Sieges and automatic force peace...

[Taedeios]

Not sure why I decided to write a thread about this but writing about this makes me feel better for some reason.

I decided to play as an easy country like the Abbasid and everything went good as usally. After invading Africa I got some Infamy which resulted in a minor Muslim coalition agianst me. This coalition was mostly made up of the Umayyad in Iberia and minor kingdoms in North Africa and one in Persia.

After looking at the coalition map mode and their amount of troops I decided that it would be an easy war to invade the Umayyad considering the amound of troops and money for mercenary that I could hire.

But there was one thing I did not plan ahead of this war and that was the sieges...

Since my Empire is rather huge it takes time for all the troops to gather up and merge before I can march upon the Umayyad forces in North Africa. The consequence of this was that there was multiple sieges on the eastern and western front of my country but I decided that the west was of more importante since Iberia was the war goal of this invasion cb and the Umayyad have the majority of troops in the coalition.

Without ever having a major battle occur I lost the war becasue my vast superior numbers of troops did not reach the enemy in time. I had about -98% warscore as I was about to engage in an epic battle in Tunisia but lost the war because a castle somewhere in Persia was lost in a siege.

I understand that sieges should give you warscore but it feels a little bit ridicules to lose this war even when I have way more troops and castles than the enemy.

Maybe I should have just waited untill the coalition was over even if it was a minor one or something else but I still feel that the system is somewhat bad in this.

I know this is a minor complain and I love this game a lot even if I had a love/hate relationship with it since the Conclave DLC.

 

[StarSword]

Honestly? Your war strategy was bad. Once an AI army has been solidly broken it tends to be hard for them to recover. For example, as a player you can do sneaky things like refresh levies by dismissing and re-raising them (if you have easy access to friendly territory), but the AI won't do this: the only times they'll re-raise a levy is when it has been completely obliterated.

Simply put, the most effective strategy is generally to smash the enemy army first. It will muck up counterattacks, and give you a big head start on warscore, and the first major battle of a war will start the victory ticker moving in your direction. Only after you've broken the enemy's offensive power can you move to the slower work of occupying territory.

 

[Heinrich4]

I understand that sieges should give you warscore but it feels a little bit ridicules to lose this war even when I have way more troops and castles than the enemy.

So basically you're saying that if you have a larger army you should not allowed to lose the war?

 

[Taedeios]

Honestly? Your war strategy was bad. Once an AI army has been solidly broken it tends to be hard for them to recover. For example, as a player you can do sneaky things like refresh levies by dismissing and re-raising them (if you have easy access to friendly territory), but the AI won't do this: the only times they'll re-raise a levy is when it has been completely obliterated.

Simply put, the most effective strategy is generally to smash the enemy army first. It will muck up counterattacks, and give you a big head start on warscore, and the first major battle of a war will start the victory ticker moving in your direction. Only after you've broken the enemy's offensive power can you move to the slower work of occupying territory.

Not sure exactlly what you mean since my plan was to first destroy the enemy army in Tunisia who were doing sieges there. What was I writing about was the fact that I did not have time to reach the enemy army before all the sieges reached -100% warscore for me.

Also you can hire mercanary and place them next to enemy border since you are allowed to declear with raised mercenary.

 

[name_here]

Warscore is capped at 99% for the first three years of the war unless there's been a major battle. If you're fighting a war on two fronts, send armies to both fronts.

 

[Taedeios]

So basically you're saying that if you have a larger army you should not allowed to lose the war?

Oh no you should not win a war only just because you have a larger army, don't get me wrong.

I guess what bothers me is the fact that there was never a battle that would determined the future of the war but only sieges. From what I remember there is a cap in the game of how much warscore you can get from battles but not from sieges so army size does not matter 100%.

I guess what bothers me is that there is "automatic peace" even when I have a larger army.

 

[Heinrich4]

I guess what bothers me is the fact that there was never a battle that would determined the future of the war but only sieges. From what I remember there is a cap in the game of how much warscore you can get from battles but not from sieges so army size does not matter 100%.

There is a 99% warscore cap for the first 3 years if no major battle was won. So your war took longer than 3 years. Your mistake was to not care about all the troops moving in from east and started sieging your counties. You should have splitted your armies.

I guess what bothers me is that there is "automatic peace" even when I have a larger army.

I didnt get it. Again you are basically saying "If i have a larger army i should not allowed to lose the war".

 

[name_here]

Well, your army didn't manage to reach the front lines in a reasonable timeframe, so it doesn't really matter that it was larger. If you can't bring them to battle and they take your holdings and keep control of their own, you lose the war. If you can't field a large enough army on your frontiers to at least hold them off until the rest of your forces can arrive, you need to reorganize your realm to get some militarily-powerful vassals near your borders so you can raise their levies as a unit where they're needed.

 

[Taedeios]

There is a 99% warscore cap for the first 3 years if no major battle was won. So your war took longer than 3 years. Your mistake was to not care about all the troops moving in from east and started sieging your counties. You should have splitted your armies.



I didnt get it. Again you are basically saying "If i have a larger army i should not allowed to lose the war".

It's the automatic peace that I don't like. Maybe because I play eu4 where there is no such things as automatic peace. In some cases automatic peace makes perfect sense if the claimant to the thrones dies or something like that.

When I use the term larger army than I think to my self that I still have a chance to win that batte and than start to siege back land.

It's the automatic peace I don't like.

I can use a silly example here if it helps to explain my point of view on this. When Germany invaded Russia in WW2 and occupy a bunch of land than there was no "automatic" peace between them who declared Germany the winner.

 

[Taedeios]

Well, your army didn't manage to reach the front lines in a reasonable timeframe, so it doesn't really matter that it was larger. If you can't bring them to battle and they take your holdings and keep control of their own, you lose the war. If you can't field a large enough army on your frontiers to at least hold them off until the rest of your forces can arrive, you need to reorganize your realm to get some militarily-powerful vassals near your borders so you can raise their levies as a unit where they're needed.

Is it worth building forts near the border or better for just building in pagan land to increase supply limit?

 

[Heinrich4]

It's the automatic peace I don't like.

If there were no automatic peace you could just not surrender. And if there were no automatic peace you could never lose a war if you have a larger army. "Mhh, i have -100% warscore. No problem, my army will arrive in one year, will smash their armies and in 3 years i have occupied their territory."

 

[Taedeios]

If there were no automatic peace you could just not surrender. And if there were no automatic peace you could never lose a war if you have a larger army. "Mhh, i have -100% warscore. No problem, my army will arrive in one year, will smash their armies and in 3 years i have occupied their territory."

I agree that automatic peace is necessary in some cases and the example you gave would be a lot worse in Multiplayer if some players refused to surrender.

In EU4 if you refused peace even when it's a fair peace deal than you would get penalties untill your empire would collapse and I wish it was also in CK2 but how you would implement it is an other thing.

 

[StarSword]

Not sure exactlly what you mean since my plan was to first destroy the enemy army in Tunisia who were doing sieges there. What was I writing about was the fact that I did not have time to reach the enemy army before all the sieges reached -100% warscore for me.

Also you can hire mercanary and place them next to enemy border since you are allowed to declear with raised mercenary.

Oh, I see; sorry, I misunderstood (I was reading off a phone).

Here's a couple things you can do to get your armies into the field faster:

• First of all, only raise the levies you actually need if you have a big realm, and merge levies on the march instead of trying to stage at a central location.
• Second, this war was from the Middle East to North Africa, right? If you have ships, you can cover that distance a hell of a lot faster than the AI can: Norse conquest hosts excepted, the AI typically won't deploy and redeploy by ship if there's a marching route, even if taking a boat would be faster. If you haven't done so already, try to create at least a couple vassal merchant republics in the Med. They'll bring in lots of money, but more to the point they'll provide a lot of ships you can draft to deploy your armies (among other things, this is one of the surest ways to foil Viking raids: they can't run for the knorr ships ahead of your troops if you deploy through the harbor).

And you don't necessarily need to rely on sheer numbers, either: higher quality troops can often defeat considerably larger armies, especially if you can deploy in such a way that the enemy is forced to attack into hostile terrain where your troops have already deployed. I broke the back of an 8,000-strong Umayyad offensive with about 5,700 troops, combination of high-tech Irish levies and skirmisher and cavalry retinues, plus the Lombard Band mercs for extra numbers, by parking them in the next province to where they were sieging. They saw a threat they thought they could deal with and broke off the siege to come after me, but I had the terrain advantage as the defender. It was bloody, but two weeks later the Umayyad army had been cut in half and ran back to Barshiluna with Irish knights hot on their heels. One more battle and the French alliance leading the fight was able to start a counterattack; the war ended a few years later with an Umayyad surrender.

 

[Ceranai]

It's the automatic peace that I don't like. Maybe because I play eu4 where there is no such things as automatic peace. In some cases automatic peace makes perfect sense if the claimant to the thrones dies or something like that.

When I use the term larger army than I think to my self that I still have a chance to win that batte and than start to siege back land.

It's the automatic peace I don't like.

I can use a silly example here if it helps to explain my point of view on this. When Germany invaded Russia in WW2 and occupy a bunch of land than there was no "automatic" peace between them who declared Germany the winner.

I've had wars like this too and while frustrating I think that the blame lies on your head not the automatic defeat.

100% means the game thinks you have lost sufficient war goals that the war is lost, if you want to roleplay it think of it as the point at which the people of your kingdom lose their will to fight and decide the war is over. Really to let it build up to negative 100% means you did several things wrong, you are the one with the doomstack, if you had got it to any enemy province and seiged it down it would have kept you in the war long enough to use your larger army to fight but it sounds like you waited to gather your doomstack in one place and then were too slow at getting it to where it was needed. Learn from your mistakes and win next time

 

[Taedeios]

Oh, I see; sorry, I misunderstood (I was reading off a phone).

Here's a couple things you can do to get your armies into the field faster:

• First of all, only raise the levies you actually need if you have a big realm, and merge levies on the march instead of trying to stage at a central location.
• Second, this war was from the Middle East to North Africa, right? If you have ships, you can cover that distance a hell of a lot faster than the AI can: Norse conquest hosts excepted, the AI typically won't deploy and redeploy by ship if there's a marching route, even if taking a boat would be faster. If you haven't done so already, try to create at least a couple vassal merchant republics in the Med. They'll bring in lots of money, but more to the point they'll provide a lot of ships you can draft to deploy your armies (among other things, this is one of the surest ways to foil Viking raids: they can't run for the knorr ships ahead of your troops if you deploy through the harbor).

And you don't necessarily need to rely on sheer numbers, either: higher quality troops can often defeat considerably larger armies, especially if you can deploy in such a way that the enemy is forced to attack into hostile terrain where your troops have already deployed. I broke the back of an 8,000-strong Umayyad offensive with about 5,700 troops, combination of high-tech Irish levies and skirmisher and cavalry retinues, plus the Lombard Band mercs for extra numbers, by parking them in the next province to where they were sieging. They saw a threat they thought they could deal with and broke off the siege to come after me, but I had the terrain advantage as the defender. It was bloody, but two weeks later the Umayyad army had been cut in half and ran back to Barshiluna with Irish knights hot on their heels. One more battle and the French alliance leading the fight was able to start a counterattack; the war ended a few years later with an Umayyad surrender.

Yea I was thinking of using a fleet to transport them a lot faster to North Africa but in 769 start I don't really have a fleet for some reason. Do I wait untill my vassals build it when they reach a certain tech and will the AI build it?

One of my favorite tactics that I use in EU4 which I also try to do in CK2 is to deploy a smaller army on a mountain and than send reinforcement once the enemey has engaged. This usually works in the Alps and the Pyrenees in Europe and East Anatolia.

I am also a bit confused on what tech and army composition I should have for the retinue. I just tend to look at what type of troops my vassal and demesne have most of and than choose the tech which benefits them.

 

[name_here]

The AI will build ships eventually, but it's pricey and not usually a priority. Cities have better shipyards available, hence the merchant republic recommendation.

As a rule, you should use whichever tech and retinue is special for your culture. Italian pikes, English archers, horse archers if you have them, etc. The mechanics are heavily weighted towards focusing on either the skirmish phase (light cav, light infantry, archers, horse archers) or the melee phase (heavy infantry, pikemen, heavy cavalry) because if your army is really biased towards one of those it tends to try to cut the other phase short.

 

[Taedeios]

The AI will build ships eventually, but it's pricey and not usually a priority. Cities have better shipyards available, hence the merchant republic recommendation.

As a rule, you should use whichever tech and retinue is special for your culture. Italian pikes, English archers, horse archers if you have them, etc. The mechanics are heavily weighted towards focusing on either the skirmish phase (light cav, light infantry, archers, horse archers) or the melee phase (heavy infantry, pikemen, heavy cavalry) because if your army is really biased towards one of those it tends to try to cut the other phase short.

This might be a dumb question but I guess that the tech you research only effect your Demesne and Retinue army and not vassals/mercenary?

 

[StarSword]

This might be a dumb question but I guess that the tech you research only effect your Demesne and Retinue army and not vassals/mercenary?

Near as I can tell, it applies across the board to any army raised under your primary title. I.e. liege levies and mercenaries you hire will get the bonuses, armies raised by your vassals will not.