Combat Witdh

[Rexos]

Ok...100% on mamlucks, but I lost almost half of my forces.....and the AE is so high I'm starting to worry....oh my

imo your problem is your crap general. Decent at sieging, but crap at battles. It's almost the same as fighting without a general

Yeah, but with 33 Army Tradition....I could'nt really do much more, trying to get a new general would have been a waste of mil points and getting a 40 tradition general(that usually sucks) from the nobility could bring them to 80%

I don't fully understand the meaning of "pips", I mean I kind of know what they are but not exactly how they work, anyway to answering my question, I should only follow that guide on formation since I don't have special cavarly bonus

 

[PhoenixG]

I don't consider a waste of mil. imo your losses would cut in half if you had a better general.

 

[Pintu]

Ok...100% on mamlucks, but I lost almost half of my forces.....and the AE is so high I'm starting to worry....oh my



Yeah, but with 33 Army Tradition....I could'nt really do much more, trying to get a new general would have been a waste of mil points and getting a 40 tradition general(that usually sucks) from the nobility could bring them to 80%

I don't fully understand the meaning of "pips", I mean I kind of know what they are but not exactly how they work, anyway to answering my question, I should only follow that guide on formation since I don't have special cavarly bonus

If you mean General pips: They are an "addition" to the combat-phases' dice rolls. So if you get a 0 in fire and the enemy a 6, and you have a 6 fire general and the enemys general a 0 you have the same roll. It adds the difference between both generals to the better general side (so 4 fire vs 2 fire adds 2 fire to the 4's fire phase dice roll). (Sorry if it sounds messy, it's early in the morning for me)

 

[Badesumofu]

Yeah, as above, you need a better combat general and it's worth spending Mil to get a decent one. The difference between 2/2/x/x and 0/0/x/x is the same as the penalty for attacking into mountains.

As to cannons, my rule of thumb is that at Mil 13 I consider it worthwhile to add them to my stacks where I can afford them, but they aren't a priority. From Mil 16 onwards I always aim for full backrows of cannons. Prior to Mil 13 I'll have 5 or so for sieges but I won't add them to stacks for fighting. There are always better things to spend money on at that point.

 

[Rexos]

Ok, so this I got it early in the game, I was talking about the units' ones

I don't consider a waste of mil. imo your losses would cut in half if you had a better general.

Yeah, but with 33 AT it was a risk, it's not so high that I could have got a good general, it could been a waste a of mil points(that I needed for the 14 tech)

 

[Quaade]

I want to ask someting: is cavalary not useable in late game because of price or someting else

They are never useless, have been streaming some MP games and seen the "OP army of no cav"... Both nations were equal in size and somewhat in modifiers... Yet, ironically the nation who had the slight advantage in modifiers had no cav and he lost big time only when he started bringing cav the battles went in his favours again...

It´s more a matter of cav ratio and cost-benefit... I sometimes go up as much as 8 cav regular army... But later on you are better of with spending the 5 ducats more on a cannon since AI is crazy about cannons and you want to outgun them...

yea but... do they have lower pips? Or just price problem? because I am ok with money if it means I gonna kill more when enemy numbers reduced

Their greatest ability isn´t as much in whether they have lower pips, but their flanking ability/range... They can strike at units further away and in the shock phase this can be devastating... along with cannons in fire phase you can decimate an army quite fast

So artillery is useless in combat from the back row until it gets at least 2 fire pips? So that first type really is just for for sieging, then.

Art is never useless in early game... they are effective they are just not as effective as later on... Early game I usually start out with 2-4 cannons in main army, and they will have an effect... rule of thumb, try to have more cannons in a battle than AI will be bringing...

 

[PhoenixG]

If you mean General pips: They are an "addition" to the combat-phases' dice rolls. So if you get a 0 in fire and the enemy a 6, and you have a 6 fire general and the enemys general a 0 you have the same roll. It adds the difference between both generals to the better general side (so 4 fire vs 2 fire adds 2 fire to the 4's fire phase dice roll). (Sorry if it sounds messy, it's early in the morning for me)

it's just an extra roll on the general. Having a 6 on fire doesn't mean you'll get a 6 on every fire fase. You'll get an extra 0-6 roll. It's just make sure that a bad roll, doesn't become a bad roll

 

[Palatinus Germanicus]

rule of thumb, try to have more cannons in a battle than AI will be bringing...

What if the enemy is A.I. Ottomans, and they have 40,000 artillery?


Oh wait, I know:

Spoiler

Call the Polish Cavalry

 

[Quaade]

What if the enemy is A.I. Ottomans, and they have 40,000 artillery?


Oh wait, I know:

Spoiler

Call the Polish Cavalry

hope you can afford 50k cannons ;-) and never go to war against Ottoman without outnumbering :-D

 

[Quaade]

it's just an extra roll on the general. Having a 6 on fire doesn't mean you'll get a 6 on every fire fase. You'll get an extra 0-6 roll. It's just make sure that a bad roll, doesn't become a bad roll

That´s just wrong in so many ways having a 6 fire general ADDS the 6 to the roll... So if you roll 0 you have 6 - terrain... If you roll 3 you get 9 - terrain try to look at the battle screen ;-)

 

[Zwirbaum]

Having 6 fire general can add up to 6 to the dice roll, depending on the fire value of enemy general.

6 fire vs 0 fire (general) = +6 roll
6 fire vs 1 fire (general) = +5 roll and so on.

Bonus to 'roll' or 'result' (whatever you want to call it) is the difference between your and enemy general stat. That's why high fire value is also pretty important if you would like to go yolo cav and so on.

 

[Rexos]

yeah but the dice rolls are random and are not related to the general pips

Anyway, now, I wanted to create a new post but let's try here....
I seek mighty advices from you people....
I just finished the mamlucks war and after dealing with the rebels I got only 30K e 0 manpower
-It's 1573 ,the truce with the Ottomans ends in 1577 and I could beat them right after the truce
-The AE is really high, if I don't attack them they'll probably enter in the coalition
-Lucky me( not so much I lost Austrian alliance) the leagues' war started
-The stronger members of the coalition left because of this, so I could take advantage and attack Hungary to take 6 damn provinces that I want from back 1480
-I could attack Aragon to take the rest of their provinces in Italy(5-6 provinces)
-I could just wait until 1577 to be stronger against ottohamns

But this league war could be my only opportunity to take some really needed lands
What do you think I should do?

 

[Zwirbaum]

yeah but the dice rolls are random and are not related to the general pips

Yes, but the end result equals to roll + general pip bonus which is related to general pips.

Which means with 6 pip general fighting 0 pip general, you will get 6-15 as a result, while enemy will get result of 0-9.

 

[misiceman]

yeah but the dice rolls are random and are not related to the general pips

Anyway, now, I wanted to create a new post but let's try here....
I seek mighty advices from you people....
I just finished the mamlucks war and after dealing with the rebels I got only 30K e 0 manpower
-It's 1573 ,the truce with the Ottomans ends in 1577 and I could beat them right after the truce
-The AE is really high, if I don't attack them they'll probably enter in the coalition
-Lucky me( not so much I lost Austrian alliance) the leagues' war started
-The stronger members of the coalition left because of this, so I could take advantage and attack Hungary to take 6 damn provinces that I want from back 1480
-I could attack Aragon to take the rest of their provinces in Italy(5-6 provinces)
-I could just wait until 1577 to be stronger against ottohamns

But this league war could be my only opportunity to take some really needed lands
What do you think I should do?

you dont always have to take land and thus AE. Take money, war reps and whatever else (maybe break their alliances if you dont like them or revoke cores or other free things) and try to get a long truce if you dont plan on going in. Nations cannot join a coalition if they are A) at war with you and b) have a truce with you. (there is also c) positive relations before they join a coaltition and a couple other small things but yeah).

This will help devide your coalition and you can figure it out from there. Stabilize your country (use the money you take from them and build up your nation and recover - buildings, mercs, etc...) as your manpower regen should be nuts right now and that should recover quickly. You can also just sit on the enemy till the 5 year call for peace hits and steal and extra couple years, while chain looting their provinces. You can also use this time to raise relations with those larger nations so that when the league war ends you wont have as many to deal with.

From your position it sounds also like France might turn into a good ally after the league war (unless they hate you for some reason. or Austria again after the war if it doesn't get ravaged..

On the general comment yeah dice rolls are random but generals smooth it out.. and remember that the dice rolls dont end at 9. 9+6 is 15 and pain and death and more pain. I would check out the land warfare page on the wiki when you have quick questions as its well laid out and does answer a bunch of your smaller questions. http://www.eu4wiki.com/Land_warfare This way you can use a point of reference. (The wiki in general is an amazing resource).

From yiour earlier question on pips a quick a dirty method is offensive pips - defensive pips. Offensive being how much damage you do, defensive how much you can prevent. whatever the value is (like 3 fire off - 2 fire def is +1 euqlas more damage being done. This isnt exactly right but its a great starting point. This tends to not matter much unless your western (have a lot of unit choice), or African (as again lot of unit choice). Eastern.... no choices lol.

Are you going for Baselius? If so considering the time dont rush too much, you have huge amounts of time to finish. The "hard" part is done in you controlling Anatolia and crushing the ottomans. Now slow and steady. by late 1600s you can take so much land its scary because of absolutism. I am not saying stop just dont worry about the time you have left too much. if its 1800.... then maybe worry lol.

 

[Rexos]

I'M THE EMPIRE, I DON'T STOP.....well...I can't ally France because they have Russia as their rival, and I dissolve Austria alliance cause when they called me in the league war Russia was in the Protestant league....so I had to make a choice....thanks for your advice but I think I'll try the same to take 2 provinces from Hungary, I expect a really war with all this happening, then I'll focus on the ottos. Of course I'm aiming to the basileus, it's still not 1600 but I just can't wait, if I have manpower, no debt, no other wars and admin points I can't help but go to war
Ok, so the pips are really what I thought they were.....as the techs go ahead new units get unlocked and these new units have more defensive and offensive pips to do more damage....and since they go on with techs you don't ofetn have a great advantage on your enemy

 

[misiceman]

yeah basically. The only major point is that at certain tech levels some tech groups have better units (read more pips) then other groups. Like anatolian really is around tech 9-12 they are very powerful. Western is late game. But they are all very close together.

 

[Quaade]

yeah but the dice rolls are random and are not related to the general pips

I rarely take too much land early on, since it´s more efficient and easier to do later on just make a steady growth to spread out AE or open up new fronts (like expanding so you can get to india... bordergore Al-Gore). Usually I will target rivals and keep humiliating and take rest with war rep and gold to support my other wars...

This cycles AE and gives it years to burn off while you have enough monarch points to tech up, develop and take ideas which can be pretty important early on and gives you more manageable rebels... Also humiliate and cash makes for "investment" into wars or buildings that can be beneficial in the long run anyway

 

[Rexos]

Well, early on, like until 1500, cause if you're even the 8th power in the world, I don't personally think humiliating rivalrs worth it anymore....
Anyway, is it....really bad if...like I say that the ottomans have something like....-520 AE towards me? I guess not right? RIGHT?!

 

[Quaade]

Well, early on, like until 1500, cause if you're even the 8th power in the world, I don't personally think humiliating rivalrs worth it anymore....
Anyway, is it....really bad if...like I say that the ottomans have something like....-520 AE towards me? I guess not right? RIGHT?!

as 8th you don't get enough PP to hit the sweet spot

 

[Dominion]

as 8th you don't get enough PP to hit the sweet spot

Pirating can get you upwards to 25 PP in that situation, so you do in fact get enough PP to hit the sweet spot quite easily.