Scourge of War Boards

Hi again. More questions I'm afraid. :whistle:

I just replayed the Hulot Attacks scenario, and my post battle analysis, still working on the game's mechanics as a player new to SOW, raised a number of questions.
For clarity I list them here, hoping that someone can help, and give more detailed explanations below.

1a) My brigade gets 74 more grade points than expected from totaling combat difference and objective points. Where do they come from?
1b) In general is it possible to get points from other more transparent activities. Routing units for example?
Edit: Answer, you can get points from forcing routs/retreats/withdrawals/captures or killing officers. Applies also to guns. Actual points values are unknown at this time.


2a) Why do grade points from captured guns not seem to count to the totals for the units that are crewing them?
2b) How is it that grade points for artillery seem also not to be based solely on losses/kills. What other activities generate points?
Edit: Answer, even though you capture and crew the guns you don't command them. You only get the capture points.


3a) Is it correct that the game mechanics calculate melee losses around 1 per engaged man per minute. This seems very high?
3b) How is it that a unit in melee and not broken can do zero casualties while taking hundreds of their own?


A brief summary of how I played the battle, using Steam version and Normal level with Grog 7.1:
9th Regiment does the brunt of the work, securing the objective in 10 minutes (thus generating 2000 points). 111th comes later but has nothing to do, adding 10 points from cavalry kills. A Major Victory with 2644 points.

It is 1st Battalion that leads the way, forcing the bridge, capturing 2 guns and initially meleeing the supporting infantry.
Shortly after 2nd Battalion follows, capturing the remaining 6 guns and driving off the infantry.
Then 3rd Battalion, with support from the other two, clears the objective and sets up the bridgehead for Baume to hold.

My first question is about how the grade points are calculated?
Video tutorials suggest that they can only be accrued by objective points and casualties. But that is not the experience here.

111th are as expected. They take no losses, and their combined 10 kills give 10 points.
But it is a different story with the 9th. Final strength is exactly consistent with losses and gun crewing, but the points?

Battalion	Losses(1)	Kills(1)	Guns(30)	Expected grade	Actual grade	Surplus
1st	132	148	2	76	93	17
2nd	74	297	6	403	430	27
3rd	59	140	0	81	111	30

My second question is about the contribution from captured guns?
Although the guns are crewed by troops from the 9th, the guns' grade is not counted for Baume? It seems the guns are merely added to Capitaine Tortel's battery, which we don't control.
And anyway, the captured guns grade of 403 is 48 higher than the 355 expected from casualties/losses. Even though we don't get them, I still wonder where the extra points come from?

My third question is about the melee mechanics. Is it the intention that losses are so high?
As my reply shots show, 2nd battalion, down to 400 men after advance to contact and gun crewing, do 160 melee damage against a larger unit in 10 seconds, and a further 117 in the next 30 seconds - with absolutely no loss?

Just before melee. 6 guns taken for 50 casualties.


First contact, 63 kills in 5 seconds for no loss.


5 seconds later we have killed 97 more Prussians, even though they are not broken yet.


40 seconds into the melee they do break, losing 277 without reply against only 404 Frenchmen.

So, alot to cover here.

1a) combat and objectives are not the only source of points, but they are the majority of them.
Routing units gives you points, killing officers, things like that.

1b) Yes. See above.

2a) Each captured gun is worth 30 points. The points are applied to the parent unit, not the troops who then crew the guns. Likewise the guns are only worth points, they don't count for casualties.
2b) Artillery generally score points just through inflicting losses. However if their fire causes a unit to rout, then the battery will get the points from that as well.

3a) I'm not sure exactly what you're asking here. How a melee is calculated is a combination of many different things. Formation, order, troop quality, terrain, morale, fatigue, and bonuses all factor into it.
In my experience odds and troop quality are the biggest players in how a melee goes. With troop quality being the highest. Like if you have a fresh level 8 unit of the French Imperial Guard, it doesn't really matter who you melee, the guard unit will win.

3b) Rare. But it can happen. It depends on many factors. How fatigued was the unit? How many melees has it already been in? Was it taken from the rear? What was it's morale like? What were the odds? The difference in troop qualities? All of these things have an effect, and if you can stack enough of them in one side or the others favor, you can occasionally see a result like that, but again, no losses at all is rare in any melee.

Thanks again.

Routing units gives you points, killing officers, things like that.

Makes sense. Are there any resources giving details? I do have the latest SDK and documentation. It could affect my strategy. I wonder if just retreating a unit might have some value.

Each captured gun is worth 30 points. The points are applied to the parent unit, not the troops who then crew the guns.

So a new question. How is the parent unit decided? Here the captured guns are assigned to a battery outside of our control, quite a long way over the river, and not really involved in the battle much. Makes little sense they should get them.

Artillery generally score points just through inflicting losses. However if their fire causes a unit to rout, then the battery will get the points from that as well.

OK. But every single unit in this scenario gets "bonus" points. They can't all have routed units or killed officers. Maybe any extra points are just shared around the active units?

Rare. But it can happen. It depends on many factors.

That is kind of the point to my question. The 2nd has charged twice already, is down to 2/3 strength, is class 6, and hits a bigger unit front to front. Yet they do about 300 for 0 in less than a minute. Seems a bit far fetched.

Sorry for so many questions lol.

I don't know about any resources. I've never looked at the SDK. This is just stuff I figured out over the years of playing the game and watching what scores points and what doesn't.

The parent unit is the unit that charges the guns. For every gun the parent unit captures they will detach 30 men from the battalion to crew the gun. But the points for capturing the gun are applied to the parent unit. The one doing the charging.

Without actually seeing a video of your playthrough it's impossible for me to know where every point came from. Did all three of the units participate in capturing guns? Did you factor in the 30 points for each gun?

The Prussian infantry is of generally lesser quality than the French infantry. Prussian average is around 4 or 5, while the French average around 5 or 6. I agree though that it seems like an excessive drubbing for the Prussians. Funny thing with that scenario. Usually when I play it I end up trashing the 9th regiment in taking the guns and hitting the Prussians infantry and I have to bring up the 11th to finish the Prussians off. But in my video series when I did that scenario the Prussians dropped into my lap like ripe cherries and just the 9th ran them all off.

There's a certain randomness in the way things happen that can sometimes never be explained. But hey, that's war for you.

The parent unit is the unit that charges the guns. For every gun the parent unit captures they will detach 30 men from the battalion to crew the gun. But the points for capturing the gun are applied to the parent unit. The one doing the charging.

It is this that I am not getting yet. :unsure:

In this play-through, 1st battalion charges and gets 2 guns, and as a result get 60 points but lose 60 men.
Then 2nd battalion charges and gets the other 6 guns. They get 180 points and lose 180 men. All good. 9th is the parent according to this.

But afterwards, these guns get 403 points from killing Prussians. (Actually only 355 from casualties, so 48 extra from somewhere).
These points go to Tortel's battery (no idea why, its nothing to do with them). So 9th regiment miss out on them despite the fact that they both charged them and crewed them. Baume doesn't get them.

The parent unit is the unit that charges the guns. For every gun the parent unit captures they will detach 30 men from the battalion to crew the gun. But the points for capturing the gun are applied to the parent unit. The one doing the charging.

It is this that I am not getting yet. :unsure:

In this play-through, 1st battalion charges and gets 2 guns, and as a result get 60 points but lose 60 men.
Then 2nd battalion charges and gets the other 6 guns. They get 180 points and lose 180 men. All good. 9th is the parent according to this.

But afterwards, these guns get 403 points from killing Prussians.
These points go to Tortel's battery (no idea why, its nothing to do with them). So 9th regiment miss out on them despite the fact that they both charged them and crewed them. Baume doesn't get them.

Ahhh ok, now I understand what you're asking. Baume doesn't get the points because the guns are not under his command. Even though the guns were captured and crewed by troops from Baumes brigade, the guns themselves get assigned to the closest French artillery commander. Artillery in this game is mostly attached at the divisional level(save for artillery reserves and things like that)

Because it's a brigade scenario, and not a divisional scenario you don't have any guns, and you can't have any guns.

Because it's a brigade scenario, and not a divisional scenario you don't have any guns, and you can't have any guns.

Ok. I now understand the mechanic even though it seems weird. Not sure how Tortel commands the guns from the rear of the line. Would maybe prefer then to spike the guns and keep my 240 men.
Makes me wonder what happens if there is no friendly artillery officer. Something for a sandbox scenario.

I updated the original post with the answers so far. Cheers.

Because it's a brigade scenario, and not a divisional scenario you don't have any guns, and you can't have any guns.

Ok. I now understand the mechanic even though it seems weird. Not sure how Tortel commands the guns from the rear of the line. Would maybe prefer then to spike the guns and keep my 240 men.
Makes me wonder what happens if there is no friendly artillery officer. Something for a sandbox scenario.

I updated the original post with the answers so far. Cheers.

It's not really wierd if you think about it. Baume is an infantry commander, not an artillery commander. Also you're going to find that alot of things in this game are abstractions. It's not necessarily that the artillery commander is up there commanding the guns. The guns are acting on their own without any input from the artillery commander, but for purposes of the chain of command and to funnel points appropriately, the guns get assigned to an artillery commander. All of this will start to make more sense once you go up the chain of command into division and corps scenarios.

If there is no friendly artillery commander present on the field then I believe the points get funneled directly to the division commander. You can always click on the highest ranking officer on the field to see the absolute point total for all units on the field under his command.

Yes, I do understand.

I prefer the smaller engagements but have done 3 Division scenarios and 1 Corps.
They are not really harder in my opinion, just bigger.

I have used TC off command on those (although not HITS) as I don't want to micro-manage too much and make it a more normal RTS.

With D'Erlon's Corps I took all 3 objectives and got a Major Victory with about 4500 points.
That satisfied all my own criteria for a well played scenario.

With D'Erlon's Corps I took all 3 objectives and got a Major Victory with about 4500 points.
That satisfied all my own criteria for a well played scenario.

Fun scenario. It can be won rather cheaply as I demonstrated in my main series. But here's a video of me playing it HITS and going for the gusto, full on attack.

https://youtu.be/K-HcV-H4NhU