Cutting the end game back to at least 1789 would be a real improvement.
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Thoughts on the military [EU5 brainstorm]
- Thread starter moscal
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I couldn't care less about whatever they end up with fitting the entire time span of the game. The two most important things are that there is a system that is fun to interact with on a regular basis, and that the AI is able to do a decent job with it. In reality, the last requirement pretty much rules out massive changes throughout the game.
EU4 already kind of have this. The problem, as with most systems with a large amount of options, is that there is pretty much always a best option. I would rather have a game with 2 real choices than one with 10 options where the same one is always the best option.
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3 types of units -> INF+CAV+ART are from EU1. And I wrote about this aspect.
Eg. separate INF for close combat and fire combat. Eg. pikemen + musketeers in XVI century and AI/HI can decide about ratio. Other proportions would be better as Austria during fight with west-european powers, other proportion during fight with Turks and other during fight with PLC.
Current for ~95% of nations proportion INF+CAV+ART is this same. Only for few nations better option would be "you should have 2 CAV more than normal" (eg. PLC).
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I would add much more higher attrition in forts and much higher mortality in defensive battles in fort provinces when the enemy is sieging. In the wars between Spain and France for the lowlands, they didn´t try to invade their respective motherlands, as that was too expensive. The battles happened in the french and spanish lowlands despite the pyrinees border (also vanilla war score system is a reallly stupid mechanic in this case).
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Again, EU4 already offers more than one type of those units per tech level, but as is always the case with such options, there is pretty much always one that is better than the others. Ck2 had a similar problem despite having a much bigger variety in troops. Imperator also had a lot of near useless options. Adding a bunch of useless options to the game adds nothing other than making it harder for new players to understand the game.
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I dont see.
HoI series have more than 3 types of units and this work good. Also in HoI1, 2 and 3. For 4 IDK.
I ignore concept "again AI always good is one composition", because I often play in multiplayer, and humans have higher lvl on innovation in thought and action.
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Probably because having the different choices are pretty pointless, so you don't even consider them as options. I'll give you three hints: Fire, shock and morale.
It has nothing to do with AI. It's just math.
Well, it's basically what the entire game is about, and even then a lot of the units are pretty useless, or have been given huge modifiers just to make sure they are pretty much only good in very niche situations. I certainly don't see the need (nor a market) for a second such game, just set in another time period.
So what?
By mechanic we still have only 3 types of units.
1. Infantry - on battlefield fight in core of first line, on second line can wait, is used during assault. If havent nobody
2. Cavalry - on battlefield fight on flanks, on second line can wait, have mechanism of flanking.
3. Artilery - on battlefield figth main on second line, on first main die. Give also power during sieges.
Even special units eg. marines, banners, work as one of thid. INF or CAV or ART.
No more. No less. Only this 3 types of units we have. Even if you will give for every of this 3 units stats, still you will not replace eg. whole artilery by infantry for this same effects.
And this still work in this style from EU1.
If you wrote about eg. "african clubmen or african spearmen" - this is resoult of wrong designe by PDX. I made mod, where choices were important - one option have advantages vs other.
If you wrote about INV+CAV+ART - this is connected with small num of option + wrong designe + small num of stats + very simple mechanism of battlefield.
Why you think, that for EU5 will be unchanged copy of EU4? Do you believe, that PDX cannot designe good mechanismus for battlefield and units?
Dont try troll, because you are not good in this....
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Not really. Wellington army was buying local food. Napoleon's army still lived from plunder (or buying food). Problems of the russian campaign were exactly because in the east there was much less to plunder.
Recruitment, financing, and moving troops changed, but food provision during the napoleonic times was mostly the same: living off the land. I'm not sure feeding 100 000 armies without railways is at all possible.
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Revolution#Size_of_armies
Size of field armies
This has been dictated through history by logistical constraints, mainly the supply of food. Before the mid-17th century, armies basically lived off the land. They didn't have supply lines; they moved to the supply, and many times their movements were dictated by supply considerations. While some regions with good communications could supply large armies for longer periods, still they had to disperse when they moved from these well supplied areas. The maximum size of field armies remained under 50,000 for most of this period, and strength reports over this figure are always from unreliable narrative sources and must be regarded with scepticism. In the second half of the 17th things changed greatly. Armies began to be supplied through a net of depots linked by supply lines, that greatly increased the size of Field Armies. In the 18th century and early 19th century, before the advent of the railway, the size of Field Armies reached figures over 100,000.
from Napoleon's Logistics; or How Napoleon Learned to Worry about Supply (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1022125.pdf)
However, the contribution system as practiced throughout the Thirty Years War (1618- 1648) proved unsustainable. The decline in the population and the destruction of land was so complete in Central Europe by the late 1630s that there was not enough food or money to sustain a large army. 16 Additionally, having to keep armies on the move also had the unintended effect of driving a nation’s strategy, as demonstrated by Gustavus Adolphus’ invasion of Pomerania in 1630. Unable to feed his army, this Swedish general spent the first year of his invasion investing German towns and marching his army in search of supplies instead of liberating Germany and its Protestants from the Holy Roman Empire as he intended.17 Armies late in the Thirty Years War were often unable to concentrate due to the lack of supplies, and fighting regressed to mainly cavalry raids in search of supplies as had occurred in the Middle Ages
Preventing wars from regressing to an earlier era was the work of two Frenchmen, Michel le Tellier and his son François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis of Louvois. Acting as France’s Minister of War in the late seventeenth century, Michel le Tellier instituted many military reforms to include the establishment of a chain of supply magazines. To ensure a ravaged country did not frustrate military operations as they had done in the Thirty Years War, he recommended the establishment of numerous magazines in strategically important towns and fortresses during times of crisis.19 His system of logistics centered on the idea that these magazines were to maintain a fifteen days reserve of provisions used to supply fielded forces during times of emergency by commercial carriers. Tellier also established appropriate rules and administrative procedures to help deduce the requirements of the army prior to a campaign. An appointed government official, titled général des vivres, administered and inspected Tellier’s greatly enhanced logistic system
Tellier’s son, Louvois, would expand his father’s logistic system by turning the supply depots into permanent fixtures. In addition to making the supply magazine system permanent, Louvois created two types of magazines. The first type, known as fortes du roi, provisioned strategically important towns and fortresses along France’s frontier with six months of food and fodder to withstand sieges. More innovative was the second type of new magazine called the magasins gènèreaux, designed to meet the requirements of the field armies as they embarked on campaigns outside of France’s borders. The importance of this type of magazine was twofold, the first being that it enabled an unencumbered army to rapidly move to its point of departure and then obtain all of the supplies they needed for the campaign. The second advantage was that the magasins gènèreaux enabled France to maintain operations security by avoiding the sudden and large war material purchases required of a campaign, which enemy spies, and informants would pick up on.
Additional info from Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton
Logistics were a big frigging deal for a good half of EU4 timeline and unlike with tactics there is a potential to generate interesting gameplay for the player and prevent snowballing effect. But they were of course different from the railway-era logistics.
Good system for logistics should accomplish the following goals
- Limit the quantity of troops that can be concentrated for a tactical engament (much better alternative than the current width system)
- Geography should limit how far can a state project military power; with coasts and navigable rivers being major factor
- Technology, reforms and money will gradually improve logistics
- Hordes of central Asia start with far better logistics than others (historically underestimated consequence of their protein rich diet)
- (Light) Cavalry improves logistics, artillery makes them worse
E.g. I got to wage a late game war as Russia against Ottomans it was like this. Id start by bulding max level forts all over the Ukraine, then as I declare war I let Turks bash their heads against those forts for a while. Then I amass a 250k doomstack ignoring attrition and I go on stackwiping the 400k Turkish army that was split into individual siege stacks. Then I go on sieging spree dividing my doomstack into smaller stacks to reduce attrition. Then the Turks respawn their army and pop out from behind the fog of war and stackwipe my siege stacks in return. My counterstragy had nothing to do with gameplay, I simply reduced the gamespeed and watch out more carefully for the approaching turks so I can retreat my armies in time. Then it got annoying so I infiltrated their administration to lift fog of war. Is it realistic gameplay? No. Is it fun gamplay? Nope. Good system for logistics can fix that.
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In the OP you litterally suggested what we have already:
If it is the implementation of it you are unhappy with, that'd fair enough, that specific part of the system isn't very good. You should however make it clear what you actually want, because at least a part of what you are asking for exists in EU4.
It has been a more successful system than pretty much everything else Paradox have tried, so why change it?
No, I don't think EU5 will be unchanged. That would defeat the point of making it. However, I don't think getting bogged down in trying to come up with a new combat system is where players can get the most fun out of the resources Paradox spends on EU5.
Calling people a troll every time they disagree with you is a well known trolling tactic. You should probably stop doing it.
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Nope.
I have talk with many people in PPlaza. But few persons, like a you, dont want talk about problem but feed own EGO, show for own personality that "oh, Im brilant" or something other. If somebody talk that "In game we have 3 types of unit and future this should be upgraded" you talk "this is false, b'cuz now we have many many types of units with other composition of pips". When next I wrote for you, that we have 3 types and any types mean separate mechanism on warfare, you still ignore facts and try be the most smart person on the world. Because only you see, that in EU5 we still have this same mechanismus on battlefield like in EU4, so every change is poitnless. Similar every types of composition, every type of modernization and whole rest can work only in one type, like in EU4. In every game of PDX this work in this same style, that every choice is pointless - only your style of game is correct.
Yes. You are troll. You dont want talk about topic, but only feed own EGO and show for world, that you are the best person on the world.
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Like here. If somebody write abou new types of unit this also mean new mechanism. That CAV-type-1 and CAV-type-2 arent only for flanking like CAV in EU4. That battlefield isnt only 2x2 lines of boxes etc. That you will can have eg. 3 regiments CAV-type-1 with mechanics X1, X2 and Y1 and 4 regiments CAV -type-2 with mechanics X1, Y1 and Y3. Or other situations.
But no. You are genius so you can ignore, that other type of unit mean other mechanism. Because EU5 must have mechanism like EU4, so if in EU4 we have wrong designed units about PIPs parameters or bugs with mechanismus of battlefields, when are situations that CAV dont make nothing etc. so this same will be always...
Whole my point is stupid because now we can choice "african spearsmens or african clubmens" and thesis that in EU4 we have only 3 types of units INF-CAV-ART is wrong...
Why I shouldnt threat your as troll, if this is classical trolling?
So why make other games, if EU1 was great? Why cavemens tried with agriculture, if society hunter-gatherer was successful system? Why use guns, if spears and swords, chivlary and levies were "succesful system"?
The best option is making nothing.
And why you shouldnt be descripted as troll? You are troll, troll...
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A simple improvement to EU4's warfare system would be to:
1. Use CK3's siege + attrition systems.
2. Remove ZoC from forts -- if you don't siege a province, you'll just suffer more attrition.
3. As the game progresses, rate of war exhaustion from sieges/deaths/occupations etc. should increase. This would ideally reduce the AI's desire to death-war over 10 warscore and make wars end sooner.
4. Copy MEIOU 2.5's noble interaction system. Nobles in MEIOU actually helped you when you needed most help -- war. It gave the player a reason to keep them strong, as the nobles would provide you with X levies where X is contingent on their influence.
1. Use CK3's siege + attrition systems.
2. Remove ZoC from forts -- if you don't siege a province, you'll just suffer more attrition.
3. As the game progresses, rate of war exhaustion from sieges/deaths/occupations etc. should increase. This would ideally reduce the AI's desire to death-war over 10 warscore and make wars end sooner.
4. Copy MEIOU 2.5's noble interaction system. Nobles in MEIOU actually helped you when you needed most help -- war. It gave the player a reason to keep them strong, as the nobles would provide you with X levies where X is contingent on their influence.
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