How did this bastard beat me every time?

[Ciniod]

Like seriously. Fighting a holy war against a weaker slavic neighbour, for the first time ever he is weak and only has 2k troops, and im defending in a war against norse denmark, and im winnning, and so my holy order doesnt cost money. I think hey lets attack this guy he is weak and I hate his guts since he has been a constant nuicance, and here I have a 4k troop holy order with a lot of HI. So I attack, he calls in allies so his total strenght now is about 4k, no problem. And then I defend behind a major freaking river, with 18+ marshal score commanders on each flank, 2 of them having defensive bonus. He has 4100 troops against my 4000, I think this will be a victory, maybe a costly one but ill win. But im freaking wrong, a bit later im sitting here with 2000 troops left after losing, and only having caused 400 losses to the enemy. And he didnt even have commanders in 2 of his flanks ffs!
Seriously, how did I lose that? My troops were way superior, HI against his LI (No archers). And defending across a major river with better commanders.
And obviously this loses me 50 freaking warscore, awesome. I decide, well whatever, ill go at his 3700 troops with my 4500 now (Vassal + personal levies + holy order), but wrong again. Now with superior troop counts, better commanders, defending across the same major river and I still lose, killing only 300 troops this time, left with 2000 troops again. Like what????
This is like the final straw for me, here I decided to just give myself 300 cash and hire a merc band to again have 4500 troops, and nope, now with 3600 troops against my 4500 he again beats me, with the same penalties as previously. Like what is going on?? I now basicly rage because this guy has caused me huge amounts of problems before, and now that I finaly should be able to easily beat him, he destroys me. So I just give myself 1000 cash this time and go at the problem with 7000 troops (he now has 4000 again). And the battles that previously gave him 50, 37 and 30 war score, now gives me 15??? Are you serious? Also I didnt lose because of those battles as I had won a few previously
This war was so not worth it, once this is done im eradicating his filthy disgusting dynasty off the face of the earth, all the males I mean, and then forcefully taking all their women as my concubines, and the kids I will sacrifice to summon Cthulu again to crush the rest of the filthy Slav's.
Oh and im on my third character as the King of Eesti (Estonia) now, as a reformed Suomenusko.


(TL;DR: Some Filthy Slavic kept destroying me even with worse commanders, major river penalty and same amount or less troops, with also LI against my HI. And him winning battles against me gives him loads of warscore, while me winning slightly larger battles gives me less. So now I decide to eradicate the male lineage of his dynasty, take their women as concubines (forcefully) and sacrifice their kids to Cthulu. Also I cheated myself cash because this was stupid and pissing me off, though it is the first and only time I will cheat in this campaign.)

 

[Narvait]

Slavic homeland bonus?
Maybe Winter Warrior trait on center general, that one is op as f.ck.

 

[Ciniod]

Slavic homeland bonus?
Maybe Winter Warrior trait on center general, that one is op as f.ck.

Only one of the battles were during winter, and that was the one I won. And I dont think the leader had winter warrior, My current ruler is like the only dude who has that trait.
Also it might have been slavic homeland bonus, but still, how does that beat better leaders, better troops and all that other stuff?

 

[Narvait]

80%+ to defense might help

 

[Ciniod]

80%+ to defense might help

Still though, I had HI against an all LI army, over a major river with major bonuses to me. If +80% is really that much it seems like you need like double army size to ever beat them, no matter other modifiers.

 

[StarSword]

Still though, I had HI against an all LI army, over a major river with major bonuses to me. If +80% is really that much it seems like you need like double army size to ever beat them, no matter other modifiers.

To clarify the modifier he's referring to, it's a terrain bonus that unreformed defensive pagans (Slavic, Romuva, Suomenusko, and West African) get any time they fight in a province of the same majority religion.

I've found that the easiest way to beat unreformed defensive pagans is to let them take the initiative. Take your time forming up your doomstack and let them start besieging your holdings. They'll be slow to capture your castles, and if you've done your homework converting your provinces it will remove the buff and you can steamroll them with your superior army and then move into your war target unopposed (as long as you've got a war chest of 20 gold per province to build forts to negate pagan attrition). I've suckered multiple Suomenusko and Romuva rulers this way as Reformed Slavic.

 

[JonathanOfArc]

Are you possibly clicking somewhere on the map while having your army selected and they are fighting? It would cause them to retreat, and lose the battle. It's not something that has happened often to me, but it has caused an accidental total defeat here and there.

 

[balmung60]

To clarify the modifier he's referring to, it's a terrain bonus that unreformed defensive pagans (Slavic, Romuva, Suomenusko, and West African) get any time they fight in a province of the same majority religion.

I've found that the easiest way to beat unreformed defensive pagans is to let them take the initiative. Take your time forming up your doomstack and let them start besieging your holdings. They'll be slow to capture your castles, and if you've done your homework converting your provinces it will remove the buff and you can steamroll them with your superior army and then move into your war target unopposed (as long as you've got a war chest of 20 gold per province to build forts to negate pagan attrition). I've suckered multiple Suomenusko and Romuva rulers this way as Reformed Slavic.

Actually, even reformed pagans keep the homeland defensive bonus. The only military changes that defensive pagans get on reformation are that they lose the turboattrition and, except for West African, they trade 10% of their garrison bonus for 10% more levies.

Still though, I had HI against an all LI army, over a major river with major bonuses to me. If +80% is really that much it seems like you need like double army size to ever beat them, no matter other modifiers.

Pretty much. +80% defense makes them nearly twice as hard to kill. Defense modifiers are huge.

Also, what are the traits of your generals and your enemy's general? If your guy has 18 martial, but no military modifier-giving traits or no relevant traits (eg. cavalry leader when you don't have a single horseman), then his high martial isn't really doing much.

 

[Ciniod]

Actually, even reformed pagans keep the homeland defensive bonus. The only military changes that defensive pagans get on reformation are that they lose the turboattrition and, except for West African, they trade 10% of their garrison bonus for 10% more levies.


Pretty much. +80% defense makes them nearly twice as hard to kill. Defense modifiers are huge.

Also, what are the traits of your generals and your enemy's general? If your guy has 18 martial, but no military modifier-giving traits or no relevant traits (eg. cavalry leader when you don't have a single horseman), then his high martial isn't really doing much.

His 1 leader has no traits and 15 martial. While my left flank had defensive, center had winter warrior + HI leader, right had HI leader. center guy being 16 martial, the other two 21 martial.
Also it stills seems extremly stupid that 4000 light infantry would win against 4000 heavy infantry (I think might have had like 1000 archers/3000 HI), even with +80% defence. Especialy if I was beating similar fights against other slavic people, with also no troop advantage or very little troop advantage (and the other slavic people actualy had leaders most of the time with me attacking into them instead of me defending behind a major river.)
And even bigger thing, it was in the melee phase I was losing, like them killing 60 soldiers a day while I only managed to kill like 5. Even though HI should excell in melee.

Oh, and a bit hard to stay on the defensive in my own homeland when the warscore is slowly ticking against me and the enemy doesnt push me ever, so I either lose to ticking warscore or to stupid battles that dont make any sense.