Old Fenrir wrote:Yes, multiple day battles is occured, but mainly whith participation of quite small and poor organized forces.
And, when you playing whith experienced human player, good organization, concentration of forces and large battles are common.
Problem is that exactly large battles with the participation of normally organized forces ending in 1-2 rounds with tremendous casualties. And, what is worst of all, with almost unavoidable annihilation of small divisions and large number of regiments.
This is the problem, mainly. In PBEM, player in fact have no choice, than create as large divisions, as he can, trying to avoid this nasty thing. Which is not good for gameplay and historical atmosphere. Almost unavoidable complete annihilation of large number of regiments, including elite ones, in normal combat (not encirclement or inability to withdraw, not overwhelming superiority of one of sides) - also not good thing.
OneArmedMexican wrote:+ 1
This is something that has me annoyed for quite some time,too.
I understand that in the early rounds of a battle not all units engage. But the longer a battle lasts, the less relistic this gets. Eventually commanders are bound to throw in all the reserves, they have.
At that point it gets unbelievable that a single division takes all the damage to the point of annihilation while other divisions in a stack get away without a scratch.
Old Fenrir wrote:As for historical realism, complete annihilation of entire regiments and divisions was very rare thing in normal combat, maneuver or trench. During several days of battles or even in several hours of battle regiments and divisions may suffer 80-90% casualties, but still survive and subsequently replenished. Complete annihilation usually occurred in the cases of encirclement, or long retreat and pursuit, accompanied by a drop of troops morale and capitulation.
Narwhal wrote:For all practical purposes, a division with 90% casualties can be considered anniliated, as it will have to be rebuilt from scratch. Sure, the "new" division can keep the name, but that's pretty much all.
Old Fenrir wrote:Must disagree with this statement. We should take into account, that most of the survivors - experienced fighters, who form the backbone of military unit. And we should take into account, that much of the losses - it is wounded, who after some time will return to their unit.
In practice, even those military units, which suffered such losses, still remained alive and battleworthy organisms. Here the fighting ability affected not so much from losses, how much from the victories or defeats.
So, complete annihilation of elements in "normal" combat - it is not realistic phenomenon.
Vivid example - the "colored" forces of southern Whites. In the 2,5 years they pass through themselves a number of fighters many times exceeding their staff number. They are constantly engaged in heavy fighting, suffering heavy losses and more than once reach up to the almost complete destruction. However, in the end, they remained same elite shock troops, what they was in the beginning.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote:What are you suggesting? Removing the elimination of elements and changing the way combat works would be a pretty massive undertaking. You'd have to completely change how the economy and production work as well. It's semantics to me whether you have to rebuild 90% of an element or buy a new one.
Old Fenrir wrote:I am suggest make less casualties per round of combat and, therefore, more rounds of combat. What will make distribution of casualties less "extremal" and eliminate abnormal annihilation of elements in combat. Except for the cases of inability to retreat or a large numerical superiority of the enemy.
Do not quite understand the part about the economy and production. In my opinion, they have nothing to do with this problem.
The corresponding correction of combat mechanics and it's possibility - it's a question for the developers, if one of them will honor this subject with his attention.
Leaving aside the question of historical realism, and speaking only about the realities of the game. As for that the replenish of element at 10% strength = buy new one - i don't think so. Elite elements usually is irreplaceable. And element with 3-4 level of experience and a new element with 0 level of experience - it is not the same. Not to mention the loss of NM for the destroyed elements and loss of time on the production and delivery of new elements to the front.
Old Fenrir wrote:I'm sorry, but i must to disagree with the fact, that in reality a 3-4 level experience unit, that gets 90% raw replacements is going to fall to 0-1 experience. The reasons for that I outlined above. In the game, incidentally, as far as I can understand, this moment is reflected close to reality. Ie, the loss of 90% of strength causes loses not 90% of experience, but less. And this is good.
And even without destroyed elements medium size battle may costs 4-5 NM - quite a lot.
Of course, I do not propose to try to move all the realities of our world in the game.This is not technically possible and it would kill the gameplay.
But, I think, there is still a difference between save a player from the separate annoying problem, bringing at the same time game closer to the reality, and to bring down on payer's head an avalanche of 100% of the problems, that leaders during the Civil War faced the reality: antipathies and ambitions of subordinate commanders, from which it was often impossible to achive execution of the orders; interests and moods of various political forces and population groups; changes in morale of the troops, when the troops, wich a couple of months ago has been reliable, decay or fall into apathy and completely lose combat effectiveness; sudden desertion to the enemy of entire regiments; typhoid epidemics, causing losses greater than the heaviest battles; and much, much more, that affected the outcome of the war more than weapons, organization, tactics and strategy.
As to the consequences, that may affect the entire game, - I must confess, I do not see why stopping the destruction of the elements where they should not be destroyed, should lead to dramatic changes in game balance. I do not think that mode will help (the reduction of attack and defense parameters, etc.), because it really would break the balance, making the battles bloodless. Relatively small change in the game engine, which would have made losses in each round smaller, and a retreat - a more lengthy process, would be a healthier option. In my option. As far as this is really - the question to the developers.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: Also, try getting a 4-5 NM result without unit casualties. It's very difficult to do with the current build. It would require an extremely large discrepancy in casualties.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: With shorter combat rounds and quicker retreats, this would be even harder to accomplish than it already is.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: If element losses are reduced significantly, then force makeup would just continually grow. This wasn't the case in the RCW. You'd have to add in significant amounts of what you describe above as being "annoying" (and I'd agree) to maintain balance and prevent continuously growing armies.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: This is the rub. What you suggest is a major change. It would require significant play testing to be properly balanced. "which would have made losses in each round smaller, and a retreat - a more lengthy process" isn't an option without a ton of play testing.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: The retreat system isn't built for this either. How do you pursue an enemy? Where do they go when defeated? You currently can't predict that. These are 15 day turns and you can't redirect in the middle of the turn.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: The replacement system isn't built for this as I stated above in the 2nd paragraph.
The NM system isn't built for this as I stated above in the 1st paragraph.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: So far, I'm arguing completely from a game limitation direction.
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote: Losing whole divisions can usually be traced back to a problem between the keyboard and the chair. Most of the time you see large amounts of elements destroyed is because one side was vastly more powerful than the other. This goes for any Age engine game. It also goes for any battle in real life. The secret is to not let that happen.
caranorn wrote: In RuS the likelyhood of several elements within the same unit being destroyed seems to be higher,
caranorn wrote: though I haven't paid much attention to it (my white russian formations are essentially corps, I don't keep any of the small divisions as they start for more than a few turns).
caranorn wrote: And I also agree with Old Fenrir (the wolf?)
Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne wrote:The problem with that pic would be that you should never frontal assault a force dug into that level. I do think entrenchments are overpowered. I've looked into modding the max entrench down a bit but haven't tried it yet. Nothing to do with the combat round length though.
Return to “Revolution Under Siege”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests