[Megathread] Warfare Discussion

[letarsier]

As a long time paradox fan, im finding it pretty wild how Vic 3 gives us complete control over our economy (even to the point of being able to change production methods and tools used by individual factories in a giant nation like Russia, as if the Tsar would be poring over blueprints of a factory in Irkutsk pondering whether or not the steam donkey is worth the investment) but, even though our leader is likely the commander in chief of the military, we're not even allowed to give basic orders to our armies or reorganise them.

My thought exactly when I realized that, to produce fruits (or some specific goods), I had to enter into the right factory to change the output parameter.

Some people complained about the military micro management in previous Vics. OK. But at least, there were fruit production, or wool, and there were artillery and some other specific stuff factories.

As you pointed out, this system becomes paranoid when it comes to big states. Do you really think I would check the fruit production at Sheffield during a first class war in asia ?

 

[letarsier]

You are right, but that doesn't mean that we should go back to manual control of every brigade.

Why not ?

Brigades can be stacked into armies, and the armies can be selected at once and directed to one point, can't they ?

As long as you respect the pop rules and organize your amies adequatly, I do not see anything wrong nor impossible to manage, unless some players use to place 1 or 2 brigades per province, which could be counter productive and uselessly time consuming. Same thing for the navies, you do not place one ship per port, do you ?

 

[Sarmatian]

Why not ?

Brigades can be stacked into armies, and the armies can be selected at once and directed to one point, can't they ?

As long as you respect the pop rules and organize your amies adequatly, I do not see anything wrong nor impossible to manage, unless some players use to place 1 or 2 brigades per province, which could be counter productive and uselessly time consuming. Same thing for the navies, you do not place one ship per port, do you ?

Well, for two main reasons.

1) I'm not sure doing that would be a long term advantage. I have no desire to build and juggle hundreds or even thousands of brigades in late game manually. I don't want to pay attention to pops they come from, whether they're likely to rebel, whether the pop is big enough to reinforce, will it ruin my army ratios etc...

2) the system of V3 is not absolutely not compatible with that. I don't see a way it can be done without basically overhauling the entire game and rewriting half the code. There's 0% chance of that happening. The best case scenario for people who dislike the new system is to persuade Paradox to not use it ever again.

 

[Shady_Steps]

the system of V3 is not absolutely not compatible with that. I don't see a way it can be done without basically overhauling the entire game and rewriting half the code. There's 0% chance of that happening. The best case scenario for people who dislike the new system is to persuade Paradox to not use it ever again.

We should do this one.

 

[Sarmatian]

We should do this one.

Sure, go for it. They will certainly listen of enough people vote with their wallets and not implement it for the next game.

But, there's no going back to manual control of brigades in this game. That ship has sailed. If V3 turns out to be a massive failure, they will drop it like Imperator Rome, March of the Eagles etc... and move on to new projects.

 

[letarsier]

Well, for two main reasons.

1) I'm not sure doing that would be a long term advantage. I have no desire to build and juggle hundreds or even thousands of brigades in late game manually. I don't want to pay attention to pops they come from, whether they're likely to rebel, whether the pop is big enough to reinforce, will it ruin my army ratios etc...

2) the system of V3 is not absolutely not compatible with that. I don't see a way it can be done without basically overhauling the entire game and rewriting half the code. There's 0% chance of that happening. The best case scenario for people who dislike the new system is to persuade Paradox to not use it ever again.

I am absolutely sorry, but historically, this is however how it worked: each military region had to support one or 2 army corps, according to their population.

You make a point about military rebellion which is a pain, but then again, historically, it happened quite rarely (assuming you were in a "normal" situation, and not in a revolution), especially in colonial troops. However, how many brigades did rebel in your games ? Not that much, as guess. They therefore could be coded to happen only with irregulars or troops from freshly incorporated states.

Unlike you, I think they can do it, using the "semper fi" trick : a military focused dlc to provide deep alterations.

 

[Sarmatian]

I am absolutely sorry, but historically, this is however how it worked: each military region had to support one or 2 army corps, according to their population.

You make a point about military rebellion which is a pain, but then again, historically, it happened quite rarely (assuming you were in a "normal" situation, and not in a revolution), especially in colonial troops. However, how many brigades did rebel in your games ? Not that much, as guess. They therefore could be coded to happen only with irregulars or troops from freshly incorporated states.

Unlike you, I think they can do it, using the "semper fi" trick : a military focused dlc to provide deep alterations.

The fact that each military region supported a number of troops is irrelevant to this discussion. That works with both systems. As does your other point.

Considering whether they can do it or not... just pay attention to the number of provinces in the game, Pay attention during colonization or tiny battles and imagine manually controlling hundreds of brigades through that. Imagine AI doing that. Secondly, the most information of the game are abstracted at level above the provinces... They would need to literally overhaul most of the game for that to work. It would be simpler to just make a new game at that point.

It's like if you had a car, and you gather a group of engineers and say to them, " I wish this car could fly". They could probably do it, given enough time and money, but it would be a thousand time cheaper and easier to just build an airplane from scratch.

It will not happen. If it turns out to be a deal breaker for enough of the player base to make the game unprofitable in the long term, they will dump the game and move on.

 

[3arat]

It does mean it's less of a game because there is less there. It's just math. If the game does not have a war system, that means it has less than a game that does have a war system. Like hoi4, ck3, Stellaris, and so on. Since they have more, they are more of a game.

Hate to break it to you but it's all just math in the code, in fact even more so for on-map movement because you've got notorious path finding algorithms. As for "Football Manager is less of a game than FIFA", it sounds like a sarcasm but other posts suggest that you really mean it... These two games are the exact opposite of what you stated, with FIFA being just an arcade game intended for multiplayer at house parties, and FM providing insanely deep player agency expressed in a series of strategic and tactical decisions which are then tested by well crafted direct simulations of matches against strong AI competitors. Paradox going the FM way for the war system would be a brave and fascinating experiment.

 

[letarsier]

It's like if you had a car, and you gather a group of engineers and say to them, " I wish this car could fly". They could probably do it, given enough time and money, but it would be a thousand time cheaper and easier to just build an airplane from scratch.

It will not happen. If it turns out to be a deal breaker for enough of the player base to make the game unprofitable in the long term, they will dump the game and move on.

I do have a car, and I like to drive it.

Musk gathered hundreds of engineers and said "hey, I want a car to be driven without human assistance"

OK, but I still want to drive my car, and even Musk understands this and let me drive if this is my choice. And if the electronic assistance fails.


PDX tried to deal with the war without human assistance, and failed. Now, I want the control back.

 

[Sarmatian]

I do have a car, and I like to drive it.

Musk gathered hundreds of engineers and said "hey, I want a car to be driven without human assistance"

OK, but I still want to drive my car, and even Musk understands this and let me drive if this is my choice. And if the electronic assistance fails.

I do not think you understood the analogy. It is not an on/off switch, it is not a matter of a decision. They would basically have to develop the game from scratch. And that is not happening.

 

[letarsier]

I do not think you understood the analogy. It is not an on/off switch, it is not a matter of a decision. They would basically have to develop the game from scratch. And that is not happening.

Yes, this a matter of decision ... and motivation. I think 38% of the players requesting it is a pretty good source of motivation.

I remember the mana in IR, and someone from PDX saying, "mana will not be removed", and later "the game is perfect, the problem comes from the gamers who do not understand it"

Guess what ? The mana was removed.

 

[Sarmatian]

Yes, this a matter of decision ... and motivation. I think 38% of the players requesting it is a pretty good source of motivation.

I remember the mana in IR, and someone from PDX saying, "mana will not be removed", and later "the game is perfect, the problem comes from the gamers who do not understand it"

Guess what ? The mana was removed.

How did you reach the figure of 38%?

Also, does that mean that 62% of player DON'T request it?

 

[letarsier]

How did you reach the figure of 38%?

Also, does that mean that 62% of player DON'T request it?

Steam charts are pretty accurate, you know, like a thermometer. And among the 62 %, many of them agree about the warfare beeing defective, not to say non existant. Unfortunately, there are only 2 choices, like it, or not ...

Now, this point being explained, I still fail to see how a business with 1/3 of the customers unsatisfied would be qualified of a smashing success, and would not need any change.

 

[Lord Lambert]

Paradox trying to repaint the 19th century as an era of unrivalled progress, peace, and prosperity but every war I fight turns into a horrific meatgrinder no matter if I want to annex all of Egypt or take a treaty port

This is a perfect way to describe one of the biggest issues with Victoria 3.

 

[Sarmatian]

Steam charts are pretty accurate, you know, like a thermometer. And among the 62 %, many of them agree about the warfare beeing defective, not to say non existant. Unfortunately, there are only 2 choices, like it, or not ...

Now, this point being explained, I still fail to see how a business with 1/3 of the customers unsatisfied would be qualified of a smashing success, and would not need any change.

I agree with warfare being a mess right now. That doesn't mean I want return to manual control.

Furthermore, you are assuming that everyone who disliked the game disliked it because of the war system, which is wrong. If you assume that, you must also assume that everyone who liked the game liked the war system.

That would mean that they would anger 62% of customers to please 38% of customer. And that doesn't make sense.

It needs change, that's for sure. But it doesn't need to revert to manual control, which is unfeasible as well. Even if it turns out that V3 is a failure because it didn't have the warfare system of V2, it still won't be done. It will simply be dropped, ie. no DLCs and no support.

 

[Delpheus]

To all people who claim that the Victorian era was not about war and the game should not be about war.

From 1836 until 1936 guess how many wars/rebellions were fought? Over 600 in 100 years and the time period is not about war? Every nation and their grandma waged war, too grab what they could, not only the western nations. Maybe PDX should have looked into a history book.

Yeah I want to know where they got the idea this time period was peaceful...
Especially when the climax of the game should be the first world war...

 

[Challenge]

I agree. There is enough anecdotal evidence to support the statement, "It's broke."

So let them fix it.

Games are released, from most developers, that have broken bits in them. The community howls, and they either get fixed or you learn to live with them. This one is a bit bigger -- and it's a new approach -- so it was bound to have a bigger impact. It's my guess they started working on the fixes already; if you disagree, I respect that, but you're also guessing.

Steam charts are pretty accurate, you know, like a thermometer. And among the 62 %, many of them agree about the warfare beeing defective, not to say non existant. Unfortunately, there are only 2 choices, like it, or not ...

Even if half of the 62% think warfare is defective, or worse, it doesn't mean they want it to go away. Like me, maybe they just want it fixed.

 

[Delpheus]

I agree with warfare being a mess right now. That doesn't mean I want return to manual control.

Furthermore, you are assuming that everyone who disliked the game disliked it because of the war system, which is wrong. If you assume that, you must also assume that everyone who liked the game liked the war system.

That would mean that they would anger 62% of customers to please 38% of customer. And that doesn't make sense.

It needs change, that's for sure. But it doesn't need to revert to manual control, which is unfeasible as well. Even if it turns out that V3 is a failure because it didn't have the warfare system of V2, it still won't be done. It will simply be dropped, ie. no DLCs and no support.

Have you seen a negative review that did not complain about the war system?

 

[Sarmatian]

Have you seen a negative review that did not complain about the war system?

I complain about the war system. That doesn't mean I want V2 system.

 

[Delpheus]

I complain about the war system. That doesn't mean I want V2 system.

I don't think anyone is asking for the v2 system. I haven't heard that. Everyone seems to agree we needed an improvement. Stripping it away entirely was the wrong move though.

We just want there to actually BE a system for controlling a military and actually using strategy/tactics. Saying we want v2's system is not accurate.