Is combat completely non-functional or is this a feature?

[Medicbaba]

Not talking about the weird frontlines and armies teleporting around, sometimes overseas. That is obviously broken.

The problem is two armies engaging each other in battles, across a frontline. As it should be.

1-Single battle at all times, per frontline. Does this increase with tech? Because this makes sense early game, where Napoleonic Warfare was all about massing your troops and beating the enemy in pitched battles, hopefully defeating them in detail. But as time went on, armies switched to frontlines and larger fronts with no dense infantry formations. Wouldn't want that against a machine gun or howitzer...

2-I mean, it would make sense if battles sized properly. The number of battalions that engage on both sides are a bit low. Very much so. I commit 200 battalions and Russians commit 300 battalions, its usually 10 vs 10 or even less. Which brings me to...

3-The number of battalions that join both sides seem to be completely random. Whoever thought this was a good idea? This is obviously a bug. This makes conscription totally pointless because having superior numbers means nothing. It's totally random. You lose the equal number of battles, if your stats are equal. What happened to Napoleonic Warfare and beyond? The prevailing idea around this period was to create massive armies through mobilization and overwhelm the enemy. Prussia defeated France due to its more efficient, faster mobilization in the 1870 war. And this seems to be a non-factor in the game.

Case in point, I had a war with Egypt as Ottomans where things devolved to two frontlines. We both deployed 70 battalions to one front, and in the other Egyptians had ten. I deployed the rest of my army, more than 100 battalions, there to quickly overwhelm the badly outnumbered force and then crush the remaining 70 on the other front. Guess what. I'm outnumbered in the battle! And it goes back and forth until their battalions are too battered to resist (takes months).

Paradox?

 

[Lord Lambert]

1: no, it will remain at 1 battle at a time per frontline UNLESS both you and your enemy are on attack mode and fill your bars at the same time. Then you will have 2.

3: its not a bug but it is not communicated at all to the player why

 

[Imp0815]

What they should have done is:

• Barracks should been build based on single provinces not whole states
• Barracks should have more "Sidegrades" instead of upgrades
• This allows for army compositions based on production methods in that states
• Generals assignment stays the way it is
• Model each Battalion as a unit like in HoI IV
• Draw Front lines manually like HoI And then assign generals to that front
• Draw offensive lines
• Battalions automatically get spread on provinces on the frontline (like in HoI)
• You press Push the Frontline and the Army tries to attack and move forward based on the plan drawn province by province.
• You could make it more historically by having a reduced front line length based on tech to simulate the early decisive battles and later on it gets replaced by the large all spanning front lines we know from HoI

All after all HoI-IV-light version of the Warfare would be preferable then just rolling dice.

 

[kingsword]

Not talking about the weird frontlines and armies teleporting around, sometimes overseas. That is obviously broken.

The problem is two armies engaging each other in battles, across a frontline. As it should be.

1-Single battle at all times, per frontline. Does this increase with tech? Because this makes sense early game, where Napoleonic Warfare was all about massing your troops and beating the enemy in pitched battles, hopefully defeating them in detail. But as time went on, armies switched to frontlines and larger fronts with no dense infantry formations. Wouldn't want that against a machine gun or howitzer...

2-I mean, it would make sense if battles sized properly. The number of battalions that engage on both sides are a bit low. Very much so. I commit 200 battalions and Russians commit 300 battalions, its usually 10 vs 10 or even less. Which brings me to...

3-The number of battalions that join both sides seem to be completely random. Whoever thought this was a good idea? This is obviously a bug. This makes conscription totally pointless because having superior numbers means nothing. It's totally random. You lose the equal number of battles, if your stats are equal. What happened to Napoleonic Warfare and beyond? The prevailing idea around this period was to create massive armies through mobilization and overwhelm the enemy. Prussia defeated France due to its more efficient, faster mobilization in the 1870 war. And this seems to be a non-factor in the game.

Case in point, I had a war with Egypt as Ottomans where things devolved to two frontlines. We both deployed 70 battalions to one front, and in the other Egyptians had ten. I deployed the rest of my army, more than 100 battalions, there to quickly overwhelm the badly outnumbered force and then crush the remaining 70 on the other front. Guess what. I'm outnumbered in the battle! And it goes back and forth until their battalions are too battered to resist (takes months).

Paradox?

That does sound like a shounen battle manga where two characters duel it out and all the other combatants just watch them till their fight is over and comment on their techniques. After the duel is over, another fight is engaged so rinse and repeat.

 

[Xaelyn]

That's been my experience also, hundreds of battalions on each side, but only 10 or so ever actually engage.

 

[heliostellar]

It is a feature... this game is, essentially, no longer a map-based game. The map is just there to illustrate the choices you make in the menus.

 

[Drakken]

Neither. Warfare is very functional, it's just kinda opaque right now after 24 hours.

 

[Imp0815]

Oh god a spearman tribe can push back the industrialized military of Prussia, what a historically experience.
I wish there was some sort of simulation of shrapnel artillery and bolt action rifles hitting people with Hide shields.
Where is my Rorke's drift!?

I try to invade with 50 battalions but i always get some odd numbers like 20 or 6.

Also my navy flotillas wont recover their Moral.

 

[sterrius]

Oh god a spearman tribe can push back the industrialized military of Prussia, what a historically experience.
I wish there was some sort of simulation of shrapnel artillery and bolt action rifles hitting people with Hide shields.
Where is my Rorke's drift!?

View attachment 895870

I try to invade with 50 battalions but i always get some odd numbers like 20 or 6.

Also my navy flotillas wont recover their Moral.

If its a city terrain you get a horrible combat widht of 0.3
Even jungle have a better combat widht (0.4)

Also with your troops having only 8 attack. Something is very very wrong here.
Are you sure your troops (State barracks) are receiving enough guns and artilhery?
When you mobilize the consumption increase by +60%

A proper troop of infantary + artilhery should have around 30 attack. Not 9.


Also if history is something.
The zulus and Ethiopia want to talk about spears + superior tatics beating guns

 

[Damedius]

Oh god a spearman tribe can push back the industrialized military of Prussia, what a historically experience.
I wish there was some sort of simulation of shrapnel artillery and bolt action rifles hitting people with Hide shields.
Where is my Rorke's drift!?

I try to invade with 50 battalions but i always get some odd numbers like 20 or 6.

Also my navy flotillas wont recover their Moral.

Unfortunately that's just a picture of people with spears.
In game they are already westernized and literate. They have access to the same techs.

 

[Imp0815]

If its a city terrain you get a horrible combat widht of 0.3
Even mountains have a better combat widht

Also with your troops having only 8 attack. Something is very very wrong here.
Are you sure your troops (State barracks) are receiving guns and artilhery?

A proper troop of infantary + artilhary should have around 30 attack. Not 9.

Why do they get 27 troops in the field to defend then? Why are there only 6 in my invading force? How can i control how many forces get to invade?

____

well ok then - How much navy do i need for 14 battalions? What is the support needed for when invading a literal tribe?

 

[Skales]

So, the visual aspect of it (communicating information to the player) is a bit of a mess. But overall, it works more or less how I expected it to work. It's EU4 or CK2 combat, but with the most annoying parts taken out.

 

[bokorthedust]

If its a city terrain you get a horrible combat widht of 0.3
Even jungle have a better combat widht (0.4)

Also with your troops having only 8 attack. Something is very very wrong here.
Are you sure your troops (State barracks) are receiving enough guns and artilhery?
When you mobilize the consumption increase by +60%

A proper troop of infantary + artilhery should have around 30 attack. Not 9.


Also if history is something.
The zulus and Ethiopia want to talk about spears + superior tatics beating guns

It is probably the insufficient naval support penalty. Apparently if you send a too small flottilla on the naval invasion, you get horrendous penalties.

 

[Damedius]

It is probably the insufficient naval support penalty. Apparently if you send a too small flottilla on the naval invasion, you get horrendous penalties.

Instead of just transporting part of your army, we will transport your whole army and give you massive penalties instead.

 

[sterrius]

Why do they get 27 troops in the field to defend then? Why are there only 6 in my invading force? How can i control how many forces get to invade?

from what i gathered. (read everything below with a gain of salt, im no expert in reading the game files).
There is a value somewhere in the game that defines the max amount of troops in battle.
I don´t know if its linked to tech, infrastructure, etc.

But somewhere in the gamefiles there is a number. I can´t find it.
Must be in the .exe file that i cannot open. So it should also be blocked from mods.

Each state is separated in X provinces.
Each province have Y terrain.
Those i found in the game files.

So a border beetween 2 states can have multiple provinces with different terrain types. With each having a chance of having a battle there. So you can´t choose if your general is gonna try to attack in a mountain or the plains just 1 province away. There is likely a random roll using both generals to decide this.

Terrain defines the battle widht that looks like affects only the attacker. The game explain there is a combat widht with a tooltip but nowhere in the game there is the info that break down the numbers.

So outside of plains (widht 1). Unless you get a very rare bonus. (i think there is only 2 buffs that do this)
The attacker is always gona be in inferior numbers. Unless somehow the defender can´t fully occupy its batteline and the attacker, even with the penalty, can. (I already had a few of those).

Most terrains the widht is not that bad. Usually around 0.8 to 0.6. Having a little superior attack technology or nerfing the enemy by blocking his guns or beating them in a defensive battle prior to your push is gonna be enough to win.

You can´t control how many get to participate in a battle. What you can do is to stop pushing, allow the Ai to push a little so they get to a better terrain for you to actually push tem back.

More generals do decrease the time it takes for another battle to start. Giving less and less time for the defenders to rest and recover. So you can eventually push them with numbers.

 

[kingsword]

Instead of just transporting part of your army, we will transport your whole army and give you massive penalties instead.

It's almost as if choosing not to do a sea landing on the province with a doomstack would be helpful in this scenario. Damn, I wonder if we'll ever see games one day where we can choose where to land our troops and avoid such a scenario. It'd be a sight to see...

 

[Imp0815]

Unfortunately that's just a picture of people with spears.
In game they are already westernized and literate. They have access to the same techs

from what i gathered. (read everything below with a gain of salt, im no expert in reading the game files).
There is a value somewhere in the game that defines the max amount of troops in battle.
I don´t know if its linked to tech, infrastructure, etc.

But somewhere in the gamefiles there is a number. I can´t find it.
Must be in the .exe file that i cannot open. So it should also be blocked from mods.

Each state is separated in X provinces.
Each province have Y terrain.
Those i found in the game files.

So a border beetween 2 states can have multiple provinces with different terrain types. With each having a chance of having a battle there. So you can´t choose if your general is gonna try to attack in a mountain or the plains just 1 province away. There is likely a random roll using both generals to decide this.

Terrain defines the battle widht that looks like affects only the attacker. The game explain there is a combat widht with a tooltip but nowhere in the game there is the info that break down the numbers.

So outside of plains (widht 1). Unless you get a very rare bonus. (i think there is only 2 buffs that do this)
The attacker is always gona be in inferior numbers. Unless somehow the defender can´t fully occupy its batteline and the attacker, even with the penalty, can. (I already had a few of those).

Most terrains the widht is not that bad. Usually around 0.8 to 0.6. Having a little superior attack technology or nerfing the enemy by blocking his guns or beating them in a defensive battle prior to your push is gonna be enough to win.

You can´t control how many get to participate in a battle. What you can do is to stop pushing, allow the Ai to push a little so they get to a better terrain for you to actually push tem back.

More generals do decrease the time it takes for another battle to start. Giving less and less time for the defenders to rest and recover. So you can eventually push them with numbers.

Now i win and i dont know why. Maybe its just more battalions? They have double the defense value. (I don't know if this was said yet but this feels really really really shitty and frustrating - can we just get the same military system as HoI please?)

___

hahahah they Immediately killed my army there after it landed. This is just really bad.

____

This is the situation. I cant win this because my army get teleported back with magic when one of the front lines get pushed and due to the amazing new military system - i can't split it.

Magic one day they are in Africa the next back at home standing by like a champ.

 

[Medicbaba]

So, the visual aspect of it (communicating information to the player) is a bit of a mess. But overall, it works more or less how I expected it to work. It's EU4 or CK2 combat, but with the most annoying parts taken out.

It doesn't even work as it should...

 

[Damedius]

It's almost as if choosing not to do a sea landing on the province with a doomstack would be helpful in this scenario. Damn, I wonder if we'll ever see games one day where we can choose where to land our troops and avoid such a scenario. It'd be a sight to see...

Seems to me we used to be able to and now we are headed in the opposite direction.

 

[kingsword]

Well I missed the /s but I didn't want it to be too much on the nose there. Ultimately every single complaint I have read around here could be fixed with even a 20-year old Paradox combat system that is just pure player agency. They may have wanted to a magical automation system maybe but apparently they failed to. Now it's just a frustrating mess unless you're just playing the economic spreadsheet as Switzerland or something with no warfare whatsoever.