Combat Resolution, Hide Value Questions - Battle of New York.

[marquo]

Late July, 1861 MT attacks across the Hudson into New York. New York has 2 stacks not in the city, both at level 5 entrenchment. Milroy has a power of 1094 without command penalty, and McArthur 265 power and no penalty. Here is the starting situation:

[ATTACH]26029[/ATTACH]


Battle resolution report:

[ATTACH]26030[/ATTACH]




a. The raw odds are a bit less than 3:1 though he has bit more than 3:1 in men, and he is attacking across a major river into level 5 entrenchments; so I do not understand - it is as if they mean nothing. Also the losses are somewhat equal, as if the defender has no advantage.

b. Also, and this is not shown in the screen shot, but the CSA attacked both separate USA stacks in one combined battle. Is this WAD? I thought separate stacks even in the same region have to be attacked separately - am I incorrect?



Here us the situation post attack:

[ATTACH]26031[/ATTACH]




a. Milroy was retreated west back across the river rather than a more logical route northeast. I have posted about this before, and I know there is an algorithm, but the algorithm makes this stack cross a river into a semihostile region rather than a more secure and safer route.

b. Why does the stack with Lee's icon have a hide value of 5? From the manual, "Hint: Stacks near enemy territory or troops are automatically detected, unless the region is completely wild (i.e. no structure present). Stacks in your rear areas, however, usually remain unspotted. Some Irregular Units such as Indians, Rangers, etc., are good choices to recon and spot enemy Units doing the same." There are still USA units in New York yet it is as if the large stack is virtually invisible.
What gives???


Thanks

[Michael T]

I have my own questions. Previously in the game I besieged Washington and Marquo moved his capitol to New York. I have now taken New York. But not Washington, but Washington is no longer the Capitol.

But his loss of his capitol (New York) has not affected his morale, I was expecting a very large drop in his morale, just like happens if you lose Washington when its the Capitol. But he has not appeared to have lost any national morale at all. Is this WAD?

[Captain_Orso]

Late July, 1861 MT attacks across the Hudson into New York. New York has 2 stacks not in the city, both at level 5 entrenchment. Milroy has a power of 1094 without command penalty, and McArthur 265 power and no penalty. Here is the starting situation:

[ATTACH]26029[/ATTACH]


Battle resolution report:

[ATTACH]26030[/ATTACH]




a. The raw odds are a bit less than 3:1 though he has bit more than 3:1 in men, and he is attacking across a major river into level 5 entrenchments; so I do not understand - it is as if they mean nothing. Also the losses are somewhat equal, as if the defender has no advantage.

There are few absolutes in this game. Chance almost always plays a role.

During a beach invasion the defender has 1 round of battle with high modifiers. Once that round of battle is over if the attacker isn't destroyed, or hasn't retreated or been routed, the battle develops normally.

The defender most certainly does have an advantage with his entrenchments. But you are being attached at more than 3:1 odds on infantry and that by Jackson under Lee vs Milroy under McDowell.

The South in this case will put far more troops in the line of battle (frontage) than the Union. Basically they have a huge advantage of how many elements can fire at each other in each round of battle. [a purely fictional example to illustrate: imagine you have 10 elements in frontage and your enemy's 20. If every second element on each side scores a hit, your enemy's 20 elements have taken 5 hits, but your 10 elements have taken 10 hits. Now move to the next round of battle. I think you can see where this is going.]

Admittedly in reality your elements on the line will not have taken as many hits as they have scored as per the example, because your elements are far harder to hit than the enemy's, yours being entrenched and defending. But once an attacking element breaks and retreats or routes of of the front line there is still a huge reserve of elements to replace the spot which as evacuated. Your force does not have such a large pool of reserves and eventually the scales can tip on your entrenchment advantage through the sheer weight of the attacking force.

Also, cohesion and troop quality play a large role in how long each element remains on the line and how long the entire force holds before retreating or being routed. Generally the South will have an advantage in quality unit your units have gained experience. So it is often more likely that the South will take equal or higher loses without breaking than the Union, thus maintaining the field and winning the battle.

Also on a quick side note, you have far fewer cavalry than the South. If in retreat or being routed there is a greatrt chance at taking heavy losses through pursuit if you do not have enough cavalry to cover your retreat.

b. Also, and this is not shown in the screen shot, but the CSA attacked both separate USA stacks in one combined battle. Is this WAD? I thought separate stacks even in the same region have to be attacked separately - am I incorrect?

Thank goodness the attacker cannot do this per choice. I'm don't know the exact mechanics, but I assume that your forces starting in the same region have a good chance of defending together, even if theoretically Jackson may have only "found" one stack originally.

Here us the situation post attack:

[ATTACH]26031[/ATTACH]




a. Milroy was retreated west back across the river rather than a more logical route northeast. I have posted about this before, and I know there is an algorithm, but the algorithm makes this stack cross a river into a semihostile region rather than a more secure and safer route.

I think retreating toward friendly troops weighs higher than toward high MC.

b. Why does the stack with Lee's icon have a hide value of 5? From the manual, "Hint: Stacks near enemy territory or troops are automatically detected, unless the region is completely wild (i.e. no structure present). Stacks in your rear areas, however, usually remain unspotted. Some Irregular Units such as Indians, Rangers, etc., are good choices to recon and spot enemy Units doing the same." There are still USA units in New York yet it is as if the large stack is virtually invisible.
What gives???


Thanks

The last point is something that has come up with the new game engine and with which many players are not terribly happy. You will probably still see that Jackson's corp is under Lee, but not what divisions are in his corp; but probably it's relative strength. This is currently WAD.

[Captain_Orso]

I have my own questions. Previously in the game I besieged Washington and Marquo moved his capitol to New York. I have now taken New York. But not Washington, but Washington is no longer the Capitol.

But his loss of his capitol (New York) has not affected his morale, I was expecting a very large drop in his morale, just like happens if you lose Washington when its the Capitol. But he has not appeared to have lost any national morale at all. Is this WAD?

Absolutely not. Please create a thread in the Help improve CW2 forum and include the saved scenario with the "..\{User_Name}\Documents\My Games\{Installation_Name}\CW2\Scripts\" folder.

[Ace]

I'll try to help. It is hard to say what happened just by looking at the screenshot without the save game.

Whenever possible, I try to keep units in the region in the same stack, or in the corps of the same army. Whenever stacks are split for CP benefit, odd results can happen. With one stack being targeted first and overwhelmed and the other coming to its help. When a stack comes out to help other stack being overwhelmed, I do not know if their entrenchments count. So always keep your troops stacked together regardless of the CP cost. If you are the host, make a copy of the game, rewind the turn and try the battle with all Union troops stacked together.

His units could have marines. One marine per division halves river crossing penalty. That and better leadership also could have had impact on the battle.

About Lee's stack having a hide value of 5. It is because, he has no troops in his stack. Lone general have big hide value. I also find this problematic, as army leader should not have so big hide value, hiding combat power of the corps in the same region. It is currently so, and I think it should be revised.

About capital loss not giving a NM loss is clearly not WAD and has to be addressed by the devs.

[Ace]

I forgot one important thing. If he has advanced all the way up to NY, I imagine his NM is twice the size of yours. Higher national morale means better morale of your troops. If your NM is low, your troops will see no benefit in risking their lives for a lost cause, and your lines will break easily. NM (will to fight war) is the most important thing in the game.

[marquo]

Absolutely not. Please create a thread in the Help improve CW2 forum and include the saved scenario with the "..\{User_Name}\Documents\My Games\{Installation_Name}\CW2\Scripts\" folder.

There is nothing in the rules or objective panel which indicates that losing the moved capital causes sudden death or a precipitous loss of morale; the USA paid 10 MPs/$100,000 to move from DC to NY and some FI penalty. Not having an official capital will affect my war resilience (page 16 of the manual). Though a novice I believe the game is functioning as designed - at least as described. The morale bump MT noticed was because I won a naval battle in the Hudson. However, I did not receive any morale for defeating a corps besieging DC and effectively lifting a year-long entrapment (why not?).

BTW, I do not suggest tampering with this because it will only further encourage a Southern All Out in the East Strategy - take DC and then NYC to win every time. Since piling Lee and Jackson together creates an universal acid capable of burning through anything the USA can field, moving DC to NYC prevents an automatic victory - yet hurts the North a lot in the long run.

MT can not bring my morale below 50 by capturing objectives; he can do so by winning battles - he will certainly win by VPs unless there is a miracle.

[minipol]

One a side note, and not trying to thread hijack, but what do the numbers +885 and +850 mean next to "Total inflicted"?
Is that hits, or does the heart symbol represent hits?

[Gen.DixonS.Miles]

Damn man, Why don't you just give up and surrender already? You have no chance at this point! How are you doing in the west?

[marquo]

Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight...oops, wrong war.

[minipol]

The advantage of being in the corner, is that you can now try things out and maybe learn lessons that will be of an advantage in another game.

[Jim-NC]

One a side note, and not trying to thread hijack, but what do the numbers +885 and +850 mean next to "Total inflicted"?
Is that hits, or does the heart symbol represent hits?

That is the amount of cohesion damage. They did 885 and 850 points of cohesion damage to each other.

[minipol]

Thanks Jim for the answer. I wonder though what it tells us. Doing 885 cohesion damage doesn't tell me a lot.
How much damage on what total? Or maybe the number should be replaced by text, telling what the state of the troops where after the combat
or maybe during the combat?

[Captain_Orso]

If you open a Battle Report, or if it's still open during the execution of a turn, if you click on the circle at the top-left you can select to view each phase of the battle:
S: Start
E: End
1-9: Each round of battle fought.
There you can see the general status of your forces at each phase.
If you want to know the exact status after the battle, the best you can do is look at the stack(s) of units during your planning of the next turn.

[GraniteStater]

If you open a Battle Report, or if it's still open during the execution of a turn, if you click on the circle at the top-left you can select to view each phase of the battle:
S: Start
E: End
1-9: Each round of battle fought.
There you can see the general status of your forces at each phase.
If you want to know the exact status after the battle, the best you can do is look at the stack(s) of units during your planning of the next turn.

Awesome, dude! I didn't know that.

[minipol]

Thanks Captain Orso, and my apologies to marquo for the thread intervention