Land Combat and Morale

[Cuenca Guy]

So, I recently bought the game and have been trying to figure out how it works. If I'm not playing as the Ottomans or avoiding war at all cost, I figure I need to understand how land combat works. After reading the wiki and the Land Combat Deconstructed guides, I have a basic understanding, but I still have a few questions.

First, it seems the game is all about morale. Stack wipes are apparently virtually impossible in a first engagement, so the battles almost always end when one side runs out of morale. Is that reasonably accurate?

Secondly, the way I understand the numbers, generals are the overwhelmingly most important factor. Assuming I'm not far behind in tech and not fighting at less than maximum width, the difference in winning and losing comes down to how much better my general is than my opponent's. More pips is more morale damage which leads to routing armies and having more morale when I re-engage the enemy. Sure, there's RNG, but over the long run, this is correct?

Third, I'm confused as people talk about battles lasting for months. All factors being equal, a battle "should" end in 16 days as an "average" dice role of 4.5 will do 6.25% damage to the morale. How then are battles lasting for multiple months?

Finally, if my understanding of morale is accurate, it seems land combat is overwhelmingly about the RNG that takes place when you buy generals. If so, that doesn't sound fun. Is there something I'm missing? And either way, how much mana is it a good idea to spend to find a good general?

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

1-In the early game moral is king. As the game progresses and armies become larger with reinforcing stacks Discipline will become more important. Moral wins battles, Discipline adds tactics which determines how many men die on each roll. Later in the game you can lose a few battles and slowly turn the tide of the war as you'll have more men than your opponent.

That is more or less correct. Battle end when Moral runs out, every soldier on one side is killed(Rare), or someone retreats after 12 days.

2-Having a great general is one of many factors that determine victory, but as someone with terrible luck rolling generals I don't think it's the definitive most important part of waging war. If all things are equal, a great general will be a great asset, but it's your job to make sure all things are not equal. Pick favorable ground, stack military ideas, ALWAYS be at least on par in Mil tech(rare exceptions for specific techs that aren't as impactful, but this is a great rule).

3-Battle last for a long time when you get reinforcing armies. This happens a lot during the HRE league wars.

4-Like I said above, generals are important and useful, but not quite as important as you're thinking. How many points you want to spend on generals is situational. If you are caught up on tech and not filling an Idea group you can afford to take a couple chances. There are things you can do to increase your chances of a great general. Offensive Ideas are great for generals and discipline. Army tradition has break points at 20-40-60-80-100 where your generals will be better. If you can stay above 80 Army tradition you will get plenty of 3 star generals. Defensive ideas and Quality Ideas both give you more AT(Army tradition) as well as having forts.

There is also an estate interaction with the nobility that gives you a free 40 tradition general.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

Finally, if my understanding of morale is accurate, it seems land combat is overwhelmingly about the RNG that takes place when you buy generals. If so, that doesn't sound fun. Is there something I'm missing?

Keep in mind, armies have a variable max morale. It's not a quantity that starts at 100% and decreases down to 0, it will start at anywhere from 2.5 to somewhere over 10 (from tech + a lot of modifiers). Morale damage is also calculated per individual unit; so units on the front row are taking far more morale damage than units in the back row, or in reserves. Those units do take a static hit per day of combat due to being in combat, but they can also be supplemented by fresh stacks being rotated in. So battles can theoretically last as long as both sides can keep rotating in fresh troops.

Morale damage, as I understand it, comes from two sources: a morale damage roll (which is added to unit pips, modified by each force's morale stat - so armies with more morale do more moral damage), and casualties inflicted. Casualties depend on:
1) unit pips, general pips, and the dice role,
2) The actual damage modifiers listed on the military page (so cav start out doing 0 damage in the fire phase, but substantial damage in the shock phase).
3) Tactics, combat ability, and discipline (which functions as boost to both tactics and combat ability).

Moreover: damaged units deal less damage than full strength units. So as units are damaged, they'll do less damage overall. One reason a full back row of cannon is so important - by weakening the enemy's infantry line faster, you preserve your own.

So the general plays an important role, but army quality (discipline, CA, max morale), as well as unit quality (number of pips) are also hugely important. So is army composition - having cavalry vs. all infantry, having a full back row of cannon vs. empty back row or a back row filled with infantry (this is maybe the most important factor, and the easiest one to miss/get casual about, especially when trying to dodge attrition.). Finally, sheer numbers matter - I've definitely seen battles where my army breaks the enemy's front line, only to have it replaced again, and again, until my outnumbered troops are finally routed from the field. You can't completely ignore quality, but quantity definitely matters.

Tl:dr? Good generals matter, but so does everything else about your army. And so long as you aren't getting stack wiped, economy/manpower have their own roles to play.

Oh, and generals aren't entirely RNG - pips are rolled based on army tradition, and some ideas/NIs give +1 to fire/shock/maneuver/siege. It's entirely possible to be at the point where you're almost guaranteed a 4/4.

 

[qwertzuiop]

First, it seems the game is all about morale. Stack wipes are apparently virtually impossible in a first engagement, so the battles almost always end when one side runs out of morale. Is that reasonably accurate?

The two posters above have already given great replies, but I'd like to comment on stack wipes and how they happen in the game. Okay, so whenever an army runs out of morale they retreat, but if they run out of morale before they are even allowed to retreat (a period of 12 days after the battle starts), then the whole army gets destroyed. So stack wipes are in fact depending on morale and they happen quite often. It is also possible to wipe an army by killing everyone in battle, but that rarely ever happens.

In the early game, it is generally possible to do stack wipes if you have a slightly bigger army than your opponent and an advantage in military tactics and/or morale as long as you fight in good terrain and your general is at least similar to the enemy general in terms of Shock.

In the late game, stack wipes are usually caused by having an army with a lot of discipline, a good Fire general and a better army composition than the enemy (the AI doesn't always build enough artillery). If you have an approximate 1:1 ratio of artillery to infantry (a full back row) while the AI attacks you with huge infantry stacks, you will win the battle very quickly.

 

[Cuenca Guy]

Thanks for the responses. I realize I don't understand entirely how morale works. Apparently a regiment gets replaced (if there are some in reserve) when it gets routed. So I understand how individual morale is calculated, but the wiki states that "Once an army's overall Morale value has been reduced to zero the army will attempt to retreat."

So how is overall morale calculated? Can units go to negative morale? Do units in the back row (ie. artillery) suffer morale loss at the same rate as those units actually suffering casualties? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like a lot of information is missing from the wiki, and I haven't found these answers through searches.

 

[Badesumofu]

Bare in mind that all units in a battle take morale damage when the army takes casualties. Another important thing with morale is that the morale damage you inflict per casualty is modified by your max-morale (not current morale). So all else being equal, if you have a significant morale advantage and you can flank your enemy, you have a great chance to bring them to zero morale within 12 days of battle. Just beware of tactics, in particular the huge difference between Mil 3 and Mil 4. Any Mil tech that grants tactics is crucial.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

Thanks for the responses. I realize I don't understand entirely how morale works. Apparently a regiment gets replaced (if there are some in reserve) when it gets routed. So I understand how individual morale is calculated, but the wiki states that "Once an army's overall Morale value has been reduced to zero the army will attempt to retreat."

So how is overall morale calculated? Can units go to negative morale? Do units in the back row (ie. artillery) suffer morale loss at the same rate as those units actually suffering casualties? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like a lot of information is missing from the wiki, and I haven't found these answers through searches.

I believe an army's moral is the average of all participating units.

No, if they hit zero they run and another unit takes their place if possible.

They suffer the same direct moral damage, but not moral damage from casualties. So they both take moral damage, but units that are taking losses suffer more moral damage. In a losing fight this will force your artillery to the front lines. Artillery are very expensive to reinforce and are very vulnerable to damage so this should be avoided if at all possible.

 

[Cuenca Guy]

Bare in mind that all units in a battle take morale damage when the army takes casualties.

The wiki states that units not taking damage get 0.01 or 0.02 morale damage per tick/day. However, I did a lot of searching and found https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-second-row-taking-morale-damage-bug.953802/. Apparently there's a mechanic that makes units in the back take a lot more morale damage while only units in reserve take the small morale tick. If true, there's not a whole lot of need for reserves as your army will rout when all of the front row routs. Few reserves should be needed, and reinforcements will make a much bigger difference. I'm hoping to confirm that as I don't really know how to set up the game so I can test it.

I've received a lot of help here and on Reddit, but it means there's so much more to learn as people give me more and more info. Once I finally get morale nailed down, I need to learn more about tradition, tactics, discipline, and more. Unfortunately, I'm not the kind of person who can just kind of understand the mechanics and then play

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

Tradition is fairly self explanatory. If you scroll over it in the Mil tab it tells you exactly what benefits it gives, sans its relationship to Generals IIRC. It provides Moral, manpower recovery, siege ability and moral recovery speed.

In simplest terms, more AT is always better. You get it from maintaining forts, Quality and defensive ideas, some NIs(National Ideas), and from winning battles/sieging forts. As mentioned before it helps with general creation at break points every 20 points.

Tactics and Discipline are woven together. Discipline directly effects how high your tactics are. Someone else can give you the formula, but simply put both the damage you do and receive is multiplied by the difference between your tactics and you opponents tactics. A significant difference in tactics can lead to the lesser army getting absolutely melted.

Other modifiers that effect battle are:
-Prestige(It works like AT, giving bonuses rather than directly effecting battle)
-Combat ability(Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery)
-Fire and shock damage modifiers(Which are fairly recent)
-Flanking range(Which is only relevant when flanking is possible)

Best of luck with your search for knowledge. There is a surprising amount to learn for a system with relatively little interactivity. It's quite complex, but can function with a basic understanding that you want all your numbers to be higher than the opposing army's numbers. That and army composition. Your opponent can have pretty much every advantage and still lose if you have the better army Comp. The AI for some nations can be terrible at this. Russia for one.

 

[PhoenixG]

Tradition is fairly self explanatory. If you scroll over it in the Mil tab it tells you exactly what benefits it gives, sans its relationship to Generals IIRC. It provides Moral, manpower recovery, siege ability and moral recovery speed.

In simplest terms, more AT is always better. You get it from maintaining forts, Quality and defensive ideas, some NIs(National Ideas), and from winning battles/sieging forts. As mentioned before it helps with general creation at break points every 20 points.

Tactics and Discipline are woven together. Discipline directly effects how high your tactics are. Someone else can give you the formula, but simply put both the damage you do and receive is multiplied by the difference between your tactics and you opponents tactics. A significant difference in tactics can lead to the lesser army getting absolutely melted.

Other modifiers that effect battle are:
-Prestige(It works like AT, giving bonuses rather than directly effecting battle)
-Combat ability(Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery)
-Fire and shock damage modifiers(Which are fairly recent)
-Flanking range(Which is only relevant when flanking is possible)

Best of luck with your search for knowledge. There is a surprising amount to learn for a system with relatively little interactivity. It's quite complex, but can function with a basic understanding that you want all your numbers to be higher than the opposing army's numbers. That and army composition. Your opponent can have pretty much every advantage and still lose if you have the better army Comp. The AI for some nations can be terrible at this. Russia for one.

While tactics is gained by having more discipline. The main thing that increase tactics is tech.
Discipline is a modifier that increase the amont men you kill, while tactics is a modifier that reduce how many men you lose.

Prestige increase your morale, so it directly effects battles.

 

[Incompetent]

First, it seems the game is all about morale. Stack wipes are apparently virtually impossible in a first engagement, so the battles almost always end when one side runs out of morale. Is that reasonably accurate?

It depends what you mean by 'stack wipe'.

A battle where the enemy is literally ground away to nothing and fights to the last man is indeed almost impossible early on. It becomes more possible with late-game technology against a high-morale opponent, although generally it happens only in the context of meat-grinder battles with several waves of reinforcements on both sides (as a lone stack would typically just retreat if it's so badly outmatched).

What people usually call a 'stackwipe' is more properly called a rout: it's a battle where the enemy is defeated (=runs out of morale) within the first round of combat (one fire phase + one shock phase, so 6 days). Due to the timing, the defeated army is unable to retreat and is completely disbanded. An army outnumbered 10-to-1 at the beginning of the engagement is instantly routed, but more generally, it's certainly possible to defeat the enemy army within a single round if you have enough advantages. Morale is not the only advantage that matters here, but it's one of the most important: if you have morale bonuses higher than your opponent's, every casualty you inflict will cause extra morale damage, and obviously a demoralized army will break much quicker than one that starts the battle at full morale.

As others have said, it's not *all* about morale; for the battles that aren't routs, you want to be efficient with your casualty numbers versus your opponent's, so you can win a war of attrition. Morale does not directly kill anyone, and to inflict morale damage, you need to inflict casualties through fire and shock damage. But cornering and routing your opponents' armies is usually the key to scoring a decisive victory in the war without taking excessive casualties yourself, and it's much easier to do this if you have a big morale advantage.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

While tactics is gained by having more discipline. The main thing that increase tactics is tech.
Discipline is a modifier that increase the amont men you kill, while tactics is a modifier that reduce how many men you lose.

Prestige increase your morale, so it directly effects battles.

If that is the case the Wiki and everything I've read is out of date. My understanding is that discipline only modifies your tactics.Edit*I believe it was out of date. You are correct about this first part. Discipline determines how many men you will kill a day and tactics(Which is modified by tech and discipline) reduces the amount of men you will lose.

That's not what "Directly effects" means. Moral directly effects battle. Prestige modifies Moral, but does nothing on it's own. That is by definition an indirect effect.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

If true, there's not a whole lot of need for reserves as your army will rout when all of the front row routs

I don't know exactly how the formula works, but in practice, having reserves can definitely make a difference. Keep in mind, the troops actually taking casualties will be taking a bigger morale hit than the second rank cannon, so they'll withdraw before army morale goes to zero. At that point, any reserves (whether in the battle from the start, or added later on) will rotate into the front line, instead of the cannon hitting the front line to get butchered. With the high morale values in late game, it can take quite a while for an army to entirely withdraw do to zero average morale.

Tbh, there are times when I've wished my cannon had lower morale, to minimize the time they get beaten on in a losing fight.

In terms of really understanding how things play out, I recommend playing wars on speed 1, and even pausing during battles. Mouse over your units, your enemies units, watch the die rolls and the accompanying casualty numbers, etc. Really see how things operate phase by phase.

 

[makaramus]

for a new guy it seems you understand a lot... way too lot
*watch this guy closely he is suspecius!*

 

[Cuenca Guy]

for a new guy it seems you understand a lot... way too lot
*watch this guy closely he is suspecius!*

I've actually had people accuse me of being a fake account in certain games because I knew too much or was too good too soon. I study things a lot.

In terms of really understanding how things play out, I recommend playing wars on speed 1, and even pausing during battles. Mouse over your units, your enemies units, watch the die rolls and the accompanying casualty numbers, etc. Really see how things operate phase by phase.

Yeah, I'll have to do some of that, but thanks to my studies and asking lots of questions, I at least have a basic understanding. Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

[Badesumofu]

The wiki states that units not taking damage get 0.01 or 0.02 morale damage per tick/day. However, I did a lot of searching and found https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-second-row-taking-morale-damage-bug.953802/. Apparently there's a mechanic that makes units in the back take a lot more morale damage while only units in reserve take the small morale tick. If true, there's not a whole lot of need for reserves as your army will rout when all of the front row routs. Few reserves should be needed, and reinforcements will make a much bigger difference. I'm hoping to confirm that as I don't really know how to set up the game so I can test it.

A common tactic is to have a small number of reserves in the fighting army (maybe just a few inf) and keep the main reserve in an adjacent province (ideally with a short travel time to the battle). You then manually move the totally fresh reserve army in when the original front line starts to look shaky. If you keep pouring men into the meat-grinder you'll win eventually. When using a tactic like this it would be common to be using a lot of mercs which you can then consolidate after the battle and re-recruit to get back to full strength very quickly.

Also be aware that despite what the wiki says infantry units in the back row actually do deal some damage.

 

[bbqftw]

A common tactic is to have a small number of reserves in the fighting army (maybe just a few inf) and keep the main reserve in an adjacent province (ideally with a short travel time to the battle). You then manually move the totally fresh reserve army in when the original front line starts to look shaky. If you keep pouring men into the meat-grinder you'll win eventually. When using a tactic like this it would be common to be using a lot of mercs which you can then consolidate after the battle and re-recruit to get back to full strength very quickly.

Also be aware that despite what the wiki says infantry units in the back row actually do deal some damage.

funnily enough paying attention to combat width was actually a bad thing.

Its insane how much easier rebel squashing and wars are when you know all you have to do is pile in an extra combat width's worth of troops into the backline to do 50% extra damage

 

[Badesumofu]

funnily enough paying attention to combat width was actually a bad thing.

Its insane how much easier rebel squashing and wars are when you know all you have to do is pile in an extra combat width's worth of troops into the backline to do 50% extra damage

I'm not sure whether to be infuriated at it or thrilled. The lack of any documentation is frustrating but the 'feature' is very handy in game.

 

[ecrurudesby]

Non-artillery doing damage from the back row should be patched out in 1.23 according to StarNaN so if you want to stay on the up to date version I wouldn't rely on how it works currently.

 

[Badesumofu]

Non-artillery doing damage from the back row should be patched out in 1.23 according to StarNaN so if you want to stay on the up to date version I wouldn't rely on how it works currently.

I see the post in the bug-report forum now. Good to know. That was quite a WTF moment for me.