Question about difficulty levels

[fortdick]

I always fight as the CSA, with advanced rules. I have been able to consistently win up to and including the Major difficulty level. However, at LtC, I see some aberrations that got me wondering.

I.E., A.S. Johnston has an army of 56,000 in Memphis, Grant attacks with an army of 52,000, and wins. I make sure all my units are armed and supplied and purchase artie for them as often as I can, but still lose.

How can an numerically inferior army defeat a superior force with fortifications? A.S. Johnston is pretty good as are the Corp Commanders. Why does this happen?

[ericbabe]

I have this nagging bad habit of answering sweeping "why" questions by ending up in a digression on Aristotle.  I am better equipped to explain how the difficulty level rules work, and I hope this will substitute adequately as an answer to your questions.  Each level of difficulty provides a variety of material bonuses to the AI and provides some material penalties to the human player(s).  The effects are generally linear until the "general" levels, at which point the effects become non-linear (generally geometric).  This is a fairly standard type of thing to do in these games, and although I know that some people don't like giving material bonuses to the AI, people who don't like to give material bonuses to the AI can play on the lower difficulty levels at which the AI receives no bonuses.

I have one curiosity of my own: do you think the probability that the CSA should have won the battle you describe should be 100%?

[Johnus]

I forget. What is the "normal" or no advantage difficulty level, Master Sargent ??

[fortdick]

No, I don't expect to win any particular battle 100% of the time, however, when the same kind of "anomoly" pops up several times in a row, it creates doubt. If you were playing craps and saw double 6 four times in a row, you would become concerned that the game was biased.

It is interesting that the programmed nonlinear bonus occurs at the general level and what I am experiencing is at the LtC level. I would really be amazed at that point, I guess.