One day, a "shattered retreat" troop will reach China even without any new DLC 
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Paradox: Please remove Shattered Retreat and Coalitions
- Thread starter Soilus
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'Yay' the two most frustrating and unfun AI Band-Aids in EU4 are copy/pasted into CK2.
How innovative.
How innovative.
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I chuckled at the idea that a medieval army moving at a speed that a modern motorized division could only hope to achieve while reinforcing in neutral territory is more realistic.
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I haven't played Conclave, but Shattered Retreat isn't part of Conclave, it's part of the patch. SR feels utterly contrived, where chasing someone and repeatedly attacking their army was reasonable, if not exactly realistic. I think the change was a lateral move at best, different, not better, maybe worse. Maybe it'll get better later, but CK2 isn't really gelling for me in general, so I'll probably be going back to the other games and giving up on it soon.
As for the speed of conquest there's a much better way to fix that, but it would require a LOT more work to fit into the existing system, maybe CK3 can do it.
Campaigns.
Make an attack require planning and time to prepare, then be limited by the amount of supplies you've amassed so you literally CAN'T chase people around, but they also are more likely to break and stay broken for a while if you win.
As for the speed of conquest there's a much better way to fix that, but it would require a LOT more work to fit into the existing system, maybe CK3 can do it.
Campaigns.
Make an attack require planning and time to prepare, then be limited by the amount of supplies you've amassed so you literally CAN'T chase people around, but they also are more likely to break and stay broken for a while if you win.
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Sorry, shattered retreats do not make sense, not the way they are working right now. At the very least they should stop in either friendly territory or if none is available then the nearest neutral territory that is adjacent to friendly territory. And they certainly should never regroup in a hostile territory like I've seen happen, playing as a Kurdish emir warring against a Persian emir, his army shattered and retreated to my primary holding to regroup and of course immediately started sieging it soon as the SR ended. So now I had to break off sieging his one county holding so that he couldn't siege down my capital holding and lengthen the war unnaturally because he took a holding of mine before I could completely siege down his county for the 100% war score.
Do you honestly think that small groups of men would have survived running through a few dozen miles or so of hostile territory to regroup at my capital and magically get the supplies to build siege weapons?
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At this point, all I ask is to put it in the DLC, and not in the patch.
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But there you're fighting an offensive war and the defender has a friendly province to retreat to.
It's a different story where you're fighting a defensive war, and the invader loses and then retreats deeper into your own territory and yet somehow recovers. (Think Lee retreating from Gettysburg to Boston.)
Or where you're fighting an offensive war and the defender has no friendly place to retreat so instead just camps out in a neighboring foreign province. Or marches across multiple foreign provinces. (Think Welsh defender retreating to Scotland.)
This isn't a one-size-fits-all issue but the current mechanic works that way. They've said they're tweaking it, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
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The only really pressing change they need to make to shattered retreat is to make it so that if you decide to pursue, you can inflict heavy casualties or outright annihilate the army you're chasing.
Perhaps, in addition, they could also add a mechanic that speeds up or slows down shattered armies depending on whether they're in hostile territory or not. Armies forced into hostile territory could take increased attrition and get cut off by a pursuing army easier, with the opposite happening in friendly territory.
Perhaps, in addition, they could also add a mechanic that speeds up or slows down shattered armies depending on whether they're in hostile territory or not. Armies forced into hostile territory could take increased attrition and get cut off by a pursuing army easier, with the opposite happening in friendly territory.
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agreed. though that would make SR completely pointless, because the Reason SR was added in the first place was to try and prevent you from doing just that. which is why so many are championing for the feature to be removed alltogether.
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I don't think so. Not entirely pointless, at least. It stills adds an extra strategic dynamic, that being whether or not you want to siege or pursue. While limited, I think that that can serve as a decent springboard for constructing more complex/in-depth mechanical additions.
Additionally, the concept of shattered retreat is perfectly "historical", if you want to call it that. There are examples of armies being repulsed, only to retreat and regroup outside of the victorious army's grasp. It makes perfect sense within the confines of the medieval theatre of war.
As such, I think its implementation and its continued existence is perfectly justifiable in and of itself. Not without tweaks, mind you.
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no there isnt, at least not in medieval times. in this era, the armies were made up of levies, that once they lost, wheter it be a rout or a tactical retreat, would almost always break, with the army vanishing over night. true, knights and their equivelants would survive and usually stay with the king to a certain degree, but they WERE professional soliders, not levy forces. and once that army was broken, getting them back together again was something that took years. for example after losing at agnicourt the french still outnumbered the english 2-1, but the army was gone. it vanished in days as each of the levy soliders decided to just go home. armies being shattered and picking themselves up again after less than five years simply doesnt belong in a game set in medieval europe. it belongs in EU4 and games set before the Roman Empire fell. Shattered retreat only makes any sense at all if the entire army that retreats are proffesional soliders. which wasnt the case at all in medieval europe.
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except as ive pointed out before, this strategy of endless chase will become the main one for most players with the next patch, as each battle will now get much more warscore. thus paradox plans for how to improve the system will just make the main complaint much worse.
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In other words, the only units that should shatter retreat are retinues and mercenaries, since those are the only professional soldiers in the game for the most part. All else of that era was basically peasants impressed into duty generally against their will. Most would try to desert even after victorious battles never mind when they got routed, so the most realistic approach would be to simply force them to disband once they broke in battle.
As I said miles upthread, from the time of the fall of the Roman legions until Cromwell's "Ironsides" Cavalry regiment, most of the soldiery of the era was an undisciplined rabble. Even the knights of the time were like this, a victorious cavalry charge was just as disruptive to the unit that charged as it was to the unit that was charged, they would scatter and try to plunder the enemy's baggage or attempt to capture important persons for ransom because the rules of the era meant little actual pay however you could take home whatever you could carry of the enemy.
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If I can way in here as a long-time player. I have been playing CKII because I am a historian and finally a game reflects quite well the realities of what I love, study and teach.
Shattered retreat is half-baked and a serious historical inaccuracy, which makes the game unrealistic time-wise - see Azincourt. A way to “make things more interesting” I hear about it. Well, it’s not like we used to have 2000 years to play and conquer the whole of Europe “easily”. The 10-year truces, the need of a CB, and the impossibility to conquer a whole demesne at once was challenging enough, I believe. And even playing with the strongest empires was bloody tough enough already because of factions and that's where shattered retreat should not apply.
I have been trying Byzance lately and my reigns are mostly about collecting huge amounts of money because, although I have managed keep the Arabs and Persians at bay, I have to face constant factional wars that can cost up to 3000 gold each time. Fair game: the dukes are powerful, kings even more so and they want a piece of the cake, of not the cake itself, it’s historically accurate and that’s what I love(d) about the game.
Then came shattered retreat. After the update, rebel armies of 20,000 men retreated “shatteredly”. 20,000 “shattered men” moving safely through my holdings, past my allies, feeding on moral and not going back to rebellious Armenia and Georgia because I was besieging them but straight to Constantinople where they besieged me like nothing had happened on their way from the east. I ended up having to hire 30,000 mercenaries and give chase for ages, then regain my own holdings, all the while besieging their holdings. From 15,000 gold, I went down to 2,000 after 10 years of endless war for just 2 rebellious kingdoms. Thank God, the Levant was busy defending Jerusalem against the Pope or I would have lost Anatolia is a jiffy.
It needs rethink, seriously. The algorithm is not working. A shattered army should not be able to besiege or maybe some weak province, but certainly not the capital of the Byzantine Empire with 20,000 men who just lost a major battle. And it’s pretty rare to have 100% battle score after one battle. Maybe I am not a good warrior but I always had to besiege them at some point, even more so in conquering war. Especially, to cut my spendings. Giving chase is the most expensive of all.
However, I don’t mind the coalitions because they are more or less a fact of history, even at the time. Once a ruler start to conquer too much, its neighbours, family or foes, regardless of religion and dynasty, will start worrying and find a common ground to block them. And frankly, these coalitions may finally be a mean to dismantle or contain the HRE and play fairly with its neighbours like Denmark or France, or even its vassals like Bohemia or Bavaria. France has been utterly and ridiculously unplayable because you can’t get away from the HRE eating you piece by piece with 50,000 soldiers at once. I once played with Navarra and after creating Hispania all the way to Libya, HRE attacked me with 80,000 soldiers using some claims from some princesses in the south of Aquitaine they conquered from top to bottom. The whole of Western Europe was white, except for Spain. That’s ludicrous! Coalitions, I hear, would prevent that. Good! ^^
Although I have yet to see one in action. There is one against Egypt but nothing is happening.
Shattered retreat is half-baked and a serious historical inaccuracy, which makes the game unrealistic time-wise - see Azincourt. A way to “make things more interesting” I hear about it. Well, it’s not like we used to have 2000 years to play and conquer the whole of Europe “easily”. The 10-year truces, the need of a CB, and the impossibility to conquer a whole demesne at once was challenging enough, I believe. And even playing with the strongest empires was bloody tough enough already because of factions and that's where shattered retreat should not apply.
I have been trying Byzance lately and my reigns are mostly about collecting huge amounts of money because, although I have managed keep the Arabs and Persians at bay, I have to face constant factional wars that can cost up to 3000 gold each time. Fair game: the dukes are powerful, kings even more so and they want a piece of the cake, of not the cake itself, it’s historically accurate and that’s what I love(d) about the game.
Then came shattered retreat. After the update, rebel armies of 20,000 men retreated “shatteredly”. 20,000 “shattered men” moving safely through my holdings, past my allies, feeding on moral and not going back to rebellious Armenia and Georgia because I was besieging them but straight to Constantinople where they besieged me like nothing had happened on their way from the east. I ended up having to hire 30,000 mercenaries and give chase for ages, then regain my own holdings, all the while besieging their holdings. From 15,000 gold, I went down to 2,000 after 10 years of endless war for just 2 rebellious kingdoms. Thank God, the Levant was busy defending Jerusalem against the Pope or I would have lost Anatolia is a jiffy.
It needs rethink, seriously. The algorithm is not working. A shattered army should not be able to besiege or maybe some weak province, but certainly not the capital of the Byzantine Empire with 20,000 men who just lost a major battle. And it’s pretty rare to have 100% battle score after one battle. Maybe I am not a good warrior but I always had to besiege them at some point, even more so in conquering war. Especially, to cut my spendings. Giving chase is the most expensive of all.
However, I don’t mind the coalitions because they are more or less a fact of history, even at the time. Once a ruler start to conquer too much, its neighbours, family or foes, regardless of religion and dynasty, will start worrying and find a common ground to block them. And frankly, these coalitions may finally be a mean to dismantle or contain the HRE and play fairly with its neighbours like Denmark or France, or even its vassals like Bohemia or Bavaria. France has been utterly and ridiculously unplayable because you can’t get away from the HRE eating you piece by piece with 50,000 soldiers at once. I once played with Navarra and after creating Hispania all the way to Libya, HRE attacked me with 80,000 soldiers using some claims from some princesses in the south of Aquitaine they conquered from top to bottom. The whole of Western Europe was white, except for Spain. That’s ludicrous! Coalitions, I hear, would prevent that. Good! ^^
Although I have yet to see one in action. There is one against Egypt but nothing is happening.
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the problem with coalitions is the fact that real life medival coalitions were very localized, two examples: Harald fairhairs last unification battle of Norway and the mongols vs Cumans/russian princes. during his unification of norway, Harald fairhair eventually ended up with a coalition against himself, featuring every single remaining petty king left in norway. after defeating them at the battle of hafsfjord, he had effectivly conquered norway, and never faced another coalition again. because no one outside norway cared that he unified the country. similarily, when the mongols first started to make way on the great russian plains, they ended up facing a coalition of russian princes and the cumans, but no-one else. because outside of these, no one cared that the mongols conquered the russian lands. coalitions were real, but they were always very localized to the area the conquerer was attacking. wide spread coalitions featuring completely unrelated didnt become a thing until the 30 years war and after.
coalitions currently are napoleon era coalitions rather than this localized medieval era type, and thats why so many oppose them.
in game though, to make coalitions realisticly localized, youdd effectivly remove their bite, as any player worth their salt would be able to deal with them. hence why many are calling for their complete removal. ill agree though that unlike SR(which is a completely broken mechanic that cannot be fixed save by removing it completely) localized coalitions would probably be a good feature, but quite frankly i dont think paradox is capable of pulling it off without making it ridicuolously stupid. hence why i believe that complete removal is the best way to go.
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I wonder, in real life, when the rulers of Russia first learned of the Norman Conquest of England? And if they cared -- even a little bit?
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So you dont have any levies? literally the whole point of mercs is to defeat the enemys massive army when you do not have enough levies. If you're to simple to dismiss mercs and raise your own troops to kill 100 men then you should be playing a semi complexed game.
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it's horrible in every way, from realism-logic-historical accuracy to gameplay. in fact, if it was in the game from the beginning i wouldn't have played it for longer then 3 wars. it eliminates the ability to beat larger forces (which you call "abusive", though it really seems the other way around), makes combat pointless for anything other then unit movement into enemy territory, and makes defensive strategies pointless, not to mention it is the stupidest feature ever in terms of realism.
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Get rid of the unwanted EU mechanic . Enough with the shattered retreat .
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