Historical mods and kill rates

[Catiline]

this may have been covered elsewhere, but I've not come across it, apologies if duplicating.

Most of the discussion i've seen on modifying kill rates has been based on game play concerns, ie how fast battles were over.

I've been playing vanilla RTW and i have to say that hasn't overly bothered me, but then i've not been online.

My point is slightly different. Throughout the TW series i've always been bothered by the mammoth kill ratios. This seems worse in RTW than before. defeated armies are almost invariable annhilated, taking 90% casualties. from an ancient point of view this is ridiculous. i'm not so clear on the figures for tribal forces, but in the mediterranean greek and Roman world casualty figures should be something of the region of 5% for the winners, 10% for the losers, maybe 15% for a real thrashing. Only a few specific scenarios should result in the levels of casualties we see now, ie Thermopylae.

Has anyone looked into modding more sensible kell rates to reflect this, or upping the defence ratings for routers to stop them getting slaughtered so heavily. this would have sssues about the number of troops in the strat side if armies aren't getting killed off, so perhaps unit costs would have to go up (by a factor of 10 if casualties are beign reduced to 10% of present)

If nothing else this could make for a much longer campaign, and really make you think about where you place armies on the map.

Any thoughts?

[Danest]

I actually think the kill rates work fine - I watched a battle close up to see what was going on. I watched one of my soldiers appear to beat a shirtless barbarian three times before killing him. Slowing down that kill probably isn't more realistic in my opinion. But it did seem strange to me that there were so few survivors from a rout (I kill all of them, usually). But then, there just aren't as many people on the field as there could have been in rl. Imagine, literally, 30,000 people running away. They might just run in completely different directions. That's one possible reason for the kill rates of routed - they generally stick together, and are easy to run down with cavalry because of this. Also... with 10's of thousands of people running away, they'd make it to the "red line of safety" before all being killed off. It just wouldn't be possible to kill them all before they escaped. So I think the massacres are because of the low troop numbers. If 100, or even 1000 people were running from as many cavalry, and, stupidly didn't split up, I bet you that cavalry unit could run them all down.
So I don't think it's the kill rates, it's just the way the game makes people run away, combined with the numbers involved.

[Catiline]

(I kill all of them, usually).

My point exactly. If we're going for a more accurate Total War, we should have more accurate kill ratios. It shouldn't be the case that armies are annhilated.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Yes, I agree. The RTW release version is VERY unrealistic in the end-battle overall kill ratio. Where did someone ever heard of 90-95% casualties in ANY battle in History? It's ridiculous.

In the EB MOD we're trying to solve many things. Amongst them, charging and running speed of cav and inf. Another is the kill rate, it should be about 60-70% slower. And finally these ridiculous kill ratios...

I must be honest, this is probably the least technical problem, but the most difficult to balance. Probably a large defense increase across the board will aliviate the problem, because it will force the pursuing units to make more hits/kill, therefore diminishing the probability of dying before the redline. An HP increase is not entirelly out of the question...

[Kaiser of Arabia]

Yes, I agree. The RTW release version is VERY unrealistic in the end-battle overall kill ratio. Where did someone ever heard of 90-95% casualties in ANY battle in History?

Thermopoley?

[khelvan]

I assume you mean Thermopylae? ;)

[Thoros of Myr]

So I don't think it's the kill rates, it's just the way the game makes people run away, combined with the numbers involved.

That is certianly part of it.

Aymar, what about the effect the raised HP will have on the actual battle?

[khelvan]

HP increases are a last resort. Too many things are affected by that. We're attacking the problem from a different angle.

[CBR]

I think routing units have much higher defense penalties than in MTW. Its very easy to clean out routing unit in RTW. Increasing defense will slow it down but will of course slow down ordinary combat too (but a lot of people want that anyway)

but in the mediterranean greek and Roman world casualty figures should be something of the region of 5% for the winners, 10% for the losers, maybe 15% for a real thrashing

I have seen these numbers before but Im pretty sure that was actually for classic Greek hoplite warfare only. IIRC there are not many battles that had such a low casualty rates for losers. Not many would be 90-95% losses of course but Im sure its 50% or more.


CBR

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Thermopoley?

Nope. I'll explain...

Spartans: 300men
Allies: more than 6000men

After the second day a Greek named Ephialtes defected to the Persians and informed Xerxes of a separate path through Thermopylae. The pass was defended by the other 1000 Greeks, from Phocis, who had been placed there when the Greeks learned of the alternate route just before the battle, but they were not expecting to engage the Persians. The Phocians offered a brief resistance before fleeing, and the Persians advanced unopposed.

Leonidas then realized that further fighting would be futile. On August 11 he dismissed all but 300 Spartans. A contingent of Thespians, led by Demophilus, stayed as well in a suicidal effort to delay the advance. Leonidas also had a force of Thebans, but after some fighting they defected to the Persians.

You can find more information here:

Battle of Thermopylae

Accordingly, if we put our heads thinking we can see that those dispensed retreated before the escape route was blocked by the Persians. Let's be conservative and say that most didn't flee:

7000 - 1000(Phocis - fleed) - 2000(others - fleed) - 1000 (Thebans - defected) = 300 Spartans + 2700(Thespians)

Alive - 4000men
Dead - 2700men

That means a ratio of (2700/7000)=38.57% casulaties. Not exactly a massacre of RTW proportions...

[Catiline]

I mentioned Thermopylae;)

It's about the same sort of figures for Roman warfare IIRC, maybe a little higher but not much. Eitherway i could deal with say 20/10 or 30/15 ratios, it's the total annhilation that gets me at present

from a position of complete ignorance it strikes me that increasing defence ratings of routers would be the way to go.

How about increasing the speed of routers - is that possible. Simulates the throwing away of shields etc to run faster than the pursuers :)

[Turbo]

Yes, I agree. The RTW release version is VERY unrealistic in the end-battle overall kill ratio. Where did someone ever heard of 90-95% casualties in ANY battle in History? It's ridiculous.

In the EB MOD we're trying to solve many things. Amongst them, charging and running speed of cav and inf. Another is the kill rate, it should be about 60-70% slower. And finally these ridiculous kill ratios...

I must be honest, this is probably the least technical problem, but the most difficult to balance. Probably a large defense increase across the board will aliviate the problem, because it will force the pursuing units to make more hits/kill, therefore diminishing the probability of dying before the redline. An HP increase is not entirelly out of the question...

The problem with increasing the HP points and/or increasing the defensive skill is that these will extend the battle times. This is a major problem when combined with the mandatory battle timer. There are workarounds to the battle timer, but there are battles that there should be timers on, such as a city assault.

[Silver Rusher]

For accuracy in this matter, a lot more would have to be changed as well to maintain accuracy. For example- the camera would HAVE to be restricted to the general at all times, and you wouldn't be able to command troops far away. And that would just make the game boring.

Also, battles just would not be fun if the kill rates were slowed right down, and armies left with only 10 percent casualties.

[GodsPetMonkey]

You could try increasing the casulty heal rate, it doesn't effect the in-battle balance, and means you end up with something left over, with a significant enough boost (although I'm not sure on the limits), you could probably get the recovery rate up to about 30-40% of your casulties, which should leave significant enough remains of a sorely thrashed army, but not make it so the battle was almost pointless (whats the fun in fighting the same army twice, only with 5-10% less men then before?)

[King Yngvar]

The kill ratio is only because of the hunting down of the enemy. Pherhaps the reason that we get much more kill percentage in the game than there was in real life, is that we choose to hunt down every last enemy that flee...

[Empedocles]

Althoug I should admit the kill ratios are impressive and not historical accurate I believe it’s not CA mistake. At least in the numbers of people involved.
Example: Many historians believe that Julius Caesar kill and enslave as much as one million gauls/germans/other nations enemies! If we would be accurate that would mean (supposing a number of 100 men per unit) 10000 different units which would lead as to nearly 520 full-stack armies (it was 19 o 16 units an army can hold?) in the map!! Not the entire map, but only a portion! (let’s say Gaul and Germany!!!)
How would a historical accurate game work with such big armies moving around?
And which machine can afford 80000 people getting killed a t the same time?

But I completely agree that the percent of deads after a battle and the complete destruction of the majority of the armies that suffer a defeat is a matter to be solved by you… the almighty mooders!!!

Diego, from Argentina

PS: there were many battles where the whole army was killed: Stalingrad, any other modern day pocket, any siege where the defeated army was slaughtered after battle, thermoplylie (don’t know how to spell it, but I will say that Spartans wished to die in that place, so of course it will mean 100% of casualties)

[King Yngvar]

I believe Cannae also can be added to the list of slaughters...

[Meneldil]

Empedocles, as Aymar already said, the whole greek army wasn't slaughtered at Thermopylae.
And no army was killed at Stalingrad. The soviets managed to defend the ruins of the city, and the germans were captured (though many of them died after the battle), not exterminated.

[dj jones]

I think the best option would be to increase the 'heal rates' for units.

Also, when the computer AI routs, you immediately get the END BATTLE screen. If the player continues, he can easily decimate the routed armies.

Maybe we could increase the speed of routing troops so that they cant be caught so easily. Combining this with increased heal rates should give survivors a pretty decent increase in troops surviving

[willboy]

An article by P.Krenz (Journal of Hellenic studies) analysed relative winner/loser caualties in 20 odd battles between the Period between Plataea and Leuctra. The average is 5% for the winners and 14% for the losers. These are for hoplite/hoplite battles, i.e. where there is a distinct lack of cavalry.

I am not sure, but didn't an ancient army (depending on time period, type, level of organisation etc) often disperse after a defeat anyway, and I am sure that often even wining armies were too exhausted to continue.(I suppose the likes of Alexander and Caesar were able to keep armies in the field for long periods).

I suppose you could address the problem at the strategic level and build in some variables for leaders, or even playable factions along the lines of "battle survivability". At the battle level you would have to remove the ability to carry on the slaughter until the end then calculate additional casualties based on some other variable such as the proportion of cavalry etc.

Still you have the problem of balance within the game because such rules would benefit "organised armies"....wouldn't they?

[Danest]

Its the cavalry who are causing the massive casualty losses. That is, the unrealistic numbers of cavalry available. In reality, cavalry were the smallest fraction of the total force in most armies (a few cultures being an exception, but then when those cultures won, they REALLY won). Caesar mentions the gauls as having something like 240,000 footmen and around 2000 cavalry! Imagine twin armies like that facing off. Guaranteed, 2000 cavalry couldn't exterminate the other army entirely when it routed.

So, make the numbers of cavalry more realistic, and the problem is fixed - no more exterminated armies (assuming they're smart enough to run away before being exterminated).

[Cesare diBorja]

Quite interesting I think in Darthmod is that some units will hold off your forces while the rest get away. Darthformations 8.0 reflect good insight into formations, their uses and survivability. I was amazed when a unit of Carthaginian Sacred Band stood behind and held off my infantry and cavalry for the rest of the army to get away. Delaying actions are key to an armies survivability and a useful tactic when it's your butt on the line. Up your tactical skills, personally, and the game will comply. I have had some astounding battles. Wonderful skirmishes. As for sieges, WOW! See, even in history, if you do little to command your force, you get little result and may lose all. But, if you heed the lessons of history, you will find the game will try harder to beat you. Forcing you to fight harder. The real fun happens then.

Cheers,

Il Duce diRomagna

[SwordsMaster]

Actually, I´ve been giving this some thought myself and I think time limits for battles (except sieges) should be lowered proportionally just as the armies are proportionally smaller than their original counterparts. I.e. assuming every TW army is 1/10 of a proper battlefield army, then they should get only 1/10 of the time to finish the battle. So if you could get,say, 7 hours of daylight for battle in the real world, then 0.7 hours which is around 40 minutes maximum.

This and buffing the rates at which soldiers get tired (when pursuit is necessary) should provide for more accurate rates. Also the healing of casualties after the battle should be upped by a LOT. it is just wrong that 5 men out of 70 injured heal. IMO it should be more like 60%-40%.

[Geoffrey S]

Agreed with a lot of points posted here. The kill-ratio is frankly ludicrous, even defeated armies would usually keep a large portion of their troops; I think a lot of this is to do with the fact players can send their cavalry chasing every last router off the field, whereas in real life this often would lead to broken-up armies and a very dangerous situation for the "victorious" side which could be exploited by the "losing" side. If there were a way to keep troops dangerous even when routing this might dissuade such chases across the map to mop up every last enemy. Or, as has also been suggested, ramping up the healing rates in an army after battle.

The MTW option of taking prisoners and then either releasing or killing them is much missed in RTW.

[Ciaran]

To achieve lesser kill ratios you could also lower the morale value for all units, the lower that one is the easier a unit will rout (i.e. it takes less losses to make it rout). In Darth mod 5.8 the morale values got increased and I´ve seen one-on-one battles that went to the point of having two eighty-man formations fighting till both were down to not more than a dozen, once there were even only two men left in both units, not fighting on battlements, nor with encircled units, just two about equally strong units meeting head on.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It would be nice if the battle time limits weren't so ridiculous.

I don't know about BI (yet ) but in RTW they were awfully unpredictable.

Two armies miles apart with thousands on each side? You get 18 minutes, man. You'd better run!

Assaulting a city with huge walls and dozens of defending units? 25 minutes!

Two hastati vs. three town watch rebels? 40 minutes, man.

Sometimes the timer worked out, but usually you had either too much or too little.

One thing that CA could do is drastically reduce the timer after you have "won." IE, the enemy is routing. They won't recover from something that complete, so give the victor just two minutes to mop up routers. Maybe less time. Even if the winner had another 20 minutes, drop it to two to give the losers a break.

[Lord Adherbal]

this can't be solved with modding. As said before, a unit loses most of it's men after routing, because they die almost instantly then (unlike MTW were they could still do damage and break out of an encirclement). That also means lowering morale doesnt help at all, the only result is that the winner will take less casualties. Casualties for the loser will be the same.

In real life it would also be harder to chase routers because there is no godlike general floating high over the battlefield seeing were every enemy unit is on the map. Not to mension that real-life terrain has a lot more features that obstuct line of sight. And units chasing routers too far might actualy get lost and have trouble finding back their army. All this cannot be simulated wth the TW engine.

[Geoffrey S]

So basically it's up to the players to make it a fair game?

[Ciaran]

That about covers it, namely it would mean to refrain from chasing routers.

[Kraxis]

Upping healrate would not help.

Haven't you noticed that it is only the victorious army that get healing? Makes sense really, as the losers have left their wounded on the battlefield. But to up healrate would just make it easier for the winners.