Rulers taking command of battles

[Folkie]

Hopefully there aren't too many other threads about this subject, cause I haven't really searched.

What I want to achieve is;

A. Vent
B. Point this "problem" out to the devs

I am sure everybody has somewhat of an idea what this is about by now...
It can be very, very annoying when rulers take the command of battles.

I'll give you a brief example;

A war is going on in the late 1600's between on one side
-Me (Prussia), France, and some one, two and three province minors.
The other side consists of
-Great Britain, Castille (PU under GB) and Austria

It happened a couple times now that my 40K+ stack with a 4/5 or 4/6 general assaults a 40K+ stack with a 4/5 or 4/4 general.
It starts out perfectly fine, casualties are slightly higher on the opposing side and I am winning the fight.
Suddenly, a 2k unit from Lüneburg joins my side of the battle and their 1/2 ruler takes command of the fight... As you understand, I suddenly start losing 4k+ units per tick and have to retreat asap.
Tis very annoying when this happens when ur at full manpower, but even more annoying when, like now, I fight an attrition war against an opponent with 3x our manpower.

I have "won" the war already (68% warscore) but want to let Austria force-release some provinces still, which won't happen cause these incidents have drained my manpower.

Naturally this isn't the first game where this has happened and I am sure that other have also mentioned this before.

In my opinion, either the best or the first general in the battle should take and keep control of the command.
Perhaps others have other ideas?

Thanks for reading/replying!
I feel much better now!

 

[Wardok]

This is indeed very annoying...my super generals never get to keep controll of the battles.

 

[unmerged(465279)]

My brain says it should be the first General to engage whose pips get used, history-wise I just dont know.

Gameplay-wise? I think the strongest should get used!

 

[TheBloke]

My brain says it should be the first General to engage whose pips get used, history-wise I just dont know.

Gameplay-wise? I think the strongest should get used!

Second is definitely better, yes. But the former would be OK too. At least that would be plannable-for.

Anything besides this current mechanic. It is indeed extremely annoying and silly.

 

[Jaol]

I agree it's annoying. Perhaps it's supposed to be historical.

Personally, I'd like the rule to be a bit more complicated, taking skill, rank, and national prestige/power into account. For example, if the King of France joins a battle, he'll probably take over no bad how bad a general he is, but if a OPM ruler joins a battle led by an general from a powerful country, that general would stay in command unless the OPM monarch was significantly more skilled.

 

[Alluton]

It is always somewhat weird when you see leader of, for example, luneburg leading giant army that is composed from several big nations. I find it hard to believe that prussia or france would ever let king of some small country to lead their troops.

 

[DEY123]

I agree this is very annoying as I am stuck in a lot of wars figinting superior manpower and when some minor comes in with 1/5th the troops it is annoying. Maybe the ruler in battle Should be as follows

War Leader country
Major country
Minor

if you have two leaders from a group at the same tier then it goes to ruler then heir then general. Finally prestige would be the last tie breaker.

Also it is not just the ruler they also apply tehir discipline to the battle so sometimes I go from Like 135% or 140% down to 100 or 110% because they don't match mine. I think for displine it should be a calculated average of each counrties discpline weighted by the number of Regiments they have in the battle and not just follow the leader or even better apply it by unit in the actual combat calculation.

 

[Diavolo1988]

I have had his happen to me as well. However, maximum morale, discipline and tactics can also be changed like this. (say you have a horde country with crappy tech as a vassal suddenly "help" you out)

Seriously, the best of everything should be used. Best general present leads, highest discipline, highest max morale, highest tactics.

 

[TheBloke]

Seriously, the best of everything should be used. Best general present leads, highest discipline, highest max morale, highest tactics.

Well, morale is per-stack, and I thought Discipline was too? That's the best solution - if there's five stacks in there, they all have their own morale, and each troop-type fights with its own particular Discipline/CA abilities (modified according to its nation's modifiers.) There doesn't need to be an 'overall' morale and Discipline. Though perhaps there is at the moment? I'm not sure; it certainly displays a single overall figure, but I'm not sure what impact that has on the game.

But the general and the combat width should be set according to the best available amongst all the troops on that side.

I suppose the ruler thing is meant to be 'historical', that a monarch always outranks everyone. But it sucks for gameplay because it's outside your control, and it's not even something you can tell is going to happen unless you watch every allied stack, hover over it to get the name of the general, then check the Ledger to see if he's a monarch, and check if you want his stats. That is horrible.

In practice it probably doesn't make as big a difference to the game as it might seem. For every time your good general gets replace with a poor monarch, there's a time when their good general gets similarly replaced. But it's definitely anti-strategic, as it disproportionately hurts players who are careful to always try and pick the best possible general for a given situation.

 

[TheSavage01]

The order of preference should be something like:
1) King of warleader
2) (a) general of warleader or (b) king of non-war leader (whichever is first to battle)
3) General of non warleader (first to battle)

 

[TheBloke]

The order of preference should be something like:
1) King of warleader
2) (a) general of warleader or (b) king of non-war leader (whichever is first to battle)
3) General of non warleader (first to battle)

I'd much prefer the simple solution of:

1) Leader with highest number of pips all allied armies in the province

 

[Schmoekoeksklok]

I think the best thing would be to only apply the priority rules at the start of a battle. Or rather the first time a general is chosen, since sometimes battles start without a general :d

If you desperately want to historify things, I don't think there are many examples in history where a king joined a battle that was going very well and telling the general to piss off while he tried his own silly strategies.

 

[gaius valerius]

In my opinion, either the best or the first general in the battle should take and keep control of the command.
Perhaps others have other ideas?

Thanks foar reading/replying!
I feel much better now!

My brain says it should be the first General to engage whose pips get used, history-wise I just dont know.

Gameplay-wise? I think the strongest should get used!

Gameplay-wise, but from a barebone point, taking not into account that this is a simulation: yes.

History-wise: no.

Also in the sense of simulation and immersion and gameplay-wise as a whole: no.

Take into account the game features into a setting when Aristocratic douches vied with each other for 'Glory' or to use the French term 'Gloire'. The "Pursuit of Glory" was a very real issue for dynasts and their aristocratic servants. For the former it entailed international prestige and for the latter it entailed the chance to earn prestige with their ruler. The most capable man hardly ever led the army. A famous example of such a complete cock-up is the battle of Oudenaarde in 1708, where the French general Vendome was forced to serve under the Bourbon princeling Louis, Duke of Burgundy. Vendome was clearly the more experienced of the 2 but Louis could and did pull rank. The conversation that ensued as the battle unfold is hilarious and Vendome had to seriously bite his tongue to not cross the line of outright insubordination. But the spitefulness in his tone was evident as he accused the Duke of blantant incompetence.

Differences can be observed regionally but the 'best man for the job' is something of the French Revolution, not even the Republics of the day could boast something in this field. A country like France could be lucky with a stretch of fine and mediocre generals but even those could still ultimately suffer the burden of having to serve under a royal nitwit, for that was the practice of the day. And it makes sense as a mechanic.

The only issue of course is that EU IV has no underlying internal mechanic for managing these features. Take for example a basic managing of your dynasty, where you see that prince n°3 is burning to get some experience and you could chose to either attach him to one of your superior generals and hope he learns the trade or later on give him command of his own force, cozying up with one faction at your court but endangering your military entreprise. In alliances rank of course counts even more and that sounds logical. The Duke of Austria surely would pull rank on a mere French general? Unless you could insert management here as well. Say a ruler has stats which determine how haughty and prideful he is, say that a ruler has certain stats which make him understand the bare necessity of letting general X - a proven veteran and able commander - take the field while he watches from the tents? Or precisely a ruler who is haughty and full of pride and wants to add a victory to his name, yet lacking the stats and thus potentially endangering the entire battle.

All in all a lot of micromanagement that would be - of course, the above sounds more like a CK2 thing, as EU 4 sadly lacks in such features. At best the current determinants could be 'who leads the alliance in this war', who 'has the most prestige', who 'is the strongest country on paper'?

 

[BoleslavLev]

I don´t agree rulers historically lead fights. It was usual in the middle ages, but since 16th century, they were heavily rellying on mercenaries and later, they have build proffesional armies with proffesional generals. There are some exceptions of course (Frederick the Great, Napoleon etc.), but mostly they didn´t lead fights.

They could be with an army, but still, there would be some generals who would advice the ruler and usually it would be them actually leading the fight. Really - how many rulers leading fights from modern times can you name? For this purpose it´s not necessary for them to actually battle (like knights in the middle ages), but they had to plan the fight, come up with strategies etc. How many? Now how many of them messed that up (and then possibly realised it´s better to leave it to generals)? I think we can come up with quite a few rulers who did plan the fights, but now imagine all those battles where generals lead them. With the end of middle ages, rulers were more into politics and left fight to others. Rulers who actually plan battles were usually originaly soldiers or they were connected to army somehow anyway.

 

[pgroves]

I'd love for this to get overhauled, my excellent leaders are often rendered useless because of poor leaders of small vassal forces taking over command of battles :-(

 

[gaius valerius]

Not historically as in 'they're supposed to lead', but if they were present they often would lead, but yes, just as often they wouldn't. There are many examples of rulers actively taking part in battle - not always in their favour. Lesser sovereigns of smaller nations more likely than great kings of France or Austria. If they did and they lacked the skill such as at Oudenaarde (not the king but a princeling, boils down to the same thing, a royal offshoot wanting to earn his spurs) in 1708, it would be disastrous.

Again, the system of EU IV doesn't allow for much in-depth micromanagement, you can't send your ruler to 'spectate' as Louis XIV often did, you make him leader, it is your choice to make him lead the army, otherwise you let him stay at home or let a general do it. Without micromanagement there is little to be done about it than use crude mechanics dictating that vassal leader can't lead or that battles are always led by the general of alliance etc.

 

[Jaol]

Isn't the underlying problem the number of poor AI ruler-leaders running around? The AI gets an extra free leader slot, so why is it turning its ruler into a general so often?

 

[BoleslavLev]

Sure. I also wanted to say later there were more and larger armies so it was impossible to lead them all. Even in a single battle there would be many generals leading different parts of this. Now I don´t need fight in EU4 that complex. I´ve just never realised any ruler can force you to sack your generals in battle and I think it´s stupid. So I was trying to support my opinion even on the historic front.

EDIT: I have no idea if (and if then why) AI is relying so much on rulers, but even then it doesn´t make sense to make every other general useless. If AI doesn´t have general, it uses ruler, ok. If it has, it should use it. If it uses both and they meet in the same fight, the better general should lead. Now it hurts AI the same as the player.

Using rulers more as AI has nothing to do with removing generals from the game (well, you know - they can still be at some parades, but that´s about it sometimes).

 

[Noctus]

I agree this is very annoying as I am stuck in a lot of wars figinting superior manpower and when some minor comes in with 1/5th the troops it is annoying. Maybe the ruler in battle Should be as follows

War Leader country
Major country
Minor

if you have two leaders from a group at the same tier then it goes to ruler then heir then general. Finally prestige would be the last tie breaker.

Also it is not just the ruler they also apply tehir discipline to the battle so sometimes I go from Like 135% or 140% down to 100 or 110% because they don't match mine. I think for displine it should be a calculated average of each counrties discpline weighted by the number of Regiments they have in the battle and not just follow the leader or even better apply it by unit in the actual combat calculation.

This would be a much better system then what we currently have.

 

[Rubidium]

I don´t agree rulers historically lead fights. It was usual in the middle ages, but since 16th century, they were heavily rellying on mercenaries and later, they have build proffesional armies with proffesional generals. There are some exceptions of course (Frederick the Great, Napoleon etc.), but mostly they didn´t lead fights.

It really depends on the era and the nation. Lots of rulers lead their armies (especially when you get to e.g. the Horde nations or the Daimyos, where it was a key part of the aspect of rulership). You do have an increase of non-rulers commanding, but you have plenty of rulers as well. Just sticking to England/Britain (so ignoring people like Gustavus Adolphus, Christian IV of Denmark, Peter the Great, etc.), and starting in the 16th century (so as to avoid medieval leaders and the Wars of the Roses): Henry VII, Henry VIII, Charles I, (Oliver Cromwell), Charles II, James II, William III, George I and George II all led armies in battle as either king, heir or pretender. That's basically every adult male English ruler before 1760, except James I. Now obviously, some of the "commanding" probably was as a figurehead while an aide issued the actual orders, but I see that as folded into the general's stats.

A lesser captain (although still generally a noble) might command, but a king or prince would be able to pull rank if he was present, at least for his own forces. However, a coalition army (especially in Germany, where every square foot was a different principality, practically) might be led by a general even if subcomponents were led by rulers; e.g. at Waterloo the Allied Army was led by Wellington, even though one of his subordinates was the heir to the Netherlands.