Do I suck, or is there a huge random factor involved in warfare?

[unmerged(1488)]

*I've read the FAQs, just to get this out of the way.

I've been playing a Russian GC for the past week. Prior to this I've started and abandonded quite a few GCs (Portugal, Denmark and Russia) as I try to get a handle on the dynamics of the gameplay.

I don't consider myself stupid (shushes the peanut gallery!) yet I had a whale of a time 'getting it', especially in the context of the numerous posts relating how easy the AI is or how first time users launch a game and sweep over the whole of Europe with nary a problem.

As an example, in my first game as Russia I declared war on Kazan in the middle of winter, figuring the AI would march their 10k from the province next door into Moscow, attack the 47k troops there in the middle of winter, suffer horribly from attrition and die an ignoble death.


That's exactly what they did.
Sort of.
They marched their 10k force to Moscow, lost 1k troops . ..
then succeeded in repelling the 47k mixed strong force there with hardly a loss and laid siege to Moscow.

(That happened 3 of 4 x, btw, which might explain why the AI Russia always has a hard time with those guys.)

<<Fast forward to current game>>

Ok, the year is 156x. I have two good Generals. I've just spent 50 some odd years 'fast forwarding' -- i.e., not doing much of anything. No Conquistidors, a high badboy value from absorbing the Khanates, plus no Generals to fight with without incurring unacceptable losses pretty much excludes Russian activism.

I don't care how cheap Russian infantry is, without mixed forces and/or a leader everyone chews them up (as I learned from earlier aborted Russian GC attempts).

So anyway back to 156x. I now have two capable Generals.
I build up my military, create siege forces and field armies.
I decide to attack a now greatly weakened Poland (these guys have been in war pretty much straight out) and initially all goes well.

And then proomf! stone walled.

- A 15/1/80 force led by a capable General is unable to successfully assault a small fortress - that fortress loses 1k men and a couple cannon, the General loses 4kinf + 5 cannon.
- A 12/1/78 army is unable to assault a minimal fortress, losing 3k+ infantry while the minimal fortress loses a few hundred infantry.

- A demoralized retreating 15/3/0 Polish army (the ones carrying a white flag) without a leader easily defeat a chasing strong moral Russian calvary force (0/15/0).

At this point I need to exit to the game to help my neglected-feeling fiance transfer some items in an online game (I'm pretty sure she hates either EU or me or both at this point).

Anyway I load up my last save, prior to the assaults, but figure screw it I'll assault again anyway.

This time both fortresses easily collapse, the chasing calvary force annihilates the retreating demoralized Polish army.

What changed?

Nothing whatsoever.

 

[unmerged(1776)]

I know the feeling. I was following Huszic's advice on infantry-cavalry (2-1 ratio) and had an army of 30 (18 inf, 9 cav, 30 cannon) led by Karl (Austrian) to attack a Spanish army of 22000 led by Spinola. I got my ass handed to me, which was no big deal. But then a combined Saxon-Bavarian army attacks Spinola, he beats them but now he's down to 5000 men and hardly any infantry. Karl's army is down to 25 but he rests up and attacks. And loses. This was in Thuringia, in forest terrain, not mountains. Again, stuff like that happened in history but it makes one wonder.

The thing is that the combat resolution is not transparent. Each army has it's own maneuver, shock, and siege value but you don't know how it's implemented in the game. The end result is that there are enough 'upsets' to make the game look like battle is heads/tails. Or maybe what looks like an 'upset' really isn't. With the lack of info on combat resolution, it's impossible to know.

What I would like to see is a text box that states 'why' your army is getting hammered into the ground. If Spinola is the Angel of Death, at least let me know so I can mass a 100k army to blast him to kingdom come, or if the Spanish are superior because they have more cannon or are just plain better despite my higher tech let me know. That way I can sue for peace and make the necessary adustments, instead of raising another army and this time tapping the monitor twice instead of once.

 

[jls211]

As Russia, I definitely stocked up on infantry. Being able to recruit so many for so little, I merely swamped the battlefields with foot soldiers. In true Russian fashion, I had no qualms about assaulting fortresses with infantry, figuring they could easily be replaced. Never really recruited cavalry for anything...

One thing you didn't mention was your tech levels at the time. In 1560, I'm assuming your land tech level was better than it was in 1492. Also, looking at the siege screen, the number in the circle to the right is key. If it's -6, an assault will most likely conquer it. If it's positive, you'll lose more than the enemy.

 

[unmerged(1550)]

Thanks for the feedback all.

After that war (I forget what tech level I had at the time, maybe 6? I had been pouring money into infrastructure at the time) I gave up on military actions. Didn't matter if I paid attention to terrain, used skads of infantry or mixed forces or field/siege armies ...I could only win by using far more troops than I thought neccessary.

Instead I focused on colonizing Siberia and Southeast Asia -- I made mostly TPs with a few nicely strategically placed colonies.

That too failed a lot (didn't matter if I tried to max chances by eliminating hostile natives and having a high manuever conquistador there at the time of sending a colonists).

So as obsessed as I had been with the game, I've pretty much given up on it.

 

[unmerged(548)]

Do I suck, or is there a huge random factor involved in warfare? ... I've read the FAQs, just to get this out of the way

You obviously missed this:
'Each Fire and Shock/Boarding phase both sides get a random value (between 1 to 10),'


and later :

'A typical combat could yield (CRT 5 on C column) 5% casualities of your Combat Power ... . The variation can be quite large though.'


I was following Huszic's advice on infantry-cavalry (2-1 ratio)

?? When/were did I say that ?

Not that is't genrally a bad advice, just don't remember giving exact numbers since it varies with the terrain.