Dixicrat wrote:Are you aware that different types of units have different TO&E? As just one of many possible examples, Militia units have 750 men in an element, while line infantry has 1000. Thus, as far as I know, knowing the number of men in a division is contingent upon the elements which make up that division.
The general consensus among players far more experienced than I is that a Division should consist of 11 Inf, 4 Art, 1 Cav, and 1 Sharpshooter. If you consistantly built all of your divisions exactly the same, then you would be able to "predict" the full strength. But even then, that would only be the TO&E spec, and most likely not the actual strength. The reason is that few units are manned at 100% efficiency. For example, that 750 man militia unit that I mentioned earlier might indicate that for combat purposes its at full strength... but when you open that unit's element details box, it actually reads 739/750.
Now that I've (hopefully) explained that, I'm still puzzled by why you want to know this. How do you plan to use this info?
Thought they had different TOE's but was unsure. I think I am just not reading the pop up box right. Making this way harder than I should.
squarian wrote:I'm just as new as you are but as far as I have discovered, there is no way to "convert" enemy combat power into men until a battle, until the battle results screen shows the totals. The nominal strength of friendly units will show in the unit window if you press [shift].
As I understand it, manpower is irrelevant to the game engine itself, which only considers "elements" (i.e. battalions, batteries, squadrons, etc) and their combat values. For the battle results screen and other in-game manpower references, elements are converted on a basis on 1 element = 1000 men (I think!). This pretty consistently produces totals far too high in comparison to historical manpower levels, and at least one mod (stuggle for a vast future: SFV) adopts a ratio of 1:700 instead.
I'm not especially bothered by it - after decades playing board/paper wargames where units were assigned abstract combat values, AACW's system is second nature. If a Advanced Third Reich Germany corps is rated 3-3, why should a worry if the enemy brigade is rated 22? You get used to calculating combat values rather than manpower pretty quick.
Regarding cavalry - you know about the "evade combat" special order button, right? For raids, I have had good results using that button together with the "defend" combat posture order and the "retire after one turn" (right-most) sub-order.
One question which continues to elude me, however - say I want a cav bde to carry out a delaying role - pretty typical role for the period: think Buford's men at Gettysburg. What's the best setting to carry that out? I have experimented with defend/retire one round and defend/retire three rounds, but have yet to determine which works best.
Think I have figured out what I am doing. I have them set at defend and runaway. Perhaps I should keep those setting along with evade enemy button.