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OldmansHQ

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Aug 13, 2013
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(TLDR go to "Points of the idea")

Hi there!

There have been some changes to discourage players from getting rid of forts, such as increased warscore from provinces without forts. But many of us still believe that they are not worth it, especially now that they've been made so expensive. As such, I came up with a new mechanic called "Devastation" that will encourage construction of forts without arbitrary penalties and truly revolutionise the gameplay,

Points of the idea:
1) Cut at least in half the cost and maintenance of all forts.
2) Add X% chance that friendly provinces outside of friendly fort zone of control will suffer Devastation losing X% development if:
2.1) A battle takes place in them where the number of regiments is X% higher than the local supply limit.
2.2) They are fully looted.
2.3) Devastation can also occur in provinces where a fort is successfully occupied, the chance is low after a siege, but significantly higher after an assault.
2.4) Provinces that suffer Devastation will have X% lower development cost until their development matches the one they had before Devastation.
2.5) Devastation of especially rich provinces will add more aggressive expansion.
3) Remove all requirements for assaults.
4) Devastation would not fire in provinces of neutral countries that only gave military access.


Explanation of the points:
1) As it is forts are just too expensive. Their costs has been readjusted to increase the value of money, but it simultaneously debased the value of forts.
2) The chance could be something like 50% or 10% depending on the amount of development lost. Whereas the amount of lost development could be 30% or random between 10-70% with at least 1 development lost. Also, forts would protect adjacent provinces of war allies from Devastation.
2.1) This means Devastation will not kick in when combat occurs between two scout regiments, but it might after a massive battle. This requirement will make sure Devastation threatening and not annoying. It might be interesting to tie the amount of development lost to the amount of battling regiments.
2.2) This point is simple.
2.3) The difference in chances should be great enough to create a choice between an attempt to Devastate a province and an attempt to prevent it.
2.4) This is meant to enable and encourage reconstruction of important provinces. The amount of lower cost should be high, say 50% or more, or it could be tied to the amount of lost development. It could be even higher in capital provinces.
2.5) Devastating provinces that are say 25+ development will earn the invader some aggressive expansion, perhaps it could scale with the amount of development. This is meant to discourage Devastation of highly developed provinces that the invader is not interested in taking.
3) The other changes will discourage assaults. For instance, more forts will make assaults less painful for the defender and less efficient for the attacker. Also, Devastating provinces that one wishes to conquer is undesirable.
4) Surely no explanation is needed here.


Historical Fluff:
The mechanic would expand strategy and tactics enabling distinct styles of warfare, Russia could capitalise on their vast but empty spaces whereas Italy could create an impenetrable buffer along the Alps. Players would have to consider more than just terrain of provinces, and quantified war zones such as the Hungarian countryside during the Austro-Hungarian wars would be created naturally as game progresses. Similarly to the Polish-Teutonic war, battlefields could be settled upon between enemies or not! Religious leagues would be closer to the The Thirty Years' War that reduced German city-states to smouldering ruins as they would be dynamically reflected within the game. Siege and assault would become an actual choice, such as in case of the Austrian siege of Venice where the monotonous way was chosen to ensure the precious city is unharmed, or Devastation could become a war goal like during the Swedish Deluge. With hyper aggressive Devastating nations like the Ottomans gaining a reputation as the escapees spread stories of the horror.

Gameplay Fluff:
With development and fort mechanics the game is almost begging for something like Devastation, which could even be connected with Scorched Earth. With something more permanent than money at stake, war would become a more serious matter. There would be a choice between spending manpower to battle another army or trying to Devastate and permanently cripple the enemy. What I mean by permanently is that it's something that go away on its own like low manpower.

It could be used to strategically reduce development to reduce coring costs. Things like weakening a centre of trade that can't be taken, but blocks trade flow would be possible! But it would not be taken lightly as the objective of war is usually to take land, not destroy it. With Devastation in the game you wouldn't allow yourself to send literally all of your forces towards one far front leaving the rest and the heartland of your nation exposed. Unlike EVER before, you would have to commit to the defence - this is the revolutionary part. This would also add meaning to the state of borders, keeping them defensible rather than snaking through continents would be something to consider. Tall vs wide would finally have a tangible significance in terms of war. Devastation would make you question if the ends truly justify the means as results of war could become a real consequence even before any peace deals.


Thanks for reading! Please leave a response if you like the idea as it's not getting much attention :(. Perhaps mechanics like war exhaustion or rebel risk could be somehow connected with Devastation. I also wanted Devastated provinces to get Scotched Earth, but that needs a rework of its own.
 
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Very interesting idea!

The game's been begging for a mechanic like that for ages - how am I supposed to recreate Sacco di Roma or the Deluge otherwise?

Also - using mercenaries could increase possibility of devastation as well.
Having mercs increase the chances is a cool idea. It should be the same for condottieri. Just imagine how cool it would have been to have your own Stracency that cause as much damage as they actually did! That said, it's cannons that truly changed the face of all battlefields, with artillery barrages creating barren wastelands like never before. Europa is precisely about the period when gonnes become a thing, so it would make sense to give their effects more attention. What I'm saying here is that unit types could influence Devastation too.

It's only after you see the many, many ways in which the mechanic could be integrated and interact with other mechanics that you realise how much you've been missing it.

I really like it. These are things I'm missing right now. Especially love the point you'll actually need to defend your land or face consequences.
Thanks. I like that point too :p. I also like that the consequences are permanent, as in lost development doesn't automatically grow back, but with the cost reduction it can be managed.
 
I say that having the development go down in wars form mercs does make sense but it would have to be balanced out really well so it doesn't attrition everything down.

Maybe a .04% chance of it happening with each merc you have in an army for every siege tick. For an army of 20 mercs you would have a .8% chance of it per siege tick and saying that their is about 6 ticks of the siege is 4.8% chance per province sieged. So about 1 in every 20 sieges you would lose a development. Any other ideas for some of the numbers for Devastation.

P.S. I did not really read much from the original post and just wanted to throw out some possible numbers to work with.
 
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I say that having the development go down in wars form mercs does make sense but it would have to be balanced out really well so it doesn't attrition everything down.

Maybe a .04% chance of it happening with each merc you have in an army for every siege tick. For an army of 20 mercs you would have a .8% chance of it per siege tick and saying that their is about 6 ticks of the siege is 4.8% chance per province sieged. So about 1 in every 20 sieges you would lose a development. Any other ideas for some of the numbers for Devastation.

P.S. I did not really read much from the original post and just wanted to throw out some possible numbers to work with.
I think you're missing the point. Firstly, the whole idea is that if there is sieging to be done, there is no Devastation because the 'assets' are kept safe inside the nearby fort. Therefore if a siege takes place, Devastation only has a chance to occur once when a fort is captured. Secondly, having Devastation able to kick in per siege tick would make forts even less desirable than they are now, because more forts means more siege ticks means more Devastation.

I suppose this raises the issue of how Devastation would work with surrounding provinces AFTER a fort is captured. It's because after a fort is captured it's zone of control does not disappear, it merely changes hands, so as it is, the surrounding provinces would be absolutely immune to the mechanic until the fort building is removed. I don't like that so I'm going to think of some new rule to resolve it.
 
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I think you're missing the point. Firstly, the whole idea is that if there is sieging to be done, there is no Devastation because the 'assets' are kept safe inside the nearby fort. Therefore if a siege takes place, Devastation only has a chance to occur once when a fort is captured. Secondly, having Devastation able to kick in per siege tick would make forts even less desirable than they are now, because more forts means more siege ticks means more Devastation.

I suppose this raises the issue of how Devastation would work with surrounding provinces AFTER a fort is captured. It's because after a fort is captured it's zone of control does not disappear, it merely changes hands, so as it is, the surrounding provinces would be absolutely immune to the mechanic until the fort building is removed. I don't like that so I'm going to think of some new rule to resolve it.
Thanks for saying that...I did not think of that myself. The forts should end up protecting it more than Penalizing it.

Maybe areas without a fort has a .24% chance of losing on siege or maybe more per merc (by the 20 merc amount being about 5%). I believe that places without a fort should get hurt more if this becomes a mechanic because forts should provide protection. In a way, this does this because these provinces get sieged down way more since it is such a fast siege tick.

If any of this is helpful...I do not know because it sounds like you are going to redo the idea.
 
I think it a fantastic idea but I doubt it will be added. The player can easily exploit this atoconstantly lower the development of their rivals without actually taking any provinces whilst the AI will struggle to grasp this concept and won't use it effectively. It will make it too imbalanced..
There is no mechanic in the game that the AI uses more effectively than a human player, and there never will be. But the AI doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough. It took some patching, but the AI finally got the hang of development. If the AI is able to use a mechanic, whether it can or cannot outsmart a human should not dictate what mechanic ought to be implemented in the game.

Balancing is a matter of getting the numbers right.

Thanks for saying that...I did not think of that myself. The forts should end up protecting it more than Penalizing it.

Maybe areas without a fort has a .24% chance of losing on siege or maybe more per merc (by the 20 merc amount being about 5%). I believe that places without a fort should get hurt more if this becomes a mechanic because forts should provide protection. In a way, this does this because these provinces get sieged down way more since it is such a fast siege tick.

If any of this is helpful...I do not know because it sounds like you are going to redo the idea.
No, no. I wasn't going to redo it. I like it. It just needs some refinement.
 
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