Is Artillery Useful?

[Panzerboy0191]

I’ve been playing Axis and Allies for a long time, and I feel like I should ask if anyone else thinks that artillery is worth the cost. Ok, I will admit that it is good for Russia once they have a bunch of infantry and are getting ready for a breakout, but, I think that I would just buy either infantry or a tank. The artillery just seems like a waste of an extra IPC I should Just spend on infantry. Or, an underpayment on a tank I really should buy…

So if any of you guys have an idea…let me know in comments, because I don’t see a purpose.

[J.o.C.]

I have wondered the same thing, and until recently, in the games my brother and I have played artillery was never really purchased. However, I am beginning to think it’s more valuable than what I thought. For example, say you purchase eight infantry. They will cost 24 ipcs. If you are attacking with them, you only have a roll value of one and it’s not likely you will get many hits, if any. But say you buy four infantry and four artillery. That will cost 28 ipcs. But now, all eight units will have an attack roll value of two, for only four more ipcs. To me that seems to be worth it. But obviously, artillery are only good for supporting infantry while attacking. Infantry are a better value for defense since they cost less but roll the same as artillery would.

[Imperious Leader]

It depends on your need for mobility or force projection. Russia needs Artillery to punch back, Germany needs the 2 movers to force the issue for Russia. The middle game comes and things change. Russia needs tanks at this stage.

[Midnight_Reaper]

When buying artillery, a little goes a long way. Consider having two or three times more infantry than artillery in your attack groups. A 1 to 1 ratio sounds good, until you start taking losses on infantry and your artillery loses its attack partner. But with 8 infantry and 4 artillery, you get 8 attacks at 2, 4 attacks at 1, and you can take 4 losses before your 8 attacks at 2 start getting touched.

-Midnight_Reaper

[inveratulo]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I’ve been exploring purchase combinations and offensive probabilities by IPC spent.

Using 24 IPC as an upper bound (this is divisible by both 3 and 4, more on that later), you can buy 8 Inf or 6 Artillery. In pure attack odds, the probably mass functions appear as so:

With 8 infantry dice rolls, you have about ~25% chance of no hits, ~35% chance of one hit, ~25% of two hits, ~10% of three hits, and so on. On average, you’ll hit a little better than once per 8x rolls.

With 6 artillery dice rolls, you’ll hit 1 about ~25% of the time, ~35% chance of two hits, ~22.5% chance of three hits, and almost 10% chance of 4 hits! Clearly superior to Infantry alone.

You can get the same overall probability as 6 artillery for only 21 IPC by buying 3 Infantry + 3 Artillery.

This figure is showing the per-unit type group roll probabilities, not global probability per round of combat but you can figure in your head that 6 rolls for 2 attack is going to have the same probability as 6 rolls for two attack.

So, what would I purchase and use, when, and why? If your intention is to defend only, then Infantry is clearly superior as you can get 8 hp for 24 IPC or 7 hp for 21 IPC. If there is any possibility of attacking, then try to split your purchases so that your group has even amounts of Infantry and Artillery. Lastly, if you have an odd number of IPC that is not equally divisible by 3 and 4, then weight your purchases towards trying to even out Artillery with Infantry. If you already have Infantry on the board in a position to attack, then for 1 additional IPC you are buying the same probability that the 3 IPC Infantry purchase would grant to you.

In my play, only the Russian player has had to worry about these things. Once you get enough IPC you should not need to worry about optimizing absolutely every purchase. With those 24 IPC, the German player will be buying 4 tanks, with a 25% of 3 hits. Ouch!

Hope this helps

[Imperious Leader]

@inveratulo What about combination of artillery and infantry? Your study has 4 tanks , 8 infantry, 5 artillery. You missed the whole idea of combinations of different units/hit points

[General 6 Stars]

8 Inf C24 A8 1.3 hits 21.36
6 Art C24 A12 2.0 hits 18.00
4 Tanks C24 A12 2.0 hits. 8.00

3 Inf C9 A6
3 Art C12 A6 = C21 A12 2.0 hits. 24.99

8 Inf C24 D16 2.66 hits. 42.64
6 Art C24 D12 2.00 hits. 18.00
4 Tanks C24 D12 2.00 hits. 8.00

3 Inf C9 D6 1.0 hit
3 Art C12 D6 1.0 hit = C21 D12 2.0 hits. 33.99

Now you can see when why what to buy for attacking or defending. The number further to right is showing you the higher the number the better buy is for your money. But some scenarios u have to forgo that.

[inveratulo]

@imperious-leader I’m confused, did my third graphic with Infantry + Artillery not show up? There is a blurb after stating that 3inf+3art has the same hit probability as 6art, which should be a given. The fact that it costs less than 6art is where the benefits are realized. The value goes up even more when you’ve already got sizeable stack of infantry laying about that for 1 IPC you can essentially double their hit probability.

[General 6 Stars]

He’s all yours IL.

[inveratulo]

@gen-manstein How is the far right value derived? I’m attempting to create an aggregate score that describes the pareto efficiency of a particular combination of buys, but I’m still tweaking it and looking for ideas.

I’m writing my purchase advisor in Google Colab (free, great for learning python / data science), here’s a screenshot of some land combinations for around 24 IPC, sorted by the “aggregate power” metric, but as you can see there are other factors to consider depending on what’s on the board:

[Imperious Leader]

@inveratulo

“3inf+3art has the same hit probability as 6art”

except that 3/3 cost 3 IPC less! Math needs to be like for like.

[inveratulo]

@imperious-leader I was re-summarizing the content of my original post since that detail mentioned, but missed. From the original post: “You can get the same overall probability as 6 artillery for only 21 IPC by buying 3 Infantry + 3 Artillery.”

[Imperious Leader]

@inveratulo Do you not consider the number of Infantry you start with and value the extra attack point you get for free? Its not math in a vacuum. Look at your assets and buy what best fits and this depends on Nation, Projection, Income level, How close you are to taking his capital, etc. If you can risk a slow walk to Moscow as Germany, Or as UK you buy tanks so you can overrun Japan with a factory in Egypt and India. It depends on the situation alot more than creating units out of a vacuum.