Imperator - Development Diary - 25th of March 2019

[Johan]

I'm not sure I agree with this change. I think the idea of being trapped in Zone of Control due to pushing in too far could be a great gameplay feature and not something that should be intentionally removed. Is there a reason why this change was implemented?

Reading the EU4 forum for the last 5 years about "the ZoC system is broken".

 

[Maldazar]

Imho shattered retreat should work very diferent. Casualties in combat should be a lot lower and the highest amount of casualties should happen during the 'pursuit' fase (as exists in CK2), as historicaly this was often when most damage was done to armies..

So shattering armies should not go through everything free off damage, but the oposite, the more forts/zones of control/enemy armies they pass, the more they should lose. And it should CERTAINLY be possible to corner and enemy army.. The retreat comand seems like a very broken mechanic, basicly a 'get out of bad situation free card', it should cost at least X part of your army, and X more for every enemy/fort in your path.

 

[EmperorG]

While I like most of the changes, I dislike the "Press button to abort army out of enemy lands". If we're going to have a full retreat button for when the player or ai messes up, it should come with a realistic penalty. Usually in real life when an army engages in full retreat they become scattered and just flee in all directions unless under a good orderly retreat led by a skilled general. As such I'd make it so that if you press the full retreat button you suffer even higher attrition for the duration of the retreat, with maybe slightly less attrition if led by a good general.

 

[Joccend]

Reading the EU4 forum for the last 5 years about "the ZoC system is broken".

There will always be people complaining about anything. I think the retreat feature being able to be used at will and through ZoC is a great idea.

 

[Nicolas-]

How's the tactic used in the battle determined? If I have 3 different stacks with different tactics assigned to each and I send them to the same battle. Which one will be chosen?

I really hope it's not the "most recent stack to join the battle", because that'd create a meta where people cheese the system with small stacks to keep flipping the tactic. I hope it's either the tactic that's assigned to the largest stack which joined the battle, or simply the tactic of the first stack that joined the battle, and the first engagement locks the tactics.

 

[Le Petit Corporal]

I'm not sure I agree with this change. I think the idea of being trapped in Zone of Control due to pushing in too far could be a great gameplay feature and not something that should be intentionally removed. Is there a reason why this change was implemented?

Or alternatively, one should take massive attrition on said retreat. Rapid retreats out of enemy territory have historically very costly

 

[Maldazar]

There will always be people complaining about anything. I think the retreat feature being able to be used at will and through ZoC is a great idea.

It feels like cheating to me, it just means there are no longer consequences for your choice of going deep into enemy land, since you can always press the 'get out for free' button.

You see a big scary enemy army aproaching when you splitted up your troops because you are greedy? Just press run and you are fine... Destroys good part of the tactical layer of the game since, in theory, you can never catch someone unprepared, so basicly it will just be, whoever has more/beter troops wins, always. (in the hands of players of course, AI will probably still mess up/let his armies be caught)

 

[DukeOfValois1]

Ugh, not this again. Shattered retreat is sucky in EU4, garbage in CK2, and now they insist on spreading this plague to Imperator. WHY?

 

[Carl West]

Maybe it would be better if you suffered a slight attrition penalty for being cut off by zone of control rather than the current eu4 system of being trapped

The combat system looks great! Its a nice extra layer to pick tactics and will make for great mind games in MP as you try to guess what the other guy will pick from his unit composition. It is a little bit of extra poker play.

 

[Reman]

All good stuff. Glad to see these basic features which took EU4 and CK2 years to develop are included in the vanilla release.

Also, I'm glad to see the simpler tactics system. Sometimes there can actually be more strategy in a streamlined system, if it's more clear what the rules are at-a-glance.

 

[Groogy]

Big part what I wanted to do was to make the tactic picks more meaningful
Thanks to the change it means also we can provide bigger bonuses for "picking right". Though there's less picks you have to do in between battles with it not needing an offensive and a defensive tactic I wouldn't call it a simplified system though. In my opinion we just switched the complexity from being a lot of small random guesses before the battle to be sometihng more focused on the larger scale. "How do I build my army? What will I face? How do I counter that?" etc.

 

[0m3r]

love the tactic change

 

[aantia]

Thanks for the informative dev diary!
I have a couple of questions, though: who gets the defensive bonus when there is no fort? Is it always the defender or (as in eu4) does it depend on who owns the province?
Also, are armies immune to attrition when in shattered retreat, as in eu4? I've honestly never liked that they were - it felt both too gamey and too useful.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Thanks for the informative dev diary!
I have a couple of questions, though: who gets the defensive bonus when there is no fort? Is it always the defender or (as in eu4) does it depend on who owns the province?

If there is no fort it is the stack that is already there that is defender. Just as in EU4.

 

[Vohen]

Assuming Control of a Siege

If more than one army is partaking in the siege of the same city, and you are the war leader, or overlord of the country that leads the siege, you can assume leadership of the siege. Ensuring that it will be you who decides when to storm the fort, and that it is you who will gain control of the city once it falls.

That's great, but wouldn't it be even better if you could assume control of a siege if you have at least a certain amount of troops more than your allies (say, twice), without necessarily being the war leader or having them be your vassals, since you're clearly doing the heavy lifting in that siege?

Changes to Combat Tactics

Finally a word on Military Tactics. While the system as described in the diary from in October created interesting situations where you are rewarded from trying to predict your opponent's choice of tactics, there were some issues we had with it.

This choice was in many cases quite random since it did not interact with the army composition at all. Having separate sets of offensive and defensive tactics also turned out to be a lot to keep in mind at all times.
The tactics system also overlapped with some of the unique unit abilities from the Military Tradition trees, which were also generally what one would expect to find under the umbrella of Combat Tactics.

For these reasons we have implemented a number of changes to the Tactics system (changes pioneered by @Groogy ).

1. There are no longer both defensive and offensive tactics, instead you pick one for your army and it will apply whether you are the attacker or defender.
2. While the bonus or penalty tactics provide is still dependent on how well they work against the tactic chosen by the opposing side, their efficiency is now dependent on the composition of your army.
3. The unique stances from Military Traditions have now been reworked into Combat Tactics that you unlock, with slightly higher bonuses and different matchings than the base ones (but like all tactics they have to be matched with one that is vulnerable to have an effect).

​

At maximum efficiency the generic Combat Tactics currently confer a 20% bonus, with unlockable Tactics from traditions adding another possible 5%. All generic Tactics will have unlockable tactics that they are more efficient against, and more vulnerable too, and vice versa.
​

As an example the unlockable Phalanx tactic is particularly effective against the Shock Action tactic but how much of a bonus you get out of it will depend on how suited your army is to perform it, in the example above it amounts to 9.7%

This new system still keeps the element of attempting to predict your opponent's choice of tactics while at the same time adding to the equation that certain tactics are more efficient depending on your army composition.

(In the above battle the Seleucids have picked the Phalanx tactic which is efficient against the Shock Action tactic chosen by the Antigonid. Since the Seleucid troop composition matches the ideal for their chosen tactic reasonably well they are able to

Now that's really great.
When the mechanic was revealed in a past DD, I really was wondering how I'd interact with it, if at all.
Now I feel like it really is an interesting aspect of warfare, and it adds an element of recon and preparation you didn't previously have, since it should be very useful to check the composition of your adversary before heading to battle, as it might dictate their tactics as well.

 

[Utik]

So one of the few things I actually liked about this game (different combat tactics) was simplified into a bunch of small modifiers that won't change anything in most situations.
Maybe you should have kept the former title of "Europa Universalis: Rome", because that's what this game is. Europa Universalis roughly applied to the antiquity. Too many modifiers, too few things you can actually play with.

The new system has a lot more strategic depth than the former "rock, paper, scissors" system.

 

[AlleyTheToaster]

Securing the territory you want is the goal of most wars, but in the chaos of a war with many participants it is not always going to be the country that occupies a city that want to annex it in the upcoming peace treaty. To facilitate prettier borders and cooperation between allies, we have a button in the province view with which you can transfer the occupation to any country that is on your side in the ongoing war.

AI subjects will also make use of this to ensure you can demand what you are due in a peace treaty (and so will allies, unless they want the land themselves).

That is all I wanted to know. Glad to see that it's not a DLC feature now. Hopefully Victoria 3 will have this as well, as any other future projects. Seeing some of the streams, I had some king of idea that occupations can't be shared/given. Glad to see I was wrong. Cheers!

 

[aantia]

If there is no fort it is the stack that is already there that is defender. Just as in EU4.

Don't the attacker get terrain bonuses of it's their own province in eu4? Sorry if I'm being confusing.

 

[Will Steel]

This looks really great, except maybe this bit here:

This also allows an army that becomes trapped in the Zone of Control of enemy forts to retreat back to friendly territory.

Trapping armies away from relief is a viable strategy though. And it makes you consider protecting your rear route into the enemy lands, lest the enemy take a fort in the back and trap your army from going back. The ability to "shatter retreat" at will (for a mere 10 helmet mana) just makes it cheesy and takes out a real strategy and threat from the game.

Oh, and another thing is - can we request control of occupied cities from allies, who may or may not agree based on relations? It was annoying in EU4 when you wanted to take some specific provinces in war and your ally happened to occupy them first.

 

[0m3r]

Don't the attacker get terrain bonuses of it's their own province in eu4? Sorry if I'm being confusing.

only in forts.

if there isnt a fort: the first army that arrive to the province will be the defender
if there is a fort: the army that controls the fort will be the defender