Proportionality in warfare

[Vernichtere]

Ok lets make an effort to educate you on reality a little bit. Victorian era was an era when colonizing nations had advantage over colonized ones, have you heard about that? So in perhaps 95 percent cases small expeditionary force, just as advocated in this post, was enough to achieve goals. If you need a proof for that, go and read a book. I can recall from my memory several cases, however, when colonizing nation was forced out without achieving main objectives and didn't simply use your brilliant idea to send 300k troops, I wonder why
1. Mentioned Adua.
2. First british invasion of Afghanistan.
3. Failed russian expeditions to Central Asia, most notably Bukhara.
4. French war with china.
5. French intervention in Mexico.
6. First british operation against Muhammad Ali.
7. Spanish attempts to retake Mexico.
8. Russian japanese war - perhaps russia should just send another 500k men from other parts of empire just like Britain in your amazing example?
9. Khivan campaign of 1839.
10. French expedition to Korea.
11. Egyptian invasion of Ethiopia (Egypt as more modernized power)
12. And hey, first boer war, why didin't british send mighty 300k at that time instead of making peace, I wonder
13. Basuto Gun war.
14. Second Mandingo war
And so forth. Literally EVERY single one of this war could end differently if GP sent more troops. I wasted a fair amount of energy in my fingers to try to explain to you that not every colonizer can send 300k men to die in jungle. I hope you will benefit from this 
PS: which doesn't mean that in SOME very special cases a GP can't send more forces ofc, but it's SOME, in other words, exception.

One problem is that the game needs an official declaration of war. Colonial wars were often characterized by the fact that they were treated like a police action - not unlike today's colonial wars ala Afghanistan. So it makes no difference for the AI whether you wage a war in Europe or the local Govourner carries out an unsuccessful expedition to Afghanistan.

 

[Al-Khalidi]

One problem is that the game needs an official declaration of war. Colonial wars were often characterized by the fact that they were treated like a police action - not unlike today's colonial wars ala Afghanistan. So it makes no difference for the AI whether you wage a war in Europe or the local Govourner carries out an unsuccessful expedition to Afghanistan.

Maybe this can be solved with proper CBs - maybe in some CBs you can use only special sort of forces, like colonial forces. Ck3 has sort of mode (plundering) where you lead a limited military incursion that is treated differently from regular war. Other solution is that you keep most of your army at your borders to protect from neighbours. If you are france you keep most of forces on border with Germany and Italy so you can send just small forces to war with Thailand. But if war breaks out with a GP neighbour, you use those big forces on the border.

 

[Leoreth]

There's design precedent within the series already

Vicky 2 gave you countrywide +2 Militancy (0-10 scale) for any wargoal you declared but did not fulfil, and that's a concept space that should be easy to build on.

Oh yeah, that would be a cool mechanic to keep. Maybe it should be based on interest groups instead, not every one is equally invested in every war goal. Still a humiliating loss should probably always make the entire population dissatisfied.

 

[The Goldfinch]

Oh yeah, that would be a cool mechanic to keep. Maybe it should be based on interest groups instead, not every one is equally invested in every war goal. Still a humiliating loss should probably always make the entire population dissatisfied.

And to some extent, malus should be also applied for a disastrous battle, I think that apart from being in line with historical reality - it would also add a tone of flavour for every war you fight.

Historical example is the famous charge of the light brigade during Crimean War - protests against losses in Britain ultimately led to investigation into military losses, vote of no confidence and resignation of British prime minister.

 

[Neva115]

I've always found this problematic in paradox games. In VIC2 the UK would bring over millions of people from India to fight a war in Africa. It was quite silly and didn't cost anything.

 

[Al-Khalidi]

I've always found this problematic in paradox games. In VIC2 the UK would bring over millions of people from India to fight a war in Africa. It was quite silly and didn't cost anything.

Agreed! Let's hope the calling of so many devouted players under this post will be heard by the devs!

 

[Ivashanko]

Just out of exactly how many colonial wars in the first place? Maybe Italian failure to take Ethiopia is the exception?

Literally hundreds. Britain alone fought in over 200 colonial wars during Victoria's reign.

Source: Queen Victoria's Little Wars. While it is a somewhat old it remains a good book.

 

[The Goldfinch]

Agreed! Let's hope the calling of so many devouted players under this post will be heard by the devs!

I don't think any of the devs gave us any hints on when to expect military dev diaries?

 

[LAF1994]

Unfortunately, this problem has existed in pretty much every Paradox game to date, so the chances of it being improved in Vic3 are not terribly high.

 

[Wild Boar]

I tried to do some of this in my VIc2 mod The Sun Never Sets. I made the drafted troops reserve troops and made them insanely weak. The regular troops powerful. I also reduced troops sizes and there was a mechanism whereby troop numbers could be reduced the longer they were away from home. The big annoyance for me was not being able to rename regiments. I hope that is possible.

 

[Revolution 11]

Tangentially related, in Vic2 it was also an issue how countries could bring countless troops from their colonies to fight in the home front as well.
Specifically, the UK could have the biggest army in the world in 1836, with all that Indian manpower ready to be flexed around, and could bring it all to bear in Europe if it wanted to.



These would probably be the best way to deal with this situation.
Logistics would ensure you can't bring hundreds of thousands of men from the other side of the globe just for a local conflict.
And IGs could deal with the repercussions of military defeats, thinking specifically about the Armed Forces IG, it could have some interesting relationship with how you wage wars in general (hopefully they won't be there just to give some modifiers when happy or angry).

Agreed. Logistics can limit physically how many troops are in a theater. IGs should be courted or bribed into supporting wars with more automatic support from IGs in major wars or defensive wars. The less explicit courting of IG support, the more penalties you get from loss of friendly troops (no mattter the enemy casualties).

 

[Skales]

The only Paradox game in history which got this right was, weirdly, Crusader Kings 2.

One of the reasons I keep returning to that game, for all its flaws, at times it makes me feel like it is a real-world, not a meme fest where as Britain I have to occupy all of China to exact minor concessions.

 

[jumbi]

Maybe this can be solved with proper CBs - maybe in some CBs you can use only special sort of forces, like colonial forces. Ck3 has sort of mode (plundering) where you lead a limited military incursion that is treated differently from regular war. Other solution is that you keep most of your army at your borders to protect from neighbours. If you are france you keep most of forces on border with Germany and Italy so you can send just small forces to war with Thailand. But if war breaks out with a GP neighbour, you use those big forces on the border.

There's also some precedence for this with HoI4's border conflicts, where only a very small number of divisions are able to participate in a conflict in a very specific region. The mechanic's implementation there is definitely rough around the edges but it's an interesting idea for expansion

 

[Price21]

There's also some precedence for this with HoI4's border conflicts, where only a very small number of divisions are able to participate in a conflict in a very specific region. The mechanic's implementation there is definitely rough around the edges but it's an interesting idea for expansion

Gave me an idea, for instance the red zone of the Rhineland as a non-militarised zone in hoi4, but instead implemented as a border conflict region using that rough image... could be an idea.

 

[Skales]

There's also some precedence for this with HoI4's border conflicts, where only a very small number of divisions are able to participate in a conflict in a very specific region. The mechanic's implementation there is definitely rough around the edges but it's an interesting idea for expansion

Right, only a certain amount of troops allowed in the war-affected region. If you want to send in more troops you have to push it through interest groups at home, they can also push to end the war.

 

[Austregisel]

The Imperator system of armies carrying supply would go down well, so farther and farther away from friendly territory you have less time to send troops back home, so sending small armies spends less supply than sending a giant army that spends very fast supply, and it needs to be constantly replenished with large numbers of ships per sea.

 

[demanvanwezel]

the problem is also that different defeats called for different follow-ups without clear reasons why they were different

the british lost their army during the 2nd british-afghan war and that was the end of that, they also lost so many men during the first boer war that they retreated
however losing the army at islandwana during the anglo-zulu war made it so that the british send even more troops while the war had been very unpopular in brittain before because the loss was seen as simply unacceptable

also I hope going from unrecognised to recognised by defeating a great power means defeating them in an offensive war or at the very least forcing a defeat rather then a white peace

 

[MasterPaw]

Yes im a supporter of the idea of a Cost of War accpetance proportionnal to war consequences
Going above being unpopular among your people or government
In addition to prevent unrealistic total wars, it can add some intereseing mechanic to try to increase that acceptance, like propaganda
It could potantially work well with diplomacy if its about adding demands with escalations

On con could be that it restrict too much player liberty, and maybe could instead bring imbalance if some country is all in military

 

[Krajzen]

One thing I wanted to add in terms of making wars more real.
I have no idea how to do that, but it would be really great if some paradox game figured out how to recreate guerilla warfare on this scale.

Guerilla warfare instead of great open battles often caused way weaker countries to defeat way stronger ones. In fact, often it was the only way. So lack of guerilla severely restricts smaller nations ability to persevere. Lack of guerilla combined with infinite logistics and total war makes it actually more hopeless for minors to win wars than what realistically could happen in history. Some huge empire throws enormous army at you from across the globe, and you can either just die or do immersively idiotic but the only sensible ingame thing, namely run from their armies and sail to their capital.

If major powers could only send limited forces to faraway regions, with limited will and war support, and guerilla warfare existed in some form, then s o m e t i m e s underdogs could survive, by the sheer value of being too costly and painful to conquer.

 

[Roye]

Many people here bring up logistics, and that's an important part of it obviously, but in my opinion there should also be limitations on how many troops you are able to mobilise (and from where) based on the war you are waging.

Limited wars are nothing new to Paradox games on the diplomatic side: we don't know how war goals will work in Vic3 but both Vic2 and EU4 have a specific war goal and war type that impacts what you can get out of the war without penalties and at what cost. In my opinion, this should also be reflected in how many troops you can bring to bear without penalties.

Ideally, this should mean that for a small colonial war far away from the metropole, you only have a limited amount of units and manpower available. Whereas there would be less of a limitation when fighting a war against a neighbouring great power, and up to none when defending your home nation against foreign aggression.

Then, if you fight a limited war and run out of the allocated units/manpower, the war there has run its course and you are forced to abandon it. I don't think that should enable to defender to enforce concessions except being freed from previous treaties imposed on them, but the war would be over. Alternatively, there could be a process where you have to ask your government to escalate the war and provide additional funds and manpower. That could work similar to the law passing process and would be unpopular if nobody at home cares about the war goal or the casualties were already severe.

Many great powers had to abandon wars not because they lacked the means to continue them in principle, often it was because the interest groups in power didn't think it was worth continuing compared to the gains.

Similar mechanics could also come into effect during alliances: faraway allies would be called into the war but they would never, and could never, march their entire army across the whole world just to intervene in some war of a far flung ally, which is another immersion destroying experience in EU4.

I don't know exactly how Vic3 would implement this exactly, because it is not really compatible with the relative freedom that basically all Paradox games give you in building armies and moving them around the world. I would argue that this freedom is an anachronism of an outdated army/warfare system that hasn't been fundamentally changed forever. Most systems in Paradox games are good and interesting because they push back against the player with limitations and rules that reflect historical circumstances, and the same principle should be applied to armies and warfare as well.

At the very least we need something more sophisticated than "faraway war = more attrition" because that's not cutting it.

How about what you have in Imperator: Rome? Armies have a food supply, if they run out of it, they start getting heavy attrition. You could further limit them for example doing both a supply of food and weapons, ammo etc. You could further do it by basic supply lines on infrastructure the same way states get it. So for example if your army invades an African state with no infrastructure, it won't be able to resupply weapons and ammo, slowly becoming useless as it runs out of ammo or worse, if it's too big to sustain itself off the land, it would also slowly run out of food and than start dying off starvation en mass - Which should trigger events that increase war exhaustion like "Our troops are forced into cannibalism".