(This post is largely taken from a PN converation I had with Marco Dandolo this week)
With EUIV out for a while now I've been thinking about what parts of the game need the most improving and I've returned to the military system as being the chief problem. It's clear to see that the political boundaries, particularly in regions with many small states (I'm looking at you, Italy and Germany), are extremely unstable and lead to wildly implausible results within a very short timespan. It is also the case that a country, if it has its army destroyed, can easily find itself trapped in an endless cycle of manpower loss, military defeat, rebellion, and collapse - I've seen this most commonly in the case of Austria. In my opinion, the two phenomenon are intrinsically linked: the ease in which a country can become victim to a death spiral is the cause of the political chaos we see in Central Europe in every game we play.
This is fundamentally caused by the fact that wars are far more decisive than they should be. The people who complain that countries such as France are overpowered have it right, but the thing that causes them to be overpowered is the way land armies work in the game rather than anything intrinsic to the country in question. As far as the great powers are concerned, this is hard to observe because when a country such as Austria is defeated by France it can hang on to power for a long time, but is dramatically weakened because of the death spiral that occurs. It's easier to observe with the smaller states in Central Europe, which constantly rise and fall so long as there is warfare. A small country wins a war, expands heavily, then is suddenly cast down and another takes its place. The reason it happens is thus:
These points about fortresses should perhaps be stressed further: there is no denying that before the age of Napoleon the capture and holding of fortified positions was far more important than victory over an enemy in battle. Currently, fortresses are useless without armies because they have no way to defend themselves. In EUIV a country which cannot achieve superiority on the battlefield is doomed to be conquered, but this was not the case in reality. It should be a viable strategy to focus on fortress defense.
Yet that is exactly what it is now - "move troop to province, wait, win”. It's not realistic, it leads to implausible political chaos, and worst of all it simply isn't fun. Earlier today I saw a thread on how the 80 Years' War start as the Netherlands is essentially impossible because once the Dutch player loses a battle and his army is chased and annihilated, there is no possible way to defend the country against the Spanish onslaught. No representation of the famous siege warfare that went on in that region, or any region. This, before anything else, is what Paradox should focus on improving.
With EUIV out for a while now I've been thinking about what parts of the game need the most improving and I've returned to the military system as being the chief problem. It's clear to see that the political boundaries, particularly in regions with many small states (I'm looking at you, Italy and Germany), are extremely unstable and lead to wildly implausible results within a very short timespan. It is also the case that a country, if it has its army destroyed, can easily find itself trapped in an endless cycle of manpower loss, military defeat, rebellion, and collapse - I've seen this most commonly in the case of Austria. In my opinion, the two phenomenon are intrinsically linked: the ease in which a country can become victim to a death spiral is the cause of the political chaos we see in Central Europe in every game we play.
This is fundamentally caused by the fact that wars are far more decisive than they should be. The people who complain that countries such as France are overpowered have it right, but the thing that causes them to be overpowered is the way land armies work in the game rather than anything intrinsic to the country in question. As far as the great powers are concerned, this is hard to observe because when a country such as Austria is defeated by France it can hang on to power for a long time, but is dramatically weakened because of the death spiral that occurs. It's easier to observe with the smaller states in Central Europe, which constantly rise and fall so long as there is warfare. A small country wins a war, expands heavily, then is suddenly cast down and another takes its place. The reason it happens is thus:
- Armies have no reliable way to recover when they're defeated in battle. Because attrition has been nerfed (and scorched earth's duration reduced to a single year) there is nothing stopping a victorious army from chasing the defeated one to wherever its destination is after it's been shattered. Most likely it will take no attrition while doing so, so there is no reason not to pursue defeated armies except the threat of being intercepted by a second stack. Small countries can't maintain a second stack, so once their main one is defeated it has no way to recover and is utterly ruined. This could be fixed in a number of ways.
1. Allowing armies to take refuge inside of forts. This was done in March of the Eagles and would be the best possible solution. There's no reason why an army shouldn't be able to avoid fighting the enemy by entering a fortress. Once there it could recover and survive to further defend the country.
2. Increasing attrition for armies which go deep into hostile territory. With the current system there is basically no concept of defense-in-depth. Since an army of less than ~20k will take no attrition in enemy territory, it is free to roam around wherever it pleases. This gives an ahistorical strength to field armies and makes fortresses ahistorically useless. More attrition would make it more costly to chase the enemy multiple provinces deep into a country. This wouldn't help small countries much, but would be very important for making great-power conflicts more realistic.
3. Make reatreating armies move faster. The army is retreating and is not maintaining itself in an organized marching formation. It makes sense that it would be able to move faster, and it's better for gameplay for an army which has been shattered to be able to outrun the enemy so that it has time to escape.
- With the above changes, losing a field army would be much more difficult, but it would still result in complete destruction for the country which loses it, because the victor can rampage around the country destroying all the tiny armies which are being rebult before they can consolidate. This is obviously not ideal. It would in part be mitigated by allowing those armies to hide in fortresses, but that doesn't address the wider problem of small armies being utterly useless in combat. I've often had a 4k or 5k stack wiped out in only a couple of days by a 20k stack while dealing hardly any damage in return. The same problem occurs with ships. The fundamental issue is that all military forces should be of some use, even a 1k army or a single ship should be beneficial in some way to the war effort, as would have been the case in history. Improving the usefulness of small forces would also help tiny countries be able to resist the great powers. They could be enhanced in a few ways.
1. Allowing them to garrison forts, as already mentioned. Tiny armies could increase the strength of fortified positions.
2. Making them move faster. This is the most important point as far as I'm concerned. There is no reason why a tiny army should move at the same speed as a large one: the large one has to forage for food for a massive number of people, while the small army can easily get supplies and move on to the next area. The important thing is to make speed dependant on the number of friendly combatants in an area, not by the size of the stack. Otherwise players could exploit the system by splitting their armies into 1k stacks for movement across the country.
3. Allowing small armies to toggle a command to avoid combat with the enemy (perhaps only when in friendly territory). This is something that was also in March of the Eagles that I think should be adopted. It would be good for every army to be able to do, because the system of forcing battle between two armies simply because they're in the same province is awkward and unrealistic in the first place. Battles were hard to force historically, yet currently if army A is set to arrive in a province 1 day before army B leaves, army B has no possible way at all to avoid battle. This is just silly and could be changed by the addition of an ability to evade, modified by the leader's maneuver ability. It could also be added to naval units, as forcing an enemy fleet to engage in battle makes even less sense in that context than it does on land (especially with galleys).
- Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is the basic issue of fortresses being unable to stop armies on their own. There are many famous examples from the time period of sieges failing without the need of any relief army, but in the game given enough time a fortress will always fall to the attacking army. As far as small countries are concerned, the problem is twofold: first, that once its army is destroyed it is doomed to its provinces being besieged one by one with no way to fight back, and second that it has no way to evict the hostile army from its besieging position.
1. I've been arguing that this should be changed for God knows how long, but in a siege the besieging army should not recieve defensive bonuses from the terrain. When an army besieges a fortified place, it has to commit a great deal of its resources to surrounding the fortress and undermining its defenses. This means that it's not in a position to take advantage of mountainous terrain or whatever other natural defenses would normally aid an army stationed in the province. It's actually in a worse position than it otherwise would be because much of the army is not battle ready, positioned as they are in the trenches leading to the fortress. In fact, a smart relieving general (high maneuver) could even use the terrain to get an advantage over the besieging army, such as Sobieski at Vienna. Therefore, the besieging army should actually be the one to recieve a malus to its combat rolls when it's being attacked by a relief army. This will help small countries drastically (especially ones like Switzerland) since they won't have to keep suffering -5 to their dice rolls just to kick the French out of their own provinces.
2. Forts need a way to fight back. Especially with the current system that gives attrition rates to the attackers near 0%, the fort should also get to roll a die every once in a while to decide how much damage it does to the besieging army. Make them deal extra damage during winter months. Sieges were not bloodless attempts to starve out the defenders, but involved constant exchange of artillery, gunfire, sorties from the walls, and so on. This element of siege warfare needs representation, and it will help prevent wars from being too decisive, as even an army which wins a major battle or destroys the enemy field army will still have to successfully carry out sieges against forts which do not fall easily.
These points about fortresses should perhaps be stressed further: there is no denying that before the age of Napoleon the capture and holding of fortified positions was far more important than victory over an enemy in battle. Currently, fortresses are useless without armies because they have no way to defend themselves. In EUIV a country which cannot achieve superiority on the battlefield is doomed to be conquered, but this was not the case in reality. It should be a viable strategy to focus on fortress defense.
Marco Dandolo said:
Yet that is exactly what it is now - "move troop to province, wait, win”. It's not realistic, it leads to implausible political chaos, and worst of all it simply isn't fun. Earlier today I saw a thread on how the 80 Years' War start as the Netherlands is essentially impossible because once the Dutch player loses a battle and his army is chased and annihilated, there is no possible way to defend the country against the Spanish onslaught. No representation of the famous siege warfare that went on in that region, or any region. This, before anything else, is what Paradox should focus on improving.
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