Is Offensive overpowered?

[Beagá]

For odd reasons I´m finding myself ALWAYS picking that as my first military NI. Reasons:

1- Shock is very potent in the start of the game, and you get the +1 very early. Exactly when it counts the most.
2- More Manpower? THAT early too? yes please!
3- Fire, well not useful that early, later on the other hand...
4- Glorious arms... ok a bit derpy. Next.
5- Maneuver... well less useful but still can make the difference between reaching that small stack and wiping it out or allowing it to run away and merge with another stack
6- Grand Army is less useful for huge countries, but for anything médium/above average it´s awesome.
7- 10% discipline? Yes please.

And Forced March which GREALTY increases chances of running away of stack wipes.

Your opinions?

 

[Tub]

I think it's more that other Idea groups are underpowered. Too many '+100% Prestige from Battles', or '-1 Interest from Loans'. Aristocracy, too, should be buffed - I'm not going to go on about how, I'm sure some very well thought out suggestions have been made somewhere here.

With the recent super-AE as well, I'd say it would be more useful to take Diplomacy, or Administrative/Economic - protection through allying France is better than having a +1 Shock general on your 8k stack. Administrative and Economic should be about making the most of your territory, which, to some extent, they do - it's just that they have a lot more dead weight than other idea groups, ie inflation reduction, interest reduction, inflation cost reduction, more possible advisors.

That is, unless you're playing as France, in which case I'd say go and take all Military ideas. Europe shall bow to the BBB, enormous coalition or not.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

The morale bonus from Defensive is better than anything you get from Offensive in terms of actually winning battles.

 

[RegulasFade]

There's also though the Defensive Idea's. 25% morale bonus (huge early) and army tradition early on which makes for better everything.


Also remember mercenaries infantry allows you to compensate for manpower

 

[Atris]

The morale bonus from Defensive is better than anything you get from Offensive in terms of actually winning battles.

this +1

 

[sunsterson]

Maxed out offensive > maxed defensive by about 388455553446434 times

 

[Korashy]

The morale bonus from Defensive is better than anything you get from Offensive in terms of actually winning battles.

Depends on who you play. On muslim nations I don't find myself needing it at all. And Forced March is in my opinion the single strongest idea in the game.

 

[Shadowless]

The morale bonus from Defensive is better than anything you get from Offensive in terms of actually winning battles.

That depends if you consider "winning" a battle to be what the game says. I on the other hand consider causing massive casualties to the enemy winning a battle even if I end up retreating from it.

 

[Korashy]

That depends if you consider "winning" a battle to be what the game says. I on the other hand consider causing massive casualties to the enemy winning a battle even if I end up retreating from it.

+1 also depending on personal rules and if you play against the AI, forced march pretty much allows you to instantly stackwipe an enemy army by running straight to it after declaring war. Most of the time you will get there before it recovered one tick of morale if you declare on the 1st of the month.

 

[toaae]

The morale bonus from Defensive is better than anything you get from Offensive in terms of actually winning battles.

Early on, inflicting more damage has a greater impact than having a little more morale. Late game, when morale is 7+ for all combatants, the 25% extra morale is a big deal.

 

[aitaituo]

This thread is ridiculous. Other than forced march, all of offensive's buffs are actually pretty marginal. Effectively it's +1 to all dice rolls for armies with generals, +10% damage for all armies, and some extra manpower and force limits. It's all nice, but it's not overpowered. Forced march is what really makes it shine and that's not free.

And I agree that defensive is the best military idea group and generally my first pick unless I'm Muslim.

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

This thread is ridiculous. Other than forced march, all of offensive's buffs are actually pretty marginal. Effectively it's +1 to all dice rolls for armies with generals, +10% damage for all armies, and some extra manpower and force limits. It's all nice, but it's not overpowered. Forced march is what really makes it shine and that's not free.

And I agree that defensive is the best military idea group and generally my first pick unless I'm Muslim.

With the +1 to dice rolls and +10% discipline, Offensive is actually the best damage-increase you can get from a military ideagroup. You get a bit of a bonus to FL and MP on top of that and a very powerful tool in Forced March. You can argue that Defensive is better (it really isn't, morale was only king when damage was broken), but you can't argue that Offensive should be the best for doing damage, since that's Quality's job, and there are no nifty bonuses in that ideagroup.

 

[pkderek]

That depends if you consider "winning" a battle to be what the game says. I on the other hand consider causing massive casualties to the enemy winning a battle even if I end up retreating from it.

Higher morale means more staying power, which means when your army breaks because it has no morale, it will take increased losses in the retreat phase.

But then it begs the question, why not both?

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

Higher morale means more staying power, which means when your army breaks because it has no morale, it will take increased losses in the retreat phase.

But then it begs the question, why not both?

The main reason you don't want both is because if you have large damage bonuses, you want them to stay in the fight and take that damage. If you combine ridiculous damage with ridiculous morale you will obviously win all battles, but you will never stackwipe anything. On the other hand, if you combine ridiculous damage with a half maintenance army you might occasionally lose a battle, but every battle you win will be a stackwipe.

 

[Alliegorical]

Administrative and Economic should be about making the most of your territory, which, to some extent, they do - it's just that they have a lot more dead weight than other idea groups, ie inflation reduction, interest reduction, inflation cost reduction, more possible advisors.

Extra advisers is not dead weight!

 

[Beagá]

This thread is ridiculous. Other than forced march, all of offensive's buffs are actually pretty marginal. Effectively it's +1 to all dice rolls for armies with generals, +10% damage for all armies, and some extra manpower and force limits. It's all nice, but it's not overpowered. Forced march is what really makes it shine and that's not free.

And I agree that defensive is the best military idea group and generally my first pick unless I'm Muslim.

Take a chill pill bro. Specially because many people disagree.

SOME Manpower? Not every country is Russia... And the +1 roll quickly adds up.

Finally Offensive is the idea with a great potential for stack wipes, both from maneuver and Forced March.

 

[mgoetze]

The morale bonus from Defensive is better than anything you get from Offensive in terms of actually winning battles.

Yeah morale is good for winning the battle... and discipline is good for winning the war. Guess which I prefer.

 

[Pellucid]

I don't even usually take offensive anymore even late-game. Defensive is better by leaps and bounds.

 

[Golladan]

Higher morale means more staying power, which means when your army breaks because it has no morale, it will take increased losses in the retreat phase.

But then it begs the question, why not both?

Higher morale also means you drain the enemy's morale faster. But then, so does higher discipline, and higher rolls.

 

[RaptorCommander]

I think it's more that other Idea groups are underpowered. Too many '+100% Prestige from Battles', or '-1 Interest from Loans'. Aristocracy, too, should be buffed - I'm not going to go on about how, I'm sure some very well thought out suggestions have been made somewhere here.

With the recent super-AE as well, I'd say it would be more useful to take Diplomacy, or Administrative/Economic - protection through allying France is better than having a +1 Shock general on your 8k stack. Administrative and Economic should be about making the most of your territory, which, to some extent, they do - it's just that they have a lot more dead weight than other idea groups, ie inflation reduction, interest reduction, inflation cost reduction, more possible advisors.

That is, unless you're playing as France, in which case I'd say go and take all Military ideas. Europe shall bow to the BBB, enormous coalition or not.

Aristocracy should have the extra diplomat as the fist upgrade and also include + 2 diplo slots latter in the piece (perhaps replacing +50 core creation) that way it becomes a viable choice to not picking Diplo as your first choice.

The diplomat is needed first cause nations without god leaders can't afford to skip mil tech early in the game.