allan_boa
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Battle results

Mon Sep 14, 2015 4:54 am

Battle results sometime are quite strange IMO.
For example, there will be a very small difference in terms of losses and the victory will be given to one of the two fields instead of a "draw" which in my opinion would be justified. I mean the number of losses seems not significantly superior in any side so why would they be granted with a 'victory', even a marginal one ?
And also, and correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't seen a scale of the magnitude of the victory/defeat (minor victory, total victory, debacle, etc.). No?
What do you think ?

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Philo32b
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Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:04 am

You can get a sense of the magnitude of defeat/victory from the NM adjustment after the battle (this can be a little wonky, too, but is justified for the most part; NM adjustments reflect how your country's citizens respond to the battle, so it is not infallible). As for odd battle results, usually the side that has the greater losses loses the battle, but not always. Sometimes there are pyrrhic victories, which is as it should be, in my opinion. Sometimes in the chaos of war the side that has taken less damage still retreats. If you turn on the error logging you can dig into the log file after a battle to try to understand more of what happened. (You might want to focus on a small battle, to not get overwhelmed. There are a lot of metrics to take into account for each battle.) Or you can sometimes piece together what went wrong by the reports from the battle results, such as the number of failed morale checks by individual units.

Even with unpredictable battle results, if you do the right sorts of things a general should be doing going into battle, you will tend to get the battle results that you want to see most often. I have always liked how the Athena battle engine is an unpredictable black box that still rewards good military behavior.

allan_boa
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Sat Sep 19, 2015 6:05 pm

I'm definitely not convinced by the battle results. And I hardly see impact in the NM.
Most of the time it's obviously a draw but without clear reasons the victory is attributed to one side or the other. And also, there should be a scale in the magnitude of the victory, with different strategic impacts. At least : Marginal victory, status quo, major victory. With different implication on the map (retreat, status quo, etc).
Or do I miss something ?

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Philo32b
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Mon Sep 21, 2015 1:33 am

You said that you hardly see an impact in the NM. If you see any NM being awarded at all that is a sign that it was greater than a marginal victory. Marginal victories carry no NM adjustment. The greater the victory, the larger the NM awarded. Of course, as I mentioned, NM is how your citizen's perceive things.

I have seen my share of odd battle results from several of the AGEOD games, but for the most part they make sense. And since they make sense most of the time I have been happy to attribute the occasional odd result to the craziness of war.

allan_boa
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Mon Sep 21, 2015 1:53 pm

Ok but wouldn't be easier to build a scale and write if the victory is marginal or not ?

Other question, why when the defeat is obviously marginal (same army size and losses similar but very slightly higher) my army is routed out of the province ?

HeinzHarald
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Mon Sep 21, 2015 10:45 pm

allan_boa wrote:Ok but wouldn't be easier to build a scale and write if the victory is marginal or not ?

Other question, why when the defeat is obviously marginal (same army size and losses similar but very slightly higher) my army is routed out of the province ?


While I'm not certain I think cohesion, morale and amount of supply plays a role in this.

Regarding losses it's quite common in real life for the victor to lose more men, especially if they are assaulting a defensive position. So this makes sense to me, though I can't say if this is the logic the game uses.

allan_boa
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Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:36 am

OK but what I say is that in my opinion, when losses are comparable, there should be a status quo, ie the 2 armies stay in there position instead of been routed when their losses are small compared to the opponent's. It seems in the game that if you lose +1 man (I exaggerate of course), then your whole army is routed to the next province. More than strange IMO ...

Baris
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Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:29 pm

Battle results fair in my opinion. Just you should watch defensive battles and bring more artillery than usual. Losing strenght points is already punishing than morale loss.

HeinzHarald
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Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:19 pm

allan_boa wrote:OK but what I say is that in my opinion, when losses are comparable, there should be a status quo, ie the 2 armies stay in there position instead of been routed when their losses are small compared to the opponent's. It seems in the game that if you lose +1 man (I exaggerate of course), then your whole army is routed to the next province. More than strange IMO ...


What I'm suggesting is that if your troops are in worse condition a certain amount of losses is probably more likely to cause a retreat out of the region than if they are in better condition (with the same losses).

And I'm sure posture plays a role.

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Konrad von Richtmark
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Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:52 am

Most such battles that were close in terms of casualties ended with one side retreating, leaving the other in control of the field and thus, by convention, as the winner. The battle might have looked close based on the numbers, but with the retreating side being close to breaking. Thus, it retreated rather than risked turning the casualty count turning lopsided or total annihilation. Whereby the side holding the field gets the strategic gains of holding the area while the other side leaves it and interrupts whatever he was doing. Such an outcome is entirely correctly classified as a victory for the side left holding the field.

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