Hello Paradox community and Devs (I hope you read this too )
With all the current development of great powers empires, it seems a good time to address a few lacks or misrepresentation of the military depth.
Cannons
They used to be counted as individuals, in every single battle report available in history, not according to 1000 men regiments.
It allows a smaller country with a lack of manpower to compensate its army size with more emphasis on engineering and cannons, to the cost of a much higher mikitary
That would of course mean tweaking the UI a little, especially on map, to represent the enemy army as
50K men + 30 cannons for example
I will take as an example the Borodina battle of Napoleon, which according to some sources saw up to 130K men on each side with 600 cannons.
(Although I tried to mod that in defines, it is currently impossible since reducing regiment size to 1 also reduces damage/strengh/morale proportionnaly)
Secondly, cannons being so important in military, they used to be captured after battles just like ships were. This could lead a potential stalemate between two great powers to turn largely in favor of one or the other on a strategic scale, after one decisive battle which lead to the capture of a lot of cannons and thus gave country A a significant advantage.
UI
Speaking of UI, it seems the time to address the prevalent inaccuracy of EU4… which is accuracy !
Never in military history was one side perfectly aware of the positioning, strength and exact composition of an enemy army one province away.
There are indeed countless examples of armies encountering by “accident”, be it in antiquity or World War 1, passing through the Napoleonic era.
Not only should the player not know what is the exact army and manpower reserve of the enemy before launching a war (single player), during the war (war board) or even on the map.
This should rather be represented as an estimation (I.e. 80-120K men, 60-70 cannons,
), which could surely be refined with a highly developed Spy Network.
Ambushes
As a side note, I think a lot could be improved in the war mechanics, such as the ability to do ambushes, especially for natives. Open confrontation was not always possible especially with a large disproportion of forces, as it was the case in North America for the Seven Years War.
Some ambushes of inferior forces were especially important, such as the one which saw a British contingent annihilated and a certain George Washington being among the few survivors.
Although to be honest I would not know how to represent that as gameplay, except perhaps with the following suggestion
Terrain specific bonuses/maluses and units
Currently, the terrain bonus/malus is only represented with a certain dice roll of -1 or -2 for the attacker, and a choice of unit based on an offensive or defensive pip which the player or AI will do according to the terrain which is most common / favorable for its situation, both geographically and economically.
In reality though, choosing the proper terrain for battles, as well as building dedicated army compositions, was much more important.
That comes to no surprise that the Mongols, like all their Altaic predecessors, having before them an open steppe of thousands of miles, relied mainly on cavalry.
On the other hand, such units would prove much more difficult to use to tame the Russian forests, in which infantry, archers, arquebuses are much more efficient for guérilla warfare, or the high plateaux of Himalaya where there simply is no room to maneuver a high contingent of cavalry.
I thus suggest bringing more “specific terrain combat bonuses” à la CK3, which each country/army would have to carefully chose not only its units but also its ideal place of battle. Here are some ideas.
- natives infantry +20% damage in forest.
- mongol cavalry +20% damage in steppes, plains and grasslands
- mountains -50% damage from cavalry
This would also allow to get more region specific terrain bonuses for each unit type, instead of a rather simple -1 or -2 for the attacker, not taking into account whether the defender uses 100% cavalry which he can’t maneuver properly in a forest.
In fact, a Mongolian army of 100% cavalry fighting in the mountains is not better to maneuver be it offensive or defensive. That’s more the terrain itself which matters, than to be attacker or attacked.
This seems like the good moment to introduce such changes given the late increased apparition of “special units” like Samurai, marines, Tercios…
With all the current development of great powers empires, it seems a good time to address a few lacks or misrepresentation of the military depth.
Cannons
They used to be counted as individuals, in every single battle report available in history, not according to 1000 men regiments.
It allows a smaller country with a lack of manpower to compensate its army size with more emphasis on engineering and cannons, to the cost of a much higher mikitary
That would of course mean tweaking the UI a little, especially on map, to represent the enemy army as
50K men + 30 cannons for example
I will take as an example the Borodina battle of Napoleon, which according to some sources saw up to 130K men on each side with 600 cannons.
(Although I tried to mod that in defines, it is currently impossible since reducing regiment size to 1 also reduces damage/strengh/morale proportionnaly)
Secondly, cannons being so important in military, they used to be captured after battles just like ships were. This could lead a potential stalemate between two great powers to turn largely in favor of one or the other on a strategic scale, after one decisive battle which lead to the capture of a lot of cannons and thus gave country A a significant advantage.
UI
Speaking of UI, it seems the time to address the prevalent inaccuracy of EU4… which is accuracy !
Never in military history was one side perfectly aware of the positioning, strength and exact composition of an enemy army one province away.
There are indeed countless examples of armies encountering by “accident”, be it in antiquity or World War 1, passing through the Napoleonic era.
Not only should the player not know what is the exact army and manpower reserve of the enemy before launching a war (single player), during the war (war board) or even on the map.
This should rather be represented as an estimation (I.e. 80-120K men, 60-70 cannons,
), which could surely be refined with a highly developed Spy Network.
Ambushes
As a side note, I think a lot could be improved in the war mechanics, such as the ability to do ambushes, especially for natives. Open confrontation was not always possible especially with a large disproportion of forces, as it was the case in North America for the Seven Years War.
Some ambushes of inferior forces were especially important, such as the one which saw a British contingent annihilated and a certain George Washington being among the few survivors.
Although to be honest I would not know how to represent that as gameplay, except perhaps with the following suggestion
Terrain specific bonuses/maluses and units
Currently, the terrain bonus/malus is only represented with a certain dice roll of -1 or -2 for the attacker, and a choice of unit based on an offensive or defensive pip which the player or AI will do according to the terrain which is most common / favorable for its situation, both geographically and economically.
In reality though, choosing the proper terrain for battles, as well as building dedicated army compositions, was much more important.
That comes to no surprise that the Mongols, like all their Altaic predecessors, having before them an open steppe of thousands of miles, relied mainly on cavalry.
On the other hand, such units would prove much more difficult to use to tame the Russian forests, in which infantry, archers, arquebuses are much more efficient for guérilla warfare, or the high plateaux of Himalaya where there simply is no room to maneuver a high contingent of cavalry.
I thus suggest bringing more “specific terrain combat bonuses” à la CK3, which each country/army would have to carefully chose not only its units but also its ideal place of battle. Here are some ideas.
- natives infantry +20% damage in forest.
- mongol cavalry +20% damage in steppes, plains and grasslands
- mountains -50% damage from cavalry
This would also allow to get more region specific terrain bonuses for each unit type, instead of a rather simple -1 or -2 for the attacker, not taking into account whether the defender uses 100% cavalry which he can’t maneuver properly in a forest.
In fact, a Mongolian army of 100% cavalry fighting in the mountains is not better to maneuver be it offensive or defensive. That’s more the terrain itself which matters, than to be attacker or attacked.
This seems like the good moment to introduce such changes given the late increased apparition of “special units” like Samurai, marines, Tercios…
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