Can't figure economics out, payouts not making sense

[Hamma_Time]

I don't understand the mathematics of this game, hoping someone smarter than me can figure it out. I don't understand the money and recruitment payouts, they don't make sense.

Here are the particulars:

-I am playing Union on Legendary.

-At the camp just prior to Shiloh, I fitted out my army leaving me a balance of $13,047 and 3047 recruits in my pool.

-Victory at Shiloh is supposed to have a payout of $284,500 and 14,600 recruits.

-On legendary mode, I know I suffer 10% less money and recruits, so I assume the payout is then supposed to be $256,950 and 13,140 recruits.

-My politics level is supposed be give me +12.5% money and recruits, which should bump the numbers up to $289,068 and 14,782 recruits.

-I earned a bonus of 1000 recruits for prisoners, so my new recruits should go up to 15,782.

-Adding in my remaining balance from before the battle, my new balances "should" be $302,115 and 18,829 recruits.

-HOWEVER, the game gave me only $261,500 and 14,400 recruits, and stated I earned a bonus 1000 recruits, giving me a post-battle pool of $268,881 and 17,255 recruits. This makes no sense from the math I used. I am missing about $40,000 and 1600 recruits.

-A variable that I did not add in was supply. I had 2 supply wagons at 12500 supply that were empty at game end, so perhaps it took $25,000 away to replenish them, which should still leave me $277,115.

-I also took 3 enemy wagons, but used all the supplies.

-So, HOW DOES THE GAME TABULATE PAYOUTS?? My numbers are way off from theirs. Please help if you know the magic formula. Thanks.

[pandakraut]

The displayed reward amounts prior to starting the battle already have the penalty from the difficulty and the bonus from politics applied. You can verify this by checking the numbers, applying an extra point in politics, and then checking the numbers again.

If you don't use up enemy supplies you will receive extra money from them after the battle. Any money received from capturing supplies will be listed on the post battle report goods tab.

[Hamma_Time]

Thanks for responding, but if that were the case, I would have ended up with more. I attached 2 pics. 1st pic is the promised reward Pre-Battle. The second pic is what I got Post-Battle, which is quite a bit lower. And at what point was the bonus 1000 recruits added? If those 1000 bonus recruits is part of the final tally, then that means I only got 12,400 normal recruits, a full 2200 less than what was promised Pre-Battle.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Hamma_Time

[pandakraut]

The difficulty modifiers and politics bonuses definitely appear to be applying to the displayed pre-battle numbers. You can see those increases applying if you check between saves on different difficulties or with applications of career points.

This isn't to say that something else isn't going on to result in the discrepancies you're seeing, will review and try to see if I can reproduce and provide an explanation for what you're seeing later today.

[Hamma_Time]

Here's a thought: this is a two-day battle. I killed the rebs down to the last man on day one and ended the battle early. Would that lessen my victory rewards? I may resume the battle at a mid-battle save point and let some live to stretch the fight to the second day to see what happens.

[pandakraut]

Results of several quick tests:

Newport News: rewards match pre-battle numbers
CSA Shiloh win day 1: rewards are about 5% short of pre-battle numbers.
CSA Shiloh win day 2: rewards match pre-battle numbers
Union Shiloh win day 1: rewards are about 5% short of pre-battle numbers.
Union Shiloh win day 2: rewards are about 5% short of pre-battle numbers.
CSA Gaines Mill: rewards are about 1% short. Presumably a rounding issue of some kind.

So there appears to be something going on with certain battles which causes the numbers not to line up exactly. Presumably a bug, will probably look into the details and fix it in the mods at some point. 

Captives returned are not included in the post battle numbers, but do correctly get added into your recruit pool. Supply captured is also not displayed in the post battle numbers, but is also correctly applied.

[Hamma_Time]

Wow, great investigating! Thanks. 

[Hamma_Time]

So, I went back to a saved spot in my Shiloh battle, then held back and let a few CSA brigades survive so we can fight on day 2. As expected, I crushed them to a man on day 2, but my rewards were even worse! Lol, pretty comical. Absolutley nothing changed between day 1 and day 2, except for the Union reinforcements.  Maybe it's because I got 20,000 Union reinforcements on Day 2...?

[pandakraut]

Odd, not sure why you got different results than me when I went all the way to day 2. The difference between your first attempt is only ~2.5%, so at least the impact is minor.

The good news here is that this difference won't matter in the grand scheme of the campaign. It's very possible to have more money than you know what to do with. Based on what I've seen in the past I'd give it about even odds the prebattle numbers just aren't displaying correctly.

Edited March 31, 2020 by pandakraut