Theory on why combat in ETW is unrealistic
I've played quite a few battles with empire over the last weeks both with the vanilla version and a few of the greater battle modifications like Darths mod and feel I've pretty much got the hang of it. However I was quite irritated by the fact that the combat is actually not to dissimilar to the one in Medieval 2.
Now don't get me wrong on a purely tactical level Empire of course is quite different with it's stronger emphasis of ranged combat, lines of fire etc. But strategically it still plays very much the same way as Medieval (and in fact Rome) with two battle lines clashing headlong and one of the two sides in the end routing the enemy along the whole line and entirely destroying the enemy while usually himself suffering casualties between 15 and 60% depending on the toughness of the battle. This might seem appropriate for a game like Rome where indeed most casualties where inflicted upon the enemy once the general route began and the almost complete annihilation of the enemy force was far more common than in later ages, but for the 17th century this seems just ludicrous.
Battles where mostly won by breaking through the enemy lines at a limited point and trying to exploit that gap in the enemies line. Often however the opposing commander realized his new situation and ordered a controlled withdrawal at that point which usually left most of his remaining army intact. Therefore battles of total elimination where almost unknown in 17th century warfare.
To back up my point I have created a little statistic. The following lists show the casualties of the victors and losers of a few selected battles in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) and the Austrian War of Succession (1740-1748) in percent. The battles have been selected on the following criteria:
- Both sides should field at least ~ 40.000 men (therefore it should be major engagements)
- No side should have a overwhelming numerical advantage (1/3 or more men than the enemy) to ensure that the battles weren’t absolutely forgone conclusion
I understand that these few battles are in no way representative of the general battle casualties during the 17th century but they at least give some perspective. All rates have been calculated using the stats found in the respective wikipedia-articles so you will have to cut me some slack on their absolute reliability. When the stats where uncertain (i.e. "5.000-10.000 killed"), I went for the mid number (in this case 7.500). All dead, wounded and captured shall be lumped together as "casualties"
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
As these statistics clearly show even in quite decisive encounters like Hohenfriedberg the vanquished wasn’t completely destroyed and in some cases the losses on both sides are even almost even. Furthermore one has to consider that almost half the casualties in this statistics fall under the heading "wounded" which doesn’t mean that all these men where permanently disabled from fighting again another day.
Now why do the battles in Empire never generate similar resultes? In my eyes the problem is with the AI. The AI is simply unable to realize that i.e. when the player has routed it's left flank that the battle is now unwinnable and that it should now try to retreat with the core of it's army to live and fight another day. This allows the player to completely crush the enemy. One of my first resolves after realizing this has been to always "end battle" once the encounter is one. But unless CA massively alters the AI or modders find a way to tweak this considerable problem we will probably live with the fact that Empire will remain "17th century warfare arcade-style"
So what are your thoughts on this issue?
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Originally Posted by Imperator Valentine
I'm sure you'd like it, with his mod casualties are lower in most cases, due to reduced musket efficiency at long range (increased at short range) and reduced morale for all troops compared to vanilla.
