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….

 

[alfian]

Maybe it's Berber Pack and New Western Pack.

 

[richvh]

It's Hedgehog Face Pack and Secret Bear Unit Pack.

 

[sreckom92]

It's Hedgehog Face Pack and Secret Bear Unit Pack.

But they are already in the game.
If you don't believe me, ask Groogy.

 

[richvh]

Hedgehogs and Secret Bears are in game, true, but we are still lacking the face and unit packs.

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

could you make morale a more significant factor in battles? aka, atm i think there is just the same moral cap for everyone. But professional disciplined troops or veteran troops should have better morale than peasants or warrior cultures better than merchant cultures or mercenaries for example. then smaller forces with high morale and highly disciplined troops could beat a bit bigger armies which have worse morale, all else being equal.

 

[mceppos]

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

i can tell you certain that in my most recent (from like 3 months ago) 867 Hvitserk campaign i still had my event troops well into 1100's and the would reinforce. I still had them because i only used them when absolutely necessary. the event troops eventually died but thats because i lost a major battle against France.

Update: just went and checked the save that still had the event troops they dont reinforce anymore. they did the last time i played that campaign though, which was back in September. so i guess the issue is fixed now.

 

[drimer]

Yeah, i kinda prefer the old battle mechanics, i had rebels and i needed 12 battles (in a period or like 2-3 years) to finaly defeat my rebellion juste because the army keeps retreating with like 20% casualities. Even in EU4, we didn't need that many battles. + i don't like the fact the army retreating is invulnerable, i find this unrealistic, if your army can reach the retreaters, they should kill them, not like following them until they wanna fight . But, this patch has many good point, but the combat mechanic need some fixes, i think.

 

[Rags17]

Do you guys know that sieges are now HEAPS faster ? You can now launch a successful assault with around three times the enemy number rather than ten, with higher odds ensure nearly zero losses. Sieges also take place in around 3-4 ticks only, so it is entirely possible to siege down an entire province in around 2-3 weeks with a big enough force.

Let them come back, by that time I will have built my fort to lock down the area and moved on to the next province.

 

[Quaade]

the retreat mechanic isn´t nearly as good as in EU4, had them march through and to hostile lands, when I had boats or land nearby that I owned they could retreat back to... Well, it might improve in time at least