Disastrous battle results

[berto]

"Disastrous battles" is one reason I haven't attempted a serious campaign game of AACW. With my chronic lack of time, I don't want to commit hours of my life to an all-theater, full-war campaign game only to have it blow up on me when and if a "disastrous battle" annihilates my AoP or ANV, say.

[Pocus]

heh. I'll take any victory I can get at the moment. Has someone been tweaking Athena btw? (1.11d)

Do you have the game around? The engine automatically archives the turns for you.

[Heldenkaiser]

Since this is not with the current update patch, this is rather indeterminate. Pocus, had found a bug associated with super fanatic Leaders since v1.10 and squashed it. I would have liked to know if you had found something else, but since you are still using v1.10, it's not easy to tell if it was the previous Leader bug or not. Thanks for the feedback however.

For the casual player (this is my first campaign and my opponent is lucky if he gets two turns a week) it's not easy to tell whether something is a "bug" or intended behaviour and whether it's a part of the game as such or a result of a certain patch situation. Especially since the word, I gather, is that one should *not* patch during an ongoing PBEM. (I believe it was you who said so, or maybe Pocus.)

When I ask / comment / whine about something happening in my game, I am not automatically suggesting that it is wrong and should be fixed. Usually I am just trying to get comments / help / ideas from the community to help me understand the game better.

[Zebedee]

Do you have the game around? The engine automatically archives the turns for you.

Think so Pocus. What files do you need?

edit: save game folder as .rar. It was the only game in there. Drunk me vs Athena. Athena is winning.

http://www.filefactory.com/file/628046/n/1861_April_Campaign0_rar

[Pocus]

Thank, I'll take a look. asap, which means can be long

[tagwyn]

This is not the Middle Ages where whole armies were lost in toto. If 19th Century troops are surrounded or defeated in detail - they surrender. apy:

[Zebedee]

Thank, I'll take a look. asap, which means can be long

If it helps Pocus, always glad to be of service.

[soundoff]

It's a good strategy game, but for the time being this type of result is occuring way too often, making it very non-historical behavior. Berto is correct in trying to find ways to limit the circumstances.

If I'm honest its such totally unrealistic battle results that stops me from rating this game higher than 'good'. Particularly as even the developers do not seem to have any idea why they are occuring which is really worrying.

That they dont happen very often is not very encouraging when they should not happen at all.

P.S. If you look at my 'Earl Grey v Dargeeling' AAR you will see I had a similar result as Zebedee and that was with Grant and version 1.11 vanilla with a fresh install.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[D_K]

Thank you, Daxil. I never use "all-out" except in defending Washington. Never on the attack.

I did go back and reloaded the old turn. It turns out that Jackson had the same strength as Hooker (I wonder why my intel was so badly off :confused , so a disastrous result is probably fine.

Still, losing a third or half of the attacking force would seem disastrous enough and in keeping with historical precedent. Having it wiped out to the last man still feels a bit off to me.

i agree with lensmans post previous to this one. if you notice his intel was all wrong when he attacked. it does not surprize me that this battle went so wrong. if somone has a similar result as this one over open ground, then there would be cause for complaint. his forces were obviously stuck on the wrong side of the river and eliminated. although this seems very dramatic, it should be plausible that this situation "could" happen.

all i can suggest is be very cautious crossing rivers, it would be better to separate your corps and try to flank upstream then direct assault over the river.

[D_K]

actually, thinking on this some more i figure the real tweeking needs to be done with the amount of men that can cross a river in one day, let alone conduct an offensive. it seems wrong that a army of 60,000 men can cross a river so quickly. when lee was retreating after gettysburg did it not take him a whole week to cross the river? maybe there-in is the fix for this situation.

as far as plausability goes, what in your opinion would have happened if the csa could have pushed the union forces back further at shiloh? what if the reinforcements didnt arrive in time? i think that could have been a totally different situation (if that occured) that would have seen the complete ellimination the grants army, they would have been stuck with no-where to go except "andersonville"

just my opinion.

[berto]

As unhistorical as multiple disastrous battle results are in the game, so too is the absolute impossibility of never having disastrous battle results. Look at Vicksburg or Appamattox (even though in the latter case a battle did not occur). Both of those instances if depicted in the game, would have these types of battle results. So to say it should never occur (and to have the game adjusted to prevent it) would also be incorrect and non-historical.

I've always been careful, I think, to allow for "total annihilation" in the form of garrison surrenders. Those of course don't qualify as "bloodbaths".

At Appomattox, Grant outnumbered Lee by, what, at least 5:1? And how low were Lee's cohesion, supplies, etc. by then? We are observing bloodbaths and annihilations at much more even odds, and with robust, well-supplied armies on both sides.

[Gray_Lensman]

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[squarian]

I have posted an instance of a "disastrous battle result", admittedly under an earlier patch, but at much closer odds than 5-1.

In an ideal game on 18th-19th c. warfare, extreme odds should result in automatic surrender, not a fight to the last bullet. In other words, Appomattox-type situations should result in Appomattox-type surrenders, Ulm-type situations should result in Ulm-type surrenders. Unfortunately, I don't believe this game allows for a hopelessly outnumbered force to capitulate (or am I wrong?).

Such extreme cases aside, so far at least under the 11d I haven't seen the absurdly high (70+%) combat losses which I encountered early on. What I am seeing, however, is far more frequent "skirmish" battles - relatively small forces engaging each other three or more times in a turn, often inflicting only a few casualties at a time. This was also observable in Clovis' SFV mod, and it may be that if 11d used the something like the same techniques to limit high casualties as Clovis, it is also getting similar side effects.

[Heldenkaiser]

actually, thinking on this some more i figure the real tweeking needs to be done with the amount of men that can cross a river in one day, let alone conduct an offensive. it seems wrong that a army of 60,000 men can cross a river so quickly. when lee was retreating after gettysburg did it not take him a whole week to cross the river?

IIRC, this was because the Potomac was going high and had made the fords impassible. It did not take a week to cross, it took the river a week to fall to a level where a crossing became feasible.

[Heldenkaiser]

i agree with lensmans post previous to this one. if you notice his intel was all wrong when he attacked. it does not surprize me that this battle went so wrong. if somone has a similar result as this one over open ground, then there would be cause for complaint. his forces were obviously stuck on the wrong side of the river and eliminated. although this seems very dramatic, it should be plausible that this situation "could" happen.

I do agree. I certainly won't be trying this again.

I still think, however, that the *second* day attack of 11,000 men against 50,000 does not make much sense. This is a situation where a leader should call off the attack. (Although I also agree that in the end result these 40 or so elements that became ranged fire / assault casualties on day 2 would have ended up surrendering instead.)

[Coregonas]

I've always been careful, I think, to allow for "total annihilation" in the form of garrison surrenders. Those of course don't qualify as "bloodbaths".

At Appomattox, Grant outnumbered Lee by, what, at least 5:1? And how low were Lee's cohesion, supplies, etc. by then? We are observing bloodbaths and annihilations at much more even odds, and with robust, well-supplied armies on both sides.

A 2,5 to 1 ratio should nearly never end in total anhiliation if a FULL well trenched army is defending, unless the retreat is blocked.

[Daxil]

I've always been careful, I think, to allow for "total annihilation" in the form of garrison surrenders. Those of course don't qualify as "bloodbaths".

At Appomattox, Grant outnumbered Lee by, what, at least 5:1? And how low were Lee's cohesion, supplies, etc. by then? We are observing bloodbaths and annihilations at much more even odds, and with robust, well-supplied armies on both sides.

Correct me if im wrong, but didnt Lee surrender because he was cut-off and surrounded? In this game there is already a mechanic for surrender if fully surrounded by enemy military controlled regions, so in some ways it may not even apply to battle results.

[berto]

Correct me if im wrong, but didnt Lee surrender because he was cut-off and surrounded? In this game there is already a mechanic for surrender if fully surrounded by enemy military controlled regions, so in some ways it may not even apply to battle results.

Yes, and his men were totally exhausted and starved (really not having eaten for days).

[soundoff]

As unhistorical as multiple disastrous battle results are in the game, so too is the absolute impossibility of never having disastrous battle results. Look at Vicksburg or Appamattox (even though in the latter case a battle did not occur). Both of those instances if depicted in the game, would have these types of battle results. So to say it should never occur (and to have the game adjusted to prevent it) would also be incorrect and non-historical.

I'm quite happy for there to be disasters Gray.....but please lets make them historical. In the instances you cite, as you yourself say, one of them was not a battle so its hardly comparable. The other, Vicksburg also resulted in large numbers of troops surrendering. Now in the game battle reports there is a surrender entry but be blowed if ever I see it reach the realistic numbers it would need to in order to justify a 'disaster'.

I suppose the developers response is that I just have to make the mental leap that says the total losses amount to all those killed or wounded, the deserters and the captured and that the surrendered section of the battle report is just another 'flavour' entry much the same as the number of units involved. Trouble is that when you take the 'flavour' items out of the battle reports it seems to me that there is very little left that you can trust.

[Pocus]

Sorry, I don't reproduce the battle. In fact, it does not even show in your log, as there was no losses, but only happened 'on the fly' during hosting for you only. I would believe in this case that the CSA artillery fired one round, hit once a Fed regiment, was not hit by the opposing artillery, then disengaged while the battle range was still high. A kind of fighting withdrawal sort of. The game thus credit the victory to the CSA, as the loss ratio was very high (to say the least) in favor of you: 92/0 ... +oo I think

[Zebedee]

lol thanks Pocus. It does make sense.

[kyle]

I think 60,000 troops lost is plausible across a river.
Lee's Army was teetering on collapse during Antietam from my readings and that didn't evolve a river.
Lee's army was held up I believe by heavy rains, facing capture several times after Gettysburg. Jackson routed an entire corps at Chanclersville, could better execution and stroke of luck killed and captured more? The Union pulled back to avoid being trapped. And as someone mentioned, is it that implausible that Grant might have been forced to fight to the death or surrender at Shiloh. Isn't that what the argument is, should the battle results be depicted as POW's or casualties? And don't forget that some men might actually desert after such a defeat. But in terms of pow vs casualties who really cares, the men are lost. Is anyone really going to make an exchange for those men.
Did anyone actually attack across a river in the civil war? Fredricksburg comes to mind but I don't know enough to say that would count, but look what happened. I think its safe to say most attacks occurred when an army was already over the river. Besides how hard would it be to pick off a bunch of troops walking in columns of threes or fours on a pontoon bridge or an unorganized mob of boats? Perhaps there just needs to be a limit to how many divisions/men can even cross a river to reinforce the point one can't move an entire army over the river at once, unless you're daring...?

[kyle]

I'm quite happy for there to be disasters Gray.....but please lets make them historical. In the instances you cite, as you yourself say, one of them was not a battle so its hardly comparable. The other, Vicksburg also resulted in large numbers of troops surrendering. Now in the game battle reports there is a surrender entry but be blowed if ever I see it reach the realistic numbers it would need to in order to justify a 'disaster'.

I suppose the developers response is that I just have to make the mental leap that says the total losses amount to all those killed or wounded, the deserters and the captured and that the surrendered section of the battle report is just another 'flavour' entry much the same as the number of units involved. Trouble is that when you take the 'flavour' items out of the battle reports it seems to me that there is very little left that you can trust.

The game doesn't necessarily depict "battles", but battles and skirmeshes resulting from operational movement. That's how I view it anyway, groups of battles, and it makes me the happier. And one could view Lee's surrender as a battle, a battle he didn't want to fight. Does it really matter that the surrender took place at a house as apposed to a battlefield? One could say it was over before it began. It is definately a strategic/operational "battle" that was lost. A tactical battle isn't the same thing as a strategic or operational battle