Huge armies too easy to move too far (especially overseas)

[William Shakens]

I've always felt it's too easy to have huge armies fighting too far from owned provinces, which I think may be partially addressed by the upcoming forts mechanics/Zone of Control. I think big armies deep within enemy territory for a long time should have more attrition or something.

But I feel this is especially true overseas. Europowers Transporting 20-60 thousand soldiers to East Asia, America etc. by 1550 and having them disembark and fight all over the territory like it's nothing, crushing less advanced nations... I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any of that would have been plausible during most of the game's timespan.

The colonization of the Americas, etc was not the imperialistic wars of the 19th C. These countries didn't have that much capacity at the time logistically and otherwise. The colonization of North America and wars against the tribes in a massive way only exploded after US independence, the Spanish colonies gained their independence and it's not like Spain had the capacity to send a hundred thousand troops overseas to prevent that (and it was already late 18th-early 19th C.) For the Opium Wars, for instance, GB mobilized a maximum of 50.000 men... and it was 1850+ already, and the British dominion in India was well established.

...I've seen Portugal and Castille attacking Manchu by 1600, with 25.000 men each like it's no big deal.

I don't know how to implement this in-game, some kind of penalties to attrition or embarked troops, depending on distance from supply lines, ships taking damage in coastal overseas provinces when in war, more penalties when fighting overseas.... I don't know, but I'd definitely welcome something like that in "common sense 2"

 

[FloatingOrb]

Another conflict between history and game mechanics. In my opinion big armies is simply more fun than otherwise, and like the present system. Besides, there is already a pretty heafty attrition built in, and reinforcements are SUPER slow.

 

[William Shakens]

A fair opinion, thank you.

 

[legoras]

Armies should got something like ships (if you are too long at sea, you will start losing units)... so armies= if you are too long/far from your territory/ally/vasal etc, you will start lose units - desertion, disease, supply problems.

 

[wergy]

I completely agree that armies move too fast. I fact I would almost double up the movement time between two provinces, regardless of where they are.

 

[cloudwasher]

I've had an iron man game not too long ago where I was stuck shaking my head and quitting the game in anger because of this very problem... I was playing as the Incans and had been united and getting ready for the Europeans to attack, and it was the French who finally did. What ended up happening was a 5 year long war of me barely winning when I could bait them into attacking me on a mountain and otherwise running away, until they finally depleted my manpower. The part that made me most angry though was that at the finally count they had 80,000 of the total 90,000 French troops down in South America attacking me for several years without anyone in Europe declaring war or taking advantage of basically the entire French army being on the other side of the world. There is no way historically that any European nation would've deployed ~90% of their total military to a war fought exclusively on another continent in the 1540s, and if for some crazy reason they had then every one of their neighbors would be invading. There needs to be some kind of an AI cap where they'll only deploy a certain % of their military to an offensive war taking place on another continent.

 

[William Shakens]

I've had an iron man game not too long ago where I was stuck shaking my head and quitting the game in anger because of this very problem... I was playing as the Incans and had been united and getting ready for the Europeans to attack, and it was the French who finally did. What ended up happening was a 5 year long war of me barely winning when I could bait them into attacking me on a mountain and otherwise running away, until they finally depleted my manpower. The part that made me most angry though was that at the finally count they had 80,000 of the total 90,000 French troops down in South America attacking me for several years without anyone in Europe declaring war or taking advantage of basically the entire French army being on the other side of the world. There is no way historically that any European nation would've deployed ~90% of their total military to a war fought exclusively on another continent in the 1540s, and if for some crazy reason they had then every one of their neighbors would be invading. There needs to be some kind of an AI cap where they'll only deploy a certain % of their military to an offensive war taking place on another continent.

Absolutely. Hey, and I very rarely play american natives despite having this thought.

I can only imagine what it's like for people who play them, must be a complete nightmare to have so many Eurotroops there at such an early date.

 

[jdavis86]

It is frustrating enough watching how armies move around Europe with ease, much less the rest of the world.

Nothing like engaging a stack only to have the AI move 100k+ from around Europe in time to finish the battle.

 

[happymix91]

I'm agree withy you. Two most critical problems in war of EU are free concentration of power to just one side of country and free dispatching of army to far, far place from home country.

Think about you are a soldier of Russia at 17th century. Capitan comes to you, and says "You should go through Siberia and attack China!" If the whole army size were more than 10,000, the country at 17th century couldn't maintain it across Siberia.

But you are a soldier of army which is composed with 40,000! Your fate is decided. Starve to death or freeze to death. There is no one who follows decided death. But in EU, no one goes to death and everyone follows any order from player.

But this problem can't be easily fixed under current engine of game, and we must deal with it.

 

[WSnova]

Yeah the game desperately needs a supply system, even a simple one would do, so does CK2 but since this covers more landmass its more ridiculous. Western powers end up not being better but they also are more...

And yeah armies travel too fast and battles last too long, but well with each tick being 1 day long I think its an acceptable compromise.

 

[William Shakens]

Think about you are a soldier of Russia at 17th century. Capitan comes to you, and says "You should go through Siberia and attack China!".

lol

 

[Ojodeaguila]

1. The game need a different land limit for each continent

2. For example if you want to invade lands in india you will need to take some provinces to increase your limit in the region, before you want to attack big kingdoms, It will be more realistic

3. You will not be able to invade the aztecs without taking first some zones of the caribean to supply your army, or you will have a very increased maintenance cost. Is a way to simulate the european limits in the colonial wars.

4. In the sevens years war the british will have a bigger army limit than the french and a good adventage for having more colonies than the french.

 

[toroltao]

Increase unit upkeep the further away they get from your provinces... problem maybe solved?

 

[Pitt The Elder]

Even within Europe, force projection needs to be a lot more expensive. Just look at Matthias Gallas, Destroyer of Armies.

 

[Powder hound]

I feel it is because warfare is an abstraction in an essentially diplomatic game, armies are more about power projection than reality especially in seaborne invasions.
Today is the anniversary of a certain event and if you take that as a benchmark you can see the disparity between games and history. D-Day just under seven thousand ships to land 125'000 troops ( I took out airborne forces of 24000) and a fairly short hop to Normandy!
Compare to the above 80k French in 1540 to fight the Incas In reality they would have been lucky to get 800 men there.
I would love to see more "realistic" attrition and movement and transportation, but it will not happen and certainly not until the AI can be programmed to realise that sending the Spanish Armada to Archangel is pretty dumb and certain death.

 

[Chamboozer]

While the OP is correct, one major problem is that the game gives us hardly any tools with which to gain native allies. If Britain wants to conquer India it has to conquer India, it can't gradually work its way into the continent through treaties with local rulers or by playing groups against one another - same with Spain arriving in the Americas, or an infinity of other examples. Europe's naval powers had far more tools to work with in reality than are provided by the game, but the game makes up for not providing these by letting their large armies go everywhere.

Just one of many problems that people often forget about when trying to make the game more "realistic" by focusing on one single issue.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

I agree very much.
I've made several posts pointing out the absurdness of any European power beating up Asian empires before the very end of the EUIV timespan.

A simple supply system would be welcome.

 

[Autoclave]

How do you ppl propose to implement supply logistics in game? You need a simplified model, which AI can easily understand and use while offering interesting choices to the player.

Lets not forget that naval attrition for AI was way too painful and difficult to make it work.

 

[Ojodeaguila]

Increase unit upkeep the further away they get from your provinces... problem maybe solved?

1. I think, Extra attrition out your own lands solve this, giving a penaly for having soldiers out your cores.

2. For the British have soldiers in Spain and Portugal during the napoleonic wars didnt be more costly than in England or Belgium.

 

[Ojodeaguila]

How do you ppl propose to implement supply logistics in game? You need a simplified model, which AI can easily understand and use while offering interesting choices to the player.

Lets not forget that naval attrition for AI was way too painful and difficult to make it work.

1. Yes, I think a continental unit limit is an easy way to do this, more complex sistems can be a problem