[HttT] Please bring ping-ponging back!

[delra]

Just kidding.

I really like how combat works now. And I really wish it was done earlier.

I need to be extra careful with my armies. Among other minor screw ups I've even managed to lose a 14k stack led by my king... in Moldavia, don't even ask me how. Wars are shorter and less irritating since my army can do besieging instead of having to chase enemy across the whole HRE. Now it's more like Samurai combat, first good hit usually means a victory.

If your main stack loses the big battle against their big stack AI, you may as well consider conceding the whole war unless you're feeling really lucky and think AI won't chase you. On the other hand if you win the first big fight, chase and win again the other country will be in a very very bad position. So preparation of your first army and also knowledge of enemy movements become more crucial than ever. Cause one bad call in the battlefield may cause your whole empire to fall.

I like this system of more decisive battles more than anything else in HttT.

Thx Paradox.

(waiting to get bashed by people who don't read posts, only thread titles)

 

[Romtos]

Me too, I just LOVED ping-pong.

(waiting to get bashed by people who don't read posts, only thread titles)

Haha, you didn't take this response into account.


Seriously, I agree. The system is great. I actually watch for the modifiers now. And wars are not about the largest MP pool.

 

[andb52]

Me too, I just LOVED ping-pong.

OMG WTF get off the forums lamer!

 

[Duke of Bavaria]

I actually still have ping-ponging...at least i had 7 fights against my rebels until a huge Bohemia army took them out.

 

[unmerged(147169)]

ping pong was a good sport

 

[ollobrains]

native american tribes are stuffed now with this change

 

[wright1331]

I will say i dont like the new combat system very much. Mainly because seiges are messed up now if you fail an attack.

I did an attack on a lvl 2 fort with 21k troops, I didn't win (somehow) but that isnt the bad part. Within a few days after my seige the province owner started to build a merc troop. This unit was finished within 10 days and upon this unit appearing I lost 17k troops (22 units) to this one newly made unit.

Is this what they wanted to see with this new battle system?

eitherway its funny and pretty stupid

 

[Darkrenown]

Keep a few cav with your siege force

 

[delra]

Imagine your army all wounded and tired after a battle, disorganised and without willingness to continue a fight after the slaughter they experienced just a few days back. Then suddenly they see defenders running at them in a surprise attack. They don't know it's just 1000 men, they can imagine it's 1 000 000 and they already have no will to fight whatsoever due to 0 morale after a lost assault...

They all run away or surrender immediately. Are happy they can rest now. After a while they will realize the stupidity of their surrender but it will come way too late to matter.

And on a more real life note, wtf is your cavalry doing not being with your main army? It was a big mistake to send them away. Mistake that would be forgiven in the old system but is punished severely with the new one so you avoid making it ever again.

 

[wright1331]

edit- deleted for the sake of a pointless arguement

 

[roman566]

fast assault exploit still works (at least in demo)

 

[Romtos]

edit- deleted for the sake of a pointless arguement

It was about raising a well timed 1000 mercenaries against AI being a worse exploit than day 1 DOW's, IIRC.

 

[Jerzul]

native american tribes are stuffed now with this change

They weren't before?

 

[unmerged(56576)]

Funny that you bring the subject of decisive battles. I am reading a book right now, "The Wars of Louis XIV", which exploits the strategy & and such of the wars of the League of Augsburg, Spanish Succession and so on. And here I think HttT hits the mark spot on: Louis and his advisors (mainly Vauban) favoured what in EUIII terms would be called a "Defensive" approach. They built fortresses all along the border, and did not play much the open battle card especially in the Netherlands, which had been a haven for positional warfare since at least the Eighty Years War.

What "ping-pong" avoided was precisely the decisive character of pitched battles. It was, say, not so mild - armies would ping pong across whole countries, and in the end you could always fight another day while the AI suffered attrition while sieging, whereas a more realistic approach would be of a more decisive character. This way disastrous defeats such as Poltava or Vienna would be realized: rather than having to fight twenty short lasting battles out across the whole map, one would suffice as such to cripple the war capacity of a nation decisively.

This is the dilemma that conscientiously "Offensive" players would have to face as part of their doctrine: rather than building a solid chain of fortresses and using slow attrition, a single decisive battle could end it all and leave an entire country undefended. But it could also mean that your armies are annihilated and in the end, your puny lvl.1 forts don't stand much of a chance against 20k infantry and artillery stacks in the 1700's.

 

[TubercularOx]

So I'm a slacker and won't get HttT until I finish my current IN game. I've no experience with it yet but this part does bother me. I've adapted my tactics to ping ponging and whether it's better or not I'm worried I'm not going to be able to adapt. Well, that's not true, I know how I'm going to adapt: micromanage my battles. How will the AI adapt?

 

[Beagá]

Well to make armies be annihilated in one battle isn´t the problem. I only think that maybe rolls should be "nerfed". Instead of going from 0-9, make them go between 1-8, or 1-7. Else, battles (and the fate of nations) would rely too much on sheer luck. One 0-9 dice roll = GG? Don´t really like the sound of it. I would only approve keeping the rolls if part of the defeated army would go back to the manpower poll.

I wouldn´t change the general rolls (that is, I would keep the stats probable range between 1-6).

 

[Duke of Bavaria]

Funny that you bring the subject of decisive battles. I am reading a book right now, "The Wars of Louis XIV", which exploits the strategy & and such of the wars of the League of Augsburg, Spanish Succession and so on. And here I think HttT hits the mark spot on: Louis and his advisors (mainly Vauban) favoured what in EUIII terms would be called a "Defensive" approach. They built fortresses all along the border, and did not play much the open battle card especially in the Netherlands, which had been a haven for positional warfare since at least the Eighty Years War.

What "ping-pong" avoided was precisely the decisive character of pitched battles. It was, say, not so mild - armies would ping pong across whole countries, and in the end you could always fight another day while the AI suffered attrition while sieging, whereas a more realistic approach would be of a more decisive character. This way disastrous defeats such as Poltava or Vienna would be realized: rather than having to fight twenty short lasting battles out across the whole map, one would suffice as such to cripple the war capacity of a nation decisively.

This is the dilemma that conscientiously "Offensive" players would have to face as part of their doctrine: rather than building a solid chain of fortresses and using slow attrition, a single decisive battle could end it all and leave an entire country undefended. But it could also mean that your armies are annihilated and in the end, your puny lvl.1 forts don't stand much of a chance against 20k infantry and artillery stacks in the 1700's.

But doesnt history tell us everytime a defensive war was expected a huge offensive destroyed all plans, while when offensive wars where planned they where halted to grinding defensive battles.
Perhaps the randomness often critiziced in paradox games is the perfect way to model that you cant predict wars or battles.

 

[King Nothing]

On a somewhat related note...

It feels like thay have done a radical swing in battle efficiency. Or something like that. Can't really come up with a proper name right now.
In IN what mattered was shock and a little fire rating. Morale was pretty much pointless for a lot of players.. That has probably shifted extremely now in HttT. Is morale the only thing you have to care about when choosing units now? And to further expand on that, is cavalry almost pointless now?

 

[TubercularOx]

Cavalry should still have the higher shock factors, and it should have a higher maneuverability factor, which means it harries flanks better. If you watch the little line up of troops on the battle screen, a cavalry regiment can attack an opposing regiment up to 2 regiments to the left or right, while an infantry regiment only one, so having cavalry on the flanks gives your troops more oomph than if you had just infantry. I can't remember where I read this so maybe I'm full of it.

 

[xGhost4000x]

Just kidding.

I really like how combat works now. And I really wish it was done earlier.

I need to be extra careful with my armies. Among other minor screw ups I've even managed to lose a 14k stack led by my king... in Moldavia, don't even ask me how. Wars are shorter and less irritating since my army can do besieging instead of having to chase enemy across the whole HRE. Now it's more like Samurai combat, first good hit usually means a victory.

If your main stack loses the big battle against their big stack AI, you may as well consider conceding the whole war unless you're feeling really lucky and think AI won't chase you. On the other hand if you win the first big fight, chase and win again the other country will be in a very very bad position. So preparation of your first army and also knowledge of enemy movements become more crucial than ever. Cause one bad call in the battlefield may cause your whole empire to fall.

I like this system of more decisive battles more than anything else in HttT.

Thx Paradox.

(waiting to get bashed by people who don't read posts, only thread titles)

Meh, the trick is that if your going to lose YOU initiate the retreat, that way you get to decide which province to retreat to and as a rule of thumb I ALWAYS campaign with an army following my primary for reinforcements, so if the AI follows your retreating army you have fresh troops to help in the fight.

But ya, battles are much better now.