Battle Morale Loss on Partial Retreat is Massive Buff to Human Player

[Pellucid]

Since the AI still doesn't know how to retreat armies, causing a big morale hit when part of a battle's force withdraws allows the human player to effectively end a battle that's going poorly by retreating his own forces. For example:

I was just honoring a CTA against Castille by Aragon, and Aragon and I engaged British re-enforcements that were marching toward Madrid. We didn't defeat them quickly enough, and the main Castillian army arrived. The battle quickly turned sour, so I withdrew.

This cause the remaining Aragonese forces to suffer a ~40% morale hit instantly (based on the ratio of troops I was contributing). Since the battle was already starting to go poorly, this caused Aragonese morale to break instantly and they withdrew with only a few losses.

Since ONLY the human player can withdraw during a battle, this effectively gives human players the ability to order AI allies to withdraw from losing battles, whereas alliances of all AIs will not have this ability.

I suggest reverting this change until you can teach the AI how retreating works, at which time it can be re-implemented.

 

[Milith]

One could argue it's a massive nerf to human players since the AI doesn't know how to stack-cycle.

You make a really good point though, that's clearly an unintended consequence of the change and it might be easy to abuse.

 

[ForzaA]

While teaching the AI to retreat properly would be great for the game, I don't think it's very likely to happen.

And while there's certainly some small benefit to being able to "force" your allies to retreat (you still lose the battle, and the warscore) - that is well outweighed by not being able to stack cycle quite as effectively.

 

[QDI]

that is well outweighed by not being able to stack cycle quite as effectively.

What was the problem with being able to stack cycle? It was not necessary to beat the AI.

 

[ForzaA]

It was a much bigger advantage to the human player than being able to order an allies' retreat, though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It was a much bigger advantage to the human player than being able to order an allies' retreat, though.

That still leaves the question as to what was wrong with stack cycling. Were numbers really still considered too strong relative to high morale or discipline values in 1.14? What evidence led to that conclusion?

Edit: I'm going assume the reasoning was not to dumb down the game because the AI couldn't handle what tactical depth is left in wars, despite that such has happened in previous patches.

 

[bzflater]

It was a much bigger advantage to the human player than being able to order an allies' retreat, though.

It was an important aspect of multiplayer. It's sad that you're dumbing down the game.

 

[QDI]

It was a much bigger advantage to the human player than being able to order an allies' retreat, though.

But it was a very interesting mechanics in multiplayer, requiring a little micro and good coordination with your allies. People are very sad to see it go: it's a loss in gameplay.

Yes, it was an advantage for the human in singleplayer but only later in the game when, if you know that kind of tricks, you are already overwhelmingly powerful.

 

[208]

It was an important aspect of multiplayer. It's sad that you're dumbing down the game.

It's an example of the kind of unintentional, arcane micro-intensive mechanic that strongly rewards knowledge of game engine edge-cases over properly executing core gameplay (developing your economy & military capabilities, large-scale maneuvering), I can see why the developers would want to stamp out that sort of thing where they can. I can also understand why you call that "dumbing down the game" (since you remove the requirement to learn such arcane mechanics to compete), as well, but it's the equivalent of "border gore" for game design. The designers want nice game design borders.

 

[bzflater]

It's an example of the kind of unintentional, arcane micro-intensive mechanic that strongly rewards knowledge of game engine edge-cases over properly executing core gameplay (developing your economy & military capabilities, large-scale maneuvering), I can see why the developers would want to stamp out that sort of thing where they can. I can also understand why you call that "dumbing down the game" (since you remove the requirement to learn such arcane mechanics to compete), as well, but it's the equivalent of "border gore" for game design. The designers want nice game design borders.

Hint: stack cycling is still possible with about 0% loss of efficiency. It's just much harder and much more arcane to execute now.
I hope you're glad.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's an example of the kind of unintentional, arcane micro-intensive mechanic that strongly rewards knowledge of game engine edge-cases over properly executing core gameplay (developing your economy & military capabilities, large-scale maneuvering), I can see why the developers would want to stamp out that sort of thing where they can. I can also understand why you call that "dumbing down the game" (since you remove the requirement to learn such arcane mechanics to compete), as well, but it's the equivalent of "border gore" for game design. The designers want nice game design borders.

Considering its large impact on the advantage of numbers vs quality, the fact that this change was made without something to keep the relative value of numbers vs quality similar is evidence that the developers intentionally nerfed numerical superiority above combat width. To implement the change this way without factoring the impact on game balance would be represent a *gross* misunderstanding by the development team as to what constitutes balance. To avoid insulting them, we have to conclude that they intentionally nerfed numerical superiority.

So why did they feel it was too strong?

 

[Czone]

Stack cycling was one of the few ways you could distinguish between good and less good players in PvP warfare. Single player fighting versus the AI is pretty grossly one sided anyway because the AI is, well, stupid. Humans will always have the advantage versus AI in warfare if they're any decent at the game, so why would you remove a mechanic that was very important in PvP for the sake of making humans marginally less advantaged versus the AI?

Besides, as has been said, stack cycling can still be done, but it needs more effort and know-how. Instead of allowing decent players to use this to some effect, it's been made so only players who know a lot about the game and are very good at micro can do something that gives an extreme advantage. If it was still doable with lower efficiency for the average player it'd be fine, but now the base line skill required to do it has been raised with nothing to compensate.

* Small addendum: Significantly harder in multiplayer. You can pause in singleplayer, so against the AI in singleplayer it'd still be easy, just more (simple) effort.

 

[208]

Hint: stack cycling is still possible with about 0% loss of efficiency. It's just much harder and much more arcane to execute now.
I hope you're glad.

I didn't express a preference either way, I simply said I can understand both why they might want to change it, and why you might consider it dumbing down.

 

[Liquid Ghost]

While teaching the AI to retreat properly would be great for the game, I don't think it's very likely to happen.

Didn't I read in some recent patch notes the AI was taught to retreat from losing naval battles?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Didn't I read in some recent patch notes the AI was taught to retreat from losing naval battles?

You didn't just read that in the patch notes, it was actually implemented as written, which sadly isn't something you can take for granted .

But it's pretty noticeable since AI navies used to be completely annihilated and now they'll retreat after taking only minimal casualties in many cases. Of course, the evaluation of when and where to do so is more trivial than in land warfare.

 

[Milith]

Considering its large impact on the advantage of numbers vs quality, the fact that this change was made without something to keep the relative value of numbers vs quality similar is evidence that the developers intentionally nerfed numerical superiority above combat width. To implement the change this way without factoring the impact on game balance would be represent a *gross* misunderstanding by the development team as to what constitutes balance. To avoid insulting them, we have to conclude that they intentionally nerfed numerical superiority.

So why did they feel it was too strong?

That's the huge issue I have with this change. I don't really care about losing the edge I had against people who don't know about stack-cycling. I care about being forced to pick the exact same military ideas/policies every game in order to compete in lategame wars.

 

[Thrake]

Stack cycling is boring micro wich made no sense besides it being much more effective gameplay wise. It was also grossly overpowered in that you could stack whipe with barely any loss by retreating on time.

 

[FleetingRain]

Paradox, you seriously need to tell us this kind of change in the dev diaries so people can weight in their opinion. This is much more relevant than knowing about the latest buff to Elective Monarchy.

 

[deckhand]

Paradox, you seriously need to tell us this kind of change in the dev diaries so people can weight in their opinion. This is much more relevant than knowing about the latest buff to Elective Monarchy.

?? I really thought I read about this change before seeing it in the Patch Notes. If not in a Dev Diary, then maybe in a Wiz reply?

 

[Distinct]

When does a human player ever use stack cycling versus the ai? Stack cycling requires at least 3 (preferably more) full combat width stacks to be effective which means that the game is usually past the 1500's. By that time, any player knowledgeable and skilled enough at the game to cycle stacks will already unavoidably wipe the floor with all ai opponents because:

1) the human player skilled enough to cycle stacks is much more proficient at war than the ai;
2) the human player skilled enough to cycle stacks has already gathered 10 to 100 times the development of his ai opponent;
3) the human player skilled enough to cycle stacks uses much better unit compositions than the ai;

Here's the reality, stack cycling was a multiplayer mechanic only. The multiplayer community is the only one affected by the change. Stack cycling was a tactical and fun mechanic in multiplayer. Most players active in multiplayer appreciated the mechanic. Therefore, removing this mechanic for the sake of single player is asinine.

Also if the goal is to increase the AI's difficulty, there are some very basic and very meaningful fixes that can be made to the AI without removing options from the player simply because the AI cannot be programmed to do it.

Firstly, ever since development came to be, the AI notoriously lets himself fall behind in military technology to invest in manpower.

Secondly, the AI has not at all been taught to use policies adequately. Seriously check the game files, AI instructions for policies are literally : ai_will_do = { factor = 1 } for every single policy (except colonial / naval ones). It took me about 10 min to mod the AI to exclusively use policies that increase military prowess and only during war much like a human player would.

Thirdly, the AI has similarly not received sufficient directives for picking ideas groups. If the AI was actually taught the utter basics of this game, let alone how to wage war correctly, then perhaps there could be a need to stack cycle against him.

TLDR; Cycling was a multiplayer only mechanic because the AI can never pose a sufficient challenge to the player to compel a human to cycle. The reason the AI is so bad is because he systematically lets himself fall behind in military technology, picks random policies and does not focus on military idea groups, not because he can't cycle stacks.