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Pyrobolimenos

Second Lieutenant
12 Badges
May 22, 2021
109
363
  • Victoria 2
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  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
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Although I have been really enjoying the game, I feel the combat system is a bit lacking and one-dimensional. The bigger deathstack at the start of the war almost always wins and there are few ways to strategically outsmart the enemy. I think these are some changes that would improve warfare, both in terms of realism and balance:
Medieval warfare saw a lot of casualties to disease and exposure rather than combat and I think this should be represented in-game with a base attrition to standing armies, say 1% per month. Not only is this more realistic, it should also make fighting a larger force a bit more interesting, giving the option to avoid engaging in order to trade casualties for time

Pretty straightforward, extremely high temperatures that cause additional attrition. Winter should also increase attrition on top of supply consumption

As it stands, combat width is mainly dependent on the size of the armies rather than terrain, which can result in width of tens of thousands even in mountains. Increasing terrain modifiers and/or reworking combat width calculation so it does not scale with average army size indefinitely can allow for smaller armies to hold strategic positions against a larger force given the right terrain

Self explanatory, having added base attrition, there is no reason that bringing more men to a siege should cause linearly more casualties. Having garrison size also affect casualties when assaulting a fort should also make assaults a more viable option, cause as it stands they are only usefull in "base race" type of scenarios.

Finally, I do not understand why, when I am holding a position in enemy territoty and get attacked, the enemy gets the terrain defender advantage. I am not talking about sieges, just pitched battles. It seems like a deliberate decision, please explain to me how it makes sense.
 
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