Dev Diary #44 - Battles

[Brynjar]

Does the defender know the exact numbers of the attacking force and the stats/traits of the attacking general when they get to choose these things for the battle?

Also, please change those awful looking lines of flames from the map. Not only do they not make any sense, they also ruin an otherwise good looking map.

 

[CountAccountant]

I'm excited by what I'm hearing so far. The inability to micro my way to victory in a bad war raises the stakes of diplomatic plays and keeps the focus on the strategic layer. It reminds me a bit of Lincoln's role in the American Civil War - absolutely critical to the effort, but uninvolved with the minutiae of the campaign.

One piece of feedback - the war dev diaries have focused a lot on the mechanics of the war system itself. And that's important! But often I struggle to understand how I fit into this as a player. What are the critical decisions I am making? What are the consequences of those decisions? Or alternatively, what were the key decisions I made earlier that influenced the outcome? I think sometimes it comes across that war is almost an automated process and that perception is selling the benefits of your new system short.

 

[Cinigs]

How can we specialize armies for offense and defense, if Production Methods seem to be tiered as "newer is best"? Is there some sort of balancing between newer production methods, such as some PMs increasing offense but decreasing defence (is your army defensive or offensive), increasing devastation but decreasing kill rate (is your batallion made to damage in the short run or long run)? These options would make newer options not necessarily better and provide much more gameplay options to otherwise obsolete PMs.

Remember that newer is also more expensive. When you are attacking, you will need to have better recon than when you are defending. This means an offensive army will need to invest in the best (or at least better) recon units (i.e. planes instead of cavalry) and thus will have worse other types of units than a defensive army. Similarly, defensive wars are more existential. While an offensive army might have field hospitals so their soldiers can fight in the next war, a defensive army might instead just have first aid and use those resources to build a bigger army because if they lose, there won't be a next war. Also is easier to increase the number of soldiers you have during a war than your industrial capacity so, in a major war, every country will start using outdated PM's for their soldiers. 10k troops with bolt action rifles are better than 10k troops with muzzleloading rifles, but not 50k of them.

 

[Volodio]

"casualties are applied roughly in proportion to unit culture"

Shouldn't that possibly be effected by accepted culture/etc? Like, wasn't what position you had in the army and where you were placed on the battlefield often a big determiner of your likelyhood of survival? I don't know exactly how it effects things or what nuance to take, but it seems likely to me that it might not be a even split?

There were several wars during the period, like the American Civil War, during which officers had a higher casualty rate than regular soldiers. So while officers would be more likely to be from an accepted culture (already present in the game btw, officers and servicemen are different profession), I don't think the distinction in casualty rate warrants being made for the period.

 

[N35t0r]

So in a hypothetical US-Canada war, will the front have battles on one point at a time?

Maybe have the chance of a battle happening be proportional to the (sum of) infrastructure along the whole front?

 

[Empocariam]

It would be cool if Battle Conditions could be chosen like a card draw. Like when a battle begins you can choose from a random set of three or something (maybe more or less for better and worse generals), so it feels a bit more like the player is making a choice in the battle on the strategic level. I'm personally a really big fan of the less-micro warfare, but this seems like just dice rolling which isn't really interactive.

You can make sure all the conditions have pluses and minuses, and your opponents choice isn't revealed until the battle starts. In MP it can be on a short timer and then gets selected based on what the AI would chose.

 

[lachek]

Great work!

But please consider naming battles after cities rather than states. As even the caption "Königgratz anyone?" recognizes, names like "Battle of Nanjing" are much more flavorful than "Battle of North Zhejiang".

Yeah, that's pretty much a no-brainer, you're right.
Now the only challenge is to see if @KaiserJohan approves of my code...

 

[Miroku20X6]

What is the impact of the “Advance”/“Defend” relative to the listed strength of the armies?

Right now we see a 57-40 (OFF-DEF) squaring off against a 45-35.

I assume the battle is effectively showing the 57 vs the 35. What would happen if both armies are “Advancing”? Would it now be 57 vs 45 and a closer fight? Or does “Defend” give the defensive army some type of bonus in combat? Change the type of general strategies available, perhaps? Or is it more about spacing out actual battles and hoping to wear out the attacker through war exhaustion?

if for some reason the tables were turned and Austria was trying to attack into Prussia with strength of 45, is there any sense in which Prussia gains by defending at 40? Or would it be clearly superior for them to be “advancing” at 57?

 

[Azkiol]

I've not really had a lot of hope for the warfare system for awhile now, bit I'm pretty excited about finding out how elections work.

 

[Arbus]

When the battle is created a sequence of actions unfolds before the fighting begins. All of these are in script and can be tweaked by mods as desired.

• The attacker picks their leading General
• The defender picks their leading General
• The battle province is determined along the frontline
• The attacker determines the number of units they can bring
• The defender determines the number of units they can bring
• Both sides selects their units

Ok so who determines the number of units? The player or the general?

If the player chooses then:
Why wouldn't I always choose the maximum number of units?

If the general chooses then:
What factors are considered? Which general stats are considered, how is the length of the frontline considered, what other factors are involved?

Lastly, when both sides select their units, what does that mean? If I'm allowed to bring 5 units, can I teleport my 5 elite regiments as long as they're assigned to that frontline? Does the player have any agency here or is it the general who decides? And again how do they decide, what factors are considered to determine army composition?

 

[mwc12]

View attachment 832988

In addition each side randomizes a Battle Condition which provides bonuses (or penalties) to their units similar to Combat Tactics in Hearts of Iron 4. Unlike HOI4 though these are fixed for the duration of the battle. For example a General with the Engineer trait has a higher chance of selecting the “Dug In” Battle Condition which provides defensive modifiers.

Can the player influence the battle condition other than by picking generals with desired traits? Like would an army that has been defending for a long time on the same front get increased chance at “dug in”?

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Can we please at least get some priority ordering to our Generals? Say, conquer agricultural territory, or conquer industrial territory, or conquer more populous area, etc...
Same thing for defenders. Hold this river the best you can, hold this pass, hold this city, etc...
So far, I like the way of how war will be handled, but just choosing a general, giving him troops and then say march/defend feels lacking, to say the least.

 

[Rhel]

Well. Simple but it gets the job done. Still think we could do with a bit (really just a bit though) more player input, but I really don't mind this.

 

[wisecat]

How will this system provide for deep strike and raids? (think March to the Sea or March to Peking by expedition in China)

Or strategic sieges? (think battle of Sevastopol during Crimea War or siege of Paris in 1870 )

Or battles of surprise and maneuver during Indian wars in America?

 

[KaiserJohan]

I have a couple questions about casualties:

1. Is there some way to see how many of the casualties have become dependents? They aren't specifically listed on the battle screen, as far as I can tell, but perhaps they should be.
2. Is the fact that these battles all have several times more dead than wounded part of the WIP nature of the screenshots? If not, I think it should be. In the real world, battles tend to have several times more wounded than dead. Somehow I completely missed the part where this was mentioned as a known issue. My bad!

I believe it's in the tooltip

I dont like the flames when zoomed-in.

Placeholder graphics; this DD was written ~a month ago, it's different now

A few questions

1. Borrowing from local garrisons make sense, but how does borrowing from other generals along a front work? On the Fronts DD it was said that fronts weren't split except by natural barriers (oceans, non-involved nations, etc.).
   1. With the US Civil war example, does this mean my general in along the Mississippi can borrow troops from Virginia? Am I required to have infrastructure to connect provinces to facilitate this or do they teleport around the front? What happens if there are battles in short succession along the front, what criteria prevents/allows for barrowing troops.
2. Its not super clear from the DD but what does a player do outside of selecting generals? Are players determining the amount of troops to bring, or is that the AI (general)?

Somewhat worried that this may be overly passive mechanic from a player perspective.

1. As long as the other generals are stationed at the front and not in battle their units may be borrowed like the garrisons.
2. Beyond giving the generals their orders the movements of the front & battles is largely automated.

I have two questions:
1. Will general borrow units up to his command limit or beyond it?
2. Is there a difference in combat effectiveness between units under generals and garrisoned (borrowed) ones?

1. Yes that may happen (there are alot of factors that goes into determining the size of the battle; for example a larger front tends to create larger battles)
2. Yes only troops under the generals direct command will inherit his commander modifiers

 

[2seven7seven]

I'm excited by what I'm hearing so far. The inability to micro my way to victory in a bad war raises the stakes of diplomatic plays and keeps the focus on the strategic layer. It reminds me a bit of Lincoln's role in the American Civil War - absolutely critical to the effort, but uninvolved with the minutiae of the campaign.

One piece of feedback - the war dev diaries have focused a lot on the mechanics of the war system itself. And that's important! But often I struggle to understand how I fit into this as a player. What are the critical decisions I am making? What are the consequences of those decisions? Or alternatively, what were the key decisions I made earlier that influenced the outcome? I think sometimes it comes across that war is almost an automated process and that perception is selling the benefits of your new system short.

You pretty much have it, war is an automated process with no key player decisions other than telling an army "attack on this front/defend on this front" unfortunately.

 

[thegreaterniko]

Was hoping for a longer dev diary hope the next one is

 

[CorneliusBottomly]

No forts?

 

[kamik]

No forts?

Where are forts

 

[prismaticmarcus]

But often I struggle to understand how I fit into this as a player. What are the critical decisions I am making?

You. Are. Managing. The. Economy.