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The mighty Theophilus Holmes became a hero of the Confederacy with his lopsided defeat of General McClellan in a rout at Bowling Greene. In the battle, Major General Ulysses S. Grant was killed in action, cementing Holmes' heroics in the lore of Confederate history.

Looking at the casualty totals, this might be an example for the 'Casualty Results Need Tweaking Thread' also.

It looks like McClellan was attacking a superior, entrenched force, and just kept on attacking as the casualties went from 5000 to 10000 to 20000.

well since the beta patch I haven't had lopsided results anymore myself, is it a beta patch game ?

very strange that little Mac did not retreat (or why he even attacked). He was cornered?

Pocus wrote:very strange that little Mac did not retreat (or why he even attacked). He was cornered?

Well... Grant was there too.

Looks like McC was doing an amphibious assault.

Pocus wrote:very strange that little Mac did not retreat (or why he even attacked). He was cornered?

I admit I was surprised when I got attacked there. I had just assaulted the one militia defending the place with almost my entire western army the turn before. I'm somehwat surprised I got to level 200 entrenchments in less than a turn.

McClellan's attack surprised the heck out of me, especially against a Corps with an effective combat power of almost 1500.

Maybe McClellan shot Grant for pressuring him into this attack.

If you look at the starting elements, 100% of the combat elements were destroyed in combat, only some supply wagon elements survived and those probably made up the majority of the 4,500 prisoners taken. I sure hope this isn't a current beta patch game.

Jim

It is a current 1.03 beta game.

THis behaviour seems so odd I guess it is some sort of a bug or glitch...

veji1 wrote:THis behaviour seems so odd I guess it is some sort of a bug or glitch...

My guess is it’s simply a result of the combat engine. Each element stays in combat without regard to its individual loss. Therefore when your force is heavily outnumbered your elements take 100% casualties even before a commander has a chance to retreat.

The combat engine needs a mechanism within it to allow each and every element to make a self preservation route after it has taken about 20% loss. That way even if your force is outnumbered 20-1 your units will route before the incoming massed firepower simply wipes them out before any leader checks can occur.

Jim

but that was taken care of in the beta patch to some extent (check the readme), so if this is game with the beta my guess is for a bug that had the Union consider itself cornered or failed to activate the new triggers of whatever...

veji1 wrote:but that was taken care of in the beta patch to some extent (check the readme), so if this is game with the beta my guess is for a bug that had the Union consider itself cornered or failed to activate the new triggers of whatever...

The patch simply allowed leaders to retreat when x% of casualties are taken. But that retreat check has to be reached by the engine for the retreat to occur. If your force is wiped out in the first round of combat (as I assume this force was) your leader won’t have a chance to retreat in time as I assume the retreat check is made after each round of combat.

The combat rounds themselves need some kind of mechanism to allow elements to survive. Without one you’re always going to have a situation where too many casualties get taken in lopsided battles like this.

That or simply tone down casualties caused by a factor of 10 or something so it takes far longer to build up enough casualties in a fight to completely destroy units like this and leaders will then have a chance to make a few retreat checks first.

Of course the problem with this second option is too many elements will still be getting destroyed as the leader looks at total force strength and doesn't care about individual element loss levels.

Jim

if MCC is landing, this is normal, he can't retreats. If not, there either we have a bug, or there is something that prevented him from retreating. The new rule in 1.03 is that when a force suffers too much, it wants to retreat... and in this case, MCC is also overwhelmed, so I don't see why he would not retreat, unless he can't.

there is also a pre check before firing a single shot (retreat before combat). MCC either failed this one, or could not retreat.

wow, How a long is a round of combat ? 2 hours I guess since the skirmisher and HotHead traits are made for these 2 hours... Then I agree something is wrong if you can kill 20 000 in 2 hours... But I'll wait for Pocus' take on what might be the explanation.

send me the save, we are discussing things without enough details.