Duration of Combat

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

I really support and encourage the way Paradox have progressed the game. 1.32 was a huge improvement and great work.

Despite this, I really hope Paradox look at how long battles actually take since the 1.33 update. It's not only painful for the player, it's not realistic at all. The fact the AI retreats more is certainly a good thing, as complete stackwipes were not particularly realistic, but battles taking weeks in which countries can reinforce with stacks half way across Europe are even more unrealistic.

Warfare in the late Medieval period was extremely exhausting and it was impossible to battle for hours continually, let alone days.

In the early modern period, even if you take some of the bigger battles during the Thirty Years War, they were decided in a day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rocroi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_White_Mountain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sablat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lützen_(1632)

I know that day long battles would skew the dynamic of the way EU4 is played, but weeks long battles are too far in the other direction.

The fact is the duration of battles pre-1.33 did a decent job of balancing realism with what's playable. In 1.33 encounters like this (Lifting from a Reddit post made by someone else): https://i.redd.it/yiafpy9cikm81.jpg that take a week to resolve are too uncommon.

Honestly I was previously completely addicted to this game and since 1.33 I've almost stopped playing because of how much I dislike combat duration now.

I'd really implore Paradox to review the duration of battles for 1.34. The game is in one of its least enjoyable states right now because of this.

Thanks.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Total war: battles lasted 10 minutes
Eu4: battles lasted months and only happened on mountain forts

 

[finmise]

Warfare in the late Medieval period was extremely exhausting and it was impossible to battle for hours continually, let alone days.

I agree but PDX says that this is a game with its own rules, this is not a history simulator. Unfortunate.

 

[Mirochi]

I remember having a naval battle again Great Britain as France (I think I experienced it in either late 2020 or early 2021). Battle literally took around 6-7 MONTHS. I eventually lost the battle, but it was an enormous one

 

[gasherbert]

I just had a crazy idea. What if multiple battle ticks happened each day? i.e. have one day of combat be 12 ticks (the current 2 fire/2 shock phase minimum). Adjust as necessary to get the desired balance with respect to reinforcements.

 

[finmise]

I remember having a naval battle again Great Britain as France (I think I experienced it in either late 2020 or early 2021). Battle literally took around 6-7 MONTHS. I eventually lost the battle, but it was an enormous one

This is absolutely irraational, even for the game concept. The game must include some realism.

 

[BladvakRO]

I remember having a naval battle again Great Britain as France (I think I experienced it in either late 2020 or early 2021). Battle literally took around 6-7 MONTHS. I eventually lost the battle, but it was an enormous one

I once had a France run where Netherlands declared war of independence. I was involved in other things, and this allowed Netherlands time to build up some armies and navies (or maybe just a buff from the independence).

Come showdown, I declare war on Netherlands, and proceed with my 500+ heavies fleet to blockade the Low Countries, whereas my land armies proceed to wipe out any land forces. All good strategy, right?
As you can imagine, I run my fleet into the Netherlandish fleet off Bretagne, but think none of it. I let my fleet dish it out, and then proceed to carpet siege that orange upstarts. Once I finish carpet sieging and I have no other land army to fight and no fort to siege, which took about a year in game, I look at my fleet - it was still engaged in the initial battle against the 200-heavy enemy fleet. I decide enough is enough (I wanted to peace out), and I withdraw my fleet since it was taking horrendous casualties due to morale. I ended up losing about 200 heavies, and get this, the Netherlandish fleet managed to not only lose any of its heavies, but also capture one of my heavy.

How on Earth's name is it possible for a naval battle to last 1+ year (it would have dragged a lot longer had I not intervened).

TLDR: Point is: increase morale damage, increase damage dealt and/or received, do SOMETHING, ANYTHING TO LOWER THE DURATION OF THE BATTLES - but not necessarily in a way that makes stackwipes more common.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

I once had a France run where Netherlands declared war of independence. I was involved in other things, and this allowed Netherlands time to build up some armies and navies (or maybe just a buff from the independence).

Come showdown, I declare war on Netherlands, and proceed with my 500+ heavies fleet to blockade the Low Countries, whereas my land armies proceed to wipe out any land forces. All good strategy, right?
As you can imagine, I run my fleet into the Netherlandish fleet off Bretagne, but think none of it. I let my fleet dish it out, and then proceed to carpet siege that orange upstarts. Once I finish carpet sieging and I have no other land army to fight and no fort to siege, which took about a year in game, I look at my fleet - it was still engaged in the initial battle against the 200-heavy enemy fleet. I decide enough is enough (I wanted to peace out), and I withdraw my fleet since it was taking horrendous casualties due to morale. I ended up losing about 200 heavies, and get this, the Netherlandish fleet managed to not only lose any of its heavies, but also capture one of my heavy.

How on Earth's name is it possible for a naval battle to last 1+ year (it would have dragged a lot longer had I not intervened).

TLDR: Point is: increase morale damage, increase damage dealt and/or received, do SOMETHING, ANYTHING TO LOWER THE DURATION OF THE BATTLES - but not necessarily in a way that makes stackwipes more common.

Heavies take lots of damage, have high morale, and fill out combat width alot more

 

[AvengedK1ng]

I just had a crazy idea. What if multiple battle ticks happened each day? i.e. have one day of combat be 12 ticks (the current 2 fire/2 shock phase minimum). Adjust as necessary to get the desired balance with respect to reinforcements.

How quickly do armies move across provinces?

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

TLDR: Point is: increase morale damage, increase damage dealt and/or received, do SOMETHING, ANYTHING TO LOWER THE DURATION OF THE BATTLES - but not necessarily in a way that makes stackwipes more common.

Maybe armies can retreat at an earlier point in the battle? I don't care if it's just a 'cheat' only the AI gets.

I just had an occasion when my 30k men (24/2/4) had a week long battle against a 2k stack equal mil tech.

 

[Nostalgium]

Maybe armies can retreat at an earlier point in the battle? I don't care if it's just a 'cheat' only the AI gets.

I just had an occasion when my 30k men (24/2/4) had a week long battle against a 2k stack equal mil tech.

Something must've bugged out, then, because if your army is greater than 10x the stack you're engaging, it instantly wipes. I think there's some qualifiers in there about morale disparity too, but still. It could also be the kinda infamous by now case of "ghost regiments", where (from my memory) they start with 0 morale, so they can't deal morale damage but also can't retreat, since they're not taking morale damage, and act as sponges until the 12-day mark where armies can retreat is hit.

 

[Dunderscore]

Something must've bugged out, then, because if your army is greater than 10x the stack you're engaging, it instantly wipes.

this is absolutely not true lol

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

Something must've bugged out, then, because if your army is greater than 10x the stack you're engaging, it instantly wipes. I think there's some qualifiers in there about morale disparity too, but still. It could also be the kinda infamous by now case of "ghost regiments", where (from my memory) they start with 0 morale, so they can't deal morale damage but also can't retreat, since they're not taking morale damage, and act as sponges until the 12-day mark where armies can retreat is hit.

Please refer again to this post I lifted from Reddit: https://i.redd.it/yiafpy9cikm81.jpg

In any previous EU4 version this would be a stackwipe barring massive differences in tech + mountains defensive battle. What's going on with this game when we see results like this?

I've said this before but these updates made playing smaller countries much, much harder because quantity matters so much more now. Gone are the days of picking tactical battles and getting victories here or there, because the AI can simply reinforce with endless stacks even if they are far away. Endless manpower and forcelimit was already overpowered, it's even worse now.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I agree but PDX says that this is a game with its own rules, this is not a history simulator. Unfortunate.

The problem goes far beyond history. Even if you ignore history in the consideration entirely, having excessively long battles is a gameplay problem. The longer they are, the less troop positioning prior to the battle matters, and that's a bad thing from a pure gameplay design perspective.

Excessively long sieges are a problem for the same reason.

If we don't entirely ignore history, but consider that mechanics are instead heavily abstracting from a historical nod, it's also worth pointing out that nations didn't send huge % of armies far beyond borders precisely because they would not be able to return in time if attacked. In the game, you often have time to ship troops from India to Italy before a single fort falls. You also have time to march from Spain to that same fort in Italy before the battle finishes. These are nonsense outcomes historically of course, but they are also bad for gameplay.

Getting caught out with troop movements/strategic positioning should matter. Rapid transportation from naval advantage should matter (so you have incentive to invest in it and protect it). When you can reliably reinforce forts from across the world and battles from across a significant % of a continent, these things do not matter as much as they should.

 

[KingJulien22]

Total war: battles lasted 10 minutes
Eu4: battles lasted months and only happened on mountain forts

Neither are realistic

 

[Commonblob]

Neither are realistic

I think that was his point.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

The problem goes far beyond history. Even if you ignore history in the consideration entirely, having excessively long battles is a gameplay problem. The longer they are, the less troop positioning prior to the battle matters, and that's a bad thing from a pure gameplay design perspective.

Excessively long sieges are a problem for the same reason.

If we don't entirely ignore history, but consider that mechanics are instead heavily abstracting from a historical nod, it's also worth pointing out that nations didn't send huge % of armies far beyond borders precisely because they would not be able to return in time if attacked. In the game, you often have time to ship troops from India to Italy before a single fort falls. You also have time to march from Spain to that same fort in Italy before the battle finishes. These are nonsense outcomes historically of course, but they are also bad for gameplay.

Getting caught out with troop movements/strategic positioning should matter. Rapid transportation from naval advantage should matter (so you have incentive to invest in it and protect it). When you can reliably reinforce forts from across the world and battles from across a significant % of a continent, these things do not matter as much as they should.

Sieges need to be long to be worth it, as forts cost so much and use up a building slot. Players will rarely breach and assault due to mil and manpower cost but many swift sieges did just such things to be so swift
Swifter battles would mean better positioning of troops, but also realistic supply lines meaning you don't send 50k to india and reinforce in 3 months
The cost of gunpowder warfare is given as one reason why states centralised so much. If cannons didn't cost 1k manpower then we might see players always having more than enough cannons for the whole +5 siege bonus

Neither are realistic

So we need to find a go between

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sieges need to be long to be worth it, as forts cost so much and use up a building slot. Players will rarely breach and assault due to mil and manpower cost but many swift sieges did just such things to be so swift

The issue is the MIL cost. When the ongoing ZoC beta was first introduced, the ability to assault forts w/o a breach was removed, presumably to prevent trivializing forts. This is yet another instance of "mana" being bad...just like it's unclear why having a bunch of diplo relations would trash your shipping technology progress, it's also not clear why ordering a sufficient volume of cannons to shoot at the fort should cost you ~1 year's worth of military progress.

Right now, with > 12 month sieges being relatively common you barely lose manpower assaulting compared to waiting out the siege in many regions of the world (due to 3% min attrition in "tropical", which itself is ridiculously over-common). Were you really guaranteed to lose 3x as many Indian soldiers in a siege of a South Indian fort compared to European ones or forts in Delhi historically? And do we really want sieges to be as costly in manpower as assaulting the fort from a gameplay tradeoff standpoint?

Forts are cancer. They don't HAVE to be cancer. They don't have to cost as much as they do now, they certainly don't need to cost as much to maintain as tens of thousands of soldiers once constructed. Numerous tradeoffs wrt their existence could be tweaked such that faster sieges are reasoanble.

As they are now, they are neither historical nor justifiable in gameplay terms for SP. Making the AI do things experienced players who are trying to snowball deliberately avoid is questionable. Players avoid forts because the tradeoffs are objectively bad in so many cases. Change the numbers, and maybe the tradeoffs aren't bad any longer. But making the AI do bad tradeoffs just to slow the game down isn't the play.

Swifter battles would mean better positioning of troops, but also realistic supply lines

IMO having positioning actually matter is good for gameplay regardless of other factors. Though I'm not opposed to those other factors, the issue of positioning of troops not mattering much in a game where war is a big component is absurd even when considered by itself.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

The issue is the MIL cost. When the ongoing ZoC beta was first introduced, the ability to assault forts w/o a breach was removed, presumably to prevent trivializing forts. This is yet another instance of "mana" being bad...just like it's unclear why having a bunch of diplo relations would trash your shipping technology progress, it's also not clear why ordering a sufficient volume of cannons to shoot at the fort should cost you ~1 year's worth of military progress.

I get why being behind on dip tech makes vassals disloyal but yeah I do hope eu5 has navies and armies in their own techs

Right now, with > 12 month sieges being relatively common you barely lose manpower assaulting compared to waiting out the siege

Eh its 12 months of passive manpower recovery too and also how long the reinforcements take if near power enemy nearby

in many regions of the world (due to 3% min attrition in "tropical", which itself is ridiculously over-common). Were you really guaranteed to lose 3x as many Indian soldiers in a siege of a South Indian fort compared to European ones or forts in Delhi historically?

Well yeah its the deccan, basically every indian empire meets its fate there, the mughals, the tuqluqs (iirc or if not the other dehli sultanate)

And do we really want sieges to be as costly in manpower as assaulting the fort from a gameplay tradeoff standpoint?

I just know we don't want it to be like total war where if assaulting a fort, auto resolve would always give far less casualties, but if defending fort you'd always manually play to score maximum kills

Forts are cancer. They don't HAVE to be cancer. They don't have to cost as much as they do now, they certainly don't need to cost as much to maintain as tens of thousands of soldiers once constructed. Numerous tradeoffs wrt their existence could be tweaked such that faster sieges are reasoanble.

Having lv1 forts more common like native americans get would be nice. But yeh 2k men in a fort costs 1 ducat maintenance , which is about same as 5k soldiers, or 3k cav, or 1 and a half k cannons. But then does the supplies to stock for a siege cost that much more than an army on the march which can move to new grazing grounds with the campaign season

As they are now, they are neither historical nor justifiable in gameplay terms for SP. Making the AI do things experienced players who are trying to snowball deliberately avoid is questionable. Players avoid forts because the tradeoffs are objectively bad in so many cases. Change the numbers, and maybe the tradeoffs aren't bad any longer. But making the AI do bad tradeoffs just to slow the game down isn't the play.

Hyper offensive players avoid forts but they are useful if you trip up with your coalition management or to save time with rebels for a few months if mid war and low force limit like Portugal early game

IMO having positioning actually matter is good for gameplay regardless of other factors. Though I'm not opposed to those other factors, the issue of positioning of troops not mattering much in a game where war is a big component is absurd even when considered by itself.

I just wish they brought back combat width dependent terrain so mountains are that much more treacherous

 

[The_Boominator]

I just had an occasion when my 30k men (24/2/4) had a week long battle against a 2k stack equal mil tech.

This is impossible. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't lying, but you must have encountered a hitherto-unknown bug if this is the case and you should fill out a bug report with the save file. Armies with a 10:1 advantage automatically stackwipe.