What's your acceptable casualty rate after a battle?

[Tactics Mayers]

Trying to try and avoid getting my troops suffer too much casualties during a battle is daunting task.

What's your acceptable level of casualties in your army? Which unit you expect to suffer heavy losses? Which units you can't afford to see loss even 10 or more men?

[Baharr]

Casualties are a fact of life imo. I just accept that my armies will get worn down with time. After a certain point I just start merging units together and supplementing the force with mercenaries, local troops, or reinforcements from home.

In particular my frontline brawlers (phalanxes, hastati, etc.) will always lose at least some men every battle. Light cav can lose half their strength if caught out of position. Heavy cav will lose between 0-10 men per battle, depending on how solid a battleline I'm insisting they crack open.

[Marvzilla]

My cavalry most often suffers due to them being the most used unit, trying to lure enemies out and ending up cycle charging isolated units or going for skirmishers in holes the enemy lefts open, or brawling it out with the opposing cavalry. Ironically my most valued infantry units mostly stay back due to them being so important and as such dont see much action.

[tentaku]

I don't want to see casualty among my elite experienced units, so I hold them in reserve and use them last. The cannon fodder units I couldn't care less, and they often die in heaps in every battle.

[nvm]

I consider anything above 35% casualties heavy losses. Or anything worse than a "Clear Victory" anyway, it's close enough. Very often I find my skirmishers, archers or slingers ending up having high casualties, especially wherever the enemy has more cavalry than me. This tends to irritate me, as I would like to see at least one unit to achieve many chevrons, and units engaging at distance should not be exposed to as much harm as I do anyway, but at least they are easily replaceable and losing them is still better than elites.

Overall I hate losing units which are rare, elite, or difficult to replace. (Spartan Hoplites, Balerian Slingers, Cretan Archers, and the like)

[Sar1n]

Depends on battle, of course. Equal strength, field battle...I consider 10-15% acceptable. The more difficult battle, the more losses are acceptable, and I've won battles with over 50% casualty rate, while still considering it a good outcome.

What suffers most in my battles is medium cavalry and light infantry. I usually use Raskumezenai and Peltenai for that purpose, they give good account of themselves in virtually any situation. I often use the former to fix the enemy cavalry while the latter charges in and helps clearing it out, but they both suffer heavy casulaties from overuse...but they're so common mercenaries all over the hellenic world that they're easy to replace.

What is definitely most precious for me is artillery. Okay, I admit, I'm shamelessly abusing oxybeles, every one of my "heavy" offensive armies gotta have one. Properly used alongside phalanx yields easily 300+ kills per battle. Second to that, hard to replace ranged units, even if I prefer to use, at least in my heavy armies, the armoured, multipurpose troops like Skaplinai and Thureophorentes Toxotai. While the elites might be even harder to replace, they usually don't take many casualties even when put in the thick of battle, as long as the cavalry is kept away.

[Porphyrogenita]

Very much depends on circumstances: If the goal is worth it - a city or especially good defensive position then they are all expendable. I would usually plan on having other forces take over after the battle. Mercenaries I make a point of grinding to a pulp. Every time. Regardless. If they are stupid enough to keep volunteering then I am happy enough to cull the gene pool for them. It is almost impossible to kill enough mercenaries to stop the pools being perpetually full, but in order to stop the AI recruiting them and magicking stacks into existence, I will always try to hire them first - and then hurl them inexpertly at whatever is around. As long as you win, you can even train up some generals this way.

[Ganos Paran]

I'm usually fine with around 5-10% mostly in cavalry and my FM's bodyguard, and most of these are in taking out the opposing cavalry. Honestly, unless I'm heavily outnumbered or fighting a bridge battle, I feel like my heavy line infantry are my safest melee units in terms of casualties. The units I value the most tend to be my medium-light archers and peltasts since they can rack up a hundred plus kills a battle while taking no losses if used right and get chevrons faster than any other infantry unit.

[Lyathon]

I'm usually fine with around 5-10% mostly in cavalry and my FM's bodyguard, and most of these are in taking out the opposing cavalry. Honestly, unless I'm heavily outnumbered or fighting a bridge battle, I feel like my heavy line infantry are my safest melee units in terms of casualties. The units I value the most tend to be my medium-light archers and peltasts since they can rack up a hundred plus kills a battle while taking no losses if used right and get chevrons faster than any other infantry unit.

You do know that chevrons in med2 only give melee bonuses, not missle attack right? I just gotta make sure

[Ganos Paran]

You do know that chevrons in med2 only give melee bonuses, not missile attack right? I just gotta make sure

Hahaha yeah I'm mostly in it because more chevrons just feel better, plus lots of battles I use spent missile troops to flank or trap infantry for charges so the extra attack points help them take on tired or engaged units. Though I think there's a bonus to missile accuracy with increased chevrons (not super sure, but some old posts seem to suggest so).

[Rad]

I am happy as long as my favorite units make it out relatively intact.

[Rosbjerg]

None, I love my men like my own children..

At least that's what I say in front of the men, in reality I'll roll with 100% if it furthers my goals.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I've got a question: do you know if it's possible to tweak the casualty number that is healed after the battle? Maybe you can hint at a file that's needed to be changed?

Besides, I've put it in a different thread, you've might have seen it

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Below there's data on 15 battles played in EBII 2.35 against Eleutheroi with similar or better troops. The battle difficulty level was Very Hard, what was very palpable in two aspects: killing (against similar units my troops were seriously loosing) and stamina (my troops were almost instantly exhausted, while the AI were always fresh). All the battles were initiated by myself, all were won, in one case there was a risk of defeat (or wasn't?). I didn't have problems with morale due to my generals. The tigernos had like 4-6 Command, up to 3 Command while Attacking, up to 6 TroopMorale and up to 6 Confidence (what is equivalent to TroopMorale) - that meant that all units had the maximum morale irrespectively from their base values (he effectively added 23 morale). They would also fight the very last man without a rout. In a few battles, I've used some other generals with lower stats (so perhaps adding only 4-6 to morale) but the units didn't flee either (but two cases when they're overwhelmed locally).

[1-1] 10%, 40 min.
[2-1] 20%, 40 min.
[1-1] 10%, 50 min.
[2-1] 15%, 75 min.
[1-1] 20%, 60 min.
[1-1] 20%, 75 min.
[1-1] 30%, 90 min.
[1-1] 30%, 25 min.
[1-1] 10%, 8 min.
[1-1] 40%, 130 min. (battle in a hilly landscape)
[1-1] 30%, 50 min.
[2-1] 20%, 35 min. (unexperienced general with 0 Command and morale)
[1-1] 30%, 60 min.
[1-2] 45%, 120 min. (large siege battle)
[5-3] 5%, 6 min.

[Lusitanio]

It seems that the General's BattleSurgery stat has a lot of influence on the casualty number after the battle.

From Areatus:
Strictly, the first to die in battle are the ones who get the chance to be healed. The healing pool is filled on a first-die-first-served basis. So the first men to die have a chance (but not a guarantee) to be healed. Once the healing pool is filled up, men who die thereafter have no chance of being healed. The size of the healing pool is finalized at the end of battle, so its size is affected by whether commanders with healer retinue are still alive at the end of the battle.

The chance of healing is completely unrelated to how you get killed. Whether it's death by cannon ball or by arrows from peasant archers is irrelevant. Only the order of death matters. However, because the first to die are generally against enemy archery fire, there has been a misconception that arrow deaths are more likely to be healed than melee deaths.

Therefore, if you expect to lose almost all of your army (and yet eventually win the battle), send in the most expensive units first, since they will be partly healed.

[Rad]

It seems that the General's BattleSurgery stat has a lot of influence on the casualty number after the battle.

From Areatus:
Strictly, the first to die in battle are the ones who get the chance to be healed. The healing pool is filled on a first-die-first-served basis. So the first men to die have a chance (but not a guarantee) to be healed. Once the healing pool is filled up, men who die thereafter have no chance of being healed. The size of the healing pool is finalized at the end of battle, so its size is affected by whether commanders with healer retinue are still alive at the end of the battle.

Interesting. If true, that would mean that it pays off to send your best troops into the thick of it. Doing that would significantly affect how I conduct battles. Thus far, I have been holding back my best troops until I feel it's safe enough to use them - which is not a surefire way to stop them from getting mauled in the end part of a battle

[Jurand of Cracow]

It seems that the General's BattleSurgery stat has a lot of influence on the casualty number after the battle.

yep, but it also does occur if the general doesn't have this stat. So is it possible to tweak it or not? Hmm, maybe a negative value for the BattleSurgery would do the trick?

[Rad]

Chirurgeons heal more casualties than doctors/herbalists/physicians, so it is possible.

[Raiuga]

yep, but it also does occur if the general doesn't have this stat. So is it possible to tweak it or not? Hmm, maybe a negative value for the BattleSurgery would do the trick?

What you want is a butcher that is in your retinue to help with the casualties, but ends up killing them due to incompetence