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Pewt,

Thanks for answering, I appreciate it. Another question I had and forgot about is Free Shooters. I see you chose them over Tercio, which the game suggests. Why? Is Offense more important during battles? Morale less important than shock? I've read a fair bit about the mechanics yet I still find it hard to see which ones matter more to be honest. I understand at that stage of the game Fire is less important because of the modifiers, but Offense vs. Defense? Aren't they jus two, equal phases?

Finally, I remember playing you in a game when I was still much more noob than now even, and yes you are right about beginners haha! I definitely underestimated how far behind I was on understanding the game.
 
Elcyion and I did some testing a bit ago and as far as we could tell Offensive and Defensive pips weren't really different in practice in average situations, and Morale pips were pretty useless in comparison to Shock/Fire. This is a pretty poorly understood/tested area of things in terms of specifically why this stuff happens the way it does, but Free Shooters consistently outperform other unit types at LT18, Condotta at LT13 (which is something very few people know about, actually--everyone uses Landsknechten or Reformed Galloglaigh, as did I before testing this with Elcyion), etc.
 
Ow , here i learned something very interesting ! I thought having fire pips over none would lead the maurician to victory ...
 
Ow , here i learned something very interesting ! I thought having fire pips over none would lead the maurician to victory ...
They will at higher tech levels; the one case where the correct unit actually is a downgrade or sidegrade (from Charge/Free Shooter), but only at a higher land tech level.
 
Hello! I'm just a single-player noob, but I thought I'd comment here because I'm simultaneously learning a lot and being entertained by the goings-on in your thread.

While your battles with Austria are no doubt thrilling and the planning and explanations behind it very informative, I'm particularly enthralled by how other players from your game are popping into your thread to post their own points of view and how they contrast with yours. This (admittedly unintentional) conversative element really keeps me intrigued as it reminds me of games like Diplomacy, where we'd discuss our plans in the open - and proceed to betray and backstab each other shortly after. This element of signalling and creating expectations really keeps me on my toes, and I find myself wondering whether, in your next update, you and your fellow players would keep to their word. I'm curious as to what a multiplayer game where players were only allowed to discuss diplomacy outside of the game would be like - if there are any such multiplayer threads I'd be most interested in reading them.

I also found your short discussion about the land combat system very informative; although I've been playing for some time, I've learned something about the interface which I never realised - the existence of the little symbol telling you whether it's possible to retreat! No more repeated clicking for me! I've also got a question and a comment on the points you raised in your tutorial.

The question - On the contrast between attack and defence pips, I know you said they're probably best reckoned together as a whole, but I was wondering whether having more pips on one side actually makes you more effective in that role. For example, Galloglaigh (LT11) has 2 offensive shock and 0 defensive shock, and 4 offensive morale and 1 defensive morale. If my opponent and I both use Galloglaigh, have a roughly equal army and generals, and are fighting on terrain which gives minimal penalties, does this mean that it would make more sense to be the attacker rather than the defender?

The comment I'd like to make is that you mentioned that manoeuvre affects whether the enemy army flees or is annihilated if drained of morale. I'm under the impression an army drained of morale would always retreat as long as it still had men, and could only be annihilated regardless of size if it was encountered when, or damaged to the extent where all units with men are at 0 morale within the 'no retreat' phase of combat, with manoeuvre not affecting this but rather whether you were able to catch the enemy army before the start of the next month.

I.E., if I won a battle, with the retreating enemy scheduled to arrive in the next province on the 1st, I'd need to assign a general with equal or better manoeuvre than theirs to the pursuing army, in order to catch them and annihilate them before they regained morale. Sometimes having less manoeuvre might even 'save' a retreating army at 0 morale, if it only arrived at the province it retreated to on the 2nd or later. Please correct me if you believe I've got it wrong.

I apologise for the long post - keep up your good work, and I look forward to more tales of your multiplayer bloodbath!
 
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If you calculate the cost/benefit of a war between OE and Russia, youll see that a gain of a mere 5 provs per war(which is the maximum according to the rules) by no means equalizes its cost. A Russia/OE war would take a few years at least, costing both thousands of ducats for little gain.

The only way i would consider to war russia is if i get to LT 28 significantly faster than russia.

Both Russia and OE still have space to expand into (China/India); so for the forseeable future, theres simply no need to fight over anything.

Wich is the same wiew Russia got the cost benefit of a prolonged war with OE isent that good and a victory wouldent lead to much anyhow not with most of China non Cored for Russia and all of India non Cored for OE anyhow rebel controlling at high WE is a pest even more so for OE then Russia thought. Due to certain factors in the Russia build that minimises WE making it pretty much trivial
 
This (admittedly unintentional) conversative element really keeps me intrigued as it reminds me of games like Diplomacy, where we'd discuss our plans in the open - and proceed to betray and backstab each other shortly after.
Yeah, it was completely unintentional but I'm glad to see many other players participating.

I also found your short discussion about the land combat system very informative; although I've been playing for some time, I've learned something about the interface which I never realised - the existence of the little symbol telling you whether it's possible to retreat! No more repeated clicking for me! I've also got a question and a comment on the points you raised in your tutorial.
Funny you should mention that; I only learned about it when writing this too! While I was starting battles and taking screenshots to get the terrain modifiers and such to show up, I saw it and moused over it to see what it was.

The question - On the contrast between attack and defence pips, I know you said they're probably best reckoned together as a whole, but I was wondering whether having more pips on one side actually makes you more effective in that role. For example, Galloglaigh (LT11) has 2 offensive shock and 0 defensive shock, and 4 offensive morale and 1 defensive morale. If my opponent and I both use Galloglaigh, have a roughly equal army and generals, and are fighting on terrain which gives minimal penalties, does this mean that it would make more sense to be the attacker rather than the defender?
Both sets of pips are used in any one combat, so no. The only case where I can imagine it mattering is, say, if you're fighting against Cavalry who have low Defensive fire and high Offensive shock it might be your best bet to use infantry with high Offensive fire and high Defensive shock. In practice you basically just pick the types I named and use them all the time, though, since everything else is way too much effort for way too little reward.

The comment I'd like to make is that you mentioned that manoeuvre affects whether the enemy army flees or is annihilated if drained of morale. I'm under the impression an army drained of morale would always retreat as long as it still had men, and could only be annihilated regardless of size if it was encountered when, or damaged to the extent where all units with men are at 0 morale within the 'no retreat' phase of combat, with manoeuvre not affecting this but rather whether you were able to catch the enemy army before the start of the next month.
I think this is new to 5.2, but armies are definitely wiping a lot more now (there are some threads about it in the 5.2 beta forum) and I'm noticing it happening more so with a big difference in general maneuver. This might just be confirmation bias though.
 
Pewt quick question do ART fire over infantry or do they have to be on the frountline to fire?
 
Pewt quick question do ART fire over infantry or do they have to be on the frountline to fire?

in MP anyone using ART is ganna fail hard the cost for em plus the slower movement is just to damaging for em to be used maybe 1-2 stacks with em in at the most its only the last Art that does decent damage
 
Pewt quick question do ART fire over infantry or do they have to be on the frountline to fire?
They work from the back at half effectiveness.

in MP anyone using ART is ganna fail hard the cost for em plus the slower movement is just to damaging for em to be used maybe 1-2 stacks with em in at the most its only the last Art that does decent damage
They removed the move speed penalty in 5.2. They still aren't great for most of the game, but I usually make a few for bigger battles.

edit: Apparently they removed it in CTJU, so it's still in this version.
 
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Towards the end of the game, arty gets good fire modifiers, it also helps breaching high level forts. And if you're non-military modernized Western with high land tech, you get the same arty than the Westerners do.

It is also the only unit that can attack from the back, thus allowing you to concentrate more force in a single spot.
 
Towards the end of the game, arty gets good fire modifiers, it also helps breaching high level forts. And if you're non-military modernized Western with high land tech, you get the same arty than the Westerners do.

It is also the only unit that can attack from the back, thus allowing you to concentrate more force in a single spot.
MP games don't usually last past 1700ish.
 
Well ART seems pointless if its not effective until late fame. Think of all the different types of Art there are. And its not good. I think historically art was useful. Especially in breaking enemy's moral. Or perhaps thats wishful thinking.
 
Past 1700, artillery can become exceptionally powerful, with the highest fire modifier, as well as increasing how well troops fight on the front row. It does take a long time for them to become this effective, and if games don't last beyond 1700 most times you miss out on the real power with artillery. Still good to keep ~4-6 for sieges though.
 
Past 1700, artillery can become exceptionally powerful, with the highest fire modifier, as well as increasing how well troops fight on the front row. It does take a long time for them to become this effective, and if games don't last beyond 1700 most times you miss out on the real power with artillery. Still good to keep ~4-6 for sieges though.

Most of the sieges in MP are done in 1-10days from Assulting sieging only really works versus an AI
 
Assulting castles though would really burn your MP. No wonder PEWT thinks 5.2 is too hard on MP.

u usualy lose more to Attrition by not assulting it
 
u usualy lose more to Attrition by not assulting it


Not really. If a provinces supports 15k. Put 15k men there. With your reinforcements in the proviences just behind the siege province waithing for the enemy to attack. then reinforc the 15k with the reinforcements.
 
even with 5% attrition thats a LOT of men wasted. a assualt is (relativly) inexpensive on manpower, but more a strain on morale.

15000*0.05*12=9000 men lost in a single year to attrition alone, for that army. its much more effiecient to assualt the province, lose some men and replendish morale and losses. only as level 3+ forts become the rule assualts start to become less effiecient. also, a stack chased even temporarly from a province undoes all sieging. an assualt takes control, allows more men to be stationed and allows for quicker replendishing of armies.