Welcome back! I enjoyed writing the first Advanced Tactics Gold College lesson so much that I turn to the second lesson ahead of schedule. Today we will discuss mortars and machineguns. Both troop types only require research to produce them if you are playing a stone-age game, otherwise basic research is already acquired at start of a game. Although these troop types require raw materials, the requirements are very low: machineguns require 1 raw unit and mortars 2 raw units. Production cost for machineguns is 250 and for mortars 500. (rifles & smg’s cost 100)
In the last lesson we discussed the relatively weak offensive potential of infantry. An easy way to boost the offensive power of an infantry attack is to add mortars to your attacking infantry units. 1 Mortar has about 4 times more offensive firepower then 1 rifle/smg. Furthermore it is a so called ”rear area” type, which means it can only be hit by the enemy if the ”frontline” troops of its unit have been defeated. As a side-note it should be said that the effect of a mortar placing a hit is not of the same quality as rifle or smg placing a hit due to their kill and retreat effect percentages being lower (10% instead of 25%).
To make optimal use of your mortars make sure to mix them with enough cannon-fodder infantry to protect them from enemy breakthrough and subsequent dammage. This is vital. And this advice goes for all “rear area” types. Basicly giving a unit 75% frontline troops when at 50% retreat setting will keep your “rear area” troops most of the time. Their continued survival due to being “rear area” will allow you to build up high experienced mortars in the course of a number of offensives.
Also keep in mind that mortars count as 1 stack point, just as rifles and smg’s do. Since they have about 4 times more offensive power that means that when confronted with stack limits for your attack you can better attack with mortars, since they will allow you to stay within stack limits while increasing your attack power. For example the attack power of 30 mortars and 70 infantry is about the same as that of 200 infantry, while only having half of the stack points.
Furthermore mortars pack offensive punch while having infantry move speed. They dont have to be mobilized to move effectively, like artillery guns do.
Mortars also still function reasonably well in defense, though they lose half their power in that role. However the are still “rear area”, so if the unit isn’t completely broken they will survive the battle.
At best I would add about 1 mortar to every 20 rifle just to let them build up experience by continued kills and survival due to being a “rear area” type. To be honest I would in most circumstances advise players to not buy to many mortars. They are relatively expensive compared to their effect and they require expert play to squeeze out their few relative advantages.
The machinegun is the reverse of the mortar, where as the mortar gives offensive boost this is the troop type you should buy to increase the defensive strength of your infantry units even further. In defensive use it has about 10 times the power of a regular rifle or smg’s. However it is not “rear area” type like the mortar and it is just as vulnerable as regular rifle or smg’s , so you will always want to mix them with cheaper troops to take casualties. There should be some optimum ratio for defensive use of machineguns, but I am not sure how to calculate, i think 1 machinegun on every 10 rifles or smg’s is about right.
Especially when well entrenched in for example forest, mountain or town the machinegun will prove a deadly defense against infantry attacks. The machinegun is defenitely a more interesting buy then the mortar in my opinion.
The mortar and the machinegun might seem like a more cost-effective buy then rifle and smg’s and actually tempt you to put a lot of them in your units, but be warned! They die just as easily as cheap infantry when under air or artillery attack. (or panzer attack for that matter) This means that when you buy a lot of them you end up using your mortars and machineguns as expensive cannon fodder. This is something that you should not let happen to yourself, cannon fodder should be as cheap as possible!
That concludes the lesson for today. I hope you have learned something. Next lesson we’ll discuss using tanks.
Kind regards,
Vic
Great that more than 10yrs later, this game remains popular. One question if you are still around, or any other person has a an opinion, what is the value of having a mortar included within a infantry unit, lets say 30 infantry and 3x mortars?