EU4 player life therefore swings like a pendulum, this way and that, between "too ez, pls buff AI" and "too hard, pls nerf AI", which are actually his true constituent elements (A. Schopenhauer)
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1.33 AI Fortification is broken
- Thread starter Ascarel
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"You", as in the player, yes. As in the AI, which is the nation controller in question, no. While even the player won't necessarily carry 10+ current-tech forts in the 1600s, that's a much smaller % of operating budget for nations with 1000s of development than it is for 200-800 development.
Just as importantly, when fighting AI alliances, having 2-3 extra copies of 30 regiments with lower maintenance might actually matter as something other than "make the war take slightly longer" if the player screws up, and this gives the AI the ability to actually consolidate land itself (so that it isn't just the Ottomans and 1-3 other nations with FL in the 200-500+ range then).
Or to put this another way: the player does not typically grow small nations to the capability of hundreds of FL by carrying forts as 40-50%+ of military spending for long stretches.
The interesting thing is when players confuse one for the other
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The problem with "Make war MOAR HARDER" is that it stymies AI growth.
As always, when we make growth slower the human can figure out how to most efficiently get around the blocks. Be it taking more efficient spoils in war to deprive the AI of forts/money to build forts in the next war, to burn expendable allies' manpower on the sieges, or to efficiently farm gains from war (e.g. Vassalize Byz to trigger a defensive war against the Ottos where you can crush their stack that ate most of the attrition for the siege on the Thracian plains and then hit them as their WE climbs). Maybe we decrease human expansion rates, but my limited observations show even slower AI expansion. Net result is that in the early 1500s there is a lot more land open for me to take without fighting the big guys and if I play efficiently the point at which I can defeat any AI in the game comes all the sooner.
The late game, where I need not worry about enemy AIs wrecking me regardless of who I go after, comes quicker when AIs take forever to get large. What matters is not how fast humans expand (and we somehow fail to match the expansion rates of the historical Mughal conquests), but how fast we expand relative to the AI. The more, long and drawn out AI-AI wars there are, the easier it is on the human.
As always, when we make growth slower the human can figure out how to most efficiently get around the blocks. Be it taking more efficient spoils in war to deprive the AI of forts/money to build forts in the next war, to burn expendable allies' manpower on the sieges, or to efficiently farm gains from war (e.g. Vassalize Byz to trigger a defensive war against the Ottos where you can crush their stack that ate most of the attrition for the siege on the Thracian plains and then hit them as their WE climbs). Maybe we decrease human expansion rates, but my limited observations show even slower AI expansion. Net result is that in the early 1500s there is a lot more land open for me to take without fighting the big guys and if I play efficiently the point at which I can defeat any AI in the game comes all the sooner.
The late game, where I need not worry about enemy AIs wrecking me regardless of who I go after, comes quicker when AIs take forever to get large. What matters is not how fast humans expand (and we somehow fail to match the expansion rates of the historical Mughal conquests), but how fast we expand relative to the AI. The more, long and drawn out AI-AI wars there are, the easier it is on the human.
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I don't think "adding challenge" by itself justifies particular AI actions. If you truly want an unwinnable game for the player, have the AI no cb the player as soon as possible, and you'll surely agree with me -- that would be absurd.
Why is it absurd? I think it is because it "doesn't make sense" or it's "not in the interest" of the AIs themselves. Allocating a crazy amount of budget towards fort at the expense of offensive military capability seems to be more in that line although less clear/obvious, and I think that's the argument people are trying to pose, not "I want my game to be easier" which is what you and many others seem to be arguing against.
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Thanks for pointing this out better, this was what I wanted to highlight when I started this topic more.
Game is not harder as some people here are trying to imply, you can cheese it out even more if you want to.
- you can easily defeat small armies your "fort" enemies have and siege them with 1K to just ignore them basically as they can't afford big armies
- you can wait them out to bankrupt themselves and delete fort, happened a lot in my current campaign
- you can ally "fort" countries and cheaply (by getting a lot of trust and favors for free) use them to literally "tank" out your wars as your allies
- you can create mountain marches to tank for you
in both scenarios AI will usually focus on this countries as it sees them somehow as weak
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Just a thought I had, for all those that oppose ai building forts, how many forts would you add or remove at game start, why does brunswick have anymore right to a fort than luneburg, why does anhalt but not launberg start with a fort. Sindh gets no forts but mewar has 2
You still get ZoC
How viable do you think that strat is
The player can abuse promise land then get states full annexed
Thats a useful mechanic and historical
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I personally don't join discussions on forums very often, but it seems to be a really big problem that people don't fully understand problems players are pointing out by simply not playing this game enough to look at things from objective point of view or are happy with whatever changes Paradox makes, this is exactly why we are getting bad changes implemented every few patches and developers thinks they are good because some people think game is harder because of it.
Regarding starting forts Paradox seems to try makes it historically accurate that richer or bigger countries can afford it, from your germany example you are comparing one of the biggest price to OPM which doesnt make much sense, from indian example mewar had gold mine and was known for its defenses in history, gujarat is relatively quite poor compared to them, but none would have a problem with them building fort in few years compared to backwater OPM.
None here opposes AI building forts, it should just make sense economically - AI should not prioritize forts over miitary and economic growth.
Regarding starting forts Paradox seems to try makes it historically accurate that richer or bigger countries can afford it, from your germany example you are comparing one of the biggest price to OPM which doesnt make much sense, from indian example mewar had gold mine and was known for its defenses in history, gujarat is relatively quite poor compared to them, but none would have a problem with them building fort in few years compared to backwater OPM.
I was talking about small countries with forts where ZoC is not a problem at all, play the game and you will see
This is not really a strategy, you have multiple options of conquest and you can just wait for this opportunity to come, in my current campaign I annexed multiple OPM easily by just being patient on some fronts.
I have no idea how is this sentence related to what you just quoted
Yes, but usually this marches were getting money from overlord, so in game sense you needed to build and pay for fortifications, now AI will simply keep it by itself even if it doesn't make sense for state.
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Spanish and mughals speed of conquest are hard to match but with the mughals vassalising so many former enemies as well as those enemies should have vassals of their own you get upon full annexing main tag rather than the fully centralised tags india tends to be
Being condescending by implying people just haven't played enough compared to you is quite rude, so is the appeal to some idealised objective PoV
If you're a minor and all nearby tags are minors, why not go for a fort, it means you should survive that much longer when peer vs peer, seeing as losing capital siege means losing the game
Luneburg used to be opm brunswick 3pm, now 2 and 4
Launburg opm, magdeburg used to be opm with fort now 2pm with Fort (meant magdeburg not anhalt so sorry for that)
Gujarat starts with 1 iirc, sindh doesn't despite similar wealth level. Mewar was also know as more confederation than single tag but starting them in an independence war or doing it via event ala sirhind would probably be frowned upon by devs.
For small tags it can matter if it blocks easy access to their minor allies
Shipping cannons over sounds easier than checking all the time if fort gone or not
You said you can use and abuse allies with lots of forts, you can also use and abuse allies with a good army
And players often build forts in more optimum locations and pay off debt accrued by marches being occupied in war
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In my 1.32 game France wouldn't even fort Paris., and I would land in the north, rush Paris and white peace in under 6 months while being vastly outnumbered.
In my 1.33 game France already forted Picardie, Caen, and Paris by 1500. Their army is still huge, high quality, and now they'll actually retreat from Barcelona all the way back up to Paris if I snipe Picardie for a rush, even before I take Paris. It makes them a much more tough opponent and useful ally for his friends, because I can't white peace him without at least killing thousands of fanatical frenchmen; at best I can pingpong him, and that takes up considerable resources (at least 10artillery/10marines in 1500. For rich nations, they are much more reasonably forted nowadays, as well as protective of their capitals. They also rush your own capitals more aggressively; i unironically miss the +defensive bonus of the old Tower of Belem.
Its more complicated for poor countries; Tunis for example is a worse ally because of its capital can be both rushed before he can even react (coastal capitals are much, much more vulnerable) and his resiege can be easily then threatened, which can cause him to tie his entire army +a chunk of morocco's to try and defend his resiege (30k+ dudes, in 1455-1465). This means you can grab Fez without being attacked, which traditionally was the hardest part of a north african invasion; a central mountain fort, you could easily lose 10-20k people there between attrition and counter attacks. They try to make up for it by forting the entire atlantic side of the Atlas mountains, but once Fez is down, you can grab his gold mine in Tafilate and its gg for the Moroccans.
Ottomans (by 1502) still haven't forted Edirne, Biga, or Kocaeli, which is pretty goofy, I just as often catch them with their pants down on the European side as the Anatolian. If paradox really was deeply in love with making Ottomans overpowered, forting all 4 crossing points would be a top priority.
In my 1.33 game France already forted Picardie, Caen, and Paris by 1500. Their army is still huge, high quality, and now they'll actually retreat from Barcelona all the way back up to Paris if I snipe Picardie for a rush, even before I take Paris. It makes them a much more tough opponent and useful ally for his friends, because I can't white peace him without at least killing thousands of fanatical frenchmen; at best I can pingpong him, and that takes up considerable resources (at least 10artillery/10marines in 1500. For rich nations, they are much more reasonably forted nowadays, as well as protective of their capitals. They also rush your own capitals more aggressively; i unironically miss the +defensive bonus of the old Tower of Belem.
Its more complicated for poor countries; Tunis for example is a worse ally because of its capital can be both rushed before he can even react (coastal capitals are much, much more vulnerable) and his resiege can be easily then threatened, which can cause him to tie his entire army +a chunk of morocco's to try and defend his resiege (30k+ dudes, in 1455-1465). This means you can grab Fez without being attacked, which traditionally was the hardest part of a north african invasion; a central mountain fort, you could easily lose 10-20k people there between attrition and counter attacks. They try to make up for it by forting the entire atlantic side of the Atlas mountains, but once Fez is down, you can grab his gold mine in Tafilate and its gg for the Moroccans.
Ottomans (by 1502) still haven't forted Edirne, Biga, or Kocaeli, which is pretty goofy, I just as often catch them with their pants down on the European side as the Anatolian. If paradox really was deeply in love with making Ottomans overpowered, forting all 4 crossing points would be a top priority.
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Forts adjacent to other forts cause all kinds of !!fun!! due to ZOC rules.
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Here is a another thread where the conversation is continuing if people are interested:
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With Elden Ring out and other turn-based MP commitments, I haven't been able to play 1.33 much after a short run during beta. But if that reddit thread is accurate, this is worse than I thought.
This is basically how it works in Imperator and I quite like it.
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They tried it in a beta in the past (at least 3 to 4 years ago I guess) and never released it. It was too messy in term of ZoC. I think you can found dedicated thread by searching "beta forts".
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The big problem with forts is that we are committed to wildly ahistorical ZOC. During this time period, commanders faced real choices about investing forts for sieges, leaving a covering force and bypassing, or casting off from their rear and marching straight through to some other base of communications. And the overwhelming majority of "sieges" in the era were short affairs that lasted maybe a couple of days.
Ideally, fortifications would do what they did historically - slow the enemy down and give the defenders time to reposition armies, raise levies, and seek allies. Uncontested forts in the rear should impact morale, lock movement orders sooner, and increase marching time. Defeat of the field army, without fresh forces in the offering via reserve manpower, allies, or substantial mercenaries, should result in significant malus to fort defense as the morale hit to besiegers with no hope of relief was just massive. Likely too much to ask for, but there should be a means of offering surrender terms to forts of relief in X number of days or surrender of the fort as this is how things actually functioned.
Instead we get this weird path dependent abomination that somehow can have two armies meet at the same fort, shake hands and exchange soldiers, and if the stars align and some other fort falls, they both can suddenly become stuck without a viable path out.
Sieges forced armies to battles and battles won wars. Here? Battles threaten sieges and sieges win wars. It is tedious, ahistorical, and gimps the AI massively (e.g. the single most effective force multiplier is baiting the AI doomstack to a fort across straights and then hammering them down). Forts are way to central to warfare and bad for the game in their current ZOC focused incarnation.
Ideally, fortifications would do what they did historically - slow the enemy down and give the defenders time to reposition armies, raise levies, and seek allies. Uncontested forts in the rear should impact morale, lock movement orders sooner, and increase marching time. Defeat of the field army, without fresh forces in the offering via reserve manpower, allies, or substantial mercenaries, should result in significant malus to fort defense as the morale hit to besiegers with no hope of relief was just massive. Likely too much to ask for, but there should be a means of offering surrender terms to forts of relief in X number of days or surrender of the fort as this is how things actually functioned.
Instead we get this weird path dependent abomination that somehow can have two armies meet at the same fort, shake hands and exchange soldiers, and if the stars align and some other fort falls, they both can suddenly become stuck without a viable path out.
Sieges forced armies to battles and battles won wars. Here? Battles threaten sieges and sieges win wars. It is tedious, ahistorical, and gimps the AI massively (e.g. the single most effective force multiplier is baiting the AI doomstack to a fort across straights and then hammering them down). Forts are way to central to warfare and bad for the game in their current ZOC focused incarnation.
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The problem with “battles win wars” is that if the enemy army is the only significant objective, the game becomes a doom stacking competition. Attrition doesn’t change this, just how much you need to micro your doomstack and how bad the AI is at it. ZOC forts may be wildly ahistorical but they add depth and tactics to war. I’m sure there are other ways to do this, but they’ll require other mechanics that currently don’t exist. Just stripping out ZOC and making sieges take a few days would be a big step backwards IMO.
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The simplest option is the historical one - fortresses slow enemy movement. If you want to do battle, you have to catch the enemy army. A large fortress might double or treble marching time in adjacent provinces (or just add a flat three months) which gives the AI time to marshal their army and lots of options to withdraw if the player never engages their forces.
And the game runs decently without ZOC, it was released without it and the only trouble was that armies would ping pong so the name of the game was to stackwipe, then cover the entire country, and then slowly siege the place down until you could get 100%.
But at the very least, fortress defenses should, drastically go down if your field army gets annihilated.
We have instant resupply of troops rather than actually having to march them through enemy lines where forts could disrupt them
Most sieges used assaults to win out, so this too should be how the ai does, but because it costs too much manpower its unoptimal its rarely done