Losses in (and after) battles

[NotZaran5]

I have a question, how to increase the number of healed units at the end of a battle? And, how to increase the threshold for wiping and enemy army? I believe it is 85 currently. How would I increase it to 95?

[Jurand of Cracow]

I have a question, how to increase the number of healed units at the end of a battle? And, how to increase the threshold for wiping and enemy army? I believe it is 85 currently. How would I increase it to 95?

What do you mean - in game, or you want to mod (ie change the code)?
"wiping an army" - what do you mean?

[kostic]

I have a question, how to increase the number of healed units at the end of a battle? And, how to increase the threshold for wiping and enemy army? I believe it is 85 currently. How would I increase it to 95?

If I understand correctly, @NotZaran5 would like battles to have fewer deaths and more injuries.
That would indeed be quite historic. The battles of the Middle Ages often had a limited number of dead and many wounded.
If there is any code to modify this, it would be interesting to modify it.



Regarding the Ruthenian archers, I did a test and found this unit without textures in a rebel army.
@dijenek999 spotted that the unit for Novgorod was also in the same situation.
No wonder: in the EDU, this unit is currently only available for lithuania, poland and kievan_rus...

To solve this problem, I will therefore make this unit an AOR unit. I believe that is also the wish of @Jurand (probably in the next version)

[Jurand of Cracow]

If I understand correctly, @NotZaran5 would like battles to have fewer deaths and more injuries.
That would indeed be quite historic. The battles of the Middle Ages often had a limited number of dead and many wounded.

I have 2 arguments against:
(1) In the game, there're no marching losses (or whatever it's called, I mean: each army loses troops everyday as they desert, succumb to the illnesses etc.). The only way to make your units losing troops on the long campaign is to include those losses in the battle losses.
(2) The problem with this solution is that it makes the player even more invincible as he normally is. With very low loses you can build you 1 army and then defeat any number of the AI stacks. Normally, you would need to stop for refit, and this is something not present in the Med2 engine.

I'm interested if your reports in the reports of the players in such way:

Hi Guys,
I've been playing a Pritanoi campaign and I have much fun with the battles in the EBII. I'm a micromanagement freak, I think, so my battles are very long and the losses are minimized. Or are they? I'm curious how do they compare to your experience.
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.

[kostic]

What I can say about my battle experience:


1- I often find them too fast. We can increase the 2nd attribute for each unit, but then the battles in the cities are too long... (another solution that slows down the battle a bit is to slow down the game. I sometimes choose speed 0.8 at the start of the battle)


2- I like to play with the morale of the troops. I find good that some defeats are due to a loss of morale of my troops or those of the AI.


3- There are often too many dead on the battlefield and especially at the top of the ladders on the perimeter wall. Would making the morale of the troops more fragile be a way to limit this ?


4- I don't know how to stop the AI ​​from sending its troops to be slaughtered on a single scale. Faced with such a situation, I would like her to give up and sound the retreat or manage to take back the ram, ladders and other siege towers to attack in another place. @Macaras was talking about a newer version of Piter's AI... does it improve that aspect ?


5- @Jurand I'm not sure I understand your point of view regarding the number of injured. If there are less losses in battle, it also concerns the AI. The preservation of armies is therefore also for the AI ​​and should not benefit only the player.

[Macaras]

4- I don't know how to stop the AI ​​from sending its troops to be slaughtered on a single scale. Faced with such a situation, I would like her to give up and sound the retreat or manage to take back the ram, ladders and other siege towers to attack in another place. @Macaras was talking about a newer version of Piter's AI... does it improve that aspect ?

I was looking into it, but couldn't find any solution. I even tested some mods to see if maybe they solved it, but no success. Its not related to the campaign ai but rather to the battle ai and some factors in other files.
I think if it was possible to lower morale of the sallying out units, that would make up for the AI incompetence in manouvering siege machines. I don't know how to do it though, but will try to research it in the forums.

[Jurand of Cracow]

What I can say about my battle experience:


1- I often find them too fast. We can increase the 2nd attribute for each unit, but then the battles in the cities are too long... (another solution that slows down the battle a bit is to slow down the game. I sometimes choose speed 0.8 at the start of the battle)


2- I like to play with the morale of the troops. I find good that some defeats are due to a loss of morale of my troops or those of the AI.


3- There are often too many dead on the battlefield and especially at the top of the ladders on the perimeter wall. Would making the morale of the troops more fragile be a way to limit this ?


4- I don't know how to stop the AI ​​from sending its troops to be slaughtered on a single scale. Faced with such a situation, I would like her to give up and sound the retreat or manage to take back the ram, ladders and other siege towers to attack in another place. @Macaras was talking about a newer version of Piter's AI... does it improve that aspect ?


5- @Jurand I'm not sure I understand your point of view regarding the number of injured. If there are less losses in battle, it also concerns the AI. The preservation of armies is therefore also for the AI ​​and should not benefit only the player.

ad. 5 - I mean: in practice, the human player wins most of the battles (I'd guess 90-95%). Thus it's almost only the player who benefits from healing the injured (the losing side loses the injured and the unransomed prisoners). In many (most?) of these battles the whole losing army is wiped (if it's attacked the 2nd time). At the end, it's the player who benefits from healing and lower losses.

ad. 1 - I also often play with lower speed, like 0.5, or even lower (this is an advantage of the Med2 engine over Rome2 or Attila - there you can only have 0.5)

[NotZaran5]

Then is it possible to create a limit on number of captured soldiers? To make it much more difficult to wipe armies? Maybe you can only capture 25% or 30% of the number of men you have. Maybe even lower. It wasn't too easy to capture men. How about your units being unable to attack retreating soldiers after a certain quota is filled. This would bring the focus more on capturing the important troops rather than the 480 archer fodder. If you also reduce the melee hit rate, then it is quite feasible I think, though I really wouldn't know. Optimally I would prefer more than 30% of the enemy troops to survive while taking fewer casualties of my own troops. Maybe for the player this could also be balanced out by attrition (again I dont know how feasible it is). I think raising the threshold to 95% for a stack wipe might be impossible. So how about focusing on getting more men to survive the battle. Capturing 800 troops when your army has 1600 men doesn't seem like it should be possible. If allowed capture rate was something like 20% would reduce captured men to 320, allowing the rest to recuperate. There isn't really a limit on manpower as population doesn't matter in this game only money. (how do I increase unit refill time btw)

[Jurand of Cracow]

Then is it possible to create a limit on number of captured soldiers? To make it much more difficult to wipe armies? Maybe you can only capture 25% or 30% of the number of men you have. Maybe even lower. It wasn't too easy to capture men. How about your units being unable to attack retreating soldiers after a certain quota is filled. This would bring the focus more on capturing the important troops rather than the 480 archer fodder. If you also reduce the melee hit rate, then it is quite feasible I think, though I really wouldn't know. Optimally I would prefer more than 30% of the enemy troops to survive while taking fewer casualties of my own troops. Maybe for the player this could also be balanced out by attrition (again I dont know how feasible it is). I think raising the threshold to 95% for a stack wipe might be impossible. So how about focusing on getting more men to survive the battle. Capturing 800 troops when your army has 1600 men doesn't seem like it should be possible. If allowed capture rate was something like 20% would reduce captured men to 320, allowing the rest to recuperate. There isn't really a limit on manpower as population doesn't matter in this game only money. (how do I increase unit refill time btw)

no idea if it's possible in the Med2 engine. I wouldn't think so.

[opaxite]

You can get the Apothecary ancillary which increases the chance of causalties recovery. I found the chance rather high, with some units recovering as much as 80% of causalties.

[Dekhatres]

there's battle surgery trait that iirc can increase amount of wounded instead of dead significantly, but in order for an army to benefit from it it requires a general or family member to be in charge of that army

[Jurand of Cracow]

You can get the Apothecary ancillary which increases the chance of causalties recovery. I found the chance rather high, with some units recovering as much as 80% of causalties.

there's battle surgery trait that iirc can increase amount of wounded instead of dead significantly, but in order for an army to benefit from it it requires a general or family member to be in charge of that army

both ways are true, but both are (or should be) in extremely limited supply - and this is on purpose, the reasons I've already enumerated.

[Dekhatres]

You can get the Apothecary ancillary which increases the chance of causalties recovery. I found the chance rather high, with some units recovering as much as 80% of causalties.

yea i remember years ago i played a vh campaign with rum and in one battle after wiping almost an entire enemy unit of stratiotae with horse archers i retreated from battle since i was content with the fairly high casualties i inflicted on the entire byz army, then after battle when looked at their army that unit of stratiotae was almost back at full strength lmao, i believe it was because AI was getting lots of bonuses and among them a ridiculously high battle surgery bonus

[Jurand of Cracow]

yea i remember years ago i played a vh campaign with rum and in one battle after wiping almost an entire enemy unit of stratiotae with horse archers i retreated from battle since i was content with the fairly high casualties i inflicted on the entire byz army, then after battle when looked at their army that unit of stratiotae was almost back at full strength lmao, i believe it was because AI was getting lots of bonuses and among them a ridiculously high battle surgery bonus

this was with BGR. we don't have it in the SSHIP anymore.

[Dekhatres]

this was with BGR. we don't have it in the SSHIP anymore.

whats bgr ? is it byg grim reality ? or something like that, i've never played with it, i know it was somewhat popular submod for old SS

[Jurand of Cracow]

whats bgr ? is it byg grim reality ? or something like that, i've never played with it, i know it was somewhat popular submod for old SS

yes, it is.
there was Cohesive Fighting Unit trait healing troops

[eyelurker]

Is it just me or does the army have an absurdly high morale. They are easy to kill but making them retreat is very unlikely except for the poorest of militia. This make all the melee battle even for heavy infantry/knight a costly affair especially with low manpower recharge.

I already have solution for such predicament and that is archer based army which decimate the enemy rank without having to engage in costly battle. Well at least horse archer army gain their importance here unlike in other total war mod which usually nerf the already nerfed horse archer.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Is it just me or does the army have an absurdly high morale. They are easy to kill but making them retreat is very unlikely except for the poorest of militia. This make all the melee battle even for heavy infantry/knight a costly affair especially with low manpower recharge.

I already have solution for such predicament and that is archer based army which decimate the enemy rank without having to engage in costly battle. Well at least horse archer army gain their importance here unlike in other total war mod which usually nerf the already nerfed horse archer.

As a new team from ver. 0.96, we haven't changed the morale parameter. It is as it was in v. 092, made by Fair Prince, MWY, and Lifthrasir.

The system is definitely different from what we could see in the EBII - have a look at the numbers I've collected here.

However, what I've seen in the SSHIP players' battles, the losses are still rather low.

"costly affair" they should be

{INFO_STRATEGY_BATTLE_LOSES_IMPORTANT_BODY}In the SSHIP, the recruitment pools re-fill very slowly. The result it: new units become available for recruitment after many, many turns. Unlike in the other Total War games, there is no automatic regeneration of the units either - to get a unit to full strenght you need to merge two or more units, or come back to the place of recruitment and retrain. Nevertheless, the battles are bloody as units do not flee easily. You could win through catching prisoners, you must fight - and incur losses. Furthermore, the "doctor" abilities of your generals are very limited in the SSHIP - most of the troops that were lost during battles will not heal afterwards. This is the rule for both the player and the AI factions: if you kill many enemies during a battle, they will not be healed for the AI (again, the special abilities for the AI to heal after a victorious battle that exist in some other mods - notably Byg's Grim Reality - are disabled in the SSHIP).\n\nThis means that having money is not enough to wage successful wars, manpower is very scarce resource and you need to pay attention. \n\nThe bottom line is: you should minimize your losses in the battles because replacement may not be available. On the other hand, if the enemy faction attacks you, try to inflict as much losses as you can - even in the battles that is lost anyway, for instance due to the imbalance of forces. These losses of your enemy can save you in the next battle!
{INFO_STRATEGY_BATTLE_LOSES_IMPORTANT_TITLE}Mind your losses in the battles!

[eyelurker]

As a new team from ver. 0.96, we haven't changed the morale parameter. It is as it was in v. 092, made by Fair Prince, MWY, and Lifthrasir.

The system is definitely different from what we could see in the EBII - have a look at the numbers I've collected here.

However, what I've seen in the SSHIP players' battles, the losses are still rather low.

"costly affair" they should be

The 'mind your losses' advice only works if i can kill my enemy in skirmish phase. The melee in this game are bloody since the fight is usually to the death, even heavy unit are not spared. I'm actually wondering what tactic did player use to minimize casualties because so far only ranged unit could minimze the casulaties in the fight.

Yeah it's definitely diffrent from EB2. EB2 have a very durable but somewhat low morale infantry, glass cannon cavalry and a relatively useless missle(can be used to a great effect but generally optional) SSHIP current version have high damage and high morale but poor survivability across all unit.

[Sannitico]

The 'mind your losses' advice only works if i can kill my enemy in skirmish phase. The melee in this game are bloody since the fight is usually to the death, even heavy unit are not spared. I'm actually wondering what tactic did player use to minimize casualties because so far only ranged unit could minimze the casulaties in the fight.

Yeah it's definitely diffrent from EB2. EB2 have a very durable but somewhat low morale infantry, glass cannon cavalry and a relatively useless missle(can be used to a great effect but generally optional) SSHIP current version have high damage and high morale but poor survivability across all unit.

A combination of ranged units and fast killing enemy general is the best way to protect your army from a bloody battle. Is's quite important also a good "human supply chain", keeping some fresh units in a settlmement near the battle so you can change o merge the most damaged units. However, i personally prefer SSHIP battle system to the EB one. When i played EB, i remember very long battles with lesser casualties but with less impact of mounted and ranged units. According to my point of view, this means a weaker impact of the human touch managing the battlefield because it lowers the importance of thinking the best position and actions of units.