Inflicting Casualties and the impact on next battles

[Your Obedient Servant]

Hi All, I hope someone can help explain the game mechanics behind this. Lets say I defeat an enemy in battle, and he takes 5,000 out of 15,000 casualties. What kind of effect will this have on future battles? What if I inflict 10,000 out of 15,000? What effect will this have? I know on some of the missions it says "you beat the enemy at X, army size 5% smaller", but does inflicting regular casualties and making brigades surrender actually impact army size on following battles?

I ask because it seems no matter how many casualties I inflict, the enemy has 3000 man brigades of 2 veterancy stars on the next battle, even if I completely destroyed the same brigade the previous mission. Thanks!

[Champin Playr]

<-- Correct me if im wrong -->

This is from my observation during CSA campaign.

Every battle has a pre-determinated ratio of forces like Antietam 1:2.3 (+15% to enemy forces for MG, additional 25% for legendary).

AI has an army pool from where he takes his troops.

For example, AI has 100k in his army pool. If you take to battle 38k soldiers - he will take 87k from his pool. If you take more - he will take more as well to keep the proportions. If you will take to battle 50k - AI will take 100k as it is max number of soldiers he has, so the ratio will be 1:2.

After each battle AI has some additional troops provided to his pool (if rookies - the number of veteran units will be less in next battle, but he can also receive veterans). So, if you will bleed AI forced good enough, so that he will lose more than receive at some point you can notice that in battles that should be, for example, like 1:2 can be 1:1

[Kyo Gnome]

I have attempted 3 confederate legnedary campaigns. you can compare antietem between the three. in each successive campaign, I improved my play a lot and played more aggressively each time and it definately shows.

139,518 vs 52,292
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/853851650566944520/FC74804CFA70188515399379EEB019A5DB028522/

123,849 vs 58,152
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/853851650566944811/DA444A8E93E1981750C02849F927B6AF42EE793B/

76,895 vs 57,572
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/853851650566943928/B4A6FA5A5733933D6D03C0E38FAFA29A7E3C7573/

I dont know how exactly it works but it definately helps a lot to kill the enemy. ALTHOUGH, I recently ran into a huge problem with my 3rd campaign that may require me to restart the game... AGAIN... which is that I am facing around 240,000 troops at washington while I only faced 27,000 troops at cold harbour (intellegence report is sitting at around 50,000)... I wonder if washington has a minimum cap of 240,000 for a legendary game which would make my extremely agressive stategy only viable in the early game.

[Didz]

My understanding is that number of brigades the AI gets for each battle, and it's army composition is fixed, e.g. For Distress Call the AI always gets 7 x Infantry Brigades.

Nothing you can do will change this, however, what varies is the strength of those brigades. So, for example the strength of the infantry brigades in Distress Call may vary from less than 1,000 men to close to 3,000 depending on the scaling applicable.

How much the AI's losses in previous battles is still a mystery to me. But I do know that the strength of your army is a factor, as is your current reputation, and how successful you were in certain key pre-requisite battles.

[maniacalpenny]

Originally posted by Kyo Gnome:

I have attempted 3 confederate legnedary campaigns. you can compare antietem between the three. in each successive campaign, I improved my play a lot and played more aggressively each time and it definately shows.

139,518 vs 52,292
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/853851650566944520/FC74804CFA70188515399379EEB019A5DB028522/

123,849 vs 58,152
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/853851650566944811/DA444A8E93E1981750C02849F927B6AF42EE793B/

76,895 vs 57,572
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/853851650566943928/B4A6FA5A5733933D6D03C0E38FAFA29A7E3C7573/

I dont know how exactly it works but it definately helps a lot to kill the enemy. ALTHOUGH, I recently ran into a huge problem with my 3rd campaign that may require me to restart the game... AGAIN... which is that I am facing around 240,000 troops at washington while I only faced 27,000 troops at cold harbour (intellegence report is sitting at around 50,000)... I wonder if washington has a minimum cat of 240,000 for a legendary game which would make my extremely agressive stategy only viable in the early game.

Cold Harbor minimum is definitely over 27k. If you fight the full 3-day battle the Union will bring around 100k on MG, and probably more on Legendary, regardless of the size of their army pool.

Originally posted by Champin Playr:

<-- Correct me if im wrong -->

This is from my observation during CSA campaign.

Every battle has a pre-determinated ratio of forces like Antietam 1:2.3 (+15% to enemy forces for MG, additional 25% for legendary).

AI has an army pool from where he takes his troops.

For example, AI has 100k in his army pool. If you take to battle 38k soldiers - he will take 87k from his pool. If you take more - he will take more as well to keep the proportions. If you will take to battle 50k - AI will take 100k as it is max number of soldiers he has, so the ratio will be 1:2.

After each battle AI has some additional troops provided to his pool (if rookies - the number of veteran units will be less in next battle, but he can also receive veterans). So, if you will bleed AI forced good enough, so that he will lose more than receive at some point you can notice that in battles that should be, for example, like 1:2 can be 1:1

This is mostly right, except there is also a minimum deployment for each map and the AI will not bring less than that, regardless of the size of their army via intelligence. Another thing to note is the enemy army size via intelligence will never go below ~50k, and the reinforcements after each battle will just increase to compensate for this.

I believe there is also a sort of "bounce back" mechanic that will give the enemy more reinforcements if you kill over a certain threshold of units. For example if you go to Antietam vs 120k and kill 60k Union soldiers, they will receive more reinforcements than if you only killed 40k. I'm not 100% sure about this and I could be conflating with increased reinforcements from the 50k minimum though, as these observations were made before i readily determined that ai army size via intelligence will never go too far below this number.

[emcdunna]

The point is: killing the enemy matters, but only so much. You can't end the game by killing 100% of the enemy force In a battle, even if you do it several times in a row. However, it does matter.

[Solar Maximus]

Several good points here by all posters, all valid points.

Originally posted by emcdunna:

The point is: killing the enemy matters, but only so much.

This pretty much sums it up.

The "bounce back" mentioned in post #4 by maniacalpenny I believe is a real thing as well. Like in this example: where out of the wild blue the force you face can surprise the heck out of you. In grand battle order I kill 32% at Fredericksburg (did not try to exterminate them), kill 51% at Stones River, Kill 75% at Chancellorsville...really nice build up of kills right?...ai should be getting weaker right?...then out of the blue...wow...I face 99,344 "swarming hornets" at Gettysburg vs my own 68,400.

The Intelligence Report going into the Battle of Gettysburg says that the maximum enemy army size for the next battle is 93K, but over 99K show up. So clearly what maniacalpenny said about bounceback and of ai minimum army size may be correct, relative to the difficulty level.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1128368738

I kill 61.5% at Gettysburg. Chickamauga is the next grand battle in my current playthough. So we will see what happens.

[Edwardo]

I see and agree with this problem. in my current union campaign ive detstroyed Kershaws and a number of other brigades multiple times adn they reappear in futur battles in large number. it seems the AI doesnt have to follow the same army building and maintanence as the player.

[FaLX]

The entire affair is a bit dodgy if you ask me. In terms of intelligence, we should have a bit more information on the changes of enemy composition and numbers. I usually play one battle per evening due to time constraints and am not willing to write down all the armoury/manpower/training numbers. It would be great if such info is given. Actually, the more info we're given the finer this game. Part of the fun is looking at those K/D ratios, and if it were possible, more substantial part of a regiment story. Its merger with another regiment would be a fine addition because now I have to delete and re-create those brigades, which deletes those cute K/D numbers. SAD!
On the actual topic side, it does make sense that the buff after destruction is so great, in case of complete route you could call it a day in mid of '63, declare victory and sign a peace treaty right there. But the war must go on and it cannot be a steamroll because that would make only the initial challenge somewhat reasonable and everything post that merely mopping up. That is a kind of a minecraft challenge, not a ultimatefrisbee general challenge.
As far as I'm concerned, inflected damage makes much more sense from routing enemy troop, capturing equipment and other effects that provide you with bonuses, rather than large negative effects on enemy troop in general.

[emcdunna]

defeating enemy units to gain XP and weapons is likely far more valuable than the value of weakening the enemy army.

Remember: they get X # of brigades no matter what, and their army size only controls how many men are in them. Whats interesting about this is that this game has an optimal unit size that is quite low. 1500 inrantry is just about right for the human player. More units is definitely better than bigger, more sluggish ones.

So if the enemy army's units are 20% larger than normal, that doesnt impact my strategy or victory that much. It'd be much much harder for me to deal with 20% more enemy units instead.

One bummer about that is that it honestly doesnt even get that hard to defeat ai armies that are 2 - 3 times your size. Efficiently using small units lets you slaughter them wholesale. In fact it even feels to me like a big unit takes MORE damage from each volley than a small one, meaning big units are quite near silly to employ on purpose.

This is especially true considering the way morale and melee work, where a 3000 man unit can be routed with just a single volley to the rear from missile cav, or by being melee'd by two or more tiny skirmisher detachments.