More realistic battle results

If this has been asked before, please feel free to ignore this.

One thing I always found unrealistic in any TW game is the number of troops that get killed. In my campaigns it often happened, that defeated armies had most times less than 10% of the troops left. Besides few battles (e.g. Cannae) there hadn´t been casulties this high. The loss of half of your army could make you lose an entire war (Pydna and Kynoskephalai). Often armies would brake, only losing a fraction of their soldiers. One advantage to EBI is, that in M2TW you actually just capture those units you run over after they flee instead of killing them.

To solve this you had to change the stats of the EB units. First of all the attack had to be way lower than the defence (Maybe 1 to 20?) to make the battles at least last longer. (Which is one of the reasons I like fighting in EB way more than in the vanilla version). Secondly, the morale had to be lower as well, so units will rout before losing too many men. That´s just what I think could change it, maybe it doesn´t work that way.

The problem is, that you would have to change other aspects of the game as well, like the recuitiment, which had to be slower since you don´t lose as many men. Otherwse I assume there would be too many armies on the campaign map. Another thing is that the actual representation of the battles could be off as well, because you would still have decimated, but still intact armies after getting defeated.
It´s just an idea and I can imagine that it is tedious to fight the same armies again and again, just wondering what others think about that and maybe you have better ideas than I do.

In fact, it does have be brought up before, even by myself.
And the answer I got is that it is indeed possible to achieve more realistic results by reducing attack relative to defence, lowering lethality, lowering morale, etc., so one army will break and rout before so many of them are actually dead or wounded. But then you'd have really messed-up town square battles...As the defenders will never break on the bloody square, whatever cowards they are elsewhere. So you'd have to spend all day cutting all of them down.

Yes forgot that point. I had this in another mod of the game, and it was infact quite annoying. But did the EB team say what they were going for?

You could solve this by not clicking continue battle once the enemy army routs.

Lethality is not used by the MTW2 engine.

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Originally Posted by Populus Romanus

You could solve this by not clicking continue battle once the enemy army routs.

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Even if then, the casualties are to high.

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Originally Posted by Julianus

But then you'd have really messed-up town square battles...As the defenders will never break on the bloody square, whatever cowards they are elsewhere. So you'd have to spend all day cutting all of them down.

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But it still sounds like a good trade-off. Lets be honest: Siege battles are still much less cool than field battles with the MTW2 engine...

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Originally Posted by ziegenpeter

Even if then, the casualties are to high.

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True, but at least then the highly unrealistic disparity between your casualties and the AI's casualties is resolved. Furthermore, it eliminates an unfair advantage the human gains over the AI (the AI does not have the option to continue battle).

But when the battles ends without "continue battle" the victor still captures a random portion of the defeated(well not totally random- more cavalry in enemy army and less in defeated seem to change the amount).

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Originally Posted by Ptolemaios

Secondly, the morale had to be lower as well, so units will rout before losing too many men. That´s just what I think could change it, maybe it doesn´t work that way.

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I agree with your assessment, but I am afraid your solution won't work the way you intend to. You're just looking at kill rates, but other factors are also important. Morale is influenced by covered and uncovered flanks, missile fire, others units routing, etc. If you reduce the kill-rate (by lowering attack) and the base morale but leave other factors the same, those other factors will have a greater effect. My guess is that you turn battle into a rout-fest: if you can get one of the opponent's units to rout, the morale penalties on his remaining units will become so big that he cannot win anymore.

In other words: a simple reduction of base morale is not sufficient, we need to rebalance the morale system. But as far as I know that's not possible in the M2:TW engine.

Also, there's the standard question for modding TW game: how will the A.I. respond? I predict that he won't be able to deal very well with his now-fickle armies. I also fear that it means we need to beat the same A.I. army several times over, because the A.I. won't understand that it has been beaten.

I don't see any way for less casualties with the MTW2 engine. The after battle options can be re-named to- worthy foes go free, ransom/lose all arms/armor, enslave. Or something like that. So if the faction has enough money/was well enough armed to pay the release of its men they might fight again otherwise enslaved. Since many armies which ran away or were defeated lost all of their arms/armor which might have been passed through their families and been a significant expense. Maybe they would fight again but often not for many years. The engine assumes all men who survive are instantly ready to fight again and the AI is not going to disband any units whereas historically unless it was a genocidal war the men wouldn't often go right back to war after a major defeat. Since population isn't lost with recruitment in MTW2 I don't see a major problem with this.

Having any results like the 15-30% losses of many battles in antiquity versus the 60-100% losses of current losers would mean having to radically change the morale system which I think would make for more boring battles.

In my experience the best way to overcome this is to make upkeep costs very high and recruitment costs low. That way a defeated faction (a) can easily recruit a replacement army, while the winner (b) is unlikely to be able to bring many more troops to bear. Meanwhile (a) will have his new army in place a couple of provinces away from where the battle took place, allowing (b) the opportunity to gain some territory as a result of the victory. The M2 recruitment system lends itself to this.

The effect is to simulate a defeated major army regrouping far back behind their lines while local forces try and hold off the victor from conqering immediate territory. ie quite a realistic concept. Defeated armies - regardless of casualty rates - rarely went back into battle very soon.

Because while its true that in ancient times battles were rarely massively bloody (compared to TW games), they were often decisive (compared to TW games). Freqently large amounts of territory could be ceded after a single battle. The defeated side rarely kept coming back for more, and when they did it was noteworthy for being so unusual (ie the Romans v Hannibal).

What I think people would want to avoid at all costs is refighting the same enemy army repeatedly for little benefit each time.

I guess your idea wouldnt work: the AI will be broke then after 6 years

I must be part of the few that don't care about the AI getting "balanced" because it needs the help, personally I like a realistic experience regardless of difficulty. Fighting full stacks and getting besieged every second turn might be balanced but it sure isn't fun.

A lot of that is unit spam though- not much to do with AI "balancing" if the ideal of the balanced AI is to play like a decent human player would. I will say that STW2 is better in most respects on the battlefield. Naval battles are too easy regardless of difficulty level but on legendary I actually lost a few battles that were nearly even odds- never happened before in any TW game. Usually to lose the odds have to be greatly stacked against hence why many veteran TW players prefer the AI to have much larger armies etc otherwise its too easy and boring. Though there should be a larger differentiation between difficulty levels which I think STW2 achieved for the most part. Playing medium there is ok, hard is slightly harder while legendary can be quite hard depending on the starting faction.

What is realistic? Realistic is that a player playing with a small faction next to a larger one is usually going to be attacked every turn until vanquished or submit to vassal status that gives up a large portion of income and requires many generations to expand or intense diplomatic efforts to break vassal/tribute status and invite a foreign power or destabilize the larger neighbor. Historically power matters... peace is actually more likely between large powers as fighting then becomes expensive and the outcome unknown while a status quo that allows both to concentrate on the smaller little neighbors first. Of course if 2 large powers swallow all the little nearby guys and start fighting over the states in between each regions you get Punic wars or similar. It would be nice however if TW games had a penalty to completely annexing regions- if annex completely there is a high chance of rebellions for long time, if make vassal state the winner gets some tribute money and peaceful border but not alot of local control. Of course there there might be other options- local control of religion and the old political class to cling to some power but the winner gets to station military garrisons and all of the losers armies are disbanded- some increase in public disorder both at home(not a full conquest and seems to be spending taxpayer money without the honor of a full victory and the loser is unhappy to have foreign armies everywhere but is not in full on rebellion mode since most local customs and traditions are allowed to continue- a few generations of that with a couple small revolts put down and the defeated might become nearly integrated into the larger state at least until that state begins to fail and then there is a wave of national consciousness(or tribal/ethnic in this case).

I've got a question that i thought would fit in on this thread. Is there a way through modding to change the battle time limit? As far as i'm aware EB had the same 45 minute time limit as vanilla (I don't know as I've been playing with it turned off for a while and have forgotten)
It's just that with the increased defences of the EB units it's hard to finish large battles such as sieges within the relatively short time limit. I'd like to be able to play with the battle time limit on to stop annoying glitches or problems that normally would force you to quit but then with the 45 minute time limit I find it even more annoying when you have an epicly huge battle that is cut short.

I assume this is quite easy to mod but i have no real clue so if it is would anyone else support this idea (if it hasn't already been done/though about)?

Are you asking about EB or for EB2? As far as I know EB2 should have variable time limit. I play all my MTW2 mods with no time limit at all as that seems to give the best results with the AI not feeling forced to rush and kill itself quite so easily.

For EB... I can't remember honestly. Been at least a year or more since I played any RTW mods.

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Originally Posted by Ichon

Are you asking about EB or for EB2? As far as I know EB2 should have variable time limit. I play all my MTW2 mods with no time limit at all as that seems to give the best results with the AI not feeling forced to rush and kill itself quite so easily.

For EB... I can't remember honestly. Been at least a year or more since I played any RTW mods.

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I was asking for EB2 but i couldn't remembed whether it had already been done

I don't know if it is possible to change the time limit, we certainly haven't tried to as far as I know.

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Originally Posted by bobbin

I don't know if it is possible to change the time limit, we certainly haven't tried to as far as I know.

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If it is possible will you consider it now i've bought it up? Obviously my original idea needs to be refined a bit but i'm sure you modders and the rest of this forum could work out a good length for EB2 battles

Huh- played too much STW2 lately. After looking all over it appears MTW2 only allows 1 hour or no time limit. No time limit is better in my opinion especially with better BAIs I've never seen any bugs in numerous campaigns. The AI will sometimes sit in a defensive spot but that seems more realistic than always charging in even when outnumbered. Only rarely does it make battles easier.

If the AI attacks me I don't want it to be sitting there in the corner staring at me. Too often I have had to put the speed to maximum and go and make a cup of tea because the enemy attacks me and the massive army sits there. I will take the win through time if they do nothing.

Of course it usually means that the AI will do it again the next turn. But thats fine, they get 2 tries, on the third they autoresolve defeated. No third chances with me.

Also, you guys seriously run out of time? I rarely go past the half way point. That only happens when I have to fight a big reinforcement army that sits back near the border; thats when I'll rest all my troops back to full stamina before finishing them off.

If the AI offers battle it could be they have blocked your supply lines or will otherwise hound your army if you don't fight. Of course that doesn't happen in the game but historically quite many armies were forced to attack even though the enemies were the ones which offered battle. Attacker or defender really has little relevance outside of sieges.

I don't know why some people think the AI should be obligated to attack... I think its from getting used to poor AI which always attacks without really looking. It is much more fun to be forced to take the attack to the AI even if in the games rigid turn based structure the AI 'attacked' you which is really meaningless in field battles were presumably both sides drew up and offered battle. Most often when the AI attacks you are in its territory so reasonably it should be able to just sit there much longer while your army withers from lack of supplies and no initiative to move around and gather more until the enemy army is defeated. Especially when the enemy army is larger they can afford to send out raiding parties and still keep a check on your own smaller army.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

My guess is that you turn battle into a rout-fest: if you can get one of the opponent's units to rout, the morale penalties on his remaining units will become so big that he cannot win anymore.

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Which is how battles have been won since ancient times up to ww1. You break the enemy at one point and he either fills the gap or breaks apart completely.

Similar morale systems have been used in mods before, that Napoleonic mod for RTW comes to mind. It worked very well. Low casualties and low morale turn the game into a tactical feast where holding the line becomes priority n1, the overall juxtaposition of the units having more of an effect than the individual stats.

The only argument against this would be the dumber-than-dirt A.I. (a mindless slaughter-fest being more suitable to its abilities). But I don't see how one could get any pleasure from dealing with the A.I. in the first place, so I'm not going to get into that discussion.

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Originally Posted by James Purefoy

Which is how battles have been won since ancient times up to ww1. You break the enemy at one point and he either fills the gap or breaks apart completely.

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True, but if you make unit-morale very feeble, there won't be an opportunity to fill the gap. It becomes an insta-rout thing: get one enemy unit to rout, and the morale of the rest of his army is crippled. That's not realistic either, see for example the battles of Cynocephalus and Magnesia. Again: it's not just a question of base morale; the morale system would need to be rebalanced as well.

N2:TW is indeed a great MP mod. It has no single-player whatsoever though, apart from one heavily-scripted historical battle. The Lordz knew the A.I. wouldn't be able to deal with their morale set-up.

The battles are a bit small scale and resting only on a single commander in TW games so making units break easier doesn't work very well. If there could be multiple commanders and the battles were large enough that a break in the line actually took some time to exploit before the entire enemy routed then maybe.

As it works now though I think its not so different from what you are saying except for the habit of the AI to kill off its general and thus lead to much faster rout than normal. To rout an army quickly you still have to flank or separate some of their units from the command radius of the lead general either by killing that general or drawing off either the general or the units. The main difference is the number of men who die in the actual battles compared to historical battles. However in history after a battle the fleeing side wouldn't normally reform and attack a few weeks later. There are also examples of the routing side being nearly completely wiped out but that doesn't seem the norm. I'm fine with the current system since the engine is rather limited. There also isn't sickness or disease or attrition when campaigning long which definitely did kill many so overall it might not be so far off. IE- a long campaign in the game with 3-4 battles fought might see an army lose 50% or more just to the battles whereas in history a victorious army might lose 5% casualties if the enemy broke so that would be only 20% losses- however in the game no one dies from bad water or infections from a minor wound weeks after the battle.