Newbie Questions

[Mowgli]

Small update:

I think the missing link in my calculations of fire combat is related to unit size. I haven't had the time to check it systematically yet, but I might be on to something (there is a system in the deviations of my calculations to the numbers shown in the game).

My suspicion is that there is a factor that gets added (in addition to the ordinary strength factor) based on unit size. I don't think that this is actually related to the "unit category" (pltn/coy/btn). I think it's just related to (on paper) strength of the component. 

I can see you are putting some serious effort into this. Personally, I suspect that you are going to find it a difficult task as almost certainly there are undocumented features in the combat calculation. But, having said that, an undocumented modifier of 1.4 seems extremely unlikely. Anything this large should at the very least be referred to in some way in the documentation.  

It is a complex game and there is a lot going on. And I am not sure how much confidence I would place in the combat dialogue CV. As I said, some things are included and some things are not. From memory, Quality and Fatigue are not (although the % effect is given in brackets). But you are saying that you are including Quality in your calculation and you are getting an accurate answer?

All I can suggest, is that if you are determined to try to replicate the combat results then you really need to compare your calculations with the final casualty results themselves. This will allow you to verify the entire calculation, rather than an intermediate CV value. You can do this by altering the .pdt file to remove the random nature of the results. Set the Low and High Values to a single value so that there is no spread. Perhaps something like 100 would work but you can experiment with different values. The key is that the values need to be high enough so that you get a large enough number of casualties to allow a meaningful calculation.

@Green: Thank you, looking at the casualties (getting rid of their randomization) is an excellent idea! I will surely try that out and report back! :) It will take me some time though.

Yes, the results I get are accurate at times, within 5% of the CV shown in the report. I suppose that these minor differences are related to different ways of rounding up/down. At other times though, the results are off by a lot - and relatively consistently so (that *1.4 occurs quite often). If the difference between the expected CV and the actual CV wasn't that big, I wouldn't even bother about it. But *1.4 is quite a big thing, so I want to know what's going on!

I think that what you say about the soft factors not being applied to the shown cv (despite being listed in brackets) is true for assaults. By contrast, what I've seen so far suggests that the soft factors (quality certainly is; fatigue affects quality, it's not a separate factor) are included in the shown cv in fire combat. Your tip (looking at non-randomized casualties) should give us an definite answer (do the casualties fit to the cv value in the report or not?).