Victoria 3 isnt focused in war and it hurts

[Testeria]

They removed microing precisely because they want to force you to face the consequences of warfare. You have to pay the price for your military choices. If you could just cheese the AI, the impact on your economy, politics, etc. would be so limited you could essentially ignore it. They would have to abandon that trade off just to satisfy your desire to micromanage units on the map. That would also completely destroy multiplayer. People will always choose cheesy maneuvers over roleplaying if they have to to defeat a human player.

So basically You argue that they removed player input from war because they are unable to program war mechanics that is challenging for the player?

I would not care much if they also shorten the time I spend just sitting there and watching as the game plays itself. Will they also add the "skip" button to the war screen?

Just think about it: if my only input into the war is simple "attack or defend" - I do not really need all this extended information about how fronts are changing day by day. It is useless. It's bloat wasting my precious life minute by minute

If I'm forced to just sit there for 20 minutes and watch AI with only a few meaningless decisions available ("to face the consequences of warfare") I would not consider it a good game.

I have more than 6000 hours playing PDX games but in reality, 95% of it is just waiting until the game sets its state to the point where I would be able to actually play the game again (for example speed 5 until getting enough gold to build something or waiting for the truce to expire). Now I read that they plan to remove meaningful player input from war for me to feel the "consequences of warfare". So they basically add more waiting to the game and somehow people are happy about it...

 

[Testeria]

aren't dice rolls at the bottom of just about every PDX mechanic? or some version thereof?

Dice rolls are on top of other values so it is not a "flip coin" because players can still exploit those other values.
More importantly in battles, there are many dice rolls so their importance is diminished even more (they cancel each other out).

 

[BotherMe]

Well, you and I have already argued about this ad nauseam, but to reiterate - you are not just sitting there waiting for the war to end. You have to ensure you have manpower and equipment, and the infrastructure to get it to the front. You have to recruit the right generals and design your battalions well. You have to make sure your import routes aren’t disrupted by supplying your navies with the resources they need, or raid the enemy’s trades routes to disrupt their trade and supply lines. You have to keep the rest of the economy going so you don’t have a huge crisis where your pops lose faith and become radicals. You have to coordinate with your allies, maybe by bankrolling them or sending them a general to reinforce their frontline with the enemy so they don’t capitulate and leave you by yourself. And a hundred other things I can’t think of at the top of my head.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I would not care much if they also shorten the time I spend just sitting there and watching as the game plays itself.

you can sit back and watch if you want, but i'll be worrying about depleting workforces, hospitals filling up, and rampant disease

 

[TheWorstPro]

They removed microing precisely because they want to force you to face the consequences of warfare. You have to pay the price for your military choices. If you could just cheese the AI, the impact on your economy, politics, etc. would be so limited you could essentially ignore it. They would have to abandon that trade off just to satisfy your desire to micromanage units on the map. That would also completely destroy multiplayer. People will always choose cheesy maneuvers over roleplaying if they have to to defeat a human player.

What part of my post, where I stated repeatedly over and over again that I'm not talking about micro and that I'm talking about player control in general, gave you the impression that I'm specifically talking about unit micro and wanted unit micro back? My brain is actually going to go numb with how much I apparently need to repeat this:


I am not talking about unit micro


Oh, sorry. Maybe the font size was too small?


I am not arguing for unit micro. I am talking about player control in general, such as designating objectives or assigning more orders to generals than just "attack" or "defend." Yes micro exists, but that it not the specific system I want. You can dislike the proposed warfare system for Vic3 and still not want unit micro.


Ok, are we on the same page now? Great. Now maybe we can proceed. None of the supposed consequences of warfare are mutually exclusive with letting the player have more control over warfare. In fact, if done right, it can actually make your consequences more well known (i.e. if you order your generals to focus their attacks on a heavily fortified position rather than trying for an encirclement, and you sustain heavy losses in the process. Or you might tell your generals to capture a desert but failed to set up a good logistics network beforehand and they run out of supplies). As for multiplayer, that depends on the session. I know a fair amount of people try to make house rules which normally excludes a lot of cheesy stuff, while others are generally more open to letting players use whatever means available. And on top of that, multiplayer is a very small portion of the playerbase. We shouldn't really be catering to multiplayer since most people will generally play the game alone (and also this specific conversation is about AI anyways).

aren't dice rolls at the bottom of just about every PDX mechanic? or some version thereof?

That's true, but it doesn't make me wrong on that, does it? Relying heavily on RNG can be appropriate in some cases, like generating heirs, but for some things I think it's best when the player has more influence in the outcome.

 

[Testeria]

Well, you and I have already argued about this ad nauseam, but to reiterate - you are not just sitting there waiting for the war to end. You have to ensure you have manpower and equipment, and the infrastructure to get it to the front. You have to recruit the right generals and design your battalions well. You have to make sure your import routes aren’t disrupted by supplying your navies with the resources they need, or raid the enemy’s trades routes to disrupt their trade and supply lines. You have to keep the rest of the economy going so you don’t have a huge crisis where your pops lose faith and become radicals. You have to coordinate with your allies, maybe by bankrolling them or sending them a general to reinforce their frontline with the enemy so they don’t capitulate and leave you by yourself. And a hundred other things I can’t think of at the top of my head.

No, these are mostly things I do BEFORE the war.
MAYBE You are right and there would be enough economic/social decisions with immediate effect during a war that would make it fun - but I do not believe it right now from what I read in DD.

And yes, naval warfare seems more engaging but I tend to play landlock countries with little to no fleet. If they would add a similar level of control to land warfare I would obviously have much less problem with it.

As I think about it I would love the game option to disallow AI to start diplomatic play against the player. Then I could play my economic sandbox to my heart content.

 

[Testeria]

you can sit back and watch if you want, but i'll be worrying about depleting workforces, hospitals filling up, and rampant disease

To be true "worrying" does not feel as fun either.

 

[BotherMe]

None of the supposed consequences of warfare are mutually exclusive with letting the player have more control over warfare. In fact, if done right, it can actually make your consequences more well known.

So, specifically, what options would you add to the player that would make it feel like you are more in control while also staying within the framework of what the devs are planning?

 

[Testeria]

So, specifically, what options would you add to the player that would make it feel like you are more in control while also staying within the framework of what the devs are planning?

Similar to ones from HOI4: set imminent objectives, stop the front, concentrate assault, draw fallback lines, block AI from attacking certain provinces (do not let them bleed on that mountain fort), wait for supply, scorched earth, dig in, secure the supply lines, prepare for enemy offensive, etc., etc.

None of it requires the micromanagement of units.

 

[BotherMe]

Similar to ones from HOI4: set imminent objectives, stop the front, concentrate assault, draw fallback lines, block AI from attacking certain provinces (do not let them bleed on that mountain fort), wait for supply, scorched earth, dig in, secure the supply lines, prepare for enemy offensive, etc., etc.

None of it requires the micromanagement of units.

Now you’re being more constructive.

 

[TheWorstPro]

So, specifically, what options would you add to the player that would make it feel like you are more in control while also staying within the framework of what the devs are planning?

At minimum, I would want the ability to designate objectives for armies to either try and capture or defend, and probably more options for the generals than attack and defend. For instance I think it would be great if they added things like slow advance, blitz, scorched earth retreat, defend at all costs, and more. I’m also not a fan of how reinforcements and supplies are supposed to go through the barracks first before going to the unit, so troops from Vladivostok fighting on the Western Front would somehow suffer from attrition if Vladivostok was taken (though I hope I’m seriously misinterpreting that one). And one other thing I don’t recall being mentioned is whether or not stationed troops eating local supply will cause starvation for civilian pops, so if that’s not a thing then I’d like it to be.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Similar to ones from HOI4: set imminent objectives, stop the front, concentrate assault, draw fallback lines, block AI from attacking certain provinces (do not let them bleed on that mountain fort), wait for supply, scorched earth, dig in, secure the supply lines, prepare for enemy offensive, etc., etc.

None of it requires the micromanagement of units.

if you knew this is what the AI generals were doing would you be OK with that?

 

[Testeria]

if you knew this is what the AI generals were doing would you be OK with that?

No, because I cannot plan the war based on what AI will possibly do. For example, I may believe that if my forces would cut out that port or railway road I would secure the quick and painless win. But how am I supposed to know if AI will do that when the war starts? I may tell them to attack but it will attack this front but what if it will attack in opposite direction? I have no control over that so how am I supposed to decide if I should go to war? I can't. It is just random.

 

[Testeria]

Now you’re being more constructive.

No one asked.
People were just saying I'm stupid to want ANY change because I have no control by design.

 

[BotherMe]

No, because I cannot plan the war based on what AI will possibly do. For example, I may believe that if my forces would cut out that port or railway road I would secure the quick and painless win. But how am I supposed to know if AI will do that when the war starts? I may tell them to attack but it will attack this front but what if it will attack in opposite direction? I have no control over that so how am I supposed to decide if I should go to war? I can't. It is just random.

Thats the kind of strategy the devs have said they’re considering adding. Maybe there will be an option to prioritize seizing port facilities, or to conquer areas with arms production, etc etc. Don’t despair yet, my defeatist micro-loving friend.

 

[unmerged(760025)]

And on top of that, it doesn't take a genius to kill the AI's economies or gain a monopoly either. Now, with national markets that might change but the point is that the AI is almost always going to be inferior to the player when it comes to managing their economies as well. It's on the player to choose an appropriate level of challenge based on either game difficulty or challenge runs. You can't expect the AI to excel at everything, because eventually the player will find the optimal way to do things and once they do they're going to win most engagements. And it's not even due to the AI making "bad decisions" as you put it. They might actually be quite good decisions based on the circumstances, but the player either has much more foresight (i.e. will know which provinces will produce oil or rubber and starts sniping colonies early) or has simply made a better decision. And again, there is a difference between the AI playing poorly, and being exploited.

I agree with your comment but when it comes to exploiting the AI, I think it's even worse than that. Knowing where valuable ressources will appear later on is definitely an advantage the player have over the AI but that's not the major one. The main issue is that after a few games we will start to have a good understanding of how the AI act, what make it act a certain way and how to make it react differently (and that is without taking into account people going to look at the code and gaining perfect knowledge of what make the AI tick) and from there the player will be able to abuse this knowledge to counter AI's decisions before they are even taken or to organize their nation's economy in the most optimal way to be the most disruptive to the AI nations development, or how to always maximize their profits from diplomatic deals or go into a diplomatic play while already knowing what the AI will and won't accept and how to make sure other nations support you. The ability for a player to gain a good understanding of the AI is what makes a fight between a player and an AI completely unbalanced and removing player's agency over military operations won't change that and that's why any argument about making the game uncheesable because of the new warfare system is utterly ridiculous.
And that is if, and it's a big if, the AI is even able to correctly managed the economy and the diplomacy in the first place, because I have seen enough videos of players swindling the AI out of all its money in diplomatic deals in games like Humankind, Civ 6 or Total War : Troy to know it's not a sure thing in the first place.

As I think about it I would love the game option to disallow AI to start diplomatic play against the player. Then I could play my economic sandbox to my heart content.

I guess you were trying to be provocative here but to be honest ? With how warfare appears to be in Victoria 3 I unironically want this option to be available.
I would prefer not to have to deal with war at all over having to deal with the shallow and unengaging system that was shown to us.

 

[Testeria]

I guess you were trying to be provocative here but to be honest ? With how warfare appears to be in Victoria 3 I unironically want this option to be available.
I would prefer not to have to deal with war at all over having to deal with the shallow and unengaging system that was shown to us.

It was not irony at all. I would prefer to get rid of war altogether if I have little to no control over it.

 

[BotherMe]

It was not irony at all. I would prefer to get rid of war altogether if I have little to no control over it.

You have plenty of control over war but you seem too bitter to take in that information We’ll have to agree to disagree there.

 

[Kovax]

Don’t despair yet, my defeatist micro-loving friend.

Repeating the same erroneous claim over and over doesn't make it true, even if you do manage to convince yourself.

Apparently to some people, if it isn't black, it has to be white; there are no other shades in between, or other colors. The individual unit micromanagement of V2 and other Paradox games isn't really necessary (and apparently isn't wanted by a lot of people), but that doesn't mean that the player can't have some overall strategic-level control of the direction and major objectives of war.

I consider it stupidly shallow to limit one's military strategy on an entire national border to "attack" or "defend", with no way to define WHERE to attack as a priority. Do you push toward the industrial heartland, the vital ports along the coast, straight for the capital, or make a broad set of attacks across the entire front to overwhelm a much smaller and weaker opponent? THOSE are broad national wartime "strategies" (not tactics) typically carried out by large groups of division-sized units, not by individual divisions or even single corps.

Being able to define a front (with some limitations as to minimum size and/or total number of fronts on a border, so you can't "micro" down to a couple of provinces), to choose a main focal point of the attack or defense (protect the capital at all costs, or that vital port), or to set a fallback line in case of defeat don't require control of individual units but would give the player more sense of control than the proposed "A or B" option to attack or defend across the entire border. How stupid do you have to be to think that one "either A or B" choice is "interesting" for the player.

As pointed out, there are other aspects to war, and those MIGHT be interesting (or not, as we may recall from rebel whack-a-mole mechanics), and they might have a significant impact on the war itself, but in theory most of those things should already have been addressed BEFORE going to war, not as a means of salvaging something out of an unplanned disaster. If there's a lot of economic and political details to take care of in various provinces as war's effects develop, will that become the new "micromanagement hell"? If there isn't much that needs doing, then we're just wasting our time until the RNG results provide an outcome to the war.

I don't want to suffer through moving 200+ divisions around the depths of Russia, for example, but I want more than "everyone attack" or "everyone defend" across the entire front as military options. If you take that to mean "move each division manually", then we have nothing to discuss, because you just can't see that there's even a possibility for something between "all" and "nothing".

To return to an earlier metaphor, I at least want to taste mushrooms in my mushroom soup, not settle for some generic can marked "soup" because someone might get the recipe wrong if we're allowed to make our own. It might not even have mushrooms in it.

 

[Volodio]

Repeating the same erroneous claim over and over doesn't make it true, even if you do manage to convince yourself.

Apparently to some people, if it isn't black, it has to be white; there are no other shades in between, or other colors. The individual unit micromanagement of V2 and other Paradox games isn't really necessary (and apparently isn't wanted by a lot of people), but that doesn't mean that the player can't have some overall strategic-level control of the direction and major objectives of war.

I consider it stupidly shallow to limit one's military strategy on an entire national border to "attack" or "defend", with no way to define WHERE to attack as a priority. Do you push toward the industrial heartland, the vital ports along the coast, straight for the capital, or make a broad set of attacks across the entire front to overwhelm a much smaller and weaker opponent? THOSE are broad national wartime "strategies" (not tactics) typically carried out by large groups of division-sized units, not by individual divisions or even single corps.

I don't want to suffer through moving 200+ divisions around the depths of Russia, for example, but I want more than "everyone attack" or "everyone defend" across the entire front as military options. If you take that to mean "move each division manually", then we have nothing to discuss, because you just can't see that there's even a possibility for something between "all" and "nothing".

There is already more than "everyone attack" or "everyone defend". The defend/attack orders are given to generals, who control a set amount of battalions and not necessarily the entire army. For instance, if your army is controlled by 3 generals in that strategic region, you could give one general the order to defend and the two others the order to attack. You can keep a part of your army defending while attacking, it's not all or nothing.

Regarding the priority of the attack, it is by default the war goal, and lachek has said how they're looking to add a manual target that the player could set, in order to allow things like pushing the industrial heartland. In fact, he even used as an example Sherman's march to the sea, which is pretty specific offensive.

All of this is coming from the dev diary "fronts and generals". No offense, but you probably should've read the dev diaries talking about the warfare system before complaining about it.