Battle results

[ross_ntu]

Hi

Sorry if this is obvious -I have checked various threads and can't see anything about it. Simple question really - how are conflict results handled? From the pictures it seems like effectively regiments and other units "die". Is this correct? I suppose I'm hoping that it's not the case, as I like the realism of knowing exactly how many men died in a fight- to me it doesn't seem realistic to just lose whole units, as this rarely happened in my understanding. Effectively it seems to suggest that the every man in the unit was killed or injured. Any info would be gratefully recieved, as apart from this worry this looks to be a great game.

Ross

[Primasprit]

Don't worry, the battle system is quite sophisticated.
Take a look to this screenshot: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showpost.php?p=16262&postcount=26
Shown is the outcome of a battle. Each of the NATO symbols represent a regiment, artillery battery or cavalry squadron. In the game these are organized in different larger structures. Each regiment has a certain strength value representing the amount of soldiers fit to fight.
Back to the battle report: The symbols you see in the sections "Killed by fire" and "Killed during assault" stand for completely destroyed regiments, the little hearts stand for a strength loss in regiments which did not cause the regiment to be disbanded. I think also that each heart correspond do a specific amount of soldiers however I am not sure about the exact numbers.

Edit: If you are interested in the battle mechanics don't miss the information in this thread: http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=1024
It is about BoA but it gives you a good idea about the system.

[rickd79]

OK...here's a follow up question.

Lets say The Stonewall Brigade goes into a fight (2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd VA regiments). For the sake of argument, let's say the 2nd and the 4th are completely wiped out, and the 5th, 27th and 33rd take heavy casualties. As a result the user decides to pull the brigade off the front and send them back to a city behind the lines to recover. I imagine the 3 depleted regiments will regain strength, but what about the 2 that were destroyed? From there on out, would the brigade only have 3 regiments? Would 2 recreated versions of the 2nd and 4th become available?
I'm very interested to hear how this work. Thanks.

[Chris0827]

It was almost unheard of for regiments to be destroyed in combat unless as part of a large surrender of troops. The confederates didn't leave us with accurate records but the highest loss rate suffered by a union regiment was the first Minnesota at Gettysburg. Out of 262 men engaged it lost 47 killed or mortally wounded and 168 wounded, a 82% loss rate. It continued to serve until the end of the war.

[ross_ntu]

Thanks for the response. Sorry for more questions, but I am still unsure as to whether individual soldiers are modelled (for example - can you say after an engagement that 221 Union and 126 Confederates were killed or wounded, or is it simply the brigade lost 5 hearts? Sorry if I'm being dense- can't see it anywhere in the links.

Secondly, is it historic to see so many regiments being destroyed? I recognise that at times these units became quite small, but it seems rare in my reading that I have read about units losing such a high number of troops in one fight that they would disband- after all in most warfare a unit will retreat after a certain amount of damage has been done, except in rare cases where they have a position to hold "at all costs" or, such as the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg, charge a larger force- although even then they only lost 3/4 of the men that charged. This kind of event seems to me to be the exception rather than the rule - although I would happily hear a different opinion- my knowledge of the war is not extensive.

Thanks again for replying

Ross

[Chris0827]

I believe each heart represents 50 men so your example would round to 250 union and 150 confederate loses.

[Pocus]

OK...here's a follow up question.

Lets say The Stonewall Brigade goes into a fight (2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd VA regiments). For the sake of argument, let's say the 2nd and the 4th are completely wiped out, and the 5th, 27th and 33rd take heavy casualties. As a result the user decides to pull the brigade off the front and send them back to a city behind the lines to recover. I imagine the 3 depleted regiments will regain strength, but what about the 2 that were destroyed? From there on out, would the brigade only have 3 regiments? Would 2 recreated versions of the 2nd and 4th become available?
I'm very interested to hear how this work. Thanks.

If the nominal OOB of the brigade is 5 regiments, and if you have replacements in your pool (costing each ... a regiment!) then the brigade will fill in with new ones yes. That or you combine the depleted brigade with another, or add an independent regiment (a zouave one if you want) passing in the city. Your choice.

You won't get the 2nd and 4nd regiments, but regiments with historical names.

Each heart represents 50 men for an infantry regiment. We will provide you with an alternate view listing the number of men yes.

As for regiments completely destroyed, you can also consider that regiments falling under 25% of their strength can be agregated into others. Yes we have a system where whole regiments can be killed, more than historical, but the numbers are still being tweaked, and the fact remain that when 2 armies pound, most of the losses are in damaged regiments, not in killed one (except in case of rout, true).

[sage]

Would it be possible to automate the agregation of regiments, so that regiments under 25% actually ARE combined? IIRC, there were many of these 'mini-brigades' later in the war, commanded by a lt. colonel or colonel and functioning more as a single maneuver elelment, despite having several understrength regiments.

[ross_ntu]

I guess what concerns me is that if regiments can be destroyed so easily the game could lose a lot of the connection often built with units in strategy games. If you look at the ACW, one of the key things people remember are specific units- eg 20th Maine etc that were involved in specific actions and gained a reutation. I don't see how you can get connected to units that can be wiped out this easily- effectively it seems that this game has more of an RTS mentality- you just throw nameless units at the enemy without ever really feeling a sense of loss if a unit that has been through a lot loses a lot of its veteran troops, causing it to need new recruits. Sorry if it sounds like I'm slating the game - I've never played it, and would love to think I'm wrong, as it could be the game I've been waiting for.

Ross

[ian]

Well this is a strategic level so I guess seeing down to Regimental level is a bonus to start with, I look on it that we are lucky to get a Regimental feel to the game so that we care about individual units. However the Brigade is the main unit in the game.

I agree that historically losses of whole Regiments was a rarity (not sure if the Rebs lost the whole of a SC Rgt? during Heths advance on G'burg at the railway cutting...ACW purists please correct me...I'm Scottish) and it would be nice if the game reflected this somehow.

How do you program the game to apportion losses across all forces supposedly involved in a battle so it looks realistic and yet still give the result of the occasional catastrophic loss? Might be easier for the game to allow players to re raise the same Rgts although I see that this doesn't look possible from above?

I'd try out the demo of BoA first to see how you get on with losing whole units?

[Pocus]

Ian is right ont he spot. The game is not meant to be played by manipulating elements at the regimental level. They are there, you can see their names, you can even open a detailed window on them to check their experience, but really the basic playing piece is the brigade or division. This is a bonus (big one requiring hundred of working hours). Look at the others ACW games around, past, present or future, and tell me which one who is able to recreate the whole war, but where you get historical names on your regiments?

[Pocus]

back to the main subject, regimental losses. You have to see an abstraction here, which is necessary for the sake of a fluid gameplay, but is not ahistorical either... I will explain: the battle report show you that more regiments than historical can be destroyed into a battle. But for the record, it does not imply necessarly that they are utterly destroyed, they are for most of them reformed, ie they fell under 20/25% of their nominal strength, and are dismissed. And the code do take that into account, because when a regiment is destroyed (= really destroyed or reformed in reality), you get one third of its conscript cost back into your pool, unless you were besieged. So in effect, you do get back 300 men out of the 1000 it had.

[ross_ntu]

I take your point Pocus - I know that it is a lot of work to get regiments working - and as I said originally, my comments were not meant as criticism. Shame though that having put all the regiments the game then doesn't really allow for them to recieve more realistic damage ratios. Not sure how complicated this is? I realise that this really would seperate this game from all others available.

Ross

[Chris0827]

back to the main subject, regimental losses. You have to see an abstraction here, which is necessary for the sake of a fluid gameplay, but is not ahistorical either... I will explain: the battle report show you that more regiments than historical can be destroyed into a battle. But for the record, it does not imply necessarly that they are utterly destroyed, they are for most of them reformed, ie they fell under 20/25% of their nominal strength, and are dismissed. And the code do take that into account, because when a regiment is destroyed (= really destroyed or reformed in reality), you get one third of its conscript cost back into your pool, unless you were besieged. So in effect, you do get back 300 men out of the 1000 it had.

That's a pretty good way of handling that. Even if a regiemnet was to take 100% losses in a battle it could still have hundreds of men on it's rolls who were not present and would return to the regiment. They could be too sick or injured to fight or even be home on leave or temporarily assigned to move supplies or guard prisoners.

[jimkehn]

I agree with Pocus' explanation and like the way it is handled. Just because the regiment no longer shows up in the Brigade, doesn't mean it was destroyed to the last man. Sometimes we get so busy counting the beans we don't enjoy the chili.

Too bad we aren't able to put them in some sort of "cadre" holding box where they can be rebuilt and manually placed back into their brigade. Bet it would be an incredible amount of changing to do inside the program, and I would rather have the game 2 months earlier as is. Especially having played plenty of BoA by now. The game system sure is a sweetheart, Pocus.

Ya dun proud.

[Frost716]

I agree with Pocus' explanation and like the way it is handled. Just because the regiment no longer shows up in the Brigade, doesn't mean it was destroyed to the last man. Sometimes we get so busy counting the beans we don't enjoy the chili.

Too bad we aren't able to put them in some sort of "cadre" holding box where they can be rebuilt and manually placed back into their brigade. Bet it would be an incredible amount of changing to do inside the program, and I would rather have the game 2 months earlier as is. Especially having played plenty of BoA by now. The game system sure is a sweetheart, Pocus.

Ya dun proud.

I think in a Civil War game the beans are the game. I'm really having a hard time getting into BOA becasue of this abstracted battle system. When you think Civil War you think Gettysburg, Antietam, Bull Run etc, and the numbers and details of men killed and what happened to regiments is everything. The battles seem to be made an afterthought and that won't do in a Civil War game. Battles were turning points in the Civil War and in the game they seem to be ho-hum afffairs. I see they are adding some numbers so we'll see but in BOA I really shouldn't have to use a pen and paper to figure out losses in the year 2007. I know many have said well it would add months to the game and we want it now... well, I'm just shocked it wasn't thought of when the engine was started. A Civil War game without battle details is like baseball without RBI's and HR's. I don't care if it takes a full year from now please try and change this for Vainglory, and flesh out the battles system better....and no I'm not asking for tactical battles...but I would like to see the details if the British and Zulus meet up.

[ian]

Yep I agree with you, the beans are definitely what makes an ACW game or any other for that matter. If I see a Napoleonic game I definitely want to see Highlanders in kilts with proper Regimental numbers and affiliations.
However its not the beans which are important in this game but the tin they are in. <g>

I'm optomistic though that bean lovers will still have something to look at. if you look at Barneys AAR you'll see that he shows a Regiment from Schenks Bde. Once Cohesion has been added players should be able to check up on health of each unit if they have the time to do so and want to drill down the OOB that far?

Doing that after every battle could get a bit tedious I admit.

Not sure how much detail the Battle Report will give though? Whats RBI and HR?

[jimkehn]

Ian......RBI is runs batted in and HR is Home Runs.....might I add ERA?....Earned Run Average.

I will agree with you both that the battles are a little light on detail. While, if you read the 1.09 rulebook, there is a lot going on in the battles themselves, taking into account rate of fire, frontage, experience, troop quality, etc., etc......little of that filters down into the actual battle report. I would like to see a battle report like we get now in BoA, with a little button to click in a corner somewhere labeled "Details", and have some sorta more detailed hour by hour report. In this manner, the guys who would want more details (I would be in that number) could select it, and the guys who are satisfied with the battle summary could move on. Remember in some of those electronic encyclopedias, where you could watch a battle, like Gettysburg, unfold. The various brigades would be represented by straight lines, and you could see the lines of the brigades making up a division moving across the battlefield? In this way you could sorta watch the whole battle of Gettysburg play out in a period of about 3 minutes? This would be cool (IMHO), if somehow random battlefields could be drawn out and random battles correlating to what happened within the game's existing parameters could be illustrated through this type of animation.

My point about the beans was not so much not wanting more detailed battle info, but that if a regiment is no longer a viable fighting force, the assumption that it must have been killed to the last man. I just see no reason to jump to that conclusion. I think that some of these issues can be abstracted and justified mentally as simply the regiment lost enough of its force that it was pulled out of the lines and placed on garrison duty until a sufficient number of men were healed/replaced to the point it could be effective on the field. What I meant by counting beans, is that we sometimes get so involved trying to make everything so black and white, so hi definition, that we conclude that if the regiment is eliminated, every last man (counting beans) musta been killed. This isn't necessarily so, in this instance. And that precludes us from enjoying the chili. I have noticed in BoA where a regiment (AACW's Brigade counterpart) has been eliminated, it sometimes returns as a replacement. I've noticed this with Morgan's rifles, for example, and a few others. I think we have a great system, here. That doesn't mean that improvements......such as more detailed battle intel.....can't be made.

[Spharv2]

They've stated before that they will be adding much more detailed battle reports at some point in the future. Most likely, they'll come around for the next game after AACW. But, and anyone who owns BoA knows this already, any applicable upgrades to the system they do are patched into their previous games. There have already been many improvements converted from the AACW beta that have been retrofitted and released for BoA.

So basically, don't worry about it, because the changes you want are coming. They won't make it into AACW from the beginning, but will be there eventually.