Realistic Numbers?

[Queeg]

I'm seriously excited about this game from reading the AARs. But I do have one question. The battle and intelligence figures reported in the AARs sometimes seem a bit extreme: Intelligence reports of opposing armies with more than 1,000,000 men. Or battles with 1800 losses on one side and 0 on the other.

I know the intelligence reports are just estimates (and Pinkerton dreamed up some pretty fantastic numbers in real life), but million-man armies, even as estimates, seem wildly unrealistic. Could the ranges be tweaked a bit more realistic levels?

As for the battle losses, I know a score of 1800 to 0 is intended to reflect an ass-whipping, but wouldn't 1800 to 200 seem more realistic and have the same impact on game play? Again just a tweaking of how the numbers are reported.

It probably doesn't really matter in the end, so long as the relative figures make sense, but seeing numbers like this does destroy the immersion factor of what otherwise appears to be a wonderfully detailed game.

Any way to tweak them to more realistic ranges?

[Bungo_Pete]

I agree seeing alot of numbers in aar's like 6200 vs 2300 dead an wounded and the like.

[Hard Sarge]

Well, once hassle with a game, is it is a game, the numbers will not match the real war, unless the battles are fought the same way

and overall, I got to agree with the losses, but the game is fun to play and gives a decent feel for the time

[Queeg]

I don't really have a problem with the mechanics of the battle calculation, just the display. In the example from the AAR, I'm fine with the game calculating a score of 1800 to 0 in terms of adjusting the combat strength of the opposing armies. But in a game with units of this size, there should never be a "0" reported. I'd be happy if they just programmed it so that "0" gets reported as a random number between, say, 50 and 99.

[marecone]

I agree with Queeg.

[regularbird]

I believe most battles were usually pretty even in loses between the winner and loser.  Frank Hunter did an excellent job portraying that in his old game.  Maybe a patch will address this issue at a latter date.

[Grifman]

Agreed. Even the victors in most Civil War battles were hardly better off than the losers. That's one reason that there were so few armies destroyed in battle - the winners were generally in no position to pursue an enemy to its destruction. As a whole the war was an attritional affair.

That's why I said that battle results should be based on some historically based table. Battles results should be something like decisive defeat, minor defeat, tie, minor victory, major victory - all of which is determined by the number of troops, generals, experience, upgrades, etc. Then depending upon the battle result a die is thrown and the number of casualties for each side should be pulled from a table of historical loss percentages based upon the victory type.

That's how I'd do it.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Agreed. Even totally lopsided battles like Fredericksburg had a surprisingly large number of Confederate casualties. Something was said a while back about losses including straggler losses, desertion, and other misc causes were included in the game numbers - making the loss figures disproportionally higher for the loser. I wonder how accurate that is because casualty counts were made after the battles, sometimes well after a battle, and losses from straggling etc. would have been included in the 'Missing' category of reports.

[chris0827]

Apart from the slaughter at Marye's Heights the rest of the battle of Fredericksburg had fairly even losses. The Majority of confederate casualties were on the right flank in Jackson's command. If I recall correctly Meade found a weak spot in the confederate lines and caused some damage before he was driven back. Jackson couldn't follow up the repulse because of the Union advantage in artillery.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Exactly my point. Even though one-sided slaughter occured at one part of the battlefield, things were more even in others, so overall, even though the battle was a resounding victory for the South, the casualty count was comparatively close overall.

[spruce]

Intresting thread =

1. About intelligence numbers - the 1.000.000 mark for an Union army is too high - might need tweaking this - cause this would mean 100 army corps in one army ... (taken that Union army corps roughly leveled 5.000 - 15.000 soldiers - source battle of second manassas). But the general idea on intelligence is very very very good ! I like it a lot.

2. About casualty numbers - hm, guys I will take a different stance here - I must say that Eric has shed some light on the casualty numbers. Please note that he refers to "lost" soldiers and not "dead" soldiers. Eric is trying to give us an idea how many troopers are substracted after the battle is over - this includes =

- dead soldiers (off course),
- deserted soldiers,
- wounded soldiers left behind,
- stragglers (out of command but lost to support the army),
- surendered units,
- captured units (small regiments or companies could be captured, while the main brigade ran off ...

Now the defeated forces will get this nasty "penalty" imposed on them ... if you ran off you'll lose much more guys to desertion, stragglers, wounded left behind etc.

In this way the reinforcing effects of the camps are mainly directed to gather the "clutter" of lost units and put them back in the army as good as possible.

I support this approach very much.

However based on the PBEM AAR, I think we must not judge too quickly - cause few major battles were fought.

But - important - we should see battles that are a "draw" with no real winning party - meaning those nasty side effects for the losing party do not have effect - and as such a more balanced result in "lost" figures.

[Mike Scholl]

Fredricksburg, Cold Harbor, and Nashville are the three examples of large "battles" in which the loser suffered more than twice as many casualties overall as the winner.   The Seven Days and Chicamauga are two that come to mind where the "winner's" losses EXCEEDED those of the "loser".  So based on the overall statistics of large "battles" the winners casualty rate should run from 40-115% of the loser's.  A somewhat wider "spread" in smaller battles is indicated by the real results.  But there is no historic justification for the endless stream of "one-sided massacres" which the game seems to be producing in this AAR. 

[spruce]

Like I said, the result might be due to the fact that few battle outcomes in Fof are "draws" ... but on the clear victories - I agree with the Fof figures.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: spruce

Like I said, the result might be due to the fact that few battle outcomes in Fof are "draws" ... but on the clear victories - I agree with the Fof figures.

WHY? The FOF numbers shown in the AAR aren't even right for the most one-sided of historic outcomes. Gettysburg is counted as a "clear" victory for the North---but Union casualties were over 80% of the Confederates? In the AAR's I've seen so far, they would be more like 15-20%. At Chancellorsville (argueably Lee's greatest triumph) the South suffered over 70% as many losses as the North. Why defend obviously inaccurate results in the game? Let's at least lobby to get them into "the ballpark".

[marecone]

Hmmm... I really don't like when report says union 5,000 dead, CSA 0. That one pisses me the most. Everything else is ok but you can't kill 1,000 or more men while not loseing a sigle solider.

[Grifman]

ORIGINAL: marecone

Hmmm... I really don't like when report says union 5,000 dead, CSA 0. That one pisses me the most. Everything else is ok but you can't kill 1,000 or more men while not loseing a sigle solider.

Yeah, there needs to be a minimum percentage of the loser's losses that the victor takes. That would "seem" to be a fairly "simple" change, but I'm no programmer [:D] I would like to see at least this changed for immersion purposes.

[Grifman]

At to my post about battle results, I'd aven be willing to put the table of results together. I've got a table somewhere with all probably over 100 Civil War battles and casualties. Though I expect something like if implemented would be pretty major.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: spruce

Like I said, the result might be due to the fact that few battle outcomes in Fof are "draws" ... but on the clear victories - I agree with the Fof figures.

WHY? The FOF numbers shown in the AAR aren't even right for the most one-sided of historic outcomes. Gettysburg is counted as a "clear" victory for the North---but Union casualties were over 80% of the Confederates? In the AAR's I've seen so far, they would be more like 15-20%. At Chancellorsville (argueably Lee's greatest triumph) the South suffered over 70% as many losses as the North. Why defend obviously inaccurate results in the game? Let's at least lobby to get them into "the ballpark".

still think you got to go with the fact that, the commander in the game is not some guy who fought back then, the player has better control and command over his troops then they did, and there is little chance of total screw ups, plus we got the chance to stop the battle when we know the battle is won, how many of these troops that were lost were lost trying to do more then was needed ? when the battle was over

Eric can model as much as he can. he can not model the player to play as the real guys did

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: marecone

Hmmm... I really don't like when report says union 5,000 dead, CSA 0. That one pisses me the most. Everything else is ok but you can't kill 1,000 or more men while not loseing a sigle solider.

those are Quick battle results, one hassle with fighting quick battles

plus you get a lot of 0 to 0 losses in quick battle, where the one side decides the battle is not a good idea and runs away, that also gives the chance to onesided losses as they can lose troops on the runaway

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
WHY? The FOF numbers shown in the AAR aren't even right for the most one-sided of historic outcomes. Gettysburg is counted as a "clear" victory for the North---but Union casualties were over 80% of the Confederates? In the AAR's I've seen so far, they would be more like 15-20%. At Chancellorsville (argueably Lee's greatest triumph) the South suffered over 70% as many losses as the North. Why defend obviously inaccurate results in the game? Let's at least lobby to get them into "the ballpark".

still think you got to go with the fact that, the commander in the game is not some guy who fought back then, the player has better control and command over his troops then they did, and there is little chance of total screw ups, plus we got the chance to stop the battle when we know the battle is won, how many of these troops that were lost were lost trying to do more then was needed ? when the battle was over

Eric can model as much as he can. he can not model the player to play as the real guys did

True.., but as these are the "quick results" battles from PBEM, and the player's only input is to move the forces into the same province, one would hope that Eric would model his results on general historic outcomes. Even if the "model" only picked a TOTAL number of casualties (based on the size of the forces involved) and automatically assigned 60% of them to the loser and 40% to the winner it would still be 10 times as historically accurate as it is now. And with PBEM being a good-sized market of players, it would seem worth some effort to get it closer to historic results.