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[BurnedToast]

The new version is really, really cool. It's amazingly fun to just browse through history and check all the various battles and such, and see who killed who.

One thing I've noticed though, is battles are really not very deadly. Typically only 1 or 2 people will die per side, and then the battle ends, which seems kind of silly - if human-devouring elves attacked my town I'd certainly hope we didn't all surrender after one guy caught an arrow, and similarly on the counter attack why would they retreat after minimal losses? it's a war after all, some casualties are to be expected.

I suppose this might cause problems with the population levels, but it seems to me it would be easy to balance this out with a greater frequency of children and somewhat less wars.

[KaelGotDwarves]

If you up population counts, wars will be fought in greater numbers and losses will also be much higher.

However, some battles grow increasingly one-sided...

[Granite26]

a brief survey of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_601-1400 shows between 20% and 50% casualties being the norm for decisive battles in the time period.  However, this is a fantasy setting, without the concept of expendable foot versus heavy cavalry.  Also, many battles are likely not the 'decisive' ones we read about in history books, more skirmishes and raids.

Hopefully there will be some culling of raid info (rather than name every raid, just call it 'a raid' unless history deems it important.)  "My husband was killed in a goblin raid a few years back" sounds a lot more realistic than "My husband was killed during OracleTinker, the stinking tarpits of sweltering", when talking about a goblin assault by 6 goblins on a town of 10 people.

My two cents anyway.

[Tahin]

Makes sense. I'd say that any combat involving less than 100 combatants on either side would be referred to simply as a raid. Not sure about that number, but it seems about right.

[Neoskel]

Makes sense. I'd say that any combat involving less than 100 combatants on either side would be referred to simply as a raid. Not sure about that number, but it seems about right.

So only elves would have battles, while everyone else got raids?

[Nazush Ebsas]

well, that's how it was in lotr

[Sean Mirrsen]

Also, battles usually end when the commanding officer of either side is slain. So if the humans attacked the elves 10 to 300, and managed to put a bolt through the elf commander's eye, they will win without large casualties on both sides.

[Jothki]

It is kind of absurd for raids on towns that end with the entire population being put to death, though. You'd think the defenders would try a bit harder.

[Cthulhu]

There's only so hard you can try when it's 1000 on 20.

[Granite26]

There's a ridiculous amount of historical accounts of soldiers surrendering and being slaughtered.

Or executed.  (See Sparticus, for example, or a lot of WWII stuff)

[Erk]

Surrender and chance survival, or fight and face certain death?
Real life (and apparently dwarf fortress) does not favour the foolish, no matter how brave.

I dunno, scanning my battles, most seem to average between 10 and 50% casualties per side. When 5 of your 20 friends are dead, it probably looks like a good time to call a truce and try to find a better way to end things.