Casualties, pt deux

[Childress]

Haven't, as I posted in the other thread, picked this game up in months but I've been fooling around with it lately. Playing the 1815 scenario I'm seeing battles with amazing casualty reports- sometimes over 80k. There was a single battle in the campaign that approached these numbers- Waterloo. But I'm seeing half a dozen on this scale- or near-over several turns. This is ahistorical and the main reason why I shelved the game in the first place.

This is an greater problem in the earlier campaigns; with Napoleon in charge you get lopsided results, e.g., 35k-2k. Nappy was great- but not that great. I get the impression that that Leaders' combat modifiers still need tweaking. In the 1815 campaign the commander ratings are closer so you get fewer crazy lopsided outcomes- though the carnage is unrealistically high and frequent. In my opinion.

[Pocus]

With the last patch? Yes things have been a bit reequilibrated, but there are more work pending (but too few people working on it, volunteers are always welcome to speed up improvements ).

[Childress]

Yes, Pocus, this is the most recent update. Battle results are more plausible than 1.0, agreed, but still too bloody, IMO. It's a bit of an immersion killer. Are Missing included in the totals? I do appreciate the programming challenges involved in getting it right, though. There are a lot of algorithms spinning under the hood.

Did I mention that the map is a work of art?

[Childress]

O/T, but playing the 1815 scenario it seems impossible to replicate le deroulement of the actual campaign. The French side really can't 'steal a march' and prevent Blucher and Wellington from concentrating. More often than not, Napoleon ends up facing an Allied force of 200K. Or am I missing something?

[Heldenkaiser]

O/T, but playing the 1815 scenario it seems impossible to replicate le deroulement of the actual campaign. The French side really can't 'steal a march' and prevent Blucher and Wellington from concentrating. More often than not, Napoleon ends up facing an Allied force of 200K. Or am I missing something?

It's hard to replicate the tactical subtlety of this campaign at this scale. Ligny and Brussels are two adjacent regions, so units will easily support each other across the border. But then, historically the entire campaign took four days from Charleroi to Waterloo, less than one game turn. In other words, within that time span Nappy did indeed, as he does in the game, face both Allied armies ... repeatedly in fact. So I guess it's fine ... the historical "campaign" was really just too small and happened in a too restricted place to be fun to game at this scale. It's the big picture, across large countries and half continents, where this engine shines. Waterloo is just chrome for this game.

My tuppence.

[Boggit]

Did I mention that the map is a work of art?

I thought that too. It is also has the advantage of clarity.

As to the unit art: It's mostly very good, but I was a little disappointed with the default general artwork - the faces seem pretty featureless. I'd prefer to see this updated so that at least they have a distinct set of eyes, a nose and mouth - much like the default generals in AACW. I'm otherwise very happy with the artwork, but IMO this lets it down a bit - if you added large almond eyes they'd look like aliens! Something to include in a future patch??

(It's a matter of opinion - I prefer the Grenadiers of the Guard with the white trousers, like you see displayed at Les Invalides as opposed to the blue trouser campaign dress - but really that is a really trivial complaint and doesn't detract from the overall good quality of the artwork).


My 2 cents...

[Pocus]

Missing and wounded are counted yes, because 1/3 of your losses are added back into the conscript pool.
The bloodyness is on purpose, it was decided like that by the beta if I recall well. Now if you have counter-arguments... Also you can mod the values if you are not satisfied, in the meantime.

[Childress]

Now if you have counter-arguments... Also you can mod the values if you are not satisfied, in the meantime.

Well, if stragglers are included in the casualty totals, these are much more more plausible. Problem is they weren't back then, AFAIK, only dead and wounded. So the inflated results in NAC, though realistic in terms of temporary manpower erosion, clash with the historical bilan. You could encode a 'Stragglers' column, I suppose. Just an immersion, thing. These are very famous battles. I still maintain results are way too skewed when unequal generals meet.

As far as the Waterloo campaign is concerned, the engine really should allow Nappy to give a pounding to Blucher. from time to time. It's a marquee campaign, after all.

[Bylandt]

Haven't played 1815 yet. But in other campaigs the casualties seem OK. In fact I was sometimes surprised of having to fight the same forces over and over, where the defeated armies should really have desintegrated after one or two severe defeats.

[lycortas]

Hi,

I just installed 1.04 and tried the 1815 campaign.

I did the historical moves as France (To Bruxelles). My troops were set to attack but not all out attack. Battle was ~75,000 French vs ~105,000 British etc.
Total casualties were 131,000!!! 46,000 French and 85,000 Coalition!

I do not know about the coalition but in the French army at the end of that one battle EVERY French cavalry unit was dead. This happens all of the time in this game. As a comparison, of the 10,000 French cavalry that made the great charge into the teeth of a grand battery in 1807, the cavalry suffered 1,500 casualties.

Also, except in a 'surround' situation it was fairly rare for a regiment to be entirely destroyed as they routed or stopped fighting before this happens.

In my modded version i am using a combat defense coefficient of .95 instead of .90. This seems to make the casualties a bit more accurate.

I do think this is the last real problem in this game and as soon as it is fixed this will be a great game. Thanks for your work.

Michael