How do you defeat another large empire?

[bitparity]

I've been embroiled in a long long war with egypt. And while I've definitely been winning, it's been filled with slow brutal 4-5 year wars of attrition to gain 1-2 provinces between truces.

I've attempted amphibious landings in the rear with a large force to distract from the main attack, but they inevitably end up being cut off from any resupply, and subsequently destroyed.

I thought about pushing an actual frontline while having mopup troops in the back to lay siege, but even in defeat, egyptian armies keep slipping behind the "front" to regroup in the rear, and then resiege a taken town.

There's just too much manpower, and the only reason I win is because I have more than them, and a higher tech, and I bleed them dry. But at the end of each war, we're both tapped out, and it starts over again in 5 years once the truce is up.

Is there a better way?

 

[Nisco]

First, what country are you playing as? A tactic I always use is to make sure that the general with the highest martial skill is in the biggest army that should push the enemy's army back so my smaller armies would have time to siege.

 

[bitparity]

I am playing as Rome, and believe me, only generals with martial of 8-10 make it into my big stack army.

As noted before though, you don't really have control over where a defeated army is going to head. So even though you have a nice front line going,t hey can choose to retreat right past the front to the back of your lines, to reconsolidate and resiege.

 

[bitparity]

Maybe a corollary question is, how does the computer AI do it? Because they seem to be able to carry the fight far more effectively than me.

 

[lucaluca]

I'm having the same problem as Egypt against the Seleucids... it's 630 AUC and after 5-6 wars we are at a stalemate still... I lost a couple of wars and they won a couple... Last war they went to 0 manpower and I was still at >100... but it didn't help much, they keep having some reinforcement while i was getting drained invading their lands with level 3 forts. I was able to gain one province only

I try to have several fronts... Syria/Asia Minor(held by me and my ally Tylis) and north (held by another ally Cholchis)... but i can't create huge inroads in their lands... they have better generals, better armies, better morale due to higher religious power, they use intrigue to assassinate my generals... War AI is really amazing in this game except maybe managing attrition (still does a good job at that though).

A problem with generals with martial >8, many of them get the become ruler/are ambitious/assertive and i have to get rid of them before it's too late...

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Just keep doing whatever you're doing, but at the same time, repeatedly smear their king's reputation and assassinate their best generals and/or instigate low-loyalty governors to revolt.

Basically, try to keep them busy with revolts and civil wars while you keep up your conquests.

It should be noted however that whatever you do, large AI empires will remain a monarchic pain in the rear end.

 

[bitparity]

Maybe this belongs in the mod forum, but is there anyway to mod the settings to have armies be destroyed more easily? My current inclination is maybe event based? Where if one side decides to retreat there's a random chance of the army being captured or disbanded due to routing. Or maybe if it'd be possible to detect a discrepancy in morale, like if both sides fought to the bitter end of their morale, a retreat is allowed whereas if one side's morale was far better it'd be a capture? etc.

Which I think is more historically accurate. When one side lost a particularly epic battle, where everyone was killed, the entire country could be lost.

 

[Achab]

Maybe this belongs in the mod forum, but is there anyway to mod the settings to have armies be destroyed more easily? My current inclination is maybe event based? Where if one side decides to retreat there's a random chance of the army being captured or disbanded due to routing. Or maybe if it'd be possible to detect a discrepancy in morale, like if both sides fought to the bitter end of their morale, a retreat is allowed whereas if one side's morale was far better it'd be a capture? etc.

Which I think is more historically accurate. When one side lost a particularly epic battle, where everyone was killed, the entire country could be lost.

Already replied to you in the mod subforum, but want to underline even here that the armies can be anihilated after a badly lost battle.

Regarding the history, in the 2nd Punic War Rome kept losing one epic battle after another with entire armies massacred and the country still survived.

 

[bitparity]

While I agree that the romans were able to carry on after brutal defeats, the main difference during the 2nd punic was Hannibal was in enemy territory without a clear supply line or support from his leadership, the carthaginian senate.

I mean just look at Cannae's opposite, Zama. One decisive battle, Romans had a clear supply line to prosecute a siege on carthage, clear manpower and will. War was over, carthage had to cede spain and sicily.

I don't know how much of a history buff you are, but I can also point to the example of the Battle of Yarmouk, where after the Eastern Romans lost against the Muslims, they had to cede Egypt and Syria which they never recovered.

Their best troops were killed off so no one was left to prosecute an offensive war to take those territories back. It'd be generations before they could even attempt it.

Also, many thanks for the tip in mods. =)

 

[lucaluca]

While I agree that the romans were able to carry on after brutal defeats, the main difference during the 2nd punic was Hannibal was in enemy territory without a clear supply line or support from his leadership, the carthaginian senate.

I mean just look at Cannae's opposite, Zama. One decisive battle, Romans had a clear supply line to prosecute a siege on carthage, clear manpower and will. War was over, carthage had to cede spain and sicily.

I don't know how much of a history buff you are, but I can also point to the example of the Battle of Yarmouk, where after the Eastern Romans lost against the Muslims, they had to cede Egypt and Syria which they never recovered.

Their best troops were killed off so no one was left to prosecute an offensive war to take those territories back. It'd be generations before they could even attempt it.

Also, many thanks for the tip in mods. =)

Another example is the 1st syrian war... and many others. Wars in paradox games are not really plausible... but i bet it's for gameplay balance... if one battle decided the course of the war, all we'd have to do would be to amass the largest possible army with the best general and don't consider attrition...

Naval battles on the other hand are more realistic, usually fleets are wiped out in 1-2 battles if the size difference is high.

 

[bitparity]

Well keep in mind this mechanic would work both ways. For you and against you. But if there's one thing I've learned in my recent war with egypt (which was the origin of this thread) is that defensive warfare works wonders.

So the way I imagine it, there's a large decisive battle, lets say i lose. I lose my ability to prosecute an offensive war because that army is destroyed. Afterwards I scramble to reform legions, but because I am now on the defensive, it takes less times to rush my troops to the front than for the enemy to send new legions there. And as a defensive war, I choose where to fight, and I pick the mountain/river provinces.

If the enemy army loses while I'm on ground of my choosing, their offensive grinds to a halt. If I lose this defensive war, the war is completely over and I lose.

I would say that sounds much more historically accurate, and plausible with a bloodier battle dynamic and more army collapses after a loss.

 

[Cheexsta]

To defeat a large empire, these are the steps I usually follow:

1. Have a few good generals. In desperate situations, you can even consider releasing an imprisoned character who has a high Martial skill if he's the best you have. Just be ready to bribe them back to loyalty if necessary.
2. Find a good defensive position. Chances are that your enemy has higher manpower and bigger armies, so don't be afraid to block straits or sit behind rivers to get that massive defensive bonus.
3. If the enemy is not landlocked, get naval superiority as soon as you can. This is something good to focus on in peacetime when you're trying to rebuild your manpower reserves.
4. Look for enemy provinces which supply large amounts of manpower. If those provinces are adjacent to other countries, see if you can get military access to those countries and drop off a couple of armies so as to reduce attrition. Let them reinforce before marching on the enemy provinces.
5. For a less direct approach, get a character with the highest Finesse value possible (remember to let people achieve their ambitions if you want to improve this) and smear the reputation of their ruler. This works best agains monarchies and tribes; skip this step if your enemy is a republic.
6. Follow up by encouraging the disloyalty of their generals and governors. Focus especially on the governors of regions with high manpower provinces and generals leading large armies.
7. If the enemy's manpower drops to below about 10% of its original level, you can probably start the offensive, provided you have enough manpower. If sieging lots of lvl3 forts, try to form strong defensive siege lines along rivers and let small merc armies besiege everything behind the line. Have a reserve army or two to take on any enemies that manage to punch through or to reinforce your front lines if necessary (cavalry armies work best for this).
8. Don't expect huge swathes of land in your peace settlement, so there's little point in occupying the entire country. As soon as the enemy starts offering a favourable peace deal (ie they start offering provinces or money), start making your own demands. The AI will accept anything up to 10 points more than your actual warscore if it's clear they're losing, and if you have >40 warscore then any peace deal worth less than the warscore will incur a -1 stability penalty on the enemy if they decline. Enemies with low stability are also more likely to accept peace

Hope that helps.

 

[unmerged(189088)]

if you have >40 warscore then any peace deal worth less than the warscore will incur a -1 stability penalty on the enemy if they decline.

Didn't know about this one!

I'll try it in my Pergamon game, to accelerate SE's decay. Thanks!

 

[lucaluca]

i was finally able to have a crushing victory against the seleucids in a 20 years long devastating war... first i used mercenary armies to fight a mainly defensive war and let their manpower drain, then i attacked with all the armies i had and was able to raise a coupe more of 35k strong mercenary armies (mercenaries become very expensive and slow to raise the more you raise them).

I was able to occupy most of their provinces, wanted to occupy them all to have the 100% warscore (they still had 1 strong army left so it would have been a few more years) but started having rebellions and governor defections, and had to settle for 4 provinceso

The big problem again is the generals becoming disloyal and getting the become ruler ambition, i had to resign most of them and put 5 martial generals in charge.

I usually have all armies of similar size (25-35), i will try the strategy cheexta pointed out of having a strong line and small armies behind to besiege. War in this game is very WWI/WWII like, it's all about building a front and encirclement... now i feel compelled to go play HoI

 

[Camara]

Yes, generals wanting to become rulers in the middle of a war is very annoying, as most of them or everyone will have that ambition soon or later because of the loyal soldiers hit in loyalty (MASSIVE hit). Maybe worked somehow to make them keep the loyalty if at war with a big country? Then suffer the loyalty hit at peace.

 

[lucaluca]

Yes, generals wanting to become rulers in the middle of a war is very annoying, as most of them or everyone will have that ambition soon or later because of the loyal soldiers hit in loyalty (MASSIVE hit). Maybe worked somehow to make them keep the loyalty if at war with a big country? Then suffer the loyalty hit at peace.

i think that's ok... for Rome and other republics. That was what pretty much started to happen as the armies grew bigger and the allegiance to the leader increased... IMO monarchies should have civil wars mainly from dynastic issues, i.e. at every succession there should be a huge chance of civil war if the heir is not strong enough... while civil wars from generals should be much less common.

Maybe this could be achieved by adding a a government type trigger to the become ruler ambition? But even if the pretenders and other royal family members have that ambition, they hardly start a civil war and if they do it's usually a weak one and easily crushed...

On a related note, i was looking at the internal politics events and noticed that some of the monarchy events don't fire for imperium government, is this WAD?

 

[Puritan]

Any tips specifically against Rome? I am playing Macedonia.

I 'accidentially' got a border with them when I annexed Epirus and Syracuase. For some reason they were allied with Carthage, so I had two monster fleets to defeat. I was able to take the rest of sicily and some islands from Carthage, but I can't make any headway against Rome, my MP is gone.

Blockades don't seem to hurt them much. It's only a matter of time before we border in Dalmatia.

Edit: I got it. The Romans love heavy infantry,so I switched half of my army over to horse-archers. Led by a 10 marital general, standing behind a river, pure murder. I'd have converted more, but most of my army is loyal to this guy. He's only just turned 40... He's going to be a bigger problem than the Romans in 10 years...

 

[unmerged(114757)]

Edit: I got it. The Romans love heavy infantry,so I switched half of my army over to horse-archers. Led by a 10 marital general, standing behind a river, pure murder. I'd have converted more, but most of my army is loyal to this guy. He's only just turned 40... He's going to be a bigger problem than the Romans in 10 years...

Lovely. It's one of the better 'How to do' description I've read.

By the way, what bonuses does loyal troops give on battlefield?

 

[Puritan]

Lovely. It's one of the better 'How to do' description I've read.

By the way, what bonuses does loyal troops give on battlefield?

I'm not sure if I am misunderstanding the tool-tip; either the character is paying part of their upkeep, or is paying them extra.

Either way you cannot disband/combine cohorts with a personal allegiance. I have a similar problem in my Achaean League game, except it's just 4 militia that I'm stuck with.

 

[Barsoom]

Playing Rome from the earliest starting date, I find Egypt and the Seleucids usually consolidate their positions before I can get there. Best I could do was to rush eastward through Greece and take both Pontus and Colchis before the Seleucids did, while taking Spain from Carthage so I could defend the straits against Egypt. Then they allied. Three more wars, including one intervention in a civil war among the Seleucids and I have taken most of modern Turkey, but no more. I hold the European coasts (I've held off on colonizing the inlands), the Bosporus states, as well as Turkey; Egypt holds all of Africa; and the Seleucids have the Middle East from Damascus to the Caucasus. Not a bad situation but it leads to endless great power wars for little gain. I think the smaller powers north of the Seleucids are supposed to make life hard for them but instead they fall easily. Meanwhile Carthage is no match for Egypt. Is there anything I can do to prevent this concentration of power? I only managed to get to Colchis early because I warred when at negative manpower, so I don't see what I could have done.