Artillery and Siege resolution

[jastaV]

According to Game manual Version 6.2 for NCP 1.03, the amount of artillery strength points in the attacking/defending force, is a factor influencing Siege
Value & Siege Resolution Value (SRV).
I wonder if all artillery units are considered, (horses-artillery included), and if both Corps/Force assigned & divisional artillery units are considered.

What's the actual influence of Artillery units?

I please anyone could help to clarify this point: if possible with an example figuring out number of Artillery units in the opposing forces.

Thank

jastaV

[Pocus]

All artilleries batteries of all forces which are not in passive (for the besieger) and all forces, for the besieged are counted.

Each 30 pts of off fire (besieger) or def fire (besieged) give +1 to the SRV roll.

If you have at least one siege artillery, you also get +1 to SRV.

[Prins van Oranje]

It might seem somewhat pointless posting in a thread about game improvements when all development and modding seems to have halted, but perhaps there is a simple explanation for the question I have.

In assaults on cities and forts, why does the defending army consistently sustain losses that are greater than those of the attacking army? Many times I expect the city to fall, but I also expect the attacking army to pay a high price. And yet only on rare ocasions are the losses equitable, at the least. I would expect the attackers to usually sustain far greater losses.

[Pocus]

You must have much more artillery because it is often the attacker which is bled to death -- except if the city is breached.

[Prins van Oranje]

Having thought more about it, is it possible that POW's are muddying the waters? Say a 30,000 strong army attacks a fort with 5,000 defenders. The actual combat might have resulted in losses of 3,000 attackers and 1,000 defenders, but because the assault is victorious the remaining 4,000 souls of the defending army surrender, which is then added to the total losses of the defending army; thus making the total losses of 3,000 attackers and 5,000 defenders? Does this sound plausible?

[arsan]

Yes, i think its what you say.
There are prisoners included on the battle resolution engine, but they function better for the occasional surrender on an open field battle, where a defeated army can retreat, but don't work that right for cases of mass surrender of cornered forces.

As i understand the problem, in an assault, the attacker will surely suffer more casualties than the defender (specially if the fortification is not completely breached) up to the point were the heavily outnumbered defenders finally break and try to run... only to discover that the can't escape as they are inside a structure.
From then on, the defenders are completely broken and cornered and will be slaughtered to the last man instead of surrendering "en masse".
Now, on assault where the attacked is repelled before the defender break, you will notice how they sustain much more casualties.

Its something that could use some improvement in future games... someting like making cornered units that break auto surrender instead of being killed to the last man.

The result is the same in the end (the enemy is no more) but it will look better to see them as prisoners on the Battle report instead of normal casualties.

Cheers!

[Prins van Oranje]

You must have much more artillery because it is often the attacker which is bled to death -- except if the city is breached.

So it is possible if you have enough artillery for an army to capture a fortified location with losses less than defender? I would've thought even a defending force that has been pounded for hours still possess a combat advantage over the attacking force. But maybe not...

The result is the same in the end (the enemy is no more) but it will look better to see them as prisoners on the Battle report instead of normal casualties.

That is a good suggestion which would give the combat reports a little more depth. We do usually get informed when POW's are captured - in the message log - but I dont recall ever being notified of this at the end of a siege. I know sieges were bloody affairs in medieval times, when if you resisted you could expect to get slaughtered, but was it the same in the Napoleonic era?