Oh Lithuania ... why hast thou forsaken me ... again.

[IrishGirl]

Playing as Poland, Lithuania in the PU, probably my third start. One general comment first: I find Lithuania is the least useful of my vassals. They have a history of doing nothing during a war. But I think okay, maybe I'm doing it wrong.

So I did some research, studied out the subject interactions and settings, and started a new game. Things were going well. When Ryazan was attacked by the Great Horde, I offered them an alliance and got a couple steppe provinces for my war efforts. Cossacks unlocked, I worked on buffing my army. Made Ryazan a vassal.

Revoked march on Moldavia and annexed them. Was wrapping that up when Muscovy attacked Novogrod for the second time (it was 1466). Seeing this as the end of Novogrod (Denmark was also at war with them) I checked some numbers and decided to help out Novogrod by declaring on Muscovy.

Initially things went well. I took Okay (Odoyev) for Ryazan. I defeated a couple of Muscovy armies and one of their allies. The warscore was hovering around 3 or 4 in my favor as I was focusing on taking out their armies.

Then comes the main Muscovy army of 24k men with a 1/4/0/1 general. My ruler is leading my army and he's a 3/4/4/0 general. I have two armies of 12k each to avoid attrition, but because of battles were more like 11k and 9k. They were moving in coordination (keeping to adjacent provinces). I'm trying to be careful here.

Lithuania has a 12k army also in the vicinity. The Muscovy stack moves to attack them and they retreat, My two armies move in to support. One army (11k) commits to heading into Kiev (locked). The other army is in Owruvz.

Muscovy changes and advances into Kiev. I now commit my entire army to Kiev, thinking the Lithuanian army of 12k which is in Mazyr is also going to commit. I mean, after all, they were set to support in the subject interactions menu. But guess what they do? Guess??

They turn and march all the way to Braslaw. Yeah.

Well, I lose that battle by a dice roll and both armies are significantly weakened. But as you know, my armies retreat to the far ends of Poland while Muscovy's allies immediately started taking land in Lithuania. Meanwhile, the Lithuanian army went to Braslaw and had tea. I was so completely frustrated; I just saved the game and exited.

So, to review:

Did you have your vassals set to support? Yes.

Was the battle on Lithuanian territory? Yes.

Did you have numeric superiority? Yes, with Lithuania's army. The raw numbers: Muscovy at 24k, Poland at 20k, and Lithuania at 12k.

Did you have a better general? Yes.

What is Lithuania's Liberty Desire? 10%

Did you have better tech? No, Muscovy is 5/5/6 in tech and I'm 4/4/5. Lithuania is 5/5/5.

I know tech is so important; maybe I shouldn't have declared on Muscovy. But would that make Lithuania just walk away and leave my armies to die? Together we would have won the battle, since as it was, Muscovy barely won.

Of what use is Lithuania if they don't contribute to my wars (speaking as a game mechanic). I get that, historically, this type of behavior was not uncommon. But that just means every vassal is a randomized dice roll of support and I should always plan on not getting any help at all. None.

Ironically, my other vassals always show up to fight. It's just Lithuania that I'm having problems with. Is it because of our relative size? Is there a better way to manage this? Because right now they're pretty useless to me.

 

[Turbo215]

Did you have better tech? No, Muscovy is 5/5/6 in tech and I'm 4/4/5. Lithuania is 5/5/5. I know tech is so important; maybe I shouldn't have declared on Muscovy. But would that make Lithuania just walk away and leave my armies to die? Together we would have won the battle, since as it was, Muscovy barely won.

Tech 6 is one of the biggest early game military techs so fighting somebody like Muscovy this early without it is a gamble, especially considering the +10% shock damage they receive from their traditions and the fact that you don't have either any military idea groups or military bonuses from your tradition and also that this early shock is more important than fire.

Muscovy changes and advances into Kiev. I now commit my entire army to Kiev, thinking the Lithuanian army of 12k which is in Mazyr is also going to commit. I mean, after all, they were set to support in the subject interactions menu. But guess what they do? Guess??

Did you have your vassals set to support? Yes.

I just want to make one thing clear. did you also have the "allow friendly armies to attach to this army" button on for your armies? (the icon was changed in the latest patch and it took me quite a while to actually find it again ). If so, (even) then (at least in my experience) AI armies can be quite derpy when deciding to attach or not and when to assist in any battles you get into. On the whole, in my opinion, you can't rely on an AI (especially vassals/PU's) to help you out in a war/battle that without them you would lose, it's just like relying on random players in multiplayer team games to do what you expect them to do without communicating it with them (Hint: 9 times out of 10 they won't).

Of what use is Lithuania if they don't contribute to my wars (speaking as a game mechanic). I get that, historically, this type of behavior was not uncommon. But that just means every vassal is a randomized dice roll of support and I should always plan on not getting any help at all. None.

I think the issue mainly lies with their AI, not to fault the developers because creating an AI that does the right thing (what a skilled player would do) is extremely difficult to get right (See, colonizers leaving half their army on provinces in the Caribbean).

Revoked march on Moldavia and annexed them. Was wrapping that up when Muscovy attacked Novogrod for the second time (it was 1466). Seeing this as the end of Novogrod (Denmark was also at war with them) I checked some numbers and decided to help out Novogrod by declaring on Muscovy.

I think the best option for dealing with Muscovy is to try to cut it off from expanding, primarily by snaking through the hordes around the border of Muscovy and then taking land elsewhere until you are powerful enough to take them on, it seems like this would be better than the old method of smothering them in their crib (so to speak) because Third Rome increased the development of the Russian provinces (I believe) and also has introduced two new Muscovite vassals (The vassal swarm of Muscovy at game start is substantial) as well as improving their early combat ideas (+10% shock damage), all in all this means that they (Muscovy + vassals) field a large and quite good army in the first few years/decades until Muscovy integrates some of their subjects as having 4 vassals rather than Muscovy directly owning land increases force limit by 4 (1 for each vassal) and each vassal also gets +3 base force-limit adding up to a total of 16,000 more troops than normal as well as the additional base manpower.

Well, I lose that battle by a dice roll

This seems to be a common theme in your games .

 

[Lord Zsinj]

In subject interaction, set them to attach to your armies, the button looks like a puzzle piece. Have a couple loose single infantry merc this nuts to herd them around.

But as mentioned, that military tech disparity is the killer.

 

[IrishGirl]

Tech 6 is one of the biggest early game military techs so fighting somebody like Muscovy this early without it is a gamble, especially considering the +10% shock damage they receive from their traditions and the fact that you don't have either any military idea groups or military bonuses from your tradition and also that this early shock is more important than fire.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I was afraid that was going to be the answer. And I completely forgot about the +10 shock tradition for Muscovy.

The thing I was trying accomplish was to take them out quickly before they expanded into the huge beast they almost always become.

I just want to make one thing clear. did you also have the "allow friendly armies to attach to this army" button on for your armies? (the icon was changed in the latest patch and it took me quite a while to actually find it again ). If so, (even) then (at least in my experience) AI armies can be quite derpy when deciding to attach or not and when to assist in any battles you get into. On the whole, in my opinion, you can't rely on an AI (especially vassals/PU's) to help you out in a war/battle that without them you would lose, it's just like relying on random players in multiplayer team games to do what you expect them to do without communicating it with them (Hint: 9 times out of 10 they won't).

No, I did not. I do recall being told about it; I forgot in the moment. I'll make a note of that for future reference. And again, I was afraid this would be the answer.

I think the issue mainly lies with their AI, not to fault the developers because creating an AI that does the right thing (what a skilled player would do) is extremely difficult to get right (See, colonizers leaving half their army on provinces in the Caribbean).

And to be clear: I'm not complaining about the devs. I'm just trying to get an idea what to expect so I don't send my entire army into a battle expecting support that isn't going to be there.

I think the best option for dealing with Muscovy is to try to cut it off from expanding, primarily by snaking through the hordes around the border of Muscovy and then taking land elsewhere until you are powerful enough to take them on, it seems like this would be better than the old method of smothering them in their crib (so to speak) ...

Nice reference. Yes, smothering was the plan.

... because Third Rome increased the development of the Russian provinces (I believe) and also has introduced two new Muscovite vassals (The vassal swarm of Muscovy at game start is substantial) as well as improving their early combat ideas (+10% shock damage), all in all this means that they (Muscovy + vassals) field a large and quite good army in the first few years/decades until Muscovy integrates some of their subjects as having 4 vassals rather than Muscovy directly owning land increases force limit by 4 (1 for each vassal) and each vassal also gets +3 base force-limit adding up to a total of 16,000 more troops than normal as well as the additional base manpower.

Experience has already taught me about their vassal swarm. It was all I could do to take out their armies. I could do it, by fighting them one at a time, but the sheer number of them and their ability to replenish means making substantive advances in territory was difficult.

But yes, all this is good to know. I have a friend that plays regularly and I chatted with him today about my problems. His response was: "You're doing it wrong. Don't fight Muscovy; ally them and when the time is right, take out the Ottomans."

Thing is: almost all the other advice I received was to take out Muscovy. But maybe this should have been my approach.

This seems to be a common theme in your games .

I'm not sure what your referring to?

I openly admit: I suck at land warfare in the early game. By mid-game, when I'm ahead on tech and money because I've milked things like development and splendors, and now professionalism, I can hold my own - but even then I'm still by no means awesome. That and my penchant for getting my nations into "unfortunate" situations - particularly military situations.

That said, I feel I've had a number of good results from both military and diplomatic expansion. But when that happens, I just take full credit. No need to run to the forum and ask a question.

 

[Turbo215]

And to be clear: I'm not complaining about the devs. I'm just trying to get an idea what to expect so I don't send my entire army into a battle expecting support that isn't going to be there.

I only put that into my answer to (hopefully) make it clear that I wasn't complaining about the devs either. Ultimately AI assistance for battles is very hit and miss, sometimes they'll help sometimes not, the only real solution is to not have to rely upon them which often isn't feasible and which doesn't really help.

Experience has already taught me about their vassal swarm. It was all I could do to take out their armies. I could do it, by fighting them one at a time, but the sheer number of them and their ability to replenish means making substantive advances in territory was difficult.

But yes, all this is good to know. I have a friend that plays regularly and I chatted with him today about my problems. His response was: "You're doing it wrong. Don't fight Muscovy; ally them and when the time is right, take out the Ottomans."

Thing is: almost all the other advice I received was to take out Muscovy. But maybe this should have been my approach.

I fortunately haven't really played much with Muscovy/Russia recently (latest game was a Madyas to Malaya game and only played a few others for an extended period in Europe), it's kind of hard to give specific advice as every game ends up playing out differently, ultimately until you can take out your opponents solo you need to be opportunistic, break alliances, make alliances and use them to your advantage (promise land to call them in and then don't give them any, as long as you no longer need them as your ally), declare war on weak targets etc. In some cases Muscovy will rival Poland (especially if you end up PU'ing Lithuania) in which case you can't ally them but what you do depends on your long term goals with the game, you could ally Muscovy initially (if it's possible) and use that alliance to your advantage and then break it later in the game and as your friend says, if you can use the alliance to take out the Ottomans and then take their land you could be in a good position to fight Muscovy one on one and it also defeats another main threat as well as gives you time to bring Poland's fantastic military national ideas online. If you can't do this then go after the hordes (or even Novgorod/Livonian order) try to ally other regional powers Denmark/Bohemia/Austria, to make sure you don't get surprised by a Muscovy war declaration against you that you didn't see coming.

I'm not sure what your referring to?

One of your previous threads, where you had the advantage for a battle and the general consensus was to fight the battle and then you rolled badly and all the modifiers couldn't save you.

Initially, I lead the war. But as someone suggested, then the die rolls started to cut against me. The 9 to 1 roll against me was not good. Still, it was even or slightly in my favor right up to the very bitter end. I held on thinking I would prevail, but Morocco lingered and lingered at 0 level (it was almost as if they received a buff at the end but that could just me feeling sorry for myself).

 

[IrishGirl]

... One of your previous threads, where you had the advantage for a battle and the general consensus was to fight the battle and then you rolled badly and all the modifiers couldn't save you.

Funny you should mention that ...

I'm still confused by the die rolls. I watched today while the AI rolled better than or equal to me 9x in a row in three different battles (all against Rebels). I won the battles because, you know, Rebels ... but still. I actually started to count them because I felt like the AI was doing much better than me. Well, they were.

Poland starts with a very poor general situation. They have no general to begin with and they can't recruit one until they get 50 monarch points. They have to wait for the PU event with Lithuania to fire to get a ruler who they can turn into a leader. And they can't afford to overspend on the monarch points as they have to keep up with other nations around them. And their military tradition at the start of the game is zero, I've truly rolled generals with 1 pip - in maneuver.

Another thing I don't understand is how the succession for Poland works. Nations surrounding you can put up a candidate for succession. But can you control who gets chosen? Because some of these candidates are God awful and, of course, these are the ones the AI wants to choose. And when they choose them? I had just leveled Admin Research and so I only had 21 Admin Monarch points when suddenly my ruler dies. The first thing that happens is I lose control of the country. A lot of the power goes to the Nobles. I can't raise any additional regiments and my manpower recovery takes a -50% hit. And I get a rebellion. And I get a -1 stab hit. Putting it down, lead me to a crisis - that horrible peasant's war. I did manage to get it under control, but is there a way to avoid this when your monarch dies??

 

[Badesumofu]

To echo others, Mil 6 is a really crucial tech as is any tech that grants morale or tactics. Especially early on. I would probably never want to be in a war against someone who had Mil 6 versus my 5. Not that such a war wouldn't be winnable, but it would be a lot costlier than it would need to be. It would have to be a big pay-off and have to be a limited time opportunity.

That out of the way, in that situation I'd try to get them to attach to me first, and then engage. Set them to attach in the subject screen and set the army you want them to attach to allow attaching. You'd be surprised how long you can keep an enemy army dancing by maneuvering around. If you can avoid combat until you get attached - well that's pretty key. You don't want them picking your armies off bit by bit. Maneuver such that they'd have to attack you into rough terrain - the AI hates doing that and will avoid it where it can (unless it calculates that it would crush despite the terrain).

One other thing - you might be surprised how much of a morale advantage you can get by stacking up various modifiers - morale advisor, prestige, PP, tradition. Keep an eye out for where a potential enemy is lacking in them as well. I was testing out some different openings as France in preparation for the new DLC and I managed to get an opening war with England starting in 1444 where I had about 3.4 Morale to their 2.5. No tech advantage, nothing from NIs, just had a morale advisor, good PP from DoWing them, little bit of prestige from an event, inspiring leader trait on my ruler. It makes an amazing difference and will give you easy stack-wipes if you also flank them. Throw in a tech advantage if you can manage it and you're potentially winning very easily. Keep an eye on the Army Quality Composition ledger for good targets. Early game for basically all nations is all about getting the biggest return you can for least resources you can. It's not just about winning wars, it's about winning them cheaply.

 

[pphair]

One thing I've noticed is that quitting the game and starting again sometimes prevents friendly AI from acting erratically. This could just be random luck and confirmation bias though.

 

[Vetgirig]

Another thing I don't understand is how the succession for Poland works. Nations surrounding you can put up a candidate for succession. But can you control who gets chosen? Because some of these candidates are God awful and, of course, these are the ones the AI wants to choose. And when they choose them? I had just leveled Admin Research and so I only had 21 Admin Monarch points when suddenly my ruler dies. The first thing that happens is I lose control of the country. A lot of the power goes to the Nobles. I can't raise any additional regiments and my manpower recovery takes a -50% hit. And I get a rebellion. And I get a -1 stab hit. Putting it down, lead me to a crisis - that horrible peasant's war. I did manage to get it under control, but is there a way to avoid this when your monarch dies??

Your opinion of them matter in them getting support. So to make sure someone will not get the throne: You need to rival them or go to war with them to get negative opinion of them.


So not really - its a hefty cost to try to influence it.

Instead every time you get an event to where the nobles will spawn troops you take that option to fight them so you can disband the sejm.

One way to handle vassals is to tell them to siege an fort and then you stand beside the fort ready to give support when an enemy attack them.

 

[Sunspawn]

I remember there was a method to use a one-regiment stack with the "Allies attach to this army" box ticked and basically using vassal armies as your own once they attach to you.

 

[Turbo215]

Another thing I don't understand is how the succession for Poland works. Nations surrounding you can put up a candidate for succession. But can you control who gets chosen? Because some of these candidates are God awful and, of course, these are the ones the AI wants to choose.

This is what the wiki has to say on electing a ruler for an elective monarchy:

So you don't get to directly pick who becomes your ruler however you may support your 'own' heir at the cost of prestige. The AI will (quite often) support their own heir to become the next ruler of Poland and their stats are (I believe) random however the chance of them increasing support for their heir is dependent upon both their diplomatic reputation and their relations with you, so you can indirectly lower the chance of a bad heir from a certain country by decreasing relations with them (going to war, insulting them etc). Then the heir with the highest support will become the next ruler when your current one dies, so Poland has the ability to see who will become the next ruler. Don't like that 1,2,2 of the Mecklenburg dynasty? Why not support your own 5,5,5 at the cost of prestige so that they have the highest support.

The first thing that happens is I lose control of the country. A lot of the power goes to the Nobles. I can't raise any additional regiments and my manpower recovery takes a -50% hit. And I get a rebellion. And I get a -1 stab hit. Putting it down, lead me to a crisis - that horrible peasant's war. I did manage to get it under control, but is there a way to avoid this when your monarch dies??

I'm guessing you're referring to the events of The Pacta Conventa? The only way to avoid it is to have a ruler with at-least 2 in every skill (the rest of it I would have to check the trigger for) but once you get the first event then can you get "The sejm refuse to allow the mobilization of more troops" later. There are probably a bunch of other conditions but from the few games of Poland i have played i remember them having quite a lot of nasty events.

 

[IrishGirl]

As to supporting my own (Poland's own noble, which in my current game is 6/6/2), how do I do that? I've looked on every diplomatic menu I can find but I can see no option to support my own candidate or heir?

Another note (because this is SO screwed): Saxony is currently the high candidate with 15. Of course, their heir is a 4/1/0. And he's craven, so automatically I get a -5% army morale. And he has two stats lower than 2 which means ... Polish DISASTER!!! Yea!

So what do I do? I insult Saxony (per the advice above). To make sure they got the message, I set my relations with Saxony to hostile. Guess what happens?

They get +2 and raise up to 17. You have GOT to be kidding me. I just started laughing. Even if I supported my own candidate now, I would only get to 15 and so that would be a waste. I could declare war on them, but really? Seriously?

I'm not saying the Wiki is wrong but it appears wrong. I'm not saying for certain the mechanic doesn't work but it appears not to work.

I'm preparing myself for a disaster that I apparently have absolutely NO control over.

[Edit: To be fair, Saxony did stop supporting its candidate - after they pushed him up to 17. ]

 

[Dominion]

Wasn't supporting your own monarch dropped from every Poland game ever because it's inefficient to the point it becomes almost impossible?

Asking because I'm not sure (not a very competent Poland player)

 

[Turbo215]

As to supporting my own (Poland's own noble, which in my current game is 6/6/2), how do I do that? I've looked on every diplomatic menu I can find but I can see no option to support my own candidate or heir?

It's where the disinherit button for the heir normally would be, if you mean support it as other countries do then you can't do that (just like you can't remove your own excommunication) because you would have to interact with yourself.

Spoiler: Screenshot

Another note (because this is SO screwed): Saxony is currently the high candidate with 15. Of course, their heir is a 4/1/0. And he's craven, so automatically I get a -5% army morale. And he has two stats lower than 2 which means ... Polish DISASTER!!! Yea!

I think after re-looking at the event you only need to have a ruler with less than 2 in every stat once for the sejm to (have the chance to?) disallow the mobilization of more troops every time you get a new ruler, as in my screenshot above you can see i have a 4,5,4 and yet i also have the sejm refuse to allow the mobilization of more troops (although by this point with both the 4th aristocracy idea and the 3rd polish one i get 58% additional manpower and also recovery per month, so it isn't really that bad).

So what do I do? I insult Saxony (per the advice above). To make sure they got the message, I set my relations with Saxony to hostile. Guess what happens?

They get +2 and raise up to 17. You have GOT to be kidding me. I just started laughing. Even if I supported my own candidate now, I would only get to 15 and so that would be a waste. I could declare war on them, but really? Seriously?

As the formula shows you can still get the chance even with reduced relations (insulted only lowers their opinion of you by 50) however i'm not sure if the relations in the formula is their opinion of you or your opinion of them, the former means an insult would effect it, the latter however would mean that the insult does nothing (you don't hate them anymore than before the insult, at-least according to the game). Also if you hover over the heir you can see the %chance for support to increase per month, those without a percent chance are no longer supporting your heir (if you didn't already know this).

 

[Turbo215]

Wasn't supporting your own monarch dropped from every Poland game ever because it's inefficient to the point it becomes almost impossible?

Asking because I'm not sure (not a very competent Poland player)

Probably, it's very difficult to keep the heir as your heir as it requires 10 prestige to increase heir support by 5 and you require at-least 10 prestige to do it, the longer the ruler rules the harder it becomes, in the screenshot in my prior post i supported my heir once to become the "actual" heir and then abdicated my ruler as my heir was better than the others.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

My usual technique when using vassals is to do the 1 or 2 units with "attach" turned on, and once they attach, I use that stack for sieges, with my own army nearby to reinforce. Usually, once the AI attaches to a stack, they won't randomly detach unless they get exiled or some such. And that way, it's them eating the attrition, not me. (Edit: they will detach to avoid going over supply limit, that's why a small stack, rather than a larger one).

As far as a starting general for Poland: if you have Cossacks, you can use your estate interactions to get 100-150 mil points. You're really not in a hurry to get a general, though, as you can't declare on anyone before the PU event fires (nor do you really want to). Might be worth going Mil focus out of the gate, too, as your starting ruler gets a marvelous 1 mil stat.

 

[Turbo215]

Might be worth going Mil focus out of the gate, too, as your starting ruler gets a marvelous 1 mil stat.

In the few games I have done I've always gone straight from the ADM focus at start to the MIL focus essentially changes Casimir from a 6,3,0 to a 3,3,3. Quite important especially if you go to war with somebody like the Ottomans as the early mil-techs are so important.

 

[Rocketskates]

as others said, get the junior partners to attach to you, supporting means just that, not that they will magically know what you thinking and support you in it no matter how stupid it is, getting into a war with mil tactics disadvantage (out of all disadvantage there you can have) is pretty bad

 

[Coffer]

But guess what they do? Guess??

They turn and march all the way to Braslaw. Yeah.

At least with vassals and junior partners you can have some control over what they do. Problem is, the AI's stack should at least be smart enough to know that it should support you in that situation even if they're just an ally and you haven't set your armies to allow attachments, but every so often it inexplicably either stays put or goes elsewhere. It would be fine if it was just towards the player, but they do it to each other as well and they can't handle it nearly as well as we can. One quick look at the early Polish-Teutonic war (with no player intervention whatsoever) should tell you that, as the reason Poland and Lithuania quickly run out of manpower and get into debt while running loads of mercenaries against an enemy who should die very easily (TO+LO) is precisely Lithuania's incompetence in assisting Poland in battles (or at least sieging down the first Livonian fort).

Definitely something that needs to be looked into, as even beyond giving players a headache (as they did for you), it leads to the AI crippling itself pointlessly and dying a horrible death.