Troop movement attrition

[aprezto]

While playing PBEM with troop attrition on it appears to me that you don't lose troops when they march through provinces with depots.

Has this been other's experience? I can't find something in the manual that says this should happen?

[evwalt]

Aprezto is talking about a question which come up in Danish Anyone? We were supposed to be playing with Bonaparte march attrition level, but now we are not sure if the game was set up that way.

I thought you ALWAYS experienced march attrition, independent of supply. I know you do on single player.

BTW: is there any way to check what the scenerio settings are from the files?

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: evwalt

BTW: is there any way to check what the scenerio settings are from the files?

What do mean? I don't understand the question.

[Mus]

If there is march attrition you should see a table in the Supply report every turn a list of your units like so followed by losses from marching or foraging, looks something like this in a table:

Name
1st Infantry 500 men lost Marched into Buttcrackistan
2nd Infantry 0 Forage success
3rd Infantry 300 men lost Forage failure

AFAIK theres no way to tell from inside the game what the starting settings were.

[evwalt]

MUS answered my question about checking the settings once the game has started.

From his answer about march attrition, sounds like it works the same as single player, ie. always lose upon the march irresepctive of supply/depots.

[aprezto]

Yep; I could look at the supply report and see losses to marching. I started adding in depots because I had more troops than the forage level could support. I happened to notice that there seemed no more losses when the troops marched through, passed these depots.

[Mus]

There are factors that increase or decrease march attrition though. Think its in the appendix. More for forced marching, less for higher levels of roads, by unit type, etc.

[aprezto]

Agreed, but it shouldn't be zero (I'd have thought - at Napolean level). And it was.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: aprezto

Agreed, but it shouldn't be zero (I'd have thought - at Napolean level). And it was.

Zero reported in the supply report or zero apparent by just looking at the units? You might lose a very small amount march attrition and get replacements that turn bringing you back up to full strength and think you arent losing men to march attrition if you arent looking at supply report.

If it is saying zero in the supply report then that would mean the game wasnt set up as you guys agreed.

[aprezto]

There was no notification of march attrition where there had been before. This is in the PBEM 109 game

[Mus]

Screenshots please? Of before and after shots of the unit and the supply report tab?

IIRC I have made some troop movements and seen attrition happening in 109.

Only time from what I can tell at ANY level of march attrition you would suffer zero is bolded.

2.6.5 March Attrition (higher difficulty
levels)
March Attrition only operates at higher difficulty levels, as shown on the setup screen
at the beginning of the game. It only affects human players. Each time a unit moves
to a new province, it loses a certain amount of Strength, depending on the game’s
difficulty level, as shown on the Setup screen. This percentage only applies to Strength
above a level equal to 300xMorale. (So, for example, a unit with Strength 10000 and
Morale 5, suffering March Attrition of 10%, would lose 10% of (10000-(300x5));
10% of 10000-1500 is 10% of 8500, which is 850.) The following modifiers are
multiplicative:
• Units in friendly provinces only lose 80%
• Units moving on roads lose 66%
• Units with the Baggage Train special ability lose 66%
• Artillery lose 33%
• Units lose 125% when moving into or out of a province with Snow or
Heavy Snow
• Units under Force March lose 150%

[Dab]

I agree with Mus that there should never be a time when it is zero attrition unless your unit is small enough to be under the threshhold level based on morale.

Although, I wonder if by morale it means the base morale or the adjusted morale after modifications for generals, empire status, patriotism etc. ?

[aprezto]

I will download the turns again and see if I can't find some evidence. This will take a while though.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: Dab

I agree with Mus that there should never be a time when it is zero attrition unless your unit is small enough to be under the threshhold level based on morale.

Although, I wonder if by morale it means the base morale or the adjusted morale after modifications for generals, empire status, patriotism etc. ?

Either way it is a very low threshold before you start being eligible for zero attrition movement. This is basically to prevent units from ceasing to exist via march attrition.

My HUNCH, until shown otherwise by screenshots, is that these are units marching in friendly territory and on roads and the amount lost is less than what can be made up that turn from reinforcements/replacements.

I never heard if it actually says 0 on the march attrition/forage/reinforcement reports in the supply report. Thats a quick check, just load the turn that caused this suspicion and take a look.

As I said before I am playing GB in PBEM 109 (same game aprezto is talking about) and have seen a couple of my corps already take fairly decent amounts of march attrition so I think its working.

The player who set up the game is fairly experience so I have no reason to believe he didnt put the correct setting, although I admit I havent "reverse engineered" the losses taken and the situation involved to see if the losses reported in the supply report tab match up with the march attrition % we all agreed on at game setup, which I believe was Bonaparte (15%).

[Mus]

OK I did some investigation.

In turn 7 of PBEM 109 my 47th Division was in Jutland and I ordered it to move to Holstein.

It was at a strength of 6149 and a morale of 3.03. Moving to Holstein through friendly territory and on a road and rounding off the morale to 3 I calculated it should have suffered 6149 - (300x3morale)= 5249(.15)= 787 casualties. 787(.80) for friendly territory = 629. 629(.66) for traveling on roads = 415 casualties.

I actually suffered 89 casualties.

Need dev input here at this point I guess. Could either be wrong attrition setting or could be an undocumented change in the attrition formula (maybe the level of "roads" in the province its traveling through is a factor somehow).

[ericbabe]

For march attrition, the exemption strength is actually 3000 + 300 * morale.  Not sure why the manual doesn't mention the base 3000.  I will change the in-game help for the next patch.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

For march attrition, the exemption strength is actually 3000 + 300 * morale.  Not sure why the manual doesn't mention the base 3000.  I will change the in-game help for the next patch.

Using the new formula I arrived at 178 casualties I should have suffered at 15% (Bonaparte) attrition levels. Actually I suffered 89, which is exactly half (coincidence?). Any other factors that could be slightly changed?

Thanks for the feedback.