Battle losses are unrealistic

[Sardonic]

Just fought a battle at Lexington (Ky) with Polk holding the city with level 5 entrenchments and in game terms
roughly 1500 points of defenders.

I will assume this is roughly 30k troops, mostly militia. He had Polk, Stuart, D.H. Hill, and Monsan?

I advanced upon the city with one corp, led by Grant with, Thomas, Sherman, Shields, and one other Union badass.

The divisional commanders were maxxed out with all they could command but weak on arty.

Kearny was besieging at the start with 8 CV units and 4 horse/arty.

My battle strength was in excess of 2k(in game terms) each division had over 10k men. So I would guess what? 45k men?

Polk had four arty units, and basicly, I sure wish I had brought some.

After roughly 9 rounds of combat, the Rebs were gone. If they ran away, I didnt see it.
6k prisoners.

Going by the listed losses, on the combat reports, they suffered 92% casualties.

Of the Union corp, Thomas must be a mad-dog because his division was dropped into a meat grinder.
At the start of the battle, Polk sortied, and kicked Kearny's command all the way back to Cincinnati.

At most the Union suffered 30% casualties. Each round of combat showing the Reb guns doing a great job
of shredding my Ky militia.

Which is another thing, when both are present, it seems to me militia are the ones that die the most.
(if only that were true, ask George Washington)

From what I can see, Polk had three or four full supply wagons and somewhere during the battle he ran
out of ammo. At that point, he refused to retreat, and got shredded in melee.

I could be wrong of course.

But even at Nashville, no Reb unit took that kind of beating. The men had too much common sence, and
would retreat w/o orders if they felt the command was being stupid.

[anarchyintheuk]

By going to an offensive posture and attacking Kearney, Polk lost the benefit of his trenches. Grant's force then appears and attacks Polk (outnumbering and outgeneraling a force in the open). After losing the battle Polk retreats to Lexington and is surrounded. Assuming Grant has assault posture on, he then attacks Lexington until Polk's force is destroyed.

[jimwinsor]

Sometimes a force is not eligible to retreat due to ZOC and/or city assault conditions.  This seems like such a case.
 
To rationalize these combat results, think Vicksburg or Donelson or Island 10 or other such no retreat situations the rebs unfortunately (for them) found themselves in.

[SittingDuck]

OK, so how many times did a battle occur with 92% casualties to a side?

What I am saying is that rationalizing results, when there is a preponderance of odd results right now from the battle AI, doesn't do AGEod any favors.  I can accept an extreme result here and there, but when it is commonplace, then you are looking at something that needs attention.

I know Pocus and crew will do this, but I would encourage people not to do rationalizing at this juncture.

[anarchyintheuk]

I wasn't rationalizing, I was explaining how the system worked. If you don't want those results, make sure you have a retreat route open and don't have the return to city button on.

Jimwinsor's examples of >92% casualties in battles were particularly relevant. Are you saying Vicksburg, Donelson, Island No. 10, Appamattox didn't happen irl or shouldn't happen in the game?

[Pocus]

So you wanted Polk to surrender earlier? Because if he was in a city, this is either he dies or he surrenders, but he won't retreat elsewhere.

[SittingDuck]

Surrenders, I think, is the more appropriate response here.

[Sardonic]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

So you wanted Polk to surrender earlier? Because if he was in a city, this is either he dies or he surrenders, but he won't retreat elsewhere.

I didnt know this.

It is possible that you could interpet the results in Vicksburg terms.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Defenders against N. B. Forrest very often suffered extremely high casualties: 90% to 100%, if those numbers account for PW's in addition to battle losses.

Do the numbers you are quoting include "missing"?

[Sardonic]

ON a different note:

Just attacked Spotsylvania across the river

I had 120k men under McDowell, Milroy, Hamilton.

The Rebs under Beuregaurd had 45K men

The best the Rebs had were in that hex, and I was slaughtered.

I lost 20K men, and the Army HQ, plus McDowell was wounded.
The Rebs lost maybe 1k men.

So leadership does matter

[von Beanie]

Having played the Union side a lot, I can confirm that good leadership is critical. You have to get good commanders into the Army containers ASAP because they increase the commanders' abilities below them. And then you have to find good Corps commanders. In a recent PBEM game I tried to avoid paying the huge consts to remove McClellan, thinking the good Corps commanders beneath him would be good enough. However, until I removed him, no matter how powerful my forces were I just piddled around in a war of attrition.