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I've been really enjoying the pace of updates but it'll still be good later. Big wars in this game are great.
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Aug 5, 2020 16:07
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Generation Internet posted:I hate to leave anyone hanging but my work has seen fit to get in some training before the summer ends and I'm out of town until the end of the month. That's pretty saucy coming from an opponent who keeps pushing his spearhead further north while you keep getting closer to his logistics hub.
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Aug 5, 2020 16:27
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Looking forward to season two.
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Aug 5, 2020 20:51
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Turn 82 We're back, and after spending most of the month sleeping in the mud and getting hit with simulated artillery I'm feeling closer to the pixeltroops than ever. It's been long enough since I played this turn that looking at the screenshots is jogging my memory a little, but Orange gets in some solid counterpunches on our armoured spearhead.  We finish researching a more-better RPG.  Our archaeologists keep digging up valuable relics on the home front. More cloning vats would be great.  The radical idea of mounting a quad-MG to a mechanized chassis turns out less than impressive results. The design is shelved.    Orange is slowly concentrating more and more of his high-quality tanks and mounting effective counterattacks. We'll need a dedicated tank-killer soon.   Western front turn start:  On the far left of the front our skirmishing forces keep harassing some beleaguered infantry.   The unfortunate brigade commander of the enemy battalion gets caught during a frontline inspection and is killed in the fighting.  I can't remember if I already caught this, but Orange has rushed R&D on laser weaponry and infantry equipment utilizing it, from now on the fighting should be a lot more even.   On the outskirts of Bluebaths our tanks keep pressing forwards.   I decide to roll the dice on an attack into the city itself. The tight confines of the urban area built on top of Galactic Republic era ruins is hardly ideal for tanks, but a victory here could be decisive before Orange has a chance to reinforce the city.   This is the first stalemate I've seen in the game. We successfully push the defending infantry out of the town but are frustratingly unable to consolidate the position. Reports come up from the front-line platoons of new small arms capable of cutting through the polymer armour on our light tanks. Considerable damage is done to the city's infrastructure, however. The infantry battalions following up the tanks continue clearing out the flanks, a less glamorous job but no less important.     Western front turn end. Bluebaths lies open but we have no formation in any condition to occupy it.  Looking deeper into Orange's territory it seems there's a minor rebellion brewing on the other side of their capital. Probably nothing serious, but I hope it diverts some troops.  A full compliment of APCs is ordered to fille out 6 Bde's TOE   A look at the strategic map.  
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Aug 29, 2020 18:34
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Turn 83 Orange mentioned that this was a 'crucial' turn when he sent it, and it was the last one before I went away.  We finally exit the crisis of egoism, turns out everyone is getting fairly comfortable with the war thundering far away from the capital.  A number of new discoveries are made and we finish developing an incremental upgrade to our light tank.    The tank upgrade is nothing revolutionary, but it keeps the platform competitive while maintaining a relatively low cost. If I had an armoured OOB researched I'd be fielding as many as I could.   For comparison here's Orange's latest tank. They've gone all in on maximizing the light tank chassis, which is something I'm just thematically opposed to I guess. I want my light tanks to stay light but the next one is definitely getting an armour upgrage.  After some preliminary artillery the thin corridor connecting our spearhead comes under attack. Orange is finally using independent tank battalions instead of parceling them out to their infantry units and the effects are evident.  The corridor is cut by a combination of assault guns and Orange's new "light" tank.  Checking our decisions I get a bit of deja-vu.   Western front at turn start.  Zoomed in on the encirclement. Four tank battalions are pocketed. There's one tank unit on each part of the cutoff along with some infantry. One hex has AT guns as well.  The first order of business is to break out. The hex containing the assault guns is chosen for the attack. We start with an artillery barrage. I need more guns on the front, along with more of everything else.    In preparation for the assault 6 Bde is placed on a fluid posture which gives mechanized units a bonus to attack.  All available units are committed to the attack.  Some of the cut-off units are feeling the supply pressures, mainly the medium tanks.  However the battle is carried without issue. Our concentration of tanks is still combat effective and is aided by the arrival of large numbers of APCs.  The +2000% modifier by our OHQ Commander helped. This is the one with 75 intelligence.  Generally it's tougher to hold a hex with units that moved, which is helping us here in enemy readiness and entrenchment.  With the successful attack the assault guns are temporarily pocketed. The HQ Battalion of 6 Bde moves in to do what damage they can before they escape next turn.   On the other end of the line, on our far right, a wayward militia unit is broken out of encirclement as well.   I keep trying to chip away at the connection to Orange's far north units. This barrage features some of our latest howitzers and is particularly effective.    Despite the bombardment, the new laser MG's we're up against prove too much for a single infantry battalion.   1 Bde continues their thankless push through the mountains and forests, inch by bloody inch.   Western front turn end.  Here's a look at some logistics charts. 6 Bde didn't quite get their full allotment of APCs due to a lack of logistical capacity, which was eaten up by delivering all the ones they did get. They should fill out by next turn.  And a peek at the supply logistics. There's always a lot going on under the hood. Note 3 Bde's artillery gobbling up supply.  Glancing at one of our troop charts reveals the slowly rising prevalence of veteran units in our military.  It's looking unlikely that there'll be a decisive blow against Bluebaths now, but I'm still optimistic I can create some opportunities when 6 Bde is fully mobile. I just need more logistical capacity at the front to keep adding new formations. 
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Aug 30, 2020 02:36
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Heavy light tanks make a lot of sense when there are no formations with dedicated AT guns. There are a wide variety of light tank + infantry formations where having something capable of dealing with armor is great. Also a heavy diesel engine hardly uses more oil on a light tank, without too much loss of mobility.
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Aug 30, 2020 06:31
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Yeah you need to get new tanks out to counter those otherwise they are just going to tear your formations to bits.
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Aug 30, 2020 13:50
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Not pictured but at the end of the last turn I sent in my medium tank design to get upgraded with a high-velocity gun and heavier armour. I figured I didn't need two redundant anti-infantry tanks. It's been mentioned everywhere with this game but besides even integrated AT there needs to be at least an independent towed AT option. Right now I have a few mechanized RPG battalions but it's not a great solution.
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Aug 30, 2020 14:51
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The whole OOB system really needs a rework, I think it's a pity it doesn't have its own design-your-own formations like advanced tactics.
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Aug 30, 2020 16:50
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Turn 84 Stop me if you've heard this one - invasion of vast country is initially a huge success but stalls on the outskirts of a vital city as the opposing forces start fielding large numbers of excellent tanks. Large friendly formation is encircled and doomed. This turn was a tough one to play through and a tougher one to post, but I've gained enough space to trade for time that it's not a disaster yet.  We do discover power banks, vital for fighting with energy weapons. Our engineers already have ideas to improve them, too.   Our troops just can't stand up to Orange's new light tanks, I knew they would be good but I didn't know exactly how badly they would chew through everything just like Saros said.  I liked it better when Orange kept his tanks with his infantry.  Some skirmishing in the north.  Turn start.  Zoomed in on the encirclement.  I throw everything I have at what I thought was the weak link in the encirclement.  Wrong. Every enemy tank is a fortress and we crash against it like a wave.   In desperation I try my last uncommitted troops against a different hex.  A single company of assault guns holds the line and the encirclement. Clearly if I'd focused against this hex to start with things would have gone better but the deed was already done.   There were a few other skirmishes in the north but I was feeling too demoralized to screenshot them. This is what our replacement screen looked like after the turn.  The rail line is optimistically pushed to the front so a forward railhead can be established. Joke's on me though because after this turn my SHQ just kind of gives up on sending replacements even though there's logistical capacity.  All of our southern formations are placed on a defensive footing.  Front at turn end.  Ouch. So much more fun to post crushing victories than crushing defeats.  The good news is that despite the impending loss of the tanks there's still enough economic capacity, recruits, and spare ground to try and work something out of this. 
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Aug 31, 2020 15:42
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Generation Internet posted:This turn was a tough one to play through and a tougher one to post, but I've gained enough space to trade for time that it's not a disaster yet. Imagine opening a turn to this. 
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Aug 31, 2020 17:31
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I think that is next turn. 100mm armor is no joke, especially polymer armor. Especially tricky is the caliber/armor ratio penalty. Your tanks are losing half of their firepower against their main opponent. I have blown a lot of industry and rare metal on polymer 100mm APCs and those were practically unstoppable against the AI. edit: assuming a flat, commanderless plane, where all parties involved are at 100% readiness etc. Your tanks on the attack have a 144 out of 2234 chance of edit edit: Assuming a history channel special on your respective tanks is a much better way to put it. Assuming I set up this equation properly any given attack has a 3.2% chance of being a hit, which in turn could be a retreat/pin/kill result. Not necessarily a kill like I assumed in the first edit. habituallyred fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 20:50
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Turn 85 Again, ouch.  Just in time to fill in the gaps we finish developing a new medium tank, designed primarily to fight other tanks.  It's not great yet, but it's better than what we have.   Conveniently our top minds have the brilliant idea of organizing all our tanks into a concentrated formation rather than attaching them to infantry units.  Orange repays all the battalions I encircled and destroyed with interest.  Generally they're pushing me back everywhere with their new tanks.   Front turn start.  I try to poke back where I can across the line but it doesn't go great.   At least artillery has fewer casualties for our side.   Silver lining is that all our designs are getting huge amounts of field testing from getting killed so much.   I needed this one.   Front at turn end. This is where I'm starting to notice no replacements are getting sent despite thousands of spare logistical capacity.  Rail is pushed all the way up to our forward railhead, but only a few hundred logistical capacity is being used per turn for supply when we could push an entire brigade's worth of tanks with the capacity we have.  A new battalion of medium tanks is raised. The fresh tankers are assured it will go better this time and told to disregard the horror stories circulating about Orange's prison camps.   Saros posted:Imagine opening a turn to this. I can still barely wrap my head around the scale that carnage, it's properly grimdark. habituallyred posted:I think that is next turn. 100mm armor is no joke, especially polymer armor. Especially tricky is the caliber/armor ratio penalty. Your tanks are losing half of their firepower against their main opponent. I think I devote almost all my R&D over the next several turns on pushing designs with lots of armour and lots of hard attack/defense. I was hoping that I could get around some of the good tank design if Orange's tactics were soft but they've clearly learned their lesson from my initial push. e: I just noticed that the game named the new railhead "Midway" 
Generation Internet fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 02:23
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Can you get us a screenshot of the 'bottleneck' logistical view? I suspect your logistical flow is bottlenecked coming out of your capital rather than at the front.Generation Internet posted:I can still barely wrap my head around the scale that carnage, it's properly grimdark. It does show that nothing is unwinnable, despite being outnumbered 3:1 and taking horrific losses I held on till I could deploy long range missiles to utterly wreck his logistical infrastructure and the whole front ran out of energy and fuel. He managed to rebuild before it could properly collapse but things are in much better shape now. Saros fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 09:19
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Saros posted:Can you get us a screenshot of the 'bottleneck' logistical view? I suspect your logistical flow is bottlenecked coming out of your capital rather than at the front. Unless I'm reading this totally wrong, it shouldn't be.    From a few turns in the future, but logistically nothing has changed other than chipping away at a few new train stations. There's about ~3000 unused capacity at the front every turn and ~4000-5000 in the heavy traffic hexes outside my capital. Saros posted:It does show that nothing is unwinnable, despite being outnumbered 3:1 and taking horrific losses I held on till I could deploy long range missiles to utterly wreck his logistical infrastructure and the whole front ran out of energy and fuel. He managed to rebuild before it could properly collapse but things are in much better shape now. I am enjoying having a good back and forth going on, it really highlights the polished ground combat at the core of the game. I'm really curious if Vic can work in airpower seamlessly so we can really get that 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad experience.
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Sep 1, 2020 15:06
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Turn 86 The sowing continues.  It seems we lost a Bde commander over the turn's fighting.  I've been waiting for this one for a while, especially since it'll open the door to heavier missiles.  In the panic guns were left out of position and are decimated.  Orange conducts a general advance along the southern edge of the front and encircles an infantry battalion.      Front at turn start.  A new commander is scraped from the reserve to take the helm at 6 Bde.  Our northern forces are unnerved by all the rumors flowing up from the south, but keep chipping away at their opponents wherever they can.     In the south the intensity of counter-battery fire picks up.    Front at turn end.  Replacements are brought up in the form of new formations, currently the only way to get fresh bodies to the front.  I also notice Orange has retrofitted their assault guns into an anti-tank role.  
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Sep 1, 2020 15:58
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Always stinks to lose a commander, especially when the replacement is a terrible leader with a useless specialization in high command. Lead from the front might get rid of this guy sooner rather than later. That was some brutal counter battery fire, so there is some point to formations with built in artillery.
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Sep 1, 2020 21:16
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Turn 87 Same old story for the turn.  We discover laser guns, something that will eventually create anti-armour weapons of amazing potential.  As usual, as soon as it's discovered our scientists want to go back for more.  A new tank destroyer chassis is finalized, a little too early to use the laser gun from the start but that'll hopefully just let it get some field testing in.  It has a pretty nice structural design.   The brilliant minds at the staff college finish conceptualizing how to move tanks together, then think about doing the same thing but with heavier tanks.   On the history screen Orange continues the revenge of the light tank, and for the moment there's a critical lack of AT weapons at the front.    Western front turn start:  The usual bombardments go ahead in the north.     In the south I try my luck attacking with some of the new medium tanks .   I'm irrationally annoyed at the performance of 6 Bde and fire the new commander in spite.  Front turn end.  A battalion of tank destroyers and a brigade of infantry equipped with light AT is raised.   The new brigade is immediately placed on a defensive footing.  The front is rapidly becoming stalemated. 
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Sep 2, 2020 01:10
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Looking at the SHQ commanders Orange's guy is literally 10x bettter than yours who is shockingly bad for the amount of fighting he has overseen, might want to look at replacing him witth a decent senior/military card generated leader if he's low capacity because if he is he will only improve at a snails pace.
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Sep 2, 2020 10:03
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Turn 88 Orange's high tide finally begins to turn as we manage to kill some of their tanks for the first time.  We discover a new high-tech power plant, somewhat redundant when it's fairly cheap to just spam solar panels everywhere.  Our engineers finalize a plan for a long-range rocket launcher and propose improvements to the payload delivery system.   A decent structural score is always welcome, I've wanted some standoff ranged power for a while now.   On the history screen Orange keeps turning our southern flank, by far the weakest part of the line as I haven't wanted to commit industrial capacity to building a road down there.   In the center, however, the modified assault guns run into our new medium tanks for the first time. The gunners of the 2nd Medium Tank battalion are all to eager to have enemy armour in their sights and drive off the attack.  Orange, having gotten used to bullying everything with his tanks like I was, tries again with a different formation. Despite ravaging our infantry, their 60mm low velocity guns can't crack our new tanks and for the first time fall under our guns.  Turn start.  A new commander is appointed to the important 6 Bde, to which the medium tanks are attached. Looking at his stats now and considering Saros' comment, he's actually a very strong candidate for SHQ if I want to mess with relieving a high-seniority faction leader.  A new battalion of rocket launchers is also raised.  Turn end. No attacks other than the usual artillery this turn, I didn't want to burn any readiness or entrenchment where I didn't have to.  This turn wasn't much, but it was a start. For the first time since our initial armoured spearhead was destroyed we've checked Orange's advance and AT weapons continue to proliferate our frontline with all the new RPGs. 
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Sep 2, 2020 15:25
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I have been thinking about your replacement woes. Could it be a logistics directional problem? It is much less likely with rail transport, but sometimes with truck based logistics you have lots of capacity to your capitol but none away from it due to truck exhaustion. You can dig in all the way to the individual truck or train route through preview logistics, its an option on the dedicated tab. Normally I associate this problem with the yellow mixed logistics line, but I am grasping at straws here.
habituallyred fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Sep 3, 2020 |
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Sep 2, 2020 21:34
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Turn 89 Mercifully quiet compared to the last couple of turns.  A new infantry AT weapon is rushed into service, with decent stats it should be a cost-effective road-block to any further armoured rampages.    The history screen is still mostly the southern flank being slowly turned.   Turn start.  We keep pushing where we can in the north.   Orange is suffering from the same replacement bug as I am, and combined with constant artillery barrages it's making some of their units brittle.   In the centre I'm happy to look at the effective range of the new rocket battalion.  Though the inexperienced gunners fail to score any hits in the battle damage assessment, it's a promising new chapter in the campaign.   An attempt to force a portion of Orange's line goes poorly, but I can't help but feel the urge to attack even when I shouldn't.   Thankfully the tanks are on the MSR and can be reinforced manually.  Our southern forces poke out from behind the cliffs where they've been digging in.   Front at turn end.  Some new roads are built to facilitate supply. Every turn I'm using the ~1600 spare industrial points not being spent on building new assets on replacements, upgrades, and occasionally roads.   All the replacements that haven't been going to the front are marshalled into a new RPG infantry brigade to cover our increasingly vulnerable southern flank.   habituallyred posted:I have been thinking about your replacement woes. Could it be a logistics directional problem? It is much less likely with rail transport, but sometimes with truck based logistics you have lots of capacity to your capitol but none away from it due to truck exhaustion. You can dig in all the way to the individual truck or train route through preview logistics, its on option on the dedicated tab. Normally I associate this problem with the yellow mixed logistics line, but I am grasping at straws here. At this point I'm kind of resigned that it's some sort of bug directly related to casualty replacements. Everything in the system works except replacements, on the turn I just played tonight units were even able to return obsolete models to the SHQ no problem! The other smoking gun is the Orange started having the same problem at the same time, and they say their logistics are also fine with plenty of spare capacity.
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Sep 3, 2020 03:12
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Could you raise new formations and combine the depleted ones? That might be a way to get around the issue.
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Sep 3, 2020 04:23
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I took a poke around the turn and *something* funky is going on. The replacements not happening is because replacements are last in the between-turns movement of stuff and your other movements are set in the shq to total over 100% so your logistics is all getting consumed before replacements get sent. The buggy weirdness is your capitals rail station seems to be totally failing to send out 90% of it's LP like it doesnt have a connection to a railhead or another station which is just weird but the game seems to think it has those LP's to use so it gobbles up everything shuffling stuff using truck LP only.  Its very weird and probably an artifact from starting the game in an older version and thten updating.
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Sep 3, 2020 09:24
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Turn 90 Any turn where we kill tanks is a good one.  Our current infantry model was field tested almost to the max and much work had been done improving energy small arms, so a new set of equipment was ordered.  It's a pretty nice upgrade.   Same story in the south as our remnant desert forces are eliminated.     In the centre, however, things are shaping up differently. After an initial artillery barrage a concentric attack by Orange's armour fails to penetrate our line of RPGs and MT-60s. It took a couple of turns but there's now a fairly solid wall of decent anti-hard weapons in front of them.   Map at turn start.  A new commander is assigned to the new RPG infantry brigade tasked with holding our southern flank.  Our northern forces keep pushing despite determined resistance.   In the centre Orange's organic artillery still puts up one hell of a counterbattery barrage.   Our rockets register their first hits. If I can get back within 4 hexes of Blue Baths they'll really start to shine by wrecking Orange's infrastructure.    Our forces go back on the offensive and manage to force a hex next to our railhead, giving us more space to breathe.   Elsewhere there's minor skirmishing in the south and a cut-off MG battalion fails to break out of encirclement.     Front at turn end.  Large numbers of front-line troops are upgraded to the new infantry equipment, there really is never enough industrial points.  I also notice Orange has started fielding assault guns equipped with lasers. While it's a formidable unit, it's not as bad as it could be. Assault guns are intended for soft targets, and all hard attack stats are modified down accordingly.  In comparison, here's our dedicated tank destroyer with a conventional gun where you can see the anti-hard stats being modified up since, you know, it's a tank destroyer.  After Saros was nice enough to look at the save, I try turning off all traffic signs for a turn to see if that does anything for the replacements. It turns into a beautiful nightmare where the AI major I took over used to be.   wiegieman posted:Could you raise new formations and combine the depleted ones? That might be a way to get around the issue. There is a battlegroup function that lets you combine units, but iirc it comes with penalties. Right now I'm getting away with a combination of new formations and directly reinforcing units that are directly on top of the logistical network.
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Sep 3, 2020 15:24
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Turn 91 Hello! Orange has had a bloody turn, it seems.  We finalize plans on how to manufacture our own versions of the high-tech parts we keep pulling out of the ruins. Our current needs are covered by recycling, but it's good to have this in our back pocket.  What if laser guns, but bigger, ask local scientists.  This OOB is alright since it bothers to motorize the organic infantry that accompanies the tanks. I think I'd still rather just have separate armoured and mechanized infantry brigades though.  More ideas on how to better rain death on the enemy.  Our forward-most town that was founded relatively recently finally hits the 25,000 residents necessary to upgrade assets to level 2. With this complete I can start to think about founding more new zones to exploit ruins in our territory.  The history screen has a lot more bullying on our southern flank.   Our northern guns score some kills in counter-battery action.  And our troops fend off an attack.  The flanking battalion gives some ground, however. It is using outdated gauss weaponry. I think maybe even automatic rifles.  Finally, in the centre, we decisively block a full-scale attack, killing numerous companies of Orange's modern armour in the process.  Turn start.  In the north we try an optimistic counter-attack that fails.   The hardened veterans of 1 Bde can still get the job done.   Our gunners get the worse of an exchange with their Orange counterparts. Numerous requests to transfer to the rocket artillery are tendered.   I roll the dice on attacking a stack of units that was repulsed last turn. I think Orange's OHQ bonuses flipped the combat odds on their head here.   Further south our mechanized brigade gives us a glimpse of their offensive potential. The APCs need a suitability upgrade badly but model design space is tight at the moment. Despite winning the hex I decline to send the mechanized troops into a noose to be counter-attacked by armour next turn.   Turn end.  Worth mentioning is that Munashe is doing... whatever this is.  They still don't have lasers and are still reliant on motorcycle troops. Honestly at this point it would probably be relatively easy to knock their house of cards over with some modern tanks and infantry, but on top of the troop commitment demanded by the Orange front I'd feel kind of bad about it. 
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Sep 4, 2020 19:38
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Seeing the back and forth as new generations of tanks come out is super cool, thanks for running this LP.
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Sep 4, 2020 20:24
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Wow, yeah, +9000% is quite the bonus
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Sep 5, 2020 00:19
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Pretty sure the actual combat bonus is the square root of the % displayed there so still significant but not *that* broken.
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Sep 5, 2020 11:44
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Turn 92 The usual wastage over Orange's turn.  A new model of machine gun comes online, benefiting from the sum of our experience with laser weapons to date.  It's soft defense is insane and it has a hard defense rivaling our latest RPG, though I believe there's some under the hood targeting preference activity that means it's not a substitute for actual anti-armour weapons.   TOEs and plans are completed for a formation comprised entirely of heavy tanks, a model that remains purely theoretical in the Republic.  On the history screen we start off by witnessing the value of infantry entrenched in favorable terrain. Hexes containing forests and the like generally have a ~ -70% modifier on armoured attack values.  The encircled MG battalion is destroyed.  One of the new RPG battalions gives ground and one holds.   Turn start.  In the north our veteran gunners continue to do good work.     Things have generally been progressing well here so I dare to put the 1st Bde on an offensive footing.  The old originals are dependable.   During the course of a desperate defense two separate enemy brigade commanders are killed trying to plug gaps in the line.  Inch by inch our line in the north has been moving forward.   In the centre huge concentrations of troops continue to face off over the wrecks of multiple years of fighting.   Our APC drivers really deserve some hazard pay. Monikers like "death trap" and "firework" are being ironically adorned on the sides of their thin armour.   The 5th Bde is also placed on an offensive footing.  The combined forces of 5 and 6 Bde keep chipping away at the enemy line.   An attempt to dislodge an enemy formation from the Zorian cliffs goes poorly.   And our green southern forces falter on their first offensive action.   A successive attack gains some ground, however.   At the end of the turn 8 Bde is placed on the defensive.  Turn end. I'm still not rushing to occupy the taken ground, that would only open up the low-readiness and under-strength units to counterattacks by the large number of tanks Orange has around.  Large numbers of troops are upgraded to the latest model. It's not quite the reinforcements they need, but it's something.  Over the course of this turn I noticed that some replacements were working! Sadly it was just a quirk of changing the quality levels assigned internally to infantry models. The 4th Heavy MG Bde on the border with Munashe was using the now-outdated equipment and apparently had no issues returning troops to SHQ. Some units in 3 Bde on my northern flank against Orange also returned troops, problematic because some battalions only had old equipment and were returned in their entirety to Silvervale.   Pharnakes posted:Seeing the back and forth as new generations of tanks come out is super cool, thanks for running this LP. Thank you! It's honestly really fun to play out, too. Saros posted:Pretty sure the actual combat bonus is the square root of the % displayed there so still significant but not *that* broken. I think I saw something like +34,0000% displayed on a battle over the next few turns, but hovering over the tooltip the actual bonuses seemed pretty normal.
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Sep 5, 2020 16:32
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I rekon you should probably report the issue with replacements to Vic and see what he thinks after a poke around.
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Sep 5, 2020 17:22
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Turn 93 Still relatively quiet.  Our scientists finish a tech that is of absolutely no use to us, but was blocking our technological progress towards the part of the tree with walker tech in it.  Orange's offensive actions are all in the south, where his light tanks manage to kill a number of our new mediums crewed by fresh recruits. I can't imagine they were too upset by that.    Map start. Note the empty counter up north where all the units hopped on a train home without receiving any replacements.  Our northern veterans continue to do me proud.    I don't know what it is with Orange's troops here but so many battalions are brittle to the point of breaking.    In the center our troops are exhausted and it's showing.   Our rocket battalion is really starting to nail down their aim as they get accustomed to the new system.  I should have let the troops here rest to recover readiness but I got a bad case of target fixation and bashed their heads against a wall instead. The readiness of the assault gun battalion was so low I was sure they were *this* close to breaking.        A similar story here that was saved by a fresh mechanized battalion at full strength.     More brittle battalions on Orange's side.   Two new MG brigades are raised to cover our flanks where Orange is trying to get around us. They're really going all in on the Cannae theory I guess.  Map turn end.  I also notice Orange has iterated another new light tank, suitably scary once again.  Saros posted:I rekon you should probably report the issue with replacements to Vic and see what he thinks after a poke around. I made a bug report thread on the forums, hopefully Vic is able to nail down whatever is going wrong here.
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Sep 6, 2020 16:42
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Bonuses in combat are not square rooted, like economic bonuses are. The thing to keep in mind about the bonus summary is that it is all of the offensive and defensive bonuses calculated together. So you aren't really dealing out +9000% attacks but +100% attacks, +200% defence, +300% to hitpoints when you retreat etc. Still gets nuts when you have a good commander and not too many penalties, as minuses are calculated before bonuses.
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Sep 6, 2020 20:59
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Turn 94 Again, the normal wastage. It would be nice if the losses were being made up, they do add up over time.  Scientists are busy coming up with ideas that would be of far more benefit on a less fertile world than the one we're currently living on. Clearly they've been peaking into the military science lab!  At the moment we have plenty of oil, but as a backup we now have access to electric engines. Honestly I was just hoping this might accidentally be a prerequisite for something because those aren't listed anywhere.  An intriguing proposal to make tank more bigger crosses my desk.  And we're finally ready to move forwards on a design I've been waiting for, launchers will give us the ability to wreck units and infrastructure at long range. Proposals for a new design are commissioned immediately.  A new model of medium tank based on the latest battlefield conditions is ready for service.    Archaeologists dig up a complete factory, highly useful since I'm squeezed for it almost every turn.  On the history screen there's some action in the north as Orange's flanking brigade runs into a militia battalion that was screening our main defensive line.   In the south some intrepid tank-hunting teams manage to take down some enemy armour.   Map start.  As our first order of business, all the bloody offensive operations over the last few turns have brought us back to within 4 hexes of Bluebaths. Our long range rockets are immediately turned on the city and the strategically critical infrastructure within.   We keep on ground-pounding our way through the northern forests.    There's a couple new enemy companies surrendering every turn here.   Our forces in the centre are held up by a single company of assault guns, again.   Map end.  Two new brigade commanders are dredged up for the flanking MG brigades. They're not particularly inspiring.   Elsewhere, with Calar firmly established, we begin founding new zones on Galactic Republic ruins.  
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Sep 7, 2020 14:54
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Turn 95 We lose a bunch of infantry, and kill a couple of tanks, as per.  The staff council finalizes plans for an armoured formation with organic infantry. I might actually use this one since it should let me field a tank formation for less industrial points than an actual armoured brigade.  Once again, staff wants to do the same thing but bigger.  On the history screen our northern militia speedbump bravely serves their purpose as 9 Bde moves into defensive positions in the woods and mountains behind them.  Our RPGs are getting fairly consistent in their ability to kill tanks. In a perfect world I'd do all my tank killing through offensive action with tanks of my own, but I'll take it.  A portion of our front is pushed back, but hey, at least we killed some of the new laser equipped assault guns.  Orange attempts to exploit the gap but runs out of AP.  Map start.  At the start of the turn I run through all the decisions on my virtual desk, one of which is to appoint a governor to a newly founded zone. Somehow, the junior recruited to fill the roll is the most capable, well rounded leader I've seen in this game. He's reserved for a military command.  The next junior is more average but still has a better war attribute than most of my current OHQ commanders, which is annoying.  Our first order of business is to keep pounding Blue Baths back into ruins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5sekOUwywQ    At this point most of the infrastructure should be inoperable.  Not much new in the north, we just keep on bleeding Orange here.   This unit of light tanks is in pretty bad shape and I try to finish them off.   They refuse to be budged, however. Tanks fighting in mountains isn't ideal. I think it's -70% attack and -50% defense, which might be why my mediums didn't do a better job here.   In the middle a weak point of Orange's line is pushed back. I don't know if AT guns are just always an awful return on investment for what they cost, or if there's something about the way Orange is using theirs, but they haven't been impressive so far.   Another vulnerable unit is chipped away at.   And the AT guns are further decimated.   The last thing I do is raise a new battalion of the latest medium tanks.  Map end. I'm a little worried about Orange punching through along the road, but hopefully all the damage to Blue Baths will mess with his supply enough to impede any offensive operations.   That'll be it for new turns for a while! Orange left for a two week vacation a couple of days ago and this was the last turn we played. I'm thinking of posting a wider overview of the world and of all the cities in my territory now that there won't be any battles to focus on. If there's anything anybody wants a closer look at, let me know.
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Sep 8, 2020 14:22
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Why do you think he abandoned his southern thrust to try and go around you in the north? There's nothing there, if he'd put that effort into the south he might well have managed to make it to the rail line and cause all sorts of problems.
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Sep 8, 2020 14:39
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Generation Internet posted:I'm thinking of posting a wider overview of the world and of all the cities in my territory now that there won't be any battles to focus on. If there's anything anybody wants a closer look at, let me know. As someone whose been very much enjoying this whole thing, I think that’d be cool.
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Sep 8, 2020 14:47
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One thing I do if being pushed back is to collapse the logistics network behind myself as I fall back. It at a minimum forces them to spend some IP on building up new roads/rail, and also means if they break through there is not a nice road to zoom along behind you with.
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Sep 8, 2020 14:59
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Pharnakes posted:Why do you think he abandoned his southern thrust to try and go around you in the north? There's nothing there, if he'd put that effort into the south he might well have managed to make it to the rail line and cause all sorts of problems. One thing I did notice was that he went from having a few thousand troops sitting in his SHQ to zero, so I think he used those troops that were stuck not being reinforced to his existing formations to make the new flanking ones. I think the southern pushed has stalled because of logistical issues, there was one turn where free-folk helpfully cut the dirt road that was supplying it. So I don't think the northern front is to the exclusion of the southern one, but I couldn't guess what he's planning on gaining other than extending the front. Right now my supply lines are fairly concentrated, and he keeps branching out more and more dirt roads to support with a level 2 truck station that's now being rocketed to death. fartknocker posted:As someone whose been very much enjoying this whole thing, I think that’d be cool. There is a lot I've been doing turn to turn that I just haven't been screenshotting at all. Usually there'll be ~10 decisions that need to be resolved with various consequences for internal politics and stability. My main home-front focus lately has been colonizing the new zones and building more industry. AtomikKrab posted:One thing I do if being pushed back is to collapse the logistics network behind myself as I fall back. It at a minimum forces them to spend some IP on building up new roads/rail, and also means if they break through there is not a nice road to zoom along behind you with. I think I'd prefer the road building system if it wasn't instantaneous. It feels a little weird to build thousands of kilometres of road and be able to use it on the same turn and it's the same thing with demolition. Personally I'd like engineers to come back from ATG.
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Sep 8, 2020 15:16
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 21:17 |
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The New Republic in the year 244 Let's take advantage of the lull in the combat to see what we're actually fighting for, and how the front is being supplied with food and ammunition. First, maps! The strategic view should be fairly familiar and hasn't changed too wildly.  The zoomed out view here is with 'used' logistical points on, to give an idea of where supply is actually flowing.  Next, we'll move onto the reports. These are mentioned every turn alongside casualties. The first one is the dashboard, which is a general overview of what your councils are up to. As you can see, our government is pretty popular despite the stalemated war.  Next is the urgent issues report. Most of the low worker happiness is due to the fact that the civilization scores in every city outside the capital are much lower than within the capital itself. This means that even in wartime I'm building schools and TV stations to keep them happy.  There's a lot of old guard on the cabinet, and for the most part they've all grown into their roles pretty nicely.  The factions are all relatively happy. As long as they're happy, you don't need to worry about them too much as far as I'm aware.      Annoyingly, commerce keeps edging out government for our profile score.  As far as the cults go it's too bad that the eternity movement gives public production penalties. Suppressing them is a long term project.  I completely forgot I never incorporated Rostock until I looked closely at this screen while making this post. Our cashflow is pretty good, and we usually have over 10k on hand at any given time.  Here's what it looks like under the hood of our zones.   In a different menu, here's the actual combined total population of our zones.  Taking a look at each zone's assets it's apparent that Silvervale remains the most important city in the republic, and that the most recently acquired zones have been neglected.  Examining Silvervale's current industry we can see on the right hand side what actually influences production.  Rostock has a lot of potential, but I've been a bit hesitant about building it up due to proximity to the front.      The sum of our investment in the former raider city of Lodmont is a barracks to keep order and an office building constructed while I was fulfilling a faction demand for more bureaucracy.    This is what a newly established zone looks like.  On to the military overview.  For an example of what influences readiness, here's the battered 6 Bde's report.  On the model screen you can view what each formation actually consists of. Each of these brigades should have 4,500 infantry at full strength. Honestly it's probably more true to life that nobody is ever at their actual authorized strength.  This screen shows the progression from model to model, it would be nice if the technology screen laid out prerequisites like this.  And the actual tech screen.  Finally a look at where our new zones are sited. Salina is on a southern section of ruins bordering some old Galactic Republic sentinels gone rouge and was the proving ground for our first generation of RPG.  The ruins at the center of this image are the future site of the next planned zone. Buggies, motorcycle troops, and militia have been clearing out marauders here for years after the last Wurmsekt troops surrendered.  And that does it for our look at the home front! The next posts will cover what we know about Orange and Munashe.
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Sep 9, 2020 15:36
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