If it's an inland territory, there's a good chance the AI will get military access from a neighbor and skip around your blockade.
Shattered Army mechanic is unbelievably frustrating.
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If it's an inland territory, there's a good chance the AI will get military access from a neighbor and skip around your blockade.
Couldn't agree more on both. I love the white flag (actually it looks like an envelope, might be just me). On an enemy army of course.
I know. Austria did it to escape me. So I asked the same nation for military access, got it, and killed Austria.
I always made the error to take offensive ideas as burgundy and try to win france, having this problem mainly, the fact that if i won a battle they would retreat to narnia then come back in flanders.
Lemme say eu3 mechanics are too easy and human balanced, you know that if you win a battle then you'll win the war, instead in eu4 this won't happen and is more challenging. Anyways i think that the solution to win AI is just use his tactics. I started a game with burgundy wanting to become netherlands (actually very difficult because you're outside HRE), and just wanted to play friendly with france just because the decision will give automatically the french region to them, so there was no intention in fightin to defend some provinces i would already have given to them. Ok said that, the funniest thing is that france dow me 3 times, the first one they mega-stomped me and i managed to lose just picardie and calais, the second and third one i mega-stomped them. They even declared war on me, i made peace on day one releasing vassals because i already was in war with austria and castille, and got re-declared war from france the day after. I wonder if the ai gets the -5 stability hit, and why the hell they wanted to accept peace the day before then, re-dow day after.
Anyways to keep things on topic i won the last war having less armies than france and ofc less manpower, just using their stupid tactics. Defend always, keep main army full of men and when you win a battle in your territory there's a high chance that the enemy will retreat in the nearest province, then annihilate the army. If they gonna retreat to narnia just salute them and wait for next round, until you will check that their mp is off and almost the whole army shaken, know your enemy and for example about france, they usually retreat on provence or ile de france, sometimes i've seen them on armagnac or roussillon if they have. Against burgundy i've seen them a lot of times regroup in provence. Go there straight away without changing direction everytime the enemy enters a new provinces, or just watch the white flag under the army. If things go well you win the war.
So to sum it up if you want an higher chance to annihilate the enemy's army, look at your history and think at all the times you've lost your army. 90% of times for me were on enemy's territory, so i just reversed my tecnique, and played defensive with def ideas.. That +0.50 morale is really good.
In general i like this feature as i think that in eu3 it was too unbalanced, unrealistic, and easy in that sense. Here is just a challenge, as it should be.
Lemme say eu3 mechanics are too easy and human balanced, you know that if you win a battle then you'll win the war, instead in eu4 this won't happen and is more challenging. Anyways i think that the solution to win AI is just use his tactics. I started a game with burgundy wanting to become netherlands (actually very difficult because you're outside HRE), and just wanted to play friendly with france just because the decision will give automatically the french region to them, so there was no intention in fightin to defend some provinces i would already have given to them. Ok said that, the funniest thing is that france dow me 3 times, the first one they mega-stomped me and i managed to lose just picardie and calais, the second and third one i mega-stomped them. They even declared war on me, i made peace on day one releasing vassals because i already was in war with austria and castille, and got re-declared war from france the day after. I wonder if the ai gets the -5 stability hit, and why the hell they wanted to accept peace the day before then, re-dow day after.
Anyways to keep things on topic i won the last war having less armies than france and ofc less manpower, just using their stupid tactics. Defend always, keep main army full of men and when you win a battle in your territory there's a high chance that the enemy will retreat in the nearest province, then annihilate the army. If they gonna retreat to narnia just salute them and wait for next round, until you will check that their mp is off and almost the whole army shaken, know your enemy and for example about france, they usually retreat on provence or ile de france, sometimes i've seen them on armagnac or roussillon if they have. Against burgundy i've seen them a lot of times regroup in provence. Go there straight away without changing direction everytime the enemy enters a new provinces, or just watch the white flag under the army. If things go well you win the war.
So to sum it up if you want an higher chance to annihilate the enemy's army, look at your history and think at all the times you've lost your army. 90% of times for me were on enemy's territory, so i just reversed my tecnique, and played defensive with def ideas.. That +0.50 morale is really good.
In general i like this feature as i think that in eu3 it was too unbalanced, unrealistic, and easy in that sense. Here is just a challenge, as it should be.
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I personally don't think it's a big issue. The thing is, your opponent can only run far if their territory is big... and if it's big, I'd say it's unrealistic that your army would be running around their whole country chasing their armies, so instead, you split stacks and only seige a few provinces at a time. This is the way I play the game anyway. If I'm fighting a country with just 10 or so provinces, I kick their armies then carpet seige while lowering maintenance (since the opponent can't do anything). However, if I'm fighting something big, I don't bother chasing their army etc, I just go in with 3 big stacks and seige. When they come to defend, I kick their asses, then go back to sieging immediately.
You simply need to advance slowly. Lets say you have 3 stacks of 30. If you just run around with those stacks trying to kill an opponent stack in their 20 province territory, they will run back and forth. However, if you hunt them with one stack and split the others and seige, the amount of territory they can run to is greatly limited, and you eventually get rid of the ping pong effect.
You simply need to advance slowly. Lets say you have 3 stacks of 30. If you just run around with those stacks trying to kill an opponent stack in their 20 province territory, they will run back and forth. However, if you hunt them with one stack and split the others and seige, the amount of territory they can run to is greatly limited, and you eventually get rid of the ping pong effect.
Yes I have, and yes it works to some extent which is great, but a slow 1-2 province siege-push with an overseer stack should be a tactic used when you're facing an equal or greater force. If I have the resources, tech, and manpower to crush my opponent: I should be able to force an outcome when I have managed to achieve an engagement, not go through some benny hill scene from hell. I'm ok with some ping'ponging. I'm ok with chasing him around. But if I manage to get a stack into his path of retreat: I want the fight to be won.
Overall though, I think shattered armies should split and retreat in multiple directions as someone else suggested, along with a low-morale lock on each one when they reach their destination. It creates a proper penalty for losing by forcing them to have to regroup, while also allowing you to get some outright damage in without it being a done-deal.
To my knowledge, retreating armies are locked down in their destination province. At least i wiped out several stacks by just following them (you can see where they retreat to in that little mail icon) and they are always locked down when they arrive at their destination until the end of the month.
And as others have said, its also pretty easy to stop them from retreating: They can only retreat if they have direct access to friendly territory, so if you encircle them (before the battle ends) or fight 2 provinces deep into your own land, you won't have any problems whatsoever.
And if they retreat to Lissabon from Moskau, oh well, time to make some progress in your sieges, he'll be back for another whipping anyway.
You get a lot of warscore for wiping out armies, so it obviously should be a little harder than in EU3. It's a lot more realistic (beside the retreat through armies) and adds some more tactical options, so why make it even easier to crush an already handcuffed AI (they can't adapt, don't use scorched earth, can't trap you, etc)?
And as others have said, its also pretty easy to stop them from retreating: They can only retreat if they have direct access to friendly territory, so if you encircle them (before the battle ends) or fight 2 provinces deep into your own land, you won't have any problems whatsoever.
And if they retreat to Lissabon from Moskau, oh well, time to make some progress in your sieges, he'll be back for another whipping anyway.
You get a lot of warscore for wiping out armies, so it obviously should be a little harder than in EU3. It's a lot more realistic (beside the retreat through armies) and adds some more tactical options, so why make it even easier to crush an already handcuffed AI (they can't adapt, don't use scorched earth, can't trap you, etc)?
If it a large opponent(say France)....the enemy Army shatters due to a battle against you in Artois and then runs away to Labourd on Spanish Border. Unless you are very Lucky and have a 6 Maneuver General and AI doesn't and or French Morale upticks enough at end of Month to slow it Down You will not be able to Annihilate their Doomstack.
Actually the Siege a Province or Two and keeping a "Hunter-Killer" Stack in Reserve for when their Army attacks one of your sieges.....is good tactics against it and actually simulates 15th-early 18th Century Warfare very well.
The only time thought that it is a real Problem is if you are fighting someone Big, the HRE Emperor, because the Enemy can retreat a long ways away.....gaining morale and troops to return.
In my Spain game I thought it was pretty funny that my Main Stack would lose in Paris (to Cosmopolitan Patriots) and retreat all the Way to Barcelona........even though my Allies controlled all the intervening Provinces and the Stack Chasing me stopped at Orleans.
Actually the Siege a Province or Two and keeping a "Hunter-Killer" Stack in Reserve for when their Army attacks one of your sieges.....is good tactics against it and actually simulates 15th-early 18th Century Warfare very well.
The only time thought that it is a real Problem is if you are fighting someone Big, the HRE Emperor, because the Enemy can retreat a long ways away.....gaining morale and troops to return.
In my Spain game I thought it was pretty funny that my Main Stack would lose in Paris (to Cosmopolitan Patriots) and retreat all the Way to Barcelona........even though my Allies controlled all the intervening Provinces and the Stack Chasing me stopped at Orleans.
If you have problems with shattered armies try using offensive forced march. It will allow you to reach theit destination first and most likely you will kill it almost instantly.
In principle I really like the long shattered retreats: I don't want all wars to be decided by whoever quickly slaughters the entire army of the enemy. You shouldn't be able to essentially win a war in one battle all that frequently, unless the enemy is deep in your territory or otherwise cut off. The only, but significant, problem is that the shattered army can come back too fast. Movement is quite fast relative to sieging so kicking an enemy across the length of its blob doesn't seem to buy you that much time. I'd say the most effective way to deal with this would be to lock shattered armies in place or reduce their movement speed significantly for a while, with the duration depending on the length of their shattered retreat. So an army that shatters a long way would be at quite high morale by the time it reached the rally point, eliminating the risk of being caught up with a slaughtered, but it would have to sit there for some time giving the victor a chance to press the advantage in some other way. Meanwhile an army that shatters only a few provinces will be available for action very quickly, but at very low morale so is at serious risk of annihilation.
You make a fair point NathanH, I think they should add a modifier to movement speed that is "recently beaten" or something, greatly reducing your movement speed unless you are still being pursued (to avoid a sure kill when pursing a beaten enemy, that would make no sense). This would better portray the great impact a loss can have on an army even after only losing, for example, a third of it's men. It would make losing more costly than just running out of manpower eventually (which you won't anymore most end-games).
how about this:
leave it as is, but change warscore and army tradition calculations for the winner.
if a HUGE stack gets beating by losing 10% of their men, then this should be a major victory, not "lol you only got 10% of us before managed to flee, haah you suck". Countries dont make it a goal to see how effective flee-ers they can be. They want to win.
Just change it to a base equal to 50% dead, increasing 0.5 for each percent dead on the losing side. Flee with half remaining? thats 75% of the warscore and army tradition you d have gotten from wiping them out. Flee with 10% casualties? Thats 55%.
This would add up very fast and you d win the war, and gain lots of tradition for repeatedly beating up a doomstack. This is AS IT SHOULD BE.
either that or limit the range and dont allow them to recoup anything but morale while fleeing.
leave it as is, but change warscore and army tradition calculations for the winner.
if a HUGE stack gets beating by losing 10% of their men, then this should be a major victory, not "lol you only got 10% of us before managed to flee, haah you suck". Countries dont make it a goal to see how effective flee-ers they can be. They want to win.
Just change it to a base equal to 50% dead, increasing 0.5 for each percent dead on the losing side. Flee with half remaining? thats 75% of the warscore and army tradition you d have gotten from wiping them out. Flee with 10% casualties? Thats 55%.
This would add up very fast and you d win the war, and gain lots of tradition for repeatedly beating up a doomstack. This is AS IT SHOULD BE.
either that or limit the range and dont allow them to recoup anything but morale while fleeing.
Anyone who hates ping-pong armies= offensive ideas! AI loves them and so should human.
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Shattered armies should maybe suffer about 20% attrition till their morale goes into positive. This would simulate deserters etc.
Anyone who hates ping-pong armies= offensive ideas! AI loves them and so should human.
AI also loves defensive ideas. I don't think there is any country in late game without these two ideas...
You just summarized here how and why Napoleon lost campain against Russia in real life even when Napoleon was able to force Russian troops fleeing from every battle and Napoleon had 3-4 times more troops than Russian during campaing in the end Napoleon lost it and campaing ended France troops being destroyed. It was attrition and ping pong Russian troops that eventually killed whole Russian campaing forever.
From Wikipedia:
" Russians used scorched-earth tactics, and often raided the enemy with light Cossack cavalry, their main army retreated for almost three months."
"Napoleon entered Moscow on September 14, after the Russian Army had again retreated"
"Grande Armée underwent catastrophic blows from the onset of the Russian Winter, the lack of supplies and constant guerilla warfare by Russian peasants and irregular troops."
Going back to Eu3 or making it easier to win with carpet sieging system would be going back in realism as ping pong and attrition was valid and historical way of winning wars especially for big empires during this era. Russians did it in real life.
Military ideas should be the majority indeed. For many reasons, military points are the ones everyone gets the most. Usually when I´m ahead of time on something, it´s military tech. Pointless getting 5 Administrative NI tech groups as you will never have enough points to spend on them.
To everyone complaining about it beeing too hard to pursue enemy armies, that's the point of the system. It shouldn't be easy to annihilate your enemy's army. That just didn't happen very much in the eu timeframe. The offensive strategy now is obviously slowly advancing your siege armies, guarded by one or two major armies, and fighting off the enemy army on each counter-attack.
What needs to be fixed is, that the ai attacks again without much of an effort to regroup and take the advantage. Too often it attacks when it's army isn't back to full morale yet, not to mention undermanned.
What needs to be fixed is, that the ai attacks again without much of an effort to regroup and take the advantage. Too often it attacks when it's army isn't back to full morale yet, not to mention undermanned.
I don't understand your problem. If you beat the enemy army just pursue them, once you catch up with them you will give them the coup de grace and they disintegrate, works perfectly fine. You got forced march for a reason, make use of it.
Here's an idea. What if for every 10% short of 50% morale an army takes 3% attrition. Therefore shattered armies will lose 15% armies on it's retreat and not start stabilising till it has 50% morale? This would be a suitable 'punishment' I think for losing a battle.
maybe this would affect army maintenance in peace so ...
maybe this would affect army maintenance in peace so ...