What is Going on With Warscore

[SnowHawkKiller]

I don't understand how warscore is being calculated now. Why is there a minus percentage that they still control Italy. The total warscore is equal to 100% in battles and occupations. I've noticed so many wars ending in a bullsh*t white peace even though the defender attacking was winning. What the hell is this?

Edit: So I realized that the warscore would continually decrease unless I personally sieged the kings personal holdings in Italy. Which makes absolutely no sense. This can't be WAD. This is some of the highest tier bs I've seen in a while. Just had to restart a game b/c that last war ended from "losing."

 

[MK1980]

the war is about italy and the only provinces you occupy are istria and aquileia.

pretty sure those 2 are not de jure italy. used to be kingdom of bavaria / duchy of carinthia but i think the devs turned that area into its own de jure kingdom in the map overhaul.

anyway, siege down a single holding in italy and you've won.

 

[Ten_Tacles]

You have managed to beat their armies at every step, yet you have not managed to put a single foot in the territory you want to conquer.
Why should you win this war, when you apparerently can't conquer the regions at all?

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

the war is about italy and the only provinces you occupy are istria and aquileia.

pretty sure those 2 are not de jure italy. used to be kingdom of bavaria / duchy of carinthia but i think the devs turned that area into its own de jure kingdom in the map overhaul.

anyway, siege down a single holding in italy and you've won.

I did that and the warscore only went up to 80%. I then when on to completely siege down the capital and it only brought up the warscore to 83%.

 

[Sunshine Moon]

Yeah, whoever controls the actual area being fought over gets the ticking score because it's...the actual area being fought over.

 

[Dunaden]

If the attacker or the defender completely controls the target of the war, they get a ticking bonus to their war score. However, if the control is split between the attacker and defender, no one gets the ticking bonus, and only the results of battles and held territory count to the war score. So when you captured land within Italy, it removed Italy's bonus, but you won't get a bonus until you control all of Italy.

If you have complete control, but lose it, and then regain it, the bonus doesn't start over, it picks up where you were before you lost control, its basically based on how long you controlled everything throughout the course of the war, not how long you continuously controlled it. So if Italy recaptures the land you took they will get their 67 percent bonus back.

 

[SnowHawkKiller]

If the attacker or the defender completely controls the target of the war, they get a ticking bonus to their war score. However, if the control is split between the attacker and defender, no one gets the ticking bonus, and only the results of battles and held territory count to the war score. So when you captured land within Italy, it removed Italy's bonus, but you won't get a bonus until you control all of Italy.

If you have complete control, but lose it, and then regain it, the bonus doesn't start over, it picks up where you were before you lost control, its basically based on how long you controlled everything throughout the course of the war, not how long you continuously controlled it. So if Italy recaptures the land you took they will get their 67 percent bonus back.

Gotcha thanks, I didn't realize Paradox had made it so that you had to specifically occupy land within the de-jure area being fought for.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Gotcha thanks, I didn't realize Paradox had made it so that you had to specifically occupy land within the de-jure area being fought for.

It´s like that in all Paradox games I have played and likely the ones I have not played as well EU, CK, I:R ... It´s there in all of them

Some wars, that´s not a bout titles, have other wargoals, often defender´s capital.

 

[Dunaden]

Gotcha thanks, I didn't realize Paradox had made it so that you had to specifically occupy land within the de-jure area being fought for.

You don't absolutely have to occupy the target territory, but it makes it so much easier to win. You can sometimes win by crushing all his army and occupying large swathes of his other territory, but if you don't have the target territory under your control, your going to need to do it very fast, or spend twice as much effort. Or sometimes you just get lucky by capturing the enemy ruler in battle for an instant win, or capture his heir in battle or from a siege to get a 50% boost in warscore.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

The only issue I have with warscore is in the way battles contribute in asymmetric wars.

Crusaders for example are ridiculous; as the Jewish defender against a Catholic crusade, their force strength was roughly double mine.

I'd decisively win 30 battles for every one I lost, and those I did lose, would be marginal defeats.
Yet the way warscore is based upon losses as proportion of total strength meant my greatest victories would never give more than +2.5 WS (lesser victories often rounding down to 0 WS), yet each defeat would give -10 WS.

Eventually victory came down to completely controlling the target, and blitzing Rome; the epic battles counted for nothing.

Not at all how the crusades should play out.

 

[Legeis]

The only issue I have with warscore is in the way battles contribute in asymmetric wars.

Crusaders for example are ridiculous; as the Jewish defender against a Catholic crusade, their force strength was roughly double mine.

I'd decisively win 30 battles for every one I lost, and those I did lose, would be marginal defeats.
Yet the way warscore is based upon losses as proportion of total strength meant my greatest victories would never give more than +2.5 WS (lesser victories often rounding down to 0 WS), yet each defeat would give -10 WS.

Eventually victory came down to completely controlling the target, and blitzing Rome; the epic battles counted for nothing.

Not at all how the crusades should play out.

I mean honestly it makes sense if you have a force of 100k and lose 5k troops its not likely a big enough blow to have a large impact on weather or not you want to keep fighting, but if you only have 20k and lose 5k your nations military has been severely crippled and chances are will be a major factor in weather or not you want to keep fighting.

 

[Yxklyx]

You don't absolutely have to occupy the target territory, but it makes it so much easier to win. You can sometimes win by crushing all his army and occupying large swathes of his other territory, but if you don't have the target territory under your control, your going to need to do it very fast, or spend twice as much effort. Or sometimes you just get lucky by capturing the enemy ruler in battle for an instant win, or capture his heir in battle or from a siege to get a 50% boost in warscore.

You can also win if your enemy has high War Exhaustion. It's not a value you can see in the game but it's there. I've won several wars with less than 100% war score because the enemy is bogged down in other wars - they propose peace. I think if their treasury is negative they're more likely to propose peace as well.

 

[BuddyLove]

You can also win if your enemy has high War Exhaustion. It's not a value you can see in the game but it's there. I've won several wars with less than 100% war score because the enemy is bogged down in other wars - they propose peace. I think if their treasury is negative they're more likely to propose peace as well.

You can also win by ratcheting up the score by capturing the ruler (instant win) or family members- but in this Italy case to capture family you'd also be capturing parts of Italy, so it's moot.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I mean honestly it makes sense if you have a force of 100k and lose 5k troops its not likely a big enough blow to have a large impact on weather or not you want to keep fighting, but if you only have 20k and lose 5k your nations military has been severely crippled and chances are will be a major factor in weather or not you want to keep fighting.

What you're describing is war exhaustion though, and that simply isn't modelled in CK2.

In my experience, of defending (on multiple occasions) against Catholic crusades, it felt wrong and played out horribly.

~30k vs ~30k victories, where I'd typically take 5k losses, for 10k kills, would earn me ~2WS.
The same battles where lost (with reversed K/D) would cost me ~10WS.
The innumerable stack wipes of badly managed AI troops, where my 10-30k stacks would wipe out 2-3k at a time, would barely register.

After several years of fighting, losing a single holding in the target would result in ~30% WS swings.
A complete nonsense as it's a trivial accomplishment for a 30k stack assaulting, and can just as easily be reversed a few days later.

When armies number in the hundreds to low thousands, the balance between battles and occupation WS works reasonably well.
However when the armies reach tens of thousands, and up, occupations & ticking warscore dominate.

The changes I'd suggest are:

1) A change to the way ticking warscore is applied.
It should accrue, or diminish, at a rate proportional to the % of the CB target held.
Hold nothing -> diminish slowly; 1 holding -> accrue very very slowly; hold entire target -> accrue rapidly.
Thus no more ridiculous warscore swings from capturing a solitary castle.

2) I don't think casualties should directly* factor into warscore, nor do I think the levy size of the attack or defender should matter.
Warscore from battles should be scaled according to the size of the CB target (number of holdings, or sum of the holdings' levies).

Thus if it's a crusade for a 1066 small, undeveloped Kingdom (e.g. Ireland), then battles involving thousands of defenders should give significant warscore towards resolving the dispute.
Whereas a crusade for a 1400 larger, more populous Kingdom such as Egypt, should require victory over much larger defending armies in order to earn decisive amounts of WS.

So something like: "defenders in battle" x "size of CB target scalar" x "+win or -loss" = WS

*(Casualties still indirectly impact WS, as they affect the participants' ability to effectively fight the war)

 

[Yxklyx]

WS in EU4 is handled very well - the developers improved it greatly from the original release. They just need to apply the rules from that game to CK2 and CK3.

 

[Wintermute83]

Looks like he has some of your relatives captives. Check it.

During a Crusade against me I count enemy losses and they were over a MILLION before I could reach 100% because of that