Casualties

[Leifdin]

Do you not care about your men?! you heartless commander!

My men are damn Nords, not some pussies. They will rather die than retreat.(Of course, I will retreat if my men are in ranks and get slaughtered like sheep because enemy attacks on flanks while I lie on ground.

[Gcaison]

Really depends on my army composition and numbers. Also on how many I'm fighting. If I'm fighting a lord with similar numbers I expect to lose around 5-20 soldiers depending on their army make up. If I'm fighting a smaller lord or a caravan or bandits or something like that I try not to lose any men. Though I really dislike retreating, I'll only stay and fight against overwhelming numbers if one of my fiefs are being attacked.

[Commodore_Axephante]

I like to think of this situation as our old friends the Spartans might. It doesn't matter how many I lose. It matters how many they loose. If we've slain them 15 to 1, then it doesn't matter if my entire army is dead.

So, in essence, if my army of 100 men dies in the process of defeating a 1,500 man warband, leaving me and my enemy Lord prisoners as the only survivors, I'm satisfied.

I think it's an attitude my men would appreciate. Die in battle and you're a victim. Die in battle after lopping off fifteen heads? You're a hero.

[-AoG- X3N0PH083]

Personally, I roll around with a disciplined group of T6 Vaegir Vityasy. I have around 60 of those (recruited prisoners, on the whole) and my group of companions. Even in battles of only me VS an enemy king, I only take 5-10 unconscious and 1-3 dead casualties.

All I do is follow me, wait for my line to form, then trot my way up the the enemy, hit maximum speed as I get close and charge all when im about 10 metres from their line (that way, your line keeps most of its cohesion). If I take more than 5 or so dead, then I retreat, unless the battle is nearly over.

[MosesZD]

Here's a discussion about casualties.

How many casualties do you sustain before deciding that it is a lost cause?
What specific tactics do you employ to reduce casualties?
When is sustaining a large amount of casualties acceptable for you?

For me, my current army is about 160 split evenly about 30% each in infantry,archers and cavalry. Using the basic tactics of holding infantry (or lancers to stop cavalry charges) in front, archers behind hailing arrows and bolts, then cavalry charge to cut their army in half. My guys usually sustain 0-3 casualties against enemy forces less then ~70. Any more and I will just restart the battle.
Against those forces in the range of 70-130(usually against lords with a bunch of tier5-7), roughly 10-15 casualties is acceptable to me.

I don't fight forces that are massively overwhelming to me. I feel that those fights are just a waste of resources.

The only time when I had a casualty count of 40+ and did not restart the battle is when I was taking Sargoth (a key stronghold for me), and freeing three important lords in the process.

After the first couple of weeks getting used to the game I no longer restart from a from a save.   I will, mostly but not always, start an entirely new campaign after a wipe-out loss. 

And the answer to the obvious question is, yes, I've been wiped out more than once...      I think I'm on my sixth or seven campaign now.   

[oh_no]

At the moment, I'm cruising around Rhodok territory with an army mostly made of Sarranid cavalry and Vaegir archers, mostly between t5 and t7 (a higher trainer skill is invaluable to negating the impact of casualties).  With this particular force, the best thing I can do to prevent casualties is bait the enemy to come out and send in my cavalry once my archers are reliably hitting the enemy, and that's only if their forces actually pose a threat to me.

If I'm using an infantry force, then I'll usually maintain a fodder group (consisting mostly of peasant units and recruits) that I'll stick in front of my actual infantry to absorb the initial cavalry charges and act as a distraction.  They're easy to replace.

As for my typical losses, I'll usually end up losing one of mine for about 3 or four of my enemy's, though because of Jeremus' high surgery skill, the actual death toll makes it closer to 15 or so for every soldier I lose, and that's only of the enemy force is equal or larger to mine.  If they're smaller, I usually don't have any casualties at all.

I'll accept a large amount of casualties if I'm outnumbered or challenged by a sufficiently threatening force, but unless the end result of a battle is significant to the war effort, I'd rather not have to invest the money in raising up a new army.

[Commodore_Axephante]

Here's a discussion about casualties.

How many casualties do you sustain before deciding that it is a lost cause?
What specific tactics do you employ to reduce casualties?
When is sustaining a large amount of casualties acceptable for you?

For me, my current army is about 160 split evenly about 30% each in infantry,archers and cavalry. Using the basic tactics of holding infantry (or lancers to stop cavalry charges) in front, archers behind hailing arrows and bolts, then cavalry charge to cut their army in half. My guys usually sustain 0-3 casualties against enemy forces less then ~70. Any more and I will just restart the battle.
Against those forces in the range of 70-130(usually against lords with a bunch of tier5-7), roughly 10-15 casualties is acceptable to me.

I don't fight forces that are massively overwhelming to me. I feel that those fights are just a waste of resources.

The only time when I had a casualty count of 40+ and did not restart the battle is when I was taking Sargoth (a key stronghold for me), and freeing three important lords in the process.

After the first couple of weeks getting used to the game I no longer restart from a from a save.   I will, mostly but not always, start an entirely new campaign after a wipe-out loss. 

And the answer to the obvious question is, yes, I've been wiped out more than once...      I think I'm on my sixth or seven campaign now.

What's that about? Not ragging you - I'm just curious. Is that like a frustration thing, an OCD thing, or do you just want to beat the whole game in one try? In any case, conquering the world like that... that's a challenge, to say the least, and if you pull it off, I commend you.

[eastpaw]

I like to think of this situation as our old friends the Spartans might. It doesn't matter how many I lose. It matters how many they loose. If we've slain them 15 to 1, then it doesn't matter if my entire army is dead.

"My centre is giving way, my right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking."

[Hanakoganei]

What's that about? Not ragging you - I'm just curious. Is that like a frustration thing, an OCD thing, or do you just want to beat the whole game in one try? In any case, conquering the world like that... that's a challenge, to say the least, and if you pull it off, I commend you.

When you think about it, the no quitting without saving mode is pretty much that. I don't play that mode because I'm a wuss and have a preconceived notion that that mode is "too hard", but I might try it some day. I don't generally reload after battles even after heavy losses or retreat anyway except when I accidentally kill one of my own men from friendly fire, which I think is inevitable especially in large-scale battles if you use ranged weapons. Your own men will sometimes just walk in front of your line of sight, even if you've been careful to avoid them. I just don't like having that on my record lol. I don't reload even when my champion horse that I looted gets crippled. It feels bad whenever they get crippled but it's my fault for charging into a pikeman formation or a bunch of guys with axes anyway.

I recently made a custom troop tree for my own use. Light infantry and cavalry, and riflemen with almost no armor and really small weapons. My shield wall troops are using pavises and T5 heraldic armor, but they're definitely not as tough as Landsknechts, as I quickly found out. I suddenly appreciate the Landsknecths even more. But my point is that with my custom army composition, I generally take heavy losses now, which is actually more interesting than I thought. Now there's more pressure for me to come up with good tactics for various situations.

So now, with this new army plus my increased party sizes for everybody including enemy towns and castles, it's quite normal for me to take up to 250 total casualties, and I think my soldiers and I are alright with that.

[oh_no]

I recently made a custom troop tree for my own use. Light infantry and cavalry, and riflemen with almost no armor and really small weapons. My shield wall troops are using pavises and T5 heraldic armor, but they're definitely not as tough as Landsknechts, as I quickly found out. I suddenly appreciate the Landsknecths even more. But my point is that with my custom army composition, I generally take heavy losses now, which is actually more interesting than I thought. Now there's more pressure for me to come up with good tactics for various situations.

If you don't mind my asking, how did you balance your riflemen?  I've also added some in to my game to replace the sea raiders at sea (an incentive for buying a ship) and though I think I've done a decent job at balancing them, I'm curious to see what others might have done.  Better yet, would you mind uploading your troops.txt?

[Hanakoganei]

(click to show/hide)

I improved the accuracy a little and upped the damage a little bit as well. The Flintlock Rifle is the best one given to the highest tier troops, but only has 85 Accuracy and 89 damage. It's still inferior to the Arbalest, which even lower tier crossbowmen from Rhodoks have.

The majority of my troops have the Matchlock Rifle or the Flintlock Pistol. Pistol is for my light infantry guys, who are more about positioning than power and accuracy.

I wouldn't call it balanced at all lol. I have a hard time against Rhodoks and Vaegirs in particular, because of their superior ranged attackers. Khergits are also giving me a hard time because they flank so much. I haven't tried fighting the Nords or Sarranids with this army yet, but the Swadians are generally alright. I think they're too balanced to really stand up to multiple layers of volley firing riflemen. In reality though the only real advantage I have is numbers because it's easy to recruit my men and train them to an appropriate level. Even 50 tier 2 riflemen can be quite useful in the open field.

I can upload my troops.txt but it won't be save compatible. It also requires quite a few other things, because the recruitment process is done via scripts and stuff. D: I may need to upload all the text files if you really wanna try out my mods.

[oh_no]

I was mostly just interested in taking a look at it to see how it compares with mine.  Mine are of a higher tier, about equal to t4 and t6 units with a higher than usual firearms skill (250 for t4, 350 for t6) to compensate for the accuracy of firearms.  They only come in small numbers, but damn can they kick my ass in a sea battle.  I have the t4s using flintlock pistols and the t5s and t6s using blunderbusses and flintlock rifles respectively.  I also tweaked the items a bit to make them more effective, still doesn't compare to Vaegir and Rhodok archers though.  They can hold their own in close quarters, but their effectiveness drops substantially with distance.

[eastpaw]

Just out of curiosity, what skill do firearms use?

[Hanakoganei]

Just gonna share another experience I had just now while besieging Curaw before I continue the somewhat off-topic discussion. Curaw is another one of those castles where range isn't your friend, but you can still do the tactic of leaving your ranged attackers outside the wall to soften up their ranks a little before charging in with your infantry. Unfortunately, at some point their ranged guys stopped going up to the wall and stayed at the foot of the castle wall downstairs, meaning I had to go in there and get them. As soon as I ordered the charge and my guys got up the ladder, practically my entire front line was wiped out within a minute or so. It was a ridiculously bloody battle with corpses from both sides strewn across the top of the wall and the stairs leading down into the streets. I was very uncomfortable with it as I watched my infantry guys getting slaughtered by archers that are shooting upward. But in the end, we won because they ran out of men. Talk about a battle of attrition.

Total casualties for me was 45 dead and 200+ wounded. They lost 1250+, and I captured the lord that was stationed there. Not bad for the 45 men that I lost. *salute*

Now for the off-topic stuff:

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I was mostly just interested in taking a look at it to see how it compares with mine.  Mine are of a higher tier, about equal to t4 and t6 units with a higher than usual firearms skill (250 for t4, 350 for t6) to compensate for the accuracy of firearms.

Yeah. The only reason my army works right now is because I have so many, so when they're all shooting simultaneously, even if 90% of all the shots miss, the 10% that hit will often result in heavy damage. Those are similar to my numbers actually. I tried to keep them a little balanced to the comparable troops of the same tier in Floris, but I added a little more oomph because I didn't want to make rifles too good. I mean, even in history flintlock rifles weren't really reliable or anything. A skilled archer will still trump a regular rifleman, but the fact that becoming a skilled archer took many years of training (a lifetime for Asian cultures especially) while a rifleman could be trained in a few months was the biggest benefit. That was also a consideration for me, so my troops are lower level than most same-tier troops.

My tier 4 rifleman (uses either matchlock/flintlock rifle) is about 220 in firearms, but the tier 5 guys (top tier for riflemen, using flintlock rifles) have 300. I wanted it to feel worth it because training from tier 4 to 5 actually takes a while. I have mounted riflemen that I call "rangers" because they're sort of a jack of all trades, having rifles, horses and two-handed weapons or short and quick polearms. I sometimes use them as insertion units instead of full mounted cavalry. I ride them towards the flank of the opponent then dismount them (because their Horse Archery skill is actually really low) and make them form ranks there so that the enemy is taking fire from at least two positions at all times. But their skills are only about 180 for all weapons including firearms on average.

Just out of curiosity, what skill do firearms use?

It's a hidden skill called Firearms. You can enable displaying it via the module.ini file in the mod folder. Naturally it doesn't gain any levels by itself, and normal troops also have 0 in it.

[Ghgl]

Just gonna share another experience I had just now while besieging Curaw before I continue the somewhat off-topic discussion. Curaw is another one of those castles where range isn't your friend, but you can still do the tactic of leaving your ranged attackers outside the wall to soften up their ranks a little before charging in with your infantry. Unfortunately, at some point their ranged guys stopped going up to the wall and stayed at the foot of the castle wall downstairs, meaning I had to go in there and get them. As soon as I ordered the charge and my guys got up the ladder, practically my entire front line was wiped out within a minute or so. It was a ridiculously bloody battle with corpses from both sides strewn across the top of the wall and the stairs leading down into the streets. I was very uncomfortable with it as I watched my infantry guys getting slaughtered by archers that are shooting upward. But in the end, we won because they ran out of men. Talk about a battle of attrition.

Total casualties for me was 45 dead and 200+ wounded. They lost 1250+, and I captured the lord that was stationed there. Not bad for the 45 men that I lost. *salute*

Wow only 45 dead against 1250+ enemies? Me going 200 on 200 usually results in 50+ dead already :/

How do you guys get firearms??