The Military System, Its Flaws, and Some Solutions

[Ironwill]

I fully agree and you even covered my qualm with sieges. To the guy who said "you have to remember it's a game and newer players might not like a complex system" I have to say this.
A game develops a strong community because it's game has great in depth mechanics that someone is constantly learning, not by just keeping it simple so even someones 3 year old can understand it.
To anyone saying that those things would make the best war simulation in history, AGEOD games for the most part do offer that indepth of strategic development and they are great, sadly impossible to play online though.

 

[Ayde]

These are some truly amazing suggestions; especially the ones partaining sieges and attrition. I hope the devs read up on this.

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.

I would however disagree with this... Sounds like this would make the very large nations even more powerful/difficult to defeat (like France, for example, who has to be chased down halfway through Europe ). Where as small nations would gain nearly no benefit.

Cheers

 

[unmerged(466619)]

One important thing about sieges which isn't at all modelled in the game was that a lot of fortifications were built along choke points -- river crossings, mountain passes, major roads, and so on -- down which an invading army pretty much had to go if they wanted to penetrate the country further, so it was necessary to take the fortification before going further. There are several ways this could be represented in game. The simplest way would be to stop you moving more than one province into enemy territory (where occupied territory counts as yours for the purposes of calculation). This would stop carpet-sieging and make heavily-fortified frontiers a more viable defensive strategy, although stopping you going deep into enemy territory altogether might seem too limiting. Other possible solutions would be to stop you from advancing unless you leave a detachment in the province at least as big as the garrison (or 2x as big, or whatever), to model the need for keeping the enemy bottled up inside the fortress so that they can't cut your lines of communication (this wouldn't remove carpet sieging, but it would make it harder to rampage through an enemy's territory with impunity); or make it so that only small (<5 or 10k?) stacks can move more than one province in, as smaller armies would be able to use minor roads and smaller passes which would be impractical for a bigger force (again, this wouldn't remove carpet sieging, but it would make it more risky to try and go behind enemy lines).

 

[nurgles_herald]

Personally, I'd like to simply see the way war goals and peaces work get changed. If you have claims on multiple provinces you can declare for multiple provinces, but you are restricted to actually *taking* territory you or an ally has a claim/core on. That way wars would be less decisive, requiring more planning ahead, and a lot more countries would end up getting released in peace agreements (if you can't cripple your enemy by taking their provinces for yourself you can at least force them to recognize a certain chunk of their country as independent).

 

[Ivashanko]

In Magna Mundi the Game we introduced/reformed two concepts which had major far reaching effects.

I'm still sad MMtG (or WS now, I guess) never really came out. Oh well... these ideas were brilliant. Particularly the one on siege warfare, which should have been adopted wholesale into EU4. I also really liked the little descriptions that described the events taking place during the battle- they made the entire affair a lot more engrossing.

 

[OhioAstro]

The "chase the enemy army hither and yon" mechanic is already unpopular for cause; I'd resist changes that make things worse. I do see the issues, but I'm wondering why you're focusing on battles as opposed to something simpler, like manpower recovery. Either make the default rates faster or make it possible to channel resources into speeding manpower recovery up, much as you can spend to reduce war exhaustion. Also make the consequences for taking freebies (provinces with no claim, for example) more severe; or make the manpower costs of losses on friendly soil less severe.

If anything, it'd be nice if you could have more decisive wars rather than ones that drag out; if my goal is to take province X I sometimes have to capture dozens of provinces to get it. And if I go to all that effort, I might as well yank another four or five trophies....which tends to produce these devatating outcomes that you describe. Stop the cycle earlier.

 

[Chamboozer]

The "chase the enemy army hither and yon" mechanic is already unpopular for cause; I'd resist changes that make things worse. I do see the issues, but I'm wondering why you're focusing on battles as opposed to something simpler, like manpower recovery. Either make the default rates faster or make it possible to channel resources into speeding manpower recovery up, much as you can spend to reduce war exhaustion.

Because with faster manpower recovery the combat system would just turn into EUIII, and the same problems of armies often having no hope of escape from an approaching enemy would remain. As Muscowy I had a 5k stack on the border of Lithuania, and a Lithuanian 23k stack was approaching. As I could not reach any other province before the Lithuanians arrived, I had no choice but to delete my army in order to avoid warscore losses. This makes no sense. Why, realistically, could my troops not evade them either by sneaking out of the province or entering a walled city? Same problem occured with an enemy army retreating from me in the direction of Moscow. I had a 1k artillery regiment there that had been just built. It also had no way to evade or escape, so it was instantly destroyed.

Essentially, the problem is fortresses and armies are entirely separate entities in EUIV, and Paradox does not represent the symbiotic relationship between the two. That's what should be changed.

If anything, it'd be nice if you could have more decisive wars rather than ones that drag out; if my goal is to take province X I sometimes have to capture dozens of provinces to get it. And if I go to all that effort, I might as well yank another four or five trophies....which tends to produce these devatating outcomes that you describe. Stop the cycle earlier.

Jomini is exactly right to say that the problem is that warscore from battles are too low and that the AI is too slow to make peace. I was going to make that point earlier but I figured my initial post was far too long to begin with. The problem is balancing it so that the higher warscore from battles doesn't encourage the chasing of enemy armies deep into their territory in order to repeatedly defeat them. Hence the need for many of the protective measures mentioned in my initial post.

The best system would be one in which an attacking country has to go to great lengths to take the province(s) they're fighting for, but that once they are taken they are likely to get them in a peace deal before very much time has passed. Wars should not often result in the complete destruction of one side's armies.

 

[Jomini]

Because with faster manpower recovery the combat system would just turn into EUIII, and the same problems of armies often having no hope of escape from an approaching enemy would remain. As Muscowy I had a 5k stack on the border of Lithuania, and a Lithuanian 23k stack was approaching. As I could not reach any other province before the Lithuanians arrived, I had no choice but to delete my army in order to avoid warscore losses. This makes no sense. Why, realistically, could my troops not evade them either by sneaking out of the province or entering a walled city? Same problem occured with an enemy army retreating from me in the direction of Moscow. I had a 1k artillery regiment there that had been just built. It also had no way to evade or escape, so it was instantly destroyed.

Essentially, the problem is fortresses and armies are entirely separate entities in EUIV, and Paradox does not represent the symbiotic relationship between the two. That's what should be changed.



Jomini is exactly right to say that the problem is that warscore from battles are too low and that the AI is too slow to make peace. I was going to make that point earlier but I figured my initial post was far too long to begin with. The problem is balancing it so that the higher warscore from battles doesn't encourage the chasing of enemy armies deep into their territory in order to repeatedly defeat them. Hence the need for many of the protective measured mentioned in my initial post.

The best system would be one in which an attacking country has to go to great lengths to take the province(s) they're fighting for, but that once they are taken they are likely to get them a peace deal before very much time has passed. Wars should not often result in the complete destruction of one side's armies.

One potential way to make the game better would be introduce Fortress upkeep with the option of razing fortresses. Nobody kept the interior provinces heavily fortified once they were a centralized state. So you should need to siege the border, moving past the border without taking the fortresses should be possible ... but you have NO reinforcement with a clear line of communication (which makes navies that much more useful) and you suffer progressively more morale damage when things start going bad in combat. Fortresses could be made stronger ... but will surrender if you don't relieve the garrison much of the time. A big battle really, really needs to come with a big war score ... but avoiding battle should be quite possible; perhaps letting armies move faster in their own territory.

Ideally, I through in a couple of other period details that would enrich the game:
1. Marching along rivers (e.g. the Danube) greatly reduces transit time, marching across rivers increases transit time (thus key fortresses can have major strategic implications ... rather than you just marching along the next province over).
2. Losing control of border fortresses on rivers and mountain passes is a very big warscore knock.
3. Fortress resistance scales with CB type and various national characteristics. E.g. religious CBs make enemy forts hold out longer, conquest is just normal; sieges hold out longer against the Turks than the Austrians against the French, the Dutch lie somewhere in the middle (Heathen vs True Faith vs Heretic), Republicans (e.g. Rev France or Venice) will hold out longer against monarchies and vice versa.


Above all, though, you need the AI to be able call it quits BEFORE it is dead. Inconclusive wars can drag on forever, and maybe new wars (e.g. Swedish intervention) will give old combatants a new lease on life ... but the bitter ender AI is not typical. Outside of the Napoleonic Era, the fall of the capital of a major power is virtually unknown.

 

[K.Kingen]

I dont know if this has been proposed, but forts should have maintanence cost. That way you only want to build forts at strategic positions instead of spamming forts in all your provinces.

EDIT: The problem with that is if you've built a fort in a province that no longer is strategic you are paying for a fort that you might not want anymore :/.

 

[doulos05]

I think making forts and armies able to merge in some way would solve 90% of the problem. The other 10% could be solved by making sieges more costly for attackers (I think it should be handled like a fight, with both sides rolling and taking casualties.

 

[EvietheWild]

I definitely agree with a lot of this. The AI definitely hangs on too long in wars, both when losing and when winning. There should definitely be some incentive to ending wars more quickly, like perhaps some malus for completely destroying a country in a war after they've repeatedly asked for peace. This would still allow for you to do it if you wanted, but there would be consequences to those actions where now you can literally occupy an entire country and destroy their army and then peace out for a ton of gold and a single province or two and barely get any AE malus at all despite pretty much putting that country in a death spiral that they will never recover from.

It is one of the more frustrating things about the game. You have clearly beaten them, you've taken your war goal and routed their army but the AI doesn't think that's good enough to call it quits. They'd rather that you utterly annihilate them before they will even consider a reasonable peace offer. So you end up hunting down the routed army, and completely wiping it off the map just so it won't go around and mop up all the sieges you have to lay to prevent them calling up another equally sized army in mercs just to get to a point where they will let you say "Hey you're beaten. How about giving me this province and maybe some gold to call it over?" and at that point you are just annoyed and demand three times what you were wanting just because they made the war drag out for three years after it was clearly won.

Conversely when you are losing a war and it is clear that you are basically not going to win it at all the AI should be more receptive to a reasonable offer of the war goal and maybe some gold or a vassal release or something. Instead you have to wait out that insanely long "length of war" negative to a peace deal just to get them to accept such a deal and by then they want twice that because they've literally wiped your armies out and occupied most of the country while driving your WE up to levels that effectively have ended the game for you because you can't fight off the rebels that is going to bring after peace is reached.

Obviously certain CBs should require more work like throne claims and holy wars but when you want to take back a province you lost in a previous war you shouldn't have to march to their capital and capture it just to get them to agree to maybe give back that single province I'd think maybe a couple battles and capturing the province should be sufficient.

 

[DeathSheep]

Second the idea that the AI needs to be quicker to make peace, both when winning and losing. One change I'd like to see, though it's minor, is that in most cases fortresses should surrender as soon as the walls are breached, and when they don't give up right away, ditch the "garrison was allowed to march out with arms and flags" message and replace it with "the garrison was slaughtered to a man for being too stubborn/stupid to surrender once the walls came down". Maybe jack up the amount looted in those cases, too.

 

[marmot01]

Second the idea that the AI needs to be quicker to make peace, both when winning and losing. One change I'd like to see, though it's minor, is that in most cases fortresses should surrender as soon as the walls are breached, and when they don't give up right away, ditch the "garrison was allowed to march out with arms and flags" message and replace it with "the garrison was slaughtered to a man for being too stubborn/stupid to surrender once the walls came down". Maybe jack up the amount looted in those cases, too.

Fortresses surrendering when a breach in the walls is made is not a very realistic thing. Read up here on sieges in the period, as well as on warfare in general: http://celyn.drizzlehosting.com/jherek/16thMilSci.pdf

 

[EnderV]

Fortresses surrendering when a breach in the walls is made is not a very realistic thing. Read up here on sieges in the period, as well as on warfare in general: http://celyn.drizzlehosting.com/jherek/16thMilSci.pdf

Ninajed...
Another interesting tidbit in that paper is that it refutes the argument "the more in enemy territory you were, the less likely you were to run away from the army since you didn't speak the language". The paper notes that most of the (fighting) armies in the period were very multinational and even had interpreters .

A given army often included numerous nationalities and languages. The normal Landsknecht regiment included one interpreter per 400 men, and interpreters were commonly budgeted for in the staffs of the field armies of the French, and of German reiter regiments as well. Fluency in multiple languages was a valuable skill for a captain, given that it was not uncommon for armies to consist of a majority of foreign nationals.

A few examples will serve to illustrate: Henry VIII’s invasion force to France in 1544 included Scots, Spanish, Gascons, Portuguese, Italians, Albanians, Greeks, Germans, Burgundians, Tartars, and Turks; Spanish were the minority in the Spanish Army of Flanders which included Italians, Burgundians, Germans, and Catholic Dutch; and the French armies routinely were 1/3 to 2/3 foreign, drawing mostly from Swiss, Germans, and Italians.

 

[DeathSheep]

Fortresses surrendering when a breach in the walls is made is not a very realistic thing. Read up here on sieges in the period, as well as on warfare in general: http://celyn.drizzlehosting.com/jherek/16thMilSci.pdf

Regardless, I'd kinda like the option to do as Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of Alba, did in sieges. Especially when I'm sieging a rebel-held province.

 

[Emre Yigit]

Regardless, I'd kinda like the option to do as Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of Alba, did in sieges. Especially when I'm sieging a rebel-held province.

Your forgot to mention that he was also Duke of Huéscar, Marquis of Coria, Count of Salvatierra de Tormes and Count of Piedrahita, Lord of Valdecorneja, a Grandee of Spain, and an Illustrious Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Seriously, what did he do in sieges?

 

[Marco Dandolo]

It's great to see in which way that thread evolved. I'm sorry that I couldn't contribute more, as I am a little bit distracted by modding, but I read some very great ideas, enriching Chamboozer's magnificent post.

 

[Musthavename]

I agree that attrition needs a major buff. My old playstyle in EU3 heavily involved exploiting attrition, so I may be a bit biased; but after the mid 1500s the only attrition damage I ever took was from nations which had taken the defensive national ideas. Heck, I had provinces in the Arabian penisula which had supply limits of 40, which is just insane.

Retreat mechanics also need a big improvement. I can either rout an army then annihilate it instantly if they retreat to a province bordering me, or they can flee across a gigantic space under an invincibility buff and will have recovered fully by the time I'm able to attack them. It really needs improving and is one of my biggest gripes with the game at the moment.

 

[Damarow]

Just thinking out loud here, what if sieges cost money, and more money over time? Because supplying gets more difficult when the army cant move around in that province to gather supplies, because people dont like sieges or whatever.
That would lessen the motivation to just carpet siege everything.


Another thought, the siege needs more options. If I want to besiege a fortress very passivly, meaning I postion my troops so far away from the enemy that he cant reach me, but I isolate him completely, cost and attrition should be low, but sieges should take quite a while.

If however it is an offensive siege, meaning constant artillery exchange, trench warfare and similar, my losses in men and cost in gold should be higher, but the enemy should surrender faster.

Attacking the fortress directly should stay a seperate option - its vastly different from offensive sieges.

 

[Emre Yigit]

I had provinces in the Arabian penisula which had supply limits of 40, which is just insane.

No.

Insane is building canals in the Najd. Which I did, for laughs.