Postures in Battle Report

[Baris]

Hi,

I tried colonial campaign as French. Cladue Pecaudy attacked from south to British Frederick Haldimand in region Tegynagerunte(under british control) at day 6. There were 2 stacks of British army. One of them is locked(defensive p.) and the other one is in defensive posture also. In battle report it was showing one side the attacker as offensive and the defensive force as defensive postures as usual. In the same turn from the east, the army of Marquis de Montcalm(French) attacked seperately to Frederick Haldimand at day 10 but this time showing both sides as defensive postures. Is it graphic error? 2 defensive postures dont have battle, In ROP when armies were entering foreign land they were switching to Offensive posture.

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[lodilefty]

If you hold the mouse over the icon in Battle Report, the tool tip states:

"At least one Army/Fleet had a Defensive posture".

"At least" does not mean "All"

AFAIK, the units moving in will switch to offensive if the region is enemy controlled, but can switch quickly to Defensive if Cohesion is low.....

Nobug that I can see from your uploads, but I would need the previous turn files also from \Backup1 (assuming you haven't processed another turn) to see the action and posture settings.....

[Baris]

Thanks Lodilefty for your quick response , I didnt think it was a bug(just gaphic error perhaps) because i thought two defensive armies never have any battle,
there was up to 25 backups

I hope it is the correct one.

[Baris]

I reload the previous turn, apart from other 3 units only regular infantry unit has half cohesion(2 elements) the others are full. So is it enough to go to defensive posture?.Both armies of mine were in offensive posture before turn. Wiki says that at least one stack must have offensive posture to initiate battle? I must be missing something..

[lodilefty]

I think the issue is the poor supply state of the Montcalm force, combined with the low cohesion of the regulars.

They start the move to Ft Niagra with only 1 turn supply remaining, and no supply wagons, so this exacerbates the cohesion losses from the move. Then, they immediately retreat and switch to passive/defensive. Retreat/rout can be triggered by any number of weaker/non-cohesive units in a group.


I'm guessing the battle report can't quite "keep up" with the quick switch from attack to retreat in this case.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

By the way: this is am excellent example of WIA's sensitivity to the effects of logistics!

[Baris]

Supply shown during battle as 84 (French) against 100 (British) while ammunition is better for French as 100% against 81%. that British have.

Ammunition can be more scarce than suppy in this game than ROP I observed, Generally I find myself lack of ammunition more than lack of supply.

As you said low strenght and cohesion units must cause quick retreat of forces. Both militia and regulars lost one element after unsuccessful retreat.It is a realistic result of course. I just tried my luck for attack, I was nearly sure that they were going to be destroyed. Supply rules are very harsh compared to Rop and it needs more careful planning, Also replacements are more scarce.

Frontage rules i read that only certain number of elements engage in combat in specific terrain, So as there were a discussion in other forum about merging elements ,in this case it is necessary because all the 4 militia elements had very low number of men(in each seperate element) prior to battle. But that's another discussion

Thanks for updating online manual of WİA.

[Baris]

Another example of changing postures I have observed in Colonial campaign as British,

Abercromby's army coming from Oneida to Oswego harbour(12 days) with full supply and ammo and about 90% strenght units. (Artilery only missing 2 elements but has full strenght elements). Start of the journey he was set to offensive postures ended up defensive posture in destination. After the battle he was in full supply and 3/4 ammo left. In the end 2 defensive armies had a skirmish, but why Abercromby set to defensive even he has full supply and very healty units? Abercromby has a an artilery also but they are crossing a river. Enemy has some ships assisting. I wonder artilery made any difference as the battle is in the woods. And whats the impact of ships on the battle.


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[Baris]

In 1812-1815 PBEM Campaign as British Prevost(5-3-4) is sieging Platsburg with artilery for few turns. I Changed the posture to defence before the turn. On the next turn my opponent(wilkinson 4-2-2) attacked my force with double size army and my posture changed to passive automatically during the battle. In the same game I was attacked with 3 times more than my army in niagara my stance was in defensive posture(attack posture before the turn) and I was successful in defating and continuing the siege. I prefer Prevost to be in defensive posture as he has 4 defensive rating and more strategic rating than the attacker. He was in full supply. He only took 4 hits though after retreat.

Can post save game if necessary.

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[Narwhal]

Ahah ! so that's the result of that battle. Great ! I was not too sure of my success.
My army was in "Massive attack" (the highest sort of attack) order BTW.

[lodilefty]

Please post the Saved Game...

[Baris]

Not so fast Narwhal !!

Here is my save game Lodilefty. He only took 4 hits after retreat so it was somehow succesfull but.. I just try to understand the reasoning behind posture changes in just some situations, Thank you

Edit: I watched at the replay Prevost retreated at day 14 without engaging, at day 16 supply wagon(passive posture) engaged the enemy and it was destroyed, Battle report was showing still Prévost's picture in the battle report so that was misleading maybe. so thats ok.

[lodilefty]

Heh, When I execute the turn, Prevost wins at Plattsburg, Wilkinson retreats to Ticonderoga!

Probably because I'm running the latest strings added, etc. All it takes is one setting difference to change the random seed, and give different result in a "neer fowt fite"....

From you description, I think it's WAD. You fight the battle before your supply arrives, so you have some chance of being soundly thumped. Once the retreat starts, you do automatically go into Passive.

Prevost started the battle in Defensive. You'll occasionally see a "flash" of a different ROE at start of turn execution, I think it's the posture you were in the prior turn, before orders.

So, unless we see really inexplicable results, we'll call this WAD...

Thank you for your interest and report!

[Narwhal]

Heh, When I execute the turn, Prevost wins at Plattsburg, Wilkinson retreats to Ticonderoga!

Duh... I was lucky. My whole plan involved Wilkinson winning that battle.