Army Attrition

I have been told (on another forum) that it's impossible to represent attrition of army strength due to any cause besides battlefield casualties (i.e disease, desertion, etc.), but I'd thought that I'd ask here.
Is it possible to make army units age like family members, spies and diplomats? So that they eventually die of old age?
And/or would it be possible to give army units a permanent case of the plague (with a very low mortality rate) to represent attrition from other causes?
Or do you consider the high recruitment/upkeep costs to represent the cost of keeping units up to strength?

I dont think there is a way to represent attrition.
I wish there where, so i hope that i am wrong.

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Originally Posted by oudysseos

And/or would it be possible to give army units a permanent case of the plague (with a very low mortality rate) to represent attrition from other causes?
Or do you consider the high recruitment/upkeep costs to represent the cost of keeping units up to strength?

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this has been disussed earlier in this forum, but it didn`t work.
If all your armies have the plague, they will infekt every settlement/General/Diplomat etc, the game will be rather short than.

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Or do you consider the high recruitment/upkeep costs to represent the cost of keeping units up to strength?

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this is what I take into account, in my own personal immersion

think in modern regimental terms. some of the famous regiments and units. they're not the same guys that fought napoleon, or dropped over normandy, but their unit/regiment may be still "active"

although i do disband my units once they get in the gold chevron range, really imbalances it :(

We'll be cutting 3 levels off the experience scale at some point in the nearish future, hopefully that will help with that problem.

if your gonna do that, can you stop giving units experience when they are recruited otherwise they won't have much experience left to gain and that will just be boring!

I was more thinking along the lines that it's generally assumed that by the time Caesar swept through Italy after crossing the Rubicon his veteran legions were at something like half strength, and the situation was probably much worse by the time he got to Pharsalus. Or in the case of Alexander, he sustained huge losses just crossing the desert of Gedrosia. Now I know that it's my choice to retrain my depleted units up to full strength, but there's no way to represent losing men due to a long march through hostile territory. I guess it's true that plague wouldn't be an ideal situation, but it just seems unfair to be able to bring a huge army across a desert and be ready to fight the moment you arrive.

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Originally Posted by oudysseos

I was more thinking along the lines that it's generally assumed that by the time Caesar swept through Italy after crossing the Rubicon his veteran legions were at something like half strength, and the situation was probably much worse by the time he got to Pharsalus. Or in the case of Alexander, he sustained huge losses just crossing the desert of Gedrosia. Now I know that it's my choice to retrain my depleted units up to full strength, but there's no way to represent losing men due to a long march through hostile territory. I guess it's true that plague wouldn't be an ideal situation, but it just seems unfair to be able to bring a huge army across a desert and be ready to fight the moment you arrive.

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yeah, its all about logistics realy, but i don't see a way of implementing it unless you had a spript where all armys that have been outside freindly teritory for more then a year get the plague?

and didn't hannibals forces grow while he was in italy? I think a good solution would be more mercenarys, to incourage the player to rely on them more, they can't be retrained so attrition is a real problem with them and they usually start at quite a low experience level so by the time they have gold chevrons they are a smaller unit or (if and) when they move EB over to BI armys in situations like that could defect?

They originally had planed to have food as a reasource in the original game. (look in unit text file, they have the food resource still in there for some reason.) Would have been nice if they would have kept it in, along with supply lines. Nothing like starving an enemy army into submission, that would be the perfect battle.

yeah as long as it wasn't used against you :laugh4: im not surprised they cut it out, after all they chose to concetrate on the graphics (which they did do bloody well) im glad EB is out there to add more realism :2thumbsup:

You can always consider the units to be the core of your army, the units that do not starve, that do not suffer desertion, and that survive trips through deserts.

Remember that in RTW terms, Alexander attacked Persia with 8 full stacks.

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yeah as long as it wasn't used against you

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Precisely, it would give another level of strategy and more planing in order to invade. You would have to ensure a stable supply line was maintained or that you brought enough food with to ensure to dont starve. Games like "The Blue and the Grey" and "Genghis Khan 2/Ghengis Khan Clan of the Grey Wolf" did it well. Btw has anyone here played any of KOEI's Ghengis Khan games?