Battle Report Screen

[kwhitehead]

I just learned that the Battle Report screen shows all the troops in the region at the time of the battle not what troops were involved in the actual battle. Is this correct? If so, why? its useless information in terms of understanding what is happening.

The casualties appear to be for the actual battle being reported. Are any of the attacker and defender icons showing information on the units actually engaged or are they for the so called "Initial" forces at the top?

[Copper Head]

I think very few people actually fully understand the information displayed in the battle resolution screen. Trying to understand what has happened in an engagement is beyond the hope of most mortals.

[slimey.rock]

You should take a look at this thread.

http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=14328

The Battle reporter that Caccio developed is very impressive. It allows you to see exactly what elements engaged in the battle and how much damage they took/recieved.

[ohms_law]

AFAIK, all units within a region do participate in a battle to some degree. Some of the units may only be involved for a single turn (or 2?), but they should all be involved at first.

[MVDH]

AFAIK, all units within a region do participate in a battle to some degree. Some of the units may only be involved for a single turn (or 2?), but they should all be involved at first.

This is not correct. In fact depending on circumstances very few of the units in a particular region may be involved in a given battle. Slimey.rock is correct. The battle generator is the only report available at this time that shows exactly what forces actually engaged and what happened down to individual odds and hits etc.

Mark

[kwhitehead]

Yes, Caccio's report correctly shows that only on CSA Militia unit tried to fight the AoP and resonably I got overwhelmed. The ingame Report shows all the troops that were in the region including all of the ANV which actually moved out of the region during the turn.

It's alright for the ingame Battle Report to show the total forces in the region (assuming all were still there at the time of the battle) but it should also have an additional line showing the forces actually involved in the battle so you can properly judge the outcome.

Caccio's report gives a bit to much information and needs to organize it better. What is really needed is a summary for the Battle showing overal results.

[Caccio]

I'm working on options for the battle reporter that will let you suit its presentation to your liking. In the meantime, though, just look at the first summary for each side to see how the overall battle went.

[GraniteStater]

Far from knowledgable here, but don't overlook the mouseover information.

You should see how may elements/sub-units were committed at the start of the battle, how may were on favorable ground, how many were 'under-commanded', total Global strength for each side, number of hits taken, etc.

I haven't seen Caccio's work yet.

[kwhitehead]

I'm working on options for the battle reporter that will let you suit its presentation to your liking. In the meantime, though, just look at the first summary for each side to see how the overall battle went.

What I would like to see is a summary for each battle like what you show in the first paragraph of the report in a scrollable text box. Have your app so it can run as a window and access the latest log file so we could minimize ACW and take a look at a summary of the battles for the last turn.

By the way where did you find the "Initial Strength" of the force in that file? I can't spot it. I did find the "firing elements" number and assume the others were calculated from all those line by line results.

[Caccio]

Good idea, but I'm afraid unworkable for a couple of reasons. First, the game doesn't generate !Battlelog.txt unless you exit, so you couldn't finish a turn, stay in the game, and have the necessary info for the BR to do its thing for the prior turn. Second, I'm not a good enough Windows programmer to duplicate all of Notepad's features, so I made a conscious decision to use Notepad for the display of the battle results. Otherwise, my program would have been available for general release sometime in 2012, unless I lost interest first.

As for initial forces, you'll find that the BR doesn't necessarily show you who was on the field ready to fight at the beginning of battle. Rather, it shows you who actually fought, and when, which is the reason I include the round for each shot. Particularly in the big battles, it's impossble to know what happened unless you study the BR, figure out which corps/commands responded to the sound of the guns and when, and which retreated and when. The game's battle screen gives you none of this info, but (to beat a dead horse) that's exactly what an overall commander needs to know.

[GraniteStater]

Caccio, I haven't seen your work and it seems to be very well received, but if I may, a tiny observation:

The stock BR screen shows you the commanders involved, so the player can ascertain who marched to the guns.

I'm sure your program is very useful. Myself, I'm OK with the stock version, although I must admit, I've had a few 'huh?' moments with the results of a few battles.

I really don't analyze my battles very much - if I'm making reasonable progress, I'm OK with stuff. Occasionally, I'll stop and check out what happened.

[ohms_law]

Yea, that's about where I'm coming from myself. As I just said in a different thread, I find the "stock battle report" to be adequate.

[arsan]

EDIT: Sorry, i posted on a wrong thread!

[GraniteStater]

Hi!

I'm not positive about it but probably gray is for road connections between two regions and black for railroad connections.
The easier way to check it is just on game so you can see if actually the black/gray or blue lines go to regions connected by roads, rails or separated by rivers on the map.
Cheers!

You want the other thread

[arsan]

Shit!
Sorry! i had several tabs opened on Firefox

[kwhitehead]

Caccio, I haven't seen your work and it seems to be very well received, but if I may, a tiny observation:

The stock BR screen shows you the commanders involved, so the player can ascertain who marched to the guns.

I'm sure your program is very useful. Myself, I'm OK with the stock version, although I must admit, I've had a few 'huh?' moments with the results of a few battles.

I really don't analyze my battles very much - if I'm making reasonable progress, I'm OK with stuff. Occasionally, I'll stop and check out what happened.

No, it shows all the forces that are in the region. Only a subset of those forces actually take part in the battle. Sometime a very small subset. You may have a 100,000 man army there but the actual battle may be between one of your leaderless cavalry and the enemy cavalry. Without knowing this important detail the battle results which is the only thing correct on the ingame Battle Report don't make since. The top of the Battle Report screen whill show say McDowell with 30,000 men fighting the Battle of Manassas with Joe Johnston and 28,000 men but the battler results will show you lost 900 cavalry and the Rebel 200 and you lost the battle. This will not make sense until you look at Caccio's report which will show on of your leaderless cavalry units took on Stuart and the 1st Va cavalry.

[GraniteStater]

But the mouseover will say so many sub-uniis present at the start, number of hits taken and given (that's participation, for sure), etc. Now, I'm probably never going to open the text files.

If the BR is saying 34 sub-units, etc., and the text says 900 Cav, then what you're saying is that the BR lies, essentially.

I go into battles with a semi-reasonable expectation; if my results are 'realistic' and somewhat plausible, I guess I'm content with that.

[kwhitehead]

Good idea, but I'm afraid unworkable for a couple of reasons. First, the game doesn't generate !Battlelog.txt unless you exit, so you couldn't finish a turn, stay in the game, and have the necessary info for the BR to do its thing for the prior turn. Second, I'm not a good enough Windows programmer to duplicate all of Notepad's features, so I made a conscious decision to use Notepad for the display of the battle results. Otherwise, my program would have been available for general release sometime in 2012, unless I lost interest first.

As for initial forces, you'll find that the BR doesn't necessarily show you who was on the field ready to fight at the beginning of battle. Rather, it shows you who actually fought, and when, which is the reason I include the round for each shot. Particularly in the big battles, it's impossble to know what happened unless you study the BR, figure out which corps/commands responded to the sound of the guns and when, and which retreated and when. The game's battle screen gives you none of this info, but (to beat a dead horse) that's exactly what an overall commander needs to know.

I checked just to be sure. The game generates the Battle report when you End the Turn. So you can End Turn, then minimize the window with the game and go run your program against the Battle file. Only problem right now is your program requires it to be in the same folder. Unfortunately the game deletes everything in the "Log" folder at the start of the turn so you can't put you executable there and then run it from a shortcut after minimizing the game screen.

[kwhitehead]

But the mouseover will say so many sub-uniis present at the start, number of hits taken and given (that's participation, for sure), etc. Now, I'm probably never going to open the text files.

If the BR is saying 34 sub-units, etc., and the text says 900 Cav, then what you're saying is that the BR lies, essentially.

I go into battles with a semi-reasonable expectation; if my results are 'realistic' and somewhat plausible, I guess I'm content with that.

I didn't say the BR lies. It tells exsactly what happened. And the mouse over does give you the sub-units. It just doesn't tell you which force the sub-units belong too. What the text report gives is which forces were involved in the actual combat resolution. Knowing that you can more properly judge the results. It would be better if AGEOD added one more line to their force section below the Initial Forces showing the same information but only the Forces that actually engaged but until then Caccio program is the only thing that tells you this information.

95% of the battles the Battle Report is all you need since you are just interested in whether you won or loss. But the other 5% you may want to know who actually fought to see why you got a particular result.

[Caccio]

I checked just to be sure. The game generates the Battle report when you End the Turn. So you can End Turn, then minimize the window with the game and go run your program against the Battle file. Only problem right now is your program requires it to be in the same folder. Unfortunately the game deletes everything in the "Log" folder at the start of the turn so you can't put you executable there and then run it from a shortcut after minimizing the game screen.

Thanks for the tip. The last time I looked, which was months ago, the BattleLog appeared only after exiting the game. But I'm still playing with AACW v 1.12, so it's quite possible that a recent patch has changed this. I'll check it out, because what you're proposing would be a swell option, and I'll definitely include it in BR v 1.2 if I can.