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.

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:

Spoiler

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.

((DamagePerMan * AmountOfDefendingTroops) / DefenseValue) * AmountOfDefendingTroops = LossesInTroops

Has been changed to

(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….

 

[Lord_P]

I know I shouldn't do this, but:

Please give Flanders to France.

Great DD, by the way!

 

[Talq]

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 back 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.

Losing army has scope to get away. Right now, winner can nearly always chase them down, so most wars are determined by the first serious battle. Also makes pursue capability worthless.

 

[Red Roo]

How will the AI react under certain circumstances with these additions? For example; say there is a civil war with near equal armies, and during the first battle both sides take substantial casualties, but the the losing side has an organizer and with the shattered retreat mechanic escapes to a distance where the opposing host cannot engage it - what does the attacker do?

A: Pursue the army ping-ponging around the country, maybe finally catching them with a 50/50 chance of winning.
B: Both armies retreat to safe territory to reinforce (the victor of the first battle already has the upper hand in regards to war score), prep for round two and hope for better results.
C: Go straight from the battle into siege mode, unable to reinforce while the enemy gets their strength back, but possibly taking holdings and gaining more war score.
D: With some actual complexity - delegate; move some levies to reinforce or liberate friendly holdings and others to siege at the same time.
E: Some other tactic that I didn't mention.

 

[fleetothemoon]

Love the reinforcement changes. Mixed on shattered retreat.

But all in all, the combat system in EU4 has IMHO been better than CK2, simply because there is less tedious micromanagement involved (and also because CK2's tactics system is overly complex and unintuitive). This should bring the two closer in level.

 

[Quaade]

How do you mean? The event troops can't reinforce no matter what and the horde units can only reinforce as long as they are within supply range as any other retinue unit.

What event troops reinforce?
Retinues have had a supply range since rajas of India.

I simply love, how 2 people can disagree with you on that one, since as one the devs you should be closest to know what is intended and what´s in the game But you still didn´t answer my questions Groggy :-(

Reinforcement, are they done in owned land only or will controlled be enough albeit with a smaller rate? The reinforcements will stop at what point, the all time max number of troops or the number that were raised, rest is in the holdings? Will they reinforce slower than if deraised? Personally would like the reinforcements to go up to max, so if a war breaks out I can raise my half filled castles and they will reinforce slowly, instead of waiting

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.

How will that completely kill a nation? Given, it would only come into effect with a larger nation, and it should be programmed so that they will end up within a few provinces from each other. But it´s not more than a nation killer than shattered retreat are in general, since you basically just move the stackswipe farther away and short of the fort mechanics in EU4 that improved on this, I would say it´more of a nation killer to lose ALL your army than losing half due to splitting it and ending a couple of provinces apart.

This does make it a viable way to survive, since the pursuer must choose which one to stackswipe, and then it´s only half the army, especially against human players this would actually be an improvement since humans have a higher tendency to try and stackswipe the armies leaving the rest of the war a walk in the park. But I´m sure you have your reasons as to how this can´t be balanced and implemented properly, since a half-cooked system is just as bad just don´t see it as more of nation breaker as a stackswipe

 

[Quaade]

- 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.

- cool story, but i cant see how all of those are relevant to what i wrote.

The issue are, that you make a suggestion that you apparently are the only one who can do, however making a suggestion to go into "superior" EU4 system, really does open up the floor for counter-arguments. Yes this could be posted in suggestion forum, but then so should yours instead of blatantly tell off any who disagrees with your view and tell them that they are wrong and your right... Really doesn´t make a great argument, even less when you tell them off to another forum, since apparatently you are the only one allowed to come with suggestions here.

Nevermind the ones who would like the system to improve instead of being replaced...

- 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.

It´s not bad because it´s bad, it´s bad because you have too much control and knowledge of it, leaving little surprise and twists for you. Yeah rebels are a nuisance in both games, but I guess that goes for all rebels, but the most ordinary thing they don´t do, they don´t tell the king politiely when and where they are going to rebel.

I´m arguing with you, since you brought the subject up, that the system should be replaced with EU4... But guess you are the only one allowed to make such statements and that you never are to be questioned about, nor willing to hear critic of that system and listen to how it could be made better.

It´s goes a lot better to explaing and discuss it, than simply saying "you are stupid, go away", something I don´t believe will help the game nor the forum. But discussing the points and seeing as something great can come out of it.

- 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.

I get the exaggeration, overdoing it is what kills it really and there is a huge difference between 9000 and 2 mio since 9000 can be handled by many of the smaller kingdoms and they won´t spawn in an independent duchy, or at least rarely and that´s only due to specific circumstances, since a small duchy will nearly always be same culture and same religion giving you no RR.

- COOL FOR YOU, IF YOU DID NOT EXPERIENCED, SURELY NO ONE ELSE DID TO111 Sorry for caps but that just too laughable for me to pass.

Many others have experienced similar, the statement of rebels being whack-a-mole is not that they are difficult to put down, but that they are a nuisance and simply just time-consuming rather than difficult.

Usually when some players experience these "ridicilous" oversized rebels it boils down to player mistakes, not the game. If it were the game, then all would experience them, and since they don´t something else must be wrong.

However I do agree that the system could make some changes to make it more transparent, with more options to handle them that have more benefits and downsides. Like cleansing the countryside of the disloyal subject, would decrease tax and levy for a period, but if the main issue isn´t resolved it will only push back the problem and the risk for rebels will return.

- 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?

- who said that i would keep attacking that province? 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.

Had liberal armies spawn, they make little sense in other aspects, like not being able to ally them (wanted to do this when I was saxon norse under Charlie) but they have never won against me at any point. They could, and agree use a little work, genereally dislike the fact that making them harder means giving them a higher number, instead of making them work smarter, like the case of vassals who share their interest, culture and religion can´t join them.

- 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.

They could make uses for them, tyranny and saint actions could be nice to have for tyrannical short term bonus that´s high in that province, but will increase RR in other parts of the kingdom, where as saint would be a smaller bonus that also applies to other areas.

But many things could be done in the way of handling these rebels, like given the option to let them become independent or becoming vassal, which would mean giving in to some of their demands. Being given the option to crack down on them (tyranny) that might solve the problem, but might backfire and give a larger stack of disloyal rebels, since they dislike your actions in their area.

 

[Quaade]

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.

I believe it does improve on your abilities to see who will join the war, I don´t believe a number is possible, but seeing who will join only means that you must go over each liege and see how many troops he can raise, then add a bit due to vassals liking him more because of defending modifier

The numbers are there, just not right there, and it´s made easier to see since you now know who will join

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.

Good point, but if fighting in Germany and retreating to France, there could be the equal chance of them splitting into each their province not far from each other. Would actually improve against those who pursue them (I´m one of them) since this only extend their lives a little bit longer.

However, this should only happen when the army has adequate places to retreat to and when army size allow it, like when you sport 30.000 it would make sense they could split up in 2

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 back shattered retreat, I'm just trying to understand how this is going to work.

It doesn´t reduce the pingpong, it reduces the chance of stackswipes while not removing it completely. With the lower casaulties, this will spread the battles out into more "smaller" battles. However I do suspect that the decisive victories could still be possible if luck, skills and army compostion allows it.

But for the ruthless players, who will hunt them down it will only give them a few weeks of breather while on the run, they will be attacked anyway when they stop running. But sometimes, sieging a castle is more needed or another battle is taking place or another army needs your attention

 

[shulima]

Is there going to be a lower limit on the army size allowed to shatter-retreat? Because it's tiresome enough playing whack-a-mole with 1k-ish stacks of raiders popping up in my demesne every month, and if they retreat and come back I might eat my own keyboard in frustration...

 

[MrParadux]

Very exciting news. The improved mechanics for battles and retreat sound great as do the changes to "unleash" the Mongols. If they behave similarly to what I read so often about the early ck2 Mongols it will be an absolut blast

 

[Yeekim]

Will the bug(?) where troops raised by vassals also remain present in garrisons of their holdings also be addressed?

 

[Talq]

Will the bug(?) where troops raised by vassals also remain present in garrisons of their holdings also be addressed?

The troops in the holding are the vassal's troops, which are separate to liege levies, which is what the liege raises. This is intentional, basically due to issues resulting when vassals and lieges use the same troops.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

To be honest, shattered retreat sounds like an absolutely terrible addition. We'll still be ping ponging the enemy, but it will be even worse than before because we'll have to follow them across multiple counties between battles and it will take longer to destroy them.

 

[Yeekim]

The troops in the holding are the vassal's troops, which are separate to liege levies, which is what the liege raises. This is intentional, basically due to issues resulting when vassals and lieges use the same troops.

It is silly though that when fighting someone, holdings of vassals would always be at full strength, while holdings of the top liege are at half strength, so becoming prime siege targets.
Raising my vassals' levies should have an impact on how well their holdings are defended. And it would also give more reason to implement higher levels of CA, to make sure my vassals don't march their men into war when I might need them myself.

 

[grisamentum]

I simply love, how 2 people can disagree with you on that one, since as one the devs you should be closest to know what is intended and what´s in the game

There are a lot of developers and most of them work on other projects as well. Groogy has been wrong before about how the game works:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ld-i-buy-dlc-wise.849733/page-2#post-19150401 and
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...es-culture-and-religion.850010/#post-19150872

He was apparently unaware of the 2.4.4 bug where event troops would be flagged to always reinforce, which Captain Gars confirmed. I haven't had a chance to test what he says about retinues but my experience last week was that I had no problem marching my horde troops to the very edge of my diplomatic range and they reinforced the whole time.

 

[Quaade]

There are a lot of developers and most of them work on other projects as well. Groogy has been wrong before about how the game works:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ld-i-buy-dlc-wise.849733/page-2#post-19150401 and
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...es-culture-and-religion.850010/#post-19150872

He was apparently unaware of the 2.4.4 bug where event troops would be flagged to always reinforce, which Captain Gars confirmed. I haven't had a chance to test what he says about retinues but my experience last week was that I had no problem marching my horde troops to the very edge of my diplomatic range and they reinforced the whole time.

Yes they do make mistakes, just like devs of EU4 announced that universities added 1 building slot, though it already did, and they admitted they had forgotten it was already implemented. But there is a huge difference between it being a bug or WAD.

The references, doesn´t make Groggy wrong, he was simply not up-to-date since the original implemented and design was as he stated, even Rageair stated "WAD, for now", indicating that this isn´t their overall goal. Groggy even stated that he would ask the relevant parties if this was intended and thus WAD or simply and oversight or bug.

Remember one of the top dev in EU4 being the only one realising that AE were accumulated wrong, since he had the general idea of how this should work, the mistake were in the coding and was simply a bug.

A dev stating their desired outcome, is still more correct than any other who states otherwise. Making it more likely to be a bug or oversigth rather than the dev being wrong, though the dev can be wrong at times... Won´t suspect them to remember every line of code and every decision made and changes to it later since release of CK2 and all it´s DLC

 

[Groogy]

Reinforcement, are they done in owned land only or will controlled be enough albeit with a smaller rate? The reinforcements will stop at what point, the all time max number of troops or the number that were raised, rest is in the holdings? Will they reinforce slower than if deraised? Personally would like the reinforcements to go up to max, so if a war breaks out I can raise my half filled castles and they will reinforce slowly, instead of waiting

It works the same as reinforcing retinues on where/when they will reinforce. They must be within supply.

 

[Groogy]

He was apparently unaware of the 2.4.4 bug where event troops would be flagged to always reinforce, which Captain Gars confirmed. I haven't had a chance to test what he says about retinues but my experience last week was that I had no problem marching my horde troops to the very edge of my diplomatic range and they reinforced the whole time.

I wasn't unaware, I didn't say that the troops have never reinforced, in fact I said this has been a problem before that we do not have anymore and asked you instead to point out any cases where they still are reinforcing. So no I was not wrong or unaware. I was perfectly right in how retinues/hordes reinforce and how event spawned troops reinforce., unless specifically told to be reinforcing the event spawned troops won't be reinforcing.

 

[Quaade]

It works the same as reinforcing retinues on where/when they will reinforce. They must be within supply.

So it follow the settings of retinues? that they will reinforce according to setting your retinue reinforcements on 0, 50 or 100 %? or will it always reinforce with 100 % within supply range?

Could see a balance between 50 % going to levy, though that would only make you have to deraise later, would however mean the spread of reinforcement being spread out, so that losing the army in next battle you will not "suffer" as much and if you need them all, you should reraise... Just a thought on limiting the impact on losing the army while making it reinforce easier with less micromanage

 

[Groogy]

It will always reinforce at 100% if it is within supply range.

 

[Will Steel]

Now this is going to be a nice patch/expansion. I wanted stronger Mongols since Horse Lords.