I fail at wars, any reliable way to understand river crossings and other things.

[Neviskio]

Hey guys, I decided to break down and ask because I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, if any of the paradox guys are reading: PLEASE for the love of god, make better war tooltips/tutorials, half the things aren't really clear unless you check a wiki or ask...and yes I did read the manual and still...

so basically here's the deal, I'm half new to the grand strategy games, and I generally fare well, I'm currently playing a good dominating france game but I keep losing wars against austria unless I severely outnumber and outmaneuver them.

Now said this way it should be fine, instead I can't figure out why I keep losing some battles that I should be clearly winning:

I'm on a defense, I have the quality ideas for my nations, plenty of supply, a good stack of 35 man with 40% cavalry and 7 artillery, and a stack of 29 austrians comes to me.I think I am on a mountain or generally rough terrain, I have a general, although not a great one(2-2-2 which kinda means nothing to me since there are no tooltips explaining what shock is or why a lanhknekten is better or worse than another troop, but let's ignore this for a moment) they get a river crossing penalty for a -3.

I got destroyed they won with 1k losses I lost 15 thousand troops.What...the...

I just don't understand, I tried being aggressive and I lost due to river crossings which aren't clear, since yeah, I can see the rivers with the terrain map, but sometimes I just get random crossings when there is no river, and sometimes I do when passing, I should have a better stack since they have less troops and with less troops bonuses, and still I get destroyed.

I only lost wars to austria up to now unless I cheated and reloaded untill some strange magic happens and in similar battles I win.

Is there any way to have better feedback from the game? I can't understand a yellow or green dot on my units, that is not enough to explain the combat in the game.I had this issue in ck2 and eu3 too that generally makes me stop playing because the game doesn't teach you combat well enough...as you can read I'm really frustrated, I'm keeping watching let's plays and reading wikis/googling and half the things still don't make sense because the explanations are barebones at best <.<

edit: forgot to mention, we're both at 11 military tech, and even when I was at 11 and they were at 10, things were horrible... I also decided to load the save and check austria, they have a better leader than me 4-3-2, but they should not have a better army than me seeing their ideas/tech/composition...They went defense idea and I got quality, I really don't understand now <.<

 

[ejones44]

It's true the combat remains largely unexplained... I would love for a dev to make a large sticky just explaining everything about it in detail!

The lack of reliable indication regarding river crossing can be very frustrating.

 

[kemor]

It's true the combat remains largely unexplained... I would love for a dev to make a large sticky just explaining everything about it in detail!

The lack of reliable indication regarding river crossing can be very frustrating.

Love the system for terrain (various terrain per province) but yes, river crossing NEEDS an indication somewhere.

Some tips for battle overall:
- Leaders with high maneuver are GODS. If you're in a rough war, it's well worth spending military power for some of these guys, they can make a war by outrunning everyone and therefore not only crushing down running armies but also control positioning. I cannot stress this enough, they are gods of war.
- In mountainous terrain, you don't need a lot of troops. 8k infantry in front, 8k canons in the back, no cavalry (100% useless, you'll never flank), that's all you need, to be on top, even if the enemy has doom stacks. The trick is to split stacks of these along the mountains, then soon as the enemy engages one, rush in with the others. mountain battles lasts for ages so you usually have enough time.
- Leaders with high siege DESTROYS sieges. Keeping one roaming about in a 1k infantry stack and moving him to provinces you want to cap fast is awesome.
- Defending is always better than attacking. It's often worth it to sacrifice 1k troop somewhere if you need time to set things up. I advice splitting up troops in good terrain, keep reserve close by with high maneuver leader, then wait for AI to attack. If they don't, you cap the province and reform ahead, if they do, you gank them up.
- Leaders with at least 1/1/1/1 will offset river crossings completely.
- Be very careful of AI stacks with leaders. Just as yours can make or break a war, theirs can as well and might catch you completely off guard.
- Do NOT engage in plains/desert if you have less infantry than the enemy stack, keep to mountains.
- Tech boosts are crazy, especially some unit types updates. If you are one tech below your enemy and that tech included new troops (especially the infantry ones), avoid battles unless they are overwhelmingly in your favor, they'll destroy you or injure you so badly that you'll never really recuperate from a win.
- Leaders with high maneuver are gods

 

[Neviskio]

Really thanks for the help but still got plenty of unclear things, a couple that I've just checked:

Under the troops, what means 2 yellow dots vs a 1 yellow + 1 green? That makes no sense, no tooltip pops out, no explanation.I'm going with the more dots = better, but still not clear.
What does the % of plains vs woods vs hills change in a battle? I don't understand if I should wait for them to win the siege and hope they come to my province(if they don't what should I do? let them win all?) because of terrain, or if I should attack now?

I'll try all your suggestions, maybe they're enough to tip the balance, but still, needs more tooltips and explanations! I have in all paradox games the same issue: not enough explanations in game, too many hidden things that "if you played the games you know them" which could be cleared <.<

For example the flank thing for the cavalry is never explained for mountains, how is one supposed to know? I'm hoping to be also helping the dev team, being a student designer myself, I understand that you have to compromise and decide what to show/when and all the issues, but players need to be able to find the information somewhere in the game <.<

just lost a battle: my 31 stack of 40% cavalry in plains vs a 22 spain one. 2-3-2 leader for me, 2-5-2 for them, they had a -3 penalty.Makes no damn sense.I'll report more battles, right now a 22 stack is running into my 30 stack with a better general and they get -1 pentaly, let's see... Instantly lost, 2 seconds 100% 0 morale. I give up untill I get an explanation, adding a screenshot so maybe someone can explain.Yeah I had a bad roll but 100%---> 0% instantly is beyond bad...

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Neviskio/screenshot/884116608991239096
I screenshotted when I had lost 4k men already of infantry.

meh.

 

[Xyviel]

The lack of reliable indication regarding river crossing can be very frustrating.

Which is odd, considering that it was relatively clear in CK2. Why overlook it in EUIV?

 

[fabius]

Love the system for terrain (various terrain per province) but yes, river crossing NEEDS an indication somewhere.

Some tips for battle overall:
- Leaders with high maneuver are GODS. If you're in a rough war, it's well worth spending military power for some of these guys, they can make a war by outrunning everyone and therefore not only crushing down running armies but also control positioning. I cannot stress this enough, they are gods of war.
- In mountainous terrain, you don't need a lot of troops. 8k infantry in front, 8k canons in the back, no cavalry (100% useless, you'll never flank), that's all you need, to be on top, even if the enemy has doom stacks. The trick is to split stacks of these along the mountains, then soon as the enemy engages one, rush in with the others. mountain battles lasts for ages so you usually have enough time.
- Leaders with high siege DESTROYS sieges. Keeping one roaming about in a 1k infantry stack and moving him to provinces you want to cap fast is awesome.
- Defending is always better than attacking. It's often worth it to sacrifice 1k troop somewhere if you need time to set things up. I advice splitting up troops in good terrain, keep reserve close by with high maneuver leader, then wait for AI to attack. If they don't, you cap the province and reform ahead, if they do, you gank them up.
- Leaders with at least 1/1/1/1 will offset river crossings completely.
- Be very careful of AI stacks with leaders. Just as yours can make or break a war, theirs can as well and might catch you completely off guard.
- Do NOT engage in plains/desert if you have less infantry than the enemy stack, keep to mountains.
- Tech boosts are crazy, especially some unit types updates. If you are one tech below your enemy and that tech included new troops (especially the infantry ones), avoid battles unless they are overwhelmingly in your favor, they'll destroy you or injure you so badly that you'll never really recuperate from a win.
- Leaders with high maneuver are gods

Great tips! Will try the mountain strategy

 

[Bostur]

What does the % of plains vs woods vs hills change in a battle? I don't understand if I should wait for them to win the siege and hope they come to my province(if they don't what should I do? let them win all?) because of terrain, or if I should attack now?

I believe it's the percentage chance of a battle happening in that particular terrain. So if it says 48% woods, there is a 48% chance that the battle will be fought in woody terrain. The terrain modifier directly affects the combat roll, and as far as I can tell sometimes also adds some extra defense.

The basic combat roll is something like: Die roll + Leader Skill + Terrain Modifier + Water Crossing penalty.

Getting a high result will make you inflict more casualties on the enemy both in terms of morale and men.

Battles are split into alternating shock phases and fire phases. Each time the battle switches to a new phase there will be a new die roll. In each phase there will be several 'ticks' of damage. Leaders will have one score for the fire phase and another for the shock phase.

Under the troops, what means 2 yellow dots vs a 1 yellow + 1 green? That makes no sense, no tooltip pops out, no explanation.I'm going with the more dots = better, but still not clear.

The pips on the units confuse me as well, because they don't seem to match the percentages shown in the military tab. In EU3 units had values for offensive shock, defensive shock, offensive fire, defensive fire, offensive morale, defensive morale. The shock and fire values represent how much damage they inflict and how much damage they resist in those phases respectively. The morale value probably affects each phase equally.

For example the flank thing for the cavalry is never explained for mountains, how is one supposed to know? I'm hoping to be also helping the dev team, being a student designer myself, I understand that you have to compromise and decide what to show/when and all the issues, but players need to be able to find the information somewhere in the game <.<

Infantry can only engage units directly in front of them, or diagonally in front of them as shown in the diagram. You can mouse over the little icons in the battle display to see who is fighting who. That gives a big army a bit of a disadvantage since they can't effectively engage all forces. Cavalry has longer range than infantry so they can help if you have a number advantage. Artillery can fight from the back row as well as the front row.
This is one of those things old Paradox players know from other EU games and from Victoria, because the combat system is the same. I agree though it is a bit unclear. It does help having the arrows show how things engage, thats a nifty new feature.

just lost a battle: my 31 stack of 40% cavalry in plains vs a 22 spain one. 2-3-2 leader for me, 2-5-2 for them, they had a -3 penalty.Makes no damn sense.I'll report more battles, right now a 22 stack is running into my 30 stack with a better general and they get -1 pentaly, let's see... Instantly lost, 2 seconds 100% 0 morale. I give up untill I get an explanation, adding a screenshot so maybe someone can explain.Yeah I had a bad roll but 100%---> 0% instantly is beyond bad...

It seems the Spanish had a much higher maximum morale value. Shown in the battle window as the bugle icon. They also had slightly higher discipline meaning they would cause 10% extra damage - 110% versus 100%. The morale value was probably the main factor that caused you to lose the battle though.
And another factor is the random die roll. The battle roll seems to have a higher impact than it did in EU3, battles feel more random now - personally I'm not too fond of that.

One thing that can't be seen from the screenshot is the quality of the individual units. The french have a mix of cavalry and infantry which can be a good thing, especially if they outnumber the enemy. But if the Spanish happen to have higher quality infantry that advantage might have been nullified.
It seems both sides are able to fill out the frontage, so the french numbers advantage wouldn't have as big an impact as it would have if they were able to fight along a wider front. There are tech advances that allow you to have a wider front and effectively engage with larger armies. In that case the cavalry would have been an excellent addition due to their longer range, but they don't help as much here.

When your frontage is small in relation to your forces it can help to field smaller armies and keep some troops in reserve. You can then use the reserves to cover a retreat by retreating back to your reserves, or you can switch armies in and out of battles if it lasts for a long time.

 

[Uglyr]

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Neviskio/screenshot/884116608991239096
I screenshotted when I had lost 4k men already of infantry.

meh.

Look to the middle column:
110 vs. 100 combat ability?
4.3 vs. 3.6 organization?
I don't really remember what these numbers mean but maybe it is the key.
Also perhaps in 1545 cavalry become weaker than infantry in direct combat - haven't played that far.

But I agree - info about combat from Paradox is insufficient.

 

[ejones44]

Which is odd, considering that it was relatively clear in CK2. Why overlook it in EUIV?

Yep. Ck2 did it fine.

 

[SharpFish]

Austria may well have national ideas that are invisible to you and which are giving it advantages.
They may have better leaders.
They may have better Discipline, which affects the number of casualties inflicted.

Defending on crossings is always worthwhile. Rough terrain types suit infantry more than cavalry. When a battle is fought on a province, the terrian in which it occurs is randomly selected from from the distribution of terrains types listed. Therefore it is possible that even if you were in a province that is 80% mountains, the actual battle took place on a plain.

Looking at the screenie you posted, I think they've got a 10% advantage in Discipline*, and a significant .7 advantage in morale. The leaders cancelled out, both of you are getting bonuses to cavalry, and they got lucky and rolled really well in this phase of the battle.

The pips that units have in fire, shock and morale, indicate damage and defence.

* Edit: no that was combat ability as mentioned by soeone else above.

 

[Neviskio]

Thanks bostur and everyone who's answering, I finally understand better what happened and can see things a bit better, still baffled since in eu3/ck2 and when I tried with a friend vicky 2(still haven't bought it but it was my first attempt at grand strategy) I had combat issues, but not of this magnitude.

I checked spain after my ragequit, we're both at the same tech level, but they have better war ideas(the 10% more than me and morale) and yeah I was heavy on cavalry since I have the +10% cavalry idea.

I don't like the randomness too, it really changes the whole war game, loaded before the same battle and still lost, but totally different outcomes, they actually lost more units than me but I broke my morale before, which actually is a big deal in the war.I didn't keep playing because I feel I might have yet again to restart or change my strats since I actually know what the dots mean!!

I will check further the battles but I still feel like I don't know what the hell I'm doing in most wars because the feedback of the game is quite low still, but I surely improved with the explanations here. I really miss the ck2 river thing though, I keep trying going around provinces in all directions to avoid penalties when trying and holding from enemy sieges and I can't find a path sometimes, and I'm quite the aggressor usually, I don't like much colonizing when playing mainland europe and I tend to just blob around declaring on anything that walks so yeah, I feel really penalized right now since every assault I try my units get eaten alive, probably due to all the things you guys pointed out.

Really wish there were some better combat tutorials or some guides/videos from someone that is pro at the game(or any paradox one, I gave up on ck2 lately for the same reason, half the info is too hidden...).

Will try and see what I can improve, thanks!

 

[KaiserJohanHome]

Imho I think the dice should be 0 - 6 instead of 0 - 9 or something. Just less drastic random results.

 

[blaidd]

I was getting totally destroyed in combat too at first despite having a pretty deep understanding of the combat in other Paradox games, but I've managed to turn it around in my current game and I'm doing much better. Not great, but at least I'm winning most of my wars. Even some horribly one sided ones against coalitions.

First, looking at your screenshot you have WAY too much cavalry. If open your army and mouse over the horse icon it says "You cannot have more than 50% cavalry compared to your infantry or you will suffer the Insufficient Support Penalty." You probably started with exactly 50%, but as soon as your infantry starts dying faster now you're taking the penalty, which is only going to hurt you more. I've been running at least 3:1 infantry:cavalry so I have some breathing room.

For you guys saying that you can't find the tooltip for what the pips mean it's right here:

My mouse is over the name of the troop, not the pips.

You can see that Free Shooter Infantry have 0 Offensive Fire, but 3 Defensive Fire. They're very strong on Offensive Shock and Morale, and mediocre on defense. While Tercio Infantry are pretty well rounded, but have exceptional defensive morale, while being weak on the offensive morale. So if you use a lot of defensive tactics the Tercios will perform better overall. I was using the Free Shooters because my tactics are more offensive and I have a general with high shock. I take quite a bit of damage in the fire phase, but nothing compared to the obscene casualties my opponents take in shock phase. On the other hand, I'm now the target of a large coalition that out numbers me and will probably be attacking me regularly so switching to Tercio and defending against their doomstacks in good terrain might be smart.

The only thing that makes me sad is I can only have one at a time instead of building specialized armies. But it does make the game simpler I suppose. And it's pretty painless to switch BEFORE you go to war.

Also what the other poster said about high maneuver generals is spot on. When I'm in a war I turn the speed way down. Battles happen way too fast at speed 3+. As soon as the battle ends, I hit pause, figure out where the enemy army is retreating to, and send my army there. If you time it right and have at least a point or two in maneuver you can almost always hit them while they're shattered and destroy the entire enemy army instantly.

If your timing is bad, you won't get to them before their morale regens a bit and you'll have to fight them all over again taking the negatives for terrain, etc.

 

[Alsark]

I guess one of my problems, then, is that I never build artillery. I think this goes back to my old EU3 days when artillery moved a LOT slower, so having artillery in your stack slowed down the whole stack (and back then, all you ever wanted was full cavalry stacks because they moved faster... but that was an early EU3 version). All unit types now move the same speed, correct?

And it sounds like cavalry is more useful only when the battles are larger? But their stats are never quite as good as infantry, so it almost doesn't even sound worth it to train very much cavalry at all.

 

[RX2000]

Is there any way to see, besides just looking at the map, which provinces will have a river crossing penalty, or exactly which terrain you will be fighting in? CK2 did this so well, with the icon that said which province would have a river crossing penalty going to any other province. I wish they would have kept the system from CK2 & not EU3.

 

[Neviskio]

Is there any way to see, besides just looking at the map, which provinces will have a river crossing penalty, or exactly which terrain you will be fighting in? CK2 did this so well, with the icon that said which province would have a river crossing penalty going to any other province. I wish they would have kept the system from CK2 & not EU3.

Yeah that icon was fantastic, that's why in ck2 I had the best results, thanks btw for the pointer of the tooltip, I had not noticed that, thought you were supposed to hover on the dots, and that's why i didn't understand half the combat.

For giggles and achievements I started iron man with venice and managed to win a mega war against austria and 5+ countries because I now understand it better.I notice that the dices are devastating sometimes though, and still not 100% sold on the single battles since I still lose many, but yeah, huge improvements, wish the game was clearer tho..

 

[blaidd]

Yeah that icon was fantastic, that's why in ck2 I had the best results

Yeah, I do miss the CK2 icon also, but you can still usually tell whether you'll get a river crossing penalty. To test go on slow speed or pause and click the move your troop into the next province. The arrow will appear. Zoom in very close and you can see the rivers. If the arrow crosses a river, you will take the penalty. Sometimes you can still maneuver to a nearby province and cross without a penalty, as in CK2, it's just not as obvious.

Also some of those rivers are TINY and do not show up well at all at my normal zoom level. And there are freaking thousands of them. It's very hard to not cross one, at least over in HRE land. Your best bet is probably just to get a decent general and mostly ignore them. It's only -1. Mountains are the real killer and if you play in 'political' mode rather than terrain view they're almost impossible to see. Learned an important lesson, always switch to terrain mode when moving troops. =P

thanks btw for the pointer of the tooltip, I had not noticed that, thought you were supposed to hover on the dots

I've learned with a new Paradox game you should hover over EVERYTHING. There is lots of good information if you can find the right tooltip. But yeah, even I still miss things and every day I'm still discovering new buttons and features as I play.

 

[ElectricEel]

IAll unit types now move the same speed, correct?

I believe that's correct.

And it sounds like cavalry is more useful only when the battles are larger? But their stats are never quite as good as infantry, so it almost doesn't even sound worth it to train very much cavalry at all.

Cavalry is stronger than infantry early on, but lose their edge at around tech level 9-12 (depending on when your tech group lets you upgrade your unit types, and any circumstantial bonuses like +% cavalry combat ability) and start to become inferior to infantry as you tech up. And yeah, I see no reason why you'd want more than a couple of units (useful for flanking purposes) with each main army later in the game.

 

[Raggart]

I notice that the dices are devastating sometimes though, and still not 100% sold on the single battles since I still lose many, but yeah, huge improvements, wish the game was clearer tho..

Yes, I noticed also that the dice rolls are a bit fudgy, meaning that sometimes you would think that a dice roll of 9 compared to a 0 with -1 for river crossing would destroy the enemy army but it also depends on the other useful statistics (tech level, ideas, tactics, etc.). I noticed that larger nations (maybe they are "lucky" nations?) also tend to have better dice rolls.

One thing I don't understand that happened to me more than once is this: sometimes my leader has a score in either shock or fire and I do not get the bonus during combat. The other leader's score is displayed (for example: 5 + 3) but mine only displays the dice roll (ex: 6) but not the leader's quality (+ 2). Anyone knows why this is happening?

 

[Desertfox]

One thing I don't understand that happened to me more than once is this: sometimes my leader has a score in either shock or fire and I do not get the bonus during combat. The other leader's score is displayed (for example: 5 + 3) but mine only displays the dice roll (ex: 6) but not the leader's quality (+ 2). Anyone knows why this is happening?

Leader bonuses cancel each other out. E.g. if you have a +2 shock leader and the enemy has a +5 shock leader, in the shock combat phase he gets +3 bonus and you get no leader bonus.