Random Combat Results

[Depp]

It seems that the battle is mostly random. If I save before a game , for example, before storming a town. Sometimes I make it with no losses whatever, and sometimes I get my ass kicked badly, and then 1 k of troops comes and drives my 40 k away, just because they have low morale. I mean, a 40 to 1 odds, even with morale problem, that´s absurd.
And yes, 4 to 1 battles was sometimes lost in combat in real history, but no 40 to 1 battle.

 

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'It seems that the battle is mostly random. If I save before a game , for example, before storming a town. Sometimes I make it with no losses whatever, and sometimes I get my ass kicked badly, and then 1 k of troops comes and drives my 40 k away, just because they have low morale. I mean, a 40 to 1 odds, even with morale problem, that´s absurd.
And yes, 4 to 1 battles was sometimes lost in combat in real history, but no 40 to 1 battle.'

This is most likely an inheritance from the boardgame. To some extent it is realistic as vastly numerically superior (4:1) forces might not always win. However I agree on winning against 40:1 odds not beeing very realistic... (ignoring the Spanish-Inca incident ;-)

IIRC the BG there was a automatic loss if you were outnumberd by 10:1 or more (or is that EiA ?)

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/ Stefan Huszics

[This message has been edited by Huszics (edited 15-01-2001).]

 

[unmerged(358)]

I agree that battles in this kind of game shouldn't be too random, though some element of randomness is good...
But on the case of the 40:1 odds. If your 40k army is at panic morale and a fresh strong morale army comes in it's pretty normal that you loose against it. The point though is that the 1k army doesn't do you any damage (well hardly anyway), 95-99% of the casualties your 40k army takes are from attrition, which again is pretty normal when your troops are running and the others are chasing...

So the idea is simply don't storm a castle if there are any troops nearby...

Cobos

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If you are not part of the solution you are part of the precipitate.

 

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Can only agree with you guys!

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Gustav II Adolf:Gud är med oss.

 

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Originally posted by Huszics:
'IIRC the BG there was a automatic loss if you were outnumberd by 10:1 or more (or is that EiA ?)

EiA indeed. You basically rush the army, although it was still useful to deploy such forces simply to slow the enemy down. It might be a good idea to employ it here, the 10-1 odds thing, that is.

 

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I don't think it is that random after all....

You have technology as a very important part of the battle out come. I just got the game so it's not clear if troops are upgraded after you got the technology.

Another thing is the morale. It is very realistic that 40 k troops in panic or with very low morale get their butt kicked by a small strong well disciplined 1 k troop.
I think that morale is, in history one of the most important factors in war. At that time most casualities died without a single shoot fired.

Another important thing (in to my first game with France at the main scenario about 100 years in) is the mix of troops. I find that 10-2-2 seems to be a good mix when going for taking other provinces. Most casualties are in the infantry and they therefore need to be 'refilled'.

Last a interesting note. I have succesfully (against Spain) used small troops to 'lower' the morale on the enemy and then tke them out with a larger force. Actually that was the Russian tactic, we'll see if they are using it when I reach to them ;-)



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bmolsson
*Just passing by*

 

[Depp]

Good points, but you are missing the big question. Read the first four sentances again. Íf you save just before an attack, and you get really extreme differences in the results, the outcome must be very very random. Storming cities are almost just a fluke, sometime I get them unharmed and sometimes it takes years of trying.

It really annoys me so much I really don´t wanna go on with the game. My swedes can get beaten 130k to 10 k and then I win with 20k to 100k and it´s all the same techlevels etc (and I have a higher techlevel by the way).

I want this fixed, beacause it is not realistic in any way. Randomness is ok, but not this bizarre. It´s like numbers don´t mean squat, just a roll of the dice...

 

[unmerged(658)]

Depp is absolutely right. On another note, even if a 40K army was incredibly demoralized, 1K troops would do nothing to it, neither would 5K. Unless the tech levels were drastically different, it would be no contest. In fact, wouldnt it kinda be a morale booster for an army that has had few victories and is laying an unsuccessful siege to see a puny army that 1/2 of their force could dispatch without problems. I agree that the 10:1 rule or something like it is needed, and though randomness is good, it keeps the game unpredictable, it shouldnt be so ridiculous

 

[Johan]

If you do enough combats with the same parameters, the best one will win a majority of the times.

/Johan

 

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Johan - IMHO it isn't ok to have a 100k troop beat a 1k troop only 51% of the time (which is still the majority of the times).

40 to 1 should have a much more stable outcome than it has (ie higher odds). I agree with some here that this is really hurting the game. IMHO this game should be mostly strategy and the luck-element shouldn't have such great impact.

 

[Johan]

40.000 men at breaking morale = 40.000 * 0.1 = 4000 men, after a failed assault.

2000 men at maximum morale would win at least 25% of the time against such a broken army.

Don't look blindly at the amount of soldiers. Morale, Technology and leaders makes it soo much more varied.

The 10-1 rule is coming back in the next patch though.

/Johan

 

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If I really stretch my imagination, I could see two scenarios in which superiority in numbers doesn't count for much. One of them is an ambush -- a wildly successful one, where the larger force panics and half of the soldiers are trampled to death (let's not forget that soldiers at the time were probably superstitious as hell). The second is when the large force, not knowing what it is up against and not trusting those officers who again say that 'c'mon, it's just a couple of hundred enemy soldiers', revolts against its leader, just plain refuses to fight and heads home. This latter is what I've used as a rationalization for the times when 900 men have driven 30000 of my men away from a province.

 

[unmerged(703)]

Well, Depp I do get your point, but I still insist that the 10:1 rule is not realistic. If it is needed then we have to look over the random factor used in the battles.

You are using a fire duel and then a melee duel another fire etc....
I guess that the random factor us used there with the formula for morale tech etc....

Now this is fairly close to reality. I imagine that the random generator used is a little bit 'off'.... Johan should take a look at that BEFORE the 10:1 rule gets there...

For realistic battles, take a look at the Sapura site on Polish Cavalry..... I guess their enemy would love to have a 10:1 rule ;-)

Never the less Depp, keep on fighting... History shows that the persistant will win in the end......



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bmolsson
*Just passing by*

 

[Johan]

The 10-1 rule is simply because its easy to have 400 cannons and 5000 infantry and wiping out 60K enemy soldiers.

/Johan

 

[Depp]

Johan. Listen to me now.
I have better tech than my oppenents. Morale is strong in each army. And I get beaten very very often. And the in the battles there are just infantery vs infantery as well.
It´s to much random and not enough planning in the game.
And I have been attacked by 10k infantery with 120 k infantery numerous times and been driven away, and I had full morale when I started. Ok, you don´t lose much in the fight, but the march back takes the numbers down significantly.

And another thing, if I want to use a 50 th of my army to take a german state, I still suffer the same stability loss as a full out assault with france. People can´t be that scared of a simple state ? It should be depending on size of the opponent etc.

 

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Maybe I have been lucky but I have played 2 Grand Campaigns and never had any problems with the battle results. Apart from once or twice when the 'frozen battle' bug struck, all my battles have worked fine and realistically. That doesn't mean I didn't get upset when I lost with a bigger force.
I'm not saying that there isn't a problem, just giving a different view.

Originally posted by Johan:
The 10-1 rule is simply because its easy to have 400 cannons and 5000 infantry and wiping out 60K enemy soldiers.

/Johan

I don't follow. What do you mean?

 

[Sidney]

Originally posted by Johan:
40.000 men at breaking morale = 40.000 * 0.1 = 4000 men, after a failed assault.

2000 men at maximum morale would win at least 25% of the time against such a broken army.

Don't look blindly at the amount of soldiers. Morale, Technology and leaders makes it soo much more varied.

The 10-1 rule is coming back in the next patch though.

/Johan

We've all heard tales of 1 solider capturing 100 enemy soldiers at the wars end as one side's morale is shot so I'm guessing that is what this is trying to simulate, the problem is the is a bad model for EM combat.

Having an entire army's morale shot after a battle is realy rather unrealistic- especially stroming a fortress. Casulaties in EM battles were not evenly distributed- units at the point of attack would get chewed up while units refusing flanks might not get hit at all. In the aftermath of an unsuccessful battle you could have the battered units be torn up and demoralized but the 'Fresh' units would have no issues. Especially given the regional/mericnary flare of the battalions of the age where there was no terribly much consdieration for the other units (no real national tie) there is no reason to supect that in a 40k army you could not find enough battalions to fend off a puny 1k force. Heck, even shattered morale did not prevent most units from at least giving some account of themselves (firing a few volleys). Even a token reistance from 40K men should dispatch 1k. Throw in that there were few sneak attacks and ambushes and any commander worth his salt should be able to to repel a grossly outnumbered force.

I'd think that in any fair sized fight the shattered army would be routed since youl could not avoid having the battered battalions on the line and I'd think they would be a huge disadvantage in an assault but on defense should be able to fight a bit.

I'd think the more realisitc result would be a 40k army win but with much, much higher casualties than one would suspect as low morale battalions would use the confusion and choas of the battle to slip away.


I'd be much more interested in knowing if attrition affects morale? A tired, overmarched, and hungry army would seem much more likely to melt away than a beatned on in battle. Even after disasterous battles like Zorndorff armies did not just melt away.

Now this all assumes you have technological equals and no Cortes style secnarios.

 

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About saving before storming: I guess you've noticed that saves reset the siege, making the siege start all over again... bug.

 

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Originally posted by Sven:
About saving before storming: I guess you've noticed that saves reset the siege, making the siege start all over again... bug.

A bug, or a neat way of taking some of the bite out of the save & reload cheat.

 

[Johan]

Originally posted by Kekkonen:
A bug, or a neat way of taking some of the bite out of the save & reload cheat.

Bug IMHO. Its fixed in the next patch though..

/Johan