70-90% casualty rates realistic?

[Marquis of Roland]

Yea, I'm with the shoot-a-few-volleys-and-charge school of thought, so my casualties, while still high compared to M2TW and RTW, is not so bad, usually 20-30%, 40-50% if its a real grind 'em out, beat down 3 stacks at a time type battle.

I found out playing RTI having a shootout wasn't the way to go (did you know in RTI the French have fire by rank and you don't? lol); I do agree they should make teh routing threshold a little lower (not that much lower though), sometimes I'd have 4 regiments on their flank shooting and they still wouldn't rout.

Naval battles are even lighter on casualties. The most ship of the lines I've lost was 2, in a 12 british (me) vs. 14 french throwdown (all ships of the line).

Now playing VH/VH

[BeeSting]

Yea, I'm with the shoot-a-few-volleys-and-charge school of thought, so my casualties, while still high compared to M2TW and RTW, is not so bad, usually 20-30%, 40-50% if its a real grind 'em out, beat down 3 stacks at a time type battle.

I found out playing RTI having a shootout wasn't the way to go (did you know in RTI the French have fire by rank and you don't? lol); I do agree they should make teh routing threshold a little lower (not that much lower though), sometimes I'd have 4 regiments on their flank shooting and they still wouldn't rout.

Naval battles are even lighter on casualties. The most ship of the lines I've lost was 2, in a 12 british (me) vs. 14 french throwdown (all ships of the line).

Now playing VH/VH

Interesting read.

But I'm more worried about the AI casualty rates and its inability to tactically withdraw or retreat.

[knoddy]

Interesting read.

But I'm more worried about the AI casualty rates and its inability to tactically withdraw or retreat.

i have to admit we havnt really seen the tactical we were promised the ai would only fight tooth and nail to the death if it was down to its last city in a siege or something like that.

I THINK the biggest problem is that, it isnt really possible to withdraw in good order. either u rout, or u die. if u tried to withdraw in game as it is atm, u will get shot in the back or cut down by cavalary. perhaps they need to look into changing the withdraw feature currently in game to make them march in rank perhaps even in a fighting retreat of some such. so that its possible for the AI to actually retreat out of battle without suffering insane casualties.

having high casualties when they rout is ok, but as it stands they AI cant really just perform a strategic retreat without leaving itself open to being slaughtered.

Cheers Knoddy

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Has anyone ever seen the AI withdraw? I remember that was one of the selling points - the new AI could take into account the strategic situation and pack up if staying alive was more important than keeping ground...

[Callahan9119]

If I was playing a battle that was gonna last 8 to 10 hours I would be mad about the kill rate. My complaint is that the AI forces the issue too often due to its poor handling of a battle. How am I supposed to resist quickly killing an endlessly shuffling mass of men standing (sometimes) in my way? It is normally in such a bad position that it really has no chance to escape, as it always commits its full force quickly.

I remember mtw1 as the best one for the AI's ability to retreat and get reinforcements quickly off the map if things had gone south.

I can bet that if there were tons of soldiers surviving battles, you would have way more complaints from people annoyed with chasing defeated armies all over the map.

[Divine Wind]

Has anyone ever seen the AI withdraw? I remember that was one of the selling points - the new AI could take into account the strategic situation and pack up if staying alive was more important than keeping ground...

Nope not once. Every battle I have fought, they have stayed till the death. As you said, the tactical retreat was being advertised as one of the great new strategic moves the AI would make...

[quadalpha]

Has anyone ever seen the AI withdraw? I remember that was one of the selling points - the new AI could take into account the strategic situation and pack up if staying alive was more important than keeping ground...

I was wondering the exact same thing. Mind, they did stop talking about that point a few months ago ...