War exhaustion ruins this game after the 17th century

[unmerged(47647)]

I find this game to be unplayable starting in the late 17th century because of the war exhaustion. I have a lot of fun building up my nations until they're giant empires, and once I get to the point in my game where I'm ready to take on another giant empire like France or Austria I'm unable to because war exhaustion skyrockets after only a year or two of war.

I'm currently playing as Russia in 1713, having started as Muscovy in 1399, and even with extreme decentralization I get 2-6 different revolts every month after only a year or two of war. I own most of Eastern Europe and Eurasia, so I have a lot of provinces, and the tedium of the constant revolts makes the game lose all of its fun. Maybe it's more realistic, I don't know, but it's not fun at all. I've never been able to play an empire building game all the way to the end because war exhaustion gets so unmanageable by the end of the 17th century.

Is there any way without cheating to reduce war exhaustion? I'm all ears. The game is so much fun, and right when it starts getting very interesting with all the various global powers and advanced technologies, it becomes impossible to go to war.

 

[Astro-Boy]

Smaller armies.

 

[unmerged(47647)]

I'd also like to add that I don't use war taxes at all.

Most of my armies are 15k, unless I'm going against a huge stack of enemies and I'm forced to merge them. Even under those circumstances my war exhaustion skyrockets into the teens in a year or two.

 

[Astro-Boy]

There's only a few things that really increase war exhaustion. Some of these are: captured provinces, blockaded provinces, attrition, battle casualties.

Perhaps you're overlooking one of those? (for example, if you're sieging enemy provinces with those 15k armies you're going to suffer a lot of attrition.)

 

[naggy]

Attrition is a killer - it's amazingly easy to leave an army in a Siberian winter or something else stupid, since there's no indicator to tell you that you left an army somewhere to die and reinforce.

 

[darkbrokendisk]

i thought as russia you can make your max we 6 or so that is not so bad.

 

[Malurous]

Any war against a weaker opponent in Europe can be fought with 0 WE. If everything goes well, ANY war in Europe can be fought with 0 WE, but against a much stronger opponent there may be some issues.

Just make sure your stacks aren't too large for the province (including winter penalties where applicable), you aren't blockaded and the enemy doesn't occupy your homeland. If your army is large enough, casualties won't create much WE unless you suffer huge losses.

Fight in your own provinces if possible to help reduce/eliminate attrition. That said, the "wait for assault and beat the demoralized enemy" strategy can lead to WE if the assault succeeds, so be careful with that.

Most of my armies are 15k, unless I'm going against a huge stack of enemies and I'm forced to merge them. Even under those circumstances my war exhaustion skyrockets into the teens in a year or two.

If I have to do that a lot, I might accumulate two or three points of WE in a couple of years of war, so there must be some other issue as well - unless you're seriously overdoing this. If you need to merge your forces to battle a huge enemy stack, do it on your own territory. To facilitate this, be prepared to fall back with siege forces if necessary. Also, be sure to break up your huge stack quickly when you don't need it anymore, and only follow the enemy into their territory if that means you can eliminate them quickly. It's better to let the enemy regain forces than to run around after them in hostile lands for months. Wait for a decisive enough battle that following is sensible, then follow with a force that's enough for elimination - not too much (extra attrition) or too little (extra pingpong).

Also, when you do end up in enemy territory, it may be a good idea to leave a regiment sieging after the battle if you can't get out during the same month. That way, you'll get the siege modifier to the supply limit - every little bit helps.

Overall, it's wise to pay attention to time of month. If you can optimize your moving in troops in such a way that you don't have to change months in enemy territory, you'll save an attrition "hit".

Often, you can also pull smaller enemy stacks in your territory by leaving them an opening - a province with no troops. Let them come in and crush them. Sometimes, this can lead to the enemy never putting that doomstack together.

 

[unmerged(64629)]

Just keep your troops home until it's time to push and and invage (I.e.: Fight on your lands not theirs) and a lot of provinces in Eurasia are not even going to support 15 troops even in the late 17th so play attantion on where you leave your troops in peace time. If you have to send troop to quell a rebellion, send them back to their "Home" province after doing so.

 

[Ashantai]

EMU'ed.

 

[naggy]

Just make sure your stacks aren't too large for the province (including winter penalties where applicable), you aren't blockaded and the enemy doesn't occupy your homeland. If your army is large enough, casualties won't create much WE unless you suffer huge losses.

Keep in mind that you will immediately suffer attrition upon entering a province (if attrition is >0), unless you are entering a province straight into battle. Thus, if you have one army there to start the battle on defense, you can time the rest to arrive on day 2 - thus, you do not accrue attrition upon entering, nor while the battle takes place.

 

[midget_roxx]

I feel your pain mate . Russia has shocking Army Limits so even when you're at peace you can be gaining WE, if you have 12k stacked in the wrong province during winter. Just go around with 10k stacks and if you see something a bit larger than your stack then move your smaller stacks together to fight against the AI's stack. Since you don't take attrition during battle you won't get the WE hits with 40k of your troops in a province

 

[sagimine1]

EMU'ed.

???????

 

[Jerzul]

???????

Someone has not trolled in the HOI2 forums...

 

[Ashantai]

Well, everything I wanted to say was said much better by those above.

However, Russia fortunately has some good provinces in the west like Astrakhan (eventually), Pskov, Novgorod and Minsk with high support limits.

 

[unmerged(170957)]

is WE from casualties calculated on the amount of men lost or the % or MP lost?

 

[Elcyion]

3 lower rr advisors and patriarche as russia removes WE

 

[Trin Tragula]

Later on you might want to take the last trade NI too which basically removes attrition and therefore a lot of WE...