Relative Merits of the Different Military Ideas

[pharaomatic]

Okay I am having a newbie-moment that needs clarification. The two parts of combat, guns/steel/casualties and willpower/morale/breaking are 100% completely unrelated? Totally so?

I could swear I remembered some instance of casualties affecting morale negatively. So by extension high discipline -> more enemy casualties -> enemy morale loss. Wich makes Quality armies better against Defensive.

They're not unrelated. And I see the same logic you do. But alot in here disagrees.

IMO morale is mainly a determining factor when two roughly equal armies clash.

In combat the main rule is that the biggest guy wins. And Offensive helps you field a bigger army and let it pack a bigger punch.

 

[Novacat]

With all the respect you guys underestimate nobility. Its quite powerfull early game. A lot of extra cavalry with breaks enemy lines, increased manpower, not to mention the epic +1 diplo bonus. Also I should mention its combo with economic ideas granting you few nice decisions "Abolish serfdom" and "Court of wards and ..." Its quite balanced the only questionable bonus there is "core creation cost +200", still it has some advantages if losing war in iron man or mp game. Over all military ideas I mostly prefer nobility as first idea.

The problem is that cavalry's power is already gone by tech 12... which means artistocracy's cavalry boosts becomes entirely useless by the time you are able to complete it.

I mean really, Plutocracy does almost everything Aristocracy can do, better.

MMP savings = Both give 10% reduction on miltech. Equals.
AMP savings = Aristocracy just has 5% stab reduction. Plutocracy gives -10% Tech cost. Winner Plutocracy.
DMP savings = Aristocracy has 20% War exhaustion reduction, Plutocracy gives -10% Tech cost. Winner Plutocracy
Improving Military = Aristocracy has +10% Cavalry Power and +1 Shock. Plutocracy has +10% Morale. Morale affects your entire army and additional shock pips, unfortunately, have diminishing returns since generals can only have a max of 6 pips. Winner Plutocracy.
Improving Economy = Aristocracy has +5% Tax, +5% Production Efficiency, but only late in the game and requires you dont take Innovative Ideas. Aristocracy does have -20% Cavalry Cost but Cavalry is such a small part of your force anyway. Plutocracy has +20% Production Efficiency. Note production is a much larger part of your economy than tax. Winner Plutocracy as Aristocracy will only give 1/2 the money of Plutocracy.
Additional Staff = Diplomat and Merchant are both useful, but additional Merchants increase naval force limit by 5 and are more useful throughout the game, wheras Diplomats tend to have diminishing returns the more you get (you can only integrate so many vassals at once). Still, I will call it a tie since both are very useful.
Manpower= +25% Manpower vs +20% Manpower Recovery. Plutocracy. Again.

Really, the only thing Aristocracy has going for it is the +100% core creation cost, which makes the AI far less likely to want to go after your lands.

 

[lordelenath]

I'd say the diplomat is clearly better than the merchant (I'm never starving for money) and it's one of the main reasons people take the idea group at all as far as I know. Apart from that you're right: Aristocracy is just bad overall.

 

[pharaomatic]

I don't really think it makes sense to compare aristocracy with plutocracy. As a player, it's never gonna be a choice you have to make. Much more relevant to compare them strengthwise to the overall ideatree.

 

[bleakie]

The problem is that cavalry's power is already gone by tech 12... which means artistocracy's cavalry boosts becomes entirely useless by the time you are able to complete it.

I mean really, Plutocracy does almost everything Aristocracy can do, better.

MMP savings = Both give 10% reduction on miltech. Equals.
AMP savings = Aristocracy just has 5% stab reduction. Plutocracy gives -10% Tech cost. Winner Plutocracy.
DMP savings = Aristocracy has 20% War exhaustion reduction, Plutocracy gives -10% Tech cost. Winner Plutocracy
Improving Military = Aristocracy has +10% Cavalry Power and +1 Shock. Plutocracy has +10% Morale. Morale affects your entire army and additional shock pips, unfortunately, have diminishing returns since generals can only have a max of 6 pips. Winner Plutocracy.
Improving Economy = Aristocracy has +5% Tax, +5% Production Efficiency, but only late in the game and requires you dont take Innovative Ideas. Aristocracy does have -20% Cavalry Cost but Cavalry is such a small part of your force anyway. Plutocracy has +20% Production Efficiency. Note production is a much larger part of your economy than tax. Winner Plutocracy as Aristocracy will only give 1/2 the money of Plutocracy.
Additional Staff = Diplomat and Merchant are both useful, but additional Merchants increase naval force limit by 5 and are more useful throughout the game, wheras Diplomats tend to have diminishing returns the more you get (you can only integrate so many vassals at once). Still, I will call it a tie since both are very useful.
Manpower= +25% Manpower vs +20% Manpower Recovery. Plutocracy. Again.

Really, the only thing Aristocracy has going for it is the +100% core creation cost, which makes the AI far less likely to want to go after your lands.

Although I agree that Plutocracy is better overall under most circumstances, I think you have pushed your claim a bit too far.

The analysis for MMP, AMP, DMP are accurate.
+1 shock is more powerful then you have given credit for. Even with 100% tradition, the average shock pip of a general is only about 4, and the chance for 6 shock is very low, so it is unlikely for the +1 shock to be wasted. And while +10% morale bonus is helpful, it is somewhat situational, as you may want to keep your enemy in battle longer such that their troops can be drained further, especially if your army has high quality.
The analysis for economy is mostly accurate, except that it is possible for tax income to be higher than production income throughout the game, depending on circumstances.
Manpower recovery is not automatically better than manpower. Manpower recovery is already boosted by army tradition, so the total bonuses for manpower is not necessarily higher than manpower recovery. Hence it is not correct to assume that +20% manpower recovery is better than +25% manpower by default.

 

[Novacat]

+1 shock is more powerful then you have given credit for. Even with 100% tradition, the average shock pip of a general is only about 4, and the chance for 6 shock is very low, so it is unlikely for the +1 shock to be wasted. And while +10% morale bonus is helpful, it is somewhat situational, as you may want to keep your enemy in battle longer such that their troops can be drained further, especially if your army has high quality.

Except your likely to pick offensive anyway, which gives you +1 shock, and its not unusual to find another +1 shock in NIs. On top of this, Shock in general diminishes in importance as the game carries on, fire ends up being far more important.

The analysis for economy is mostly accurate, except that it is possible for tax income to be higher than production income throughout the game, depending on circumstances.

I never seen this happen. Tax income is usually highest proportion of your income early in the game. Late in the game theres so much building upgrades and production efficiency that your production income will likely outnumber your taxes by 2 or even 3:1. My last swedish game my production was outnumbering tax by 4:1.

Manpower recovery is not automatically better than manpower. Manpower recovery is already boosted by army tradition, so the total bonuses for manpower is not necessarily higher than manpower recovery. Hence it is not correct to assume that +20% manpower recovery is better than +25% manpower by default.

Manpower recovery bonuses multiply manpower bonuses, and manpower bonuses are a lot easier to find, most NIs have them and Offense has it too, wheras Manpower recovery is a lot more rare.

 

[Incompetent]

I could swear I remembered some instance of casualties affecting morale negatively. So by extension high discipline -> more enemy casualties -> enemy morale loss. Wich makes Quality armies better against Defensive.

Indeed, morale damage scales to number of casualties. It also scales with the attacker's morale. So a morale advantage counts twice: it means you can take more damage before breaking, but it also means you need less damage to break your opponent. Discipline only counts once at present: it means you inflict more casualties, but it has no effect on how many casualties you take in a phase. Same goes for combat ability. The overall effect is that a leaderless Defensive army will have a slight advantage in winning a battle against a leaderless Quality army if everything else is equal (they deal similar amounts of morale damage, but the Defensive army can take more morale damage), but the Quality army will inflict extra casualties. With leaders, the picture is slightly more favourable to Defensive due to higher Army Tradition (leading to better generals).

Where high morale is especially useful (and high Discipline is not so useful) is with a small defending army that's badly outnumbered and waiting for reinforcements (a common situation when you bait your opponent into attacking). A high Discipline army will inflict more casualties per phase, but not enough to really blunt the attacking army, and it's a failure if it breaks before reinforcements arrive (making the reinforcements count as 'attackers'). The high morale army will hold its ground for longer without taking any more losses per day than the Discipline army, and as long as it doesn't break or get annihilated, it secures a position for the fresh armies to move in as defenders.

Ideally, it's best to have a good mix of leader pip, Discipline, Combat Ability and morale bonuses, rather than focusing on any one bonus. They all multiply one another.

 

[Dr. B]

Since this is a serious discussion where educated generals debate the finer points of strategy with precision, there is a point of interest that has not been touched upon: unit strength.

Morale is well and good, but the fact remains that a full-strength regiment is much better than a 75%/50% etc regiment. I get these a-ha experiences when hovering mouse over regiments in battle formation. I think morale is less important if you can manage to use Quality to consolidate regiments and keep units strong, to inflict maximum damage.

 

[bleakie]

Except your likely to pick offensive anyway, which gives you +1 shock, and its not unusual to find another +1 shock in NIs. On top of this, Shock in general diminishes in importance as the game carries on, fire ends up being far more important.

I am only claiming that the +1 shock can be better in certain situations. Early game, countries that do not have +1 shock as NI, and countries with high quality armies will find +1 shock more useful than +10% morale.

I never seen this happen. Tax income is usually highest proportion of your income early in the game. Late in the game theres so much building upgrades and production efficiency that your production income will likely outnumber your taxes by 2 or even 3:1. My last swedish game my production was outnumbering tax by 4:1.

In my Ottoman WC game, my tax income is approximately equal to production income in the late 18th century. The main reason is that I tried to expand as much as possible and I did not have the monarch points to build my country. And countries with high average base tax will also find tax being more important. Another factor is that the production income modifier (close to 100%) is higher than the tax income multiplier (between 0 and 50%) in the late game, so I actually receive more benefit from tax modifier than production modifier in my Ottoman game.

Manpower recovery bonuses multiply manpower bonuses, and manpower bonuses are a lot easier to find, most NIs have them and Offense has it too, wheras Manpower recovery is a lot more rare.

You get +50% manpower recovery for 100 army tradition, and most countries do not have that much manpower bonus (unless you are Russia or Ming). Manpower recovery bonus is actually much easier to get, when you consider the recovery bonus from army tradition. And for a more specific case, the Ottomans get +200% manpower recovery at war with countries of other religions, so +25% manpower is much more valuable for the Ottomans.

 

[Colombo]

Many had said "This idea group is fine, but has horrible events tied with it" or "don't forget that you get to enact these decision and youll get these events with this idea group, so it is actually better".

I think, that this is another legacy, where game tries to hide things away from you. I think, that such decisions and events should be somehow part of information about tech group. It is like playing game where you get only half of rules to it.

 

[Novacat]

Many had said "This idea group is fine, but has horrible events tied with it" or "don't forget that you get to enact these decision and youll get these events with this idea group, so it is actually better".

Many have said that because many do not realize just how much better Plutocracy is than Aristocracy. I was saying the same thing until I actually got the opportunity to try plutocracy for myself.

 

[Colombo]

Many have said that because many do not realize just how much better Plutocracy is than Aristocracy. I was saying the same thing until I actually got the opportunity to try plutocracy for myself.

My post was about hidden rules and hidden advantages and disadvantages. So one can't do informated decision.

 

[WiseGreen]

Many have said that because many do not realize just how much better Plutocracy is than Aristocracy. I was saying the same thing until I actually got the opportunity to try plutocracy for myself.

Rather than the vague hints, and in addition to the tooltips, EUIV should have something like CIV's Civilopedia - an in-game repository of knowledge that isn't in the way of the game interface, but that can be accessed after a couple clicks.

 

[grisamentum]

Rather than the vague hints, and in addition to the tooltips, EUIV should have something like CIV's Civilopedia - an in-game repository of knowledge that isn't in the way of the game interface, but that can be accessed after a couple clicks.

Along with a thousand other quality of life things, this will never happen.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

I never seen this happen. Tax income is usually highest proportion of your income early in the game. Late in the game theres so much building upgrades and production efficiency that your production income will likely outnumber your taxes by 2 or even 3:1. My last swedish game my production was outnumbering tax by 4:1.

Be careful with this analysis---above 0% efficiency the utility of a +% tax/production efficiency bonus depends only on the base value and not on the net value. If you have 100 base tax income and 100 base production income, +20% Tax Efficiency will increase your net income by exactly 20, as will +20% Production Income. This is true even if e.g. you have -50% Tax Efficiency and +100% Production Efficiency to begin with. A +20% will increase your tax income from 50 to 70 or your production income 200 to 220---in both cases the increase is the same despite most of your net income is coming from production. So the only things that affect the relative utility of Tax and Production Efficiency are tax base, Trade Value, and multiplicative modifiers such as the tariff factor.

For this reason, I personally tend to favor Tax Efficiency because I play colonial---the overseas tax penalty is additive, so the utility of Tax Efficiency is not affected, but the production income penalty is multiplicative, so Production Efficiency is relatively much less effective. Furthermore, I like building Stock Exchanges.

 

[Xeorm]

I never seen this happen. Tax income is usually highest proportion of your income early in the game. Late in the game theres so much building upgrades and production efficiency that your production income will likely outnumber your taxes by 2 or even 3:1. My last swedish game my production was outnumbering tax by 4:1.

When you're a heavy colonizer, I've found that tax efficiency is far and away the higher income. Mainly as production in colonies is nuked by that 20% tariff modifier.

 

[Novacat]

When you're a heavy colonizer, I've found that tax efficiency is far and away the higher income. Mainly as production in colonies is nuked by that 20% tariff modifier.

Ah, thanks for enlightening me on that, since im not a heavy colonizer.

 

[Jomini]

The problem is that cavalry's power is already gone by tech 12... which means artistocracy's cavalry boosts becomes entirely useless by the time you are able to complete it.

I mean really, Plutocracy does almost everything Aristocracy can do, better.

MMP savings = Both give 10% reduction on miltech. Equals.
AMP savings = Aristocracy just has 5% stab reduction. Plutocracy gives -10% Tech cost. Winner Plutocracy.
DMP savings = Aristocracy has 20% War exhaustion reduction, Plutocracy gives -10% Tech cost. Winner Plutocracy
Improving Military = Aristocracy has +10% Cavalry Power and +1 Shock. Plutocracy has +10% Morale. Morale affects your entire army and additional shock pips, unfortunately, have diminishing returns since generals can only have a max of 6 pips. Winner Plutocracy.
Improving Economy = Aristocracy has +5% Tax, +5% Production Efficiency, but only late in the game and requires you dont take Innovative Ideas. Aristocracy does have -20% Cavalry Cost but Cavalry is such a small part of your force anyway. Plutocracy has +20% Production Efficiency. Note production is a much larger part of your economy than tax. Winner Plutocracy as Aristocracy will only give 1/2 the money of Plutocracy.
Additional Staff = Diplomat and Merchant are both useful, but additional Merchants increase naval force limit by 5 and are more useful throughout the game, wheras Diplomats tend to have diminishing returns the more you get (you can only integrate so many vassals at once). Still, I will call it a tie since both are very useful.
Manpower= +25% Manpower vs +20% Manpower Recovery. Plutocracy. Again.

Really, the only thing Aristocracy has going for it is the +100% core creation cost, which makes the AI far less likely to want to go after your lands.

1. Don't sell the diplomat short. An extra diplomat, well used, is often the difference between an annoying nation going into the coalition or not. Also, it really isn't that hard to tie up all your diplos between the needed actions for DA, improving relations to avoid coalitions, and buttering up nations to use enforce peace. Any of these can be worth well over +50% manpower -50% maintenance costs.
2. Shock is far more valuable than you suspect. While shock pips are capped, remember you are facing lucky nations where the difference matters. Remember when it comes to the military, lucky nations get a bonus 1 to MMP and 1 to all pips (and a slight reduction in tech cost). Yet they tend to utterly destroy unlucky nations at war. Shock pips are extremely useful in the early game - particularly if you aren't warmongering (e.g. you are doing lots of vassalization).

 

[Laurwin]

Morale is definitely important. But on the other hand discipline can also influence the war effort in a major way. It's tough to fight the Ottomans at equal tech for example as Muscovy. Ottomans had about equal manpower to me, I had actually less Muscovite soldiers, but my vassals boosted it all to equal number of troops (theoretically). Ottomans dowed my ally Georgia thus came the war.

What can happen with enough discipline bonuses, is that you shatter enemy stacks in very fast time, it is impossible to merge stacks during combat, so this can lead to real meatgrinder type battles. Your own manpower reserves vs the enemy manpower becomes the true arbiter of victory. Can you win even if you have negative K/D ratio (sometimes it is heavily negative, with the 6 shock 6 fire godkings of the enemy)? Do you have enough fresh stacks to reinforce important battles?

I did notice that I had a really tough time in battles, even when defending where I had advantage 2:1. Ottomans maybe had small morale boost of some kind (from religious bonuses or advisor). Sometimes ottomans just voluntarily retreated which was annyoing (just before my reinforcing stack could arrive into defensive battle LOL)

On the other hand, the Ottos did have the much feared god generals also, together with their discipline boost from unique ideas. There was one particular 6 shock 6 fire general, ouch that was nasty. I have the save on my other computer, but the war didn't go terribly well sadly. Ottomans simply have too much manpower compared to my mp. There's no way I can easily fight them off, even though I had ton of gold before the war. (cant recruit enough mercenaries, to be at 1:1 odds with soldiers). And my mil tradition kind of sucks also, can't get good generals because coalitions kind of forced me to be peaceful for a while.

Warscore is tilting to ottoman favor also because I had a ton of vassals that I should have already annexed like Ukraine. It just sucks that you cant scorch your vassal territory, the Ottomans would have died to all that attrition If I could have done it properly. On the other hand, scorch earth would only have made my problem worse, spending 50 milpoints per scorch one time. It would allow Ottos to outtech me during the war.

I saved ton of money by not building too much stuff, I had really bad luck with multiple regencies and shitty kings, I was just expanding my vassals and colonizing. But I did just get overseas Asian CB from expansion tree, and just started the quantity idea as my first military idea, I went expansion religious quantity.

However lately I've been thinking about the Russian situation with Ottoman wars. What would be the best strategy for defensive war agaisnt them? It's not always possible to avoid war, sometimes they just dow you. (or your vassal/ally)

I was thinking about building a series of forts on the southern fronts of Russia. Strongest forts in the frontline borders definitely. This denies the enemy, the possibility of easy and quick carpet sieging the frontlines, with protecting stacks nearby. The bigger the fort, the bigger sieging stack it requires, which leads to more attrition. It will require more artillery regiments to siege. Siege will also last longer time, especially with a defense advisor.

More forts would be built in the southern climates, so that they must siege with bigger stacks, and face more attrition, sieges last longer. In the cold winter areas of Russia, extra forts are not needed, as the weather will do it's work on the Ottoman stacks.

Possibly the defense tree would be helpful in this kind of war, even longer lasting fortifications and doublle attrition from simply normal sieging (from 1% to 2%). And the morale bonus and less attrition suffered to your own side would allow nice counter attacks against weakened Ottoman stacks, possibly. But later on it would still require some kind of discipline boosting ability I think.

 

[Anthropoid]

If I may synthesize the thread up to this point: Diplomatic is the best military tech of them all. Beyond that, its very complicated and situational.