War is...annoying...

[Piggy]

The time factor explains why my wars have gone like this:

1. Siege. After about a year, province falls.
2. Move on to next province.
3. Enemy moves into newly abandoned province, assaults the incredibly small garrison, and takes the province back in < 10 days.
4. Repeat.

This was discussed in another thread and I do believe someone said that these sort of things have been tweaked since the demo was built. Release version could be much different, we'll just have to wait a few more days.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=281673

 

[Galahorn]

Contrary to my expectations, as I do with any strategy game, war is extremely annoying and unrealistic in EU3.
1. Your army doesn't reinforce itself in enemy territory. Manpower will only decrease, even when not in combat.
2. Defeated enemy armies can retreat into provinces you have just/previously conquered, and lay siege to them again Encirclements simply doesn't work like it does in HOI2. Simply Silly.
For a game like this, you'd think waging war would actually be fun...

Never played EU before, so I don't know whether or not this has always been the case. Kinda doubting whether or not pre-ordering the CE was actually a good decision to make.

Everytime u invade always keep 1k troop behing. If enemy retires in ur province then he'll be knocked back to the invaded one, back and forth, back and forth until it get whooped. Even if that defeated troop siege ur land, take time to finish ur siege and then knock them out.

 

[unmerged(18802)]

Yes, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. Having to chase 400 men all over a country wears you down when a campaign then involves five times as many battles (four out of five being piddling and unimportant) and therefore five times as many pop up messages that you have to close. That's five times as much mouse-clicking, and it's completely unnecessary. Something the leader of a country shouldn't be concerned about is having to manually chase "armies" of 120 men all over a country when they're defeated.

That's also an unrealistic way of treating a beaten army. How many defeated armies in history have behaved like that? Not every single one, that's for sure. If you beat an army five times they'll probably desert in droves or hang their general.

The Paradox games's biggest problem has always been ergonomy. This new game looks like a step backwards in that sense.

 

[Moltke]

War is indeed annoying, even if you have 2 armies the enemy still bounces around causing pop ups. When defeated the enemy should retreat only toward its own territory, never away. If it can't then... tough shit, it has to die.

 

[frpe02]

Yep, and it should definitively not retreat to the province the attacker came from.

 

[Ming]

On thing I noticed in my game as ulster was that the tiny 1 regiment army often 'outfought' my larger force (about 5000 troops). I was winning the battles mind you, but I would lose 200 something men to their 29 or so. I quickly lost interest in chasing this unit to destruction.

 

[Piggy]

Well I say dont get too worked up over this. From what Ive read on forums in the last few days there's been alott of tweaking since the demo build so these things "may" not be present in the release version.

@Ming, that one Irish regiment was probably cavalry right, did you have any cavalry in your army or was it all infantry? Was it lead by a general?

 

[unmerged(41286)]

Yes, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. Having to chase 400 men all over a country wears you down when a campaign then involves five times as many battles (four out of five being piddling and unimportant) and therefore five times as many pop up messages that you have to close. That's five times as much mouse-clicking, and it's completely unnecessary. Something the leader of a country shouldn't be concerned about is having to manually chase "armies" of 120 men all over a country when they're defeated.

Um... Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? should I continue...

I don't want to change this into a political discussion (believe me!) but history is filled with "minor" battles that will wear down a country because a few "beaten" troops will not "just die". In that sense, I think that they've done a marvolous job... you know the behavior of the beaten troops, now adjust your tactics accordingly... isn't that the essence of strategic games?

 

[Reveilled]

Um... Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? should I continue...

I don't want to change this into a political discussion (believe me!) but history is filled with "minor" battles that will wear down a country because a few "beaten" troops will not "just die". In that sense, I think that they've done a marvolous job... you know the behavior of the beaten troops, now adjust your tactics accordingly... isn't that the essence of strategic games?

The essence of strategic games, any games, is fun.

 

[Ming]

@Ming, that one Irish regiment was probably cavalry right, did you have any cavalry in your army or was it all infantry? Was it lead by a general?

We were both Irish minors, I doubt either had a general. I *did* have cavalry, (Latin Knights) but there were probably very few by that point. The opposing army was as you say, most likely the starting unit of knights.

I ended the War of Irish unification with 44 knights left. Dunno how many were alive when I was boxing with that lone unit.

 

[unmerged(56231)]

Um... Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? should I continue...

You're mentioning guerilla warfare here, and yes you shouldn't continue, as they do not fight war in a conventional way. Enemy territory to them is nothing.

 

[unmerged(59737)]

Just leave a 1000 man covering force in the province you just took and move the rest of the army on to the next siege. It’s really quite simple.

 

[minority]

You're mentioning guerilla warfare here, and yes you shouldn't continue, as they do not fight war in a conventional way. Enemy territory to them is nothing.

Well it must be said that enemy controlled provinces during the EU timeframe is nothing as well. As said, you only control several strongpoints, and during those times, it was impossible to have complete cover of the countryside with just garrison troops.

Anyway beating those guys give you extra warscore (however miniscule), and it should never be very easy to occupy huge swaths of land anyway during this period IMHO. So unless you win a devastating campaign (utter destruction of the enemy's army), then it should not be easy for you to occupy big tracts of land.

cheers

 

[Strager]

War! Uggh! Yeeeeah! What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing!

 

[saskganesh]

Just leave a 1000 man covering force in the province you just took and move the rest of the army on to the next siege. It’s really quite simple.

doh.

 

[AdmiralNelson]

At any rate, I can't think of a war where the attacking forces just formed a wall of troops and engaged in a general offensive along the whole front, leaving no one behind to garrison/protect/hold/defend captured enemy territory.

Your assault and subsequent defense have to have some depth to them.

 

[Duuk]

An army with 0 morale will retreat (but the enemy gets 1 parting shot as it leaves so it's possible that the damage done could be enough to destroy it).

Any time that one side is 10x the size of the enemy force, the smaller side "surrenders" (i.e. the army is automatically destroyed)

10x seems excessive unless battles are pretty bloody.

And routed units should always retreat towards friendly-controlled lands or be destroyed.

This was as true in 1453 as it was in 1945.

 

[unmerged(4444)]

Just leave a 1000 man covering force in the province you just took and move the rest of the army on to the next siege. It’s really quite simple.

Funnily enough, in my very first game of EU (1), I did exactly this, on the assumption that the forts I'd just conquered would now be empty and vulnerable to recapture. It never occurred to me to think that they would magically be filled with 1000 new troops as soon as I'd captured them...

I like that newly-captured forts are now empty and weak, BUT I think an option to man the fortifications with a portion of your army before you move on would be handy. That is, click a certain button and 1000 (or whatever) soldiers would disappear from your army and appear in the garrison. Why not?

 

[AdmiralNelson]

I like that newly-captured forts are now empty and weak, BUT I think an option to man the fortifications with a portion of your army before you move on would be handy. That is, click a certain button and 1000 (or whatever) soldiers would disappear from your army and appear in the garrison. Why not?

Brilliant. This must be implemented immediately!





...or whenever you find the time.

 

[minority]

NIce idea, although if it's 1000, it's the whole regiment. So it's much better to simply leave one regiment behind. Of course I understand 1000 men on the field is different from 1000 men behind the walls.

In any case, I really don't mind leaving my conquering army in newly occupied provinces for a while. I'd like to think that armies weren't rapid forces back then.

cheers