pile-up battles

[AttilaTheFun]

Okay, so maybe it's just me, but I think that battles in EU4 take wayyyy too long. Every time I fight against another large nation, the battles take so long (like, six months for battles with 50k+ stacks)
that everyone has enough time to move their entire armies from the opposite side of the country and just pile them on. There's no strategy in this, no advantage to spreading out your armies or fighting on multiple fronts--it's just dice rolls and seeing which side has more staying power.

In comparison, take battles in CK2--which still take weeks at a time--but not long enough for you to move stacks from far away, you actually have to spread your troops out in some sort of strategic manner. Tactics also make a big difference in CK2, whereas in EU4 it's just dice rolls and roll modifiers. I don't care about the simplified combat, but the fact that every battle is a dogpile gets old fast.

anyone else find it a bit silly?

/rant

 

[hwoosh]

Dogpiling is actually not a great idea, unless you time it right. Only one combat width of inf+cav and one combat width of art can be in the battle at a time, so any excess units will just sit there idly taking morale damage and attrition.

There is a persistent problem with combat duration, which is that once most of an army's units are routed it can take weeks for the battle to resolve as three or four of your regiments plink away at the two or three remaining enemy regiments, doing low dozens of casualties and minimal morale damage each day. This is just ridiculous IMO; I'd like to see Paradox introduce a "mop-up" mechanic where if say 90-95% of an army's regiments rout, the last few automatically join the rout instead of "fighting" and tying up both armies for days and weeks.

 

[smellymummy]

so any excess units will just sit there idly taking morale damage and attrition.

Really? So regiments in reserve are getting damage?

If anything was changed I'd be happy to see more reserves reinforcing the lines instead of having regiments depleted to 0 before they get replaced. That's what reserves are supposed to do right, rush in and help the line?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Dogpiling is actually not a great idea, unless you time it right. Only one combat width of inf+cav and one combat width of art can be in the battle at a time, so any excess units will just sit there idly taking morale damage and attrition.

There is a persistent problem with combat duration, which is that once most of an army's units are routed it can take weeks for the battle to resolve as three or four of your regiments plink away at the two or three remaining enemy regiments, doing low dozens of casualties and minimal morale damage each day. This is just ridiculous IMO; I'd like to see Paradox introduce a "mop-up" mechanic where if say 90-95% of an army's regiments rout, the last few automatically join the rout instead of "fighting" and tying up both armies for days and weeks.

It won't completely solve it, but bringing in cavalry mid-battle helps (full morale + regiment size, extra maneuver + maxed value) since more of them can actually hit the remnants.

 

[AttilaTheFun]

So you're saying that if I organize my reinforcement stacks properly my battles won't last as long? The rate at which soldiers die only seems like it can be raised by having a comparably better general, if I understand correctly.

hwoosh, I like your idea, watching battles drag on forever with almost no morale left is so pathetically frustrating I almost feel sorry for the poor buggers.

 

[sinkingmist]

so any excess units will just sit there idly taking morale damage and attrition.

Morale damage, yes.
No attrition during combat.

 

[Incompetent]

It occurs to me that battles in EU4 are a lot like battles on the Western Front in WW1. Battles in this era gave a big advantage to the defender, making it very difficult to advance. One reason for this was the defensive strengths of trenches, barbed wire and machine guns. This gave the defenders enough of an advantage that they inflicted maybe 50% more casualties than they took during a large offensive, a bit like how 'attacking across a river' works in EU4. But the real reason attacks failed was that the defending army could rush in new troops during the battle by trains and/or trucks. The attacker might have overwhelming numerical superiority on the first day of battle, but they would still advance slowly due to all the trenches and barbed wire, and within hours, huge numbers of defenders would arrive and counter-attack before the attackers could really consolidate their forward positions (which were usually salients in the front, making them even more vulnerable to counter-attack). The result was that almost every major battle turned into an industrial meat-grinder. This is similar to EU4: you can attack a small army with a big army, but unless you have numerical superiority over a much larger area, it often ends badly for you because the defender can keep piling more troops in as the battle goes on, and what was a fairly small engagement turns into the Battle of Verdun with you as the Germans. Unfortunately, the AI does not understand this and is very easily baited into making stupid attacks when you have a large reinforcement army that is just one province away.

 

[beckermt]

So you're saying that if I organize my reinforcement stacks properly my battles won't last as long? The rate at which soldiers die only seems like it can be raised by having a comparably better general, if I understand correctly.

hwoosh, I like your idea, watching battles drag on forever with almost no morale left is so pathetically frustrating I almost feel sorry for the poor buggers.

Yes. Swapping out full combat width stacks allows them to recover men and morale, while keeping the enemy occupied. Having ALL your troops in 1 battle tends to be a massive waste of resources. Pay attention to combat width and split/rotate stacks accordingly.

 

[hwoosh]

Morale damage, yes.
No attrition during combat.

No, that was added in a recent patch.

...or at least I thought it was. I have a crystal-clear memory of seeing this in the patch notes, but now I'm looking back through them and can't find it. My mind may be playing tricks on me.

 

[sinkingmist]

No, that was added in a recent patch.

...or at least I thought it was. I have a crystal-clear memory of seeing this in the patch notes, but now I'm looking back through them and can't find it. My mind may be playing tricks on me.

Morale damage was added in a "recent" patch (1.3? or was it 1.4?).
"No attrition during combat" has not changed (easiest way to see is the fact that artillery stacks are still unscathed, even after an "attrition tick").

 

[hwoosh]

(easiest way to see is the fact that artillery stacks are still unscathed, even after an "attrition tick").

Yep, that should have been the obvious clue. Derp.

 

[Aurelian]

Yes, I agree...be nice if the battles did end faster and that artillery take some attrition.
By the way...one would think if an army is routed...one of the first things to go would be artillery (or the reduction of artillery units). Now as the game advances through the years nations seem to have large artillery units.