Carpet sieging to end large wars quickly should not be possible

[Adonnus100]

I was bringing together a large army of about 60k to fight a 100k Crusader army in England. But it took time to assemble since it was fighting a rebellion. By the time it got together my warscore was -90%. I won a battle and killed 10k of them, but they just took another 2 castles, boom, all of England is gone, despite the fact that my huge army is completely intact and only barely arrived. This was less than a year after the crusade began.

Is it just me, or should there be a better way to do this, I remember there was some limit in CK2 where if you didn't fight a major battle for the first 24 months the warscore was capped at 99%. Being able to win any war just by carpet sieging while their armies are in a different place feels like a cheese, the defender should get some time to properly use their army at least. Especially if they are actually winning battles, "oh that's it guys, we are winning battles, we have our whole army right here, but they took another few castles, we lost now let's go home". I mean come on.

 

[fodazd]

My personal opinion: You have to find a balance between not having to endure endlessly drawn out wars as the attacker and actually being able to fight as the defender. I think that a mandatory 24 month waiting period would not be good for the game.

Also, I hope that the entire warscore system will eventually be reworked to something more realistic. I don't like it as it is now, and one reason for that is problems exactly like this.

 

[Adonnus100]

How are people actually downvoting me? Like defend your arguments for why I should be able to win a war for a kingdom in under 12 months with no battles, I'm all ears.

 

[hajutze]

While I agree to a degree it seems like you didn't weight properly which threat to take care of.

 

[YellowPress]

How are people actually downvoting me? Like defend your arguments for why I should be able to win a war for a kingdom in under 12 months with no battles, I'm all ears.

Because its not carpet sieging, its them successfully sieging down and occupying your kingdom, and you offering no resistance

 

[Adonnus100]

Because its not carpet sieging, its them successfully sieging down and occupying your kingdom, and you offering no resistance

It's stupid af. Imagine, 60k men are winning battles, the war is barely a year old. Then because some fort to the north of them surrender, and they all say "ok let's quit, we we winning battles but let's just go home now. It's all over!"

If you don't think that is really dumb then I don't know what to say. It's hard to offer resistance when your army is on the other side of the realm and takes 7 months to even assemble but I see you didn't address that point.

 

[Gyrvendal]

Maybe you could have the following: as the defender you can choose to decline the peace deal at 100% warscore by paying X prestige or piety. Doing so gives you a 3 months delay where you have a chance to get the warscore back below 100%.
This option would not be available if you are fully occupied or your leader is a prisoner. The AI would use it if it calculates that it has a strong enough army to defeat the enemy (just like your example). This could actually make the AI slightly harder to cheese if you rush siege it while its army is elsewhere.

 

[Toleora]

Normally I would agree with you and for usual duchy/county wars the warscore mechanic isn't that optimal.

But this is a crusade for england, which is led by the pope, the highest authority of western civilization. They even have this long planning phase, where rulers all over europe are invited to attack england.

In this case I think it's absolutely reasonable that you "lose" england, because they have f'ing 100000 men and you are not there to defend them, you will come later in 7 months when they occupied enough of it to say "we are the new authority here"

 

[Adonnus100]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1904477344794146595/A98AEE053440259AA25DDE4DA615B39541916515/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

In case my point needed more proving...

I barely have any time to even fight the rebels, they take 5 provinces, 11% warscore each. Come on, at least give me a chance. I don't remember any rebellions in Ck2 being so quick.

 

[grommile]

I barely have any time to even fight the rebels, they take 5 provinces, 11% warscore each.

What are the rebels demanding?

 

[Shake Your Rump]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1904477344794146595/A98AEE053440259AA25DDE4DA615B39541916515/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

In case my point needed more proving...

I barely have any time to even fight the rebels, they take 5 provinces, 11% warscore each. Come on, at least give me a chance. I don't remember any rebellions in Ck2 being so quick.

I am relatively new to the game, so correct me if I am wrong. For rebellions, we have warning that they will occur. We even get a countdown to when they may occur. In my experience, it is almost too easy to prepare for them.

How did you not “have a chance”?

 

[YellowPress]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1904477344794146595/A98AEE053440259AA25DDE4DA615B39541916515/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

In case my point needed more proving...

I barely have any time to even fight the rebels, they take 5 provinces, 11% warscore each. Come on, at least give me a chance. I don't remember any rebellions in Ck2 being so quick.

You're 20k in debt, accept the temporary set back

 

[chrisdooph]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1904477344794146595/A98AEE053440259AA25DDE4DA615B39541916515/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

In case my point needed more proving...

I barely have any time to even fight the rebels, they take 5 provinces, 11% warscore each. Come on, at least give me a chance. I don't remember any rebellions in Ck2 being so quick.

Some things here went very wrong. You are 2k in dept and only make 3.5 bucks per month - how does that even happen? You had months to prepare for an incoming crusade, yet you decided to conscript all your army at some other point, so that it now takes over seven months for them to assemble. And then there is the huge peasent revolt, that you get a warning about months ago and yet did not prepare for. I would say you deserve to lose this war, lose England. Not because I feel Schadenfreude or something, but because you made mistakes and if you don't get punished for mistakes, how would you improve and do better next time?

By the way, for future playthroughs: Peasent revolts should never be an issue, 'cause they are just bad. They cannot get more than 100% warscore from sieges and they don't get any ticking warscore - so all you have to do is win one fight and then leave them be for as long as you want, 'cause they just cannot win the war. It might be at -99% warscore for years, for example. That's a game play mechanic you could abuse here, if you want (be careful with valueable hostages getting imprisoned after a siege, try to stop them when they go for your capital).

 

[WeissRaben]

If you don't think that is really dumb then I don't know what to say. It's hard to offer resistance when your army is on the other side of the realm and takes 7 months to even assemble but I see you didn't address that point.

I don't see how this is a point in your favor, to be honest. "Realm is too large and unwieldly to efficiently counter danger to its periphery" is Imperial Decline 101. Just ask the Byzantines about Southern Italy. In fact, as the very same example shows, the point at which this happens is way too high. Byzantium should already be getting nibbled to death in its periphery, while as of now it's still entirely capable to project power to defend itself.

 

[matgopack]

I don't see how this is a point in your favor, to be honest. "Realm is too large and unwieldly to efficiently counter danger to its periphery" is Imperial Decline 101. Just ask the Byzantines about Southern Italy. In fact, as the very same example shows, the point at which this happens is way too high. Byzantium should already be getting nibbled to death in its periphery, while as of now it's still entirely capable to project power to defend itself.

I think it's fair to have at least a bit of time - the Byzantines in southern italy didn't have it taken away in a few months, it took centuries of them being unable to send sufficient troops to focus on it for it to get nibbled at.

CK doesn't really model that sort of thing, so if there's a single massive war that decides it it would make sense to have a bit of time in order to respond to it before the game just tells you it's a fait accompli and you've lost it.

However, OP is generally more at fault here. They had enough time to bring their troops up ahead of time, and the whole massive debt thing is strange.

 

[WeissRaben]

I think it's fair to have at least a bit of time - the Byzantines in southern italy didn't have it taken away in a few months, it took centuries of them being unable to send sufficient troops to focus on it for it to get nibbled at.

CK doesn't really model that sort of thing, so if there's a single massive war that decides it it would make sense to have a bit of time in order to respond to it before the game just tells you it's a fait accompli and you've lost it.

However, OP is generally more at fault here. They had enough time to bring their troops up ahead of time, and the whole massive debt thing is strange.

I mean, that more of an issue with the scale of CBs and less with the timelines - the Norman conquest of Southern Italy is full of "whoops, this guy arrived and conquered this or that county before we could even start reacting and it's now a fait accompli". It took a long while because the bites were small, not because the individual bites took any particular length of time.

 

[matgopack]

Oh, certainly - and part of it too is because war wasn't nearly as clear cut as CK style, with formal declarations and the like.

A count could raise an army, go siege and conquer a city - and then it might take years/decades for a ruler to decide to go do something about it.

For something like that southern italy situation, I'd personally prefer to allow border warfare without the upper liege *always* getting involved - I think something like that could allow for the gradual eating away at the edges of a weak/distant kingdom/empire, but it's a tough needle to thread.

 

[grommile]

I'd personally prefer to allow border warfare without the upper liege *always* getting involved

What you need is reasons for the top liege to not get involved.

In particular, reasons that apply even when the top liege is the hand puppet of the meatbag behind the keyboard.

 

[matgopack]

What you need is reasons for the top liege to not get involved.

In particular, reasons that apply even when the top liege is the hand puppet of the meatbag behind the keyboard.

Reasons, yes - but also at the moment it's automatic.

 

[fodazd]

My personal opinion: I would like a system where you declare war on the person who actually holds the land, who can (and probably will) call their liege into the war. The liege could refuse, for example if they are deeply in debt, busy with 5 other wars, or just really, *really* hate that particular vassal, but refusal should come at the expense of a lot of prestige and fame and also be tyrannical because the liege is breaking the feudal contract by not defending their vassal. An exception to this would be marches, because the whole point of a march is that they are supposed to defend their border themselves.