attacking then defending as I can't really see much that could not defend but attack very well, everything could defend of not just attacking as a means of defending themselves if need be.

I could perhaps see this from some alien fiction perspective, but I still feel it to be a bit strange set of skills.

Berserkers

WWII Imperial Japan 'Banzai!' charge

WWI Arab Revolt cavalry raids

Finnish light cavalry 'Hakkaa Paalle' tactics

Greek city states' Peltasts

Roman auxilliary slingers, skirmishers, Numidian cavalry. . .

Fire ships

Fire camels!

German and/or Soviet troops hopped up dexedrine / methamphetamines / who-knows-what

Retiarius gladiators  (versus Myrmidons, anyways)

Grenade-carriers  (Not Grenadiers, with their centuries of tradition and esprit de corps and high morale; but illiterate peasants given a couple/few greandes and told which way the enemy is.)

B-C-N shells / bombs / missiles  (which you probably don't want to deploy over your own territory)

Suicide bombers

- - - -

Basically, I think the training to inflict shock & disarray and ignore casualties while charging forwards is very different from the training to sit & endure and wait patiently for the most effective moment.  I think both have their place in an army, but not every stormtrooper needs to be a sniper, and vice versa.  It's certainly going to be faster to train someone for only one style of combat.

But that is tactical application of a force as aside from the more operational side that Aurora portray.

Attack is a form of defence from an operational stand point. Anyone who employ a completely static defence and no mobile reserves will eventually be destroyed no mater what. Just because something can cause chock does not mean it is not perfectly usable during defensive operations. This is why elusive enemies are so powerful in defence and why a mobile defence is often much stronger than a  static defence in general.

If you look at the number of men you need to hold of an offensive force it is not going to decrease just because you have a line full of "berserkers", they just fight tactically different from a pikeman.

That is why I find it peculiar that a unit can have a higher offensive operation value than what they can have while defending in general as attack is a form of most often effective defence.

The best defence in any firefight on the modern battlefield is not armour, it is suppression firepower. If the opponent can't fire at you, you don't need armour in the first place.

The difference in strength from an operational standpoint is the mobility of a unit. The more mobility a unit has the more effective it is in a dual role to support both attack and defence. This is why static units such as Garrisons are so bad at offensive operations. Sure they could potentially be used for some offensive operations, but they are so ill equipped for it that no one would ever use them as such. That does not mean that they will not use attack as a measure of defending themselves in a tactical perspective.

I think I just have a different view of tactical versus operational units strength and weaknesses.

I would generally say that any units that are so one dimensional they they attack no matter the consequences are really weak units as they are extremely predictable by the enemy from an operational or strategical perspective and will be destroyed accordingly by superior firepower. Numidian cavalry (as an example) was not really an offensive formation, being elusive is a very strong defensible characteristics from an operational standpoint as you can harass enemy supply lines and movement from a strategic point of view and thereby restrict enemy operational movement.

In my opinion having a line of heavy infantry standing their ground on a hill, thereby claiming the hill is not operational defensible characteristics but a tactical one. Skirmishers that delay or prevent an enemy army from moving out of an area is a great example of an effective defensive operational use of a formation. The same is the guerrilla fighting formations of VC forces in Vietnam where the elusive nature of the forces meant that winning a battle one day meant loosing the same battlefield tomorrow without the opposing forces even having to fight for it.

It is harder to justify the better at attacking then defending as I can't really see much that could not defend but attack very well, everything could defend of not just attacking as a means of defending themselves if need be.

I could perhaps see this from some alien fiction perspective, but I still feel it to be a bit strange set of skills.

Berserkers

WWII Imperial Japan 'Banzai!' charge

WWI Arab Revolt cavalry raids

Finnish light cavalry 'Hakkaa Paalle' tactics

Greek city states' Peltasts

Roman auxilliary slingers, skirmishers, Numidian cavalry. . .

Fire ships

Fire camels!

German and/or Soviet troops hopped up dexedrine / methamphetamines / who-knows-what

Retiarius gladiators  (versus Myrmidons, anyways)

Grenade-carriers  (Not Grenadiers, with their centuries of tradition and esprit de corps and high morale; but illiterate peasants given a couple/few greandes and told which way the enemy is.)

B-C-N shells / bombs / missiles  (which you probably don't want to deploy over your own territory)

Suicide bombers

- - - -

Basically, I think the training to inflict shock & disarray and ignore casualties while charging forwards is very different from the training to sit & endure and wait patiently for the most effective moment.  I think both have their place in an army, but not every stormtrooper needs to be a sniper, and vice versa.  It's certainly going to be faster to train someone for only one style of combat.

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.

Quote

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.