Tips on ending easy wars faster?

[Harassercat]

My main beef with CKII atm is long tedious warfare. I'm new to the game (somewhere in the 200-250 hours played currently), so instead of declaring that the game must be badly designed I'm willing to consider that I might just need to improve my skills in fighting wars.

What I find tedious is how a lot of the wars I fight are a foregone conclusion: early in the war I face the opponent's biggest army and defeat it decisively. The opponent doesn't have much chance of raising a larger army and will from this point in the war have almost no chance of defeating my forces. Yet warscore is still only in the 20-30% range.... You see if I were in that position I'd most likely surrender immediately to avoid facing a long drawn-out process of having half of my realm sieged and occupied. But the AI will stubbornly fight out this lost position until warscore hits 100%, which I find very tedious especially when warscore is only trickling in small portions with every conquered holding and small army defeated.

How should I play out this kind of war in some way to win faster? Should I focus on winning battles over taking holdings? I know that I should prioritize taking the contested territory first and holding it, and then defeating any large army out there. Apart from that, is it better to capture certain counties, such as the realm capital or vassal capitals, over others?

In my current game, my expansion is mostly limited by the opportunity cost of fighting easy but tediously long wars (when I could be raiding instead), and potential rebellions aren't a concern because they might win but rather because they'd take annoyingly long to defeat.

 

[kmh42]

Defeating the enemy army has the highest priority. After that I always try to siege easy to capture holding. Most preferable the capital, because the raised troop weakening there defense. If I am lucky I can capture some relatives from the enemy. This can provide good amount of warscore but happens very rarely. After I siege the first holding I go to the next county. Now the enemy AI tried to recapture his capital. This way you can easily crush him again. After his army is no threat you can attack weak counties (look for demesne counties from the enemy King) or split you armies to siege multiple counties or the wargoal.

 

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I'm new to the game (somewhere in the 200-250 hours played currently)

Ahh, Paradox. What other studio could produce games where 250 hours qualifies you as 'new'?

As for war advice, here's my two pence which may or may not be entirely inaccurate.

1. Like kmh said, go for the capital and demense. Firstly, hitting the capital provides you with extra warscore, secondly it's poorly defended (as the defender raises their demense levies), thirdly there's the chance of useful prisoners, and fourthly they provide more troops and money than any other holding, generally speaking.

2. Obviously, you always need to take some territory in the wargoal ASAP to prevent ticking warscore for your enemy, and if you can occupy the entire wargoal quickly then doing so is a good bet. However, for larger wargoals (e.g. large duchies or kingdoms), it may be worth just taking a single county there before moving on to attack the demense.

3. Target cities and temples, especially the former, as they fall much faster than castles. If the enemy has any republic or theocracy vassals at county-level or above, prioritise attacking them above feudal targets of similar importance. Occupying Merchant Republic vassals will also serve to disrupt the enemy's cash flow.

 

[mwe1967]

Thanks for asking this, I have had the same questions. Like is it better to stay on a county and occupy all the holdings or just take the county capital holding and then move to a new county? I usually stay and fully occupy because if you leave after just taking the first holding the defenders haven't had time to build up and the enemy doesn't need that big of an army to take it back forcing me to abandon the next siege because I have to go back and chase him off.

It is tedious that it takes so long to get to 100% sometimes but sometimes it's good to hold out if you're on defense and losing. I had already lost a war and was just watching the enemy take over all my stuff and I couldn't do anything about it when the 68 year old title claimant the war was started for dies and then poof, the war is over and ends inconclusively and I didn't lose anything.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

As mentioned before. Capital for a chance to capture relatives.

Merchant republics as I believe holdings are tied to how rich they are.

And finally assault everything if you can. The faster you get the "controls all of X territory" the faster warscore ticks for you.

 

[CannotresistDLC]

Generally I just assume most types of wars will take a while, but kmh42 has covered most of it. Also, if early on in the war I can split off my retinues or at least retinues + demense levies and use that to chase down my opponent's army or armies while my liege levies and mercenaries assault holdings, this will typically produce a quick end to the war and let my ruler come out of it with his strength mostly intact & his retinues doing as little (expensive!) reinforcing as possible.

 

[Iron Chariots]

Thanks for asking this, I have had the same questions. Like is it better to stay on a county and occupy all the holdings or just take the county capital holding and then move to a new county? I usually stay and fully occupy because if you leave after just taking the first holding the defenders haven't had time to build up and the enemy doesn't need that big of an army to take it back forcing me to abandon the next siege because I have to go back and chase him off.

It is tedious that it takes so long to get to 100% sometimes but sometimes it's good to hold out if you're on defense and losing. I had already lost a war and was just watching the enemy take over all my stuff and I couldn't do anything about it when the 68 year old title claimant the war was started for dies and then poof, the war is over and ends inconclusively and I didn't lose anything.

In my experience, it depends. I usually fully-occupy counties if I have the army to force an assault (cities and temples are usually much easier to take), but if I hit a second castle that actually has a large garrison I'll usually move on to the next county, especially if there are still demesne counties available.

Another thing to watch for is internal wars. If one vassal has raised his levies to fight another vassal, you might be able to snag some of their counties pretty easily while the defenders are away.

 

[CannotresistDLC]

In my experience, it depends. I usually fully-occupy counties if I have the army to force an assault (cities and temples are usually much easier to take), but if I hit a second castle that actually has a large garrison I'll usually move on to the next county, especially if there are still demesne counties available.

Another thing to watch for is internal wars. If one vassal has raised his levies to fight another vassal, you might be able to snag some of their counties pretty easily while the defenders are away.

I second this. I usually will take as many holding as I can in any county I besiege until I run into a second castle - at which point I'm likely to move on. Cities and temples seem to offer about as much warscore as demense castles while taking half as much time or less to besiege or being much easier to assault.

Internal strife is doubly important. I could win wars against most realms I choose to fight even if they aren't in another war, but it can often be faster overall to wait for one to start (while encouraging it as much as I can, of course) before I declare war. Just be careful your casus belli will stay valid and that the other war doesn't block your control of wargoals/increase of warscore. If you aren't hostile to the belligerent in the other war, you might find yourself unable to take enough holdings to win your war until the other one is over.

 

[Fishman786]

It's kind of irritating that the enemy insists on fighting to 100% warscore every single time. Unless the consequence of the war is something utterly catastrophic like imprisonment or title confiscation there's no reason for the AI to keep fighting to the bitter end. If their army has been given a couple of defeats and the county/counties in question have fallen then they should come to terms.

 

[Rags17]

FWIW they made it much easier to assault holdings in the latest patch - you used to need around 10-1 odds before mounting an assault, now it can be done at around 3 or 4 to 1. The toughest nut is always the castle which is usually the first holding, after that the soft, sweet cities and temples can fall almost instantly, especially if you have around 5-1 odds or more and the fort level is less than 2 or so. I find that I can clean up entire counties in a few weeks that way.

Do be careful though - nothing hurts more than snapping up 3-4 cities and temples only to realise too late that the last holding is a castle with Fort Level 4 and your assault is now doomed to fail miserably.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Personally, I don't get using Ironman in CKII - it's not about achievement for me, as much as a fun roleplaying/light strategy experience. If you don't care about Ironman, you can make warfare quicker and funner with a quick edit of defines.lua

Find your CKII install location, go to the common folder, and open defines.lua with the text editor of your choice.

ctrl+f MAX_WARSCORE_FROM_BATTLE_ATTACKERS, and change the value from 75 to 90 or 95. This will mean that you only have to occupy one or two holdings to secure victory in a war where you've completely trounced the enemy in the field.

 

[FifthMonarchy]

Although sieging capital provinces is quicker as the levies have been raised, I sometimes avoid this if I'm the defender as I think the compensation you get afterwards is calculated on the annual income of your opponent as it stands on the day the war ends, and that will be lower if his demesne is occupied.