Artillery settings

[Mobhack]

Precisely the above was why Artillery Overload was introduced. To penalise the players who but stupid amounts of artillery. (Takes me back to the 1/300 tabletop days, back in the 1970s when there were no army lists and 1 guy at the Nationals turned up with nothing but off-map artillery and a dozen FOO jeeps to take the objectives and spot for the guns - the next year, official army lists appeared )

And if you really think you need the artillery, by all means go for the overload - the penalty is not too much, so if you give away say 300 points, that's the cost of an MBT which is neither here nor there, just make sure the extra guns work hard to make up for the penalty points given away.

Planes do not count - they are limited by flight numbers.

Ammo carriers do count - they are a force multiplier that only humans can take advantage of.

As to the reduced response of D/S and G/S artillery - there is no delay if they are used as pre-programmed artillery so they are generally only useful for the attacker, as cheaper planned strikes. They fall on pre-plotted gold spots at the same delay as others, so may be useful for cheap defensive fires if you plot your FDF spots correctly.

And also, I will be looking into artillery overload for scenarios - and probably not charging it for these since the designer knows what was needed.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

At first I had my doubts about the "penalty" as I've always had a "combined arms" view in my force makeup. Within a short time I was much more comfortable with it, because as Andy pointed out, a live opponent in this game could do the same thing with a few decent armored recon or helicopter borne troop (Touch and go.) units, as he pointed out on for that that "table top" tourney.

And since it was brought up...
You having ammo units (And I do for "RL" reasons.) against the AI is a huge advantage and one I've advocated in the past, the AI should have the option of as well.

[b]Bottom-line from many years past posts is, it would be a coding nightmare.[b]

Whether intended or not, the AI WILL ON A CONSISTANT BASIS TARGET YOUR AMMO SUPPLY UNITS. It stresses your logistics, it's an easy kill and with the primary and secondary explosions it usually will cause collateral damage to any light units or worse and at a minimum suppress them even to the point of routing them based on their "experience" at the time.

I still buy them but for what units, well the reader will just figure out what's best for them. The AI knows for sure.

Andy for you or Don, and I'm sure I've asked this in the past and have forgotten the answer, but I thought I've seen the AI get charged for "artillery overload" as well?

Could you please enlighten me (And possibly some others.) as to the correct answer?

Regards,
Pat

[Mobhack]

The AI will get charged if it overbuys. I thought I would have to do a lot of rework to the pick lists, but it turned out that the AI generally kept within the limits I had determined anyway - bar the occasional time it goes heavy on guns (e.g. UK/USA later war in WW2 sometimes buys a lot, but that is historic).

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by retiredgysgt

Just bought a Battalion of Marines with a Tank company an LAI Company and all the artillery you listed first fight is against the Taliban in Afghanistan, no penalty this fight but yes that has gotten me a penalty before.

The full tank and LAI companies made the total non-artillery point cost high enough to not cause artillery overload. Typically a Bn MEU has a platoon of each, and frequently no LAI at all. The more recent formations don't suffer this much due to the the improvements in LVTs and LAVs, thermal sights dramatically increase their unit cost.

Overall I don't have any real "issues" with the current system tho. I just find it slightly amusing.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

That's what I thought, and was hoping I wasn't seeing things that weren't there!?!

I usually play some "combination" of countries against Russia and China mostly. It's been my experience that beside setting my AI preference to "Tank Heavy" most of the time (If not all of the time.) it's also "Artillery Heavy" as well with a combination of Off Map/Mortar/On Map (Grads and such.) which, if you think about it, is what both those countries are able to do in life as embolden above.

I do not short the AI on points as this is not a realistic thing to do considering their "RL" equipment status since the end of WWII.

Thanks for your answer Andy!

Regards,
Pat

[Imp]

With mines you can sell them a dummy admittedly that scenario no engineers but it does not matter your force is mobile & my tanks had ample smoke. Hit the mines & either let engineers work a couple of turns smoke & pull out. Probe the line to see how far it goes worst case I have no issues with advancing in the wrong direction for a turn or two when it comes to mines.

SPOILER
In this case not far you can go round it while the arty hits the now vacated minefield.

In my view the artillery system works well I do fall foul of overload on the occasion in early year games but not worried by it. D/S G/S are useful additional tools these are the ones you have covering your mines if defending with any Gold Spots positioned to relocate & hit again. Due to high adjust cost stick to infantry as targets not harassing vehicles.