Hello everyone,
I often think that the way warfare works in EU4 is unrealistic. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and plenty of players don't want realism in this regard. Still, I think that making it more challenging to keep control of occupied or newly conquered provinces isn't necessarily a bad thing either.
My suggestion is that a newly conquered province or an occupied province in a war would have a modifier that impacts manpower. This could be a reduction per month (like sailor maintenance), a penalty to manpower recovery, or maybe both. This modifier could potentially also raise war exhaustion, if that wouldn't be too irritating to deal with.
The reasoning for this is that currently, a nation with a large army can steamroll another without too much issue and, after defeating its army, would not have any issues occupying all of the smaller nation with few effects from the occupation afterwards. To the best of my knowledge, and I am by no means an historian nor an expert on early-modern warfare, in real life, an army would face months, if not years of guerilla warfare, which could whittle down an enemy army over time. Having some modifier to simulate the effect of having to station troops to control newly acquired provinces, or to maintain the occupation of others in a war, would be a nice addition. Of course the modifier would need some qualifiers: if Morocco reconquers Ceuta, it shouldn't face the same penalty, if any, as if Portugal were to conquer Tangier - culture groups and religion should definitely be considered when applying a modifier, and how strong it should be. However, I am aware that transferring occupation could make all of this quite gamey, so there is an issue there that needs to be resolved, if it is used in this regard.
An example could be this: England invades and conquers Tyrone in Ireland. Whilst defeating the army was quick and the country was quickly annexed. However England now faces a "guerilla campaign" for a few years in this province as the populace resists its new overlords. This would take the form of a modifier causing -20 or so manpower and maybe +0.05 war exhaustion per month, or something to that effect - It doesn't have to be crippling.
A sufficiently large army could cope with this, naturally, but it would add more consequences to conquering too much too quickly and for occupying huge amounts of land during a war (think of Russia or the PLC occupying one another). Modifiers could also be added to counteract this effect, maybe through ideas or missions.
Cheers all, looking forward to all your feedback!
EDIT: spelling, grammar and generally making things clearer
I often think that the way warfare works in EU4 is unrealistic. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and plenty of players don't want realism in this regard. Still, I think that making it more challenging to keep control of occupied or newly conquered provinces isn't necessarily a bad thing either.
My suggestion is that a newly conquered province or an occupied province in a war would have a modifier that impacts manpower. This could be a reduction per month (like sailor maintenance), a penalty to manpower recovery, or maybe both. This modifier could potentially also raise war exhaustion, if that wouldn't be too irritating to deal with.
The reasoning for this is that currently, a nation with a large army can steamroll another without too much issue and, after defeating its army, would not have any issues occupying all of the smaller nation with few effects from the occupation afterwards. To the best of my knowledge, and I am by no means an historian nor an expert on early-modern warfare, in real life, an army would face months, if not years of guerilla warfare, which could whittle down an enemy army over time. Having some modifier to simulate the effect of having to station troops to control newly acquired provinces, or to maintain the occupation of others in a war, would be a nice addition. Of course the modifier would need some qualifiers: if Morocco reconquers Ceuta, it shouldn't face the same penalty, if any, as if Portugal were to conquer Tangier - culture groups and religion should definitely be considered when applying a modifier, and how strong it should be. However, I am aware that transferring occupation could make all of this quite gamey, so there is an issue there that needs to be resolved, if it is used in this regard.
An example could be this: England invades and conquers Tyrone in Ireland. Whilst defeating the army was quick and the country was quickly annexed. However England now faces a "guerilla campaign" for a few years in this province as the populace resists its new overlords. This would take the form of a modifier causing -20 or so manpower and maybe +0.05 war exhaustion per month, or something to that effect - It doesn't have to be crippling.
A sufficiently large army could cope with this, naturally, but it would add more consequences to conquering too much too quickly and for occupying huge amounts of land during a war (think of Russia or the PLC occupying one another). Modifiers could also be added to counteract this effect, maybe through ideas or missions.
Cheers all, looking forward to all your feedback!
EDIT: spelling, grammar and generally making things clearer
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