In both battles my forces were set to defend and were behind trenches just sitting in an area defending. The small forces that entered the areas where my forces were, were probably just moving through, but both attacked and were wiped out to a man in just 1 round of combat.
There needs to be a self preservation routine in the battle engine that will allow individual elements to route long before something like this can occur.
I also think elements are being exposed to too much fire. In most historical battles a regiment might fight one or two different regiments in a day and that was about it. But it appears the battle routines allow single elements to be attacked by 5, 10, 20 or more opposing elements, otherwise I doubt casualties would be getting so high in just a single round.
I see no problem with elements getting attacked by more than one or two elements after many rounds of fighting have already occurred (the battle has been unfolding for a while and tactical maneuvers have had time to evolve/develop), but currently I think far too many elements are allowed to shoot at a single target too early in the battle routines.
I think a fair max would be no more than 2 line elements and 1 artillery can fire at a single element on the first round. Then you could add 1 additional line element for each round thereafter and an additional artillery every second round thereafter.
In both cases I doubt the small forces would have even attempted to engage in real life, so I also think the retreat option in the face of overwhelming odds needs to occur before any fighting, unless the larger force is in attack posture and not behind any kind of entrenchments.
Jim
results of the battles has been mentioned a lot in these forums. There are some perfectly reasonably explanations for the way that the game engine makes these calculations.
