EU4 Navy flaws

[3ishop]

Well after the last vicky 3 dev diary, according to the devs navies will be not only important but maybe more important than land armies. Their approach is basically the opposite of eu4 in regards to navies. It's basically more than confirmed vicky3 will have a big supply/logistics system. While in eu4 it is basically non-existent and sadly we both know can only look forward for a better supply system for eu5.
It's a good testing ground for eu5, thats for certain.
So we are kinda stuck with the current system in eu4, with the only changes possible being on how easy/strong is to get military access (aka the transportation of troops) or blockades.

Wouldn't hold hope for that. Historically they weren't important for supply during the EU period but were important for transporting the forces and then the force would supply it's self locally. At best would hope for it being needed for the trade and replenishment of over seas forces but risk then more merc heavy armies.

 

[xrws31]

IRL, a naval advantage meant a significant advantage in land combat capability too. This does not translate in EU 4 in most cases.

The introduction of the ongoing ZoC fort beta was one of the larger nerfs to naval in the game, though it certainly isn't the only reason a naval advantage usually doesn't mean much.

Did it though?

It became more significant at the end of EU4 period, going into 19th/20th century, but in how many campaigns during 1400-1700 did naval advantage affect land campaigns, beyond simply blocking landings/expansion?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Depends how much you want to count rivers too I guess.

 

[Xary Moft]

Wouldn't hold hope for that. Historically they weren't important for supply during the EU period but were important for transporting the forces and then the force would supply it's self locally. At best would hope for it being needed for the trade and replenishment of over seas forces but risk then more merc heavy armies.

That's almost an old myth that people keep spreading around and it's so wrong, armies did not supply themselves locally as a norm. It's only helped by the fact EU4 non-exist logistic system and how it portrays warfare with forts this stuff continues to live on. Also even in your description where navies at best would be to replenishment of over seas forces is bypassing over the fact that this means naval powers were able to reinforce and resupply coastal forts.

But first I would like to debunk that myth of armies and stuff resupplying themselves locally was some kind of norm. This is a curse of eu4 and if not solved for eu5 it can make it as brainless as eu4 combat. Logistics is key in wars.
Now you don't even need to think too deep, ask yourself. Can armies live of the lands forever? No. Can it resupply itself locally during sieges that could take months or years? No. For all types of places like Africa? No. Should that lonely desert province be able to supply your 30k army with local supplies? Heck no. Even if it was a good Chinese farmland, it wouldn't be able to do it for more than 2 months. Supply lines existed.
I'm not saying armies didn't lived of the land, they did. BUT it was small armies or quick campaigns. It wasn't a norm for everything that always worked. It is a fact that supply lines did exist in eu4 time period or even before eu4 period and were very and even more important than the uncertain finite food supply on a province. It was so important it made fortress even more important. Now there was another reason to take a fort, supply lines. Leaving a castle behind with enemy troops that would raid your supply lines with light cav was a nightmare. Controlling them granted you a safe route for supplies (on top of their strategic placement they might have been).

All of this makes me remember napoleon invasion of russia. Napoleon strategy relied on living of the land. If his army can live of the land he doesn't need to wait for the supply trains making his army way faster, allowing him to outmaneuver his enemies bla bla. But we all know the story, russia scorched earth, now napoleon had to wait for his supplies, now he was slow, he couldn't catch nor outmaneuver russian troops...we know how it ended. And for those who are wondering if the supply lines helped, not much if they are being harassed by russian cossacks and getting stuck in the russian terrain. Also supply lines in eu4 time period really suck for long distances since they are literally powered by horses, donkeys or mules. Not fast.

Now imagine instead of resupplying using horse power you do it with ships for long distances. I dont need to explain how much better it is do I? How much faster and easier it is to supply men by using ships across the sea or rivers than horse power. The efficiency and how cheap it is... So yeah, I hope I proved my point that historically in fact navies were very important for supply during EU. There's no lack of historical evidence so I will hold on my hopes.

 

[Sete]

Portugal managed to hold fortresses for so long in asia due to naval superiority for example.

Another example is Socotra, where the Portuguese built a fort but since it was hard to supply they had to abandon it a few years later.

 

[Eliewood]

My answer is too long (4 pages), so read the file and tell me what you think, thanks.
I basically give the mains reasons why the navy gameplay is not that good in eu4 at the moment. I also try to explain what could be done to prevent them.

 

[3ishop]

That's almost an old myth that people keep spreading around and it's so wrong, armies did not supply themselves locally as a norm. It's only helped by the fact EU4 non-exist logistic system and how it portrays warfare with forts this stuff continues to live on. Also even in your description where navies at best would be to replenishment of over seas forces is bypassing over the fact that this means naval powers were able to reinforce and resupply coastal forts.

But first I would like to debunk that myth of armies and stuff resupplying themselves locally was some kind of norm. This is a curse of eu4 and if not solved for eu5 it can make it as brainless as eu4 combat. Logistics is key in wars.
Now you don't even need to think too deep, ask yourself. Can armies live of the lands forever? No. Can it resupply itself locally during sieges that could take months or years? No. For all types of places like Africa? No. Should that lonely desert province be able to supply your 30k army with local supplies? Heck no. Even if it was a good Chinese farmland, it wouldn't be able to do it for more than 2 months. Supply lines existed.
I'm not saying armies didn't lived of the land, they did. BUT it was small armies or quick campaigns. It wasn't a norm for everything that always worked. It is a fact that supply lines did exist in eu4 time period or even before eu4 period and were very and even more important than the uncertain finite food supply on a province. It was so important it made fortress even more important. Now there was another reason to take a fort, supply lines. Leaving a castle behind with enemy troops that would raid your supply lines with light cav was a nightmare. Controlling them granted you a safe route for supplies (on top of their strategic placement they might have been).

All of this makes me remember napoleon invasion of russia. Napoleon strategy relied on living of the land. If his army can live of the land he doesn't need to wait for the supply trains making his army way faster, allowing him to outmaneuver his enemies bla bla. But we all know the story, russia scorched earth, now napoleon had to wait for his supplies, now he was slow, he couldn't catch nor outmaneuver russian troops...we know how it ended. And for those who are wondering if the supply lines helped, not much if they are being harassed by russian cossacks and getting stuck in the russian terrain. Also supply lines in eu4 time period really suck for long distances since they are literally powered by horses, donkeys or mules. Not fast.

Now imagine instead of resupplying using horse power you do it with ships for long distances. I dont need to explain how much better it is do I? How much faster and easier it is to supply men by using ships across the sea or rivers than horse power. The efficiency and how cheap it is... So yeah, I hope I proved my point that historically in fact navies were very important for supply during EU. There's no lack of historical evidence so I will hold on my hopes.

Not just a myth here but also then spread by many historians. Yes navies were important, but not that important during the start and late period for the regular supply.

It wasn't. Food preservation really suffered in the time period and the easiest method was local supply as it would be freshest and also cheapest. Then add in that most nations didn't actually have navies for the start of the game with most ships being owned by private individuals.

Armies don't need to live off the land for ever. They weren't being sent to stand in one region for decades, they were generally on the move and would only rely on supply lines on the local level due to them being able to go at similar speeds, they can't rely on ships as there's not rivers and ports located everywhere. They haven't got the manpower to send back to protect a long supply line with the food slowly rotting and getting spoiled.

Yeah forts were important for the local supply, it was an easy way to locate a range of stores for the campaigns, but again they weren't shipping those goods to the other side of the nation when they could get it from a fort nearer. We have the issue that forts aren't as common as history in game. Similar ways we have issues of the scale of armies ramping up to insane numbers.

Not really, Napoleons invasion of Russia is a good example that it was well known even late in the period that armies relied on local sources of food, why scorched earth tactics has been used through history and was wide spread in the time frame EU covers. But the bigger thing with Napoleon is that he is well known for not having a very useful navy. He had rather large issues getting it out of port and do anything useful. Yet his armies were extremely effective.

Yes it's easier to supply via ship, but only if you are near navigable water with a large enough dock to make moving the supplies easier. It wasn't practical for most of the period and is often shown as having huge issues, they didn't have fast paced communications between them making linking up a pain. This is why their main use is more for the initially transport and is from established coastal towns/cities. Existing infrastructure and generally if chosen friendly enough that you can also pick up more supplies.

Just before the time period Hawkwood Diabolical Englishman often covers this, it's set mostly in the 1350s-1380s mostly in Italy with the wars between the city states, forces often running out of supply mostly in winter and having to retreat back to their backers. They couldn't rely on supply convoys over such a short distance, neither boat nor cart for the most part. One mention of them using ships to supply a stronghold on a river, wasn't ocean going ships but local merchants. Navy would make 0 impact to that. We do have his small force repeatedly looting the area however, in one account raiding a small area and coming away with over 8,000 heads of livestock, estimates of his force being 2,500 which would be enough to feed them for a while. Rest of the time it was getting supply from a city/town and then taking it with them. in game that's the local province.

New Worlds and Lost Worlds, covers actions of the English during the Tudors. Army sent to pacify Irish lords who live off the land and a large part of their war is stealing livestock and crops, English claim to want to stop that to gain support and their army goes around stealing the crops.

We then have the British in the revolutionary war/American War of Independence, Britain tried to establish food shipments for it's forces in America, it failed. They couldn't bring in enough food and of a worth while quality. This is a big part of the war, the British forces living off the land ended up turning people against the British cause and also opened their forces up more to being ambushed as foraging parties were easy targets.

We also have the French invasion of Egypt during the time frame, the French fleet getting destroyed and then their forces blockaded, Napoleon left 2 years before his remaining forces surrendered and that wasn't due to lack of supply but being beaten militarily.

 

[Xary Moft]

Not just a myth here but also then spread by many historians. Yes navies were important, but not that important during the start and late period for the regular supply.

It wasn't. Food preservation really suffered in the time period and the easiest method was local supply as it would be freshest and also cheapest. Then add in that most nations didn't actually have navies for the start of the game with most ships being owned by private individuals.

Armies don't need to live off the land for ever. They weren't being sent to stand in one region for decades, they were generally on the move and would only rely on supply lines on the local level due to them being able to go at similar speeds, they can't rely on ships as there's not rivers and ports located everywhere. They haven't got the manpower to send back to protect a long supply line with the food slowly rotting and getting spoiled.

Yeah forts were important for the local supply, it was an easy way to locate a range of stores for the campaigns, but again they weren't shipping those goods to the other side of the nation when they could get it from a fort nearer. We have the issue that forts aren't as common as history in game. Similar ways we have issues of the scale of armies ramping up to insane numbers.

Not really, Napoleons invasion of Russia is a good example that it was well known even late in the period that armies relied on local sources of food, why scorched earth tactics has been used through history and was wide spread in the time frame EU covers. But the bigger thing with Napoleon is that he is well known for not having a very useful navy. He had rather large issues getting it out of port and do anything useful. Yet his armies were extremely effective.

Yes it's easier to supply via ship, but only if you are near navigable water with a large enough dock to make moving the supplies easier. It wasn't practical for most of the period and is often shown as having huge issues, they didn't have fast paced communications between them making linking up a pain. This is why their main use is more for the initially transport and is from established coastal towns/cities. Existing infrastructure and generally if chosen friendly enough that you can also pick up more supplies.

Just before the time period Hawkwood Diabolical Englishman often covers this, it's set mostly in the 1350s-1380s mostly in Italy with the wars between the city states, forces often running out of supply mostly in winter and having to retreat back to their backers. They couldn't rely on supply convoys over such a short distance, neither boat nor cart for the most part. One mention of them using ships to supply a stronghold on a river, wasn't ocean going ships but local merchants. Navy would make 0 impact to that. We do have his small force repeatedly looting the area however, in one account raiding a small area and coming away with over 8,000 heads of livestock, estimates of his force being 2,500 which would be enough to feed them for a while. Rest of the time it was getting supply from a city/town and then taking it with them. in game that's the local province.

New Worlds and Lost Worlds, covers actions of the English during the Tudors. Army sent to pacify Irish lords who live off the land and a large part of their war is stealing livestock and crops, English claim to want to stop that to gain support and their army goes around stealing the crops.

We then have the British in the revolutionary war/American War of Independence, Britain tried to establish food shipments for it's forces in America, it failed. They couldn't bring in enough food and of a worth while quality. This is a big part of the war, the British forces living off the land ended up turning people against the British cause and also opened their forces up more to being ambushed as foraging parties were easy targets.

We also have the French invasion of Egypt during the time frame, the French fleet getting destroyed and then their forces blockaded, Napoleon left 2 years before his remaining forces surrendered and that wasn't due to lack of supply but being beaten militarily.

I dont think you understood my point. I never said armies never resupplied locally (I specified that), just it wasn't just some kinda of norm that always applied in eu4 warfare no matter what and bc of that supply lines must not exist. That's the myth I'm referring to.

You basically proven if a war is quick and small, your army can live of the land without any big immediate problems. I never argued agaisnt that, I argued for the long and expensive wars that existed that armies couldn't afford by just living of the land.
You gave the example of the English armies during the 100 years war, I know them. They were very famous of just looting the french land and they basically had to rely on living of the land for multiple reasons. That's fair, I don't expect 1300 england to be able to supply their men with their low number of ships (on top of being small).
Well I can toy around and give another example that fits well into eu4 timeframe, the ottomans and siege of vienna. Even before the beguining of the march it was going to be a failure, due to the abysmal logistical nightmare and how long the supply train to support such army was.

The tactic of living of land also depends on the type of land, italian and french farmland are of course well supplied in food. But once again, a desert shouldn't be able to provide enough food for your army neither should an island or even a normal grasslands but no one lives there, so nothing to loot.
I think Imperator Rome supply system represents very well what I'm trying talking about with the supply train's and food, not perfect but a step in the right direction.

Now speaking about napoleon when I started by saying "napoleon strategy relied on living of the land" it is a good example of how armies would do that (I never denied that) but that isn't the point. The point I was making was that he had to use supply train's once that was no longer possible due to scorched earth.
His invasion of egypt is irrelevant, since napoleon is famous to rely of living of the land, and considering how rich egypt is in farmlands that's easy to see how his army "survived". He didn't need a navy to supply him.

Since you touched on the matter of merchant going vessels resupplying troops using rivers... I always felt those merchant ships are navies, they are ships after all. Kinda weird discounting them bc they are merchants vessels since they are still ships doing a job of resupplying troops very effectively by rivers. Convoys.
Well I acknowledge your examples of how navies "failed" or in others words didn't bring enough supply overseas in the american war of independence. But I feel it's a bit unfair this example, since by no means necessary could anyone resupply more than 30k men overseas at that time by just using boats. Due the ship technology and the fact Spain and France both joined the war (navy being a bit preoccupied). So by no means England was using all of it's power to resupply just those troops.
Ships supplied troops, if that was enough for the survival depends on a lot of things, but navies were nevertheless very important on military campaigns.

I dont see why this can't be simulated into eu5. The more technology advances with ship design, the more ships are capable to bring more supply overseas etc.
I see it a bit like supply train's work but by water (and better). On top of being a bit similar on how vicky navies are gonna work. It would add a different dynamic to eu5 navies and it's supply system.

Before I finish I want to talk about another example of Napoleon, this time one of his first battles after becoming a general. Napoleon instead of attacking the austria army that sieging an italian city, goes for the supply train's of the austria army. Basically causing the austrias to leave the siege and come to face napoleon army.

 

[Xary Moft]

My answer is too long (4 pages), so read the file and tell me what you think, thanks.
I basically give the mains reasons why the navy gameplay is not that good in eu4 at the moment. I also try to explain what could be done to prevent them.

Sorry for my late reply to this, but I have to say, I love your ideas. Especially bc they could be 100% implement to eu4. I still have some issues, like military access...which I think so at least at minimum be at least hard as to get as the option of asking basing rights (ships).

I love the idea of increasing attrition, but if I dont bring this up other people will. EU4 had 10% attrition, it was removed bc of the AI ("too hard" to teach the ai how to handle it i guess). So although a great idea, the AI is a problem and would need to be changed.

In regards to trade range, asking for basing rights increases your trade range, so I don't know how I feel about increasing trade range modifiers. Also to note trade range works as a way of how far ships can go without getting attrition (their supplies). Making privateer's have infinite trade range would be weird, you would be sending ships outside of your naval supply range by telling to privateer X node. It's exploitable is what im trying to say.
Continuing the pirate talking, I do like some changes, at the moment it always feels like a big loss instead of just protecting trade.

In regards to quality I think it's fine as it is and we should just approach giving naval bonuses to other's idea groups. Liming naval bonuses to just 1 idea group only inflates the problem of naval ideas being mandatory for navies. That isn't healthy for eu4 idea system, so our approach is either give def for example ship durability (aka fortress ships) or offensive ideas an admiral pip (siege or manuever).

I could go on and state how I like every single idea, but I will spare everyone time and say that for the most part, that PDF has great feedback for navies, one of the best I ever seen.

 

[3ishop]

I dont think you understood my point. I never said armies never resupplied locally (I specified that), just it wasn't just some kinda of norm that always applied in eu4 warfare no matter what and bc of that supply lines must not exist. That's the myth I'm referring to.

I know you didn't say it was all the time, but again my point was it seems to be the norm and using long distance supply lines is the rarity in the period. Forces only using that for materials they can't get locally.

You basically proven if a war is quick and small, your army can live of the land without any big immediate problems. I never argued agaisnt that, I argued for the long and expensive wars that existed that armies couldn't afford by just living of the land.
You gave the example of the English armies during the 100 years war, I know them. They were very famous of just looting the french land and they basically had to rely on living of the land for multiple reasons. That's fair, I don't expect 1300 england to be able to supply their men with their low number of ships (on top of being small).
Well I can toy around and give another example that fits well into eu4 timeframe, the ottomans and siege of vienna. Even before the beguining of the march it was going to be a failure, due to the abysmal logistical nightmare and how long the supply train to support such army was.

But that's sort of the point. The majority of the time period the game is set that's how the combat was. That's why historically so few nations tried other systems as it wasn't practical/viable. Ottomans wars are also another example of nations using scorched earth tactics which Vlad used to stop them destroying him.

Also finally got to the end of Hawkwood (found it a good book btw) and his final campain he didn't try to live off the land and instead went for hearts and minds...end result was the peasants started to attack the rear of his army on the march. Which is another good reason they wouldn't want long supply lines that they couldn't protect.

The tactic of living of land also depends on the type of land, italian and french farmland are of course well supplied in food. But once again, a desert shouldn't be able to provide enough food for your army neither should an island or even a normal grasslands but no one lives there, so nothing to loot.
I think Imperator Rome supply system represents very well what I'm trying talking about with the supply train's and food, not perfect but a step in the right direction.

Now speaking about napoleon when I started by saying "napoleon strategy relied on living of the land" it is a good example of how armies would do that (I never denied that) but that isn't the point. The point I was making was that he had to use supply train's once that was no longer possible due to scorched earth.
His invasion of egypt is irrelevant, since napoleon is famous to rely of living of the land, and considering how rich egypt is in farmlands that's easy to see how his army "survived". He didn't need a navy to supply him.

Which in game these areas tend to have lower supply to represent the issues in living off the land. Quoted the second part as the French forces in Egypt were still in a desert and is why, it is all regionally based. Armies would plan and not move large forces in to poor areas for those reasons. Another issue of course with areas like deserts and low pop areas, they tend not to have much in the way of large water systems for ships to use and have even worse road systems (if you can really call most tracks a road system tbh lol).

Not personally tried Imperator so would need more details on it.

But that is the point. He didn't need a fleet to supply him which is what the context of this is all on. He did mostly live off the land which is how the game currently works. There is a scorched earth ability in game.

Since you touched on the matter of merchant going vessels resupplying troops using rivers... I always felt those merchant ships are navies, they are ships after all. Kinda weird discounting them bc they are merchants vessels since they are still ships doing a job of resupplying troops very effectively by rivers. Convoys.
Well I acknowledge your examples of how navies "failed" or in others words didn't bring enough supply overseas in the american war of independence. But I feel it's a bit unfair this example, since by no means necessary could anyone resupply more than 30k men overseas at that time by just using boats. Due the ship technology and the fact Spain and France both joined the war (navy being a bit preoccupied). So by no means England was using all of it's power to resupply just those troops.
Ships supplied troops, if that was enough for the survival depends on a lot of things, but navies were nevertheless very important on military campaigns.

They are ships, but they are very far from navies. Looking at ships that aren't large, have no defences, don't go out to sea. Meanwhile fleets in game are all sea going vessels that could only really use the larger rivers and then most are rather limited. They aren't convoys as that is an organized effort intended to counter raiders, on a river would be likely to cause issues with the limited dock space and through put many locations would have.

True they couldn't focus all the navy on it, but they also hadn't established the supply lines pre-war and they ended up scrabbling to do it. It wasn't the first war they'd had over there with large forces either. It is worth noting they did still have a very large number of ships going over there, the merchant fleets were very large in the time frame. American privateers are credited with taking 560 British merchant ships in 1776-77 during the war alone (Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail, another good book).

Yes navies were important for the warfare, but not for the direct supply. It was the mobility that they could provide and the protection/suppression of trade ships. Revolutionary war the British land forces got blockaded and besieged and the navy couldn't evacuate them to continue the war. The war of 1812 the Royal Navy won the war, not because the US couldn't supply their military but as a result of the loss of trade they couldn't pay them.

I dont see why this can't be simulated into eu5. The more technology advances with ship design, the more ships are capable to bring more supply overseas etc.
I see it a bit like supply train's work but by water (and better). On top of being a bit similar on how vicky navies are gonna work. It would add a different dynamic to eu5 navies and it's supply system.

Before I finish I want to talk about another example of Napoleon, this time one of his first battles after becoming a general. Napoleon instead of attacking the austria army that sieging an italian city, goes for the supply train's of the austria army. Basically causing the austrias to leave the siege and come to face napoleon army.

But again the issue is that it's not something they relied on. As we've agreed there are constant uses of armies living off the land through the entire games period. Why would we invest in navies that we don't need to supply our armies? If we are taking low development provinces, do we really need a large force? If the enemy doesn't have much development there they wont have the forces.

This doesn't seem to be such a thing in V3, the navy isn't getting missions to supply armies, they get missions to protect trade or attack it. Supply being handled by anyway it can get to the nation, advantage of having railways and canal systems helping with the mass movement of goods long distance on land. That's one of the weakest elements of EU is that blockades seem to make so little impact but it was wide scale for the trade.

True, although Austria is another example of a nation that didn't need to build up it's navy to supply it's armies.

 

[annulen]

I didn't touch maritime because I think it is kinda fine as it is. I find myself and other player always use maritime over naval. It's usually because of how much it amplifies the utility and flexibility of navies. So my line of thought was almost "well it isn't broken and it has a purpose for the naval game, does it need change?" probably not so I left at that.

What's so great about maritime?

• +100% Naval tradition from protecting trade - this one is great if you have many light ships on trade protection and want to maintain traditions > 90 all the time for trade and combat benefits
• +50% National sailors modifier - situational, usually not needed for established naval country
• +10% Global ship repair, -10% Sailor maintenance - IMO garbage. If you have a shipyard you can restore 25% ship to 100% in 6 months, and if you get additional +10% repair speed you still need the same 6 months. Sailor maintenance is useless once you got +50% bonus from previous idea, if it was ever a problem
• +50% Naval force limit modifier - great
• -10% Ship costs - nice to have but not more
• +1 Leader without upkeep, -25% Admiral cost - nice to have, but saving 25 dip points once in a while when admiral dies is not that big deal. Also hiring admirals doesn't have any nice side effects, unlike hiring generals
• +50% Blockade efficiency, +25% Privateer efficiency - garbage, unless privateering makes a large part of your income
• Ships can repair when in coastal sea zones - can be occasionally useful (e.g. when you blockade enemy ports with defeated enemy fleet which is still large, they can repair after battle and you cannot), but most of the time it's rather QoL feature for player than in-game buff

So, from 8 bonuses there are only 2 which are unambiguously great, and 3 if you are heavily focused on trade or privateering. It's rather weak, especially for such a niche idea group.

 

[Xary Moft]

What's so great about maritime?

• +100% Naval tradition from protecting trade - this one is great if you have many light ships on trade protection and want to maintain traditions > 90 all the time for trade and combat benefits
• +50% National sailors modifier - situational, usually not needed for established naval country
• +10% Global ship repair, -10% Sailor maintenance - IMO garbage. If you have a shipyard you can restore 25% ship to 100% in 6 months, and if you get additional +10% repair speed you still need the same 6 months. Sailor maintenance is useless once you got +50% bonus from previous idea, if it was ever a problem
• +50% Naval force limit modifier - great
• -10% Ship costs - nice to have but not more
• +1 Leader without upkeep, -25% Admiral cost - nice to have, but saving 25 dip points once in a while when admiral dies is not that big deal. Also hiring admirals doesn't have any nice side effects, unlike hiring generals
• +50% Blockade efficiency, +25% Privateer efficiency - garbage, unless privateering makes a large part of your income
• Ships can repair when in coastal sea zones - can be occasionally useful (e.g. when you blockade enemy ports with defeated enemy fleet which is still large, they can repair after battle and you cannot), but most of the time it's rather QoL feature for player than in-game buff

So, from 8 bonuses there are only 2 which are unambiguously great, and 3 if you are heavily focused on trade or privateering. It's rather weak, especially for such a niche idea group.

I think you are underestimating maritime ideas.
1- 100% naval tradition from protecting trade is almost king. If Im a naval power I should be using light ships to protect trade so it comes with this i managed to get high naval tradition constantly. Besides GB, every other naval country struggles to keep high navy tradition (examples: Portugal, Netherlands, Spain). I believe I dont need to explain how strong navy tradition is for naval combat and to make money from trade.
2- Situational? Nah, this is good, more max sailors, more sailors maintenance, meaning you can keep your ships at the sea for a longer time without running a lack of sailors. This was more powerful before they buffed sailor count, but it continues to be really powerful. Especially if someone wants to use marines and uses a heavy ship fleet. Although after 1.31 and the colonies changes, this nowadays is more meh since colonies are such a big source of sailors.
3- Agreed
4- Agreed
5- I definitely valued this more before when admirals and generals used the same leader slots. Still, I do like having +1 leader slot for both general's and admiral's. I agree on the admiral cost being not that useful but I find it surprising the amounts of points this saved me sometimes.
6-I wouldn't call garbage, 50% blockade eff is useful for blockades and to annul the debuff of coastal defenses. It also helps for the amount of ships one person needs to fully blockade a high dev province. The pirate eff I agree it's garbage, but more on the fact that I consider privateering bad.
7- This to me is the king of all buffs in maritime. Not only this annuls the coastal batteries 5% attrition debuff, but if you are outside your naval supply range or your ships took damage, they repair. You basically can maintain the blockade forever as long you have enough sailors (which maritime gives).
Then I can consider the policies, maritime+quality gives +20% naval moral, thats rlly good. If I want a funny meme, maritime is also the ideal idea group for privateering.

This is how I view maritime. if I want naval buffs the utility of maritime will always be more useful than the broken combat capabilities of naval ideas that I might not ever need (example: just filling up more cheaps and more naval moral is enough to win agaisnt someone without naval ideas).
So the few things navies does in game, maritime takes them and amplifies their power. Blockades? Maritime covers that to the point it becomes almost brain dead. More money from trade ? Maritime can cover that with 50% more naval force limit (so you can build more lights ships and 100% tradition naval tradition from trade. So furthering increasing the money you would get with trade steering (without the added bonus of the place where light ships are getting you more trade power).

And I can understand if people don't have the same view as me. I saw and used the power of maritime in a MP setting, where you can't always take people land and blockades can be really powerful to tank people's economy while boosting your own. It's also not that easy to blockade in MP's.
While In SP its way more effective to just take the land yourself and actually build good buildings to make even more money. Still if you wanna roleplay a naval country in SP maritime is usually the best option. So I see the problem as an AI one and how easy is to blob in the game rather than being a problem of the idea group itself.

 

[annulen]

I think you are underestimating maritime ideas.

Quite likely, that's why I asked this as a question.

1- 100% naval tradition from protecting trade is almost king. If Im a naval power I should be using light ships to protect trade so it comes with this i managed to get high naval tradition constantly. Besides GB, every other naval country struggles to keep high navy tradition (examples: Portugal, Netherlands, Spain). I believe I dont need to explain how strong navy tradition is for naval combat and to make money from trade.

However, if you have Exploration ideas (or can get Explorers by any other way), you can farm absurd amounts of navy traditions simply by exploring sea tiles.

Also, it's possible to get substantial amount of traditions from blockades. It's probably abuse, but even if enemy has a single unoccupied coastal province, sending all unused fleet to blockade it results in full bonus. Also works with provinces occupied by rebels in any countries.

2- Situational? Nah, this is good, more max sailors, more sailors maintenance, meaning you can keep your ships at the sea for a longer time without running a lack of sailors. This was more powerful before they buffed sailor count, but it continues to be really powerful. Especially if someone wants to use marines and uses a heavy ship fleet. Although after 1.31 and the colonies changes, this nowadays is more meh since colonies are such a big source of sailors.

I guess it's because I don't own DLC with marines, so I almost always have a plenty of sailors which overflow limit and are not used anywhere. Even with tiny island country, deving up one coastal province boosts sailors count and monthly growth to very high values. Though if your fleet is always out of port and is often heavily damaged in battles, its use of sailors can indeed start to matter.

5- I definitely valued this more before when admirals and generals used the same leader slots. Still, I do like having +1 leader slot for both general's and admiral's. I agree on the admiral cost being not that useful but I find it surprising the amounts of points this saved me sometimes.

Oh, it adds general slot too! Then it can have some use

6-I wouldn't call garbage, 50% blockade eff is useful for blockades and to annul the debuff of coastal defenses. It also helps for the amount of ships one person needs to fully blockade a high dev province. The pirate eff I agree it's garbage, but more on the fact that I consider privateering bad.
7- This to me is the king of all buffs in maritime. Not only this annuls the coastal batteries 5% attrition debuff, but if you are outside your naval supply range or your ships took damage, they repair. You basically can maintain the blockade forever as long you have enough sailors (which maritime gives).

I'm playing SP and AI doesn't seem to build coastal defenses anywhere. As for blockade efficiency, big naval power needs a lot of transports which are usually enough to blockade everything needed. Especially with blockade power boost from high traditions. Ok, maybe with occasional help from reserve galleys, or light ships taken from protecting some low-priority node.

 

[Xary Moft]

I know you didn't say it was all the time, but again my point was it seems to be the norm and using long distance supply lines is the rarity in the period. Forces only using that for materials they can't get locally.
But that's sort of the point. The majority of the time period the game is set that's how the combat was. That's why historically so few nations tried other systems as it wasn't practical/viable. Ottomans wars are also another example of nations using scorched earth tactics which Vlad used to stop them destroying him.

Also finally got to the end of Hawkwood (found it a good book btw) and his final campain he didn't try to live off the land and instead went for hearts and minds...end result was the peasants started to attack the rear of his army on the march. Which is another good reason they wouldn't want long supply lines that they couldn't protect.

Well my idea of supply lines wasn't for long distances (more or less the opposite, the longer the worse) the same goes for navies. That would get better as tech progresses so by the end of the game you would find yourself able to use supply lines for longer distances than early game.
Still, you can live of the land and still have somewhat of a supply line, it does resolve weird issues like the reinforcing rate in eu4.

Which in game these areas tend to have lower supply to represent the issues in living off the land. Quoted the second part as the French forces in Egypt were still in a desert and is why, it is all regionally based. Armies would plan and not move large forces in to poor areas for those reasons. Another issue of course with areas like deserts and low pop areas, they tend not to have much in the way of large water systems for ships to use and have even worse road systems (if you can really call most tracks a road system tbh lol).

I mean, the game tries, and fails in a espetacular way to simulate that, which is why I strongly dislike the current system of eu4. The game has some potencial by changing attrition values and supply limit in provinces but that is very unlikely to happen. You gave the example that armies planned not to move large forces into poor areas is something I never do in eu4 vanilla.

Not personally tried Imperator so would need more details on it.

Im still a new player for Imperator Rome, but the basic idea that I got is that each army has their own stored food (typical lasts 1 year). They will consume food when in enemy land or taking attrition (the higher attrition the more they consume). Each province also has their own finite food capacity which if im not mistaken the armies can pillage. Being a finite source, it's not good for a long campaign (like a siege) so you can make supply trains (basically non-combat units that can carry the most food). With it you have a more flexibility. You can bring them with your army so your stored food lasts longer and you can use them as literal supply lines for sieges (deploy food for your army and then return to friendly land to resupply and continue). Needles to say they aren't very effective at long distances and can probably get intercepted.
If you are wondering what navies do, they don't actually bring supplies, nor block trade routes (they simply give a debuff for commerce). In some ways I felt they are as useful as eu4 navies.

Yes navies were important for the warfare, but not for the direct supply. It was the mobility that they could provide and the protection/suppression of trade ships. Revolutionary war the British land forces got blockaded and besieged and the navy couldn't evacuate them to continue the war. The war of 1812 the Royal Navy won the war, not because the US couldn't supply their military but as a result of the loss of trade they couldn't pay them.
But again the issue is that it's not something they relied on. As we've agreed there are constant uses of armies living off the land through the entire games period. Why would we invest in navies that we don't need to supply our armies? If we are taking low development provinces, do we really need a large force? If the enemy doesn't have much development there they wont have the forces.

Well I think you convinced me to concede to the idea that navies were not the main direct suppliers for big armies overseas. Nevertheless it's still a fact navies still brought supply overseas, if that was enough or not depends on the situation. The second key thing we both agree upon is that navies were necessary for transportation of men overseas. In other words reinforcements.
You cannot bring reinforcements to your colonies while being blockaded nor without a good navy to protect it. I still believe that navies still need to have some supply system capacity. To reinforce your troops, to give some supply to your army or a local garrison in a coastal fort during a siege. This probably goes more into the line for convoys. (tbh using a "convoy system" usually works pretty well to make navies feel important).

This doesn't seem to be such a thing in V3, the navy isn't getting missions to supply armies, they get missions to protect trade or attack it. Supply being handled by anyway it can get to the nation, advantage of having railways and canal systems helping with the mass movement of goods long distance on land. That's one of the weakest elements of EU is that blockades seem to make so little impact but it was wide scale for the trade.

Agreed. Although this more or less depends if you consider an army being supplied by ships (convoys) as your navy supplying the army. It is your navy that protects and they are ships and can even have weapons for combat..

 

[Xary Moft]

Quite likely, that's why I asked this as a question.

Still, I have some old views with maritime. I did not played a lot of 1.31 and now that im playing 1.32 Im starting to understand the thoughts of maritime being in bad shape. Still I dont think I can offer a good balance review for maritime at the moment Balacing idea groups is not easy.

However, if you have Exploration ideas (or can get Explorers by any other way), you can farm absurd amounts of navy traditions simply by exploring sea tiles.

That only lasts like, 50 years until you exploded everything and so the naval tradition ticks down and you are back at 30 or something. It's something not that good to rely on.

Also, it's possible to get substantial amount of traditions from blockades. It's probably abuse, but even if enemy has a single unoccupied coastal province, sending all unused fleet to blockade it results in full bonus. Also works with provinces occupied by rebels in any countries.

Bruh I never knew that lmao. A bit silly how that works but ok.

I'm playing SP and AI doesn't seem to build coastal defenses anywhere. As for blockade efficiency, big naval power needs a lot of transports which are usually enough to blockade everything needed. Especially with blockade power boost from high traditions. Ok, maybe with occasional help from reserve galleys, or light ships taken from protecting some low-priority node.

Oh yeah, PDX fixed the AI spamming coastal defense everywhere instead of building something proper. Talking about blockades in SP one can just use galleys (the wrot ship to blockade) and still be fine. This is more due to low dev provinces. (If one plays MP it's rlly different)
I sometimes think blockade eff should make blockades harsher instead of requiring less ships to blockade.

 

[annulen]

That only lasts like, 50 years until you exploded everything and so the naval tradition ticks down and you are back at 30 or something. It's something not that good to rely on.

I explore only as much as I need to get desired level of traditions, and continue when I need more. I don't have DLC which adds exploration missions, so I do it manually. (If you have that DLC, does it prevent you from manually moving fleet led by Explorer to terra incognita sea tile? Don't want to buy it just to find out this is the case

But I agree, at some point in late game there will be no more terra incognita to explore, so one needs a different source of traditions.

Still, flat +1 from Naval seems to be more useful, unless you are seriously focused on trade (more than a half of your fleet are light ships), or are seriously over force limit.

 

[3ishop]

Well my idea of supply lines wasn't for long distances (more or less the opposite, the longer the worse) the same goes for navies. That would get better as tech progresses so by the end of the game you would find yourself able to use supply lines for longer distances than early game.
Still, you can live of the land and still have somewhat of a supply line, it does resolve weird issues like the reinforcing rate in eu4.

It wouldn't solve the issue of the navies though. They still be useless for supply unless it was an island for supplying it and shouldn't need to supply such a large force on most islands.

I mean, the game tries, and fails in a espetacular way to simulate that, which is why I strongly dislike the current system of eu4. The game has some potencial by changing attrition values and supply limit in provinces but that is very unlikely to happen. You gave the example that armies planned not to move large forces into poor areas is something I never do in eu4 vanilla.

Part of that is also the failure of the war system. We get doom stacks in the game which means higher supply mechanics to stop it capping everything at 5% which yeah AI has issues with. Yeah we don't really need to do it, mostly thanks to the huge amounts of manpower we have and the constant supply of new soldiers to our armies. Issue there is not the supply lines but the war mechanics as a whole.

Im still a new player for Imperator Rome, but the basic idea that I got is that each army has their own stored food (typical lasts 1 year). They will consume food when in enemy land or taking attrition (the higher attrition the more they consume). Each province also has their own finite food capacity which if im not mistaken the armies can pillage. Being a finite source, it's not good for a long campaign (like a siege) so you can make supply trains (basically non-combat units that can carry the most food). With it you have a more flexibility. You can bring them with your army so your stored food lasts longer and you can use them as literal supply lines for sieges (deploy food for your army and then return to friendly land to resupply and continue). Needles to say they aren't very effective at long distances and can probably get intercepted.
If you are wondering what navies do, they don't actually bring supplies, nor block trade routes (they simply give a debuff for commerce). In some ways I felt they are as useful as eu4 navies.

Ah, that would make more sense overall. I know TW has added a supply bar with armies, only really matters early game though as by late game it's easy enough to get enough supply via conquests. Not sure most would welcome having to micro sieges much though, already common to leave the minimum infantry and the max needed guns you can afford. We have devastation in game that covers the cost of armies pillaging the area in EU4 as well. Also would think we'd really need to get infrastructure back for such a system (only road-canal building chain).

Yeah commerce needs to be a bigger thing for it to really bite in. Vics economy focus lets them do that as it can block you from getting the raw materials for production and block exports of finished goods tanking your economy and making the pop unhappy.

Well I think you convinced me to concede to the idea that navies were not the main direct suppliers for big armies overseas. Nevertheless it's still a fact navies still brought supply overseas, if that was enough or not depends on the situation. The second key thing we both agree upon is that navies were necessary for transportation of men overseas. In other words reinforcements.
You cannot bring reinforcements to your colonies while being blockaded nor without a good navy to protect it. I still believe that navies still need to have some supply system capacity. To reinforce your troops, to give some supply to your army or a local garrison in a coastal fort during a siege. This probably goes more into the line for convoys. (tbh using a "convoy system" usually works pretty well to make navies feel important).

Yeah they were important for supply, mostly the military side that can't be sourced locally. Big part for the colonies, they could afford to not have regular supply as much could be stock piled and not really spoil but manpower and horse was an issue.

Yeah reinforcements is a mess of a system currently. It should rely on mercenaries or relief forces being sent. That would then if the location is over seas require transport by ship. Of course wasn't always the case, the Spanish did have the "Spanish Road" to the Netherlands during the time frame as it wasn't safe for them to transport their forces via ship. Also personally I think there would also have been an issue with keeping the men in condition and the regularity of it, as the Armada demonstrated the weather would cause issues and the Spanish ships weren't designed for such trips.

I don't think a supply fort option would be considered, while it did happen in the time frame I think gameplaywise Pdox would leave it with the debuff to avoid the risk of non-naval powers never being able to capture coastal provinces.

Agreed. Although this more or less depends if you consider an army being supplied by ships (convoys) as your navy supplying the army. It is your navy that protects and they are ships and can even have weapons for combat..

We haven't seen how it's working yet, no armies on the map from what I can see, are we just sending goods to the barracks or is it there and then outwards? But either way it seems to be more of what I've said, the supply of manpower and their military equipment than the day to day supply of food and drink. Equipment is less of an issue early on in the period and even manpower can be with the draw of mercenaries.

 

[Arizal]

I’m late to the party and didn’t read the whole OP, so I don’t want to participate to the discussion about Naval ideas, which this thread seems to have focused on despite the OP’s intention. I’m mainly interested by the talk about military access and straits, as well as other gameplay advantages that navy dominance could give to the player.

It seems clear to me they the example the OP gives about Portugal and Byzantium are very unrealistic. It’s bad for immersion and for gameplay to have your ennemies cross whole continents by foot in order to attack you.

I think the OP hits the nail by arguing that the way military accesses work is very bad. However it seems to me that the solution could be in underused values.

About conditional military accesses, I can understand a country allowing another to go to its war goal, and the enenmy country retaliating by using the same route. A malus kind of like in Civilization (I cannot believe I cited this game…) where the relationship decreases when sovereignty is violated can be envisioned, but more than that why should the third party supply the intervening army?

To me, this should translate to increased attrition for the enemy country trying to pass through the third party, even movement speed decrease and it could be argued that the « invaded » neutral country should have the option to become temporarily hostile towards the aggressor, maybe even closing its forts.

About straits, I think a good compromise between the old formula by which fleets made crossing them impossible and the current one which make the Bosphorus or even Gibraltar cross able even though a massive fleet blocks it would be that having the control of the sea would give a massive malus in combat, maybe as far as -5, meaning that you are clearly not supposed to cross that strait while there are ennemies on the other side and they have naval dominance. That would be a niche effect, though, since it would only apply if there is an army on the other side which didn’t yet took the province. Still, defending the Dardanelles from an amphibious assault would be much easier.

 

[Xary Moft]

It wouldn't solve the issue of the navies though. They still be useless for supply unless it was an island for supplying it and shouldn't need to supply such a large force on most islands.

It wouldn't? If I take the example overseas forts (like the many european holdings in india) that would be a gamer changer. Suddenly a indian power without naval supremacy would face the problem of either committing to a prolonged siege that may never end or an assault on the fort. And that situation is able to happen thanks to the usage of a supply lines. Now if it was a big army, so you navy can't fully resupply it, I would think its better to have some supply than no supply at all, so not entirelly useless (preferable than just not being able to do stuff).

Ah, that would make more sense overall. I know TW has added a supply bar with armies, only really matters early game though as by late game it's easy enough to get enough supply via conquests. Not sure most would welcome having to micro sieges much though, already common to leave the minimum infantry and the max needed guns you can afford. We have devastation in game that covers the cost of armies pillaging the area in EU4 as well. Also would think we'd really need to get infrastructure back for such a system (only road-canal building chain).

Well this idea of a system will never make it to eu4 (and shouldn't) its more hypothetical idea for an eu5. It's possible to just automate the system of supply trains, since automatic rebel suppression and "carpet siege" are possible, in theory shouldn't be hard to tell your supply trains to come and go. Anyhow I can't speak for the wider community if they want a little bit more micro on sieges. And yeah, bring an infrastructure would be nice.

Yeah reinforcements is a mess of a system currently. It should rely on mercenaries or relief forces being sent. That would then if the location is over seas require transport by ship. Of course wasn't always the case, the Spanish did have the "Spanish Road" to the Netherlands during the time frame as it wasn't safe for them to transport their forces via ship. Also personally I think there would also have been an issue with keeping the men in condition and the regularity of it, as the Armada demonstrated the weather would cause issues and the Spanish ships weren't designed for such trips.

That's a good observation that I forgot, sea tiles in eu4 don't have weather conditions that would cause attrition to ships like land. In fact ships only take attrition if faced a specif coastal battery (which you can ignore by having maritime) or going outside of your naval supply range.

I don't think a supply fort option would be considered, while it did happen in the time frame I think gameplaywise Pdox would leave it with the debuff to avoid the risk of non-naval powers never being able to capture coastal provinces.

Oh well, leaving as a debuff totally depends on what you want the game to be. If you want to make conquests way easier, like how it works now, then it makes sense gameplay wise for that case. But if you want the game to be not just a map painter, then a debuff isn't enough.
Even so I don't see how is that bad gameplay wise for non-naval powers to struggle to capture coastal provinces. One of the points I made at the beginning in the thread was navies didn't felt important in warfare. And if having a navy helps and can make you hold a coastal fort then it's exactly what I want to go for.
Lest's not forget, assaulting forts was a thing and artillery usage too. Of course all of this will snowball into the problem that eu4 sieges don't work at all for a system like this. Forts use magic manpower, artillery for some obscure reason isn't available in 1444 and assaulting forts barely makes sense and it's always bad unless the fort has less than 1k garrison. Then you gotta balance it out so its hard to supply coastal forts too... This is kinda why I avoided to suggest any idea of supplying troops using navy and suggesting forts could be resupplied in the main post, it snowballs and looks more like an idea of eu5.

 

[Xary Moft]

About conditional military accesses, I can understand a country allowing another to go to its war goal, and the enenmy country retaliating by using the same route. A malus kind of like in Civilization (I cannot believe I cited this game…) where the relationship decreases when sovereignty is violated can be envisioned, but more than that why should the third party supply the intervening army?

To me, this should translate to increased attrition for the enemy country trying to pass through the third party, even movement speed decrease and it could be argued that the « invaded » neutral country should have the option to become temporarily hostile towards the aggressor, maybe even closing its forts.

I do really like those ideas since they are flexible and would create a good diplomatic dynamic between neutral countries you trying to pass though to invade someone. For example it can lead to a situation like this, austria is at war with poland and asks military access from hungary (which has good relations). Poland then tries to use the same route austria, the diference being hungary rivaled poland and so their troops would be met with increased hostility ergo (like you said) attrition.
Well even after that, I still think tho the AI should at minimum refrain to give military access to anyone without having a significante positive relations with that country.

About straits, I think a good compromise between the old formula by which fleets made crossing them impossible and the current one which make the Bosphorus or even Gibraltar cross able even though a massive fleet blocks it would be that having the control of the sea would give a massive malus in combat, maybe as far as -5, meaning that you are clearly not supposed to cross that strait while there are ennemies on the other side and they have naval dominance. That would be a niche effect, though, since it would only apply if there is an army on the other side which didn’t yet took the province. Still, defending the Dardanelles from an amphibious assault would be much easier.

That idea is almost perfect but yeah like you said, its a very niche effect and a bit situational. And the irony with a better maneuver general than your opponent you could probably bypass that malus. Maybe we can use a similar idea of that, armies could still cross those straits (Gibraltar and bosphorus) but they would take an insane damage by doing so and would cross the strait slower. How much that would be and how they would take the game is up for debate. One possibility is attrition and I think it should be a minimum of 10%, any less than that it wont discourage the players to not cross the strait. While the movement penalty could be -50%.