Initiative - mechanics

[tyrion]

Could anybody explain me the initiative mechanics? Basically I understand that a unit with the higher initiative will always fire first if the enemy's unit initiative is lower. But I have noticed it's not always the case. So is my interpretation of the initiative correct and what are the factors that may affect the initiative ( terrain, whetaher, etc ).

Thank you

Tyrion Lannister

[VPaulus]

Welcome, Tyrion.

You''ll seem some answers to your questions, including this one, in our FAQ / Common Questions threads:
viewtopic.php?f=121&t=27283

About initiative:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2994803

[tyrion]

Thank you vPaulus but the there is no initiative section in FAQ and the link does not explicitly address the initiative. I am quite experienced player and I understand most of the game's mechanics, but the initiative issue is somewhat blure for me.

So maybe someone could address the following combat situations ( who fires first and what factors would afftect the units initiative in the examples below ):

a) Tank vs tank or infantry vs infantry

b) Tank vs infantry in the open

c) Tank vs infantry in the close terrain

d) Tank attacking AT - would there be a difference between the open and close terrain?

e) Infantry attacking AT - two cases: AT defending in the open and close terrain

Could maybe Deducter elaborate on this? I've been a huge fan of your videos.

Thanks

[Rood]

Based on my other posts on the Matrix forum below is a summary, I hope most is correct, initiative is quite complex - but elegant - in the game. Note that what I wrote is only for ground to ground combat and not for air to air or ground to air.
---------------------------------------------
The calculations for the Effective Initiative decide two things, the unit with the highest initiative will shoot first - regardless if it's the attacker or the defender - and then, the difference between the initiative of the attacker and defender determines how many units can return fire.

[EDIT]
The section below was changed - see the response below from Rudankort

It is not quite like this. Initiative advantage of 4 means that 80% of damage is caused to the enemy before he has a chance to react. In this particular case your attack has caused 3 kills and 1 suppression. From these, 80% are applied upfront:
- 80% from 3 kills is 2.4 kills, rounded to 2.
- 80% from 1 suppression is 0.8 suppression, rounded to 1.

So, a total of 3 points of enemy's strength were disabled before he could shoot back. So he only responded to your attack with 7 points of strength out of 10.

For every point of difference in initiative a unit has over the other unit 20% of the (unsurpressed strength of the) there will be a chance that the other unit will not be able to shoot back.
Therefore if the difference is 5 or more and if the attack causes enough kills and/or surpression the other unit will not shoot back (5 * 20% = 100%).
Fractions are rounded up, so if the a unit is at 4 strength and the difference in initiative is 3 then 60% of 4 will have a chance to not be able return fire, so (1 - 0.6) * 4 = 1.6 and this is rounded up to 2.

Note that if the unit is already (partly) surpressed then only the unsurpressed strength of the unit is used to calculate the amount of units that have a chance to return fire.

This does not apply to artillery versus ground units as defending units cannot return fire ever when being attacked by artillery (even if the artillery unit has a range of 1).

Initiative elements and Effective Initiave
Apart from the attacking and defending unit's base initiave there are many other factors involved, some will add or substract initiative for either or both the attacking and defending unit. There can also be a maximum allowed initiative, a so called cap, due to weather and/or terrain

Weather can cap ininitiave - Rain or Snow caps the initiative at one
Terrain can cap initiative - see the Library.
Note that it's always the terrain of the defending unit that determines any factors regarding any initiative cap.

Hero bonus
Any bonus of a hero is added to the calculation

Experience bonus
The experience of the unit is partially added to the base of the units intiative, this depends on the type of units attacking.

Initiative bonus for each (full) experience star.
Tank vs Tank 10%
AT vs Tank 5%
Inf vs Tank 0%
Recon vs Tank ?

So if a tank with 4 stars and 9 base initiative attacking another tank it would get 4 * 10% * 9 = 3.6 -> rounded down to 3 added to it's intiative.

Note that the Experience bonus is calculated at the end, the Experience bonus is the shown percentage of the experience and is always rounded down. For example a unit with 10 initiative and 100 experience (equals one star) would usually gain +1 bonus to initiative from experience, however if that unit is attacked by multiple units and therefore gets a -1 penalty from Multiple Attack it's experience would now be 9 and then 10% of 9 would be 0.9 which will be rounded down so effectively it's zero.

If a Tank or Recon attacks an AT unit the AT gets +3 added to it's intiative.

Ambushed/Rugged Defense initiative set to zero (for the ambushed unit or for the attacker against a defender who gained rugged defense)

Multiple attacking units (not artillery - even it has a range of 1) -1 for each unit attacking beyond the first.

No Fuel -2 penalty

A die roll 0-2 is made for both attacker and defender.
This roll is added after the other factors have been determined and the result is always added to the calculated total and is not affected by either weather or terrain cap. Therefore the Effective Iniative can be higher than the cap would allow.

[tyrion]

Thank you Rood - much appreciated. I think this information, plus few other thing ( like for example how experience works ), should be included in the extended version of the manual. Otherwise, I don't see where people can find it right now.

[reaver250]

Hi, why shoot 7 back here if it differed at 4 initiative should shoot only 20% back?

[Rudankort]

Hi, why shoot 7 back here if it differed at 4 initiative should shoot only 20% back?

It is not quite like this. Initiative advantage of 4 means that 80% of damage is caused to the enemy before he has a chance to react. In this particular case your attack has caused 3 kills and 1 suppression. From these, 80% are applied upfront:
- 80% from 3 kills is 2.4 kills, rounded to 2.
- 80% from 1 suppression is 0.8 suppression, rounded to 1.

So, a total of 3 points of enemy's strength were disabled before he could shoot back. So he only responded to your attack with 7 points of strength out of 10.

Initiative is important, but it does not help much if your unit does not have the firepower to actually cause damage, and thus exploit the initiative advantage it has.

[reaver250]

Ah ok, that means a unit shoots back too, even if the attacker has 10 more ini but not kills all defenders or suppressed?

[Rudankort]

Ah ok, that means a unit shoots back too, even if the attacker has 10 more ini but not kills all defenders or suppressed?

Yes, as long as there are some points of strength left which are not killed or suppressed, they will shoot back.

[reaver250]

thank you for the excellent explanation

[captainjack]

Are there any good explanations about air vs ground initiative effects?
It appears that when my fighters attack ground troops with no ability to return fire, there is a severe restriction on my attack - eg 6 of a 14 strong unit firing.
This doesn't appear to apply when attacking troops that can fire back. That seems the wrong way round - surely a force that can fire back should reduce the effectiveness of my attack as much or more than when the unit can't return fire.

Explanations or links to help would be appreciated.

[Rudankort]

It appears that when my fighters attack ground troops with no ability to return fire, there is a severe restriction on my attack - eg 6 of a 14 strong unit firing.
This doesn't appear to apply when attacking troops that can fire back. That seems the wrong way round - surely a force that can fire back should reduce the effectiveness of my attack as much or more than when the unit can't return fire.

There is no such rule in the game.

Shooting strength in ground vs. air case is halved only in one case - when the weather is cloudy. This rule affects both units involved in such a combat. In clear weather they use full strength.

It is not related to initiative btw, it is a completely separate rule.

[captainjack]

Thanks Rudankort.

That explains why I couldn't make sense of the initiative side of it!

Captainjack

[mla_cks]

Hello to all!
I've read all about initiative and battle mechanics that can be found here and on matrix forum and I've thought that is pretty much clear to me,but then I've had battle like this(print scr is uploaded)...And,there was a few battles more with similiar outcome,but I've just taken this as an example...So,I'm like-why the F..K is outcome like this?Because,I'm looking at that Iike this-I had higher INI and I killed 6 strength/soldiers(or,whatever that number represent) and then it's coming counter-attack with his 6 strength/soldiers( ) and computer managed to kill my 4 strength/sold...So,my problem/question is-doesn't calculation goes that unit with higher INI is attacking and after attack,when it kills and suppres the enemy(if that happen),goes new calculation for the enemy with his remaining force after my first attack?Why did computer take in calculation just suppressed units(it looks like that)?I mean if I killed first computers 6 STR/SOLD. and supressed some,why it attacks me with 6 STR/SOLD. and blow my brain up in the sky?
I'm playing with update 1.2 and that is Panzer corps-Wehrmacht.

[Kirby]

@mla_cks

The Ardennes' infantry unsupressed strength is 6, yours is 10. They scored 4 kills, you scored 6. I don't see the issue. Note that your supression from the attack applies to the *next* attack, not this one.

Offtopic: I always avoid fighting these, they hit hard.

[mla_cks]

Kirby,thx for the answer,but that's not the answer I've hoped to get.
Maybe I didn't explain good enough in my post.I mean,I agree with you-it's clean sheet on screen,I killed 6 and supressed some and computer killed 4 and supress some,but the issue here is this if I have higher INI in any fight,I'm looking at that as great advantage,and for me it means that I will shoot first and if I kill 6 of 9(like in this case that I posted)and supress some(3,in this case),I'm expecting that in counter attack,which is coming right after mine attack,nobody are fighting back,not 6 strength/soldiers,because I killed 6 and supressed 3 and that comes to 9,the number computer unit had at the beggining of the attack.
Am I looking correct on that initiative thing or not?Can somebody explain correctly mechanic of an attack and counter-attack?Maybe I've not read all posts about initiative and battle,so can anyone point in correct direction?
Or,maybe initiative is not important in a way who will strike first and who will strike second.Maybe it's important only in a way of calculating damage(kills and suppresion),how many will I kill his soldiers and how many soldiers he will kill.(some new thoughts about initiative,'cause I'm trying to figure this out)
Thx!

[reaver250]

each point of Ini gives your unit 20% of damage dealing before the enemy can shoot back. in your case 40% of 6 kills = 2,4 kills rounded to 2 and 40% of 3 suppressed = 1,2 rounded to 1 means you "taked out" 3 enemys before they shoot back thats why they have 6 unsuppressed strength and shoot back.

[Kirby]

What Reaver said, but let me simplify it:

There are two parts of the combat sheet, the first is calculations, the second is execution. Calculations end with the "Effective Defense / Effective Attack" row.
Execution starts with the line that states unsuprassed strength, so the proper order of execution is:

1. take final strength values
2. roll the dice
3. apply the damage for both sides simultaneously

I know it is like this, because I've had two 2 str units kill each other (i.e. both units had str. of 2 and rolled two "reds").

Note that the first strike part (initiative) is already calculated into the unit's final strength (2 killed/1 suppressed), which reduced the Ardennes' str. from 9 to 6. There's no "first strike" during the damage part.

[mla_cks]

Thx a lot to both of you!Now it's clear to me.
I was thinking that INI gives that"first strike",beside damage thing,when combat begin to resolve and if I kill 6 strength so that strength can't participate anymore in combat and that it won't counter attack me,but I was wrong.Shame on me! Anyway,you must excuse me now,I have a war to fight!...

[Gunja]

I know, that this a really old topic, but since I couldn`t find any information, I just hope that somebody will read this and maybe have an answer for me. Recently I started to use more actively the combat results screen. With the help of the forum I now understand (or at least I think I do) the information there, except for one detail. I cannot figure out, how the number of supressed strength points is generated. I do understand, how the computer generates the number for the unsurpressed strength points able to shoot back. What I don`t get it is, why the blue numbers in the result of the dice rolls do not match the result for the text indicating how many strength points are suppressed as result of the combat (the blue text - right beneath the results for the dice rolls).
After trying to figure it out, while playing, I looked once again at this topic, but it seems that nobody even noticed this problem. So either I misunderstood something completely or else I don't know. The curious thing is, that both screenshots in this topic are illustrating the issue, so I will take one of them for clarification. In the first screenshot (the post from reaver250 from February 2013) you have a combat between a PanzerIVD and some belgian Infantery. When I look at the combat results I would say, that on the left there should be three kills and no suppression, because given the percentages for the CRT, we have 50 % Miss, 10 % suppressed and 40 % killed. This means, that all dice rolls lower than 50 should result in a miss, dice rolls between 50 and 60 should result in a suppressed strength point and dice rolls between should result in kills, right? Well the coloured numbers seem to indicate exactly this. But somehow there are three kills and one suppressed strength points. Why? Where does this suppression come from? It is not the initiative difference, because this difference comes in to play, when to decide how much of the damage (kills + suppression) is applied before the unit can shoot bach, as rudankort explains.
If found this true in every third combat or so. While the red numbers of kills correspond with the text in red ("X killed") this is not true for the blue numbers and I just cannot figure out why...
I am not sure, if I managed to explain the issue but I would be really happy, if somebody could enligthen me.