Dev Diary #44 - Battles

[Spartakus]

I assume the side whose advancement meter fills first.

Each side has their own advancement meter?

 

[CaptainGrimlock]

Each side has their own advancement meter?

That’s the impression I got.
edit: though after rereading I could be mistaken. Not sure.

 

[GrafKeks]

Are dependents better than dead people? Suppose I have a war where I lose 50K men. Is my nation better off economically if the 50K men are Dependents or if they are actually Dead?

They still create demand, that can be a bonus. They can't create supply ( I think ?! ) that's a malus. ( IRL they incentivize investments in Pharma which has huge payoffs in the future, but that's IRL territority ).

 

[MylesSCP]

They still create demand, that can be a bonus. They can't create supply ( I think ?! ) that's a malus. ( IRL they incentivize investments in Pharma which has huge payoffs in the future, but that's IRL territority ).

Dependents can provide a small amount of income through odd jobs, but they don't produce good that go onto the market and contribute living expenses to the pop so generally they're a hindrance to pop wealth.

 

[CityDisk]

Will we have a list of battles won at the end of the game?

 

[Merrivale]

Bit late but I don't think there is much to be said here that hasn't been said already so I'll merely repeat a few things I've said in the past.

I think you can open up wider vistas of strategic play that includes greater interaction with generals by increasing the number of fronts, thus allowing allocation of generals to specific fronts with more specific stances than just attack/defend as well as particular strategic objectives you want them to pursue.

Let's use the ever popular ACW as the example. There are really four fronts here (Texas is very, very big folks) and you would assign a stance to each front. Stances would also determine force concentration (or desired force concentration, the generals themselves will matter here). If you chose guerilla defensive warfare, your troops would be widely dispersed and unable to effectively fight pitched battles. If you chose concentrated attack, your troops would be highly concentrated and best able to fight in a pitched battle but would be more suspect to being outmaneuvered by defense in depth or mobile attack. We would also need a passive and aggressive modifier.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a basic start would be (all can be either passive or aggressive):

Concentrated Attack
Mobile Attack
Dispersed Attack
Counter-Offensive (basically you want the other side to attack you, but if things go well go on the offensive immediately)
Concentrated Defense
Defense in Depth
Organized Retreat
Guerilla Defense

So say passive mobile defense in Texas, aggressive mobile attack in Mississippi basin, aggressive concentrated attack in Ohio Valley, and passive concentrated attack in Virginia (not necessarily wise per se, just an idea of the different options).

The next key element is setting key strategic points to take or avoid (allowing you to tell your general to avoid mountain terrain for instance). This appears to be something that will be in the game eventually no matter what, so not sure there is much else to say.

You then need at least one general for the front to actually fight there (and yes, this opens up a can of worms about truly massive fronts like Sino-Russian and not enough generals) and the general attempts to carry out your orders--within their own character traits, the forces at hand, and the enemy forces. You assign McClellan to the Ohio Valley in this case and you will not get the results you are looking for as he dithers and asks for more troops.

Unless of course your general is prominent enough with enough clout that the front you have assigned him is deemed inadequate because the orders are simply to sit tight. Then you have a situation that can lead down multiple paths, from mere disgruntlement lowering army morale and effectiveness to outright insubordination (attacking without orders, refusing to do anything, outright quitting). Perhaps you are Germany in a war that involves an Alps front and don't want to do anything at that front but sit there, except you send Von Moltke to that front (you aren't the best player). You upset perhaps not just him but some of your other generals as well as your troops and if you don't fix the situation he might just quit in rage or launch an attack you didn't want.

You would also have generals refusing to take the offensive because they deem they do not have enough troops to carry out your orders and objectives (again McClellan is a good example of this). A hothead general may launch a crazy attack against superior forces because that's what you asked (or even sometimes if you didn't) but a more cautious one simply won't. A super cautious general may win a big battle but fail to achieve as much in the result (province-wise) as better one would (Meade versus Grant, say).

And then the stances would also help determine results, particularly as they interact against each other. Concentrated attack against concentrated defense gives you the Western Front, for instance. Defense in depth could throw off a superior attacker who chose concentrated attack as they waste too much of their force in attacks you are happy to let them win while preserving the majority of your force.

There would have to be timers on the stances so you can't change them super rapidly except for input allowed after major battles (moving commanders around the same thing). There is an issue about how much you know about what the enemy is doing so as to not turn the game into a rock-paper-scissor cheese fest of simply doing whatever the best counter is to the enemy.

I think fronts may have to be generated by the game because allowing player generation opens up too many rabbit holes that would be extremely hard to fill in, and the front needs to exist for both parties (the Confederate player, in the example, needs to have the exact same four fronts as the Union player). The rules around that are sure to be fairly complex and have to evolve with the situation. But in all I think this is a system that keeps the promise of macro rather than micro warfare while still allowing for player agency and strategic choice.

 

[CityDisk]

Least enjoyable. The rest of the game looks really, really good to me and I'm very excited for it but I'll be honest I am just utterly uninterested in warfare with this system. I also think there's a bit of problem with the implementation and design of it as the game gets towards the end. In 1840 you'd have a point that most national leaders didn't micro their militaries directly, but in 1915? 1925? It becomes much more common, especially among the ideologies that crop up in the later part of the game.

Agreed, this system could work but it needs major additions for complexity.

No no, I get all of that and I think that will be great, I just want all of that on top of having to manage the military too. Like I said in my original post in the thread I don't want to be excluded from microing anything in the game unless I click a button telling the AI to manage it for me. It's just as silly for me to micro individual factories as it is for me to micro individual divisions, but I still want to do both.

I actually disagree, I think there must be some way to make this system more enjoyable without it being the exact same system.

Everyone's arguing and I'm just gonna wait for the first DLC to be all about warfare.

It should be regardless of how good the system is, there is just so much to be expanded upon here.

 

[Tanuvein]

I'd like to see a more granular layer of control of your forces, or at least the force structure. Assigning officers of multiple ranks and treating it as more of a diplomatic function than a standard bit of click and attack would be fun. I was hoping that combat would get a lot of development in this game, as I felt CK3 didn't advance the companies war paradigm in an interesting way. I would like to see it have as much attention to detail and historicity as the economy to create a more robust package. It can make a system feel tacked on when its significantly simpler than the rest of the gameplay.

 

[GrafKeks]

Dependents can provide a small amount of income through odd jobs, but they don't produce good that go onto the market and contribute living expenses to the pop so generally they're a hindrance to pop wealth.

If they create demand the Krugman model may apply, hence they might be a net bonus depending on what the government does with the welfare maximizing tariffs.


This quotation chain feels like this: Someone might draw an ace. It's more likely someone draws hearts or spades. If you shuffle in a certain way you might be more likely to draw an ace.


Is there info on how much dependents can earn or how it's determined?

 

[Revolution 11]

Dependents can provide a small amount of income through odd jobs, but they don't produce good that go onto the market and contribute living expenses to the pop so generally they're a hindrance to pop wealth.

See that sounds crazy to me. Dependents should be a big source of internal market demand so unless the economy is completely export-focused, it would be a net gain to (some) pop's wealth to have X number of Dependents instead of X number of dead Pops. Because otherwise, what is the incentive to ever improve battlefield mortality? It would be better to let the soldiers die than to be crippled.

 

[MylesSCP]

See that sounds crazy to me. Dependents should be a big source of internal market demand so unless the economy is completely export-focused, it would be a net gain to (some) pop's wealth to have X number of Dependents instead of X number of dead Pops. Because otherwise, what is the incentive to ever improve battlefield mortality? It would be better to let the soldiers die than to be crippled.

It's better for the overall economy and workers/owners in the industries supplying them, but since the pops that will support the dependents are servicemen, and maybe officers, they won't directly see more money from a better economy. They'll be worse off unless the government uses the extra tax revenue to boost their wages.

 

[MylesSCP]

Is there info on how much dependents can earn or how it's determined?

Not that I've seen other than laws affect it, such as child labor increasing the amount.

 

[Darsara]

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.

Well, you are deciding the size of the army by laws, number and placement of barracks and activation of conscription; the composition of the army (this DD seems to suggest unit types are thing, in addition to their equipment types); you are also planning important strategic considerations like whether there's enough railway capacity to move your armies or supplies, whether they advancing or holding and where, who's leading these forces. You can even decide if a war happens or not by starting or avoiding your wars or deciding to surrender and avoid a war when a play targets you.

 

[thedarkendstar]

Are dependents better than dead people? Suppose I have a war where I lose 50K men. Is my nation better off economically if the 50K men are Dependents or if they are actually Dead?

The is one way they are definitely better Dependents still probably cause more people to be born via growth rate so in the long run those 50k dependents could mean 200k working people.

 

[cosmeIII]

Only one battle per front? One general per battle? So WW1's western front had only one battle going on at a time, with one general leading all the troops in it?

It's just way too simple and way too boring and misrepresents the warfare of the period. I sincerely hope some deeper thought is given to the concept of war and its UX in the future of Vicky3's development without the need of a paid DLC.

War is a staple of Paradox games and of... Well of the history it's supposed to represent. The 19th century had many wars and revolutionized warfare as a concept, within the game's represented period is a war that was nicknamed the war to end all wars. It seems awfully strange that the way Vicky3 solves the micro-intensive war issue by... Dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Eddie121]

See that sounds crazy to me. Dependents should be a big source of internal market demand so unless the economy is completely export-focused, it would be a net gain to (some) pop's wealth to have X number of Dependents instead of X number of dead Pops.

Dependents act as a wealth divider, diluting the (significant) income of working pops among the (comparatively negligible) income of dependents.
On the other hand, pop growth is expressed as a % of total population, so salvaging some dependents will increase future population size.

Because otherwise, what is the incentive to ever improve battlefield mortality? It would be better to let the soldiers die than to be crippled.

Battlefield medics turn the death and the injured into healthy soldiers ready to rejoin their unit, so that's definitely a plus for remaining operational and winning wars.

 

[thedarkendstar]

See that sounds crazy to me. Dependents should be a big source of internal market demand so unless the economy is completely export-focused, it would be a net gain to (some) pop's wealth to have X number of Dependents instead of X number of dead Pops. Because otherwise, what is the incentive to ever improve battlefield mortality? It would be better to let the soldiers die than to be crippled.

Again like I said dependents still also contribute to population growth so in the end you have more people and more workers if say those 200k wounded are alive rather then dead because in the longer term thats a higher population.

 

[MfgLuckbot]

- no single frontline which doesn't allow for breakthroughs, although i agree encirclement warfare is not so much the trend in this time of age
- shape direction (schwerpunkt) of attack, to allow for breakthrough again I don't know if at that time there was a huge focus on breaking enemy lines and encirclement
(of course some positions might been avoided to attack but large scale ww2 style encirclement i doubt it)

These were considered a lot during WW1. The original german plan involved moving around the french defenders to encircle their whole army on their defensive line (failed obviously). Breakthroughs were very feared so there was the general idea to reinforce the most where your enemy is the strongest (basically inverted Schwerpunkt). They thought about all that in the timeframe, but the technology made it very hard, rails allowed moving much faster on your own territory, and machineguns/artillery made breakthroughs impossible before tanks and assault troops were invented.

- i don't like the 'batallion system' it makes the whole army seem to homogeneous same for the way how ships are counted. i would like my expeditionary forces to be slightly different than those that are crack frontline troops. Especially larger countries.. had plenty of different troops in terms of quality, which would allow them to cost effectively do defense or offensive operations or even allowed them to exist until now. ( i look forward to other names as well if they existed like army groups, divisions and regiments)

You can do that by adjusting production methods in your barracks and conscription centers. And by their location you can decide to mobilize only the ones you want for a specific goal (I.E. you can make trench and gas warfare troops to bleed out the enemy, you can make mobile shock troops that cause much less losses but grab land a lot faster, or you can have a irregular colonial force that is very cheap)

- overall i like gui but miss some paradox touch of realism into images like in hoi3 research tree

Agreed. I liked the icons of Vic2 research a lot

 

[cetvrtak]

Will we be able to calculate the outcome of a battle with a scientific calculator?

 

[Idle America]

Will Hotzendorf and Cadorna have the unique trait "Utter Moron"?