confusing Artillery overload score

[gdpsnake]

I fought a "special battle" after a decisive victory. I was not in a defend because no mines/obstacles could be purchased. Felt like a delay battle (slaughter is a better explanation because of the artillery...)

I had (9) 105mm light Artillery guns off map for use. My opponent got a whopping 722 points for overload.

My opponent had (4) 4.5 Inch guns and (30) 25 pounder guns off map and (12) 25 pounder guns on map for a total of 46 guns! I got a lousy 274 points for overload.

Can someone explain that?

my total force value was about 4000 points for the battle.

[jivemi]

Greetings gdpsnake. If this was an advance/delay battle then it seems your award for opponent's overload was insufficient. Either that, or you're confusing what one player is being awarded for the OTHER's overload. Have you completed the battle and checked the results screen?

Even for some of us grizzled SP veterans the arty overload took some getting used to, but it goes a long way towards restoring play balance to many scenarios.

[scorpio_rocks]

In a delay type battle your overload threshold is 15% - for a 4000 point force this is 600 points - and the award is 50% of the overspend.

A German 105mm Howitzer costs around 30 points at base experience (9x30 = 270) - so not enough to give any points! Are you sure you dont have 9 batteries of guns? Or a bunch of mortars you forgot about? Units bought with support points count. Also remember Ammo units count against your artillery overload threshold.

As Jivemi points out, you may well be reading the numbers the wrong way around - I often do on the turn 1 report - check the results screen.

Personally I love the overload system makes balancing forces easier and fairer.

[gdpsnake]

I had 9 total 10.5 cm guns off board; not batteries, just nine guns. No mortars or anything though I did buy (6) 75mm on board IG guns with munitions with the scenario 'extra' points. The 9 10.5's were part of my core force but are Off board assets which do cost more than on board assets (a battery of (3) 10.5cm's cost about 500 points each?) So I can possibly see the opponent's point award based on 15%

I checked and am ABSOLUTELY certain I was awarded 274 points to my score and the AI was awarded 722 points to it's score for overload.

But, only 274 awarded to me for the AI's ENORMOUS purchase?!
I checked the enemy roster and the total was 46 total guns. (30) Off Board 25 pounders and (4) 4.5 inch artillery and (12) on board 25 pounders. That alone costs more than 7000 points!

You can imagine the slaughter when 36-42 artillery splashes (I counted!) happened every turn and I could not even start entrenched. That did not count all the 3 inch mortar rounds either, JUST the 25 pound and 4.5 inch rounds that usually had 6-9 impact spots.

It was ridiculous considering the size of my force. Then the force I faced on the map was immense - some 60-80 tanks (cruisers and matilda), 20 bren carriers, 30 trucks and everything loaded with squads, MG's and the like. Plus the 40 mm bofors. Buying that force should have cost at least 8000 points before any artillery.

It was laughable against my 16 Infantry squads, 25 Pz III tanks, 4 Pz IVe, 4 88's, 4 AAA and 16 halftracks (to carry the troops - so not deployed up front in a delay). My 'extra' purchase 75 guns nestled behind hills with the munitions in two different locations were pounded out of commission in 2 turns. How eerily efficient that AI is...No matter how I located my (4) 88's - they also were obliterated immediately even when hidden.....

My infantry force was mostly routed away and 1/3 of my armor was immobilized/damaged after 6 turns of that pounding before the lead elements of his force even reached me. The smoke from the bombardments covered the battlefield so there wasn't even any shooting back possible.

And all I get for that is 274 overload points?

[grond69]

Echoing a previous comment, I think you may have bought 3 battalions of 105s. A battery has 4 guns and costs ~200, a battalion has 3 batteries (12 guns) and costs ~600. I don't see any way to buy 9 offboard guns. Your force as described costs about 2800 or so (not including artillery), which means your artillery percentage is over 39%! Don't forget, if you have a delay mission, the AI gets 1.5 times your spend(ifrc), so expect to see a 6000 pt force coming your way! I don't recall what arty% an advance mission gets, and I'm too lazy to look it up!

[Warnevada]

I ran into something similar, not artillery overload, but force size. It turned out to be the point count setting in Preferences. The AI side should have a XXX setting for it to properly calculate its force size.

[Mobhack]

The advancing force gets 1.5 times the delayers points value (IIRC, it may be twice as many, and I think its 3 times for the attacker in an assault)

So every point you spend as P1 from the support pool is giving him as P2 1.5-2 extra buy points. Support points are voluntary (for payer 1, not so if you are player 2 of course!). Only spend them if you need them, really.

The AI will now buy cheap general support artillery if it's attacking. It will tend to buy those in batallion sized lumps, too. This increases the AI tube count. They have a longer plotting delay, but if you have the full game, the AI does sometimes do a programmed barrage now, with a mixture of random shoots into its area of interest, or around the objective hexes, along with some effort at a rolling barrage that will steadily walk from the front line onwards. It will also use its on map mortars and arty in the programme - unlike the traditional single turn 0 fire of old.

You bought "nine off map guns" - unlikely since the Germans only have 4 gun off-map batteries. Perhaps you meant 2 batteries (ie 8 guns) - you would be unlikely to have been able to buy 9 batteries with the usual support points.

The British cruiser tanks are quite cheap - only 50 points for an A13, 57 for a crusader 1. They are easy targets with thin skins. The Infantry tanks will take a long time to get into the fight, and Matildas are only 80 points being slow and as weakly armed as the cruisers. The Brits use leg infantry in the main - with some motorised on cheap light trucks. APCS are rare till Europe. The brits like a lot of recce - so expect plenty of tin can armoured cars and universal carriers.

The AI will be buying at book prices as well whereas your troops will likely be experts by now, and so cost rather a lot more than the book price shown in the encyclopaedia.

The searching fires in the programme can find stuff you think is "hidden". And even if the AI is not using a programmed fire plan, it will still then plot stuff randomly searching mainly within 10-12 hexes or so of an objective starting to fall from about turn 3-4 onwards. Add random fall for unobserved fall of shot, and the area out to 20 hexes from any objective hex is in danger of being stonked. (It also likes crossroad hexes in your area, so same applies to those as well as roads, though to a lesser amount than the V-hex area). Some fire is occasionally plotted randomly into the rear area of the enemy deployment zone too on occasion, since that's where arty, area SAMs and other high-value stuff is often parked.

All AI plotting is using exactly the same info you would get as a human player - there aren't any "hints" or "cheats" - unlike the original SSI code which did do that. So your 88s either were put somewhere the randomiser decided to plant a stonk, or were spotted moving and setting up there if in LOS to some unit on the enemy side.

Personally, I don't bother to use on-map indirect arty, unless it is SP arty that can displace quickly to get out of counter battery fires. Exception is mortars, but I place these in patches of rough or on a field or soft sand, which has some defensive worth to HE fire. The AI has the same info as you - and just like you will see the "puffs of smoke" your indirect fire units show when firing, and plot fires onto those. My SP arty will scoot after 2 turns fired, my mortars will simply hunker down in the rough and suck it up.

[Griefbringer]

In an advance/delay battle, the advancing side can use up to 30 % of points in artillery before overload points start being awarded, while the defending side can spend up to 15 %. Furthermore, the attacking side gets 50% more points overall than the defender.

So if the defending force was 4000 points, this would give an attacking force of 6000 points, and the artillery overload limits would be 600 and 1800 points, respectively.

[Griefbringer]

Looks like I got some numbers messed up in the previous, since attacker in advance/delay battle gets 100% extra points, rather than 50%.

So if the defending force was 4000 points, this would give an attacking force of 8000 points, and the artillery overload limits would be 600 and 2400 points, respectively.

[gdpsnake]

Not to sound off but why does everyone assume I'm mistaken?

TRUST ME. I had 9 total off board guns. 3 sets of 3 10.5 cm guns. Look at the purchase screen under artillery. You get a set of three light artillery guns under the choice "artillery abt (German OOB circa 1941)." 3 batteries of 3 guns is nine guns - TOTAL. A 10.5cm choice costs 579 points and they are off-board assets. These are part of my core force.

My core is 5 companies of PZ III H (25 tanks), 1 company of PZ IV E (4 tanks), 4 companies of PZ grenadiers (4X4) squads for 16 total squads of men, 16 251 halftracks to carry the 16 squads, 4 wheeled Flak 88's, 4 tracked AAA guns, an HQ, and my 3 batteries of 3 guns EACH 10.5 cm artillery - TOTAL NINE GUNS!!!!!!!!

Scenario purchase points were used to buy the 75 mm IG which were in two companies including a spotter for 184 points each. My leftover support points were spent on 5 booby traps and munitions (1 purchase of 2). I ignored the rest.

So for the last time, I had 9 total guns off board and 12 on board for 9 10.5's and 12 75's. That is a total of 2105 artillery points.

The attacker had 3 howitzer troops on board for 88 times 3 or 152.
2 medium batteries of 4.5 inch for 412 times 2 or 824.
5 artillery RGT's of 25 pounders for 1008 times 5 or 5040.
That is a total of 6016 points of artillery purchase.

So 6016 to my 2105 is approximately 3 times as many artillery points. This was NOT a defend battle because I did not get any option to purchase mines and I could not/did not start entrenched. It had to be a delay.

So WAY MORE than a 6000 point force coming my way, it was OVER 6000 points in just artillery alone. My TOTAL force value with core plus purchase was 5364 points of which 2105 was artillery with a 37% artillery given next to the force number.

In the delay scenario that should have given the attacker 10,708 points to spend. 6016 was spent in artillery.

The attacker had 3 A/C troops for 180 pts.
3 light tank groups for 174 points.
3 TD sections for 204,
5 cruiser squadrons for 3420
2 inf tank groups for 342
1 inf tank section for 156
3 mg platoons for 150
3 mech patrols for 309
5 lorried inf platoons for 333
2 rifle coy + mor for 528
2 carrier sections for 164

for a grand total of 6030 points.

So the attacker got 12046 points to my 5364. I calculate a 39% art percentage to me though the game said 37%. The attacker had a 50% artillery percentage.

Mobhack,
I have the purchased game. So the attacker MUST have gotten twice the points I got (that is what you get for a special battle??). I don't really care about that except in terms of overload points in this case.

So again, based on these numbers, how is it I got ONLY 274 points awarded to my score for overload? The AI got 722 which is about 37% of my 2105 points in artillery - I see that. How is it I only got 274 when the AI spent 50% on artillery - 6016 points?
If the points accrue after 30% then I should have received 20% of 6016 or 1203 points for overload (20% after subtracting the 30% of the AI's total 50% artillery purchase?) - correct?