Warfare: Historical accuracy

[sandro chronicler]

So, what can be done to improve the sistem:
1) give option, by law or some other similar sistem (government reforms?), for different military structures -

a) current one more or les represent systems of China and some other asian countries, early byzantine empire, and some tribal cultures;
b) sistem of standing armies, based around large MaA regiments, funded by scutage, like ones that became common in LMA;
c) Feudal system, levies relegated for emergencies, vassals provide certain % of their MaA and knights (specified by contracts), and possibly modified by opinions and other circumstances (best friend could just join war with all his forces).

2) Heavy cavalry cost should be adjusted, OR feudal system should give some minor discount (whole point of vassal distribution was to circumvent inefficiency of this era underdeveloped logistics and industry, thus allowing to maintain elite force)

3) Bonuses for prowess and MaA regiment size should be scaled down at least slightly, especially high tier ones. This will stop problem of "super"-knights - typical knights wouldn't be so ridiculously stronger than other forces (i.e. elite MaA instead of levies)

 

[z3rO_]

Wow, so many of these ideas are terrible! This game needs a gargantuan tone down on gotcha mechanics, not making even more of them. We have enough as is with vassals, adding also "well, it says you have 3000 levy, but actually when you use it you will have 500, because other 2500 don't like you" or "well,it says you have 9 knights, but they actually all want to be emperors, so they don't participate instead."

If anything, I think the current Levy system is a great generalisation on different types of armies that are shit, compared to regular armies that are not shit. If armies to be changed, let's instead make the battlefield itself more engaging! With maybe some interactions or form of control in battle itself. We can even slightly differentiate the cultures in there, if needed.

 

[Qutb87]

No idea what "gotcha mechanics" are, but the game is ludicrously easy and provides no challenge or engagement once you look past certain flashy features. The levy system exemplifies this as it manages to be both wildly historically incorrect and a really bad gameplay design all in one. It was pretty obviously set up this way owing to a vocal chunk of the fan base wanting a Reddit meme generating map painter.

The current military set up ultimately manages to downgrade the importance of your interactions with vassals. Which flies in the face of the apparent CK3 idea that characters and your relationships with them are key.

 

[z3rO_]

No idea what "gotcha mechanics" are

Have you heard of the game "I wanna be The Guy!"? That's a pretty good example of a game build around gotcha mechanics - the whole idea is that the game kills you by arbitrary means at every opportunity.

CK3, admittedly, has very very little of that - thankfully - and almost everything of that sort that exists can be turned off.

But I just have a perfect example of one of those I found just this monday and only solved today morning - did you know that Ivar is incapable of delcaring a Claim War on Byzantine Empire under any circumstances because he has no leg? Well, now you know. Why does Ivar care that some Greek dudes deicde that legless people can't declare claim wars? No idea. Why does the game let you make a claim on Byzantine Empire when you don't have a leg even if you will never be able to use it because you can't have your leg back? No idea. How would you know that it works in this abitrary way unless someone told you or you stunbled on it yourself? No idea.

but the game is ludicrously easy and provides no challenge or engagement once you look past certain flashy features.

And I have never disputed that! But the game can be improved in that aspect quite easilly without giving us landmines - for example, teach AI to station MAA properly, maybe even build counties for their MAAs. Give us more events that need solving - Great Plague with a slider for deadliness would be great! How about a slider to make the mongol invasion significantly bigger? Bringing back toggleable Astecs would be pretty fun too - they were in CK2.

The levy system exemplifies this as it manages to be both wildly historically incorrect and a really bad gameplay design all in one.

I would dispute that, since simple =\= bad. Again, as a generalixation mechanic is it perfect. Especially considering that I think it is deliberately designed to be not a big focus.

But hey, a good implementation of different types of Levy could be welcome, can't disagree. But PLEASE a good one.

The current military set up ultimately manages to downgrade the importance of your interactions with vassals.

Not going to lie, that system needs a few upgrades too, before applying it to military. I am sure that having Dukes if you are a King wasn't making your Kingdom *directly worse in every aspect*. I mean, having Vassals currently is pretty distructive as is with very little payoff, so vassal contracts overall need work too - mixmaxing notwithstanding, of course.

 

[LebaneseDude]

It's important to remember that these are all abstractions and the terms that are used to represent said abstraction are typically "pop culture" terms because this is a game and random people who aren't history/military buffs need to understand what they are using.

A good example that Paradox uses is knights. Each knight is supposed to represent a retinue of soldiers led by the knight which you see assigned. It's not a "one man army".

Anyway reading the thread I feel people might be interested in the More Interactive Vassals mod which basically makes wars a lot more involved when it comes to vassals and indirectly affects army compositions to make levies much less relevant since vassals which are called bring their own men-at-arms/knights.

 

[sandro chronicler]

How would you know that it works in this abitrary way unless someone told you or you stunbled on it yourself? No idea.

This is in their cultural traditions

I mean, having Vassals currently is pretty distructive as is with very little payoff,

which is pretty realistic; Thing is, realistically NOT having this vassals would be much worse.

 

[Dunerat]

I want me, for starters, a Government-menu selection of options/"modes" Law that define one's chosen flavour of how their military is supposedly run, with relatively strong modifiers. Options different from the cultural ones that tinker with military. Lets just call it Armed Forces.

Armed Forces options, something like this:

A) (ahistoric) Imperial Army - massed waves of stereotypical pop-culture Levies, with some small elite MMA units in the mix. This is more or less what we have right now, arguments that insist Levies in the game are actually semi-professional militias notwithstanding. Default setting for most start date Central Asian Realms, as well as Russia and France from faaaaaar beyond the end date of CK3.
B) (somewhat ahistoric) Crown Army - Heavy focus on MMA, drastic decrease in Levy size, this form of organization consists of a permanent fighting unit/warrior caste paid for and maintained directly by the Crown. Default setting for Byzantines (?), Bulgarians (?) and also unlockable with higher levels of Crown Authority only.
C) (somewhat historic) Noble Banner-Men - A significant change of how the game currently functions, this "mode" keeps some small personal forces of direct control of the Liege, however the main difference is that their Vassals are directly called to/involved in Wars, and thus bring their own armies with them on the side of the Liege. Default setting for Franks/French Realms and western europe in general.
D) (very historic) Contract Army - a mode incredibly focused on the use of external Mercenaries, that will give something like discounts for mercenary hiring aswell as extended service time until contract expiration for these sellsword forces. Personally-owned MMA and Levy size are of less number/strength in turn. Default setting for most of the Middle East, some Realms in western and central europe, the Byzantines when they had lower Crown Authority in their less-glorious years (and the OG Romans before them), the Bulgarians when they had lower Crown Authority pre-falls, so on.
E) Something default for Tribals ???????
F) ???????????

 

[z3rO_]

This is in their cultural traditions

Great! I am not Greek, have no relations to Greeks, and even though I have no ability to use the claim, the game still lets me make it. There is 0 reason for me to believe anything is going wrong.

which is pretty realistic; Thing is, realistically NOT having this vassals would be much worse.

No argument there. Not how the game *really* work, though. Hence why I said they need work, at least bitt.

 

[Tuo]

But I just have a perfect example of one of those I found just this monday and only solved today morning - did you know that Ivar is incapable of delcaring a Claim War on Byzantine Empire under any circumstances because he has no leg? Well, now you know. Why does Ivar care that some Greek dudes deicde that legless people can't declare claim wars? No idea. Why does the game let you make a claim on Byzantine Empire when you don't have a leg even if you will never be able to use it because you can't have your leg back? No idea. How would you know that it works in this abitrary way unless someone told you or you stunbled on it yourself? No idea.

Claim wars are based on those claims being recognized as valid by the vassals of the claim holder (who, I should mention, will accept you as their liege on a successful claim war and contribute tax and levies). There are plenty of wars that don't care about the opinion of the attacked peoples (holy wars, conquest, invasion), but claim wars explicitly rely on the claim being seen as valid. If they didn't, why would you require a claim to declare them? By the same logic, Ivar can just declare that he has a claim on the Byzantine Empire and everyone who disagrees can shove it.

Just use an appropriate CB.

 

[z3rO_]

By the same logic, Ivar can just declare that he has a claim on the Byzantine Empire and everyone who disagrees can shove it.

I mean, is that not how Fabricating a Claim works? You literally just bullshit a paper that says "I made it " that no one can disagree with for some reason.

Just use an appropriate CB.

An appropriate CB doesn't exist, because every other CB is "neighbouring" and that doesn't include water borders, for some reason. So, uh, other CBs don't exist, actually. I wish they did though.

 

[z3rO_]

A) (ahistoric) Imperial Army - massed waves of stereotypical pop-culture Levies, with some small elite MMA units in the mix. This is more or less what we have right now, arguments that insist Levies in the game are actually semi-professional militias notwithstanding. Default setting for most start date Central Asian Realms, as well as Russia and France from faaaaaar beyond the end date of CK3.
B) (somewhat ahistoric) Crown Army - Heavy focus on MMA, drastic decrease in Levy size, this form of organization consists of a permanent fighting unit/warrior caste paid for and maintained directly by the Crown. Default setting for Byzantines (?), Bulgarians (?) and also unlockable with higher levels of Crown Authority only.
C) (somewhat historic) Noble Banner-Men - A significant change of how the game currently functions, this "mode" keeps some small personal forces of direct control of the Liege, however the main difference is that their Vassals are directly called to/involved in Wars, and thus bring their own armies with them on the side of the Liege. Default setting for Franks/French Realms and western europe in general.
D) (very historic) Contract Army - a mode incredibly focused on the use of external Mercenaries, that will give something like discounts for mercenary hiring aswell as extended service time until contract expiration for these sellsword forces. Personally-owned MMA and Levy size are of less number/strength in turn. Default setting for most of the Middle East, some Realms in western and central europe, the Byzantines when they had lower Crown Authority in their less-glorious years (and the OG Romans before them), the Bulgarians when they had lower Crown Authority pre-falls, so on.

This is all very cool, actually, but I would like to note that all of those can be emulated using Culture\Religion customisation, and I assume that's what Paradox wants us to do.

Would it be neat to maybe change Cultures to be appropriate to what was historical per region instead, maybe?

 

[Tuo]

I mean, is that not how Fabricating a Claim works? You literally just bullshit a paper that says "I made it " that no one can disagree with for some reason.

And that's why fabricating a claim takes time and money to make it look legitimate enough.

An appropriate CB doesn't exist, because every other CB is "neighbouring" and that doesn't include water borders, for some reason. So, uh, other CBs don't exist, actually. I wish they did though.

Do you think you should have a freely usable CB on any title at any given time?

 

[Renarin]

If anything, I think the current Levy system is a great generalisation on different types of armies that are shit, compared to regular armies that are not shit. If armies to be changed, let's instead make the battlefield itself more engaging! With maybe some interactions or form of control in battle itself. We can even slightly differentiate the cultures in there, if needed.

The thing is, levies generally weren't shit, that's almost exactly why it's a bad generalization.
Having troops that are terrible in a fight is worse than useless, they would eat your food and just get in the way during battle. The point of a levy is to outsource the job of paying for training and equipment onto some portion of the public through obligations enforced through fines or other punishment. A more modern example (though with less outsourcing of weapon ownership) is Switzerland. The English archers at Agincourt were levies, and they did just fine on approach and in melee with the French knights.
Levies were required to show up with an intact body, weapons and armor meeting some standards, and a basic level of competence related to their kit and expected battlefield role, otherwise it was treated as a few degrees less criminal than desertion. If anything CKII's system was more accurate when it comes to army composition, but was also just kinda trash in almost every other way.

 

[z3rO_]

Do you think you should have a freely usable CB on any title at any given time?

Of course not, I think I should have a freely usable CB on any given County at any given time. We even have, like, two. I think? Holy ones and Pursuit of Power ones, if I'm not mistaken.

And that's not what my problem was - no need to exagerrate! I asked why people that I actively can engage with are not counted as neighbours through the sea even though they are in a diplomatic range and are my neighbours by sea. Sea exists, people travel it. Why are we not neighbours?

 

[z3rO_]

The thing is, levies generally weren't shit, that's almost exactly why it's a bad generalization.
Having troops that are terrible in a fight is worse than useless, they would eat your food and just get in the way during battle. The point of a levy is to outsource the job of paying for training and equipment onto some portion of the public through obligations enforced through fines or other punishment. A more modern example (though with less outsourcing of weapon ownership) is Switzerland. The English archers at Agincourt were levies, and they did just fine on approach and in melee with the French knights.
Levies were required to show up with an intact body, weapons and armor meeting some standards, and a basic level of competence related to their kit and expected battlefield role, otherwise it was treated as a few degrees less criminal than desertion. If anything CKII's system was more accurate when it comes to army composition, but was also just kinda trash in almost every other way.

Huh, cool to know!

No idea how to model that though. Could a court position that specialises in managing the Levy work? Or was that delegated spicifically to vassals?

A decigion in Royal Court that would make you choose stuff for your Levies, like the Food and Fashion sliders would probably worrk for that.

 

[Comrade_Boris]

Huh, cool to know!

No idea how to model that though. Could a court position that specialises in managing the Levy work? Or was that delegated spicifically to vassals?

A decigion in Royal Court that would make you choose stuff for your Levies, like the Food and Fashion sliders would probably worrk for that.

The way you model it is simply by making MAA and knights not as ridiculously more powerful than levies. Full stop, CK3 warfare is fixed with one simple change. Because unless you fix the current issue where levies are actively detrimental to your army once you have a sufficient amount of MAA (and the AI are totally unaware of this), you will continue to have broken warfare.

CK3's current system has a lot of perks, it's simple, not convoluted and doesn't have a lot of cosmetic fluff that doesn't make real differences, or worse presenting a real choice with only one correct answer (a la some suggestions to have army organizations where you can trade levy count for MAA count, regardless of the exchange rate, MAA is always the correct answer).

A key part of this is accepting levies for what they are in CK3, they're not meme/popculture peasants just thrown into battle. They are freemen with their own equipment, local militias who still train for warfare and have equipment or otherwise people prepared for war but not necessarily full time elite professionals. This is also why we see Mercenary companies still have "levies", they're presumable picking up freemen "contractors" to bolster their ranks. This is also why Byzantines still use levies. They had a much more professional system then western Europe sure, but effectively a lot of their units were still militias. Professional soldiers but not super elite.

 

[Allahui]

Have you heard of the game "I wanna be The Guy!"? That's a pretty good example of a game build around gotcha mechanics - the whole idea is that the game kills you by arbitrary means at every opportunity.

CK3, admittedly, has very very little of that - thankfully - and almost everything of that sort that exists can be turned off.

But I just have a perfect example of one of those I found just this monday and only solved today morning - did you know that Ivar is incapable of delcaring a Claim War on Byzantine Empire under any circumstances because he has no leg? Well, now you know. Why does Ivar care that some Greek dudes deicde that legless people can't declare claim wars? No idea. Why does the game let you make a claim on Byzantine Empire when you don't have a leg even if you will never be able to use it because you can't have your leg back? No idea. How would you know that it works in this abitrary way unless someone told you or you stunbled on it yourself? No idea.

Because of how claims work within the byzantine empire, as physical impediment renders legitimacy moot, you can still conquer or invade it, but you cant claim it as your claim has no basis

And I have never disputed that! But the game can be improved in that aspect quite easilly without giving us landmines - for example, teach AI to station MAA properly, maybe even build counties for their MAAs. Give us more events that need solving - Great Plague with a slider for deadliness would be great! How about a slider to make the mongol invasion significantly bigger? Bringing back toggleable Astecs would be pretty fun too - they were in CK2.

Aztecs? Really dude?

I would dispute that, since simple =\= bad. Again, as a generalixation mechanic is it perfect. Especially considering that I think it is deliberately designed to be not a big focus.

But hey, a good implementation of different types of Levy could be welcome, can't disagree. But PLEASE a good one.

Yes its called ck2 levies instead of giga knights and machine gun longbows

Not going to lie, that system needs a few upgrades too, before applying it to military. I am sure that having Dukes if you are a King wasn't making your Kingdom *directly worse in every aspect*. I mean, having Vassals currently is pretty distructive as is with very little payoff, so vassal contracts overall need work too - mixmaxing notwithstanding, of course.

If you can't effectively rule all that land because of how spread out it is then you gain from having those dukes, play ck2 with /4 demense and vassal limit and you'll see far more feudal developments (until empires put all their vassals under a vassal king )

 

[z3rO_]

Because of how claims work within the byzantine empire

Exactly, I thought so too, but it turns out they work on everyone, not just within Byzantine Empire. The issue is long past though, I found a roundabout way.

Aztecs? Really dude?

Yea! I remember them in CK2, they kicked some ass. I think you could even make them more buff like the Mongols, but I'm not very sure. CK3 needs some buff sliders, is what I'm saying. Yes, they aren't exactly historical, but neither are pots landing on king's or queen's heads. And hey, both can be turned off!

Yes its called ck2 levies instead of giga knights and machine gun longbows

But CK2 Levies sucked too! They were always weaker then Retinues, because they didn't get Retinue buffs, and because they were of mixed troops types - usually - they never ever could proc special tactics in battle to become gigabuff. It was just as easy as it is in CK3 to annihilate crusades wholesale with just Prestige LightCav if you could consistenty get a composition that procs Raid, not even mentioning Cataphracts and Embolon Charge Formation Tactic. Or the Warrior Lodge Tactics.

Okay, maybe they sucked a bit less because they actually had types, but overall I would hardly call it much of an improvement. MAA are just as much of Space Marines as Retinues in CK2 are, if we consider that a problem.

If you can't effectively rule all that land because of how spread out it is then you gain from having those dukes, play ck2 with /4 demense and vassal limit and you'll see far more feudal developments (until empires put all their vassals under a vassal king )

Considering that Vassals are - in general - massive dicks, it can easilly be better to rule ineffectively, or not blob at all, in fact. Unless you have researched literally all Vassal Opinion Technology, or unless you are a thicc hot queen. Actually I never tried that in CK3, but my god it worked unbelievably well in CK2.

Besides, making a Cult of Personality is effective in both CK2 and CK3, if you want.

see far more feudal developments (until empires put all their vassals under a vassal king )

Interesting. What exactly would change, and why are Vassal Kings a problem?

 

[naq29]

If anything, I think the current Levy system is a great generalisation on different types of armies that are shit, compared to regular armies that are not shit. If armies to be changed, let's instead make the battlefield itself more engaging! With maybe some interactions or form of control in battle itself. We can even slightly differentiate the cultures in there, if needed.

well but then Mongols use like 50000 shit soldiers and 200 horse archers to conquer Europe?

 

[z3rO_]

well but then Mongols use like 50000 shit soldiers and 200 horse archers to conquer Europe?

Mongols in history or in game? I assume in game, and there is no reason not to give Mongols 50000 Horse Archers. Like, actual MAAs, wholesale. I would prefer it, in fact.