"Disease Outbreak" Mechanic Is Backwards

[Ziggy187]

This is a continuation of an earlier post that the dev's cut off. This thread has nothing to do with RNG or Confirmation Bias or any of that controversial garbage. This is exclusively discussing the mechanic itself. Why does it even exist and since it does, why is it backwards?
Disease should be much more prevalent in castles than it would be for standing army's. Do you ever get "Disease Outbreak" in the open field? No, attrition is an abstract mechanic to account for that.
A sieging army already has an increased attrition rate so there is no reason whatsoever to add "Disease Outbreak" on top. This tells me there is a complete misunderstanding of what a "Siege" is. If anything, disease should be applied to the poor souls holed up in a close quarters castle. They have to eat stale food, rat infested grain, recycled toilet water, backed up bathrooms. Not everyone in the castle lived in luxury as seen in movies. Common troops did not have it so well.
Back to the misunderstanding of what a siege is. The standing army is at a distance living in safe comfortable tents with fresh air and ample supply lines like anywhere else in the field. They do nothing more than to quarantine the castle and make sure no one leaves and no one enters and absolutely no supplies get it. They also barrage the castle walls with trebuchet or cannons but they are not storming the walls with ladders unless you call for an assault.
This begs the question, why an army in the field would get a disease outbreak and the castle folks do not? It is completely backwards and should be reworked.

 

[MadDoctorScientist]

You should write that on the Suggestions thread. You are quite right there.

 

[Vetgirig]

The solution to COVID-19 was to isolate everyone so the virus can't spread.

The people in the castle is isolated - but not those outside.

Thus mechanism is actually correct imho.

 

[Kimbole]

I’ve never given it a second thought to be honest. Disease spreading through an army camp always struck me as entirely plausible and food and water shortages already hurt the defenders.

Be interested to know what the historical sources say about siege camps, but I’m under the impression armies weren’t healthy places.

From a game mechanics perspective I don’t really see the problem either.

 

[Ziggy187]

The solution to COVID-19 was to isolate everyone so the virus can't spread.

The people in the castle is isolated - but not those outside.

Thus mechanism is actually correct imho.

Uh, that is so completely wrong I dont even know where to begin. Really? Your basing your argument on Covid???

 

[Ziggy187]

I’ve never given it a second thought to be honest. Disease spreading through an army camp always struck me as entirely plausible and food and water shortages already hurt the defenders.

Be interested to know what the historical sources say about siege camps, but I’m under the impression armies weren’t healthy places.

From a game mechanics perspective I don’t really see the problem either.

The problem is attrition already accounts for it. Sieging armys have increased attrition too. What's the point of another mauls? It makes zero sense!

 

[Ziggy187]

The solution to COVID-19 was to isolate everyone so the virus can't spread.

The people in the castle is isolated - but not those outside.

Thus mechanism is actually correct imho.

Since you brought up Covid, let's run with that.
Say common soldier "Charlie" get sick, who cares why it happens....

A) Charlie is part of the sieging army. Place Charlie in a tent several hundred feet from everyone else. When Charlie coughs, it gets dissipated by the outdoors. This is called "social distancing".

B) Charlie is part of the defending castle garison. There is no place for Charlie to go where he is not on top of other troops. Castles were no luxury places with ample room for everyone because it was too expensive. There is no plumbing, no refrigeration, no ventilation. When Charlie coughs, others breath it in. Thus infecting more and more.

This is similar to why Covid does not allow fans at sporting events, too many people on top of one another, just like troops in a castle. Thank you for proving my point even further.

 

[MadDoctorScientist]

The problem is attrition already accounts for it. Sieging armys have increased attrition too. What's the point of another mauls? It makes zero sense!

Come to think of it, what if the attackers poisoned the water enough to spread disease but not enough to be a water shortage? Or they threw rotting matter over the walls? Or some of the defenders ate hallucinogenic mushrooms out of desperation?

An outbreak of a malady is worse in short term and the slow spread during a longer period. Maybe a infected rat entered the city bringing a new disease that was not there before?

 

[grommile]

Even if your point is valid (which... well. I'm not convinced it is.), you're emitting a great deal of sound and fury about the mildest flaw in the siege system.

 

[MadDoctorScientist]

Even if your point is valid (which... well. I'm not convinced it is.), you're emitting a great deal of sound and fury about the mildest flaw in the siege system.

Second mildest.
The mildest is why the illustration show siege engines and we have no siege engines?!

 

[Ziggy187]

Come to think of it, what if the attackers poisoned the water enough to spread disease but not enough to be a water shortage? Or they threw rotting matter over the walls? Or some of the defenders ate hallucinogenic mushrooms out of desperation?

An outbreak of a malady is worse in short term and the slow spread during a longer period. Maybe a infected rat entered the city bringing a new disease that was not there before?

Bless your heart, yes you get it. All of this is already accounted for with attrition for the sieging army. The castle peeps should get the disease outbreak. I'd much prefer to just eliminate the mechanic altogether.

I'd also like to see a food/provision counter for the castle folks. After a siege taking 1 year, the castle should fall regardless of siege status because the castle ran out of food. Obviously, the sieging army needs to have enough troops to seal off the castle. Meaning a 1K unit cannot secure a castle to prevent supplies from entering.

 

[Xdevo]

Both the people inside and outside of a fortress or castle experienced disease outbreaks. Realistically, castle defenses should experience much, much more attrition if they're inland / blockaded. These forts typically could not store the ~.75-1.5 years worth of food required to keep a siege defense in this game. Its a fairly substantial issue with the siege system in the game (haha you can't siege with 2.7k people, better wait to get back to 3k), but its just a part of the much, much larger issue that is the awfulness of sieges in EU4.

 

[Ziggy187]

Even if your point is valid (which... well. I'm not convinced it is.), you're emitting a great deal of sound and fury about the mildest flaw in the siege system.

Well obviously I've given this mechanic a lot of thought because I absolutely hate it because it makes ZERO SENSE! If you don't think it is a big deal, good for you but it is the biggest deterrent for me to not even play the game. It should be removed and the game would not miss a beat without it.

 

[Ziggy187]

Both the people inside and outside of a fortress or castle experienced disease outbreaks. Realistically, castle defenses should experience much, much more attrition if they're inland / blockaded. These forts typically could not store the ~.75-1.5 years worth of food required to keep a siege defense in this game. Its a fairly substantial issue with the siege system in the game (haha you can't siege with 2.7k people, better wait to get back to 3k), but its just a part of the much, much larger issue that is the awfulness of sieges in EU4.

Yes I agree. I'm not campaigning to have the mechanic applied to the defender, I'd just like to see it go away. If it must stay because the dev's love it, then apply it properly.

 

[grommile]

it makes ZERO SENSE!

There are a vast array of things in EU4 that don't make sense if you think too hard about them

 

[3ishop]

And I did reply on that case, historically seems to be wrong.

Castles aren't that dark and just being dark doesn't increase the chance of disease. It was common place for the besieged army to suffer from disease. People are living in a field with little in the way of protection, generally no access to fresh water, to baths, to basic sanitation and often eating with their hands. Castles were built with quite high living standards. Castles also would throw rotting corpses out at the besiegers, who also often had their animals living alongside them.

Attrition is the standard losses from every day events, the disease outbreak is intended to represent an outbreak which is spreading between the forces quite quickly. It was far more common with the land forces than in castles.

Generally not any more stale food than the outside army, but they had a proper kitchen and staff to keep the garrison fed. Rats weren't overly common inside the pantry of the castle as it would be built and checked to keep them out along with other safe guards, field armies had a lot more issue with that along with rain getting to their food.

They didn't need to recycle toilet water, castles tend to have deep wells built in as part of the basic design. Field armies outside not so lucky and they tend to end up with their water sources contaminated, a lot of out breaks of dysentery.

Not an issue with backed up toilets either. They tend to have them built to the outside of the castle wall and interiors can use a chamber pot, which is then thrown out. Guess who is outside the walls?

And no, historically they didn't live a long way from the castle, they would have to keep close to prevent the garrison coming out and to stop anyone from sneaking supplies in. There wasn't large supply lines, forces would live off the local land, use the nearby villages and towns to get food and even end up stealing from the fields. Road networks, communications and food preservation wasn't really good enough to ensure regular supply for an army.

An example just before the game starts, Siege of Harfleur. English army spent a month besieging a French town before it surrendered. Results are over 10% of Henrys army being sent home due to being sick after an outbreak of dysentery. This is then the same army that fought the battle of Agincourt a month later.

 

[atwix]

When it got introduced i saw one happen and thought "wow this is better then defenders desert".. then i saw the disease hit my army.. i was like "huh?"

Op is quite right

 

[Ziggy187]

And I did reply on that case, historically seems to be wrong.

Castles aren't that dark and just being dark doesn't increase the chance of disease. It was common place for the besieged army to suffer from disease. People are living in a field with little in the way of protection, generally no access to fresh water, to baths, to basic sanitation and often eating with their hands. Castles were built with quite high living standards. Castles also would throw rotting corpses out at the besiegers, who also often had their animals living alongside them.

Attrition is the standard losses from every day events, the disease outbreak is intended to represent an outbreak which is spreading between the forces quite quickly. It was far more common with the land forces than in castles.

Generally not any more stale food than the outside army, but they had a proper kitchen and staff to keep the garrison fed. Rats weren't overly common inside the pantry of the castle as it would be built and checked to keep them out along with other safe guards, field armies had a lot more issue with that along with rain getting to their food.

They didn't need to recycle toilet water, castles tend to have deep wells built in as part of the basic design. Field armies outside not so lucky and they tend to end up with their water sources contaminated, a lot of out breaks of dysentery.

Not an issue with backed up toilets either. They tend to have them built to the outside of the castle wall and interiors can use a chamber pot, which is then thrown out. Guess who is outside the walls?

And no, historically they didn't live a long way from the castle, they would have to keep close to prevent the garrison coming out and to stop anyone from sneaking supplies in. There wasn't large supply lines, forces would live off the local land, use the nearby villages and towns to get food and even end up stealing from the fields. Road networks, communications and food preservation wasn't really good enough to ensure regular supply for an army.

An example just before the game starts, Siege of Harfleur. English army spent a month besieging a French town before it surrendered. Results are over 10% of Henrys army being sent home due to being sick after an outbreak of dysentery. This is then the same army that fought the battle of Agincourt a month later.

I think you have seen too many Hollywood movies romanticizing what castles were like in this time period. Sure some castles had wells and some had more space than others but we are talking about the average general run of the mill castle. Why would I have my army positioned right up against the walls? All I need to do is stay close enough to prevent supplies from entering. Again, I think the mechanic is not needed at all as the added attrition for sieging a castle is quite sufficient. Just drop it out of the game and I'm sure nobody would miss it all.

 

[jscaco]

Its those ample supply lines that make them more vulnrerable.

Those inside the castle are not immune to diseases, yes, and an outbreak inside during a seige would be devestating. But the larger force is usually the one doing the besieging, and more people equals more oppotunities for diseases of all types to spread.

Also keep in mind that diseases spread in different ways....airborne, waterborne, foodborne, stds, etc and that this was before the germ theory of disease, so any comparissons to COVID are limited.

 

[3ishop]

I think you have seen too many Hollywood movies romanticizing what castles were like in this time period. Sure some castles had wells and some had more space than others but we are talking about the average general run of the mill castle. Why would I have my army positioned right up against the walls? All I need to do is stay close enough to prevent supplies from entering. Again, I think the mechanic is not needed at all as the added attrition for sieging a castle is quite sufficient. Just drop it out of the game and I'm sure nobody would miss it all.

Nope, it's based off visiting a huge number from "poor" lords castles up to grand state ones along with reading many translated/updated historical texts. Castles are built with the intent of keeping the people inside alive and withstanding a siege as long as possible. A basic well is rather common, although yeah over time some did end up with issues (I know a few had changes in water tables which lead to it needing to be deepened for example).

You wouldn't be right up against the wall, but you aren't going to be miles away and not sitting in nice and comfortable location for the mass of the army. Forces need to be close enough to be able to keep the castle locked up, it's a lot harder to keep organised and effective the further away from the castle you are. And if you wish to use weapons such as trebuchets and guns against the castle you need to be close.

Then you should come at it as a bad mechanic rather than try to argue that it's none historical.