EU newbie is getting brutally slaughtered!

[unmerged(17139)]

i've played HOI and HOI 2, and am pretty good with them. so i decided to try out EU2

started as china, and thought it would be easy to make hordes of infantry and overrun my small neighbours, right? so game begins and within a month da viet declares war on me. fine, i thought i'd crush them pretty easily.

i don't know what the problem is, but that small country easily kicked me out, and now keeps sending hordes of units to invade me. i've lost several provinces, and now finally i've built enough troops numerically to hold the border

what i don't understand, is that i keep losing battles despite having more men. once i had 17 infantry attack 1 da viet infantry (both were "disciplined"), and i lost! what am i missing here?

btw: i also marched 30 calvary from the north to the da viet front. only 16 of them survived the march. i take it in EU2 you can't march armies for long distances?

 

[Madrick]

Troop morale is a very important factor in EU2 and if you keep on playing you'll often see that small (~5k) rebel armies beat up your 20k army.
What's your maintenance setting and your domestic sliders settings ?

 

[unmerged(17139)]

the only domestic slider i changed was to move 1 notch toward land. i've not changed the maintenance slider, i believe it's at 100% by default.

troop morale is the green bar right? i always wait for it to fill to the max (disciplined) before i attack. or is it something different?

 

[bluelotus]

Did you put your land maintenance to 50%? BTW, Check the battle system FAQ, you will learn some useful information

EDIT: Damn 3 minutes

 

[unmerged(19666)]

also, dont forget to patch to 1.08 and the optional beta patches

 

[unmerged(17563)]

Dai Veit has an uber leader which is why they can defeat huge Chinese armies. Make sure you group your armies under you leader Yongle that way things wont be so bad

historicalleader = {
id = { type = 6 id = 09840 }
category = monarch
name = "Le Loi"
startdate = {
year=1418
}
deathdate = {
year=1443
}
rank = 0
movement = 5
fire = 4
shock = 5
siege = 0
remark = "Gained independence from China."

 

[unmerged(17139)]

how do i transfer my leader yongle to my southern border? leader transfer doesn't seem to work in the same way as HOI. i tried marching some northern army down, but half of them died in the march

i upgraded to 1.08 before i started the game, just to be safe

 

[bluelotus]

Give him 1 cavlary unit and sent them to the southern brother.

 

[unmerged(2036)]

That earli Vietnamese leader is a killer.
Do not attack him, let his army attack you,
preferably acroses a river into mountains or some such.

Once he is gone things should be easier

 

[unmerged(11496)]

First, welcome to EU2!

It is not HOI/2 by any stretch; very different eras, very different technologies and very different strategies!

Some things to consider:

1) Troop morale is paramount, but not all troop morales are equal; if you lose morale more quickly than your opponent, you will lose the battle and retreat.

This is discovered basically through trial and error, unless someone else has a line on determining whose morale has more staying power?

2) Cavalry is stronger than infantry early in the game, but is ineffective in mountain, marsh/swamp and forest provinces.

3) Leaders are very important in EU2! A good leader can over come superior numbers and, as long as the gap isn't too wide, superior technology.

4) Attrition is much greater in EU2, as befits the times. Each province has an attrition rating, the maximum number of troops it can support. This is found on the province info screen, accessed by clicking on your "church" building on the province info subscreen on the left of the main game screen.

If you want to march large armies, split them up and stagger their departures; it will take longer as you wait for them all to catch-up, but you will lose less through attrition.

5) There is no strategic re-deployment! If you want a leader somewhere else, you must march them there. If you want them to move quickly, assign them to a cavalry unit, they move fastest of all land units.

6) China has lots of provinces without forts; building forts in the provinces will improve their attrition ratings, to say nothing of preventing them from being immediately lost when foreign troops or rebels move into them.

Unlike HOI/2, a province with a fort must be seiged, so even after you are driven out of a province, if it has a fort, you have time to try and retake it before you actually lose it.

NOTE - if you lose a prov with a fort, you must in turn re-seige it back!

That's it off the top of my head, let me re-read your post and see if I missed anything...

 

[unmerged(11496)]

i've played HOI and HOI 2, and am pretty good with them. so i decided to try out EU2

started as china, and thought it would be easy to make hordes of infantry and overrun my small neighbours, right?

Another word about China...not to spoil things, but let me just say there were plenty of good reasons as to why China didn't truly become a great power until after the game's timeframe.

If you aren't familiar with Chinese history, you may want to read-up on it as some of the more drastic events happen no matter how well you're ahistorically doing at the time...

If you want to try a game with a nation that is on the upswing for most of the game, try the Ottoman Empire.

 

[jaddboy]

IMHO China is not the ideal nation to start off with. OE is definitely easier. I started with Portugal and that helped me get a good feel with the game.

Try some different nations out and I'm sure you'll see why this is truly a masterpiece of a game.

 

[unmerged(17139)]

i'll start a new china game, march my leader to the south and see if i can put up a fight with that dat viet leader. i guess it's historically accurate that he would kick me out and force a peace treaty, but still...

is it possible to kill leaders in EU2? if yes, how? by encirclement?

i've read the thread here about the bad china events, perhaps after i find out if it's possible to survive the dat viet war, i'll switch to a more favoured nation in the game. i'm looking forward to try some american colonization i've heard spain is the best one to try colonization with, also austria and OE are good first timer candidates

 

[Ciçatrix]

is it possible to kill leaders in EU2? if yes, how? by encirclement?

If you completely annihilate the division he is leading, the leader will die. Other than that, i don't know.

 

[unmerged(17139)]

aha, excellent *evil laughs* truly excellent indeed!

 

[unmerged(15337)]

Besides a leader dying if his entire army is annihilated, in each battle he fights there is a small random chance that he will be killed. This can work against you just as well as for you, if not worse.

 

[unmerged(26889)]

Also note that (AFAIK) the fire value of the leader is ignored untill either you or your enemy reach landtech 9. Untill then shock value rules. If I remember it correctly the outward expansion option in Zheng Ho's event will make you quite offensive. If you manage to reach offensive 9 all your leaders will have a +1 shock (at the cost of worst siege values and more expensive forts), and more then double cavalry on plains give another +1 shock.

 

[unmerged(17563)]

Also leaders have historical deathdates so they will always die when they did historically.