A lot of people seem to have a problem with the lack of supply lines and logistics. Other's comment that in the period EUIV covers, supplies were generally seized from the province. More still have a problem with the ease of some countries in exerting military influence anywhere, attrition be damned, if they have the manpower. Personally I feel that since CS came out, conquering lines of provinces feels nice. Plus manpower seems to drain much faster. Basically the whole crux of this is a few suggestions related to all of these things.
Supply lines and Reinforcements.
The basic idea here is that "supply lines" don't actually bring supplies, but reinforcements. This would not only benefit people who build nice supply lines, but make fighting wars of attrition in large countries both easier and more rewarding, even with inferior forces, using guerrilla tactics.
Reinforcement rate would be modified by supply in the following way; In Home territory (unoccupied, owned or vassal owned) reinforcement supply modifier would be 100%.
Outside of this, being able to draw a continuous line of owned (including vassal), allied, occupied-by-friendly provinces to a province adjacent to the one your army occupies gives (100-X)%, where X is the number of intermediate province between you and the nearest unoccupied owned or vassal fort.
If that condition could not be met, but you can draw an unbroken line of owned (including vassal), enemy-occupied-(by anyone), allied or military access provinces to one of your owned or vassal forts, you would get (75-X)% supply modifier to reinforcements.
Without either kind of chain, reinforcements should come at a much slower rate. Maybe (40-X)%?
The main downside is that it might be difficult to get the AI to understand the importance of keeping open its own supply lines, or cutting invading armies. I'm not sure how hard it would be to deal with this.
Punching through Forts Zone of Control
I discussed this with some others in another suggestion thread, but it's related to supply and similar so I think it's worth mentioning here. The basic point is that it's often annoying to have to deal with zone of control for reinforcing armies in battle in an adjacent province, especially when the overlap of two or more forts makes which borders can and can't be crossed not obvious. The suggestion is that armies lead by a general could be able to "punch through" enemy zone of control. This take military power to order, similar to storming a fort, and like storming a fort, could fail. Essentially what happens is you force march your army through the enemy killing fields, losses be damned. This would of course incur heavy losses on the side of the attacker, similar to storming the fort. Unlike storming a fort, though, the defenders wouldn't take damage. (I imagine it would be like having to survive 5? days of fort storming, where the defenders didn't take damage. If your morale doesn't break, you make it through).
Tying this in with earlier suggestion, as a balancing mechanic, fort zone of control would completely block reinforcements; the path of reinforcements must be drawn around zone of control.
Supply Limits and looting.
If supplying your army is so dependent on looting resources, maybe the supply limit reduction due to looting ought to be increased to maybe 50%? This would make sieging much more difficult though, so I can understand why it might not be in already / ever.
Supply lines and Reinforcements.
The basic idea here is that "supply lines" don't actually bring supplies, but reinforcements. This would not only benefit people who build nice supply lines, but make fighting wars of attrition in large countries both easier and more rewarding, even with inferior forces, using guerrilla tactics.
Reinforcement rate would be modified by supply in the following way; In Home territory (unoccupied, owned or vassal owned) reinforcement supply modifier would be 100%.
Outside of this, being able to draw a continuous line of owned (including vassal), allied, occupied-by-friendly provinces to a province adjacent to the one your army occupies gives (100-X)%, where X is the number of intermediate province between you and the nearest unoccupied owned or vassal fort.
If that condition could not be met, but you can draw an unbroken line of owned (including vassal), enemy-occupied-(by anyone), allied or military access provinces to one of your owned or vassal forts, you would get (75-X)% supply modifier to reinforcements.
Without either kind of chain, reinforcements should come at a much slower rate. Maybe (40-X)%?
The main downside is that it might be difficult to get the AI to understand the importance of keeping open its own supply lines, or cutting invading armies. I'm not sure how hard it would be to deal with this.
Punching through Forts Zone of Control
I discussed this with some others in another suggestion thread, but it's related to supply and similar so I think it's worth mentioning here. The basic point is that it's often annoying to have to deal with zone of control for reinforcing armies in battle in an adjacent province, especially when the overlap of two or more forts makes which borders can and can't be crossed not obvious. The suggestion is that armies lead by a general could be able to "punch through" enemy zone of control. This take military power to order, similar to storming a fort, and like storming a fort, could fail. Essentially what happens is you force march your army through the enemy killing fields, losses be damned. This would of course incur heavy losses on the side of the attacker, similar to storming the fort. Unlike storming a fort, though, the defenders wouldn't take damage. (I imagine it would be like having to survive 5? days of fort storming, where the defenders didn't take damage. If your morale doesn't break, you make it through).
Tying this in with earlier suggestion, as a balancing mechanic, fort zone of control would completely block reinforcements; the path of reinforcements must be drawn around zone of control.
Supply Limits and looting.
If supplying your army is so dependent on looting resources, maybe the supply limit reduction due to looting ought to be increased to maybe 50%? This would make sieging much more difficult though, so I can understand why it might not be in already / ever.
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