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Hello guys!

So today we will be talking about some changes we have made to make our combat less bloody, which has particularly been an issue since patch 2.4. We have also worked on making the outcome of entire wars not be decided in one stroke by whomever happens to have pissed off Lady Fortuna...

First off, we have adopted the “shattered retreat” from EU4, meaning when an army is defeated it will run back to somewhere relatively safe so that the enemy can’t keep ping-ponging it until it is annihilated. Peasant rabble that rises against your enlightened and glorious rule, however, will immediately disperse on defeat so you don’t have to chase them down. But nobles within your realm that betray you and revolt will try and run for a safe haven.

capture(49).png


The second feature we have added is that while your damaged army is at home it will reinforce its levies directly (rather than the Holding garrison), meaning you can choose if you want to employ the garrisoned levies immediately by dismissing and re-raising your levies, or decide it is too risky (since your army will then be split all over your Kingdom and be easy pickings for the enemy) and instead choose to have your army stand back and rest for a while and be slowly refilled with troops instead.

The equation for how losses were calculated has also been changed. Before, it was based on the troops getting damaged by almost exponential amounts. This could, in some cases, cause really ridiculous damage like 2 million casualties, when it was armies of thousands fighting each other. This has been changed, and the associated values tweaked severely to prevent the crazy casualties yet still ensure that enough soldiers die in battles. For math nerds this is how it works now:

Defending means here the unit taking damage, both units will be defending and attacking at the same time and does not denote who initiated the combat. DamagePerMan is a value calculated as a even distribution of the total damage each soldier takes.
Code:
((DamagePerMan * AmountOfDefendingTroops) / DefenseValue) * AmountOfDefendingTroops = LossesInTroops
Has been changed to
Code:
(DamagePerMan * AmountOfDefendingTroops) / DefenseValue = LossesInTroops
Not a very big change but it does have profound effects on the result.

Beside simple combat mechanic changes there have been some improvements and bug fixes to the AI to give players a better challenge, focusing mostly on making allied AIs coordinate better between themselves. Oh, and the Mongol AI has been given its balls back, making them a lot more aggressive than they ever were before...

You asked for it….
 
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That is not them reinforcing, that are people complaining the troops are not burned out.

It is definitely intended behavior
 
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That is not them reinforcing, that are people complaining the troops are not burned out.

It is definitely intended behavior

I can see how you thought that from only reading the OP there, but continue reading:

I ran into this today. So still occurring in 2.4.4. As I understand it event troops should not reinforce but they are in my games. Even tried the command to not have them reinforce but they still did.

It was also reported here:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-noticed-something-about-event-troops.877446/

Whether or not the bug was ultimately fixed or only applied in certain scenarios; it might not be around any longer. I haven't been in a situation with non-revolt event troops in a little while.
 
They are not reinforcing, that is anecdotal data giving no validity based on the user bias.
 
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As someone who isn't really a fan of EU4's shattered retreat, I think the CK2 team should consider something like this.

nichtschleppend from Reddit:
One alternative idea would be to literally 'shatter' the defeated army into several groups of differing sizes (which is also realistic given actual warfare). The winning army would then need to strategically decide which units to pursue. The defeated player is still on the back foot because she needs to regather the army, but that is balanced by the extra 'insurance' of some of the shattered army surviving instead of the whole shebang being wiped out, as it happens often currently.
 
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For first I didn't say reinforcing troops doesn't exist. Secondly the link you provided at first were anecdotal in the sense that the person reporting it felt it unjust that the enemy army kept persisting to exist after given time having nothing to do with the issue at hand. Event spawned troops that reinforce is an old thing that has existed in CK2 since the beginning that has been phased out over time, Saxons however does not have reinforcing event spawned troops, neither does the mongols.

The second link you provided is also anecdotal from impression as first part of thread says they stopped reinforcing at inheritance(even though that is not an actual thing) but last post says they kept reinforcing upon inheritance. If you have a specific case where event spawned troops reinforce when they shouldn't, then report that specific case.

Also if you are linking random threads to try and strengthen your point, please don¨t, so far they have spoken against what you want to convey. If you have a specific issue you want to detail and make us aware of, make a bug report with specifics and the QA team will be on it like vultures. They love making my day miserable.
 
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One alternative idea would be to literally 'shatter' the defeated army into several groups of differing sizes (which is also realistic given actual warfare). The winning army would then need to strategically decide which units to pursue. The defeated player is still on the back foot because she needs to regather the army, but that is balanced by the extra 'insurance' of some of the shattered army surviving instead of the whole shebang being wiped out, as it happens often currently.

Gameplay goes over realism here, Shattering as in the sense of splitting the army will completely kill your nation, both in EU4 and in CK2 and will not be anything we will even consider adding.
 
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On the subject on reinforcing event troops, that was a thing recently but didn't the Captain or some such say that it was fixed already, at least internally?

Give me a moment.... ah, found it.

Just noticed a problem with the spawn_unit effect. It seems that any unit spawned this way now continuously reinforces by default. In the change log there is the following line:

- Added flags reinforcing [yes/no] and reinforce_rate_multiplier to the spawn unit effect.

These flags appear to not work however, event putting reinforcing = no and reinforce_rate_multiplier = 0 in the spawn_unit effect still produces a unit that reinforces.

I think this may have a detrimental effect on the vanilla game as well. If all spawned units are reinforcing by default there may eventually be many armies present on the map.

Fixed this one as well as mercenaries always reinforcing with a few men even when reinforcing should be zero.

Captain to the Rescue
 
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The marshal has a task that reduces revolt risk, so your argument is demonstrably false.
- in the whole one province! It surely changes all the things! And if you are muslim you can send your imam to perform charities which boosts unrest fighting in empire even more widespread and convincing levels!o_O

I´m not sure if you are reading my post or simply unwilling to read it or understand it... Said quite clear that I didn´t want it to be surprising and purely luck based, but in between... When picking among the lesser of two evil, the middlepoint is actually the best at times.

But apparantly you will only listen to what you want to hear, would suggest rereading and then come up with something more constructive and closer to my points than what you just did, I´m sure your able to :)
- and as i said, for a man that claims that he is unheard you demonstrating surprising inability to hear others. I already said to you that im uninterested in arguing about your perception of rebel mechanics, i dislike current system and seeing how CK2 imports more and more EU4 mechanics i want to see EU4 rebel system instead of it, a thing which is far more realistic and plausible than implementation of your utopian balls busting casino mechanics.


The faction system is too transparent and way too simple, make the guy like you enough and he just simply quits, nevermind his ambitions, past actions or even the factions power collectively to actually threathen the liege. "Oh... now I like you, of course I won´t join this faction that will further my goals". And the defense modifier when being attacked makes little sense in some cases, like independence. "Oh shit, a war was declared on the other side of the empire... Well now is not a good time to declare independence, let´s help our liege instead with all our troops".

This could be done in so many other ways, where you would have to estimate the strength of the faction due to the number of members, that factions had longer term goals, that to avoid them you should do something drastic like negotiating with vassals, forcing them out, marrying them.

A simply way to avoid them, imprison even without a cause, if he rebels you still weaken the faction and you can strip him of a title and give it to someone else who will love you for it. I would say the bette approach would be to have the faction as a whole react to such a tyrannical act.

Also, factions could be done more heavily with inter-marriage securing them as members in the form of alliances. This is actually what the equavailant to factions in reality did. Even with an old king, many still conspired against him, tried to impact the succession or gain more power through laws. Nothing that´s being reflected on this simple system and the system as a whole is way too easy to navigate and avoid.
- cool story, but i cant see how all of those are relevant to what i wrote.

My "points" are that CK2 and EU4 have each different extreme methods of handling rebels, they are not very good either of them since CK2 show too little and gives you no real impact on them and understanding towards it, EU4 is too transparent and makes you able to know exactly when and where within a very limited timeframe that the rebels will rise, making you plan your wars around it. And on top of that, EU4 even give you knowledge about when they go into negative, so you can now when not to do something about it.

It´s both awful ways to deal with it, and could have been done differently.
- Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.(c)Dude. You can also imprison and behead your children in CK2 insuring that throne will belong to right one. Am i transparent enough now?

And yes, I do have reason to argue you with you, since you brought the rebel system of EU4 on the table, you even now called it superior. So I´m allowed to critize in a constructive way against your points. Only thing you forget, is that I don´t say it´s a totally bad idea, I´m only saying doing the exact same is a bad idea since you get no surprises and can plan too much around it. (notice i say no surprise, meaning that it´s not random but that you can be surprised for misjudging the situation).
- except claiming that too transparent system is bad because its bad to not be surprisingly hit in the balls are not constructive criticism, its just your opinion, dude. And as i said - it will be better suited ( and productive ) for you to just make a post in suggestion subforum instead of arguing with me.


There is a huge difference from 9.000 to 2 mio and you know it, your argument were that they rise to many for you to handle.
- 1. its not just 9000 its over 9000. 2. here are no difference between 2mills, over 9000 or +100500 its all just exaggeration, dont pretend that you did not get it.

However the argument fall flat, when there never is such cases of rebels rising. Have played CK2 extensively and I never had any trouble with rebels I can´t handle, only when I played Zunist I had a small period where they scared the shit out of me... But then again, I made the achievement so it wasn´t that much of a game-breaker of having those rebels, they were more of a nuisance really.
- COOL FOR YOU, IF YOU DID NOT EXPERIENCED, SURELY NO ONE ELSE DID TO111:rolleyes: Sorry for caps but that just too laughable for me to pass.

And to repeat myself, so the chance of you not misreading me again, I´m not saying this system shouldn´t be changed. I dislike that generic rebels don´t coordinate better, that you have ways of trying to appease them or anger them, that they have no knowledge at all as to when they gathered enough men and an estimate of how many, they will rise with. Braveheart is what I classify as "generic rebels" and they did an uprising somewhat coordinated.

And I´m sure you will point out how wrong I´m there, but at least try to get the points and address them constructively.
- now i only point again that our talk is basically pointless. Again. You view current system as bad, i view current system as bad. You want it replaced with whatever utopian system you envisioned in your head, i want it replaced with system from EU4 because - 1. EU4 had similar system to CK2 which was later changed to superior current system. 2. CK2 imports more and more futures from EU4, hence i want to see some of those implemented in CK ASAP. You, for some reason, want to convince me that yours view on problem is superior to mine because... because its your view, i on the other hand view our arguing as essentially pointless because you will obviously not convince me of your superior ways and i simply doesnt want to convince you at all.


Rebels are easy to defeat, they are more of a nuisance.
- why you are lying? Is that a pathological thing?

And since when do you keep attacking with leaderless, small stacks of troops?
- err since release? Do you know that you cant DOW other country if you have gathered levies? And that since last patch you no longer have tonnes of commanders and just 10 max and only if you are emprah. Do you even play this game?:eek:

I get that you can lose a few units if they were in the province when they rose. But if you lose that many that it becomes a real problem, you should might consider stopping your troops movement into that province and gather them elsewhere instead of wasting men going into the rebels in small stacks. That´s a player mistake, not a mistake of the game
- who said that i would keep attacking that province? o_O And again, you making same mistake as Ilyasviel, if i said peasant it doesnt mean that discussed rebels are literally peasants, for example liberation uprisings can sport armies with numbers higher that Charlie's empire and not only numbers they typically have better quality too with their tonnes of armor clad knights in 821 AD. Not to mention that rebels also have reinforcements events. So yeah you can loose many many troops just due to a bad luck.

Problem is you need a way to control it. In EU4 you control it with Monarch Points. I suppose in CK2 you could control it with events, and based on the decisions you make the chance for rebellion may increase in a few provinces.
- CK2 has a lot of resources to spend - wealth, prestige, piety or even tyrany. Choose yours. OFC wealth is most used one, but prestige and especially piety are currently near worthless.
 
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DmUa could you please stop the quote spam? Its not as easy to read as you think it is, and whatever point you think you are making has been long since lost.
 
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For first I didn't say reinforcing troops doesn't exist. Secondly the link you provided at first were anecdotal in the sense that the person reporting it felt it unjust that the enemy army kept persisting to exist after given time having nothing to do with the issue at hand. Event spawned troops that reinforce is an old thing that has existed in CK2 since the beginning that has been phased out over time, Saxons however does not have reinforcing event spawned troops, neither does the mongols.

The second link you provided is also anecdotal from impression as first part of thread says they stopped reinforcing at inheritance(even though that is not an actual thing) but last post says they kept reinforcing upon inheritance. If you have a specific case where event spawned troops reinforce when they shouldn't, then report that specific case.

Also if you are linking random threads to try and strengthen your point, please don¨t, so far they have spoken against what you want to convey. If you have a specific issue you want to detail and make us aware of, make a bug report with specifics and the QA team will be on it like vultures. They love making my day miserable.

I'm not sure why you replied twice, seemingly to me. Was there a deleted post I missed elsewhere? Regardless, I think the link to Gars acknowleding the bug in 2.4.4 conclusively shows that it existed recently. I think 2.4.5 was released October 16, and reviewing the patch logs confirms that it fixed the bug. So I guess we were both wrong - the bug no longer exists, but it was only fixed recently, not long ago:

2015-10-06 v2.4.5
---------------------------

MINOR
- Sieges get defending characters again

MODDING
- Fixed tooltip for scripted_effects not working
- Mercenaries and event-spawned units will no longer reinforce unless specifically set to
(etc)

I'll look into the retinue reinforcement supply thing for you when I get a moment.
 
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On the topic of troop deployment. Any chance the next patch will include a halfway decent declaration of war screen? Like see what allies would join and their troop numbers. I can't tell you how annoying it is to see 25k troops from a guy who supposedly only has 10k.
Btw if you are going to say that you can already then please help me find a way to quickly calculate the number of men a tribal empire with multiple allies will have.
 
On the topic of troop deployment. Any chance the next patch will include a halfway decent declaration of war screen? Like see what allies would join and their troop numbers. I can't tell you how annoying it is to see 25k troops from a guy who supposedly only has 10k.
Btw if you are going to say that you can already then please help me find a way to quickly calculate the number of men a tribal empire with multiple allies will have.
If your allied with somebody in ck2 they have to join now per 2 DD ago in the next patch
 
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Excellent! I've always been fond of the shattered retreat mechanic, so I like this addition.

And proper Mongol AI is fantastic! I am already looking forward to the hundreds of whiny threads about how powerful the Mongols are again because they invaded Poland/Russia/Persia :) that's the kind of Mongol power we really need. I want to defend against a proper apocalyptic army, damnit :p.
Agreed, looking forward to powerful hordes...though I do think that hordes need to have their succession tweaked if this is the case. Don't want a super-stable Mongol blob swallowing Germany whole.
 
Cheers for the DD Groogy :). Reducing the ping-ponging in combat is definitely a step forward, and I'm looking forward to a new, more ballsier Mongol horde :).
 
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Gameplay goes over realism here, Shattering as in the sense of splitting the army will completely kill your nation, both in EU4 and in CK2 and will not be anything we will even consider adding.
Also were talking about an army shattering in a province which is a fairly large parcel of land containing multiple cities, castles, and churches, it is not unreasonable to suspect the general direction of retreat will be the same direction over such distances.
 
So AI Mongols and Nomads will want to Expand MORE AGGRESSIVELY. Am I understanding right?? :confused:

Or is it just the Mongol Horde, and if so what about the other Nomads? Can they finally be beaten by Tribes in the East?

I feel like im the only player who wants a solution to OP Nomads in the east.:(
 
How does shattered retreat reduce pingponging exactly? Wouldn't it extend it, in theory, by having to travel up to 8 provinces per ping? This seems counter to the notion that shattered retreat will reduce one and done decisive victories. I'm not trying to bash shattered retreat, I'm just trying to understand how this is going to work.

It seems that this will just drag wars out further. Without adding EU4s complex peace settlements you're still basically playing for 100% war score, which is currently only possible with overly prolonged sieges and decisive victories.
 
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