Constantly losing battles, help.

[unmerged(3084)]

I must be missing something. I keep losing battles in a big way. My land tech is equal or better than the enemy, my army is often larger, plenty of cavalry and infantry, often lead by a conquistador and yet I am repeatedly hammered by much smaller armies.
For example todays' results included: my 5000 cavalry defeated by 1000 infantry; my 25000 cavalry and 25000 infantry heavily defeated by 15000 cavalry. (This is a significant improvement improvement on the previous game in which the Iroquois took me apart). These results are typical of my games with one notable exceptionwere I defeated Spain (while also fighting France) by capturing Madrid with 4000 infantry who drove 35000 Spanish troops whilst besieging Madrid.
Put another way, it seems futile to resist if invaded. (It seems impossible to complete a game without being attacked). All in all it is impossible to predict the results of a battle regardless of the size of the opposing forces.
BTW. I play as Portugal at very easy with cowardly AI and do not start wars (that includes dishonouring any alliance that involves war with Spain, France or England). Does anyone have any ideas? I obviously find the game unplayable when this happens.
Is there perhaps something wrong with Portugal or with the battle resolution programming at the very easy level? Or is the land battle resolution random? Overall I do rather well at naval warfare although it is not unusual for my 10 or 20 warships to be defeated by a single warship.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[PatMaster]

Have you checked the morale of your troops?

 

[Lucidor]

This is a long shot: After getting whooped by Denmark (Denmark, for God's sake... ) I checked my budget sliders. (The ones found under the respective tabs for army and navy) and found out I had forgotten to raise the level of funding from 50% to 100%... This could only be the case if you have lowered them manually before.

Fighting named leaders are also a bad thing, if you play a nation not as geared to war (i.e. bad standard leaders) as Sweden or Brandenburg.

With the wind factor, naval battles are often a tricky business... Go back and try again. OTOH, I've given a good fight against enemies twice my number one or two times, due to the same wind factor.

Good luck!

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Portugal has pretty bad default leaders so that may have something to do with it, but I think there must be more to it.

You do know that Conquistadors are useless in Europe? My experience with Portugal is that with the good conquistadors you can take out pretty much anyone. Almeida and 5000 infantry can usually romp over most of North Africa.

The only other factor I can think of is terrain - try to avoid attacking across rivers, and try to defend mountainous terrain.

On naval battles, you will almost always lose coming out of port. Travel somewhere else then come back and fight the bad guys.

If you are getting frustrated you should remember that battles don't win wars, seiges do. And Portugal has a nice seige bonus on it's default leaders. You can always retreat from battle and go off an beseige the enemies cities. make 3 armies of about 7,000 infantry and 10-30 artillery and just sit and beiseige. When the enemy shows up retreat. You can win most wars this way.

 

[BiB]

The combat for newbies thread in the EU1 FAQ forum might be worth checking out ... The one by State Machine, check for Combat.

 

[unmerged(5503)]

Have you checked the level on landtech,it makes some diff.

 

[PatMaster]

He said it was equal or better in the first sentance of his post

 

[unmerged(5314)]

Originally posted by Isaac Brock

On naval battles, you will almost always lose coming out of port. Travel somewhere else then come back and fight the bad guys.

Funny, I had the opposite experience. With enough practice defending all of ROTW from pirates, I found that if pirates appear near Curacao, and I sail there from Puerto Rico (3 zones over), I will NOT get lucky with the wind gauge. The further you sail before engaging pirates, the worse the battle seems to go. A fleet with a few months at sea just can't compete. I don't have figures, but the fact is that the constant maulings of my 17 warships by 3 pirates led me to SHIFT-direct my squadron into Curacao port (through the pirate-infested zone) and then back out to fight. I do this automatically now before every sea combat, as the results are much more agreeable.

Granted that this might affect pirates only and not AI nations, I have to point out another factor. If you're coming out of a *blockaded* port that means you've lost the wind gauge and you will indeed lose often, as per Isaac's post. However my experience on coming out of unblockaded ports points into opposite direction.

 

[unmerged(5314)]

Originally posted by Isaac Brock
Portugal has pretty bad default leaders so that may have something to do with it, but I think there must be more to it.

You do know that Conquistadors are useless in Europe? My experience with Portugal is that with the good conquistadors you can take out pretty much anyone. Almeida and 5000 infantry can usually romp over most of North Africa.

The only other factor I can think of is terrain - try to avoid attacking across rivers, and try to defend mountainous terrain.

On naval battles, you will almost always lose coming out of port. Travel somewhere else then come back and fight the bad guys.

If you are getting frustrated you should remember that battles don't win wars, seiges do. And Portugal has a nice seige bonus on it's default leaders. You can always retreat from battle and go off an beseige the enemies cities. make 3 armies of about 7,000 infantry and 10-30 artillery and just sit and beiseige. When the enemy shows up retreat. You can win most wars this way.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

I agree on the time at sea factor. It's pretty clear to me that less time at sea means better wind gauge means more battles won. I hadn't noticed the difference between a blockaded port and an open port. Very good point.