Realistic Numbers?

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

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

I appreciate your comments, which are worth considering in the context of the game. However:

1. What we're talking about here is a PBEM game, with quick battles, so the player's tactical ability doesn't come into it. The quick battles should give the same kind of results that the real war did.

2. Even in a solo or network game, with detailed hex battles, is the player in his armchair really any better than Lee or Grant? I don't think so. If the player gets better results, it's because there's something unreal about the simulation. For instance, typically the player in a battle game has too much control, more than the real generals ever had.

For me, this is just one of the reasons to avoid the detailed hex battles. This is not really a simulation, it's just fairy-tale stuff. You may be really skillful at playing this kind of game; but if you think you're facing the same kind of challenge that the real generals faced, you're kidding yourself.

The strategical game isn't reality either, but it has the potential to be a bit closer to reality. In the strategical part of the war, there was more time to think, and there was genuinely more control. There were no mobile phones on the battlefield, but the telegraph and the railways permitted relatively fast strategical communications.

[Hidde]

I have followed this game with great interest but not posting anything. I must say that it looks fantastic at the strategic layer. Maybe I'm a bit sceptic about the tactical part but it's a minor problem. I write this because I fully support the opinion that the casuallty numbers as seen in different AAR's looks odd. IMHO that's a huge negative impact on the immersion factor.

[chris0827]

Perhaps the battles with no losses on one side are the result of one side being hopelessly outnumbered and unable to retreat and the commander surrendering without a fight. I'd also suggest the word killed being replaced by casualties.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: chris0827

Perhaps the battles with no losses on one side are the result of one side being hopelessly outnumbered and unable to retreat and the commander surrendering without a fight. I'd also suggest the word killed being replaced by casualties.

..And perhaps the Sun will rise in the West tomorrow.... Seriously, look at the battle results in the AAR currently being posted. The results of EVERY battle are hopelessly one-sided. It's a problem inherant in the programming, not an isolated anomoly.

[chris0827]

I wasn't addressing all battles just the ones where one side had no losses. I agree that there is a problem with disproportionate losses in most battles.

[spruce]

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".

I don't get the impression you are listening to what I said earlier. Did you read my previous post - and more important did you read Erics comment in the other thread about casualties - or lost troopers?

The game models a penalty for the loosing side - which I fully support. But what is the loosing side ? And when does this penalty kicks in ? Does the loser run like a chicken with no brains ... or is it due to lack of supply ... or due to not holding or taking the victory hexes. We simply don't know.

PBEM game is different from the standard game, we simply have too few feedback or info from the AAR - why a certain battle is lost ... to draw the conclusions.

Now people are saying they don't like the numbers, which is something Eric has commented on - and the difference is justified based on historical facts imho.

The only thing I'm not happy with is that few games in PBEM are actually draws ... where neither side goes running like a cray chicken ... so an organised retreat ... and the severe penalty is left out of the equasion.

To give you a quick example - second Manassas is seen as one of Lee's best wins - but still the Union army retreated in a fairly orderly way without losing his enormous amount of guns ... without putting his battered divisions in harms way. I've seen threads in these forums that stated that after second Manassas the Union was broken and totally routed.[:-]

The only thing I learned so far is that the casualty number is saying how many troopers were taken from your army - very straigthforward I must say - and I like the way they modeled it. This blends in quite well with the concept on camps and " ??? free ???" reinforcments.

[Bungo_Pete]

does'nt make much sense to me in a war where numbers were tatamount,they seem to be paying lip service to those very numbers.

[jchastain]

In testing, the devs have shown a willingness to adjust numbers based on feedback.  I'm not the historian here and I am sure the realism discussions will continue, but I would like to touch on a few points from a game design standpoint.

First, as spruce indicated, the losses shown are meant to include not only battle losses but also withdrawal losses.  While there were orderly withdrawals, please keep in mind that there is fairly significant march attrition when moving between provinces without any enemy activity.  The cost for withdrawal certainly should be greater than the cost for doing an ordered move between the same locations.

And attition is meant to represent many things - really anything that causes troops to be anything other than "combat ready": in the hospital recovering from injuries, captured and in an enemy prison, deserted and heading for home, or simply lost and not sure what to do.  The camps, meanwhile, abstract the return to duty after recovering, prisoner exchanges, the capture of deserters, and the the reestablishment of contact and control.

Would some feel more comfortable if the reports were more explicit and actual combat losses were reported separately from attrition losses?  Perhaps, though I suspect there would still be discussions about those numbers.

What I like about the system though is that it seems to capture the feel of the period.  Brigades - even when there are few clashes - are almost never at full strength.  Attrition, not combat, represents the biggest losses.  Supply losses (the need to reorganize and reequip) are more significant following a loss than are troop losses.  The civil war is not transformed into a blitzkieg campaign - stopping to rest and resupply actually has its place.  Logistics are modeled far more effectively than in CoG and yet with less complexity.

As I said at the start, I am not a historian. And perhaps that is why the numbers really do not bother or offend me. But I suspect that the devs would be willing to tweak them a bit if anyone could propose a historically accurate way of computing losses that gave proper credit for the strategic elements of the game.  More importantly though, I personally feel that the "bones" that form the framework of this game are pretty solid in capturing the proper feel.  Again though, that's just my own opinion as one player among (hopefully soon to be) many.

[Grifman]

ORIGINAL: jchastain


Would some feel more comfortable if the reports were more explicit and actual combat losses were reported separately from attrition losses? Perhaps, though I suspect there would still be discussions about those numbers.

s

I would. That would at least restore some of the immersion for me.

But I would add, if this is what camps do, then they should be adding more troops per turn. If the losses seen are signficantly due to lost AWOL troops, then the camps should be sending back alot more than they are. 5000 men per turn that we're seeing now isn't enough given the "retreat" attrition that we are seeing.

That said, other than this, the game looks great and I am looking forward to it.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: spruce

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".

I don't get the impression you are listening to what I said earlier. Did you read my previous post - and more important did you read Erics comment in the other thread about casualties - or lost troopers?

The game models a penalty for the loosing side - which I fully support. But what is the loosing side ? And when does this penalty kicks in ? Does the loser run like a chicken with no brains ... or is it due to lack of supply ... or due to not holding or taking the victory hexes. We simply don't know.

PBEM game is different from the standard game, we simply have too few feedback or info from the AAR - why a certain battle is lost ... to draw the conclusions.

Now people are saying they don't like the numbers, which is something Eric has commented on - and the difference is justified based on historical facts imho.

The only thing I'm not happy with is that few games in PBEM are actually draws ... where neither side goes running like a cray chicken ... so an organised retreat ... and the severe penalty is left out of the equasion.

To give you a quick example - second Manassas is seen as one of Lee's best wins - but still the Union army retreated in a fairly orderly way without losing his enormous amount of guns ... without putting his battered divisions in harms way. I've seen threads in these forums that stated that after second Manassas the Union was broken and totally routed.[:-]

The only thing I learned so far is that the casualty number is saying how many troopers were taken from your army - very straigthforward I must say - and I like the way they modeled it. This blends in quite well with the concept on camps and " ??? free ???" reinforcments.

YES, read your previous posts. And I found your (and Eric's) comments thoroughly unconvincing. Please post historic examples of these "massive losses" and "lost troopers". I've cited a number of examples defending my thesis..., please post your rebuttals.

As to your "quick example", the actual casualties fit my thesis well, and your's not at all. The Army of Virginia/Army of the Patomac was defeated, sullen, and demoralized following Seccond Manassas. But the didn't suffer massive desertion and straggling---and responded quickly when Lincoln reappointed "little Mac" and shipped the detested Pope to the Northwest. Their numbers were intact as they marched to Sharpsburg. It was actually Lee's victorious Army of Northern Virginia that suffered massive straggling on this campaign. Thankfully for Lee, McClellan proved as incompetant as ever at Antietam..., and managed to snatch a bloody draw "from the Jaws of Victory".

I stated previously that there is exactly ONE example among the major battles of Civil War of the kind of one-sided disaster the game model tosses out over and over. And the battle of Nashville took the incompetance and stubbornness of Hood on one side, and the patient preparation of Thomas on the other, to accomplish.

So please, cite your historic "examples", and forget the "pronouncements" and "platatudes". I'm quite willing to listen to well-backed historic arguements. Present some if you can.

[spruce]

Mr Mike Scholl, I don't know what you've been smoking, but I don't like your attitude at all.[:D][;)]

First of all, I don't have to show a single example to you - because the guys of WCS have designed this game and dedicated many hours of their precious time to come up with a nice game. And historical correct imho.

Second, if you would reply directly to the game dev's, you might get a more focused discussion, if you claim you know all about Erics remarks - which I fully support - just reply to his words directly ... and stop insinuating that I'm making claims out of the blue. If you want to change the game - concinve Eric, not me.

Third, I'm not even a US citizen, I'm not a specialist on the matter, but from what I've seen I think the guys at WCS are right =

the point is that stragglers, casualties, deserters, routed - and out of command units take a toll on your battle ready figure ... it's not that the battle report in Fof only displays dead guys, they are the sum of a whole list of stuff... so it's dangerous to compare to the wrong things here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... Crossroads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Manassas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chancellorsville

by the way - after playing MMG game "Take command 2'nd Manassas" I feel comfortable with the current way it is. If you play f.e. Jackson or Longstreet corps - you can dislodge many many Union regiments during such a battle - and still not really have the enemy surrendered. But these dislodged units will either run for their life and leave behind many wounded - some of the regiments might even surrender - and for sure the commanding brigade general can not bring back all his panicked regiments to command. That's something that the victorious party has the edge on.

F.e. during the battle of Chancelorsville, Jacksons corps blasted away the Union XI corps, it was not so that all of those Union soldiers (11.000 in the corps) got killed, no many got captured and the rest routed in the panick. But in Fof these losses would be modeled by means of "casualties" cause those running guys are not really part of the army anymore and need to be brought back into line afterwards - camps are used for that ...

[Riva Ridge]

First, really looking forward to this game.  There has been a real lack of operational-strategic Civil War games out there (at least any that were any good) and this ought to fit the bill nicely.
 
My two cents is that I do agree with the crowd that is concerend about the lopsided losses in the historical game.  I believe that even the most cursory look at the historical outcomes of battles will see that both sides suffered significantly and it does not SEEM from the AARs that outcome is modeled.  Now, I am not a beta-tester so my opinion is quite uninformed, but I do know my civil war history.  That being said, I am not expecting a absolutely rigid adherence to historical outcomes and it does seem that the supply model being used is robust and is a realistic limiting factor.  Also, I fully intend to buy the game, even if released with the particular model being used.  I would just ask that the designers consider considering the opinions expressed here and add in a bit more fidelity on the casualty side of things. 
 
Otherwise, game on and looking forward to playing!
 
C

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: spruce

Mr Mike Scholl, I don't know what you've been smoking, but I don't like your attitude at all. Tobacco..., and my attitude is that of a serious historian. Your like or dislike is immaterial to the discussion

First of all, I don't have to show a single example to you - because the guys of WCS have designed this game and dedicated many hours of their precious time to come up with a nice game. I support their approach fully. So I would like you to show examples of battles with no wounded, deserting, captured, routed, out of command units. I think you should reconsider before you start to inflate on the matter.
No, you don't have to show me a single historic example. But if you can't, you should not expect to be taken seriously. And there is no such thing as a "battle with no wounded, deserting, captured" or routed units. They are generally listed in the Casualty Lists as "missing", (As in Killed, Wounded, and Missing) and are part of the casualty numbers I'm refering to

Second, if you would reply directly to the game dev's, you might get a more focused discussion, if you claim you know all about Erics remarks - which I fully support - just reply to his words directly ... and stop insinuating that I'm making claims out of the blue. If you want to change the game - concinve Eric, not me. That's why I am posting..., to convince Eric. But you seem to have appointed yourself his "champion", so I invited you to engage in meaningful discussion.

Third, I'm not even a US citizen, I'm not a specialist on the matter, but from what I've seen I think the guys at WCS are right = You've made that plain. You've just failed to support your possition.

the point is that stragglers, casualties, deserters, routed - and out of command units take a toll on your battle ready figure ... it's not that the battle report in Fof only displays dead guys, they are the sum of a whole list of stuff...

Stop attacking me, and stay to the point [8|] I haven't "attacked" you..., simply invited you to support your assertions. And as far as I can tell, your only "point" is that the designers made the game, so they must know everything about the subject and be right in every decision. My experiance in 45+ years of historical study and gaming tell me that this is not necessarily the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... Crossroads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Manassas

by the way - it's up to WCS to decide how many troops get out of command during or after such a fierce battle. But if you play f.e. MMG Take Command 2'nd Manassas (a tactical civil war game) you'll know what I'm talking about - when you play Longstreets offense on the Union Left wing and center - you'll notice a great number of Union regiments will begin to waver and panick and run off - and might even rout. I've played a lot of Civil War games..., but I don't assume that my experiance in this artificial environment is the equivelant to serious historical study. Games are fun, and some catch the "feel" of certain elements of reality quite well. Others have almost nothing to do with reality. This one looks like it could be entertaining and challenging in the economic/political sense. Tactics seem to take a backseat to grand strategy and logistics. This is fine, and an area that has recieved short shrift in the past---but if most of the "battles" are abstract in the game then it would be nice if the results reflected historical reality more closely.

For the moment I'm playtesting a series of scenarios based on the attack of Jones, Hood and Kempers divisions on the Union left wing and center ...

In my best moments I achieve a kill ratio of 2/1 (so 2 of his guys for one of my guys), but if I take the retreating and fleeing units into the equasion I come to ratios of 4/1 ... easely... [:D] And the victorious party gets to re-group, resupply etc. more easely.

[spruce]

well I did come up with some interesting examples where the "casualty rating" is much lower then the "lost for battle rating".  Take a look at Chancelorsville - where Jackson was able to dislodge an entire corps (XI corps) of 11.000 men - off course these guys didn't get killed all. But they were lost for the army to fight battles. And Fof takes that into the equasion ... the guys of the Xi corps would take some time to grow back in strength - in Fof terms perhaps a month or 2 ... seems pretty realistic imho.

Now, I would stop to this "sour" discussion at the spot and take a more open debate on the topic. I hope Eric joins us to take our discussion a little further along the road.

In fact I like the approach CWS has taken, the only thing that I'm saying is that we should see more "tied" battle or "draw" battle where this chain of bad consequences for the loosing party is not taking place - so we would see more balanced casualty ratings ... for sure a heavy battle would also take toll on the winners battle readyness. And it's a pitty you don't seem to put the nuance there on my stance here.

[Queeg]

One issue, it seems to me, is the battle calculation table even including the possibility of a "0" result. I'm inclined to think that, to accurately reflect the period, even the most lopsided rout should result in the victor suffering casualties of at least 10-20% of those suffered by the loser. There simply was no such thing as even a semi-bloodless battlefield victory in the ACW.

[jchastain]

Mike -
As I have said, I am not a historian. And please do not take this to be argumentative, as that is not the intent. Instead, I am trying to better understand the history and how it might apply to a game. Keep in mind, I'm not a dev - just a tester. But I find the discussion to be interesting.

Let us assume that casualties are adjusted to be roughly the same for both winner and loser for battles in a game (really any game and not just this one since this is meant to be a primarily theoretical discussion). Why, as the union player, would I not just attack relentlessly? The USA will win an attrition war. If "winning" a battle only determines ownership of the dirt on which the battle was fought and does not meaningfully affect casualties, then it seems I would be best served to attack everywhere without regard to winning or losing in any particular battle. Eventually the USA will just wear down the CSA armies until they can no longer effectively resist and the remainder of the war then just becomes an exercise in marching across the map. Even if I assume you lose massive amounts of supply - so what? That would just mean you'd lose the next battle. Again - so what? The goal is just to fight and ensure attrition on both sides. In fact, why buy supply at all? Why assign any generals and risk them in combat? Why invest in any upgrades to improve unit quality? If any of those things matter and impact casualties, then you can/will see lopsides losses. Hstorically even casualties, absent any additional controls, seem likely to harm rather than help many strategic elements of a game.

If you disagree with that, not from a hisorical standpoint but rather from a strategy game design standpoint, please let me know. But I suspect we will agree that there must be some other control mechanism that must be expected to temper the aggressiveness of the union under such a system in order for a game to be successful as a strategy title. In FoF, there actually is the concept of National Will - the support of the general populace. One might argue that successive major losses - even if strategically effective in a guerilla campaign - could not sustain popular support. So, that could become a reasonable mechanism that tempers the aggressiveness and dissuades hopeless aggression. And in fact, National Will and performance in battles do both have a significant impact on Victory Points within FoF. Is that the mechanism you are considering as the strategic fulcrum that balances the game strategically?

I would not be opposed to altering the battle casualty totals. But I would want to do so in a way that ensures strategic balance within the game.

Next, let's cover march attrition. I am not hearing that you are opposed to that as a concept for abstracting non-combat losses. Again, if I am mistaken is that assessment just say so and we can discuss that in greater depth. But if we accept that mechanism, then an army marching in to attack will suffer the attrition en route to the battle. The defeated army will suffer that attrition when being forced to exit the province.

The interesting point to me is that if the attacker is the victor, the casualties figures are likely more similar than they appear because the reported number includes the "pursuit" figures (movement attrition of the defender existing after the battle) but not the attrition suffered by the attacker upon entry. However, if the attacker fails, then the situation is actually worse that shown as they suffered attrition on the way in and out. It raises the legitimate question of whether attrition should be applied following a battle, but I must say that it would seem exceedingly strange to me if attrition were applied when an army was ordered to march but not if they were chased away with the enemy at their tails.

Separating movement and attrition doesn't seem like the proper answer to me. Doing so and applying attrition even when an army sat still would remove a significant incentive to allow an army to stand in place and "rest" between campaigns. It would reduce rather than enhance the realtic feel of the game to me.

Again, I suspect the devs will consider changes. And I respect your desire to keep the game historically pure. But I think the conversation needs to progress to proposing actual changes that might be made with analysis of their impact to the game. I am not certain if the AAR is sufficient to begin such a discussion in earnest or if we are all better served to begin that conversation once everyone has an opportunity to experience the current state. But respectfully, that is where I believe the conversation needs to progress if it is to produce any actionable results.

[chris0827]

From the AAR I see that national will is a part of this game and that losing battles lowers it and winning raises it. I assume that it has a negative effect on the countries if it gets low enough and positive effect if it's high enough. If that is the case then the union cannot continue to attack regardless of casualties. I would suspect that one result of a long sting of union defeats would be increased aid from europe for the south and possibly recognition. I probably should've noticed from reading the AAR but does troop morale drop as a result of losing a battle? If so this would encourage the losing side to retreat to recover both it's morale and combat loses. This is basically what the union armies in virginia did until Grant arrived. Lastly, the American Civil War was a war of attrition. The north had more of everything. The south had no hope of conquering the north and they knew it. To win they only had to survive until the north's will was broken or foreign governments intervened. For the North to win they had to conquer the south. Anything else was a defeat for them

[Grotius]

I myself don't really care all that much about this. Yes yes, I want historical accuracy, and I think the devs would be well-advised to make the numbers "look" better by abolishing "zero" combat losses and generally making them look less lopsided. But I also want a playable game. And on a game of this scale, I recognize that many things are abstracted.

For example: The two sides are paying "money" into "diplomacy," and that's good enough for me, even though I recognize that diplomacy requires more than just cash. The federal governments are "purchasing" universities and manufacturing, even if states or the private sector might do that in real life; again, that's ok with me, as it represents an amalgam of other things. Do I care that the report doesn't say "federal gov't subsidized 20% of the startup cost of a university with bonds" blah blah? Nah. Likewise, the battle results here seem to be somewhat abstracted -- an amalgam of battle results and pre- and post-battle attrition.

So yes, it might be better to itemize attrition so that the combat results don't look so lopsided, or even better yet to rebalance the current lopsided battle totals. But whatever the devs do, I don't think the fate of the game hangs in the balance.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: jchastain

Mike -
As I have said, I am not a historian. And please do not take this to be argumentative, as that is not the intent. Instead, I am trying to better understand the history and how it might apply to a game. Keep in mind, I'm not a dev - just a tester. But I find the discussion to be interesting.

Let us assume that casualties are adjusted to be roughly the same for both winner and loser for battles in a game (really any game and not just this one since this is meant to be a primarily theoretical discussion). Why, as the union player, would I not just attack relentlessly? The USA will win an attrition war. If "winning" a battle only determines ownership of the dirt on which the battle was fought and does not meaningfully affect casualties, then it seems I would be best served to attack everywhere without regard to winning or losing in any particular battle. Eventually the USA will just wear down the CSA armies until they can no longer effectively resist and the remainder of the war then just becomes an exercise in marching across the map. Even if I assume you lose massive amounts of supply - so what? That would just mean you'd lose the next battle. Again - so what? The goal is just to fight and ensure attrition on both sides. In fact, why buy supply at all? Why assign any generals and risk them in combat? Why invest in any upgrades to improve unit quality? If any of those things matter and impact casualties, then you can/will see lopsides losses. Hstorically even casualties, absent any additional controls, seem likely to harm rather than help many strategic elements of a game. I might counter that this was exactly the strategy that U S Grant followed in 1864. But in the game there is also a factor of "national will" involved. I haven't played the game, so I'm not certain how it works during play---but historically a defeat resulted in the losers retiring to recover their morale, and forget the horrors on one of these murderous killing matches. Generally the winner needed a breather as well, but at least had the "morale bonus" of having "won". I assume that a string of defeats would drag down "national will" and make foriegn intervention more likely. And how do you explain battles like the Seven Days? Lee "won" in that he drove McClellan back from Richmond and eventually caused his withdrawal from the Peninsula---but the Confederate's casualties were much higher than the Union's. This doesn't seem to happen in the game. Possession of that "dirt" you dismiss WAS very important to the morale of the armies and the Nations they fought for.

If you disagree with that, not from a hisorical standpoint but rather from a strategy game design standpoint, please let me know. But I suspect we will agree that there must be some other control mechanism that must be expected to temper the aggressiveness of the union under such a system in order for a game to be successful as a strategy title. In FoF, there actually is the concept of National Will - the support of the general populace. One might argue that successive major losses - even if strategically effective in a guerilla campaign - could not sustain popular support. So, that could become a reasonable mechanism that tempers the aggressiveness and dissuades hopeless aggression. And in fact, National Will and performance in battles do both have a significant impact on Victory Points within FoF. Is that the mechanism you are considering as the strategic fulcrum that balances the game strategically? YES. "Victory" or "defeat" was often in the mind of the commanders or the troops, not in the number of casualties. Hooker still possessed a position that the average wargamer would savor when he retired at Chancelorsville..., but Hooker was "beat". Any wargamer with freedom to use all his forces would destroy the Confederacy at Sharpsburg and not break a sweat. But Lee knew he was fighting McClellan, who's fears and lack of confidence in himself always had him half-beaten before the fighting began. "The moral is to the physical as three is to one." is a quote by Napoleon..., but was quite true among the leaders and politicians in the Civil war.

I would not be opposed to altering the battle casualty totals. But I would want to do so in a way that ensures strategic balance within the game.

Next, let's cover march attrition. I am not hearing that you are opposed to that as a concept for abstracting non-combat losses. Again, if I am mistaken is that assessment just say so and we can discuss that in greater depth. But if we accept that mechanism, then an army marching in to attack will suffer the attrition en route to the battle. The defeated army will suffer that attrition when being forced to exit the province. Certainly not..., march attrittion an historic reality. Especially when the pace was "forced". But oddly, "retreat attrition" does not seem to be a major factor. Perhaps because the troops were more motivated to be going away from the enemy, perhaps because they were more willing to abandon equipment, perhaps because thier foes were to exhausted from the fighting and to happy to see them go to pursue. Lee suffered casualties of more than 1/3rd of his army at Gettysburg (Killed, wounded, and captured)---but virtually none on his retreat back to Virginia. Burnside was soundly defeated at Fredricksburg, but suffered virtually no losses in retreating back across the river. As I said before, the only real effective pursuit and destruction of an army in the Civil War was at Nashville, a rather unique event and circumstance.

The interesting point to me is that if the attacker is the victor, the casualties figures are likely more similar than they appear because the reported number includes the "pursuit" figures (movement attrition of the defender existing after the battle) but not the attrition suffered by the attacker upon entry. However, if the attacker fails, then the situation is actually worse that shown as they suffered attrition on the way in and out. It raises the legitimate question of whether attrition should be applied following a battle, but I must say that it would seem exceedingly strange to me if attrition were applied when an army was ordered to march but not if they were chased away with the enemy at their tails.

Separating movement and attrition doesn't seem like the proper answer to me. Doing so and applying attrition even when an army sat still would remove a significant incentive to allow an army to stand in place and "rest" between campaigns. It would reduce rather than enhance the realtic feel of the game to me.

Again, I suspect the devs will consider changes. And I respect your desire to keep the game historically pure. But I think the conversation needs to progress to proposing actual changes that might be made with analysis of their impact to the game. I am not certain if the AAR is sufficient to begin such a discussion in earnest or if we are all better served to begin that conversation once everyone has an opportunity to experience the current state. But respectfully, that is where I believe the conversation needs to progress if it is to produce any actionable results.

[Grifman]

Good point about the impact of a purely attritional war. But this is what I think I might do - have it impact recruiting/replacement rates. If you want to crush the South purely by attrition, regardless of whether you "win" or not, then the more losses without victory results in it being harder and harder to recruit new units and replace losses. Sure the North would have the manpower, but no one would come forth to replace those losses, and if you have a draft, you get massive draft evasion. That would be one way of handling it, but you'd have to test and balance it of course. And it might not work.

That said, I go for breaking the losses into two categories as a compromise - battlefield losses and "organizational" losses. In reality the men lived, but they are no longer "combat effective" because of the defeat - they are tired, maybe hungry, lost their weapons/supplies, lost their officers/NCO's, lost their morale, need refitting, maybe retraining. That would reflect sort of what happened to defeated armies during the war - they were knocked out for a while until they could put it back together again.

That might be a reasonable compromise that wouldn't require a whole lot of reprogramming.