Please fix overseas supply

[mechanical_Critter]

A player in the recent lan party stream said the attrition mechanics were grossly unrealistic. The response from the Paradox rep: people cry when realism is introduced into the game.

The bottom line is an important part of EU4 is letting people feel good about painting the map. It's not about playing a game of difficult strategy.

You won't see any change.

I have something to show here:



Do you see that attrition number? This was an extremely fast and successful war (3 years exactly), against about an evenly matched foe. This is Ottomans, so their provinces are prone to attrition losses… NOT. They're not. I fought also a bunch in Malaya, but a very small force was involved there. Most of the fighting took place in Europe. And as you see in the sidebar, I pay attention to that, painfully so in fact, only grouping army when needed. yet, in this 'attrition doesn't matter game, that makes up for 44% of my losses. 44%. While babysitting it, and fighting mostly in an area whose attrition is supposed to be fine (and it is, really). But yeah, 44%. I'd say attrition is already on the high end if you're having ~half losses due to attrition when fighting such wars and babysitting them.

If you want attrition, attrition is in the game, it works FINE. For the most part. Because in some areas it's out of control.

If you want uncapped attrition, I'm sorry but that got taken away from a reason. It's just way too easy to abuse attrition. Planting a bunch of forts in the desert isn't really my view of an extremely interesting strategy games. Also, it makes the game harder for new players AND easier for experienced players: Whether you teach AI-chan to work around it (splitting her forces > meaning you can pick them off that much more easily) or you don't (plan a fort in siberia and watch them go full lemmings on this), it's just too easy to abuse.

 

[Northernwwater]

Attrition needs the following:
1) Cultural dependency, people used to a climate and geography experience less attrition.
2) Needs a random component due to storms and disease outbreaks.
3) Carrying capacity of a province needs to be more severely degraded due to devastation. It's silly to march 40K stack after 40K stack one right after another through a province with impunity.

Don't worry none of this will happen in the game. Like the guy said in the stream people complain. Anything to make the game harder and more strategic is opposed by the community. Instead we get phony difficulty increases like AI bonuses. We need more strategy choices. War should be harder to engage in.

 

[Northernwwater]

I have something to show here:

View attachment 524806

Do you see that attrition number? This was an extremely fast and successful war (3 years exactly), against about an evenly matched foe. This is Ottomans, so their provinces are prone to attrition losses… NOT. They're not. I fought also a bunch in Malaya, but a very small force was involved there. Most of the fighting took place in Europe. And as you see in the sidebar, I pay attention to that, painfully so in fact, only grouping army when needed. yet, in this 'attrition doesn't matter game, that makes up for 44% of my losses. 44%. While babysitting it, and fighting mostly in an area whose attrition is supposed to be fine (and it is, really). But yeah, 44%. I'd say attrition is already on the high end if you're having ~half losses due to attrition when fighting such wars and babysitting them.

If you want attrition, attrition is in the game, it works FINE. For the most part. Because in some areas it's out of control.

If you want uncapped attrition, I'm sorry but that got taken away from a reason. It's just way too easy to abuse attrition. Planting a bunch of forts in the desert isn't really my view of an extremely interesting strategy games. Also, it makes the game harder for new players AND easier for experienced players: Whether you teach AI-chan to work around it (splitting her forces > meaning you can pick them off that much more easily) or you don't (plan a fort in siberia and watch them go full lemmings on this), it's just too easy to abuse.

Those are meaningless numbers. It's phony attrition because troop recovery numbers are inflated especially with modifiers. Also , the merc manpower pool is basically bottomless. Fight, consolidate, buy and you have unlimited mercs.

It's 1650 and it was a million causalities and your manpower is such you can do it again immediately some where else. LOL

 

[Northernwwater]

Also, attrition should cause moral lose.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

You have no idea how much professionalism / estates buttons I spent on this, and the strength / weaknesses of my econ. That's why I'm showing the number at the end of the war. You care about attrition? then worry about attrition, not manpower.

> suggests something that cripples AI and makes the game drastically easier
> make the game harder

Yeah. Keep telling yourself that

Attrition is currently not broken, because of Mercenaries. I'm just extremely worried that when mercs stop being a thing, when they get replaced by unsplittable unmergeable clown car fighters, then we might run into issues. Thing is, manpower pool should be amped up by a factor, same as supply limits everywhere. Imo, if we say that regiments aren't 1000 men but 100 men and keep most of the rest as is (meaning helping everything by a factor 10) then we might be in business.

 

[Northernwwater]

You have no idea how much professionalism / estates buttons I spent on this, and the strength / weaknesses of my econ. That's why I'm showing the number at the end of the war. You care about attrition? then worry about attrition, not manpower.

> suggests something that cripples AI and makes the game drastically easier
> make the game harder

Yeah. Keep telling yourself that

Attrition is currently not broken, because of Mercenaries. I'm just extremely worried that when mercs stop being a thing, when they get replaced by unsplittable unmergeable clown car fighters, then we might run into issues. Thing is, manpower pool should be amped up by a factor, same as supply limits everywhere. Imo, if we say that regiments aren't 1000 men but 100 men and keep most of the rest as is (meaning helping everything by a factor 10) then we might be in business.

How you manipulated the game to obtain your manpower numbers is not relevant. Everyone knows it's easy to play the manpower game. There are many, many techniques once you know the gimmickry involved to obtain and preserve manpower.

I do agree any change to manpower will impact the AI more, but that is no reason to make the game easier for human players. The game should be harder for humans. Hiding behind the "AI can't do this" and the "AI can't do that" is no argument.

Ya, unlimited manpower now that would be ... ah boring... unless of course you enjoy pretending to play a strategy game and paint maps. LOL

 

[Xdevo]

How you manipulated the game to obtain your manpower numbers is not relevant. Everyone knows it's easy to play the manpower game. There are many, many techniques once you know the gimmickry involved to obtain and preserve manpower.

I do agree any change to manpower will impact the AI more, but that is no reason to make the game easier for human players. The game should be harder for humans. Hiding behind the "AI can't do this" and the "AI can't do that" is no argument.

Ya, unlimited manpower now that would be ... ah boring... unless of course you enjoy pretending to play a strategy game and paint maps. LOL

Making the AI worse is making the game easier for humans. Therefore, your proposed changes would not make the game harder for humans because the AI would be utterly incapable of dealing with the new changes. We've seen this already multiple times including the patches immediately after the introduction of corruption and the recent patches after they increased army maintenance and decreased the production income. The AI became considerably worse, which makes the game considerably easier for the player.

I understand that actually arguing with the person that feels the need to gatekeep "real" strategy games on a very niche product that they apparently don't even like is a lost cause, but I feel everyone else that reads this should at least recognize the inherent issues in changing the game without updating the AI.

 

[Northernwwater]

Making the AI worse is making the game easier for humans. Therefore, your proposed changes would not make the game harder for humans because the AI would be utterly incapable of dealing with the new changes. We've seen this already multiple times including the patches immediately after the introduction of corruption and the recent patches after they increased army maintenance and decreased the production income. The AI became considerably worse, which makes the game considerably easier for the player.

I understand that actually arguing with the person that feels the need to gatekeep "real" strategy games on a very niche product that they apparently don't even like is a lost cause, but I feel everyone else that reads this should at least recognize the inherent issues in changing the game without updating the AI.

There wouldn't be a game if there were not changes *already* made which increase the difficulty of maintaining a viable AI. That's why, surprise, they have AI developers who no doubt are constantly mitigating the endless changes *already* made to this game. You are presenting, transparently, a false choice.

Good strategy games are a niche market because people don't like real strategy games. Shoot'em up, conquer the world, devastate your enemy, chop-chop, sell better. Everyone knows that.

 

[Xdevo]

There wouldn't be a game if there were not changes *already* made which increase the difficulty of maintaining a viable AI. That's why, surprise, they have AI developers who no doubt are constantly mitigating the endless changes *already* made to this game. You are presenting, transparently, a false choice.

Good strategy games are a niche market because people don't like real strategy games. Shoot'em up, conquer the world, devastate your enemy, chop-chop, sell better. Everyone knows that.

That's a false dichotomy I never presented.

If you're going to continue strawman arguments, at least have the decency to not be condescending about it.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

The thing is, what you're presenting isn't entirely stupid in principle. It's been tested before, so at the very least it's something to consider. But you have to be honest about the practical outcome if you're serious about it:

- the current system, once you strip away etheric considerations such as 'attrition doesn't exist' performs quite effectively, while allowing the AI to do its thing for the most part (it's seen better days obviously, but it's unrelated). You do suffer significant attrition, even very high attrition in some cases, and if you're not paying attention to it you're just a bad player and you'll be punished for it.
- comparatively what you suggest has been tested in the past, and is very gimmickey. it's all too easy to abuse delirious uncapped attrition.

So yeah, having a majority of casualties dealt by attrition is something that's already there. If you want all casualties to be dealt by attrition, you're just a memer pretending to make a suggestion tbh. But if you're honest about your suggestion, you should see that there is merits in simply dropping it, because it's not an improvement of strategy, immersion or whatever.

 

[Northernwwater]

That's a false dichotomy I never presented.

...I feel everyone else that reads this should at least recognize the inherent issues in changing the game without updating the AI.

No one suggested not changing the AI.

 

[Northernwwater]

The thing is, what you're presenting isn't entirely stupid in principle. It's been tested before, so at the very least it's something to consider. But you have to be honest about the practical outcome if you're serious about it:

- the current system, once you strip away etheric considerations such as 'attrition doesn't exist' performs quite effectively, while allowing the AI to do its thing for the most part (it's seen better days obviously, but it's unrelated). You do suffer significant attrition, even very high attrition in some cases, and if you're not paying attention to it you're just a bad player and you'll be punished for it.
- comparatively what you suggest has been tested in the past, and is very gimmickey. it's all too easy to abuse delirious uncapped attrition.

So yeah, having a majority of casualties dealt by attrition is something that's already there. If you want all casualties to be dealt by attrition, you're just a memer pretending to make a suggestion tbh. But if you're honest about your suggestion, you should see that there is merits in simply dropping it, because it's not an improvement of strategy, immersion or whatever.

Who suggested "uncapped attrition"? I don't even know what that is exactly. It's uncapped today. There is no upper bound on attrition that I know of.

Saying any attrition change in the past is equivalent to any future attrition change, which is what you are basically saying, makes no sense.

According to the dictionary increasing the number of contravening choices requires an increase in strategy. So managing manpower does make the game more strategic in nature.

What's a "memer"?

 

[Xdevo]

I do agree any change to manpower will impact the AI more, but that is no reason to make the game easier for human players. The game should be harder for humans. Hiding behind the "AI can't do this" and the "AI can't do that" is no argument.

No one suggested not changing the AI.

You said it couldn't be used as an argument, suggesting that it clearly wasn't important enough of a factor to make a huge attrition increase a poor idea.

You're backpedaling now.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

According to the dictionary increasing the number of contravening choices requires an increase in strategy. So managing manpower does make the game more strategic in nature.

It makes for good strategy only if the choices are not trivial to enact. If you make more choices, but they are trivial (eg: corruption for territory with the universal TC answer yay!) then the strategy is diminished. Also solid dictionary argumentation.

What's a "memer"?

That's you. You're just waving a suggestion you know nothing about, based on things you only have a vague idea of at best, and dismissing serious argumentation with a sassy 'AHA! I knew it you like to play a game that's easier, GOTCHA NOW'. Nah. Go make a proper suggestion if you have a real idea, as opposed to a lot of time and frustration to sink into making 12 replies in 2 pages of comments.

 

[Ruian]

Good strategy games are a niche market because people don't like real strategy games. Shoot'em up, conquer the world, devastate your enemy, chop-chop, sell better. Everyone knows that.

What is a good strategy game? I'd be interested to know what the gold standard is. Classic strategy games like Heroes of Might and Magic III all the way down the line of other excellent games like Civ 4 all give the AI to quote you:

Instead we get phony difficulty increases like AI bonuses.

I'm all for the hardest possible game. I play every game always on the hardest possible setting, I play EU4 on VH and I don't turn it down when trying for 1600s WCs. I want the AI to outplay me. Surprise me with a landing of 30k troops behind me. Converge 3 stacks to attack me on a mountain. Flank me. Scorch the Earth. Distract my ships with a meaningless battle while your troops cross the strait. Rebel bomb me. Truce break me. No CB me. Just do something.

Instead what we get is AI template hiring 1k merc stacks and microing small stacks all over to run away and annoy you.

Most casual players don't want the experience I'm describing. The game would be extremely difficult to play and have fun with for those people. Normal difficulty Ottomans would destroy most players on that level and they would quit frustrated.

 

[Ruian]

Outside of exploits I and, I assume, most players will do just about anything to win. I wish the AI would too. But it's not like Paradox created the DeepMind AI and decided to lock 80% of its features away because it was just too darned good at the game for players.

 

[Jomini]

If we want realistic attrition mechanics then we need realistic recruitment ones. It was quite common for armies of this era to refill their ranks from enemy manpower or just random people throughout the world (e.g. Albanians fought in English ranks). We also should then look at paying troops in a manner more consistent with history. I.e. we don't. We let the army get paid from plunder for most of the game. Such expenses as the central state bears, like weapons procurement and powder, should go down, not up, as troops take attrition.

We also have to look at the gaping surrealism that are rebels. They spawn out of an infinite pool and they take exceedingly little functional attrition. In reality, plenty of rulers opted to wait out rebellions and could quite easily suppress rebellions by inflicting attrition on the rebels. Attrition was at the core of so many aspects of early modern warfare that it is utterly bogus to demand only one set of constraints be followed. We should also look at sieges, where continuous sieges over a year were the exception rather than the rule. Certainly we should also look war score from battles, where a major decisive battle should result in immediate willingness to peace out, instead of some silly 5-years or carpet siege mechanic. After all, defenders knew that having an army despoil all their land while they took a year or two to regroup was going to wreak havoc on their supplies and make them much more susceptible to repeated offensives.

To whit, attrition forced a lot of behaviors that are utterly absent in game: routine potential for trivially fast sieges, willingness to make peace after a single decisive battle loss, rebels heavily limited by attrition, rapid rank filling with local manpower, and plenty of others.

Making only one side of the equation "historical" is far less balanced than having both sides be less immersive, but reciprocal.

 

[William Shakens]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I wanted to give the +1 here and this is the most recent one on the topic I could find. Currently playing a campaign in 1690 and Castille has 86 units running up and down Central freakin Africa, have been there since 1600, conquering land left and right. It's not unusual to see, and it's ludicrous. I myself am conquering land there with way too many Papal armies. Colonization/invasion of inner Africa and some parts of the Americas should have much bigger penalties like attrition and movement speed to somewhat represent logistics of the time and prevent the Europeans from regularly steamrolling over the whole world 200 years too early in every game. It's not even the 18th C and there's nothing left to colonize in America, 0, zilch, and Africa is going to look like the partition at the end of the Scramble for Africa, but by 1700.

 

[gigau]

As a rule of hte thumb, don't bumpthreads created during a previous patch. Create a new thread, potentially refering to the existing thread.