Smaller Brigades

[crazyorse]

Mid way through campaign I have decided to try smaller brigades. If I still have one or two larger brigades (circa 1750) and others at 1000m to1200 does the AI scaling calculate on largest brigade or on total army fielded.

[crazyorse]

Edit
What I mean is could I field an army of 1000 to 12000 sized brigades but stick a couple 2000 strong melee brigades in there and not have to face an army of all 2000 to2500 brigades..

Edit to edit
Well that edit didn't work LOL

[pandakraut]

If you only have a couple of the larger brigades you should mostly fight smaller AI brigades. The AI Brigades will probably be larger in grand battles than in side battles.

While not really accurate, assume the AI calculates on total army fielded. The actual details are fairly complicated but that's more or less how it ends up working.

[crazyorse]

@pandakraut Thanks

[CivWar64]

From my experience, it goes more on the average size of your brigades. I've added troops (lots of small 500 man units) and increased the overall size of my army, and the enemy I've faced has reduced. Hmm...I guess I'll have to show an example of that in my Newbie Guide in the scaling section. I only show changing the unit sizes instead of increasing your army with small units. After I do that, I'll post an update.

[CivWar64]

OK, I confirmed it.

Using a 'normal' army at Antietam of 48.6K men, I'm facing 82K enemy.

ADDING 7 brigades of 500-men, thus increasing my army to 52K men but reducing my average size, I'm facing almost 10K FEWER enemy (72.6K). I added a screenshot in my Newbie Guide. (I tried to upload screenshots here, but am having problems viewing them right now).

See the next to last section of my guide on scaling.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1274743463

[pandakraut]

Antietam is a bit of a trap test case, I ran into this exact issue when testing scaling a while back. Average unit size only really works on side battles. What you are probably seeing in your test results is that there are minimum floors in the algorithm. Below these floors, adding troops in any way will end up reducing scaling. What I would recommend to test is the effect of adding those 3000 troops in fewer larger units instead of 7 500 man units. You should see a similar drop in scaling.

All that said, because the calculations do involve total number of your units vs total number of AI units there are probably some edge cases where adding more smaller units does work better than adding fewer larger ones to get over the minimum thresholds even in grand battles.

This is why these days I go with the generic answer of average unit size matters in side battles, total number of men matters in grand battles. It's close enough to get a good result and the details are far to involved to writeup every time it comes up.

@CivWar64 if you're interested in diving into spreadsheets attempting to explain the actual algorithm feel free to message me.

[CivWar64]

Originally posted by pandakraut:

Antietam is a bit of a trap test case, I ran into this exact issue when testing scaling a while back. Average unit size only really works on side battles. What you are probably seeing in your test results is that there are minimum floors in the algorithm. Below these floors, adding troops in any way will end up reducing scaling. What I would recommend to test is the effect of adding those 3000 troops in fewer larger units instead of 7 500 man units. You should see a similar drop in scaling.

All that said, because the calculations do involve total number of your units vs total number of AI units there are probably some edge cases where adding more smaller units does work better than adding fewer larger ones to get over the minimum thresholds even in grand battles.

This is why these days I go with the generic answer of average unit size matters in side battles, total number of men matters in grand battles. It's close enough to get a good result and the details are far to involved to writeup every time it comes up.

@CivWar64 if you're interested in diving into spreadsheets attempting to explain the actual algorithm feel free to message me.

Ah, I see. I believe you. I'll update the guide to reflect this. Thanks for correcting my erroneous thinking.

[pandakraut]

Some updates I would recommend in your guide. Replacing the Antietam section with some other side battle. Creating the small units there and leaving them undeployed will reduce scaling as you describe.

The reason you see number of guns go up sometimes when you add infantry is that there are seperate scaling mechanisms. While adding more men of one unit type does directly scale AI units of that type, adding men overall can scale all unit types up at a reduced rate as well.

You mention the recon number of men is inaccurate. As best I can tell that number is accurate for the number of men the AI can potentially field on the given day of battle. For any multiday battle it will only show the men that will arrive on the given day. The numbers might not match up exactly at the end battle screen because sometimes reinforcements don't arrive. There may also be some other discrepancies but nothing I have been able to determine in any detail.

Another technique you can use is just keeping your units small. I basically don't use the 500 man units at all anymore I just keep my main units small enough that scaling is minor at most. This is probably the more advanced version as you need to have a good feel for how big your units can be at any given point and need to be able to win the battles with said smaller units.

As you mention though, the most important part is experimentation. Every army and campaign will be a bit different and you'll have to fiddle around a lot to find the right spot for any given battle.

[D-Dub]

I've been experimenting with lower unit-sizes, and it makes a difference in what I've encountered in-battle. I have no telling stats to share, but I've been following Kristoph42's basic approach -- 1800-1900 max, or thereabouts -- and it's very manageable. The AI still throws some (few) mega-sized bdes my way, including in minor battles, but the same tactics have applied: misdirect, maneuver, apply 2/3/4 to 1 odds, rout, and repeat wherever and whenever possible.

I have yet to try my hand at throwing in a few 500~-sized brigades, but I note what you've posted, pandakraut:
Another technique you can use is just keeping your units small. I basically don't use the 500 man units at all anymore I just keep my main units small enough that scaling is minor at most. This is probably the more advanced version as you need to have a good feel for how big your units can be at any given point and need to be able to win the battles with said smaller units.

Perhaps it makes a difference that I'm playing BG?

[Taiwan Number One]

Trying to understand the scaling system makes my head hurt.

[pandakraut]

As you noted scaling doesn't really kick in on BG. It exists, but not to any extend that really matters. On higher difficulties it will start to be come much more noticable.

In terms of keeping units small, for the first third of the campaign or so most of my infantry units are only 1k. Late game they are still rarely larger than 1.3k. As an easy example of the difference this can lead to compare the post battle numbers of Lava's battle and mine. He brings more and larger infantry units and faces larger units as a result. This comparison is also useful in that it shows that both approachs can be similarly successful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdbivuACX_0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeKHkp8XD34

If you want a walkthrough of how to use the 500 man units this video, and the series overall is useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doxx1Qlc4rY&list=PLt-JAMmvyAGmL-xr7HgLu5QaLn5YbzTjb&index=13