New changes in combat system

[VTPending]

And the sieges for most of those would take a few days at the most, or would surrender almost instantly to a force the size of any army on the map.

Sieges in general took less time in real life than they do in EU4 as far as I can tell. The siege of Constantinople lasted 53 days for example and that was a place famous for its defenses. There were longer sieges of course and I haven't done exhaustive research so I could be wrong, but it feels like the average siege length should be re-evaluated, especially after the recent changes.

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

Sieges in general took less time in real life than they do in EU4 as far as I can tell. The siege of Constantinople lasted 53 days for example and that was a place famous for its defenses. There were longer sieges of course and I haven't done exhaustive research so I could be wrong, but it feels like the average siege length should be re-evaluated, especially after the recent changes.

Everything takes longer in EU4 warfare. Most battles took only a few hours, sometimes a few days, in EU4 they routinely last weeks. It is ridiculous and I will continue railing against it. Bringing in troops from even an adjacent province should be almost impossible, you should have to have a higher movement speed than the enemy and start moving towards the battle before it even properly begins

 

[Fenrirwolf]

EDIT: 2/5 times won this battle against more than double sized enemy. Not too bad given I only havve 1 military idea group (though am ahead in tech)

you also have a way better general, and it seems like you were the defender. on what terrain, rivercrossing? and what techs are you ahead, more pips on units, tactics, are his cannons still useless in battle? whats the combat width, what mil boni do you have (disc, morale etc), wand what does he have. your losses seem pretty even, so while you get some warscore its not much of a win, you lost 15k, he 19k. if he has quantity and you dont then this fight is a net loss for you

 

[jamal bakr]

Sieges in general took less time in real life than they do in EU4 as far as I can tell. The siege of Constantinople lasted 53 days for example and that was a place famous for its defenses. There were longer sieges of course and I haven't done exhaustive research so I could be wrong, but it feels like the average siege length should be re-evaluated, especially after the recent changes.

The siege of constantinople in game is not merely the siege of constantinople, but the pacification of the entire province. Going realism this far into the model will generally lead to a much worse game.

 

[dualmaster]

Two observations from recent playthroughs:

Played a campaign as France and never knew French armies could be so weak. Highlight was fighting the Mamluks where I had 5.1 morale vs their 3.9 morale. They stackwiped one of my armies because they had ~50% more troops at the battle. That would never have happened in previous versions (based on experience with the specific numbers and composition involved).

Played another campaign as Coptomans>Rome. After sieging 5 billion max level forts over the course of the campaign, it has become clear that the AI will not hesitate to jump your stack if they have a numerical advantage of something like +50% size (even with somewhat worse quality). Fair enough. But if you simply bring numbers, they will simply run away like in previous patches. Thus, to siege a Level 6 fort, I would put a 40k stack on the fort with another 40-80k troops next to it and the AI wouldn't fight anymore but would just run away to the undefended province on the other side of the continent like usual.

So it may well be true that the most effective way to fight a war in this patch is to bring sheer numbers and thereby avoid fighting many battles.

 

[Red Death]

Sieges in general took less time in real life than they do in EU4 as far as I can tell. The siege of Constantinople lasted 53 days for example and that was a place famous for its defenses. There were longer sieges of course and I haven't done exhaustive research so I could be wrong, but it feels like the average siege length should be re-evaluated, especially after the recent changes.

Though I suppose the siege of Constantinople (or other short sieges) are actually represented by wall breach (by paying mil points for artillery barrage) followed by assault, rather than waiting out the RNG siege process (which more represents the garrisson surrendering after demoralisation/starvation).

The latter type really could take many months to years IRL.

 

[Chippings]

So it may well be true that the most effective way to fight a war in this patch is to bring sheer numbers and thereby avoid fighting many battles.

"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Keep in mind some of the issues, when it come to the quality vs quantity might come from combats that don't fill the combat width. I know it is supposed to make some difference, but not to the point quality seems almost irrelevant. is like 20k Prussian troops supposed to loose to 40k+ other weaker troops when the width is above 24?

It's probably worth pointing out if enemy is utilizing 24 width to your 20, they are dealing just under 17% more damage just from width ratio at the start. However, the flank guys also aren't taking any damage in return, so as the battle progresses they keep doing maximum damage until their flanking range isn't relevant any longer...which snowballs into the edges of your line doing less damage to theirs.

Along with the ability for enemy to swap in some regiments that take too much damage, spotting the enemy an extra 17% damage is devastating enough that you should expect to lose. It's reasonably comparable to just throwing your "goose step" NI in the trash can for that fight.

If your lack of width includes back row of cannons in addition, it's even worse.

The latter type really could take many months to years IRL.

While there are some notable exceptions of impressive siege duration, the vast majority of historical sieges w/o assaulting the position did not take "years".

Food and especially potable water only holds out so long.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

I also don't understand why people are not complaining about this more. I don't care about the forts but with the combat changes they basically made a huge part of the game obsolete. Getting any mil-idea group besides quantity is now completely pointless because modifiers just don't matter anymore.

Also, battles are taking waaaayyyy too long now. It does not make sense that someone can reinforce even small battles that happen five provinces away in time. Before the patch it was possible to beat superior enemies by playing smart. Now you must expand until you have more men than the enemy. Extremely dull.

How does that happen? I thought morale loss was far faster this patch?

 

[AvengedK1ng]

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While there are some notable exceptions of impressive siege duration, the vast majority of historical sieges w/o assaulting the position did not take "years".

Food and especially potable water only holds out so long.

This reminds me I need to finish my excel doc of all sieges ever one day

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

The combat system changes make playing as any small nation really, really hard. It's no longer the case you might be able to beat a larger nation by taking strategic defensive battles whilst investing in better troop quality. The reason being you'll never win a battle quick enough like you could on previous patches, the AI will just reinforce with another stack. Or they'll retreat and come back with more men.

I'm not a fan at all, I think it is actually my least favourite change that's been made in a while. I hope Paradox devs will take the criticism constructively and make amends next time round. There's an 'if it's not broke don't fix it' line to be had here.

 

[please add multithreading]

France had over 40,000 castles and fortresses dating from between the 9th and 21st centuries.

Forts arent representative of real life castles. Not every castle is as hard to take as Vienna or Constantinople.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

The combat system changes make playing as any small nation really, really hard. It's no longer the case you might be able to beat a larger nation by taking strategic defensive battles whilst investing in better troop quality. The reason being you'll never win a battle quick enough like you could on previous patches, the AI will just reinforce with another stack. Or they'll retreat and come back with more men.

I'm not a fan at all, I think it is actually my least favourite change that's been made in a while. I hope Paradox devs will take the criticism constructively and make amends next time round. There's an 'if it's not broke don't fix it' line to be had here.

How many allies are you using? Sagir yogur to yuan should be very hard

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Forts arent representative of real life castles. Not every castle is as hard to take as Vienna or Constantinople.

Eu4's 1453 Constantinople is surprisingly easy to take compared to the sieges at the height of the empire, forts along the hungarian frontier could last longer than 2 months of 1453

 

[currylambchop]

you also have a way better general, and it seems like you were the defender. on what terrain, rivercrossing? and what techs are you ahead, more pips on units, tactics, are his cannons still useless in battle? whats the combat width, what mil boni do you have (disc, morale etc), wand what does he have. your losses seem pretty even, so while you get some warscore its not much of a win, you lost 15k, he 19k. if he has quantity and you dont then this fight is a net loss for you

what matters to me is that he doesn’t take my fort, not how many men I lose. If I lost the battle the enemy would have taken my fort and made life a lot harder for me.

I have defensive ideas and the Marathras discipline privilege in terms of military quality.

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

How many allies are you using? Sagir yogur to yuan should be very hard

It's not the mere point of the difficulty.

First of all, battles in the early game time period were often decided in hours or a day, not a week or a month. So this new change is completely ahistorical.

But it's that picking strategic battles and investing in army quality are almost pointless now. I've had multiple battles in which I know prior to 1.33 I would have stackwiped by terrain and army quality, that doesn't happen now.

Stackwipes were fun, they're gone now. Forts were very boring, there's more now.

This doesn't make the game harder for me. It makes the game more boring. For the first time in a few years I've looked at EU4 in my steam library and just gone 'eh'. It pains me, because I love this game. But the current changes have made the game infinitely more tedious and painful, not enjoyable.

If Paradox would just revert to 1.32 combat and maybe toned down forts by another 10-20% I think we'd have a very good game.

 

[jdavis86]

I agree and I am surprised more people don't have an issue with it.

The devs have done a lot of really good improvements to the game but the combat changes are not among them imo. I posted some screenshots and explanations of why the changes are bad in the beta thread.

As has been said, the changes seem to remove morale stacking as a viable option for smaller nation. EU4 has always been a game, at least in single player, where size wins. The changes don't really change the playstyle much for a single player France campaign (though the battles are still weird).

The change really hits smaller nations who can't fill a force limit, or can only afford one stack. You used to be able to stack morale and then carefully choose when to engage other AI stacks i.e. use skill. As has been said, battles are too long now for this to matter. You'll rarely wipe the AI stack before the AI reinforces. So...quantity is now even more important for victory.

Oh, and please fix the change to stack splitting .

 

[Destaloss]

Not sure this is right. Just ran a short test; England had 20% infantry combat ability and 5% more discipline. France had 50% more troops. Almost exactly the same morale. England filled combat width. Combat rolls were set to 0. No terrain modifiers or leaders. Results? England won the battle, barely.

More tests need to be run, of course, but on the surface it seems that the notion that "quality doesn't matter any more" is incorrect.

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Just set the roles to 4 or 5 which would be the middle role and let both sides be attacker / defender.