Observations

[Zoetermeer]

Two things I've noticed in my admittedly little experience with the game (with AI on normal difficulty) - these aren't necessarily criticisms, just things that stood out:

1) Playing as the CSA, it seems like I've been able to field unusually large armies, at least for the South. I calculated that my ANV has over 128,000 effectives (I didn't count for my Army of Tennessee, but it's in pretty good shape too). This seems awfully high output in terms of raw numbers of soldiers for the Confederacy. Is there a difficulty setting or something that will reduce this to a more realistic level?

2) In more than a few engagements, the disparity in casualties is unusual - sometimes can be in the neighborhood of 4 CSA to 4000 USA, for example. Even in cases where I only lose 1000 and the Union loses 8000 seem pretty unlikely in a historical sense.

Both of these things might be a product of me playing the game on too easy a difficulty level...

Also - is there a way to get to something like a battle history report, that shows you all the engagements of the war and the casualty numbers, etc.?

[keith]

i have had this problem also, although as i have said in another thread i have just endured the most brutal battle, with a total of 63000 casualties evenly shared which seems far to high, btw you can see the total casualties incurred in the war for both sides on the objectives log

[Pocus]

tweaking the battle engine is a sensitive matter, we are doing that each update, but starting with 1.04, we will expose variables to the modder, so they can do their own tests.

[Stonewall]

Army sizes on both sides are ahistorically alrge. This is due to the nature of 1000 man regiments being commonplace on both sides. However, since it affects both sides, neither side is advantaged or disadvantaged. Its a wash in terms of gameplay.

I've fiddles with regiment sizes and 600 man regiments seem to provide excellent results in terms of numbers.

[Zoetermeer]

How do you do that exactly?

[Pocus]

problem is that many regiments had a nominal strengh of 1000, even if very theorical this is the correct number.

[runyan99]

problem is that many regiments had a nominal strengh of 1000, even if very theorical this is the correct number.

True on paper perhaps, but regiment size is something you might want to eventually consider adjusting to more reasonable historical value, be it 600 or 700 or 800. Only an occasional fresh and green Union regiment was likely to ever go into battle with 1000 men.

[Jagger]

By the time of Gettysburg, even 6-7-800 man regiments were unusual for the North and probably the South.

[veji1]

Well I think it is also a matter of how we play : PLaying the CSA against the AI Union, one can easely stack up all his forces on the front line because the union hardly ever invades the coasts... Now imagine you have to keep about 3 divs in strength spread around your backyard to defend against coastal invasions : This is already 25-30 000 men you can't bring to the frontline.

Now imagine as well that the Union goes for many more cavalry raids then it does in the game : You will have to have a few cavalry units behind your frontlines as well...

If you add to that the fact that it is too easy to replace losses... I think to emulate the differences between CSA and Union in this departement, reinforcements should be cheaper than replacements for the Union, and the other way round for the CSA :

Say a brigade with 2 inf regts and 2 bty, IIRC it costs 36-22-8 or something like that. Buying the same amount of replacements has the same cost. Now say for the CSA buying the replacements costs 33-18-7, while for the Union it costs 40-26-10... This would lead the CSA to favor replacing and the Union to favor building new units...

[Jagger]

Well I think it is also a matter of how we play : PLaying the CSA against the AI Union, one can easely stack up all his forces on the front line because the union hardly ever invades the coasts... Now imagine you have to keep about 3 divs in strength spread around your backyard to defend against coastal invasions : This is already 25-30 000 men you can't bring to the frontline.

Now imagine as well that the Union goes for many more cavalry raids then it does in the game : You will have to have a few cavalry units behind your frontlines as well...

If you add to that the fact that it is too easy to replace losses... I think to emulate the differences between CSA and Union in this departement, reinforcements should be cheaper than replacements for the Union, and the other way round for the CSA :

Say a brigade with 2 inf regts and 2 bty, IIRC it costs 36-22-8 or something like that. Buying the same amount of replacements has the same cost. Now say for the CSA buying the replacements costs 33-18-7, while for the Union it costs 40-26-10... This would lead the CSA to favor replacing and the Union to favor building new units...

Good idea.