Decisive battles

[KaRei]

indeed, something should be done to limit the recruitment. It is highly unrealsitic, that you can use all your manpower to draft forces from one province only and that these can all be, let say cavalry. It just wasn't possible to field a 50 000+ army of noblemen cavalry...

What about making it dependent on population of province? If you recruit some new units, the population in province will decrease (inhabitants will change to soldiers). So you'll be forced to take reinforcements from more provinces, because taking them from one could end by loss of whole population (hehe).
Note: Before you shot down this idea, thing about it a bit. It will not be a micromanagement, because the game could keep a minimal population in province so you'll be unable to recruit it all. The game will simply not allow you to recruit more units than is in possibilities of current province. This will actually need smaller armies (ten time smaller as in EU2, for example). Finally it will look in some way same as it looks now in EU (now depend on taxes, in EU3 could depend on population).

EDIT: I agree with last post. Destroying enemy army could increase your warscore more than only defeat it. And a battle won against army that had it's morale less than 40% of it's maximum could do nothing with warscore. So pursue of retreating enemies will not help you with your warscore.

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Maybe the % from victory in combat can be higher in the start of the game, and slowly reduce over time, where holding ground and strategic locations seemed to be of more importance.

If you replace "game" by "war", I agree.

If you manage to get a decisive battle in the early part of the war, it's good. But when the war has been raging for several years, seeing what provinces stay in control of the enemy is more important.


But another consideration about time passing on, is that the effect of past battles (warscore) should decrease. The WS gained from battles waged long ago should drop steadily, to represent the fact that a peace concluded right after a decisive battle will be due to that battle more than if both sides continued to fight for two years.


Besides, I'm also in favor of having battles giving different WS, depending on the number of troops fielded, amount of casualties, location of the battle (a battle under the walls of one's capital doesn't have the same weight than a battle in distant colonies), etc.

 

[unmerged(1973)]

What about making it dependent on population of province? If you recruit some new units, the population in province will decrease (inhabitants will change to soldiers). So you'll be forced to take reinforcements from more provinces, because taking them from one could end by loss of whole population (hehe).

Problem with this is that lots of armies consisted of foreign mercenaries for most of the EU period. For example, IIRC the Swedish army at Breitenfeld only consisted of 20% Swedes.

I agree that Paradox should do something to reduce the size of the armies. But it should be made dependent of a countries ecconomy and not province population.

Make it extremely expensive to keep an army in the field to prevent players from building huge unhistorical standing armies. Problem is that most players would dislike this...

 

[unmerged(18239)]

Well, in EUII there were battles where an enitre army was destroyed (shock cavalry power mainly) and others where a retreat took place. If entire armies are destroyed, then it's decisive!

But, what about the size of the armies then? For the OE it would not matter much if they lose 5,000 men while Serbia would have a serious problem if that happens. For them it would be desisive.

 

[KaRei]

Make it extremely expensive to keep an army in the field to prevent players from building huge unhistorical standing armies. Problem is that most players would dislike this...

Making regiments of 100 soldiers to recruit and artillery by 1 instead of 1000 soldiers and 10 artillery. And the support limit could be smaller too. So final effect will be that you'll have in EU3 armies 10 times smaller than in EU2, but with same effectivity. Only deference between EU2 and EU3 armies will be that instead seeing 4 zeros you will see only 3 (20.000 -> 2.000).

EDIT:

But, what about the size of the armies then? For the OE it would not matter much if they lose 5,000 men while Serbia would have a serious problem if that happens. For them it would be desisive.

Warscore could be increased in reaction of percentage losses of lifes on enemy side. As base could be take support limit.
Examples:
Support limit of enemy 7.000, enemy lost in battle 3.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 7%.
Support limit of enemy 7.000, enemy lost in battle 5.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 15%.
Support limit of enemy 12.000, enemy lost in battle 5.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 6%.
EDIT2 (really decisive battles):
Support limit of enemy 12.000, enemy lost in battle 12.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 30%. (very decisive battle)
Support limit of enemy 12.000, enemy lost in battle 15.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 45%. (very very decisive - peace please)

 

[Spricar]

EDIT:

Warscore could be increased in reaction of percentage losses of lifes on enemy side. As base could be take support limit.
Examples:
Support limit of enemy 7.000, enemy lost in battle 3.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 7%.
Support limit of enemy 7.000, enemy lost in battle 5.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 15%.
Support limit of enemy 12.000, enemy lost in battle 5.000 soldiers, increase your warscore by 6%.

Great idea!!!!

On the side note, armies should be somehow smaller, but the attrition shouldn't be as high as it is or at least there sould be "logistic wizard" type of leaders with no atrition. Seeing more than half of your army perish when besieging an enemy fort for a month or two (CK) is not realistic and it is a gamebraker since various exploits are possible.

 

[unmerged(1973)]

Great idea!!!!

On the side note, armies should be somehow smaller, but the attrition shouldn't be as high as it is or at least there sould be "logistic wizard" type of leaders with no atrition. Seeing more than half of your army perish when besieging an enemy fort for a month or two (CK) is not realistic and it is a gamebraker since various exploits are possible.

Think attrition losses should be much higher than in EU2, especially if you build unhistorically large armies. Losses due to sickness, desertion etc was much higher than battle casualties, and I don't think you will find any "logistic wizards" who managed to avoid attrition losses entirely...

 

[Spricar]

I didn't mean entirely, but a 2000 strong army didn't lost 1500 men to atrition in half a year.

I agree that attrition should be high for very large armies. Although there should be some techs. or smth avaiable, that would lower even this.

It is true that, in that time mainly european armies rarely exceeded 10 000 soldiers, but that was mainly due to the financial costs, not to the attrition. large armies were managable, look for the example at the OE or Indian armies...

 

[KaRei]

I didn't mean entirely, but a 2000 strong army didn't lost 1500 men to atrition in half a year.

I agree that attrition should be high for very large armies. Although there should be some techs. or smth avaiable, that would lower even this.

It is true that, in that time mainly european armies rarely exceeded 10 000 soldiers, but that was mainly due to the financial costs, not to the attrition. large armies were managable, look for the example at the OE or Indian armies...

Attrition could be counted in percentages too. Atrittion number 10 will mean a 10% attrition. Your 2.000 army will lose 200 men, but 8.000 army will lose 800.

 

[Spricar]

Attrition could be counted in percentages too. Atrittion number 10 will mean a 10% attrition. Your 2.000 army will loss 200 men, but 8.000 army will loss 800.

200 men in a month probably? So after half a year my army will loose...937,118 men, leaving me with 1062 men. In half a year!!! Not very realistic IMHO...

 

[KaRei]

200 men in a month probably? So after half a year my army will loose...937,118 men, leaving me with 1062 men. In half a year!!! Not very realistic IMHO...

Atrittion of 10% is really high. So atrittion could be a decimal number and it could be smaller. Attrition 10 you'll get only without supply line, when you catch a plaque and your soldiers are drowning in a swamp.

EDIT: Ordinary attritions could be somewhere about 0.5% and 1.5%.

 

[hjarg]

200 men in a month probably? So after half a year my army will loose...937,118 men, leaving me with 1062 men. In half a year!!! Not very realistic IMHO...

Why not? Be it exhaustion, starvation, desertion, diseages, small skirmishes, accidents while raping and pillaging? There are so many reasons that it's a wonder that you even have half your troops left. :rofl:

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Why not? Be it exhaustion, starvation, desertion, diseages, small skirmishes, accidents while raping and pillaging? There are so many reasons that it's a wonder that you even have half your troops left. :rofl:

Indeed. At the moment, EU2 has far too high casualties-rates in battles, while a careful management of movements and armies can lead to a very low rate of losses due to attrition. In fact, it should be the opposite.

In most battles, the winning side lost 5-15% of its numbers, while the losing side lost 10-30% of it. In EU2, many battles achieve higher than 50% casualties on both sides, with total loss of the defender a quite common result.


I'm in favour of taking Vicky's system as a base, with regiments of 1000, each rarely disappearing totally, but with their strength decreasing due to losses, and increasing with reinforcements. That the units are mercenaries, regulars or feudal troops is less important, the important thing is that armies abstracted to a point where only the number of each troops matters is just too abstract for me.

 

[George LeS]

Yes, attrition by desertion should be a problem, & IMO should be tied, for non-mercenaries, to the support level.

But I disagree with the idea that losses are too high. Occasionally they are, but the most common battle is the back & forth series of battles between a routed army & it's pursuers. This usually results in negligible losses, & another quick route. I'd rather see routs less common; that is, the result for the loser would not normally be 0% morale, but retreat with a temporary loss of offensive ability. This would entail a feature that, if your morale is well below your nation's base, you just could not attack, though you could stand fast.

As far the main topic here is concerned, the problem is that any definition used for "decisive", will leave out some cases which should be included, & include some which would not. However, this is not proof that there should be no such definition, as a reasonably well defined rule for "decisive battle", could still be an improvement.

The other thing to consider here is, decisive in what context, & to whom? To the losing alliance, or one or more of it's members. Let me use an example from outside EUIII's time range: Austerlitz. It was totally decisive as far as Austria was concerned, & pretty much for all the land powers in E Europe. But for the Brits, it wasn't a big deal. They'd just won an equally crushing & decisive victory at Trafalgar, which didn't mean squat to Austria, but certainly ensured that England wasn't going to quit. How would such a situation like that be handled?

One thing I do like, is the idea that "decisiveness" diminishes over time. If you can recover from a disaster, then by definition, it wasn't as decisive as it seemed at the time.

 

[Arilou]

It should be pointed out that while *battles* might not neccessarily cost you that many men, routs *did*: Depending on the outcome I guess you could classify the loser as either "retreating" (in good order, still suffering losses but only minor ones) or "routing" (in which case grievous losses would be inflicted)

While only 15-30% might be lost during the actual battle, post-battle attrition could easily eat away another 30%.

 

[Spricar]

Why not? Be it exhaustion, starvation, desertion, diseages, small skirmishes, accidents while raping and pillaging?

:wacko:

 

[unmerged(45766)]

:wacko:

Yeah, the stuck-in-the-back fork because you forgot to kill someone in the farm is sometimes called "accident".

 

[unmerged(27108)]

Decisive battle are already in : you can always point towards 1 (or 2-3) battles were the tide is turning in the favor of one of the belligerent.

What we need is the decrease of population of provinces caused by raising army.

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Decisive battle are already in : you can always point towards 1 (or 2-3) battles were the tide is turning in the favor of one of the belligerent.

But the AI doesn't recognize this. It's not included in the game system.

What we need is the decrease of population of provinces caused by raising army.

How wrong you are. EU era's battles & wars didn't have such an effect on demography. Armies of the era were ten times smaller than in Vicky's era, while population was only half of it (if not more). Moreover, casualties were nowhere close to casualties of the XIXth or XXth centuries wars. So, no, raising armies should have no effect on populations.

 

[Yakman]

I think that sometimes, when you have enough men fighting in a battle, the winner should recieve a massive boost to warscore. This would reflect certain crucial victories where wars were decided by a single battle, like Lepanto, or Rocroi. It would also allow sides that are losing to even up the score, like at Saratoga or Malpaquet.