Close Victory

[The_Bot]

This is a very minor thought that came to me as I was enjoying DEI over the weekend.

I've noticed that after some battles where I've won, despite being heavily outnumbered, I only get a "close victory" summary at the end whereas I think "decisive victory" would be more appropriate.

For example, my roman force of 5k defeated a Subei force of 9k, with approx 40%-50% and 70%-80% losses respectively (I've increased army size to 40 units). I would have thought this was fairly decisive in favour.

What are the criteria for the various battle summaries?

[Master.Mind]

Yes, I noticed that too wether you get a close victory or a decisive one seems to depend only on your casulties so if you kill 4k but lose for example one third of your army you get a close victory.

[antred]

Well, considering that roughly half of your force was destroyed, I think "close" victory isn't too far off the mark, because it does seem like you came very close to being defeated.

[mephhhh]

if alexander lost 40-50% of his army every time he fought darius he wouldnt be the son of zeus. he would be the son of close victories

[rjacko10]

Yeh, 40-50% is a huge loss for the winning side. Especially considering a large chunk of the enemy losses probably happened during routing. AND also some of your men would have recovered from their wounds.

I guess the enemy probably routed at about 60% casualties, and so the difference pre-rout was pretty close

[Butan]

I agree with the others: how the term pyrrhic/close/decisive/etc... is chosen is actually one of the most accurate "automatic" feature of Rome 2. Quite more accurate than the auto-battle function

[Alu10]

i got too many heroic victories, they do not feel heroic anymore

[Butan]

Thats a guess, but it is most probable you are playing against the AI if you have too many heroic battles
The real challenge lies in "hard" or above battle difficulty (even though its not advised) or in cooperative campaign against a human (humans...)!


If I dont make a mistake and have a disadvantage in quality of quantity, I rarely get worse than close victories. The AI is far better than at release but it really needs some love!

Never a reserve! Never a skirmish phase!
As long as you match the lenght of his battle line and have one shock unit available, its usually the end of them

[m_1512]

I may be wrong here, but I think the outcome is decided somewhere along this:

Heroic victory: Defeat an enemy spectacularly, by chain of routs.
Decisive victory: Defeat an enemy by minimal losses.
Close vicotry: Defeat an enemy with some losses.
Costly victory: Defeat an enemy with heavy losses.
Pyrrhic victory: As name suggest, victory that is no better than defeat.