I recently got the Vae Victis expansion, and I'm extremely disappointed in the combat system. Results are completely unrealistic and seem to depend entirely upon the relative martial skills of the commanders. Troop type and quantity make little or no difference. I just experienced a battle where my 30,000 mixed heavy infantry, archers, and cavalry were attacked across a river by 20,000 militia with a few archers. The militia commander's roll was zero, and mine was a 4. The militia commander had a three higher martial score than mine, so the net results were 4 for my commander, and 0+3-1 (for attacking across a river) = 2 for the militia commander. The militia troops had minimal experience (perhaps 1-2%) - my troops were a couple of percent higher - and discipline scores of the two sides were equal within a percent or two. In spite of having more, better troops and a better total roll, I inflicted ~160 casualties per day and took in excess of 1000 per day. I do not have those assigned to the wrong armies - after roughly 20 days of combat, the 20000 militia completely wiped out my force with total casualties to the militia side of about 2000. I sincerely hope there is a bug in the combat resolution engine, because if not, the game is totally unplayable.
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