What the-?!

[mir]

Excuse my ranting but this is about M2TW's battle auto-calculation

Game: M2TW Turkish Grand Campaign, M/M difficulty

Region: Tripoli, Libya Region, North Africa

The Defenders: Venice - 2000+ infantry; 300+ cavalry

The Attackers: The Turks - 800+ cavalry (Sipahi, Sipahi Lancers and Turkoman horse archers)

The Situation: My army attempted to attack the Venetians who were hiding behind their walls. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough movement so ended up "touching" them but not engaging. Didn't have to worry since they attacked me with an army outside the city as well as the city garrison.

I was lazy and decided to use the auto-calc. Lost the battle with 600+ men dead!!!

So decided to reload and play it for real.

Results: Crushing Victory! Turks: 40-60 dead; Venetians: 2340 dead or captured!!!

So am wondering how the auto-calc function works.

Because whenever I use it for sieges, I usually win overwhelmingly with really few losses. But I can never duplicate the results if I were to play on the battlefield myself...

What is the deciding factor? Numbers or units?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I have the impression that autocalc thinks that HAs will fight in a mêlée with their secondary weapons and not fire volley after volley from a distance. For some reason autocalc doesn't take into consideration the special abilities of units but only their mêlée value.

[FactionHeir]

Well, what's worse of course is that you will get an autocalc defeat engaging spear militia with peasant archers or even a general's bodyguard against viking raiders and an archer unit quite often.

It seems to consider numbers mainly, then stats and of course battle odds (the higher the odds, the more bonus the attacker gets)

[Iavorios]

Auto calk is simply very wrong. I mean even if i get lazy and cheat with auto_win attacker/defender the enemy hardly loses more then 50% of his army and no units get destroyed, the general gets away also. When i command things personally most of the time the enemy loses 75% plus, and almost all his units get totaly wiped out, the general gets dead every time. Come to thing of it the personally lead battles are the real cheathing. I can kill armies 3-4 times larger than mine on VH/VH with all cav. army with no problem.

[Anonymous II]

Yep, I have also been a "victim" of lazyness a couple of times. I think, "Oh well, since I would have won this battle easily anyway, I guess I'll just let the AI calculate me a victory"... but then... no...

I seem to forget all my stupid losses though, 'cause I seem to fall for the temptation to autocalculate every now and then. Especially when there's a battle where I don't have a general present that I want to increase traits for.

On the other hand, I have found it to be a great way to get more experience to archers.

[Anonymous II]

...battle odds (the higher the odds, the more bonus the attacker gets)

My experience says it's rather the complete opposite. If I'm ever to win an autocalculated battle, I have to have considerably lower odds than my opponent. Any even match (according to odds), I lose.

But I might be wrong on the facts here, It's just a personal experience.

[PBI]

Never, ever autocalc if you have expensive siege units in the army, especially in a siege; the computer seems to decide the best use for the gun crew is to storm the walls.

Autocalc does annoy me, I try to fight as many battles as possible, especially in sieges, since it gives the attacker unrealistically low casualties but needlessly sacrifices important units such as siege weapons. I think I would have preferred the old MTW system, which IIRC would essentially kill a set number of your troops per caslte level if you assault without siege weapons, so attacking a citadel with gun towers would always be very costly even if there were only 3 men defending it.

I always think there should be more scope to give your subordinate commander general instructions in autocalc, such as "stand-off with our missile units" or "headlong charge with the heavy cavalry". Or, some system based upon chivalry/dread or the general's bravery, i.e. a high-dread general would coldly send wave after wave of peasants and militia to their deaths, while a hig-chivalry general would lead the charge himself with the elite troops.

[FactionHeir]

My experience says it's rather the complete opposite. If I'm ever to win an autocalculated battle, I have to have considerably lower odds than my opponent. Any even match (according to odds), I lose.

But I might be wrong on the facts here, It's just a personal experience.

Psst, there are 2 things before battle odds that matter more

[Anonymous II]

Psst, there are 2 things before battle odds that matter more

He he, okey.

We can at least all agree that autocalculating is a risky business.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Also autocalc does'nt take into account the defences in a siege, which can be a player exploit or AI cheat.

[Ramses II CP]

In my experience what you want to bring are the highest defense heavy infantry units that you can muster, and bring them in quantity. It seems as though a high defense heavy infantry will usually defeat a higher attack but lower defense other heavy infantry, while a same stats heavy infantry unit will beat heavy cavalry, spearmen, and archers.

Of course that's just a guess, but it seems to work out in game.

[Privateerkev]

As ATPG has found out, it matters what order your stack is in. The computer figures out your first units first and then goes down the line. After your general, have only your heavy infantry, then archers, then cav, then artillery at the lower right corner. When I auto-calc, I usually just lose some infantry, and maybe a couple archers. My cav/elephants and guns stay untouched.

[_Tristan_]

@ PK : True, the stacking order has some incidence but the order you mentioned is not always what works best in all situations...

There are times where having cav before the infantry scores more losses on the AI and fewer on the player... Morale also seems to be taken into account...

Place low morale units first in your stack and you're doomed...

[Old Geezer]

I ran numerous trials with the positioning units in the stack and found no connection whatever in results or which units took losses.

[Sentinel]

I did some investigation in to auto-resolving sieges about a year ago. To summarise some of the finding

If you are going to auto-resolve a siege without artillery, then the pecking order for the best results are

Spies to open the gates.

If no spies are available, then just build one set of ladders or a siege tower. Anything more is wasted.

A ram is slightly worse than ladders/siege tower. Building more than 1 gives no advantage.

Choose infantry over cavalry over missile units. The better the quality the unit the better the results.

Expect a tougher fight for a castle than for a town.


Attacking Unit Type
Three spies were sent into the Castle (garrisoned 8 units of Mercenary Pavise Crossbowmen) to give 103% chance of opening the gates. The game was quick saved / quick loaded and the settlement attacked.

Attack on Castle using 601 men
Attacking Unit Type-----------------Losses----------Kills
Armoured Swordsmen-------------87---------- 240
Feudal Knights-------------------107----------232
Retinue Longbowmen-------------141----------234

Town Militia----------------------311----------52------defeat
Hobilar---------------------------336----------95------defeat
Militia Archers--------------------411----------66------defeat

For more details
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...light=sentinel

[Privateerkev]

@ PK : True, the stacking order has some incidence but the order you mentioned is not always what works best in all situations...

There are times where having cav before the infantry scores more losses on the AI and fewer on the player... Morale also seems to be taken into account...

Place low morale units first in your stack and you're doomed...

I found something different.

I'll have a general and an all cav stack to hunt and auto-resolve rebels. But in real battles, I do better when the heavy infantry is up front. Maybe it has to do with the higher unit sizes.

I do agree with your analysis of morale though. Leading a stack with artillery is just a bad bad idea. I know from experience...