min/maxing mass combat armies

[muduri]

My impression is that in general mass combat armies are intended to be built based on the forces the campaign would suggest for each side. Nevertheless, just to get a feel for the system, we've been trying the "take $200,000,000 at TL6, don't worry about maintenance and slog it out" approach.

So do y'all have any suggestions for how one might optimize a force built from scratch, at say TLs 2, 6, 7 and 10? My Veritechs have been faring poorly against massed infantry with satellites and tactical air defense; likewise for legions up against hunter-gatherers with a contingent of ogres and a single shaman. Starting to get the idea that the best approach is a large core of high-TS-per-$ infantry, a substantial wallop with a few class superiorities, and then pikemen and MANPADs to neutralize the rest. But what other approaches have you guys tried?

Relatedly, maybe someone's come up with a rule of thumb on a budget divisor that might balance out a TL advantage? Since each new TL doubles many troop TSs, but also introduces new troop types, my thought was that 3x budget or so per TL disadvantage might yield a rough equality.

Understood this is backwards from the usual way of setting up the forces, but it's made for some interesting battles - Patton vs. Sauron is next, ha. Thanks for your thoughts!

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by muduri

Starting to get the idea that the best approach is a large core of high-TS-per-$ infantry, a substantial wallop with a few class superiorities, and then ...neutralize the rest {of the superiorities of the enemy}.

Sounds historically realistic to me, whether it's the Macedonian method or the Nazi Wehrmacht.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by muduri

Relatedly, maybe someone's come up with a rule of thumb on a budget divisor that might balance out a TL advantage? Since each new TL doubles many troop TSs, but also introduces new troop types, my thought was that 3x budget or so per TL disadvantage might yield a rough equality.

At TL10, 8 MBTs cost as much as 1 Supertank, but have TS 32,000 versus the Supertank's 20,000. Similarly, 3 Battlesuits costs as much as 10 Riflemen, but have TS 4800 versus the Riflemen's 6400. The class superiorities might make it worthwhile to pit a supertank against 8 MBTs, but only at a fairly close cost balance. Since every TL doubles TS, a TL disadvantage shouldn't more than double funds or things will quickly get out of whack.

At the worst case, using your proposed 3x per TL, you have the possibility of someone fielding a TL7 army and spending an equal amount on MBTs as his TL10 foe, but 27 TL7 MBTs for every TL10 MBT, giving him a 3:1 TS advantage! That's 216 TL7 MBTs (TS 108,000) versus that Supertank, and the Supertank's Art and C3I advantage would be countered by the TS advantage and the TL7 force's advantage in Arm, Cv, and F.

That's for the high-tech forces. The high tech versus low-tech fight is a bit different.

At the simplest, 10 TL2 Heavy Artillery (TS 25 Art), 5 TL2 Heavy Calvary (TS 25 Cv), and 25 TL2 Heavy Infantry (TS 100) cost $3M. At a 2:1 cost disadvantage, the TL6 would $375K, enough for a Light Tank (40 Arm Cv F, Rec), a Light Artillery and a Heavy Truck (TS 60 Art), 2 Riflemen (TS 80 F, Rec), and a Mounted Rifles (TS 20 Cv, F, Rec). So that's TS 125+(25) versus TS 145+(60). The TL6 force has advantages in Art, Cv, F, and Rec, in addition to a slight TS advantage. And as the numbers scale up, the TL6 gets air support and anti-air stuff.

I'd probably give the TL2 force a x12 modifier to starting cash against the TL6 force, and doubling for every TL after that, just like two high tech forces. You might need to drop that to x10 if the TL2 force has access to fantastic elements, since fantastic flying forces are cheaper per TS than high tech flying elements (I think).