How is combat handled?

[whatusername]

How is the combat in this game handled? Can we surround enemies now? I remember one of the reasons I didn't like EU3 much was because if I managed to surround an enemy, it could slip through my armies and I had to chase it across the map until it disintegrated

 

[unmerged(15623)]

Although, surrounding enemy in a strategic pocket is quite a bit out of period, it would be interesting (if unpropable) to see cutting lines of communication have some effect.

Aside of that, it would be nice if truly brilliant generals would sometimes generate battle events that cause enemy's army to be entirely annihilated. And, in fact, seeing such an event in EUR wouldn't be a big suprise, Cannae being pretty much most famous battle during the game's time period.

 

[unmerged(51416)]

Encirclement on few provinces scale would be hardly historical in this time period. However, battles will be most likely very decisive - many wars were settled by single battle.

 

[whatusername]

Yeah I guess the encirclement thing for this game is pretty unlikely, but it really annoyed me when I put all my armies in place with the enemy forced to a decisive battle, only to have them run around my home provinces and sieging them like raging gorillas

Maybe the game could make the loss of a battle very damaging to an armies morale and take a few weeks to get back up.

 

[unmerged(51416)]

Great idea This would mean essentially end of war if enemy is unable to support his military effort with another army.

Good solution would be to make those immediate retreats of low-morale armies very damaging for their manpower, in similar way to EU2...

 

[Namm]

Instead of a gazillion small armies that you have to click on until they cease to drive you insane (not a given), I hope small retreating armies are added to the province revolt risk or otherwise abstracted.

 

[unmerged(95074)]

Ancient warfare was all about the pitched battle last time I checked. When you initiated contact there wasn't much more you could. There were skirmishes before all of this but they were not that important. The whole maneuvers were as to where you'd confront the enemy, on what terrain, and in what formation, etc. Armies could spend days watching each others before the commanders decided to fight or not. There could be some surprise attacks such as Caesar's jumping on the gaul lines. I'm not sure about the warfare in EU's timeframe and if it is well represented at all in the game, but the system should be different, at any rate. You can't engage a mass of men in melee and then just pull back, they'd all just get cut down as they try to escape, it makes sense.

 

[Mavs]

Although, surrounding enemy in a strategic pocket is quite a bit out of period, it would be interesting (if unpropable) to see cutting lines of communication have some effect.

Aside of that, it would be nice if truly brilliant generals would sometimes generate battle events that cause enemy's army to be entirely annihilated. And, in fact, seeing such an event in EUR wouldn't be a big suprise, Cannae being pretty much most famous battle during the game's time period.

Yes, but ONLY if Rome has a different system of hiring leaders and prevents nations from easily obtaining three or more super-leaders (5-6-5-1 or something...)

As for losing a battle, maybe there should be a simple extra percentage of damage to the losing force in relevance to its overall size, the enemy's overall size, and each side's number of cavalry.