Annex war help ...

[McChristofor]

Hello,



Sorry if a similar post is already somewhere, I failed to locate it.

I need some help to understand how wars, more specifically annex wars, work.
Will use direct example.

I was winning on all fronts, no territory loss on my end, the nation I was trying to annex was at least 70% conquered, their support had they capital state partially conquered by me. And yet, I was going down on exhaustion, until I was enforced the lose condition. I almost lost the same way 2 other wars, I just managed to conquer the capital state of my target in time. I do not really find this fair, since the generals seem to push everywhere, except towards the capital of my target, until the last moment, and changing the "push" direction every 2 minutes wastes time and keeps troops out of combat for too long.


Can anyone help me understand what am I doing wrong? I hate losing winning wars cause of something like "they have their capital so even if all enemy army is dead and nothing to stop you from getting it, father time said you lost the war!"

 

[Silens]

It's still not enough info to go on, but conquered territory is only one part of several that contributes towards the war score. Your losses, for example, also play a role. Or your economy/debts.

That's what happened to WW1 Germany, no enemy ever took one piece of land, yet their horrendous losses combined with their crashed economy made them capitulate in the end.

Unless you're at home, you take a mandatory amount of attrition. More if it's overseas, if your supply situation is bad, if your convoys get sunk etc.

Anyway, warscore is ticking slowly. Taking the enemy capital is one thing, but you have to hold it for a while to make the enemy surrender. If your situation is worse, your own score will drop faster and it's you who surrenders.

But you mention one thing people don't like about the current system, that you can't tell your generals in which direction to take territory. Hopefully the devs will do something about it. Until then it's a bit rng.

 

[paulxiep]

The war score drop speed depends on
- Hostile war goals occupied (max of 2 per tick at 100% occupation)
- Your own territory occupied (max of 10 per tick at 100% occupation) (doesn't have to be occupied in the same war, if you have 2 wars, territory loss from both wars are combined to add to your war score drop on both wars)
- radicals in your country
- maybe other things I don't remember

War score will only drop below 0 if
- All war goals against you are occupied
- or if there is no war goal against you

Occupying the capital counts as occupying all the war goals against the owner of the capital.
Conquer state war goal can be satisfied by occupying target state.
War reparation, recognition, maybe some other things, war goals are satisfied by occupying ANY state.
Humiliate, puppet, and (I think) subject transfer are only satisfied by occupying the capital.

If you can guard at least 1 war goal added against you (and your own capital ofc), your war score will never gets reduced beyond 0.
Exception is when nothing is asked of you, but in which case you have nothing to lose except the chance to win.

 

[McChristofor]

Thx for the replies!

I guess loss of troops and prolonged war made my country decide to capitulate.

It would be great to be able to set up advance directions for generals, hopefully that will be done, will give players a bit more control over their wars.

 

[doubleskulls]

The best tip is take their capital asap, and the best tactic is to make sure their armies are committed to a land war and then do a naval invasion either into the capital state or as close as you can get. IIRC once you do that, and don't have other occupation your war support won't drop below 0, so you won't be forced to surrender.