Casualty Rate

[the reb]

I think I brought this up one time before, but the casualty rate really needs adjusted. I've been playing Sandbox with Fox Gap Map (beautiful work) for almost two hour now and have over 40000 casualties. That's not right? There has to be a simple, across the board adjustment that can make this more realistic?

What does anyone else think?
the reb....

[Garnier]

There's no simple way to change it in one place.

You could cut the rate of fire for rifles and cannons in half, which would require editing the rifles.csv, artillery.csv and unitattributes.csv (to also halve the bonuses to these numbers from experience), and you'd also need to halve ammunition. But this would make it possible for units to get closer to each other, resulting in more melee. Even if you slowed the melee by 1/2, the effects on gameplay would not simple be half the casualty rate.

[Davinci]

I think I brought this up one time before, but the casualty rate really needs adjusted. I've been playing Sandbox with Fox Gap Map (beautiful work) for almost two hour now and have over 40000 casualties. That's not right? There has to be a simple, across the board adjustment that can make this more realistic?

What does anyone else think?
the reb....

The easiest way to go about reducing the casualties would be to download the SDK that has all of the maps csv files. These are the files that dictate what value means what such as.....marching on roads, in fields, etc...

Now, Click \ Select the file that goes with the map that you are playing and place it into your SOWGB\Base\Maps folder.

Now, Open the file, hopefully with a tool such as Excel that shows what each Column represents.

In the G Column - give everything listed a defensive bonus such as 50 - 80 depending on how many casualties you feel is acceptable.

I keep mine very high, which will usually cause the units to run out of ammo and leave the battle-line, instead of being destroyed .

*** If you change this and don't like the results, just delete the (csv) file and the game will go back to the default status.

Note - the game is designed to create a Mod\Folder - to do this, but that's the easiest way to go about it!

davinci

[Garnier]

Davinci, do you have any way to know if that decreases casualties from artillery at the same rate?

And I assume it has no effect on melee.

[Davinci]

Davinci, do you have any way to know if that decreases casualties from artillery at the same rate?

And I assume it has no effect on melee.

I'm going to assume that it will decrease the casualties form any enemy fire, it is the one file that seems to override all of the other files.

I don't think that I tried this with this game, but the previous game, I changed the animation speed of the units fighting in melee .

This will only slow-down the melee casualties, not stop the melee from occurring. But that gave me enough time to retreat the units from the melee.

This game provided another Column in the Drills file Min Enemy that sort of solved the melee problem. But you already know about that file.

So, I'm not sure how it pertains to melee, I never have any units engaged to gauge the results.

davinci

[the reb]

What are reasonable casualties is the question? I don't know. I do know that presently it seems to much. I play real aggressive, perhaps I need to put a human touch in my command and keep my distance away from the enemy a bit more?

The Fox Gap Battle I mentioned really got confusing and the armies intermixed real quick, it was a free for all....

the reb....

[Davinci]

What are reasonable casualties is the question?

I would say in the range of 20% - 33% , but this would be after half a day of fighting!

The Fox Gap Battle I mentioned really got confusing and the armies intermixed real quick, it was a free for all....

Civil War YES , Braveheart NO !

Try fighting as if this is only one of many battles, such as if you were playing a campaign-type-of-engagement!


davinci

[Saddletank]

Remember that the game greatly speeds up (or compresses time). Units can deploy and manouver very fast, much faster than IRL and so casualties mount up more rapidly. I have only a vague handle on the relationship of game time to actual time but it could be in the region of 1:4 or 1:6, so a 2 hour SoW battle could encompass/represent up to 12 hours of real combat.

Everything like move speeds and formation change speeds are much quicker than in reality in order to allow the gameplay to remain entertaining for the player and stop him falling asleep with the pace aat which a real ACW battle developed (for example Heth's division at MacPherson's farm took 30 minutes just for 3 brigades to deploy from road columns into line of battle out in the fields to either side). In the game this is a matter of only 5 or 8 minutes.

Also bear in mind that the casualties you are seeing include only lightly wounded men and those skulking about and moving to the rear "to help their wounded comrades". The linked scenarios bring back to the colours a significant proportion of a battle's casualties for the next fight.

[RebBugler]

Remember that the game greatly speeds up (or compresses time). Units can deploy and manouver very fast, much faster than IRL and so casualties mount up more rapidly. I have only a vague handle on the relationship of game time to actual time but it could be in the region of 1:4 or 1:6, so a 2 hour SoW battle could encompass/represent up to 12 hours of real combat.

Everything like move speeds and formation change speeds are much quicker than in reality in order to allow the gameplay to remain entertaining for the player and stop him falling asleep with the pace aat which a real ACW battle developed (for example Heth's division at MacPherson's farm took 30 minutes just for 3 brigades to deploy from road columns into line of battle out in the fields to either side). In the game this is a matter of only 5 or 8 minutes.

Also bear in mind that the casualties you are seeing include only lightly wounded men and those skulking about and moving to the rear "to help their wounded comrades". The linked scenarios bring back to the colours a significant proportion of a battle's casualties for the next fight.

You're right on. Still, the game can be modded for real time speed and real time casualties...but for me, and most folks that have a life, that's just way too slow for gaming entertainment. Even small skirmishes took hours to unfold in real life. Our modern day attention span is about 90 minutes, and barely up to 3 hours. If a game is to sell or be popular, it better set those limits with it's scenarios, plus have good continuation setups and saving procedures.

[Saddletank]

Quite true, which is why, really, the game's casualty rates are not too high, but probably about right. You just have to remember that on the SoW planet Earth, a day is only 4 hours long