This command brings up a dialog that lets you specify the location and forces involved in a potential battle.  WinSAGA will determine the most likely outcome for you.


Shortcuts

Toolbar:        


The dialog is best filled in from top to bottom, left to right, this is the default tab order so you can just hit tab after each field is entered and you should go to the right place.  These are the input fields.


Province:  Enter the province number the battle will occur in here


Terrain: This will be automatically entered from the province number but you can change it if you believe the real terrain is not accurately known to WinSAGA.


Attacker Parameters: The items below are first entered from the point of view of the attacker.


Supreme Commander:  The hero who will lead the battle (the name will appear as you enter the number).  This is used to supply default values for TA/NA, DR, and Align below.  Also the armies that are currently lead by his hero will be automatically added to the Armies listbox (see below).


TA/NA:  The (approximate) tactical or naval ability as appropriate for this battle (i.e. NA if a sea battle).  If WinSAGA knows about this hero this will be filled in automatically, otherwise enter your best guess (and possibly try simulate different scenarios)


DR:  The druidic ability of the leader.  Note that in AK it is the druidic ability of the subcommanders that matters and not that of the supreme commander (his DR ability only counts towards the leadership of the units he/she leads directly).  If you have units that will get better/worse treatment than can be approximated with one DR rating for all units then you should artifically boost/degrade their quality when you enter in in the Armies listbox (see below).


Align: This is the alignment bonus that you will be applied at the battle, it is a fanatical percentage bonus and is applied only for Divine, Good, Evil, and Undead as appropriate.  This bonus generally relates to the alignment of the kingdom and not that of the supreme commander so it is sometimes appropriate to change the alignment.


Armies: This listbox contains the armies that will fight for the attacker in this battle.  To press the Add... button to add more armies.  To edit, remove, or duplicate a unit that has been added, select it by clicking on it and then press the appropriate button.  The duplicate feature gives you a quick way to make lots of similar armies... dont forget you can duplicate to get most of the details right and then edit to get perfection.  Double clicking on an army is a shortcut for editing it.


Army Data:  When you press the Add... or Edit... button you will get a little dialog that will ask you to describe an army.  The dialog lets you specify the Race, Type, and Quality of the unit (which are pretty normal attributes) but also lets you enter an approximation of how likely this unit is to go independantly fanatical.  This allows you to simulate things like being first Elder of Elvenkind -- just edit your Elven units to give them 40% fanatacism.  Dont use this field for things like the skeletal fanatacism provided to Undead rulers, this is taken care of by the Alignment bonus.


Options:  The Option... button gives you the opportunity to enter items that will affect the whole battle.  You can change the race of the leader.  You can enter an approximation for the likelyhood of a duel and the chance that the attacker will win the duel if it occurs.  You can enter the probability of a phantasmal armies spell being in effect and what level of spell it will be.  You can specify your provincial exploration, the chance of a success oratory spell being in effect, whether or not the battle will take place in the attackers home province, and whether or not the leader has a title that gives him one fanatical unit on the front (e.g. Captian of the Musketeers).  Finally you can change possible widths of the front that will be considered.  This is handy if you want to see what the outcome might be if the battle is fought in a narrow mountain pass.


Defender Parameters:  The same options as above are available for the defender.  In cases where the options also apply to the attacker (usually in a symmetrical fashion such as probability of victory in a duel) they are automatically updated in the attackers options (and vice-versa).


Save:  Once youve entered all these options you probably want to save them so you can try different versions (and in case you accidently press Done before youre really done).  You might want to Save as you go along just in case...


Load:  Press to restore a previously saved battle.


Exchange:  Press to switch the roles of attacker and defender, this comes up often especially in sea battles where there is a lot of possible terrain and naval defend orders are common.


Log Inputs:  Press to display a summary of all the input parameters.  This displays a message box which has contents similar to those shown below.  The contents are automatically placed on the clipboard for pasting into other applications (usually an email program).  Only those parameters that dont appear in the simulation results are displayed here, so for instance the army type and qualities are not shown as part of the input.


The battle will occur in Milos Crossroads (0810) in game xxx.

Milos Crossroads is a Jungle Province.  The front width will be 3 to 6.

The attackers have 0% provincial exploration.

The defenders have 0% provincial exploration.

There is a 0% chance of a duel.

If there is a duel, the attacker will win 0% of the time.


The attackers are lead by Royal Heir 13 (#13) a Good Human.

Royal Heir 13 has 4 TA/NA and 1DR.


The defenders are lead by Royal Heir 20 (#20) an Evil Human.

Royal Heir 20 has 3 TA/NA and 2DR.


Simulate:  This is the payoff.  This shows the likely results of the battle, 500 simulations are run with random front widths, fanatical, and other factors.  The percentage of battles won by the attacker is shown as is the average strength of each unit.  You can see the unit strengths degrade as those that tended to go into the 2nd row appear.  You can also see the various effects of fanaticism, oratory, etc. on the average strength of each unit.  Simulation is quite quick making it possible to try various scenarios (like different TA values for your adversary).   These results are also copied to the clipboard.  Sample results from an actual run (with the above input parameters) are shown below.


Probabilty of attacker victory: 63%


Attackers Summary:

Crack Legion Str=21.10; Crack Elf Legion Str=15.91; Average Trolls Str=8.46; 


Defenders Summary:

Veteran Mermen Str=12.12; Veteran Mermen Str=12.19;


You can see that the attacking legions (especially the first unit which is Human) are likely to win.  Their base strength will typically be (3+1)*4 = 16.  But allowing for the TA bonus and 40% fanaticism their boosted up to slightly over 21 on average.  The elf unit wont benefit from the bonus human legions get but does get the other factors.  In contrast the defending mermen get the 25% defender bonus plus they fight in their home terrain but merfolk arent so tough... Their base strength will be (2+1)*3*1.25 = 11.25, the 25% fanaticism will take them to slightly over 12 on average.  It looks pretty bad for the merfolk, theyre gonna need some luck.  On the other hand, maybe the defender has a high level phantasmal armies spell going for him... this could change things.


Probabilty of attacker victory: 50%


Attackers Summary:

Crack Legion Str=21.36; Crack Elf Legion Str=15.91; Average Trolls Str=8.48; 


Defenders Summary:

Veteran Mermen Str=21.55; Veteran Mermen Str=21.21;


With the battle this close, there is also an increased likelyhood that the defender would contest the province... things could get ugly then if one of his units went up in quality...  or if he gained a point of tactical ability... 

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