[HttT] Please bring ping-ponging back!

[Timmetie]

I love the new system. I was fighting france as spain and I think I've had 50k men wiped out and literaly no troops left in the mainland twice now. It's not just lower ping pong but the AI does seem smarter, it does follow up and follow armies around until they're fully dead. Although if they had handled the follow up sieges and taking down of my armies better france would have totally won. Instead they had a 30k army taking losses (it was late 15th century) to artrition somewhere and 2k armies everywhere else I just took out whilest taking back my cities.

 

[Merrivale]

It is not all that good, I mean my 6k army was destroyed by 1k infantry that was recruited while I attempted to assault a fortress. That is just wrong if you ask me. At least make it so that the attacker most have numerical advantage to do such a thing.

I do think it would be nice to have the ability to stop an assault if you want to. It makes sense, you're basically retreating from a battle and resuming the siege. Maybe in 4.1?

 

[semaphore]

It is not all that good, I mean my 6k army was destroyed by 1k infantry that was recruited while I attempted to assault a fortress. That is just wrong if you ask me. At least make it so that the attacker most have numerical advantage to do such a thing.

I actually like that, it's sad and hilarious at the same time. Think of it as an exhausted and depleted assault force destroyed by defenders sallying out

 

[Riddermark]

Yeah these things will be amusing the first 50 times. Then what?

 

[gord96]

i am new to EU3. What is ping-pong? Is it something new to HttT? I just have EU3 with the first 2 expansions.

Thanks!

 

[jordarkelf]

It's the endless cycle of defeated armies retreating to a neighbouring province, being defeated again and retreating, and so on. In pre-HTTT this continues for what seems like forever, until they're either finally destroyed (which can take ages), or somehow can no longer retreat.

 

[semaphore]

Yeah these things will be amusing the first 50 times. Then what?

Hopefully we'll learn by the third time to not assault something without overwhelming force

i am new to EU3. What is ping-pong? Is it something new to HttT? I just have EU3 with the first 2 expansions.

Thanks!

Ping pong refers to a situation where Army A defeats Army B, but then fails to completely destroy the latter. B will retreat to another province, A will chase after it and defeat it again, then B retreats again with A in pursuit, and thus the two armies will just keep ping ponging from one province to another.

This used to be very common, but the changes through the expansion have largely eliminated it. I've never actually had a problem with it; it was quite for me personally. All that is required to beat this is for the player assemble a overwhelming force in order to eliminate the enemy through the 10:1 rule, or wait for the morale of the enemy to rise so that they won't break combat immediately. Indeed it works in your favour by helping you preserve your armies against very unfavourable odds (AI).

But it is understandbly frustrating to some/most players so over the expansions Paradox have largely eliminated it.

EDIT: ah beaten to it, gotta learn to be more concise.

 

[vertinox]

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?

I've learned to avoid fighting the AI's super stacks if they present them but to retreat until they break them up or die off because of attrition and strike them one at a time.

Of course this entails I have somewhere to run to.

 

[ForVictory]

Shouldnt archers get offensive fire instead of offensive shock?

 

[George LeS]

Shouldnt archers get offensive fire instead of offensive shock?

Yes. That's one of the 1st things I'm going to put in from my 3.2 mod. Right after the leaders.

 

[luitzen]

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...

No

 

[unmerged(11600)]

There was a battle in an Austro-Turkish war where a clearly superior Austrian army was crossing a river in the fog, and lost to ... themselves.

-Pat

 

[DarthJF]

The new battle system is great! It finally makes battles decisive and even fixes the all cavalry army syndrome. Wars are a lot more fun now.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Hopefully we'll learn by the third time to not assault something without overwhelming force





Ping pong refers to a situation where Army A defeats Army B, but then fails to completely destroy the latter. B will retreat to another province, A will chase after it and defeat it again, then B retreats again with A in pursuit, and thus the two armies will just keep ping ponging from one province to another.

This used to be very common, but the changes through the expansion have largely eliminated it. I've never actually had a problem with it; it was quite for me personally. All that is required to beat this is for the player assemble a overwhelming force in order to eliminate the enemy through the 10:1 rule, or wait for the morale of the enemy to rise so that they won't break combat immediately. Indeed it works in your favour by helping you preserve your armies against very unfavourable odds (AI).

But it is understandbly frustrating to some/most players so over the expansions Paradox have largely eliminated it.

EDIT: ah beaten to it, gotta learn to be more concise.

Even if the old "ping-ponging" system of pre-HttT versions had not frustrated players with too much micro-management, I think it was still unrealistic for a number of reasons:

- it prevented decisive battles.
- it often resulted in armies running around every province in a country, covering an unrealistic amount of ground.
- enemy armies would begin seiges in far off provinces, just because they had retreated so far.
- and perhaps most unrealistic of all: armies would sometimes retreat in one direction, then retreat again after a follow-up defeat -in the direction they just retreated from. In other words, they'd do a 180 degree retreat INTO the enemy army that had just forced them to retreat.

The new system is a fantastic improvement. Maybe it'll be tweaked a bit in patches, but the overall improvement makes EUIII so much more enjoyable, realistic and satisfying.

 

[semaphore]

- it prevented decisive battles.
- it often resulted in armies running around every province in a country, covering an unrealistic amount of ground.
- enemy armies would begin seiges in far off provinces, just because they had retreated so far.
- and perhaps most unrealistic of all: armies would sometimes retreat in one direction, then retreat again after a follow-up defeat -in the direction they just retreated from. In other words, they'd do a 180 degree retreat INTO the enemy army that had just forced them to retreat.

Actually, with proper positioning you could avoid both the first and second point. Personally I could usually wipe an enemy force out by the third battle. Ping pong only happens if the player lets it, by agreeing to engage in pointless pursuits chasing after retreating enemies with slow units. That said, at this stage the debate is largely academic, and I'm by no means defending the old system. As I've stated, I can understand why it could be frustrating.

 

[jdrou]

Shouldnt archers get offensive fire instead of offensive shock?

In the unmodded game, 'fire' only means 'gunfire', not archery.

 

[Chamboozer]

The only thing I dislike about the combat system is that you either inflict very low casualties to the enemy, or entirely destroy their army. I've seen no battle so far with high casualties but the army successfully retreats.

 

[Fookison]

The new battle system is great! It finally makes battles decisive and even fixes the all cavalry army syndrome. Wars are a lot more fun now.

+1
The new system is far superior from first glance.

 

[Darkrenown]

The only thing I dislike about the combat system is that you either inflict very low casualties to the enemy, or entirely destroy their army. I've seen no battle so far with high casualties but the army successfully retreats.

From my VEN AAR:

 

[enf91]

And your WE went up higher than BOH's. Is the manpower difference that much greater or is there something else?