Combat proposal: A strategy for the weak

You might be able to set a strategic "combat posture" for your nation overall, and a "standing order" for each stack. Otherwise, when you have an encounter, the game can stop and prompt you "You have X troops encountering a stack of Y enemies. What do you wish to do?" -- and you can choose different strategies like "hold," "withdraw," "fighting retreat," "probe," "outflank," etc. If both hold or withdraw, etc., then no one fights.

The thing I also want to do is allow weaker forces to withdraw into defensive fortifications. There's no reason that a large city couldn't accommodate a significant force. The attrition might be wretched, unless you had an open (unblockaded) port, which might moderate the attrition somewhat.

Then, you could use the above strategies to "sally forth" -- especially using a "probe," to make some tactical victories against a besieging power.

You might also have some sort of system that looks at the terrain -- forests, mountains, deserts, marshes, etc. -- and likewise allows more "guerilla"-style combat... Trying to avoid open battles, but letting gritty and determines leaders pick away at a bigger army through a series of skirmishes.

I just feel that there's been a significant absence of defensive options for smaller nations. The current strategy of "well, I guess I have to get my ass kicked in an open field battle... again" isn't much of a fun one for a small power. Why even build your 2-4 regiments if that's all that's going to happen?

MMTG had a system like this iirc.

As somebody whose mind isn't suited to tactical thinking, I take it that...
1. Smaller armies will almost always want to evade battle.
2. Larger armies will almost always want to seek battle.

What advantages do the smaller army have, again? I get what you're trying to represent, but you seemed to list only maluses for the smaller army. Do they inflict more damage in skirmish mode? Otherwise, I just see them getting ground down anyways...

Lemont Elwood said:

As somebody whose mind isn't suited to tactical thinking, I take it that...
1. Smaller armies will almost always want to evade battle.
2. Larger armies will almost always want to seek battle.

What advantages do the smaller army have, again? I get what you're trying to represent, but you seemed to list only maluses for the smaller army. Do they inflict more damage in skirmish mode? Otherwise, I just see them getting ground down anyways...

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Weaker army can evade destruction and thus stop enemy from sieging everything.

The reason a large army might not want to engage is if they were trying to advance quickly past the province -- say to reinforce a bigger battle nearby -- and want to avoid a small delaying force that wants to harass and temporarily halt their advance.

A small army might want to engage, but tactically. An ambush, a feint.

nijis is perfectly correct. You know you can't "destroy" your enemy, so you just want to make it painful for them to continue the war.

Of course, all of these are just your aims and desires. The big army might get lucky, catch you flat-footed, and you get destroyed in an open field battle anyway. You just want to give chances for historical outcomes.

A traditional boardgame that applied this sort of rochambeau (rock-paper-scissors) battle tactic was Empire in Arms, the old Australian Design Group/Avalon Hill Napoleonic strategy game. You could choose to advance in echelon, probe, outflank, assault, counterattack, escalated assault, and as defender to counterattack, cordon, defend, withdraw, etc. Only generals with good leadership could hope to outflank effectively. Otherwise, the outflanking force was broken out into a separate "stack" and stood a great chance of never getting to the battle in time.

I don't know that we need that many option, but some options would be better than none. i.e., the current "Just go head-to-head with a far superior force. You automatically lose." There might also be options that are better, say, for cavalry-heavy forces or artillery-heavy forces.

For instance, at Agincourt, the French obviously chose something like "assault" or "charge", while the English obviously used "defend." And somehow the far inferior English (in size) wiped the floor with the French. In EUIII, as it stands, you'd never get an Agincourt historical outcome.

The biggest advantage I can see for this would be for rebels, which might take advantage of delaying large forces or avoiding battle.

PeterCorless said:

The biggest advantage I can see for this would be for rebels, which might take advantage of delaying large forces or avoiding battle.

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I hadn't thought of rebels, but yes it would be perfect. Right now rebels aren't a real challenge specially if you are not involved in a war, but even then, you can let the rebels conquer a province for a short period of time while you end the war you were in and then kick their ass. This way thought, a rebel army that conquers a province could be very well the beginning of a split and a war which could go on for decades, which will make war declarations way more tactical (since the increase in risk will be a real danger you have to considerate). That's historically plausible.

I think you have detected a problem that with no doubt exists in the game, but I am not sure if the solution I have read in the original post would be correct, as it would require the AI to be smarter (something difficult to achieve) and it would mean more micromanagement than nowadays.

Anyway, anything that improves this aspect of the game is welcomed.

So you don't "win", you just wait for them to peace out. I suppose the human player (as a blob) would be afraid of the chances of rebellion if they continued.

I heartily endorse this idea.

We are thinking about the weak-on-the-defence country here, because this idea is perfect to make playing those countries interesting, but thing about the change in strategy and tactic for the big-offensive country too. To make this system work for you, you'll have to use three different types of armies, at least. One would be a small harassing army (cavalry) you send in a province just to harass the enemy and soften up his army, all the while keeping ready the battle army (cavalry+infantry) to put in the province after a while to battle the enemy and a siege army (infantry+artillery) to leave in the province to conquer while you and you two other armies go on fighting the enemy forces in another province.

All this will make for a way more tactical and interesiting game, IMO.

Mats_SX said:

The hard borders of a province forces abstractions (a unit 1 day away from leaving a province is caught by one just entering because provinces are discrete and of size 1). Consider the current system an abstraction for the realism you seek; an army is in another province, keeping track of enemy movement but not engaging. This is controlled by the player and not the non-person leader of the army.

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While I would wholeheartedly support something like this for Paradox games, currently we have fixed and huge provinces. So we must get something out from what we have - and the OP is just that.

Also, I'd like to give here a list of categories of clashes between armed forces (just to avoid confusion):

• Battle: both sides are aware of the other and willfully decide to engage
• Ambush: only one side is aware of the other, and decides to engage
• Skirmish: neither side is aware of the other's presence, i.e. the forces (usually reconnaissance parties) bump into each other.
• Siege: one side doesn't want to fight, but is cornered by the other and thus has to. Note that this does not require fortifications to be present.
• N/A: when at least one side decides it doesn't want to fight and successfully evades its opponent; when neither side is aware of the other's position and thus the armies (potentially both eager to fight) miss each other.

The problem is that the current combat mechanics can't represent the differences between them (except fortification siege) and thus groups all of them under 'pitched battle'. Even worse, even in cases when the most likely outcome would be no clash, it automatically creates one.

Avrelianvs said:

The idea is to make combat more realistic, which means that you can try to avoid battle, but you don't succeed automatically: it depends from many factors, one of which is the leader you have appointed in command of that army... let me repeat: YOU have appointed, nothing random in that!

As for the 'skillful maneuver', what are you talking about? If you have a smaller army and you see a bigger one coming in the province the only hope is getting the heck out of there as fast as you can: nothing skillful in it! Actually this system would enhance tactics: if you're a small country you'll have to be more careful in the composition of your army and it's leader because there is no place where to retreat, differently from a huge Empire that can sustain losing a couple of province while is preparing a counter-attack. History shows us that small countries during Medieval were perfectly capable defending themselves even for long periods (decades) thanks to guerrilla tactics. Simulating those in EU3 is impossible and I hope EU4 would do a better job at it.

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And levies, don't forget levies! The point being, the aggressor (invader) can't bring levies (it would result in crippling WE) while its other forces are insufficient to deal with the levies the defender can bring.

On the other hand, as time goes by, the other parts of the armies (mercenary forces, standing armies) steadily grow and upgrade, while levies do neither (or only in a very limited manner). Thus their importance steadily decreases, up to the point when they become negligible. At that point, all-out blobbing can start. I mean, bound by diplomacy, but the military disparity between invading and defending should disappear.

But I still agree with the OP's proposal, there is need to make this part deeper.

The would-be solution

I think that the solution to this problem would be to have 'battles' not on an 1D representation as we have now, but on a real 2D map.

Having a map for all 'battles', just a square with terrain features randomly generated from province composition (X%plains, Y%hills, Z%forest) and river crossing. This in itself shouldn't be too difficult.

The real point is that on this 'battle map' (rather operation map BTW) the opposing forces could actually manuever. Including the ability to flee the map if they are too badly mangled. But more importantly, if each company/regiment/brigade (of which there are numerous in even a smaller EU army) can move about on its own, then all tactics become feasible.

Ambush, you say? A larger opposing force spread out across the map (probably in march formation, e.g. column along a road) and a smaller one picking off at it by beating a part of it in less time than it could be rescued by the rest. Force concentration!

Skirmish, you ask? Two forces putting numerous smaller parties ahead of themselves (reconnaissance) and these parties bumping into each other. The side 'winning' it has the opportunity to fight the main part of the opponent's army with theirs on terms they set - including the choice of not fighting them at all. (At that point it is a transition into fighting retreat.)
Alternatively, if both sides are really lousy on reconnaissance, the main parts of their armies can simply collide by accident (in Europe only). This also suits the definition of skirmish.

To sum up, 2D minimaps serving as the place where battles are fought (replacing 1D representations) could lead to a much better game balance (by representing warfare better) and eliminating the annoying problem of so-called battles lasting months (now when forces would meet, they would beat each other up in no time). On the other hand, it would require a complete overhaul of the combat engine, one which is sadly improbable for the time being.

A 2D map would be interesting, but you don't need it to improve the game greatly by implementing the OP idea combined with different types of army: levies, standing army, mercs and nobles army. The devs need to do just this to make the game way more tactic and realistic.

Wouldn't this just lead to essentially a return of wack-a-mole combat? That was the single biggest complaint against EU3 for a very long time.

Avrelianvs said:

A 2D map would be interesting, but you don't need it to improve the game greatly by implementing the OP idea combined with different types of army: levies, standing army, mercs and nobles army. The devs need to do just this to make the game way more tactic and realistic.

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I intended to mean that the ultimate solution to this problem would be having 2D operation representations, but coupling multiple types of troops (heavy/light inf., heavy/light cav., siege/field art.) with different types of troops (levied, retinues, standing, mercenary, conscript) can go a good way in that direction.
But eventually, I think, all of the above (heavy/light type, source, and 2D representation) would make it into a game - maybe Europa Universalis 15, but I really hope this happens sooner. Much sooner.

Also, apparently my attempt at posting a detailed description of (read: wall of text regarding) would-be categories didn't succeed.

Hopes

Solution 1)
Unit types:

• Early game - late game (with countinuity unless noted otherwise)
• Heavy infantry - formation (line) infantry
• Light infantry - skirmishers
• Pikemen - extinct (or grenadiers, countinuity dubious)
• Heavy cavalry
• Light cavalry
• Siege artillery
• Field artillery (only appears with houfnice, becomes serious with leather cannon)

For each type, we should choose one implementation like in EU3 - just there are more slots. This would be beneficial because differing income/manpower balances could be reflected in the army composition. A big empire with no money to spare would field mostly light infantry (but lots of it), while a small trading state could afford heavy infantry - but not much of it.

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Solution 2)
We should get an number of slots to choose unit types. The number of available slots should slowly increase with time (land tech), from 3-4 at game start to ~8 by the endgame. For each slot, we could choose one unit type from all available, like in EU3.
For example, at game start, for each slot I could choose (from EU3 list): latin infantry, halberdiers, latin knights, chevauchée. Minus any already chosen for a different slot. This would obviously necessitate that different units have different costs, but would again allow different empires to field different armies - and probably even going so far as to having multiple types of the same group (formation light infantry and skirmisher light infantry, if really large but poor) which is the point of both systems.

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Important for both
There should simultaneously be another unit categorization.

• Levy
• Feudal retinue (also called Banderial)
• Mercenary
• Professional (standing army)
• Conscript or draftee

This would be another great factor in limiting conquests to more logical places and extents. Not only would it bring out the importance of centralization, but would also give the defenders an edge over the aggressors, especially in the early game (when it is needed the most).
- Levies: mostly light infantry, hardly benefits from technology. Available in great numbers, but gives a serious WE strain if raised for longer periods. Its role is to prevent conquering too fast and far, and to keep borders more or less the same in the early game.
- Retinues: a buff for decentralized aristocratic states, mostly heavy troops. Basically free, but available only when the nobles are content with you. On the other hand, should you anger the nobles, this force is not only unavailable, but most likely ends up as the core of a particularist rebellion.
- Mercenaries: the troops of choice for a king with much money and no other choices. Varied in composition, salary, quality and loyalty. Generally on par with contemporary professionals, just more expensive and fickle.
- Professionals: high-quality and utterly loyal, the force all autocrats dream of. On the flip side, availability is highly dependent on administration (up from a thousand or so retinue in CK to the multiple tens of thousands by late EU timeframe) and keeping them in arms is costly (but still not as much as mercenaries are). Force-limit dependent on the bureaucracy (and monetary concerns).
- Conscripts: a late-game phenomenon. Similar in composition to the professional army, just even more determined by the administration. However, this is again a force which can be summoned up and dismissed as necessary - the last one with this property were the levies, obsolete since long.

I know this seems to be intimidating, but this is the simplest way to represent military matters in EU4 even remotely accurately.

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To sum up, each 'unit' in an army should have two qualities: its equipment (whether it is heavy infantry or light cavalry) and what kind of troops make it up (mercs or levies). This is enough to simulate warfare well and also to guide the game down a believable path - one which is immediately acceptable as realistic in outcome, as well as devoid of 'arbitrary' modifiers.

I don't think its useful to argue for a 2D map for battles, because that is most definitely not going to happen. That's walking in the direction of the Total War series, and EU isn't about that. Better then to think about the possibility for HOI-style "battle events", where your notions of Ambush and other things are more in line with EU as a game.

Mats_SX said:

I don't think its useful to argue for a 2D map for battles, because that is most definitely not going to happen. That's walking in the direction of the Total War series, and EU isn't about that. Better then to think about the possibility for HOI-style "battle events", where your notions of Ambush and other things are more in line with EU as a game.

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I definitely won't want EU to go in the direction of TW - when I'm saying 2D, I mean automated and represented as such. The player definitely shouldn't be able to intrude to the tactical level!
And HoI is an incredibly abstract way to do the same. While it might work just as well, put aside that attack is moving into a province (definitely not suiting the EU era) and reconnaissance (as in finding the enemy you are to face) isn't too much of an issue (again not EU era) it is rather difficult to represent in a way it is intuitive.