A historical view on odds and sizes of armies(aka, slap the whiners :)

[Don Malloy]

Oki, I'm new to this forum(and to the computer game too) but I am already a little bit surprised about the whining and sobbing that people tend to express on these pages. Well, actually I am not really surprised since it seems that this is the norm when it comes to strategy/wargames, both on the computer and as boardgames.
Oki, my 5 cents on the whole matter..

People draw attention to odds as being wierd in battles "his 5k scotsmen beat my glorious 50k Brits.." I think that if people shake their "warcraft" off their shoulders and actually started looking into history they would find that it is not an unusual result, quite the opposite. A few examples: Hernan Cortes in charge of an army of 500 men succeded in conquering the entire Aztec empire in 2 years. Granted we talk about low-tech soldiers, but still Cortes did at least once fight against an army of more than 100k people(some stories say it was 200k..)
In general, it was not _1_ battle that saw the Aztec empire crumbling, we're talking 2 years of campaigning in pretty hostile territory. He succeded, granted with a little bit of help from small pox in the end, to beat the living daylights out of the Aztecs.
Another example, Robert E. Lee, confederate leader of the Army of North Virginia during the American civil war. He fought, consistantly, against armies up to twice his size and won... He won the battles because of different factors whereas morale was the most important. His own troops high morale and at least as important, the union soldiers(and leaders) low morale. If you look at the list of casualties you will notice that the confederate forces paid, heavily, for every victory they won, heavy casualties from almost every battle. So here is an example from something more "our time" that proves that odd's does not really matter.
Another example(and my favorite) is the Danish hero Peter Vessel(Tordenskjold, translated ThunderShield) and his deception of the swedish troops. He held a small town from being taken by the much larger swedish army, how did he do it? He had command of a small regiment and what he did was to march his soldiers back and fourth between the houses so as to make the amount of troops appear much larger than they were, it worked(This trick has by the way been used at other times, one example that springs to mind is again the American civil war)

Another BIG thing that lots of people never think of is logistics. It is a VERY new thing that armies are in supply, supply in regards to food that is. It has been the norm for all time that armies in enemy territory forage, live of the land, you can NOT have a huge army at the same location for very long since the land can simply not supply enough food to sustain such a big concentration of troops. That is why it is not unrealistic that different
parts of the army is spread out in order to have enough food. Napoleon did this too, but his feat was to be able to gather his army at the right time, and the right place, for the upcoming battle. If one reads memoirs from this time, one will notice that on the day of battle, the armies march onto the battleground from different directions, the army moved in seperate pieces, but within 1 day march of each other.

In regards to "feeding" battles with fresh high-morale troops theres is plenty of evidence that this has been the way. Troops marching into battle efter the fight has been going on for some time. Example, The prussians at Waterloo... turned the battle...
Feeding you will find is basically being used in all battles. We just call it reserve
God old Nappy himself said that the side that first committed it's reserves would loose. He himself did ALWAYS(apart from waterloo...) asign a larger continent of troops to be withheld from battle to be used for flanking. Nappy's success comes from 2 things, kickass generals who more that once kept the skin on his nose, and the fact that he always outflanked his opponents.

Also what most people do not understand is that most battles are over often before they ever begin, the correct amount of ammo for the artillery, the positioning of troops, communication lines, food, a bridge that breaks... thousands of small random accidents grow into factors that change the result of the battle. Look into history and you will start to notice how random and completely unpredictible war is.
After all, if war was predictable, would the states have engaged in a war versus Vietnam ?

Conclution is, was is unpredictable, you can have cute odds and you might be able to calculate the outturn of a battle, but the truth is, in the real world, you have no clue as to what will happen :=)

Happy easter all

[Sidney]

I don't have issue with the combat resolution. I've had terribly few whacked out results and have developed plenty of rationalizations for them. I think for most folks the problem is that they will says: I have more cav, a better leader, better overall numbers- I should win. And you should win, more times than not but victory is never a ceratin thing. Frederick the Great lost several battles to very mediocre commanders during his campaigns.

Your examples, however, don't serve you particularly well.

Cortes was an odd case of a 16th century force meeting a bronze age army (in essence). Cortes was served not just by his tek edge but by the myths around this presence and Indian allies that revolted against the Aztecs. The example doesn't illuminate the European v. European issue very well.

RELee is outside the time frame concerned but the issue of morale isn't well handled since the game display will indicate that your army has the same morale as the other to start most fights- unless you are dealing with Shi'te or Calvinist forces. You can make the argument that morale gets subsumed in the superior values of a certain leader, and the abstraction may work, but it is not apparent that that would be why from the information the game gives you.

The Napoloen wars are very different beasts to the wars of the period of the game. Napoleon changed warfare in the span of about a decade. You would be hard pressed to find examples of armies "marching to the sound of the guns" in the EM- unless you have regiments that foundered in the darkness finding the battlefield again. You did not have armies of the scale and scope of Napoleon's marching (practical concerns about speed on the march weighed perhaps more than did Napoleon's operational designs in marching in different columns) about. Most armies were contained in a single column during the EM period.

The best expalinataion for why smaller forces beat larger forces is twofold:
1. Better manuever. The commander of the smaller force has simly out marched your army and forced it back into the neighboring province with some skirmishes.
2. You attacked a fortified position. Not a fortress but simply an entrenched army. Any entrenchment could rather dramatically change the outcome of a battle. This could happen even if you are attacked since the game scale of provinces and timeframe means that the enemy force could have crossed your province boundary and had time to dig in (whihc really took little time)before your army find them and the battle begins.

The biggest problem the game has vis a vis combat are not the results but the size of the combatants forces whihc are far, far too large.

[Don Malloy]

In the example with Cortes it is worth mentioning that he fought more than just Aztecs, he faught several different tribes/city-states in the whole Mexico area. There were quite a lot of tribes that revolted against the Aztecs when the spanish arrived, but if you read eye-witnesses from the battles, you will understand that the spanish most of the time used their indian allies as carriers, not soldiers. In regards to the myth of Cortes being Quetzalcoatl(Guess this is the one you are referring to?) It is true that Mothezusoma(different spellings, no one really knows how his name was spelled thought that Cortes was the god returning. The truth is that even though he knew this he still attacked the spaniards several times. Also this reason does not explain the long siege of Tenochtitlan in which Mothezusoma had no say in since he was dead.

In general, I am not saying that the game system is good, bad or even realistic. What I was trying to draw attention to was the fact there are many more factors than just numbers and moral, battles can not "simply" be understood by looking at the table

This is the reason why I also chose examples that is not in the game's current timeframe.

Your reasons why smaller armies would succeed in winning a battle(or more realistically, a skirmish) are true. Them being able to move rapidly and thus attack from a favoriable position is a very important observation.

Shit, I have to run, more later!!
Don Malloy de Copenhague

[Cunctator]

Don Malloy wrote:

Oki, I'm new to this forum(and to the computer game too) but I am already a little bit surprised about the whining and sobbing that people tend to express on these pages.

It's not a matter of whining, but IMHO a matter of lack of information on how morale is handled in combat.

As i have posted today in the thread 'morale in combat: how it works!' sticky on the FAQ forum, the effect of morale in combat, despite realistic results obtained, is tricky if you don't know how it is handled. And information shown in the combat window don't help you in understanding what's happened.

Combat result in the first stages of the game, till you reach tech level 3 or 4, is basically random due to morale involvement. And morale is the main factor in determining the combat outcome even in later periods. If you don't have an historic backgound or you don't have experience from similar wargames, you could easly be puzzled by such results.

So, be nice with those guys, and with me too

Happy easter

[robo]

Why do you say "until you reach level 3 or 4". What changes?

[Grenadier]

Originally posted by robo
Why do you say "until you reach level 3 or 4". What changes?

He probably means that casualties are very low at these levels, which makes morale even more important than it is at higher levels.

[driedcow]

No no, he probably means that shock/fire/attrition values for the tech 0123 armies are puny, therefore morale plays a much bigger difference in those battles. That, and between tech 0 and 4, morale goes up almost twice!

[Jonnycat]

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Oki, I'm new to this forum(and to the computer game too) but I am already a little bit surprised about the whining and sobbing that people tend to express on these pages.

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Im a little bit surprised that in only your second post you flame Quite a number of people.
I dont think anybody is whining but simply pointing out strange (in their eyes)combat results.I for one tend to agree with them.While I personally never posted anything on the subject, i'm glad others did in the hopes that these issues will be adressed in the next patch.
We all love the game and wish only for it to reach its full potential.
Also many other people have noted historical instances where the outmatched army won.Why are these battles well Known?Because they were unusual!!
I Know these things happened occassionally but not a third of the time as is portrayed in this game.

[Crook]

Hernan Cortes in charge of an army of 500 men succeded in conquering the entire Aztec empire in 2 years. Granted we talk about low-tech soldiers, but still Cortes did at least once fight against an army of more than 100k people(some stories say it was 200k..)

Cortes is an exception. The truth is that

a. he had allies in other indian tribes, that were conqured by Aztecs, and hated them;
b. the stories of 100 or 200k against a 500 soldiers are legends. True, he faced armies that probably were about 10-15 times greater than his, but he defeated them because Aztecs perceived Spanish as demigods, were amazed by horses, and more importantly, were trying to capture Spaniards alive, for future sacrifices. In all honesty, a 100K mob without weapons would finish off 500 people in a matter of minutes.

[Cunctator]

Robo wrote:

Why do you say "until you reach level 3 or 4". What changes?

At lower levels you have:

Zero fire value for infantry and artillery (no losses in fire fase of combat) and low shock values for artillery. So unless you have a strong cavalry (expensive unless you are Poland) you make low damage to the opponent, ie combat is decided by morale.

Morale values for the army are low (1.5 to 2.75 points) compared to morale losses inflicted (from 1 to 2 for a roll > 6) each round of combat, so after a few rounds combat is over due to lack of morale.

[sean9898]

There is a lot of whining about combat results on this forum. Since the US release practically every week, sometimes more frequently a new "This is ruining the game" thread emerges.

Perhaps there is a lack of information, although with 3 FAQs, a manual and dozens of threads here perhaps it's alack of reading the information which is on hand.

I don't know where the assumption that the number of men, horses or guns makes a difference in a battle has come from. It has never has, does not now, and probably never will never be a critical factor in deciding the outcome of a battle.

[Killarney]

I find the combat results in the game to be frequently rediculous, and I've pointed that out. Still, I find the game enjoyable, and by the time I finally pull the CD out of the drive, I will have gotten more than my money's worth from it.

Still, I can pretty much see what finally makes me stop playing - eventually I will get tired of the crashes (as it is, I usually call it a night now when the game crashes) and I will get tired of having my well-fed, well-led 50k man army run off by a handfull of half-starved refugees from the other end of Europe.

Sidney's observation that most complaints are of the form "everything that's supposed to matter was in my favor, so how'd I lose?" is quite correct for me. It ruins the immersion in the game, suddenly you are clearly reminded this is a game because somebody clearly got the combat results wrong.

It's still a fun game. But it's frustrating to have your grand schemes ruined, not by a brilliant stoke of genius on the enemy's part - hitting you in an unexpected place and catching that reserve garrison under your least competent leader unaware, but by marching an inferior army through your front line troops like a hot knife through butter. Or maybe it's more like the butter cutting the knife in two...

[Cunctator]

Common sense?

No, i'm joking, you're right in saying army size is not the only factor in determining combat outcome, not even the main factor. But i don't think there is a lot of information about this, and manual is not clear in stating how morale is important in combat resolution.

[Talenn]

Since you singled out my post on the subject, I feel the need to address this issue again. MY complaint and that of, I believe, most people isnt the extreme results. It was, and still is, the lack of info concerning WHY the battle was lost. If you took the time to read the entire post from which you quoted, you'd see that.

When ALL the diplayed numbers are heavily in your favor ie 10+2 vs 3 and 6 vs 3-2 and you have identical morale and 10x their number, and yet you are soundly trounced...repeatedly...there is something wrong! Why is that so hard for people to grasp??!?!?!?!??! If R.E.Lee was commanding the Army, I'd expect to see something like 10 vs 3+5 and 6 vs 3+3. At least then, I'd have a clue that, gee, something on his side is definately giving him an advantage.

All of your 'examples' are fine but not one of them changes the fact that the feedback that is presented to the player is atrocious! IMO, its worse than none at all. I'd rather have the battle just fought and won/lost with NO info than to constantly provide info that is completely unintuitive and misleading. I'm sorry, but when 15000 attack 1200 and the Leaders are equal, the tech is the same, the armies are not unbalanced and the terrain is not a factor, I think the 15000 should win barring incredible luck. All your examples include outside factors...leadership, incredible tech differences, new ideas (tech or leader) etc.

Your comments on the Napoleonic ideas of reserves and 'feeding' them into battle are tactical or operational at best. I dont think he advocated keeping your reserves a month or two away. This is beyond the scope of the game and, IMO, should be accounted for by the leadership mods.

sean9898:

The 'whining' as you term it does NOT stem from the belief that numbers should always prevail. It stems from the fact that there is no way to judge the battles at all from what you are given to work with. The DISPLAYED NUMBERS are hogwash. They seem to have little bearing on how the combat actually turns out. The reason most people are citing the the battles where huge disparity in troops strengths are present is that those are the ones that are so hard to swallow when every other factor is ALSO in your favor. I can handle 5000 beating 25000 if they have something going for them (leadership, tech, morale, terrain) but when they beat your 25000 while YOU possess some or all of the above, it gets silly. And the numbers diplayed are all we have to go on to show who DOES have the factors in their favor. If you want random combat results, why not just have the program roll a die for each side and higher wins the battle? That would be about as realistic as some of the repeated battles I have seen (at least from the KNOWN info). Of course I am exaggerating here a bit, but the point is valid: WHY DISPLAY THE NUMBERS IF THEIR EFFECT ON THE BATTLE IS COMPLETELY SECONDARY TO THE RANDOMNESS AND THEN OMIT THE RANDOM NUMBERS THAT APPARENTLY MEAN SO MUCH?!?

If some of you are truly sick of the 'whining' on this subject, here is a quick bit of advice: STOP reading the posts that contain them...you'll be happier. The rest of us who DO see some room for improvement will continue to make suggestions and elicit opinions from other players of the game in hopes of either 1) gaining a true understanding of the combat mechanics or 2) having Paradox alter the code a bit so that info displayed is a good indication of the winner or at least show the random numbers so that you can rest assured the victory or loss was something other than a glitch or an incorrect application of you troops/strats.

Talenn

[Sidney]

Originally posted by Killarney

Sidney's observation that most complaints are of the form "everything that's supposed to matter was in my favor, so how'd I lose?" is quite correct for me. It ruins the immersion in the game, suddenly you are clearly reminded this is a game because somebody clearly got the combat results wrong.

War is a roll of the die.Immersion is lost of you can know ahead of time the results. Numbers, leaders etc can't tell the whole tale. Things HAVE to happen that are not kosher becuase real battlefields don't play by the numbers.

If I have a 2-2-2 leader, a level 5 tek, 10k infantry and 3k cav and I face a 2-2-2 leader, with levl 5 tek, 9k infantry and 3k cavalry I should not expect to win everytime despite having the numerical edge. You'd agree more than likely. So greater numbers don't always matter.

Despite this, folks all have some "magical" line where that number should matter and you just casn't lose. Doesn't work that way and if you don't think so just imagine how pissed off you'd be to be the gameplayer who lost at Agincourt.

[Jonnycat]

If I have a 2-2-2 leader, a level 5 tek, 10k infantry and 3k cav and I face a 2-2-2 leader, with levl 5 tek, 9k infantry and 3k cavalry I should not expect to win everytime despite having the numerical edge. You'd agree more than likely. So greater numbers don't always matter.

In this situation you will lose 99% of the time on attack or defence

[Talenn]

Jonnycat:

That has not been my experience. In general, the 'close' battles tend to resolve, more often than not, in favor of the side that is slightly ahead. The ones that go whacky for me are the ones that should often be considered an 'overrun'.

Try and keep a tally of wins and losses in your battles and record what was involved and what the displayed numbers were. I have a notebook that I keep track of that info with at the moment in my quest to understand this aspect of the game. I think you'll find that you DO win more often than you lose everything equal except the numbers. I'm sure it just doesn't FEEL that way in the heat of the moment.

Talenn

[Talenn]

Sidney:

Agreed that luck needs to play a part, both for unpredictability in gameplay as well as for historical accuracy. The DEGREE of luck, the application of said luck, and the info to the player of how much luck WAS involved is what I question. There is no doubt that 'luck' is important in every aspect of battle, but in many cases, what is attributed to 'luck' was actually the result of a decision made by someone on the field...ie leadership.

Also, what is termed 'victory' is something that again needs to be defined. If 5000 kill 10000 of an army of 50000 and then retreat saving 4000 of their number, I'd definately call that a victory. In EU 'victory' rests on who controls the province and that, unfortunately, leads to some of the silly situations that are the instigators of the complaints. I think most people can handle 5000 delaying/discomfiting 50000 and exacting a heavy toll. The repeated routing of said 50000 without serious mitigating circumstances is a bit harder to swallow, as is driving them back the incredible distances that they manage.

As to Agincourt...well... Yep, that 'player' was probably cursing and screaming! BUT their were outside influences in that one too: Terrain and weather. Also, Leadership, application of the proper troops for the task, played a part. This it not to say that the English victory was not lucky (it certainly was!), but that luck wasnt the sole factor as seems to be the issue more often than not in EU. Finally, I think players could handle an 'Agincourt' in their game if it was the very rare exception. After all, battles like that go down in history precisely BECAUSE it was so rare and a complete upset. When 'Agincourt' occurs 2 and 3 times in the same WAR, you begin to wonder about the stability of the combat model.

Talenn

[Jonnycat]

__________________________________________________ __________ That has not been my experience. In general, the 'close' battles tend to resolve, more often than not, in favor of the side that is slightly ahead. The ones that go whacky for me are the ones that should often be considered an 'overrun'.

Try and keep a tally of wins and losses in your battles and record what was involved and what the displayed numbers were. I have a notebook that I keep track of that info with at the moment in my quest to understand this aspect of the game. I think you'll find that you DO win more often than you lose everything equal except the numbers. I'm sure it just doesn't FEEL that way in the heat of the moment.
__________________________________________________ _________

Yea your probably right and thanks for the suggestion Ill try it
__________________________________________________ _________

As to Agincourt...well... Yep, that 'player' was probably cursing and screaming! BUT their were outside influences in that one too: Terrain and weather. Also, Leadership, application of the proper troops for the task, played a part.
__________________________________________________ _________

I remember reading somewhere that the English Longbowmen had something to do with it too(superior Tech adv.?)

[joel rauber]

[i]. . .
I don't know where the assumption that the number of men, horses or guns makes a difference in a battle has come from. It has never has, does not now, and probably never will never be a critical factor in deciding the outcome of a battle. [/b]

Here's a few places it comes from, off the top of my head:

Napoleon: "god is on the side of the biggest battalions".

Stonewall Jackson (I think): "be the fustess with the mostest"


BTW I'm actually in your camp on this issue wrt EU; however I'd never say numbers don't make a difference. They make a difference, but they aren't the only thing that makes a difference and often they aren't the critical factor, perhaps even quite often.

My impression from EU is that generally numbers help in battle; from time to time I've had big armies lose to small armies, but I've been on the plus side of those anomalies as well.