[1.5]The case for and against tweaks to stacks

NoobNoobTrain · Jul 10th 2020, 11:02pm

I have played a few games in 1.5 now and in general I love it. I'm definately not going back. There is much more options for strategy and tactics in 1.5.

One thing I noticed in these games, though, is that the changes made to caps on stacks isn't really doing what it should.

As I understand it, the cap on damage output (10 units) was introduced to prevent games from devolving into a comepetition on who can build the largest killer stacks (ppl did that even with the penalties in 1.0). This is a good idea. Players should be motivated to use combined arms operations with many different armies. And not just gush everything into one, big army that has orders to zig-zag through the entire enemy territory and clubber everything down that it encounters. This was kind of boring in 1.0.

But I still see big killer-stacks in the game.And this is why: no penalty on defense. So essentially the damage output is capped, but the HP isn't. This means that you can build an almost unkillable stack that will stick around forever. And if build with a combo of AT, AA, Inf, arty and RRGs plus - maybe tanks. there is nothing to counter the stack. Except another big stack. So, back to square one

Two players in my current game used this to slam the door when they were looking at defeat: pooled everything into one big stack and stuck it in the capital. With decent ressources in stock, it can stay there for a long time. You just have to check in every 2 days. You are not playing the game - just being a nuisance to the other players.

The benefits of accumulated HP don't really scale well for gameplay either. The stack with the biggest HP will win big time if two stacks of comparable size slug it out. In the end, it will snowball and the slightly smaller stack will loose a hughe quantity of units while the other will survive with minor casualties.

This is also true for mid size stacks. In my current game, I defended against a 50-size stack with 40-some units. Stacks were comparable in content and strength. But I ended up losing all and the other stack lost 6 units, and could limp along with about 40% health. This is a hughe slippery-slope mechanism.

This is a game, nor IRL, but anyway: in a real war, there would be definate disadvantages to a large arny concentrated in one area. For example: No matter where the enemy drops a shell, it is likely to hit something.

I think something should be done about the HP in large stacks.Something like a diminishing, marginal HP for units added over a certain stack size. So heavy tank # 25 does not add as much HP to the stack as #24 does. I'm not sure at what number of units or HP this mechanism should kick-in, but I feel that it would make much more interesting games, if the benefits of playing Maginot-style were reduced. The game should reward planning, strategy and tactics IMO - and penalise mindless stacking.

freezy · Jul 15th 2020, 6:46pm

Hi,

we discussed additional penalties like HP penalties internally. While we agree they make sense, they are not the highest priority right now, because after all the stack limit still kinda works. It is just not as effective as it could be, but it is still effective. I also think that there are still quite alot of players who build such large stacks either out of lazyness or out of missing knowledge about the stack limit, because it is not clearly communicated yet (will be added soon)

If you fight 1x 50 units stack with 2x 25 unit stacks at the same time, you would certainly win the fight. So you cannot say that it is the best course of action to put everything into one big stack. It is about finding the right ratio and about mixing the right units together without losing too much damage efficiency. Of course if you fight 1x 50 unit stack with 1x 40 unit stack you are still at a disadvantage, because the stack limit hinders your single stack as well. You could have achieved better results by attacking that 50 unit stack with 2x 20 unit stacks for example, but it depends on the exact army composition, which I don't know (but I also would have no time to analyse it).

The new damage tooltip, that you can access with the new info button in the army bar, should help with finding the right combinations of damage efficiency.

Seaexplorer99 · Jul 15th 2020, 8:57pm

The tool tip needs to show your speed penalty

NoobNoobTrain · Jul 15th 2020, 10:39pm

freezy wrote:

Hi,

we discussed additional penalties like HP penalties internally. While we agree they make sense, they are not the highest priority right now, because after all the stack limit still kinda works. It is just not as effective as it could be, but it is still effective. I also think that there are still quite alot of players who build such large stacks either out of lazyness or out of missing knowledge about the stack limit, because it is not clearly communicated yet (will be added soon)

If you fight 1x 50 units stack with 2x 25 unit stacks at the same time, you would certainly win the fight. So you cannot say that it is the best course of action to put everything into one big stack. It is about finding the right ratio and about mixing the right units together without losing too much damage efficiency. Of course if you fight 1x 50 unit stack with 1x 40 unit stack you are still at a disadvantage, because the stack limit hinders your single stack as well. You could have achieved better results by attacking that 50 unit stack with 2x 20 unit stacks for example, but it depends on the exact army composition, which I don't know (but I also would have no time to analyse it).

The new damage tooltip, that you can access with the new info button in the army bar, should help with finding the right combinations of damage efficiency.

OK, A good response. Yes it may be the case that the new meta-game hasn't developed yet. And as I said, 1.5 allows many more tactical options, so yes new counters to big stacks may still develop.

But what about the 'stack of doom' - the big stacks left by players quitting to annoy their opponents? If they are equipped with RRGs and AA, there isn't really anything to deal with them until late game.

Hans A. Pils · Jul 31st 2020, 8:47pm

freezy wrote:

If you fight 1x 50 units stack with 2x 25 unit stacks at the same time, you would certainly win the fight.

That's not true (unless we're talking about bombardment battles with more than 10 range units on each side and no fortress involved - then it's totally clear the one who splits up wins - so this thread definitely is not about such battles, only about all others): Assuming 10 strongest units have the same damage output values in each of the three stacks (which by the way is more difficult to achieve with the two smaller stacks). Then the 50-unit stacks swallows twice as much damage per hour as each of the two 25-unit stacks do. But has twice the HP compared to each of the 25-unit stacks. So all three stacks will be down to 50% health at about the same time. Afterwards the 50-unit stack will win, because it happens earlier that one of the 10 strongest units in the smaller stacks dies.

On the other hand, there's a different (and quite obvious) argument why big stacks aren't the ultimate solution for every situation: You usually want to defend more than just a few spots. So you also need more than just a few stacks. Nobody ever won a war with just one or two doom stacks. Can be outmaneuvered too easily... and while you conquer one province with your doomstack, your opponent will conquer ten of your provinces with smaller stacks.
But still, I agree with @NoobNoobTrain that very big stacks are worthwile in too many situations in CoW (both 1.0 and 1.5), for these reasons:

Placing several smaller stacks along the border would be way more realistic for WW2 times - such giant armies in one place weren't seen after 19th century any more.
As @NoobNoobTrain already described, the big stacks dumb down the game. If you instead had a number of medium stacks along the front, you'd have to think much more which units to place at which section of the front.

Alright, but what I don't agree with is the approach suggested in this thread to improve this. A HP malus for big stacks would mean additional complexity of the game mechanics. What I'd rather do to make big stacks a good choice less often:

Reduce stack damage limit from 10 strongest units to 8 strongest units.
Revert the centralization of resources to cities, as this allows defenders more often to just gather a few big stacks in few provinces instead of building up a front (and as it is very negative in several other respects as well).

freezy · Aug 4th 2020, 6:14pm

Hans A. Pils wrote:

freezy wrote:

If you fight 1x 50 units stack with 2x 25 unit stacks at the same time, you would certainly win the fight.

That's not true (unless we're talking about bombardment battles with more than 10 range units on each side and no fortress involved - then it's totally clear the one who splits up wins - so this thread definitely is not about such battles, only about all others): Assuming 10 strongest units have the same damage output values in each of the three stacks (which by the way is more difficult to achieve with the two smaller stacks). Then the 50-unit stacks swallows twice as much damage per hour as each of the two 25-unit stacks do. But has twice the HP compared to each of the 25-unit stacks. So all three stacks will be down to 50% health at about the same time. Afterwards the 50-unit stack will win, because it happens earlier that one of the 10 strongest units in the smaller stacks dies.

Your description is correct for cases where the big army is defending only (and consisting of more defense-focused units). I can absolutely vouch for my statement being true for fights where the single army is attacking or attacking+defending, due to how damage in multi-army fights is distributed. I also tested it in practice and can confirm it.

Here is my setup:

Allied Doctrine for both players
The same 50 units for both players

Player A army 1: (A1)
20 Inf lvl1, 15 armored cars lvl1, 15 light tanks lvl1 (see picture 1)

Player B army 1: (B1)
10 Inf lvl1, 7 armored cars lvl1, 8 light tanks lvl1 (see picture 2)
Player B army 2: (B2)
10 Inf lvl1, 8 armored cars lvl1, 7 light tanks lvl1

All armies had 100% condition (first picture is already after first combat round).
All armies meet up on conquered terrain, so no home defense bonus for either army.
All armies are in movement, so all armies are attacking and defending at the same time. (note: I gave the movement order to army A1 with a bit of a delay, so the attack tick of army B happens before the attack tick of army A1 in the pictures. Since the stacks consist of more defensive units than offensive this is actually favourable to army A1)

After several ticks, army A1 was down to 29 units at 34% condition (see picture 3), while army B1 and B2 had 22 and 23 units, at 47% and 49%. (see picture 4)

After the battle was over, army A1 was dead and army B1 and B2 survived with 21 units each, at 36% and 38% condition (see picture 5), so after combining them back to one army 42 surviving units at 37% condition (see picture 6).

The 2 split armies combined just deal out more damage per round due to not wasting as much damage efficiency, so it doesnt matter if the single army has more hitpoints than one of the split armies, incoming attack damage is shared between the 2 (area damage) while they both return their full defense damage.
This is only the case though when the single army is attacking or attacking+defending. If it is defending only and doesnt have more attacking-focused units in it, it is not at a disadvantage anymore. In such a case your statement would be true (but I feel like most players drive around carelessly with their mega stack, being most often on the attacking side of things).

If more people knew about this, we would probably see less large stacks. But I guess there is still this myth going around that a single stack is stronger. Hopefully the new army bar layout will help highlighting the loss in efficiency of big stacks.

In case anyone is wondering how you can prevent your 2 melee armies from merging: Just give them different orders.

Attached are some images for the combat that I just mentioned

Torpedo28000 · Aug 6th 2020, 7:31am

Hans A. Pils wrote:

But still, I agree with @NoobNoobTrain that very big stacks are worthwile in too many situations in CoW (both 1.0 and 1.5), for these reasons:

Placing several smaller stacks along the border would be way more realistic for WW2 times - such giant armies in one place weren't seen after 19th century any more.

As @NoobNoobTrain already described, the big stacks dumb down the game. If you instead had a number of medium stacks along the front, you'd have to think much more which units to place at which section of the front.

I completely agree with this statement. I hate how mega stacks create a 2-3 province fight zone and the rest of the front is almost empty.

I think the problem is having a balance between a few strong armies which dominate each battle but leave an exposed front, vs many small armies which cannot 1v1 a large stack, but can cover the front line, and then not having so many troops that there is 50 stacks in every single province.

While Freezy is correct that 2x25 stacks will beat a 1x50 stack. I would argue that the above quote for the 2 reasons mega stacks in CoW suck have not been addressed. 2x25 stacks in 1 provinces vs 1x50 stack in 1 provinces really is the same thing troop wise. 1 player in that scenario is just a little wiser for their stack builds.

Given that players do like mega stacks and do often build them, to counter this I will send in armies like Freezy did which match the enemy, but are just managed better. But this does not really remove mega stacks from the game.

As an alternative, if we had stack based damage efficiency this perhaps would further reduce mega stacks. If players now adhered to a for example 25 stack SBDE limit as well as the current 10 troop limit, then perhaps this would result in a widening of troops as to counter 1x25 stack perhaps 2x15 stacks would be used. As stacks become less efficient the more troops in them. As currently as Freezy demonstrated, the best way to beat a 50 stack is with 2x25 stacks. Maybe 2x20 stacks, but then if the enemy switches to 2x25 stacks those 2x20 stacks are at a disadvantage. But if mega stacks where 25 stacks, or maybe up to 30-35. This would reduce the number of troops needed to defeat them.

An alternatively to reduce mega stacks. Further troop diversification. If players where to perhaps research a wider range of troops, this might reduce mega stacks. If for example I have 6 troops. AC, LT, SPA, SPAA, SPRA and TD. I am likely to bunch them into 1 stack. But if I could research 8 troops. I might ditch the LT and build inf, arty and AA. This inevitably reduces the mega stack because adding inf units to an armoured army is foolish as it would slow it down and even add unhelpful troops to the stack. Additionally, this would push me to spread my rss out more meaning I might have less armoured troops which would push for widening of the front.

I don't have any simple sounding methods right now to try for this. But if this is an idea that is popular/liked then I would give it more time to think of something. Just some food for thought.

Hans A. Pils · Aug 12th 2020, 4:01pm

OK freezy, point taken: Definitely you're right in the scenario of all stacks attacking in a melee battle, the side with bigger number of stacks wins (as long as these have at least ten strong melee units).
I indeed hadn't thought of that scenario... possibly because it's rather seldom a player uses different orders for stacks on the same spot to keep them from merging.

Anyhow Torpedo is right in CoW it too often makes sense to concentrate your entire army onto very few spots.
For example see it this way: Often you want close-combat stacks to consist of 10 specialists against unarmoured targets, 10 specialists against armoured targets and 10 specialists against air. That makes 30 units in a single stack. Often with artillery guarded by further AA trailing behind results quickly in about 50 units in same province with optimal damage efficiency. That's too much.
What speaks against reducing the stack size limit from 10 to 8 - as most simple first step to reduce the problem?

freezy · Aug 12th 2020, 6:16pm

well just reducing the number slightly will barely change this problem.

First, the stack limit can be easily circumvented by splitting troops, which I demonstrated in my post above. So with the current mechanics a player could still position all his units in one location no matter how low the stack limit is (with splitting).

Secondly the change would be rather small, not sure you would feel any impact by that. Probably had to be lowered to 5 to really see a significant change.

It also makes calculations for players slightly harder because 8 is not a well rounded number.

All in all I think a change in combat mechanics is needed to really combat this problem. Luckily we have it on our agenda to do some tweaks to the combat at some point, so we may try to implement solutions which makes it less worthwhile to concentrate a lot of troops.

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