#$#*^ WTF!?? Combat Results, or What Actually Happened™?

[Stauffenberg]

At some point most of us will end up playing a bit slapdash, against a pbem opponent or Athena, and you really cannot do that with this system or it will blow up in your face, often with fatal results. You can even be playing very carefully...
Athena, you femme fatale...

It is a tremendously unforgiving combat results generator here, the "worst" I have ever seen, with insult added to injury in the fact that the battle results that occur are so damned arcane. It's like being in a command tent with all these dusty dispatch riders riding up with fragmentary bits and pieces of the Big Battle that is just over those hills in the next valley. You can hear the continuous booming of artillery, even smell the powder, but your one fixation is: "what the hell is happening?"-- the thought that crosses every gamers' mind in this simulation the first time you get a battle result. In fact it might be the finest dash of realism delivered by the game, putting you exactly into the britches of a Burnside or a Bragg as you struggle to piece it all together like a tarot reading from all those arcane icons strewn below the dismal report telling you that you suffered a defeat with 14,436 men lost to your opponent's 5,256 (and knowing the "numbers are flavor" doesn't ease the pain does it).
Oh, and -11 NM to make it really bite.
Oh, and General Stuart got himself killed.
And you still don't really know What Actually Happened™, EH?

I invite players to post their most egregious battle results here, in the interests of furthering an understanding of What Actually Happened™. Or else of deepening the mystery.

[Ethan]

Cool thread, Stauf!

I'm sure we'll see some really strange results.

[Captain_Orso]

What this game really needs is a concise, readable, understandable battle report. The actual battle reports present too little and too much at the same time. Professor Taus at the Technical University of Vienna once said, "we are drowning in information and thirsting to death for knowledge". This is a very fitting statement here. I don't need to know at whom each and every unit fired and whether a hit was achieved or not. But a round for round summery with a list of modifiers -- which leader lead, what terrain was used, groupings of units (is there actually something like that or is it all one long front? I have no idea) -- and a summery list of firing and hit units with an end status would be awesome.

Absolutely sterling would be not only a summer list, but a graphic display in which I could click on a unit and see what it did in which round of battle so that I could understand why maybe a Rodmann did not engage, or why a division of cavalry got wiped out during a battle.

But even without this knowledge there are some things in which I cannot understand what the game is trying to tell me. In a recent game the Union had G.Thomas with a corp of 4 divisions besieging Nashville with a fort and J.E.Johnston inside defending with a division sized force. Pope was in the same region with French and a siege artillery. Since Pope starts the game as a Maj.Gen. I assume he had seniority over Thomas, although both had the same seniority levels reported. The CS sent G.Smith's and E.K.Smith's corps in to relieve the siege with a total of 6 division between them, making for a total of 7 CS division vs Thomas' 4. These were the results:



I'm not complaining that Thomas won the battle, but that it seems that the CS persisted in running up against Thomas' entrenchments even after horrendous losses had be taken. Even Burnside didn't commit this kind of mindless atrocity at Fredericksburg. As poor of an army commander as he was he eventually saw the folly of running regiments against entrenched troops and broke off the attack preventing even worse losses.

I actually broke out this turn from the game to analyze what had happened and reran the battle 10 times. Five times without changing anything and five in which I tried to tweak the CS move into the region to lessen losses using my knowledge of both sides, which a player during the game would never have.

The results were that three times the losses were somewhat less -- the smallest being 19,500(!!) infantry casualties --, twice pretty close to the same as the original results, and five times even worse casualties, with twice having one of the Smith's corp entirely wiped out except for artillery!!!

This is comparable to Hood's horrendous campaign on Nashville -- how fitting -- except that Hood had only half as many troops as Thomas and there were battles on a number of days and not just one. This I just cannot understand.

[Stauffenberg]

What this game really needs is a concise, readable, understandable battle report. The actual battle reports present too little and too much at the same time. Professor Taus at the Technical University of Vienna once said, "we are drowning in information and thirsting to death for knowledge". This is a very fitting statement here. I don't need to know at whom each and every unit fired and whether a hit was achieved or not. But a round for round summery with a list of modifiers -- which leader lead, what terrain was used, groupings of units (is there actually something like that or is it all one long front? I have no idea) -- and a summery list of firing and hit units with an end status would be awesome.

My thoughts exactly. I know early on there was an add-on little program someone posted along those lines but I have not heard much else about it, or if anyone is actually still using it...

In a recent game the Union had G.Thomas with a corp of 4 divisions besieging Nashville with a fort and J.E.Johnston inside defending with a division sized force.

This battle seems familiar...

I'm not complaining that Thomas won the battle, but that it seems that the CS persisted in running up against Thomas' entrenchments even after horrendous losses had be taken.
This is comparable to Hood's horrendous campaign on Nashville -- how fitting -- except that Hood had only half as many troops as Thomas and there were battles on a number of days and not just one. This I just cannot understand.

I know for a fact Johnston and his division sized force in the fort in Nashville were set on 'defend at all costs", the idea being to hold on until the cavalry arrived in the form of two corps who had been wrong-footed in the region directly south of Nashville (playing with hard activation setting--far right).

I'll leave it to Orso to prove it, or someone else, but my strong hunch is that Johnston's combat stance somehow trumped all other formations under his command and those two CSA Corps did a charge of the light brigade, and against someone like US Thomas, definitely a bad idea.

So: if an Army command with a division is set to hold at all costs in a fort, and two corps under it's command enter that region with standard defend orders, will they switch to all-out attack or hold at all costs themselves?

[Captain_Orso]

8<

So: if an Army command with a division is set to hold at all costs in a fort, and two corps under it's command enter that region with standard defend orders, will they switch to all-out attack or hold at all costs themselves?

Neither, they go to Offensive Posture when entering the Davidson TN region, because the region has more than 5% enemy MC, namely, 100%. You can see it in the illustration above. On the CS side the last battle-icon on the right -- not the leadership modifiers -- that looks like this [>●] in orange. That means that at least some, most(??), units in the battle on the CS side were in Offensive Posture. If they were in Assault Posture the icon would be red and look something like this [>>●].

[Stauffenberg]

Oh well if you say so. leure:

I assumed they reverted to offensive. Really I was just attempting to match up the outrageous losses with some sort of rationale that didn't involve my having to prove it; i.e. the losses LOOK like they all-out attacked, ergo they might have. Oder?

This brings me to a larger conclusion I am gradually coming to having played this challenging beast for a year now: the overall combat results would benefit from the bell curve, used in academia, as a mechanism to moderate the results.

In the real world losses like the battle above, nevermind the NM penalty, would have almost certainly resulted in the overthrow of the Davis government in Richmond, and certainly the head of Johnston on a pike.

I think it's clear that the whole NM gain and loss matrix on here has its flaws to be sure, but at least you can be sure the same applies to the other player. But the losses DO seem outrageous compared to actual historical results. Here are the 10 costliest battles of the war in descending order of total losses magnitude:

Gettysburg, 1863:
Casualties: 51,112 (23,049 Union and 28,063 Confederate)

Chickamauga, 1863:
Casualties: 34,624 (16,170 Union and 18,454 Confederate)

Chancellorsville, 1863:
Casualties: 30,099 (17,278 Union and 12,821 Confederate)

Spotsylvania, 1864:
Casualties: 27,399 (18,399 Union and 9,000 Confederate)

Antietam, 1862:
Casualties: 26,134 (12,410 Union and 13,724 Confederate)

The Wilderness, 1864:
Casualties: 25,416 (17,666 Union and 7,750 Confederate)

Second Manassas, 1862:
Casualties: 25,251 (16,054 Union and 9,197 Confederate)

Stone's River, 1862:
Casualties: 24,645 (12,906 Union and 11,739 Confederate)

Shiloh, 1862:
Casualties: 23,741 (13,047 Union and 10,694 Confederate)

Fort Donelson, 1862:
Casualties: 19,455 (2,832 Union and 16,623 Confederate)

Conclusions:

--only a few times was the loss disparity even 2-1 against.
--only the battle of Gettysburg in the entire war ever saw losses of 28,000+ for one side.
--not once was such a loss suffered at a 1-6 loss ratio against the other side.

I would like to suggest that a future patch bell-curve the loss results to reduce the present likilihood that you can pretty much lose the war in an afternoon with results like the above. Losses should never exceed 2-1 against for example for large battles (only).

*runs into the bomb-proof to await the response. ompom:

[Stauffenberg]

arty:

Cool thread, Stauf!

I'm sure we'll see some really strange results.

thanks Ethan... stay tuned! arty:

[GraniteStater]

What this game really needs is a concise, readable, understandable battle report. The actual battle reports present too little and too much at the same time. Professor Taus at the Technical University of Vienna once said, "we are drowning in information and thirsting to death for knowledge". This is a very fitting statement here. I don't need to know at whom each and every unit fired and whether a hit was achieved or not. But a round for round summery with a list of modifiers -- which leader lead, what terrain was used, groupings of units (is there actually something like that or is it all one long front? I have no idea) -- and a summery list of firing and hit units with an end status would be awesome.

Absolutely sterling would be not only a summer list, but a graphic display in which I could click on a unit and see what it did in which round of battle so that I could understand why maybe a Rodmann did not engage, or why a division of cavalry got wiped out during a battle.

But even without this knowledge there are some things in which I cannot understand what the game is trying to tell me. In a recent game the Union had G.Thomas with a corp of 4 divisions besieging Nashville with a fort and J.E.Johnston inside defending with a division sized force. Pope was in the same region with French and a siege artillery. Since Pope starts the game as a Maj.Gen. I assume he had seniority over Thomas, although both had the same seniority levels reported. The CS sent G.Smith's and E.K.Smith's corps in to relieve the siege with a total of 6 division between them, making for a total of 7 CS division vs Thomas' 4. These were the results:



I'm not complaining that Thomas won the battle, but that it seems that the CS persisted in running up against Thomas' entrenchments even after horrendous losses had be taken. Even Burnside didn't commit this kind of mindless atrocity at Fredericksburg. As poor of an army commander as he was he eventually saw the folly of running regiments against entrenched troops and broke off the attack preventing even worse losses.

I actually broke out this turn from the game to analyze what had happened and reran the battle 10 times. Five times without changing anything and five in which I tried to tweak the CS move into the region to lessen losses using my knowledge of both sides, which a player during the game would never have.

The results were that three times the losses were somewhat less -- the smallest being 19,500(!!) infantry casualties --, twice pretty close to the same as the original results, and five times even worse casualties, with twice having one of the Smith's corp entirely wiped out except for artillery!!!

This is comparable to Hood's horrendous campaign on Nashville -- how fitting -- except that Hood had only half as many troops as Thomas and there were battles on a number of days and not just one. This I just cannot understand.

While I cannot mouseover certain units and symbols, thus having less than the desired info, a couple of observations:

* The Union had 16 Supply elements to 8. This makes a difference; not tremendous, but the more Wagons available, the better.

* The Union has siege artillery; I'm not looking at the picture now, but a diffrerence in range can be telling and even decisive.

* Fortifications above 100 can be daunting; also, I note "Fort Davidson". Were the Union troops in a level 2 Fort, i. e., a built Fort? Those can be Really Bad News for attackers.

Further notes: all the battles you list in the subsequent post took place on more than one day, except for Antietam. Remember that Casualties are not just Deaths. Without looking at the elements after the carnage, one cannot see how much redlining you suffered. Granted, you had an impressive number wiped out, which led me to suspect you attacked a Built Fort that had siege arty in it; if the Union had a good number of Parrots, Rodmans, etc., also, compared to you, then the cannonballs were a-flyin', mostly in your dorection, and possibly much before you could reply effectively.

A wild surmise might be that one should not have attacked this place.

NOTE

Now that I see, it, the icons show that you outranged the Union. Hmmm...methinks that yes, you were attacking a Built Fort that had siege arty with Pope, a Siege Guy, in overall command. I don't know that those, in tandem, work together for a fact, but something tells me you broke your shiny army against a brick wall.

[MagnumPT]

Excellant post Stauffenberg.

In the real world losses like the battle above, nevermind the NM penalty, would have almost certainly resulted in the overthrow of the Davis government in Richmond, and certainly the head of Johnston on a pike.


Conclusions:

--only a few times was the loss disparity even 2-1 against.
--only the battle of Gettysburg in the entire war ever saw losses of 28,000+ for one side.
--not once was such a loss suffered at a 1-6 loss ratio against the other side.

I would like to suggest that a future patch bell-curve the loss results to reduce the present likilihood that you can pretty much lose the war in an afternoon with results like the above. Losses should never exceed 2-1 against for example for large battles (only).

*runs into the bomb-proof to await the response. ompom:

Not sure about Davis but surely JEJ. Speaking of head on a pike, what if JEJ had a stroke of some kind, his thought process seriously degraded and his subordinates fearing to take over the command?

This attack should not have been made. Put a division or two, gunboates and coastal artillery etc, and let them starve.

Lets look at Gettysburg, Longstreet did not want Picket to go, he knew it would end in total failure. Longstreet could not say to Lee, no we aren't going to go. Even if he did, I doubt if he would had the pull with the men to override Marse Roberts authority. Now I don’t know if JEJ was the equivalent of Robert E Lee in our timeline. I know none of my games had Robert as the top soldier as he was in our timeline, that would be another thread.

But for sake of argument say JEJ was Marse Joseph. Could his corps commanders have stopped him from this? It is hard to say. I still can’t figure out how Robert E. Lee ordered Pickets charge with all of Lee's experience being at Fredericksburg and Antietam and other bloody battles.

Some tweaks to the algorithms could fix this but why? It not like this type of battle happens several times every game. I have not seen such a suicidal slaughter in any of my games. High casualties on par with the reality yes, even a bit more with my early games attacking practically everything, but nothing like this.

So in my conclusion I say it was an aberration and should not have any additional tweaks done. Just accept it as it was something that went very very wrong and probably lost the CSA the war, a ton of VP and NM and -30 of FI and Marse Joseph his men’s love.

EDIT: I would love a copy of the save game to try it out if possible.

[Captain_Orso]

To quote a very honorable gentleman, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault". I'd been looking at this so long that I didn't realize that you all can't hear the voices in my head too .

Here's the situation (hard activation rules are in affect, long combat delay is in affect):

The South
The Army of the Tennessee under Joseph E. Johnston is locked inside Nashville (level 2 fort) with a number of units equal to about a division but not in a division; the stack is not suffering from being under-commanded. Corp commander G.Smith is in Columbus KY with 4 divisions. Corp commander E.K.Smith is one region to the west of Davidson TN with 2 division.

The Union
Corp commander Pope with a siege artillery and William H. French (artillerist) are in Davidson TN. Corp commander George Thomas in Davidson TN with 4 division. Thomas is entrenched at IIRC level 4. Both Thomas and Pope are locked and in Defensive Posture.

The Move
In the battle above, G.Smith sets to avoid combat and Defensive Posture and uses rail movement through Humboldt KY, Henry TN, Donelson KY, Humphreys TN to enter Davidson on day 7.

E.K.Smith sets to avoid combat and forced march, moves from Hickman TN into Humphreys TN and then into Davidson, entering on day 7.

All hell breaks loose .

[GraniteStater]

So, your opponent is Athena, right?

I don't recall ever being able to see the AI's Posture and Locking for any stack. Can you tell us how you know they were in DefPost & Locked?

Your Move description sounds a lot like being susceptible to defeat in detail. Furthermore, I have never read about any penalties, etc., for unloading from a Rail move, but who knows? The Move, of course, decreases your Cohesion, although much mitigated by the Rail order. Also, the scale icon shows your PWR to be roughly the same; the flavor numbers show about a 1.2:1 force ratio, but that is largely meaningless at these odds, the engine computes according to PWR, frontage, elements, engaged, etc. And, again, it's possible not all your forces participated - the Report shows all units in the Region and does not distingusih between those who fought and those who grilled hot dogs.

I have to say that going by the flavor numbers, the result, though unusual, does not surprise me - a 1:1 engagement where one side is MultEntrenched and had siege mortars in the entrenchment, with two commanders with the Entrench+ icon, one with the Arty+ icon and the other sides enhancements are...Horses.

Sorry to say it, Cap, but there's nothin' to see here, folks. The boys at the business end of the boom-booms got clobbered, but good.

[Captain_Orso]

It's a PBEM game I'm hosting. I asked my opponent if I could go back to analyze the battle and he agreed. So I actually looked at the moves and then played around with them.

The turn before the battle Thomas was actually entrenched at level 2 and Pope at level 1.

[Jim-NC]

So who got smoked? It looks like the boys in Grey lost 3 divisions or so. I would be interested to know which corps surrendered en mass.

Also, as you ran the turn several times, were the same divisions roasted?

[GraniteStater]

It's a PBEM game I'm hosting. I asked my opponent if I could go back to analyze the battle and he agreed. So I actually looked at the moves and then played around with them.

The turn before the battle Thomas was actually entrenched at level 2 and Pope at level 1.

Well enough, but, as you may guess, my 'analysis' rests largely on the scale icon, the entrenchments (no, 200 is not stupendous, 400 is reached often, but the "multipline lines", i. e., above 100 is a diffdrence in quality and degree), and the bonuses. IIRC, the Entrencher bonus is also +1 to D, for example, and the thumping in the Ranged casualties is attributable to the Arty bonus, to some degree.

Any defensive bonus is predicated upon the CSA attacking, naturally. Another example of why I wish the CR showed who the attacker was.

[Stauffenberg]

So, your opponent is Athena, right?

No it's me eating humble pie.
In the interests of getting this thread off to a good start.

[GraniteStater]

I was just focusing on a particular battle. I feel that the CR could be better, but it's not awful or uninformative. The mouseovers are important and one is a bit adrift without them, but from looking at the screen shot, I'm not really surprised.

I have found that a careful examination of CRs pays dividends, especially on defeats. The more I have taken the time to study them, the more I get a better appreciation of when to attack, when to dig my heels in, how much and what to take with me, etc.

Ya see, I wanna get my doctorate so I can win a PbeM. It's truly awful when eight year old kids snicker at you.