AltHist-A: Shall We Try Again?

[IronWarrior]

I haven't had the time to g over the rules yet, although I've skimmed them and have the general idea. I'm curious though, why Wellington attrition? I thought we were going for as much accuracy as possible.

[Mus]

I also would prefer Bonaparte March Attrition FWIW, but if Wellington is what the group wants, whatever. MY experience in PBEM though has been the more attrition, the less you see cheesy force marching all over the map and the more you see thoughtful moves only when absolutely necessary.

Anyways, Please confirm the game settings I put above if that is what we are going to be using as I want to do my turn tonight and have the files ready to go out as I have a busy schedule next couple days.

Will repeat them here as I understood them real quick:

1792 Poland, highest glory, 5 years (or next patch), advanced economy, wellington game difficulty, normal combat difficulty.

Also if there is going to be a rule change regarding a forced ceasefire round 1 or whatever need to know that as well so I can correctly set my PBEM policies.

Name of the game will be AltHistA.

[Marshal Villars]

haha... Well, has anyone here played with Napoleon attrition?

I don't know if it is 100% realistic at all times. I think that some campaigns ended up with this level of attrition, but others didn't for lots of reasons which CoG:EE doesn't model. I think that we can stick with Wellington and get a douse of realism.

What are thoughts? Anyone have any experiences to tell about before we lock in?

Otherwise, Mus, you can do:

1792 Poland, highest glory, 23 years, advanced economy, wellington game difficulty, normal combat difficulty.

SET IT FOR 23 YEARS SO WE CAN LENGTHEN AFTER 5 IF WE WANT TO!!!!

[IronWarrior]

Most (all?) of the games I'm involved in are using Bonaparte attrition levels. According to Eric, this is the most realistic but he said even at that level it is lighter than historic levels.

[Marshal Villars]

I think we will go with Wellington attrition. Since units which aren't moving in COG:EE don't get any "attrition" due to sickness or desertion. I don't want to penalize armies on the offensive proportionately more than armies on the defense than they were historically. And I think that Napoleon attrition does that (at the moment). Armies which did not move also suffered from desertion and sickness, and death, and this is not modeled in CoG:EE (unless they have supply problems). In CoG:EE currently, an army can sit in place for a year in supply and not suffer losses. While it is possible that an attacker's attrition might work out to Napoleon levels, the defender's were certainly higher than 0%. I think that using Wellington will better represent the attrition spread between attacker and defender.

[Mus]

AFAIK PBEM 109 and Another PBEM were/are both Bonaparte. The difference is just a slight slowing of operational tempo and more careful management of food production and draft levels.

I have looked at the math involved in march attrition a great deal, and watched it in the game and seen that at even slightly lower levels it is much easier to keep up with march attrition through replacements.

For example, you can see that even at Bonaparte, for a full strength infantry unit of Morale 4 ("regular" quality) regular marching in friendly territory on roads you will only lose 15% of 10000 - 300(4) for the first province of movement. That is .15(8800) which is 1,320. Friendly territory multiplies the amount by .8 and roads by .66 which would take it all the way down to 697. That is just a tad over what you would expect to see come in to the unit through replacements, so it is only by making large moves, 2-3 provinces in a turn, through enemy territory, in bad weather, etc., that you start to see substantial weakening of a force.

At Wellington it gets significantly lower at 465 for the first province of movement in an identical scenario.

These are for 100% strength units, when you move down to units of more realistic strengths of around 70-80% (what you would typically see mid campaign) the amount drops off accordingly.

Also there is some natural point, depending on march attrition level, where replacements through your depots starts to exceed the amount you can lose through march attrition barring some insane circumstance like a 2-3 province force march through a snowstorm. I think for Wellington it would be around 60% strength. For Bonaparte probably somewhere around 50%.

Lots of times in our Bonaparte games armies seem to kinda start breaking even at around 70% if they are moving fairly conservatively.

Your call.

Math from the rules for clarity:

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%

[IronWarrior]

Yeah IMO anything less than Bonaparte attrition can be easily absorbed, not to mention less of a drain on manpower which almost makes it a non-factor. Just seems a shame not to go with more realistic attrition levels in this one, but I guess this is Marshal's baby so I'll go with whatever he wants to do.

Nice ideas on the house rules btw.

[Marshal Villars]

Thinking. Give me 10 minutes.

Perhaps we do need to go with Napoleon. And for now, deal with the fact that armies which don't move don't get penalized.

Perhaps that needs to be addressed in the patch.

[Marshal Villars]

See my post below...

[IronWarrior]

The other thing about higher attrition is that it introduces the dynamic of having to decide how many resources/labor production to devote to maintaining their armies. Higher attrition means having to raise food production to count for manpower loss and money to maintain the draft. At lower attrition levels you sortof lose this part of decision making in the game. It makes you decide between faster development or maintaining your forces. Or a balance of the two.

[Marshal Villars]

In Mus's example:

"For example, you can see that even at Bonaparte, for a full strength infantry unit of Morale 4 ("regular" quality) regular marching in friendly territory on roads you will only lose 15% of 10000 - 300(4) for the first province of movement. That is .15(8800) which is 1,320. Friendly territory multiplies the amount by .8 and roads by .66 which would take it all the way down to 697. That is just a tad over what you would expect to see come in to the unit through replacements, so it is only by making large moves, 2-3 provinces in a turn, through enemy territory, in bad weather, etc., that you start to see substantial weakening of a force. At Wellington it gets significantly lower at 465 for the first province of movement in an identical scenario."

So, Mus, are you saying that if you move through 3 enemy provinces in good weather, without traveling along a "CoG:EE" road that you would lose 3,900 men in a division with decent 4.0 morale with Napoleon attrition???? In one month?

Even with the baggage train upgrade this is around 2574 men. Wow.

It sounds to me like these would be good numbers (but still high) for a case where the peasants are involved in serious guerilla warfare against the invading army who is scattering his men for foraging.

I have done more reading in 17th and 18th century warfare in the last 4-5 months than I care to even think about, and those seem like high levels. And in these cases Mus is talking about, the guys are in supply! What happens if you are out of supply and foraging? 7500? LOL

If those are losses for a 3 province march in good weather, I would definitely recommend we go with Wellington. But I do appreciate your calling my attention to this.

[Marshal Villars]

Interestingly, I just did some math on one of the greatest, supplied marches of all time. Marlborough's transfer from Batavia 21,000 men+5000 who joined at Coblenz+14,000 who joined nearl Heidelberg. This army went on to march to Donauworth (Augsburg or Upper Palatinate) and was joined by 50,000 men form the area of Strasburg. Portions of them combined for a battle at Donauworth to take the fortifications around the town, crossed into Augsburg, and reemerged then marched into Wuerttemberg, leaving 5000 dead and wounded at Donauworth and detaching a party of 15,000 to besiege Ingolstadt. Finally, they were joined by another 18,000 under Eugene of Savoy.

In the end, that is 108,000 troops to account for on the day of the Battle of Blenheim. 5000 were seriously injured or dead (storming of Donauworth), 15,000 had been dispatched to besiege Ingolstadt. And 55,000 were present at Blenheim. That leaves 33,000 men unaccounted for.

Over 2 months, these forces marched from Batavia to Wurzburg to Upper Palatinate. Then crossed into Augsburg, assaulted a heavily fortified city. Then marched to Wuerttemberg. Half of the forces came from Baden and marched to Augsburg and then to Wuerttemberg again. Again, in some pretty miserable weather, without the baggage train upgrade, with low morale compared to the standards of the French army of Napoleon. And at the moment, I cannot located 33,000 of the 108,000 men on the morning of the day of the battle. I do not know where other garrisons or forces were left with the information I have at hand.

During this time. The forces were excellently supplied, kept together in march (not dispersed so as to minimize desertion).

What do you guys think about these numbers?

P.S. by the way, it is a fascinating campaign by a military genius--Marlborough. I have been to the battlefield of Donauworth and Blenheim, and they are amazing to take in after one has read about these campaigns. Link here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blenheim

[Marshal Villars]

Another interesting example campaign is Charles XII's Poltava campaign. The Swedish army of almost 44,000 men left Saxony on August 22, 1707 and marched slowly eastwards, crossing the Vistula after it had frozen on December 30. They then took Grodno on January 28, 1708 and went into winter quarters around Minsk. 8000 dragoons were left in western Poland as the army advanced. The Swedish army, that had suffered badly from different epidemic diseases during the winter, left its quarters in early June of 1708 and marched towards Smolensk. They were joined by 6000 men and Charles XII resumed his advance. By that point, the army had been reduced by 1/3 due to starvation, frostbite, and the other effects of winter. In June of 1708 they reached Poltava in southern Russia (Ukraine today). When the battle of Poltava began, Charles XII had 14,000 men at his disposal.

So, we have 44,000-8000+6000 men to account for on that morning of June 28, 1708, or 42,000 men. 14,000 men were on the battlefield not far from Poltava. Meaning 28,000 men had "evaporated". I don't know off the top of my head how many provinces that march is in CoG:EE. I would love it if someone could measure for me.

One thing interesting about this campaign, is that aside from the 6,000 half starved men he received as reinforcements, Charles XII didn't get any other replacements. They had no supply lines. Other things we know, the Swedish infantry had a very high "morale". They marched into the Russian winter. And probably up to 15 CoG:EE spaces without any roads and in "non-friendly" and enemy terrain (Poland was not friendly to Sweden). They probably didn't have the "baggage train" upgrade (as it would be developed almost 100 years later by some nations in CoG:EE LOL). They didn't have the organized forage upgrade (same story).

We also know that many of these losses were from disease and starvation. If we put the starvation losses at 10,000, then we need to account for 18,000 men--lumping the diseased men into "attrition", even though many were lost in winter quarters (and in CoG:EE, you don't lose men sitting still or in winter quarters).

I would love it if we had some math wiz in here who could do the quick calculation which would say what kind of a monthly interest rate one needs on $28,000 if you are going to build it up to $42,000 in (August to February + June) seven months. We would then get an approximate rate of attrition for the campaign I believe (though there are more accurate ways of doing it, I am looking for an approximation).

Nevermind. I did it. The answer is about 6% (recalculating probably 7.75%). In a brutal, winter campaign though unforgiving and unfriendly country.

[Marshal Villars]

If people are not finding that Wellington gives them realistic depleted units, then perhaps it is because they are playing it safe and always operating in supply and can quickly fill up their losses.

I definitely think Wellington, or even one easier is in order.

I know no one has problems with that and know that we are all trying to just figure out what will be the most realistic here. I think the Poltava calculation puts it all in perspective. And that magical number: 6% to 7.75%, simply shows me that if units are not getting depleted, that people should perhaps consider operating out of supply more often! Or people should be force marching more! LOL

[Mus]

A 10,000 man 4 morale division moving through 3 enemy provinces would take 3,395 losses, but the chances of a non force marching Army or Corps making that many moves in one month is VERY LOW in my experience.

Assuming they did somehow make that move they would arrive at around 6,600 strength and if in supply would receive 500+ replacements if they were available and be at 7100 or around 70% strength.

In reality I think they would make 2 moves in 1 turn without force marching and lose 1320 for the first province, 1122 for the second, losing 2442 total and receiving 500+ replacements if available and in supply, ending up at about 8,050 strenght or around 80%. The second turn they would lose 1028 and and receive another 500+ replacements ending up at around 7500 strength or around 75% strength at a minimum.

I buy the Bonaparte numbers. From this example you can see that you would arrive at a very high strength even after marching through enemy territory for two months.

But we can use whatever. I think the games we had with Wellington some guys who didn't know you could see the attrition in your supply report tab were asking if march attrition was even on.

[:D]

[Marshal Villars]

Okay. Then it is Wellington.

Thanks for everyone's help. [&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o] This is an interesting process!

[Marshal Villars]

Mus,

I see what you are saying about the losses not being as high for a 2 province march as a 3 province march, but I am still trying to make these two province march numbers "jive" with the Poltava numbers. And Poltava puts me at 6%. Or? Am I doing the math totally wrong? I would love another guess based on those numbers.

[Mus]

The Poltava example you gave he would have left with 5 divisions at nearly full strength and arrived at about 30% strength or around 15,000, which would require you to probably be out of supply and marching through snow, even at Bonaparte.

I will have to go find my graphing calculator later tonight and start crunching some more numbers about the Poltava scenario.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars
Nevermind. I did it. The answer is about 6%. In a brutal, winter campaign though unforgiving and unfriendly country.

You are doing the math backwards or is it just me.

You want to Start at 42 and end up at 14. Now I have to try to remember how to do a linear regression.

[:D]

[Marshal Villars]

Interestingly, I lumped the disease losses in with "march attrition", and I think that makes the calculation of approximately 6% too high!

I know that that proposal was backwards, but I thought it would be easier for someone to think of that way.

When I redid the calculation going the right way, I came up with a lower % rate of 5.75% losses per month (I think! I actually graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree--13 YEARS ago, but have forgotten how to do most of the math!).

Can anyone confirm my calculation?