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Fletz

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Jan 30, 2007
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What I personally miss in the current version of the game - going further into details (=possible features) later:

-) warfare shall make fun and be a challenge and should not feel like work which has to be done to make progress

-> that should be possible by reducing the amount of unfun-micromanagement: huge amount of troops and stacks have to be maneuvered and coordinated like for example organizing carpet-sieging - battles are unfun because no surprises or unexpected events or anything and in a single "little" war there are sooo many repetitive battles which effect the warscore-sum a little bit...

-) ... so please lets us just have less battles but decisive ones. The outcome of these decisive battles should depending on many factors* so that its less a question of the mass of troops than of preparation* and strategical decision which were made in the time before the battle itself.** (CK3 makes this surprisingly better than CK2 or I:R)

-) peace deals which make great deals possible because who wins can dictate the conditions (making more historical outcome possible and challenging wars more rewarding). Has to be part of a Diplomacy Update for sure.

*factors like: terrain, wheater, experience of troops & leader, personality of leader, right timing, food, morale which for example could depend on certain level of (pop-)happiness (if a cohort is originally from an un-/happy province or does not like the leader or ruler), professional cohorts vs drafted cohorts etc. I think a good orientation what warfare is about offers SunTzus Art of War (Planning, Leadership, Espionage beside the tactic during the battle itself).

**to be clear: i dont want 1 decisive battle per war, but that battles can be decisive, remarkable and memorable. So just less battles but making them weight more.

Possible Features:
1. WARSCORE: Two things which should mainly be relevant for warscore: Conquering Capitals and crushing Armies (=winning Battles).
It should not matter anymore how man enemy territories you have occupied, because it doesnt care compared to the capitals (of a province) where the governors have their office. If you want to have a little conquer of land it should be enough to win a decisive battle and/or occupy the capitol of the province from which you want take some land or the whole province itself. Why?
If you change the weight of warscore massively to this two wargoals/aspects it wont be anymore necessary to split troops because you would be stupid to split your troops if you are looking for crushing the army of the enemy or just heading straight to the capital (as long as you are not afraid of forts in the back which could sabotage you or making troubles in other way)
Addendum: If you want to dictate a bitter peace to your enemy (making him your vassal, annexation, etc.) you need to conquer his state capital (where the ruler sits) and win decisive battles so that the enemy logically has no hope to change the outcome of the war and has to realize his chanceless. If you now say: "But then i would always annex all of the enemy..." I answer: The game should have mechanics which make this not always the best option in your peace negotations, because expanding fast should make problems because you get many new pops who wont like the new ruler commonly and will cause problems in the long run. Would be nice if you have the option to make the old ruler of the enemy to the new governor so you wont have such unhappy pops but instead a less loyal governor of a non-great-family. Of course conquering Capitals should take more time because the Defender (or the Defending League) should have enough time to organize and try to push the invaders back.

2. REGULAR ARMY AND DRAFT-ARMY: Please introduce such a system. It has to offer a lot of possibilities - for example to flesh out the differences between high civilized states and tribes with their retinue system. How i image this system:
Think about the new CK3-System were you also will have some Men-at-arms (=Professional Regular Army) and a big amount of drafted "levies" =(Auxiliary Army).
Professional Regular Army are your expensive troops like they are already existing in IR right now. They shall have a high standard of morale, can get trained to gain experience, store this experience after wars, are always available and are the creme de la creme of your army. How large your regular army can be shall be a matter of wealth, tech and traditions. So tribes usually cant afford a regular army, because they need their people in the wilds and at the farms to get enough food for the winter. They compensate this with their retinue system which of course should not have the same quality as a real professional army of a civilized State.
So when a War is starting, you get attacked by an enemy whos troops outnumbering you, you better draft your auxiliary and mobilize.

2.1.: About the Auxiliary/Drafted Troops: Each province should have a pool of max. cohorts to draft. The quantity depends on the amount of pops. If you draft such a auxiliary cohort it should get attached to an regular army automatically (similar to the new introduced system in Stellaris where you no longer have to maneuver single troops to your main army). The base moral of these troops could depend on pop-happiness and loyalty of your province (so Auxiliary from a unhappy province is possible to get drafted but they wont be highly motivated to fight for you - unreliable). The base expierence and equipment of these auxiliary troops could depend on buildings (like for example a Training Camp), resources and civilization level of the province itself. The more auxiliary you draft from a province the more will it harm economy and happiness over time and of course these troops also want to get paid but still less than regular troops. Furthermore if you lose too many auxiliary during battles you may lose pops too. In this system the old school "manpower" may not longer be needed. Big advantage of this system: Huge Expansions or Conquest are risky in matter of money and happiness if the war takes too long. An Empire with unhappy pops will not be as defendable as a Empire with happy pops because only your Regular Army will usually be to small to win Great Wars so you need Auxiliary with higher standars of moral, expierence and equpiment.

3.: Additional to make this all reasonable: Armys in enemy territory should be noticeable slower so the usually outnumbered defender will not get rushed and defeated. As the attackers army goes deeper into enemy territory the risk of supply problems and unhappy events caused by bad wheater, unknown terrain, bad management by leadership, possible sabotage by unoccupied forts in the back, etc. can or should rise. On the other side if the defender is able to find the right timing and use this time to charge his army by fresh drafted auxiliary he may even can crush the enemy who has more troops but has already low morale, bad positioning and get suprised during the night caused of the high skills of the opponent army leader. The attacker/invader who is usually always the favorite to win to war (otherwise he would have never declared war) can keep his favorite role if he takes care of enough supplies, is able to keep his troops with good morale and doesnt waste time if its not absolutely needed. This will also need a high skilled leader. So at the end its not only a question of amount of troops but also of the skills of generals and timing (beside of things like wheater and terrain). The attacker may try to make his troops force marching, but this also can cause a more rapid decay of moral but lowers the risk to get out of supplies or having a desastrous war during the coming winter in enemy territory. Think about Hannibal if you think how this Feature/game mechanic should look like.

This system would also work quiet well for a civil war. Illoyal Governors will draft the auxiliaries in their provinces and you will also have to fully mobilize your troops. Such a civil war can go for long time and cause massive economic damage especially if it also cause losing pops.

In such a system of warscore by capitals&decisive battles and making war much more risky and expensive but also rewarding (winner should be able to dictate the conditions of peace deal way easier) a Conquest of Gaul like Julius Ceaser did would be possible ingame.

Last but not least: What did I forget: The defender can also win, because if the Attacker does against all odds lose, the responsibles for this war will get huge loyalty and happiness problems in their state beside the huge costs if the war goes on for too long.

At the end i guess such a system could make leadership and their personal attributes much more meaningful and the wars also much easier to overview but challenging and more difficult too. What I think is the best "pro"-argument: Its much more interactive with other mechanics of the game (pop-happiness, loyalty, buildings, infrastructure).

Please say goodbye to the (good) old EU4-like Warfare and say Welcome to a new innovative, rewarding and challenging I:R-Warfare! Because this game is (mainly) about Conquest (Map-Painting) this part of the game should be the most important! Please dear Designers and PdxTeam find a way to do this! Think out of the PdxBox! Wish you good luck!

Thank you very much for your efforts since release! <3
 
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Álvaro Núñez de Lara

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May 18, 2020
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I like the suggestion of course. But i see a lot of people talking about decisive battle. But no one has actually made a suggestion on what those should be. Whats a decisive battle? A battle with lots of troops? So if me and my rival have lots of money and massive amounts of manpower, but one loses a bog battle that I can recover from quickly, I automatocally lose the war?

No. A decisive battle should be determined by the fact that armies are precious. And numbers are much limited. And there is no national manpower magical pool to draw reinforcements from endlessly. So of I send a precious army, which is drawn from the POPulation of my empire, which makes it precious by itself, and I lose the battle, most of.that.armie disappear. Those pops wont come back home. Economic hit. Not only that, but there is no automatic magic reinforcements. If I want them, I have to return home. Oh wait, there are no more at home, I already used all the local mapower to recruit that fresh army thats been destroyed. Where are there available fighting men? What? Just in that far off province where only light infantry is available because that culture doesnt have a heavy infantry tradition/technolog? I might as well sign a peace now, I have nothing to do. I could hire mercenaries but I dont have enough money to hire enough. Etc etc.

Now THATS what makes a decisive battle. Hopefully its something along these lines they will be developed in 2.0 so decisive battles are not determined by an arbitrary number but by your actual current realistic circumstances.
 
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