Army Stack Wipe (Combat Width)

[Swosh]

Hello, i have a question that ive wondered about for a while and cant seem to find any answers. So lets get to it:

Does anyone know if the 10x army size will allways result in a stack wipe no matter what?
What if the combat width is 25 and you have 50 troops; 25 infantry and 25 artillery filling up the combat width.
The enemy has 500 troops, does he instantly stack wipe you not even allow for a fight?
If thats the case why is it so? units above the combat width shouldnt be able to do anything, so theoretically it does not make any sense.

 

[Parapluman]

Was curious about the stack wipe so I tested it with 10k tech 3 Austrian units vs 1k tech 30 Hungarian unit.
Tested it because is seemed to remember the same thing happen when native Americans attacked small European stacks.
Clearly this has nothing to do with combat width, but it does show that 10 vs 1 isn't an instant stackwipe in 100% of the cases.

 

[Sauron44]

Instant stackwipe happens when the ratio is more than 10 to 1 (so 10000 vs 999 will be instant wipe)

 

[PhoenixG]

Was curious about the stack wipe so I tested it with 10k tech 3 Austrian units vs 1k tech 30 Hungarian unit.
Tested it because is seemed to remember the same thing happen when native Americans attacked small European stacks.
Clearly this has nothing to do with combat width, but it does show that 10 vs 1 isn't an instant stackwipe in 100% of the cases.
View attachment 315290

I think it has to do with army quality.

 

[herrhals]

@Parapluman This looks strange. Did you test with tech parity? That picture looks like Hungary is tech superior.
Did you take into account attrition before engaging the battle? Even if you lose 1, in your 10k stack, you won't get the stack wipe.

 

[herrhals]

This mechanic was to combat the EU3 ping-ponging rebels which were super annoying. Especially annoying in Subsaharan Africa in EU3, where you could spend years eradicating rebels that had been reduced to even .1k.

 

[PhoenixG]

@Parapluman This looks strange. Did you test with tech parity? That picture looks like Hungary is tech superior.
Did you take into account attrition before engaging the battle? Even if you lose 1, in your 10k stack, you won't get the stack wipe.

he said austrian has tech 3 while Hungrary tech 30

 

[herrhals]

he said austrian has tech 3 while Hungrary tech 30

Missed that.

Would be interested in seeing more testing.

 

[Swosh]

Well in this video at the 1:36 you have 1000k troops running into about 82k troops instantly wiping them. The quality of the troops does not seem to matter either since the guy with 1000k troops has reduced his morale significantly and has a crappy general, while the 82k stack has a 3 star general and full morale. Due note that the video is old tho so this might have been changed, but it seems very odd that you can instantly wipe someone no matter what if your over 10x larger.

Video link:

 

[PhoenixG]

Even if you reduced morale (by not paying your units) you still do full damage. You just don't deal morale damage.

 

[Parapluman]

Ah tested some more and what Sauron said is true. While 10 vs 1 may not always be a stackwipe 11 vs 1 is.

 

[Parapluman]

Due note that the video is old tho so this might have been changed, but it seems very odd that you can instantly wipe someone no matter what if your over 10x larger.

You would suffer more attrition nowadays as the 0% isn't possible anymore, but when it comes to the actual stackwipes it does still work the same way.

 

[Parapluman]

Well turns out things aren't so simple after all.
Entirely by accident I had one cannon encounter a shattered retreating army.
So when enemy troops have 0 moral they will not stack wipe your army even if the outnuber you > 10 to one.