A suggestion for a potential military DLC rework down the line in 2025 or beyond. The intent of the proposal is to explore what future mechanics might look like for a military focus DLC, not as improvements to the 1.5 military system. In my view the DLC related content tends to be more focused and comprehensive and thus a better fit for all the aspects of the game that this re-work would need to touch. This proposal is focused on potential organizational changes, combat changes and tech changes. There are other issues that might be more pressing, mainly war score and peacing arrangements but those are not the focus of this suggestion.
Section 1: Issues with the current system
While the 1.5 re-work certainly helped improve military gameplay it also didn’t fundamentally change the level of interaction you have with your military. You still assign armies to fronts with only Offense and Defense values that matter. Organization exists but it’s almost always a 100 so the value rarely comes into play. It also added some tedious work involved with manually assigning battalions to formations/Armies. Especially when you want to balance your infantry and artillery in a 50/50 ratio.
Better but still not smooth, or quick. Something best done on pause or pre war.
Front splitting remains an issue, and while it is supposedly patched in 1.7 it remains an issue, particularly when you have one army (formation) on a front because it can only be assigned to one front at a time.
Combat also remains very one dimensional with offense defense, set 1:1 artillery ratios and doesn’t really change much from start to end of game other than the dioramas. As described by the dev’s once naval battles are just “Manpower balls on the sea”. Well that’s also true for army combat.
In conclusion I think the current war system lacks flavor in terms of player customization where it matters, can be tedious in managing battalions within armies and frustrating at worst when a front splits and becomes unassigned.
Section 2: The solution to all our problems
A corp system and designer.
What would help improve all of the aspects I laid out above is an intermediate container type between battalions and Army formations called the Corps. Corps would function very similar to divisions within HoI4 although they would be larger, particularly at game start. Historically speaking most armies around this time were organized around the Corp.
Picture little victorian prussian helmets
Corps would help address the tedium of moving different battalions around as you would now have larger unit containers appropriately sized that you could quickly assign between army groups. If you’re deploying to a front you would consider sending a self contained corp.
Corps could also assist in front splitting logic. If you have a front split with one army consisting of 3 corps, one of those corps could automatically take that front over now.
Section 3 How would a corps designer work?
Army combat looked very different in 1936 than in 1836, but behind the frontlines there was an equal amount of change in how armies organized themselves. One of the key changes was the overall shrinking in combat unit size throughout the period ultimately culminating in self contained divisional combat units by WW1. The reason for this change was the greater ability for communication and flexible organization whereas in 1836 having bigger corps sized units was easier to manage and wield.
To follow along with their historical progression corps should start out in 1836 as rather large units that are well sized for european plain tile combat widths but not much else. An example of a napoleonic war style corp might be a 16-2-2 style. With 16 Infantry Battalions, 2 Mobile Artillery battalions and 2 Horse battalions. This style of corps should be hard or soft locked in structure more on this in the combat section. Particularly in terms of the ratio of artillery and horses to infantry.
As time(technology) progresses army corps should trend both smaller and start to have higher ratios of artillery and support companies per infantry battalion which should overall make them more effective. For example, by the Franco-Prussian war we might see a 12-4-2 ratio of infantry, cannon horses.
As time progresses more support companies should become available such as machine guns (once gattlings are unlocked), logistics companies, communications companies once telegrams are unlocked, aircraft support companies, tank support companies and engineering companies which provide bonuses to your overall corps. These specialized units should be powerful, but very expensive especially since by the time they become available you will have more smaller corps.
Once a corp is selected you should be able to raise corps by state as entire blocks or assign existing battalions to corps. In combat non assigned corps should be treated as a corps but without the bonuses the corps structure entails. Certain general traits could offset this to some extent especially for combat on certain terrain types.
Corps should also be available to non-european nations but with different spins related to the doctrinal tree. For example in situations with native armies they should also organize into “corps” in name only with structures that are very different and often lack artillery and horses. However they should focus on doctrinal sub trees that focus on defense related to reducing artillery damage and better tactic selection. A well organized native army should be easy to beat in a battle but costly, forcing many battles to end a war that never quite seems like a single set piece win.
Section 4 Combat changes
Combat would need to be altered to fully realize the new corps system. It should be inspired by the HoI4 naval system/Eu4 system. Once a combat is initiated combat should have positioning phases related to the combat speed and infrastructure as corps enter the battle. Once a battle has commenced the first round should be artillery doing damage unabated, the second round should be artillery and horses doing damage. Artillery damage should target only infantry. Horses should help the likelihood of choosing a preferred tactic as they represent reconnaissance. The third round of combat and beyond should consist of infantry doing damage to each other while artillery continues to deal damage unabated.This should continue until all infantry battalions are exhausted. After which the artillery will take damage and quickly be destroyed, unless a controlled retreat is rolled once there is less than 25% of the infantry battalions remaining. Once a retreat is rolled cannons stop doing damage as they are moving out of the field.
Section 5 Province based frontline progress and supply
Frontlines should progress based on provinces captured instead of just showing occupation flags, the line should move as well to feel more native to the player. It’s fine if a split front doesn’t happen until the entire state is occupied. This will make wars feel much more push and pull. Occupied states should not provide any supply to the market and supply should be drawn and impact local prices and infrastructure.
Corps should be visible and align themselves within states on the frontline. They should be distributed based on the orders assigned at the formation. For example on a large multistate frontline we should see where the corps are and which parts of the frontline are their responsibilities through color coding. Depending on formation orders is how they should align themselves within this front with an absolute extreme being something like aggressive attack where all corps align themselves towards a one state war goal objective stacking the attack on that province but leaving other parts of the front undefended. With normal attack being more balanced and normal defense being similar.
Section 6 Ideal Ratios should be native and change
As highlighted above artillery should be awesome, it does free damage and then continuous unabated damage throughout the battle. However it should be balanced in several ways. It should impact your organizational capacity of your Corps heavily such that it becomes a burden beyond the “Ideal” template which the game should provide by default. Additionally, overstacking artillery especially at the beginning should be a recipe for your troops being overrun early in a battle without having the artillery really be able to dig its teeth in.
Section 7 Academies and Doctrine
Military academies should be introduced which allow for the research of doctrine which is primarily how your corps should change over the course of the game. Doctrinal research should be coupled with the traditional research tree. For example you cannot start to research doctrine related to utilizing shrapnel artillery which ultimately results in allowing you to increase your ratio of artillery to infantry until you’ve unlocked shrapnel artillery. In this way we’re able to tie in both technological and doctrinal changes on the battlefield. Doctrine should be segmented in 3 trees, offense, defense and support trees which should give a combination of soft bonus modifiers to corps, impact the amount of organization(in the hoi sense) each battalion gives or consumes and also unlock new tactics which properly experienced generals can utilize as their preferred tactics.
Section 8 Army capacity
In addition to doctrinal research, army academies should also be the bureaucracy of your army providing army capacity. How else is an army going to count how many beans it needs? Capacity should be consumed by the amount of corp designs you have, pushing the player to have a streamlined corps system so they’re not paying for designs they don't need. Corps themselves should also incur a cost of army capacity which should be burdensome at the start of the game and become less so as technology progresses. This should also encourage the fewer large corps slowly becoming smaller more numerous corps later down the line as they are more efficient but harder to maintain.
Section 9 Final thoughts
My hope is to see something along these lines for a Victoria giving a war system that is highly customizable and fun for the player to interact with. Allowing the player to fight with corps that are unique to their nations tactics. It should reduce the workload and frustration on the player with the current battalion based system and feel more realistic at the same time.
Section 1: Issues with the current system
While the 1.5 re-work certainly helped improve military gameplay it also didn’t fundamentally change the level of interaction you have with your military. You still assign armies to fronts with only Offense and Defense values that matter. Organization exists but it’s almost always a 100 so the value rarely comes into play. It also added some tedious work involved with manually assigning battalions to formations/Armies. Especially when you want to balance your infantry and artillery in a 50/50 ratio.
Better but still not smooth, or quick. Something best done on pause or pre war.
Front splitting remains an issue, and while it is supposedly patched in 1.7 it remains an issue, particularly when you have one army (formation) on a front because it can only be assigned to one front at a time.
Combat also remains very one dimensional with offense defense, set 1:1 artillery ratios and doesn’t really change much from start to end of game other than the dioramas. As described by the dev’s once naval battles are just “Manpower balls on the sea”. Well that’s also true for army combat.
In conclusion I think the current war system lacks flavor in terms of player customization where it matters, can be tedious in managing battalions within armies and frustrating at worst when a front splits and becomes unassigned.
Section 2: The solution to all our problems
A corp system and designer.
What would help improve all of the aspects I laid out above is an intermediate container type between battalions and Army formations called the Corps. Corps would function very similar to divisions within HoI4 although they would be larger, particularly at game start. Historically speaking most armies around this time were organized around the Corp.
Picture little victorian prussian helmets
Corps would help address the tedium of moving different battalions around as you would now have larger unit containers appropriately sized that you could quickly assign between army groups. If you’re deploying to a front you would consider sending a self contained corp.
Corps could also assist in front splitting logic. If you have a front split with one army consisting of 3 corps, one of those corps could automatically take that front over now.
Section 3 How would a corps designer work?
Army combat looked very different in 1936 than in 1836, but behind the frontlines there was an equal amount of change in how armies organized themselves. One of the key changes was the overall shrinking in combat unit size throughout the period ultimately culminating in self contained divisional combat units by WW1. The reason for this change was the greater ability for communication and flexible organization whereas in 1836 having bigger corps sized units was easier to manage and wield.
To follow along with their historical progression corps should start out in 1836 as rather large units that are well sized for european plain tile combat widths but not much else. An example of a napoleonic war style corp might be a 16-2-2 style. With 16 Infantry Battalions, 2 Mobile Artillery battalions and 2 Horse battalions. This style of corps should be hard or soft locked in structure more on this in the combat section. Particularly in terms of the ratio of artillery and horses to infantry.
As time(technology) progresses army corps should trend both smaller and start to have higher ratios of artillery and support companies per infantry battalion which should overall make them more effective. For example, by the Franco-Prussian war we might see a 12-4-2 ratio of infantry, cannon horses.
As time progresses more support companies should become available such as machine guns (once gattlings are unlocked), logistics companies, communications companies once telegrams are unlocked, aircraft support companies, tank support companies and engineering companies which provide bonuses to your overall corps. These specialized units should be powerful, but very expensive especially since by the time they become available you will have more smaller corps.
Once a corp is selected you should be able to raise corps by state as entire blocks or assign existing battalions to corps. In combat non assigned corps should be treated as a corps but without the bonuses the corps structure entails. Certain general traits could offset this to some extent especially for combat on certain terrain types.
Corps should also be available to non-european nations but with different spins related to the doctrinal tree. For example in situations with native armies they should also organize into “corps” in name only with structures that are very different and often lack artillery and horses. However they should focus on doctrinal sub trees that focus on defense related to reducing artillery damage and better tactic selection. A well organized native army should be easy to beat in a battle but costly, forcing many battles to end a war that never quite seems like a single set piece win.
Section 4 Combat changes
Combat would need to be altered to fully realize the new corps system. It should be inspired by the HoI4 naval system/Eu4 system. Once a combat is initiated combat should have positioning phases related to the combat speed and infrastructure as corps enter the battle. Once a battle has commenced the first round should be artillery doing damage unabated, the second round should be artillery and horses doing damage. Artillery damage should target only infantry. Horses should help the likelihood of choosing a preferred tactic as they represent reconnaissance. The third round of combat and beyond should consist of infantry doing damage to each other while artillery continues to deal damage unabated.This should continue until all infantry battalions are exhausted. After which the artillery will take damage and quickly be destroyed, unless a controlled retreat is rolled once there is less than 25% of the infantry battalions remaining. Once a retreat is rolled cannons stop doing damage as they are moving out of the field.
Section 5 Province based frontline progress and supply
Frontlines should progress based on provinces captured instead of just showing occupation flags, the line should move as well to feel more native to the player. It’s fine if a split front doesn’t happen until the entire state is occupied. This will make wars feel much more push and pull. Occupied states should not provide any supply to the market and supply should be drawn and impact local prices and infrastructure.
Corps should be visible and align themselves within states on the frontline. They should be distributed based on the orders assigned at the formation. For example on a large multistate frontline we should see where the corps are and which parts of the frontline are their responsibilities through color coding. Depending on formation orders is how they should align themselves within this front with an absolute extreme being something like aggressive attack where all corps align themselves towards a one state war goal objective stacking the attack on that province but leaving other parts of the front undefended. With normal attack being more balanced and normal defense being similar.
Section 6 Ideal Ratios should be native and change
As highlighted above artillery should be awesome, it does free damage and then continuous unabated damage throughout the battle. However it should be balanced in several ways. It should impact your organizational capacity of your Corps heavily such that it becomes a burden beyond the “Ideal” template which the game should provide by default. Additionally, overstacking artillery especially at the beginning should be a recipe for your troops being overrun early in a battle without having the artillery really be able to dig its teeth in.
Section 7 Academies and Doctrine
Military academies should be introduced which allow for the research of doctrine which is primarily how your corps should change over the course of the game. Doctrinal research should be coupled with the traditional research tree. For example you cannot start to research doctrine related to utilizing shrapnel artillery which ultimately results in allowing you to increase your ratio of artillery to infantry until you’ve unlocked shrapnel artillery. In this way we’re able to tie in both technological and doctrinal changes on the battlefield. Doctrine should be segmented in 3 trees, offense, defense and support trees which should give a combination of soft bonus modifiers to corps, impact the amount of organization(in the hoi sense) each battalion gives or consumes and also unlock new tactics which properly experienced generals can utilize as their preferred tactics.
Section 8 Army capacity
In addition to doctrinal research, army academies should also be the bureaucracy of your army providing army capacity. How else is an army going to count how many beans it needs? Capacity should be consumed by the amount of corp designs you have, pushing the player to have a streamlined corps system so they’re not paying for designs they don't need. Corps themselves should also incur a cost of army capacity which should be burdensome at the start of the game and become less so as technology progresses. This should also encourage the fewer large corps slowly becoming smaller more numerous corps later down the line as they are more efficient but harder to maintain.
Section 9 Final thoughts
My hope is to see something along these lines for a Victoria giving a war system that is highly customizable and fun for the player to interact with. Allowing the player to fight with corps that are unique to their nations tactics. It should reduce the workload and frustration on the player with the current battalion based system and feel more realistic at the same time.
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