| Al Sadius | Monday, March 21, 2016 - 03:27 pm 
I've never fought a PVP war, but I've fought a lot of C3 wars, studied the documentation a lot, and talked with those who have. So, with that caveat, here's some notes on what kind of garrisons you might want. (More PVP-experienced players, feel free to chime in with thoughts)
A garrison can have up to 632 units in it, and those can only be AA batteries, armoured vehicles, tanks, jeeps, artillery, missile interceptors, defensive missiles, and nuclear defence. Garrisons don't tend to fight for very long before being destroyed, so ammunition levels can be kept comparatively low - I'll cost them out assuming 2 rounds of fighting before destruction. Here's the cost(using current WG prices) for one weapon and two rounds of ammo for each of the defensive weapon options:
AA batteries: 39.21M
Armoured Vehicles: 27.22M
Tanks: 17.06M
Jeeps: 5.94M
Artillery: 12.66M
Missile Interceptors: 36.64M
Defensive Missiles: 45.46M
Nuclear Defence: 820.8M
AV, Tanks, Arty, and Jeeps all fire against only a very small selection of offensive units(their offensive counterparts, plus special forces and RDUs), which means they are of very limited utility. Tanks and artillery have virtually identical stats(the only difference is that artillery will die very slightly faster against attack helicopters), so if you're going to use either, use artillery, because it's cheaper. Jeeps are less effective than tanks and arty, but are extremely cheap - only use those for bulking out garrisons if you're poor, because they aren't very effective. Armoured vehicles, on the other hand, are significantly more powerful, and are actually a bit tempting even if you have unlimited funds. If you're being attacked by heavy jeeps, for example, a jeep that survives combat will kill an average of 1.75, and arty or tanks will kill an average of 3.5, but an armoured vehicle will kill an average of 8. They should never be a major part of your garrisons, because there's too many other ways to get attacked, but a few dozen of them can be tempting, if only to block the lowest-cost form of attack your enemy has available.
Defensive missiles are similar in role to the above units, but vastly more versatile. DMs can kill everything the above units can kill(except special forces), but they can also kill all non-strategic missile units - AA missiles, AT missiles, medium-range missiles, cruise missiles, conventional missiles, and even missile ships. Given that what I've seen of usual land/sea doctrine these days focuses heavily on these units, this is important. DM batteries are a lynchpin of your defences, and you should have at least a couple hundred in your garrisons unless you're sure that your opponent is attacking 100% by air.
AA batteries are the other critically important unit to have in all garrisons, since nothing else can shoot down planes. There's not much to say about these, but you should have them in all garrisons unless you know your opponent is attacking 100% by land. Again, a couple hundred of them at minimum.
Missile interceptors reduce the damage done to you by enemy missile attacks(including from stealth bombers, but not precision bombers). They do not kill attacking units, but they do shoot down incoming ammunition, which helps preserve your other units. They can be useful to slow down attacks, certainly, but I'm unsure whether I'd rather have these or just more DM batteries.
Nuclear defence batteries are your only defence against strategic attacks. Without them, your opponent can freely nuke your cities and annihilate your population - even if he winds up losing the war, that'll still hurt a lot. However, they're very pricey and only needed in small numbers. In particular, having 2 on your capital and cities is important, because you need 2 in order to block a strategic bomber attack - one will not defend you. Towns and corporations cannot be attacked by any strategic weapons, so there's no need for NDBs there, and while forts, airfields, and bases can be, the consequences of losing them are not generally high enough to justify spending extra billions on each garrison unless you're fighting at very high levels.
So, let's put together a few sample garrisons. Assume we have a country to defend with the usual capital, 20 cities, and 20 towns, plus one of each base and airfield, 150 forts, and 50 corps, for a total of 247 targets to defend. Assume all units are at 330 quality, for simplicity.
- Capital/Cities: 250 AA, 250 defensive missile, 100 missile interceptor, 30 armoured vehicle, 2 nuclear defence. Total cost = 90.06B per garrison
- Other Targets: 250 AA, 250 defensive missile, 100 missile interceptor, 32 armoured vehicle. Total cost = 84.82B per garrison
This defensive setup will cost you 21.06T to garrison one country. Upgrading it to Q450 will take about 18.7 million weapon upgrades and 232.3 million ammo upgrades, for a further cost of about 14.3 trillion.
Now, in practice, you're going to want more than that. You want reserves, and ideally you'd like the ability to switch your garrisons around to focus more on different units, depending on what you're being attacked with. And this doesn't even include helicopters/interceptors or offensive units. Obviously, though, your ability to pay for all this will be limited, so unless you're sitting on a really giant bankroll, even what I specified above may seem a bit fanciful. Judge for yourself what the best thing to spend your money on is. |
| Aries | Monday, March 21, 2016 - 04:13 pm
A few points about your garrison thoughts.
1. Even with the resources available, you may want to consider concentrating your garrisons in the most valuable areas. For example, the utility in attacking a town or county is low. Placing a garrison there should be weighed against additional forces being available in air defense or blockers/counter-painters. In order, the most important areas to defend are typically places vulnerable to nuke, capital/cities/military bases/military airports, and possibly forts. The minimum number, with military installations, of areas vulnerable to nuke is actually 25 and is higher with additional cities, from pop, or if additional bases/airports are built, like strategic bases/airports.
2. You can reduce the number of areas to defend by decreasing the number of state and national corporations you have. Private and Public corporations cannot be targeted by an attacker.
3. Careful with underestimating the importance of the missile interceptor battery. It may not destroy attacking weapons but consider that several weapons are available that can destroy nuclear defense batteries. The missile interceptor battery counters all those attacks. A token force of missile interceptor batteries will make you quite vulnerable to nukes, regardless of the presence of nuclear defense batteries.
4. When calculating the balance of weapons in your garrisons, consider other aspects of your defense, especially the presence of mobile units. For example, the mobile air defense unit can add 400 AA batteries to any battle nearby. This can affect your decision for selecting weapons in the limited room of the garrison structure.
5. Although many of the weapon types mentioned above are ,rightly, pointed out as a poor fit for garrisons, they are quite useful as blocker and counter-painters. Where in garrisons, the goal is to prevent or make it costly to destroy your important installations, the goal of a blocker is simply to occupy space on your map. Here some of these weapons offer an important advantage as they are not as vulnerable to as many weapons as, say, a city or a defensive missile battery. This takes certain attacks off the table for them entirely.
6. Careful with calculating the amount of ammo you might need. With the presence of adequate air defense, without which your garrison discussion is moot, the garrison is likely to last longer than you think. Missile interceptors, in particular, get used up quite quickly. Strikes on your nuclear defense batteries, for example, will be successful if there is no counter to enemy incoming missiles.
7. All that said, garrisons are less important than other aspects of defense. A 3-wing defense available from adequate wings in country along with additional federation wings nearby is the most important part of any defense. Mobile units, such as mobile air defense units, mobile missile defense units, and mobile nuke defense units, are the next most important. After those two critical parts, I would place blockers/counter-painters the next most important part of a defense.
Garrisons follow as the last addition to a defense for your most important countries, or battles, when your budget allows. The placement of their deployment in my original post is more related to a time concern. The idea is to get the most time-intensive stuff completed to leave less to be done when faced with an unanticipated attack. The ability to get defenses set and have the time to plan and prepare your own offensive plans is important for your chances to win a war. |
