Towed Artillery and Light Infantry

[Overlord]

I saw that at some point there were some changes to artillery, I have some questions about this for those of you that have experimented with them:

- Is it possible now for dismounted infantry to benefit from taking lighter pieces with them as portable mortars/mountain guns?

- Or is it still the same dynamic as previously where it's only worthwhile to build as big as possible since inf will never be able to move more than one hex at a time, or barely if at all through mountains and cloud forests/jungles regardless of the size of the pieces you attach to them?

- I.E. is it viable now to build light caliber guns to use with light infantry, and expeditionary forces for amphibious, and airborne assaults?

[Slippy]

Pretty sure the movement type hasnt changed so regardless of how light/heavy the artillery is its going to move at the same overland speed unless you have enough trucks to carry the whole unit. Lighter artillery does allow for faster strategic deployment though which is something.

However higher calibre artillery does use massive amounts of ammo now, which require production and shipping to the front lines. So there lighter artillery does have a purpose but not in the way you suggested (which btw does sounds pretty cool)

[TheDeadlyShoe]

even 60mm artillery is extremely slow on foot. and the ammunition savings are fake because once enemies are in decent armor they start bouncing shots from light artillery. i'm not sure of the exact math, but combat armor imposes a 45% penalty on 60mm. i'm sure heavy combat armor is even worse.

[cranky corvid]

Light artillery is just as slow as before, heavy artillery got made even slower.

[tiavals]

I think at present artillery moves(on almost all terrain) at a speed of 50 minimum. Yet, even the lightest artillery(based on my observations) has a movement modifier of +10%. This means that even the lightest artillery will almost always move only 1 space(under specific circumstances such as a really competent OHQ with the right skills, they can move 2 spaces).

However, the light artilleries CAN be moved MUCH easier with Air Bridges, which can make them theoretically worthwhile.(although if you can make an air bridge somewhere, you can probably also bomb that place, so....).

For seaborne assaults it may be the most viable, I think. The ammo consumption is relevant there too, since they need less logistics.

Still, the firepower to ammo ratio for artillery isn't all that different. The lightest arty(200 firepower) takes 9 ammo, the 800 fp arty takes 45 ammo. 4 times firepower, for 5 times ammo. Not a big difference. Plus, as was mentioned in this thread, armor matters, etc. (although I think most heavier artillery gives more attacks rather than higher attack power, which means the caliber negatives shouldn't have penalties, right? Not totally sure.)

I really wish the lightest artillery could march at infantry speed. I absolutely hate the Siege Infantry deployable army thingie, since it's so darn worthless. 1 arty for 9 infantry, that's like... why? You're ruining your infantry completely. Better make an infrantry army and attaching one or two 5 artillery squads on it.

Sadly, the game still has lots of unusable things in it. I suppose that's how it goes when the game has a zillion different things in it, too hard for one person to fix all of it.

I almost never use the lighter equipments for a few reasons. First off, you'd need a lot more manpower to steel/IP ratio for them to be usable, second of all, there's the caliber issue for tanks etc(using light armor means you'll die to infantry way easier), and third there's the "too many attackers on too few enemies" penalty which means it's better to have 5 great units than 25 trash units when attacking.

Only reason to use multiple weaker units is if you have a LOT of defensible ground to cover, and have way too much manpower. Neither situation is very likely.

[[] ¬ []1 TEFLON DON 永遠のトランプ]

Towed artillery is completely useless from a mobility standpoint because it can only move 1 hex tile per turn. The only way to increase mobility is to make it either motorized or mechanized; though at that point you might as well make mechanized artillery or rocket artillery units to save on manpower (1000 vs 500).

[cranky corvid]

Originally posted by ¬ 1 TEFLON DON 永遠のトランプ:

... you might as well make mechanized artillery or rocket artillery units to save on manpower (1000 vs 500).

The 50 trucks for a motorized artillery battalion only use up 100 manpower - there is a manpower refund after they're produced. Mechanized artillery and rocket artillery also deliver significantly less firepower for cost relative to motorized artillery, so they fill different roles rather being a direct upgrade.

[vic]

upon player a good suggestion the new open beta now has foot movement (instead of artillery) for 25mm artillery + at gun, giving them a reason to exist.

[Slippy]

Originally posted by vic:

upon player a good suggestion the new open beta now has foot movement (instead of artillery) for 25mm artillery + at gun, giving them a reason to exist.

Time to create custom mountaineer regiments!
This is a great change, cant wait to try to this out

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Originally posted by tiavals:

Still, the firepower to ammo ratio for artillery isn't all that different. The lightest arty(200 firepower) takes 9 ammo, the 800 fp arty takes 45 ammo. 4 times firepower, for 5 times ammo. Not a big difference. Plus, as was mentioned in this thread, armor matters, etc. (although I think most heavier artillery gives more attacks rather than higher attack power, which means the caliber negatives shouldn't have penalties, right? Not totally sure.)

IIRC the 'caliber' of an attack is totally separate from its attack power, and is just the size of the gun vs the thickness of the armor - it then applying a %penalty to the attack value based on how much smaller the gun is. Artillery gets some penalty to its caliber which is why 60mm artillery will get a penalty against combat armor, which i think has an effective thickness of like 30mm.

[Overlord]

Originally posted by vic:

upon player a good suggestion the new open beta now has foot movement (instead of artillery) for 25mm artillery + at gun, giving them a reason to exist.

Much appreciated vic, can't wait to try the new changes out!

[tiavals]

Originally posted by vic:

upon player a good suggestion the new open beta now has foot movement (instead of artillery) for 25mm artillery + at gun, giving them a reason to exist.

Awesome! I'm gonna love trying this out on a low tech start, should make for a very different experience.

For clarity(and for future players), would it be possible to slightly change the name of the 25mm weapons to signify that they're more mobile? Like for artillery you could call it "25mm mortars" to imply they are infantry style foot weapons for movement purposes? Otherwise people who don't know of the difference will find it really hard to ever be aware of it.

Originally posted by TheDeadlyShoe:

Originally posted by tiavals:

Still, the firepower to ammo ratio for artillery isn't all that different. The lightest arty(200 firepower) takes 9 ammo, the 800 fp arty takes 45 ammo. 4 times firepower, for 5 times ammo. Not a big difference. Plus, as was mentioned in this thread, armor matters, etc. (although I think most heavier artillery gives more attacks rather than higher attack power, which means the caliber negatives shouldn't have penalties, right? Not totally sure.)

IIRC the 'caliber' of an attack is totally separate from its attack power, and is just the size of the gun vs the thickness of the armor - it then applying a %penalty to the attack value based on how much smaller the gun is. Artillery gets some penalty to its caliber which is why 60mm artillery will get a penalty against combat armor, which i think has an effective thickness of like 30mm.

You're right, hadn't checked that part of the manual before.

I think it's both a good and a bad thing. Good because it means your super heavy stuff won't be slain as easily by pitiful things which makes for better immersion, bad because it overly much emphazises higher calibers on stuff. (imagine making a tank with a 25mm howitzer, even on early game). And this goes triply so for artillery since it seems they get a 66% penalty to penetrations, if I understood the manual correctly. (I think it used to be even worse like 2 years ago, before the firepower recalculations for a lot of weapons? (or maybe I'm just misremembering something really bad))

Still, it's fair enough as the game does encompass a huge timeframe and higher tech levels lead to higher calibers organically. Even so, I'd find it cool from a replayability perspective that there wasn't the malus, as the lighter gear are usually not worth it for other reasons too. Artillery has like 6 or 8 tubes to choose from, but I pretty much always go for the heaviest, since why not? The price difference isn't that big, but the manpower savings are, etc.

In any case, the new change to the light arty and AT guns being infantry speed is a great one, since it fundamentally changes how you use the pieces of equipment and the tactical and strategic considerations you have to take into account when choosing to use those models. It's really nice that the developer is willing to listen to feedback and experiment with the mechanics like this.