Terrible battle outcom

[Tordenskjold]

Playing the Union in a PBEM game I ordered my force to approach Winchester. Order was blue-blue, hence I was no commanding them to attack, but defend 2 turns.
My forces counted 34.000 and CSA had 22.000 (reveiled in the battle resolution screen (BRS))
The battle ended i catastrhopy for the Union. 8700 dead vs 2200. The battle resolution screen claims that “At least on army/fleet” had offensive stance. That is not what I ordered and no message about disputed orders was displyed in the message box afterwards.
When the Union entered battle 15% of the units was out of command. The BRS claimed that all units was out of command. I had 3*1 star generals, the same as CSA. So none of the parties had a Corps organized.

I would very much appreciate any qualified inputs on what the heck happened in this battle and If it is the game or me that caused the problem.

[Rafiki]

When you enter a region entirely controlled by the enemy, you are automatically switched to offensive posture.

IIRC, what the BRS says (or at least, what it means) is the 15% of your units suffered command penalties, which is different from being entirely out of command

[Tordenskjold]

When you enter a region entirely controlled by the enemy, you are automatically switched to offensive posture.

IIRC, what the BRS says (or at least, what it means) is the 15% of your units suffered command penalties, which is different from being entirely out of command

Thanks very much for your clarification on the first point!
The second is just my english;o).

But it does not i any way explains why all my units was out of command.... The question still stands.

[AndrewKurtz]

But it does not i any way explains why all my units was out of command.... The question still stands.

If you looked at that stack, did it show a "%" in red? If so, you did not have enough command points for the stack. You had the same number of generals for 50% more troops. So that would make sense that you had some out of command issue.

[Tordenskjold]

If you looked at that stack, did it show a "%" in red? If so, you did not have enough command points for the stack. You had the same number of generals for 50% more troops. So that would make sense that you had some out of command issue.

Thanks for trying to help out, but seems you missed crucial information in my frist Thread.

[Rafiki]

If all your units suffer even a 1% command penalty, they'll get listed in the BRS as having command problems. You say that when you entered the battle, 15% of the Union troops were out of command; are you sure that it wasn't that the Union stack had a 15% command penalty?

[Tordenskjold]

If all your units suffer even a 1% command penalty, they'll get listed in the BRS as having command problems. You say that when you entered the battle, 15% of the Union troops were out of command; are you sure that it wasn't that the Union stack had a 15% command penalty?

The exact phrase in the BRS was:

"At the start of the combat, there where 50 sub units of your side that where not commanded"

When entering battle the % beside the enveloope was 15. The tooltip says when I point at the envelope (last sentence):
"The stack receive 9 Command Points from your leader(s) and need 12 to operate at full efficiency".

[Clovis]

The exact phrase in the BRS was:

"At the start of the combat, there where 50 sub units of your side that where not commanded"

When entering battle the % beside the enveloope was 15. The tooltip says when I point at the envelope (last sentence):
"The stack receive 9 Command Points from your leader(s) and need 12 to operate at full efficiency".

So Rafiki is right: 15 is the malus percentage and not the number of units out of command.

[Tordenskjold]

So Rafiki is right: 15 is the malus percentage and not the number of units out of command.

Yes, I have never said otherwise. But, the Battle Resolution Screen claims that EVERY unit was out of command. You see?

[Clovis]

Yes, I have never said otherwise. But, the Battle Resolution Screen claims that EVERY unit was out of command. You see?

I see perfectly. When your stack is affected by such a malus, ALL UNITS ARE OUT OF COMMAND.

[Mosby]

yeah, I thought that little number, in your case 15%, was a damage modifier for the stack.

[Rafiki]

To summarize:

• There isn't a bug in the command calculations for battles
• The phrasing in the BRS could've been better, e.g.:
  
  "there where 50 sub units of your side that where not commanded" => "there where 50 sub units of your side that where insufficiently commanded" (or something)

Rafiki

[soloswolf]

Each command point you are short gives you a minus 5% penalty to the stack, to a max of 35%.

If they were all part of the same stack on the map, they would all suffer the penalty. The only way to avoid this is seperating them on the map. This would result in you being able to fully command some of your troops and thus avoiding the penalty for them. Try to spread the units out most efficiently among your available commanders. More importantly, keep your valuable stacks fully led, and have your supporting stacks take the penalty.

It really is a judgement call of where you want to place your risk... Evenly across all troops present? Or focus it more towards certain (partially led/un-led) stacks.

Hope I helped/was clear.

[AndrewKurtz]

I see perfectly. When your stack is affected by such a malus, ALL UNITS ARE OUT OF COMMAND.

That's what I was trying to say.

[AndrewKurtz]

Thanks for trying to help out, but seems you missed crucial information in my frist Thread.

I don't think I missed anything... As pointed out by others, if the units are in a stack with a penalty, ALL units suffer the penalty and, thus. to some extent, out of command.

Hopefully others have helped explain it better than I did.

[Pocus]

To summarize:

• There isn't a bug in the command calculations for battles
• The phrasing in the BRS could've been better, e.g.:
  
  "there where 50 sub units of your side that where not commanded" => "there where 50 sub units of your side that where insufficiently commanded" (or something)

Rafiki

Funny, the French and Spanish version are correct but not the English one. Usually this is the reverse (fixed).

[Tordenskjold]

Thanks for your assistanse everyone! It seems all units are affected.
What I don't get is: What difference would it make if the out of command % is 15 or 35? I mean, If 15% affects all units, what kind of difference would 35% make?
Remember, the message was:"At the start of the combat, there where 50 sub units of your side that where not commanded". Which must have been very close to EVERY sub unit I attacked with.

[Rafiki]

The percentage is a penalty applied to various ratings your troops have (not sure exactly which, though), e.g. a command penalty of 35% means that the offensive rating of elements in the units suffering the penalty will be reduced by 35%.

Disclaimer: not too sure about exactly how the penalty is applied

[Evren]

Thanks for your assistanse everyone! It seems all units are affected.
What I don't get is: What difference would it make if the out of command % is 15 or 35? I mean, If 15% affects all units, what kind of difference would 35% make?
Remember, the message was:"At the start of the combat, there where 50 sub units of your side that where not commanded". Which must have been very close to EVERY sub unit I attacked with.

It means that every element in the stack has 15% less chance to score a hit to the enemy. It doesn't mean that your units will fight with 85% efficiency. That is a totally different issue. Your units's chance of scoring hits is not so high in the game, so a 15% reduction effects them in a real bad way. And a 35% reduction will make your best commanders with your best units lose a battle. There's just a little translation issue there.

Edit: The fire and assault values of elements are decreased by 15%, whis is correspondent to the chance of scoring hits.

[Tordenskjold]

Well Evren if you are correct, it seems the case is closed. Thanks!

Well a little to fast: Rafiki wrote: "When you enter a region entirely controlled by the enemy, you are automatically switched to offensive posture".

Does the statement mean that if I play the Feds this applies when I enter a region 100% loyal to the Rebs, or are we talking 100% military controlled by the Rebs?

[turska]

Not really related to the first post, but i had a terrible battle outcom as well.

So... I had a Army of the Potomac (as a USA) camping outside enemy town, i moved a single division to the location as a reinforcements from nearby area and the CSA tried to break my peaceful summer camp. My 50 000 vs CSA's 40 000.

The result was that my newly arrived division got mauled to pieces. Now it only has 4 arty units left and rest of the division were wiped out. Rest of the corps (or units on same area) took zero losses.

Battle result was about 7000-8000 casualties for me and about 3000 (or something) to CSA.

[Tordenskjold]

This might be about frontage, or what the expression is. How many units does actually front the enemy in a battle?
Maybe you should open a new thread about that or examine other treads.

My question still stands. I experienced yesterday that a non active general of mine entered a enemy controlled area (Military controll) and the stance did not change from blue to orange. Both parties had the blue stance and no fight took place. When thinking about it, this has happened a lots of times. So what is actually true?

[Rafiki]

My question still stands. I experienced yesterday that a non active general of mine entered a enemy controlled area (Military controll) and the stance did not change from blue to orange. Both parties had the blue stance and no fight took place. When thinking about it, this has happened a lots of times. So what is actually true?

You had some military control, i.e. more than 5%, and therefore did not automatically get switched to offensive posture.

http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/Posture gives a fair amount of information about postures

[Evren]

My question still stands. I experienced yesterday that a non active general of mine entered a enemy controlled area (Military controll) and the stance did not change from blue to orange. Both parties had the blue stance and no fight took place. When thinking about it, this has happened a lots of times. So what is actually true?

As Rafiki pointed out, if you had enough military control in a region, your stance doesn't necessarily change. But if you had a military contol below 5%, your stance automatically changes to attack during the resolution phase (not in the movement phase, you won't be able to seet this change visually in the movement phase, if that's what you mean), and your forces will try to attack enemy forces in the region. In your example, even if your military control was zero and there wasn't a battle, it can also happen. Maybe your forces arrived late and there was a delay, etc..

Hope it helps.

[arsan]

Not really related to the first post, but i had a terrible battle outcom as well.

So... I had a Army of the Potomac (as a USA) camping outside enemy town, i moved a single division to the location as a reinforcements from nearby area and the CSA tried to break my peaceful summer camp. My 50 000 vs CSA's 40 000.

The result was that my newly arrived division got mauled to pieces. Now it only has 4 arty units left and rest of the division were wiped out. Rest of the corps (or units on same area) took zero losses.

Battle result was about 7000-8000 casualties for me and about 3000 (or something) to CSA.

This is probably a case of separate stacks on the same region not supporting each other.
Bear in mind that the regions are very big and that separate stacks inside a sama region can be miles away from each other and can be able or not (as in your case) to support each other on combat, or at least go to support so late that the battle is over by then.
A pretty usual occurence on the real ACW.
It depends of a die roll and of the delayed commitement option you have selected on the options menu.
What you explain seems to mean that the CSA army attacked only the newly arrived division and mauled it before your big stack arrived to the rescue.
Pretty bad luck for you
Having separte stacks on a region can be dangerous if too near to enemy armies.
Also, you should know that the battle report window represents all the forces on the area, even if some of them (in separate stacks or inside a structure) are not commited at all to the battle.
Its confusing, but seems to be a limitation of the current battle report system...
Hope it helps...
Cheers

[MarkCSA]

This is probably a case of separate stacks on the same region not supporting each other.
Bear in mind that the regions are very big and that separate stacks inside a sama region can be miles away from each other and can be able or not (as in your case) to support each other on combat, or at least go to support so late that the battle is over by then.
A pretty usual occurence on the real ACW.
It depends of a die roll and of the delayed commitement option you have selected on the options menu.
What you explain seems to mean that the CSA army attacked only the newly arrived division and mauled it before your big stack arrived to the rescue.
Pretty bad luck for you
Having separte stacks on a region can be dangerous if too near to enemy armies.
Also, you should know that the battle report window represents all the forces on the area, even if some of them (in separate stacks or inside a structure) are not commited at all to the battle.
Its confusing, but seems to be a limitation of the current battle report system...
Hope it helps...
Cheers

This explains several of my divisions being wiped (and another bigger one escaping unscathed) out in odds that I did not think were *that* bad. Big stacks it is, thank you.

[Tordenskjold]

As Rafiki pointed out, if you had enough military control in a region, your stance doesn't necessarily change. But if you had a military contol below 5%, your stance automatically changes to attack during the resolution phase (not in the movement phase, you won't be able to seet this change visually in the movement phase, if that's what you mean), and your forces will try to attack enemy forces in the region. In your example, even if your military control was zero and there wasn't a battle, it can also happen. Maybe your forces arrived late and there was a delay, etc..

Hope it helps.

Great thanks! 5% seems to be the crucial figure then.