Combat changes in 1.33

[Mesis]

Hi, I did some quick basic test to see if the claims that battle are longer is true.
With the setup in the pictures below, battles seem to last roughly 2 times longer.

It is hard to say how tech, combat modifiers etc. affect this.
Perhaps the battles early game are slower but battles lategame are faster?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMO battles taking longer is the opposite of what we needed .

 

[MatthewP]

Huh. Anyone know which change is causing the first battle to take longer? I get the ones with reserves would. The only thing I can think of is the troops have defensive fire/shock pips that now reduce morale damage, but it feels like there must be something else.

 

[Commonblob]

Huh. Anyone know which change is causing the first battle to take longer? I get the ones with reserves would. The only thing I can think of is the troops have defensive fire/shock pips that now reduce morale damage, but it feels like there must be something else.

IIRC in the dev diary they said that armies used to take a base amount of morale damage per day in addition to the morale damage from combat. That is now removed.

Going just by the dev diary, that seems like the only culprit. Although it's hard to believe that it would have led to battles being twice as long. Surely combat has always inflicted the majority of morale damage, or else reinforcing would have been ridiculously OP. There may have been some undocumented changes in the combat overhaul.

 

[uATS]

IIRC in the dev diary they said that armies used to take a base amount of morale damage per day in addition to the morale damage from combat. That is now removed.

Going just by the dev diary, that seems like the only culprit. Although it's hard to believe that it would have led to battles being twice as long. Surely combat has always inflicted the majority of morale damage, or else reinforcing would have been ridiculously OP. There may have been some undocumented changes in the combat overhaul.

I ended up testing the difference between 1.33.1 (Beta) and 1.33.2 (Release) - battles were only excessively slow in 1.33.2. And by going through the Patch Notes, the only combat changes documented were that "Backrow troops now take 40% of the regular morale damage."

I don't know how this change in particular managed to cause battles to be twice as long though, even in armies with no back-line. There could be a hidden in-game system concerning this though; perhaps defeated regiments are silently sent to the back row, with their morale still contributing to the battle.