Scourge of War Boards

It appears to me, based on reading various ACW-related material, that bayonet charges during the war tended to be relatively rare; additionally, when one did occur, the most likely outcome was one side breaking and retreating without many casualties having been inflicted. In SOWGB, however, this is not the case (with charges being relatively frequent, especially when using aggressive stances), and units will take > 50% casualties before routing from melee combat.

Was this a deliberate decision during the design of the game? Am I misreading the sources regarding this topic?

I agree that charges/melee in the game do seem a bit frequent in the game. This is based more on my own expectations and not on RL hard data proving either way. In the manual it states that melee should only be attempted in extreme situations. Seems to me the AI does it a bit more.

In SOW keeping distance by TC unit or better yet ; short “Fallback” withdrawals, seems to help. Once the distances are closed (i.e. Infantry <35 yds, ref SDK) , I think some AI charging is unavoidable and seems triggered by variables outside player control.

Fatigue is involved. The manual states that “exhausted” units will not charge or melee. Maybe this should be set higher to something like “Tired” , to lower their tendency to charge/melee. I also think the unit’s “Stance” limits charging but thats hard to test from within the game. Of course calvary charges are another topic altogether.

My issue is not so much with the frequency of charges; I'm mostly surprised by the average casualty percentages before one of the participants routs/retreats. The percentage inflicted on either unit commonly exceeds 50%, which (again, based on my research) does not align with historical data; while there are instances involving extended melees (Pickett's Charge for instance), those are relatively uncommon.

Yes agree SOW melees seem bloodier than those in RL. As I understand it the “edged weapon” Proficiency in OBB is the setting that determines how good each regiment is with a bayonet. This value is shown under each regiment “Skills”in the game. I think these can be changed and tested by building a new OBB.

Currently in SOW “Charging” always results in “Melee” . I think it might be better if they were separated since in RL , charges occurred more often than full melees. Melees I think were relatively rare. This is conjecture on my part since I’ve never seen hard data on this.