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Hello guys!

So today we will be talking about some changes we have made to make our combat less bloody, which has particularly been an issue since patch 2.4. We have also worked on making the outcome of entire wars not be decided in one stroke by whomever happens to have pissed off Lady Fortuna...

First off, we have adopted the “shattered retreat” from EU4, meaning when an army is defeated it will run back to somewhere relatively safe so that the enemy can’t keep ping-ponging it until it is annihilated. Peasant rabble that rises against your enlightened and glorious rule, however, will immediately disperse on defeat so you don’t have to chase them down. But nobles within your realm that betray you and revolt will try and run for a safe haven.

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The second feature we have added is that while your damaged army is at home it will reinforce its levies directly (rather than the Holding garrison), meaning you can choose if you want to employ the garrisoned levies immediately by dismissing and re-raising your levies, or decide it is too risky (since your army will then be split all over your Kingdom and be easy pickings for the enemy) and instead choose to have your army stand back and rest for a while and be slowly refilled with troops instead.

The equation for how losses were calculated has also been changed. Before, it was based on the troops getting damaged by almost exponential amounts. This could, in some cases, cause really ridiculous damage like 2 million casualties, when it was armies of thousands fighting each other. This has been changed, and the associated values tweaked severely to prevent the crazy casualties yet still ensure that enough soldiers die in battles. For math nerds this is how it works now:

Defending means here the unit taking damage, both units will be defending and attacking at the same time and does not denote who initiated the combat. DamagePerMan is a value calculated as a even distribution of the total damage each soldier takes.
Code: 
((DamagePerMan * AmountOfDefendingTroops) / DefenseValue) * AmountOfDefendingTroops = LossesInTroops
Has been changed to
Code: 
(DamagePerMan * AmountOfDefendingTroops) / DefenseValue = LossesInTroops
Not a very big change but it does have profound effects on the result.

Beside simple combat mechanic changes there have been some improvements and bug fixes to the AI to give players a better challenge, focusing mostly on making allied AIs coordinate better between themselves. Oh, and the Mongol AI has been given its balls back, making them a lot more aggressive than they ever were before...

You asked for it….
 
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Quaade said:
When army is defeated and have morale below a certain point, it will retreat some provinces away that are deemed safe. In EU4 this can be some 8-10 provinces away or simply 3.

It's done to prevent the stackswipe by following, but it's not impossible, you just need to travel farther :)
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I see, so it just extends the distance that troops will go to after being crushed. Though since that really doesn't sound like a large change, why is everyone so gleefully hyped up about it?
 
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It just dawned on me, if you get fewer casualties based on your numbers in every battle, then that's a buff to weak but numerous unit types like LI right? They lose fewer of their number in each tick, which means they have more left to cause damage in the next tick.
 
Aleus said:
I'm kind of confused on what shattered retreat is, could someone care to explain it to me? I have 150 hours in CK2 but I've never touched EU4.
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Your army gets a bloody nose and runs away to fight another day.
 
Aleus said:
I see, so it just extends the distance that troops will go to after being crushed. Though since that really doesn't sound like a large change, why is everyone so gleefully hyped up about it?
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Because it prevents stackswipe at first, in some cases you can reinforce the army by merging another into it which could shift the battle, also there are times that pursuing is simply not an option.

Most joy, I would guess is from the ability of not losing you're entire army in the next province. But yes, there are situations where it's still able to pursue and kill them. It's a good compromise :)
 
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TheDungen said:
It just dawned on me, if you get fewer casualties based on your numbers in every battle, then that's a buff to weak but numerous unit types like LI right? They lose fewer of their number in each tick, which means they have more left to cause damage in the next tick.
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That might be right actually :) this might balance it out :)
 
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Groogy said:
Not strong, we made them more aggressive, there were various modifiers like "Oh I am getting old so I shouldn't expand" and stuff the AI thinks about. You know pesky problems the Mongols don't have.
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Can the mongols and other nomads still reinforce anywhere on the map, or will they only be allowed to reinforce in their own territory.
 
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As for the whole rebels discussion I have suggested previously that rebels be handled with the raiding adventurers mechanic, they spawn more often in smaller groups but at first they're just raiders, it's only when they reach sufficient numbers they declare war.
After all there has been little diffrence historically between "freedom fighters" and brigands.
 
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TheDungen said:
As for the whole rebels discussion I have suggested previously that rebels be handled with the raiding adventurers mechanic, they spawn more often in smaller groups but at first they're just raiders, it's only when they reach sufficient numbers they declare war.
After all there has been little diffrence historically between "freedom fighters" and brigands.
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Could be a good idea, not dealing with it makes it worse, but still able to take it early... however, there should be a few rare moments of these being difficult, perhaps when reinforcing by conquest and splitting them up...
 
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Quaade said:
Could be a good idea, not dealing with it makes it worse, but still able to take it early... however, there should be a few rare moments of these being difficult, perhaps when reinforcing by conquest and splitting them up...
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Well generally peasent uprisings were more of an annoyance than a real threat in the era. At least before the black death changed everything.
 
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TropeSage said:
Can the mongols and other nomads still reinforce anywhere on the map, or will they only be allowed to reinforce in their own territory.
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How do you mean? The event troops can't reinforce no matter what and the horde units can only reinforce as long as they are within supply range as any other retinue unit.
 
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Groogy said:
How do you mean? The event troops can't reinforce no matter what and the horde units can only reinforce as long as they are within supply range as any other retinue unit.
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Even troops have been reinforcing at least since HL came out. And retinues have never, ever had a supply range limit on reinforcements (and neither have had horde units).

Or are you revealing new features without meaning to?
 
To make it extra clear, the nomads/mongols have gotten no bonuses at all. I just told the AI to not be so nice. The Ai is not smarter, the ai don't get any cheats. I just simply changed the modifiers to make it stop being a coward.
 
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grisamentum said:
Even troops have been reinforcing at least since HL came out. And retinues have never, ever had a supply range limit on reinforcements (and neither have had horde units).

Or are you revealing new features without meaning to?
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What event troops reinforce?
Retinues have had a supply range since rajas of India.
 
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grisamentum said:
It's never prevented them from reinforcing. I was never aware that was even supposed to happen.
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It has though prevented them from reinforcing since like a year ago.
 
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grisamentum said:
All of them. This was reported numerous times during the HL beta. Currently, event troops reinforce.
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Event spawned troops don't reinforce unless explicit told to reinforce. Sounds like you are playing with a mod, some specific scenario or just plain old bias.
 
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