So this has been bothering me about Paradox games for a long time now. Harold Godwinson's supposed four day march from London to York to crush Hardrada isn't remotely possible in CK2 or EU4. Even the more reserved figure of a ~week is impossible. Anything much longer conflicts with reality - Harold dismissed his army on the 8th, found out about Hardrada's invading Northumbria after the 12th, and managed to regather some fifteen thousand troops before he left London. Including some from Sussex - William was surprised to find his landing at Pevensey went uncontested.
Even if we ignore this landmark event, there are still a few cases where we know western armies have managed incredible paces over short periods.
The thing is, the reason for these feats is the same reason the Mongol armies were able to keep up this pace for even longer than Western armies - they had an easier time eliminating their baggage train in hostile territory. A culture of drinking mare's milk - kumis/airag - and horses that could forage through snow helped immensely with this, especially with being able to campaign through winter.
Come the end of the thirteenth century, however, they still would find themselves outmaneuvered, driven into unfamiliar terrain, and defeated. They were not always faster.
I don't think a blanket movement speed bonus for nomads is the appropriate answer, here.
Instead, I think there should be movement and morale recovery bonuses that come from 'friendly' terrain
- Provinces with full cores should provide a major bonus
- Primary culture provinces should provide a major bonus
- Same-culture group and accepted cultures should provide a smaller bonus
- Territorial cores should provide a smaller bonus
Nomads could instead get core and/or culture bonuses in appropriate terrain - or by trade good. This doesn't really reflect the logistics exactly, but should have a similar effect.
I am also of the opinion that these bonuses should also factor into the minimum morale of an army stationed in a province. Stackwiping is so much easier in this patch when you catch an army drilling, and it makes absolutely zero sense. A different or perhaps additional solution might be to add half an army's drill to its morale once war is declared.
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So, Forts.
I've never really had a problem with understanding how the movement works, personally. It is, however, frustrating, nonsensical, and inconsistent. The fact that the AI is pretty miserable at dealing with it doesn't help, either.
Instead of acting as (im)perfect movement blockers, forts should instead have effects on their tiles and zones of control:
- A maintained fort should provide a large supply bonus to the side holding it, and a penalty to the opposing side.
- The zone of control should provide a smaller bonus/penalty.
- A similar bonus/penalty can be applied to morale recovery and reinforcement.
- Fortresses should apply a multiplicative movement penalty to enemy forces.
-- Moving into a Zone-of-Control province should incur a 25% movement penalty
-- Moving out of a Zone-of-Control province should incur a 25% movement penalty
-- Moving to an enemy-held fortress should incur an additional 25% movement penalty (stacking with the above)
-- Moving from an enemy-held fortress should also occur a 25% movement penalty.
-- Thus, the only movement that is fully blocked would be to move from one enemy-held fort to another.
-- To further discourage wandering around behind enemy lines, a force in shattered retreat should stop if they pass through four of these penalties.
- Controlling a maintained fort on both sides of an important strait should block entry to that strait. The Johor, Singapore, Sunda, Dardanelles, Bosphorus, and various Danish straits. This would mean adding a few sea zones to make them represented individually (and small enough), but these could have a major impact on trading and naval strategy.
-- For trade purposes, the Kiel canal would also be considered part of the Danish straits, allowing the holder to ignore any trade penalties, etc.
I think between these sorts of movement bonuses and morale recovery, it would not only be a bit more realistic, but also simplify things (at least for forts) and permit defending forces to be a bit 'stickier' in their own home ground.
