A Poor Man's Guide to War

[Annexation]

What effect does capturing the enemy capital have on war? Is it just another territory, or does it provide a larger victory bonus? I thought the capital just moved as soon as you captured it.

20% Victory points I think. Makes a huge difference sometimes, although the AI is incredibly stubborn at times in their attempt to take it back. If their capital is bordering a major body of water, and I have naval superiority, I would just land as much force as my transports can carry on it when I need that little extra boost to get the peace.

 

[Sir Garnet]

(Note: There has to be a better way to say unreinforced. Is there another word I could use? Unreinforced is a silly word. Two prefixes on one word never works well.)

"Cadre" would do it.

To the Queen and a short, victorious war,

Sir Garnet

 

[Napoleon XIV]

I've found that the best strategy in either a defensive or offensive war is this:

1) Increase your Reserve as much as possible, while slowly increasing the regular army (a division every so often).

2) As soon as (or slightly before) war is declared mobilize the reserve.

3) Pool all your troops (reserve + regular armies) into one giant stack (preferably 30 or more).

4) Send that giant stack to the border area and wait for the AI to attack you.

The AI will usually invade in stacks of maybe 6 divs at most (at least that's been my experience with France and the UK). 30 divs vs 6 will always just be a slaughter, especially when you are fighting in your country and the enemy has to also contend with massive attrition.

Just keep bouncing that one huge army up and down the line killing a division here and a division there. Eventually the AI will literrally run out of divs and manpower and its war exhaustion will go through the roof allowing for an easy white peace or allowing you to finally divy up that massive army into stacks of 10 and going on the offensive.

Using this strategy of basically making every war a defensive war, make sure you cut education to 50%, cut Crime Fighting to 0%, raise taxes to 49% accross the board, raise tarriffs and have defense spending as high as possible while maintaining a decent surplus (remember, you will be fighting this war on your territory and will lose large chunks of land temporarily, make sure you can handle the resulting loss of revenue).

This Strategy has never failed me Successfully used against Russia (in Korea and Siberia), Prussia and France in my current Bavaria game.

I first used this strategy against the UK in my Über Republic of Krakow game and ended up destroying half the British army while only losing a handful of Divs on my part (I also lost control of most of the country, but that's a minor point ). The Brits sued for a White Peace as their War Exhaustion hit the high 70s

 

[OriginalRafiki]

I thought the capital just moved as soon as you captured it.

Nah, that's HOI-speak. In Vicky, the capital has no function as a supply-base, but I don't know what happens to your stockpile and how it affects your production and sales to the WM (I've never lost my capital, so I haven't tested )

Napoleon, I have no doubt that your strategy works, but it seems a bit "gamey" to me

Rafiki

 

[unmerged(8351)]

I do not ever go above 100 divisions for mobilizing and always just slowly increase my standing army to compensate. My standing army forms the core of my future corps. I go with 2-3 Inf-A 2 Inf-G 2 Inf-E and 1 Inf-H and latter 1 or 2 tanks (ideally per corps, although obviously early on its more like one gaurd and one artillery). Slap 200,000 reservists onto this core of about 100,000 and you have a killing machine. I like to have about 5 armies this size with all cavalry and dragoon detachments around 40000 thousand to pick of stragglers and defend my flanks.

 

[unmerged(24449)]

Chris 1959

I like mobilisation it reflects the way mosy armies developed during the C19th a core regular army and a large pool of reservists for the big wars.
I personally think it is somewhat flawed in that I feel all nations can build up to big a reserve as a percentage of their population or maintain overly large standing armies, and the fact noted by many posts that colonial pops count at the same level.
One thing I think should be changed in future releases say Vicky II is that army maintenance is set at 100%. I certainly keep it as low as possible with a good manpower reserve and then whack up maitenace and re-inforce then mobilise. However I have just started a GC as Britain and to balance budget etc. dropped maintenance right down, it strikes me this is somehow wrong. I know that at this time Briatins army was relatively small, being volunteer and a parsimonious govt. I don't have exact figures but if it was 100k then it would have been in game terms an Army of 10 divs x 10k NOT 100 divs x 1k. The size of a nations army should be X units at full or near full strength not X units at 10% establishment.
Paradoxically it works with Navies better, during peacetime ships would be docked repairs kept to a minimum crews discharged officers on half pay ships not revictualed. It takes fleets a lot longer in the game to come up to full strength compared to army morale. In a perfect world it would be nice to have a few ships at full strength. Maybe we could have reserves for fleets ie you build ships that you allocate to the naval reserve where they rust away until needed paying a small maintenace, and ships can be brought out of reserve as you need them with a suitable delay and returned at peace time.
One question I can't get answered, do railways speed up mobilisation and if not why not ?

 

[Caranorn]

1) I am just revising my own mobilization strategy. My latest war as France against Spain-Austria-Italy (minus Piedmont my ally) ended up being too costly. Thought it was in many ways my mistake, I ended up with Picardie depopulated (and that's 1/3rd of my steel production as well as a serious part of my iron ore gone). I think I know a few simple ways to prevent that re-occuring (don't use reserve divisions of the same origin in the same army, I lost two armies in that war, I'd bet both were from Picardie). Otherwise my percentage between regular and reserve army was misbalanced. In future I will build a larger regular army (which will also gain experience in colonial and small wars) and only plan for a limited reserve (though it will build up for a later Great war). I expect tonight I will draw up a strategic plan for the French army, right now I am looking for 48+ regular Infantry Divisions, 6- Cavalry Divisions and a variable number of colonial divisions (natives just to provide a garrison against rebellion or to occupy claimed provinces). So by 1870 the french army should be quadruple it's starting size, all during peace time at 33-55% maintenance (which makes for 4000-6000 men strong divisions, I might even reduce maintenance further once I get the more specialised artillery, engineer and HQ divisions).

2) Keeping your army at cadre level was actually a historical strategy. Almost all countries in the world did that (including Britain who during the later half of the 19th century had some 30-40 divisional equivalents with only a few at full strength). Maybe we should view Victoria's reserve divisions as the third line reserves for garrisoning and lines of communications duties only. The rest of the reserves are actually made up by the MP used to bring regular units up to strength once war starts. Being able to reinforce some divisions and not all also is an essential factor. As an example, France might have enough stored manpower to raise it's divisions along the German-Belgian border to full strength, or alternatively the divisions along the Spanish-Italian-African borders, but not both. That way you'd mobilize to one front only. If ever you were faced with a full scale war you'd have to call on your third line reserve (the Victoria reserves) (you'd be in serious truble anyhow).

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I really like the way Victoria's combat system works. Maybe it's a bit too attritional early on, but generally it feels right. The ai also isn't the brightest (I encircled the Austrian army twice, first destroying some 15 divisions in Piedmont, then destroying another 10 in Tirol), maybe it should learn to recognise encirclement before it's main military force is ready to get the hammer.

Marc aka Caran...

 

[unmerged(2567)]

My strategy usually starts defensive - that is, I rely on some major fortifications on major frontiers (and if Britain is bitchy, then possibly some on the coasts) and marshal enough soldiers to hold those positions while waiting for mobilization to come up. It usually works, particularly if one plays countries which have mountainous frontiers, like Spain (although there are some gaps on the Portuguese frontier, that is rarely relevant.

I keep military maintenance and defense spending pretty minimized this way. I might keep a small reserve of manpower just so I can reinforce the soldiers on the border if war starts.

The problem is that with many countries it is very difficult to get a navy that can capably defend the coast - particularly against Britain. So, often times I find myself at the mercy of British landings.

This strategy rarely leaves me with much leadership, but it's usually enough to have a few generals that can scurry around the front lines where they're needed. I tend to pack a lot of my POPs into officers anyway when war starts, and the boost to leadership usually supplies enough.