Battle calculation issues: Armies routinely defeating attackers 3-5x their size with only minor Attack/Defense advantage

[swellwrench]

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Summary​

Battle calculation issues: Armies routinely defeating attackers 3-5x their size with only minor Attack/Defense advantage

Description​

Battles are resolving strangely. They seem to be very heavily weighing even slight Defense vs. Offense advantages against relatively massive numbers advantages. In the attached save, the Ottomans have a 43% advantage on the Deir-Ez-Zor Front (in Syria) against Egypt. 25 vs 28 average Offense/Defense. But Ottoman armies are still losing almost half the battles, often even when they have 3-4x the numbers, when the Egyptian Defense is only a little higher than the Ottoman offense. Depending on luck, advancing on this front either takes years or just doesn't happen.

I've attached screenshots with many examples of Ottoman defeats in such battles, as well as a screenshot with the pertinent info about the Ottoman and Egyptian armies at the front and factors affecting their armies.

There are some patterns to these battles. Ottoman casualties are not usually massively higher than the Egyptian ones, but huge numbers get Demoralized. Sometimes (but not always), the Egyptian Defense will shoot way up or the Ottoman Offense will shoot way down at the end of the battle - so some of these screenshots make the difference look bigger than it was until the end. Ottomans often take the early initiative in battle progress only for it to reverse, whereas the opposite never happens.

In a few cases, the Ottoman army would even start a Panicked Retreat while the other, smaller army was already in Controlled Retreat. I also attached an image of the moment this happened.

The obvious relevant advantages the Egyptian army has are Extra Supplies, Professional Army vs Peasant Levies, General Training vs. No Organized Training, and 100% Organization vs. 93% for the Ottomans. It's possible the combination of these things is the explanation, but if so it's not being factored into front advantage or Offense/Defense calculations correctly. I also wonder if this might be related to the recent change that made Organization more important.

The front is one of the new "combined split fronts," but I don't think it's related to that, as I was getting similar results before the front split.

Steps to reproduce​

At the save point, an Ottoman army is losing to a much smaller army to the north of the Deir-Ez-Zor front. If you continue from there, a large proportion of the ensuing battles on that front should follow the pattern described above.

Game Version​

1.9.3

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Other

Save Game​

View attachment battlecalcbug3.v3

Attachments​

Player Pain​

10

 

[L-Histidine]

(Noticed this effect exists while looking at someone else's bug)

There's a multiplier where the side that has incurred more casualties thus far also receives increased morale damage, which seems to be calculated in ways it shouldn't be. In particular, it creates a huge morale damage modifier despite the low absolute number of casualties, and the affected side's casualties not proportionally being worse than its opponent's.

This effect means that lopsided casualties very early in the battle can demoralize a disproportionate number of enemies, causing the rest of the battle to snowball. Another consequence is that someone 'helping' you with many battalions of low-quality troops can be directly counterproductive.

The attached screenshots show a snapshot of such a battle in the save from OP, with the following casualty stats:

Side​	Ottoman​	Egypt​	both​	ratio​
Starting troops​	6500​	4000​	10500​	1.625​
Dead​	272​	178​	450​	1.528​
Wounded​	603​	344​	947​	1.753​
Total casualties​	875​	522​	1397​	1.676​
Dead %​	4.2%​	4.5%​	4.3%​	0.940​
Wounded %​	9.3%​	8.6%​	9.0%​	1.079​
Casualties %​	13.5%​	13.1%​	13.3%​	1.032​

Does it really make sense for such figures to give the Ottomans a 52% (!!) increase to morale damage taken?

The effect isn't completely bad to have, we want something like it to enable quality to beat quantity, but I don't think it should be based on the raw death vs. death ratio