Type of Victory?

[player1]

What exactly constitutes close, average, clear or crushing victory?

From which factiors depend type of the victory you can gain?

[Sjakihata]

and what about Heroic victory?

Well, I dont think its about kills as much as it's about size of your army compared to the enemy's army.

[Sin Qua Non]

A close victory is awarded if the enemy withdraws without a fight.

[AtorianPaladin]

A close victory is awarded if the enemy withdraws without a fight.

Actually, thats realy dumb, because theyre just pansies who wont fight. I hate when you get your armies perfectly in order, but spend 12 turns chasing the enemy king across the map, and when you finally do catch him, you kill his army at 100:1 kill ratio.

[dismal]

I'd guess it's a function of starting odds and kill ratio. Maybe absolute kills as well.

[Elros]

I'm pretty sure that if you kill all of them without a casualty you are guaranteed heroic regardless of the odds.

[Taiwan Legion]

I think it's the remaining troops too. Because if you have 30 you fight against their 80, and you kill them all when you have like 3 units left, then it's a close victory.

[Sin Qua Non]

Actually, thats realy dumb, because theyre just pansies who wont fight. I hate when you get your armies perfectly in order, but spend 12 turns chasing the enemy king across the map, and when you finally do catch him, you kill his army at 100:1 kill ratio.

It's really annoying when you march your pretty formations up a hill just to watch the enemy withdraw in stages. That drives me nuts. I can't blame the AI for withdrawing, since if you can get away from a hopeless situation without really losing anything, then it's a valid tactic. Especially when they have the chance to merge with another army and return in force. It should just be considered a victory; not close or heroic or anything.

[HoreTore]

I'm pretty sure that if you kill all of them without a casualty you are guaranteed heroic regardless of the odds.

Nope. Been there done that with my horse archer armies.

1 or 2 horse archers vs. 1 enemy infantry unit results in all of them getting killed with no casaulties in return. Still only getting Clear victories.

From my own experience, heroic victories come when you engage the enemy with no better odds than 1:1 and I kill a lot of the enemy army while taking relatively few casaulties.

[Craterus]

I'm pretty sure that if you kill all of them without a casualty you are guaranteed heroic regardless of the odds.

Not if it's 50 peasants (depleted unit, not upgraded in any way) against a full stack of full gold-chevron, gold defense and attack upgrades Cataphracts. That's kinda a no-brainer, and no military skill is needed. And it's unlikely that they'll take a casualty.

I believe that the victory description is based on you/oppsition numbers ratio, and the difference in overall quality between armies.

[Ironside]

Nope. Been there done that with my horse archer armies.

1 or 2 horse archers vs. 1 enemy infantry unit results in all of them getting killed with no casaulties in return. Still only getting Clear victories.

From my own experience, heroic victories come when you engage the enemy with no better odds than 1:1 and I kill a lot of the enemy army while taking relatively few casaulties.

It does give a heroic victory to kill all 300 men with 500 men, without losing a single man to the enemy (you can have ff kills). Losing one man, or letting one man survive, give a clear victory instead.

Never gotten anything else than heroic, clear and close victories.

[Deus ret.]

What exactly constitutes close, average, clear or crushing victory?
From which factiors depend type of the victory you can gain?

A mix of different factors. All have more or less been stated above, rather incohesive though.
Important are numbers, quality of general and army and position [loss-wise, it's relatively easier to get a heroic victory as the attacker, whereas the defender has the better field position to achieve such a heroic victory - this condition applies even more in sieges] in relation to the respecting qualities of the opponent's army.
A close victory is usually one where one side retreats without fighting or where relative losses of your army and your opponent's are quite equal(except sieges, it still can be average or clear victory then).
Average victories I only got so far while autocalcing battles. I've not yet examined them.
In the end, it all boils down to some kind of loss ratio compared to the opponent's loss ratio which determine the kind of victory. "Loss" encompasses not only numbers, but also quality (which kinds of troops were killed? by which kinds? Did the general survive? Was he capable? etc).

[dismal]

I have been paying particular attention to the conditions that earn a "Heroic victory" on my VH/H Hun campaign. Most of this is based on observing the result of fighting rebels with solo general's units.

Here's what I think it comes down to:
- Starting odds must be against you (If you put the cursor on the red-blue slider, it must say "Defeat is a distinct possibility" or worse.
- You must have a %killed that is significantly higher than the enemy's (e.g., you kill 80% of the enemy's army, they kill 20% of yours. I don't know exactly what the trigger is, but a difference of somewhere around 50% definitely gets the Heroic victory. It may be less, I simply don't have enough data.)

These may not be the actual triggers, but achieving them seems to almost guarantee a "heroic victory".

- Winning with 0 casualties does not automatically generate heroic victory (e.g., if general unit beats one peasant unit, odds will not be against.)

- Winning with "defeat is a distinct possibility" does not generate a "Heroic victory" if you suffer heavy casualties. I had a general fight what seemed like an incredibly heroic battle and survive with 3 men, and got a "close victory". Kills were 200+ to around 20. This suggests it is not the absolute kills that matters, but a comparison of the %killed between the two forces.

I won one battle where I had "defeat is almost a certainty". It was a single general attacking a 7 unit rebel army (1 horse archer, 3 kurdish javs, 3 peasants) over a bridge! The enemy formation even got the benefit of a hill on their side of the bridge. I simply did a light brigade charge over the bridge into the enemy formation. The enemy general (the horse archers) decided to fight instead of skirmish, and was quickly routed. I ran through them up the hill and then crushed the other units relatively easily, casualties were like 500 to 7. This general won the "Son of Chinglu" for the battle.

[dismal]

I regret to say in my latest campaign my observations of above have not strictly held up.

I've won several battles where the initial assessment was "defeat is a disctinct possibility" by fairly large margins but not gotten the "heroic" victory.

One difference I switched from H to VH battles. Perhaps the test varies by difficulty level, which may be one reason why different people report different results.

The other major consequence of going to VH is me tending to lose a few more men.

My general may lose 7 men where he used to lose 3 on H difficulty.

Revising my theory to account for this, my current hypothesis is heroic victory results when you have all of the above:

BattleOdds < X
PercentageEnemyKilled > Y
PercentageOwnKilled < Z (not sure this is right variable name)

X is whatever number translates to "defeat is a distinct possibility"
Y is a pretty high number, but likely to be achieved in any victory
Z, if I had to guess, is around 15-25%

[Belenus]

I once got a heroic victory when the little tab said the balance of forces is evenly matched, so I think it all depends on something else.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Don't know if it helps (at least it's self-plug ) but here are a couple heroic victories of mine:



The latter (actually the earlier) was a sally out of a fort. Both M/M
.

[dismal]

.
Don't know if it helps (at least it's self-plug ) but here are a couple heroic victories of mine:


The latter (actually the earlier) was a sally out of a fort. Both M/M
.

Cripes, there goes another theory down the tubes.

You lost a pretty fair number of men in those battles.

I think the tests may may depend on difficulty levels after all.

[Simetrical]

Well, the best way to do this (short of asking CA) would just be to run a few hundred one-on-one battles under varying conditions, then plot the victory types against casualty percentages for each side, casualty percentage ratios, and battle odds, and see if we can find a pattern.

[dismal]

These are all vh/vh battles I fought last night. The first two were actually on the same turn. The third was on the next turn. Same terrain. I am on defense in all these battles. Unfortunately, I was too caught up in the excitement to note the strength/probability assessments going into these.

OK, now this was truly a heroic victory. A very tough fight.



Percent enemy killed = 92%
Percent own killed = 49%
kill/death ratio = 9.3 to 1

As I mentioned this one was on the same turn, same place. My general didn't have time to recruit new bodyguards, but the good news was my HA's were able to find lots of arrows. A much easier win, but despite far better stats, this one's only "clear"..



Percent enemy killed = 91%
Percent own killed = 6%
kill/death ratio = 67 to 1

I include Round 3 just for fun. This guy Servius Flavius had a rough couple turns. You wonder about the AI attacking again with 200 men after it has just lost to this same army in this same spot with 2000 and 1000. This one also shows that killing all the enemy doesn't guarantee "heroic".



Percent enemy killed = 100%
Percent own killed = 2%
kill/death ratio = 39 to 1