[Megathread] Warfare Discussion

[gekp78]

So I was playing Persia, industrializing pretty well and all that. But Oman controls part of Persia, I think its Luristan? Anyway, I start a diplo play and Makran joins Oman and no one else gets involved. I have 48 battalions to their 13. I have a slight tech and PM advantage. My troops are better and far more numerous. Cakewalk right? No. When the war starts I put all my troops into the front with Oman, figuring I'll crush their soldiers quickly. I can see in the front and the battle screens my troops do have better stats. But EVERY battle is either 2 of my battalions vs 3 of theirs, or 1 of mine vs 2 of theirs. Every single one. So I lose every battle. Despite having more and better troops, my troops were outnumbered in every fight. Meanwhile, Makran with their 2 battalions is blitzing unopposed in another front in my east before I figure out that I can't manually assign troops. I have to recruit a general, put him on a front, and then also promote him so he has a decent amount of troops. I win a battle or two against Makran, while still losing battles to Oman due to being inexplicably outnumbered. But then as I retake provinces back from Makran, my fronts merge and both generals end up losing every battle to Oman. Meanwhile, Makran puts its troops BACK into the second front and starts taking provinces again. I once again redeploy one of my generals to the second front but this time he only brings 1 battalion to every fight against Makran's 2. So now I am losing every battle on both fronts, despite every number being in my favor. And I'm just sitting there like, you have so many more soldiers JUST USE THEM! I ended up losing the war. Despite having a larger, and more capable army. Because for some reason the most battalions my general would deploy in battle was 2, but only if Oman brought 3 battalions, otherwise my general would only deploy 1. Frustrating.

 

[Zymes]

Same problem. Had 40 guys vs 10 and lost the war. Same tech/region.

My general sends conscripts to fight every fight instead of my regulars so I lose every battle.

 

[Zymes]

My general keep sending in my weakest units in battle.

I have 40 vs 10 on the frontline. And my general keeps sending in conscripts without any manpower in every fight which for some reason becomes 3 vs 3.

I have 20 fully manpowered armies which are never used in a single battle.

He also chose to send in the low morale troops every fight instead of my full morale troops.

The end result is I lose the entire war. This makes no sense at all.

I have no way to remove my weakest army or consolidate anything.

This is game breaking.

 

[gekp78]

Same problem. Had 40 guys vs 10 and lost the war. Same tech/region.

My general sends conscripts to fight every fight instead of my regulars so I lose every battle.

None of my troops were conscripts. All 48 battalions were regulars. My generals just can't count past 2.

 

[Nuklearius]

I just had the same issue with Ottomans vs Egypt. They destroyed me, even on fronts where I outnumbered them vastly. Really bizarre and frustrating, also the game crashed 2 times on me during war.

 

[Kipsta]

Same problem. Had 40 guys vs 10 and lost the war. Same tech/region.

My general sends conscripts to fight every fight instead of my regulars so I lose every battle.

Trust the plan. Z

 

[Lord Lambert]

I just had the same issue with Ottomans vs Egypt. They destroyed me, even on fronts where I outnumbered them vastly. Really bizarre and frustrating, also the game crashed 2 times on me during war.

You are running irregular infantry vs Egypts line infantry. Check the offence and defence of your units vs theirs

 

[Nuklearius]

You are running irregular infantry vs Egypts line infantry. Check the offence and defence of your units vs theirs

But I wasn't. I had long upgraded them (only attacked in 1842). The Egyptians had slightly better artillery but they were badly outnumbered on every front.
Every time a battle started numbers were either equal or inferior for my side, it was ridicilous.

I was on the fence on warfare before, but this really isn't a good system.
THE NUMBERS YOU HAVE IN YOUR ARMY DON'T MATTER THEY ONLY INCREASE PROGRESS SPEED FOR THE NEXT BATTLE. EVERY BATTLE NUMBERS ARE AUTOMATICALLY EQUALIZED BETWEEN BOTH PARTICIPANTS BY THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. EVEN IF YOU BRING ONE MILLION MEN ONLY 20000 WILL FIGHT IF THATS THE SIZE OF THE ENEMY ARMY.

 

[Cyhort]

So as much as I want stacks back, I'll gladly give up that dream if PDX lets us have some control over this war system. Let it be another screen with numbers going up and down, but for the love of God let us at least be able to organize our armies and select where they fight or what their goals are. As it is now, after war is declared the game just plays itself. And despite what has been suggested by some people, removing player agency hasn't made the war AI any better. If anything, it highlights how terrible it is because there's only the AI messing up every aspect of fighting its own wars.

 

[sterrius]

I was testing war by going for Brazil that start with 2 wars.
Its a nice test because its exactly 10 vs 10 units (if you split the generals) and both have the same stats;

Defense is clearly better than offense in this game, at least game start. You can grind the opposition to eventually get superior numbers and finally win (Advantage will track, usually when you are 20+ on green you will start to win most of the time).

So do not go crazy with the attack button even if you're superior in numbers. Battles clearly have widht (Don´t know what determines how many will join the battle) and you can´t just place 30+ troops vs .

Also if you have 2+ generals in a front you can have 2+ battles at same time in that front. (Not 100% Sure). So it could be you can overwhelm a enemy by placing 3+ generals and making them all attack at once.

What i could not figure out is how reinforcement of damaged troops works?
And how the lack of rifles, cannons, etc affect the troops?

If someone can somehow explain to me where i can see this detail i will thank you .


The war system looks VERY simple but its a very big trap.
There is a lot happening hidden from you. Like the battle rolls for example.

 

[Lord Lambert]

But I wasn't. I had long upgraded them (only attacked in 1842). The Egyptians had slightly better artillery but they were badly outnumbered on every front.
Every time a battle started numbers were either equal or inferior for my side, it was ridicilous.

I was on the fence on warfare before, but this really isn't a good system.
THE NUMBERS YOU HAVE IN YOUR ARMY DON'T MATTER THEY ONLY INCREASE PROGRESS SPEED FOR THE NEXT BATTLE. EVERY BATTLE NUMBERS ARE AUTOMATICALLY EQUALIZED BETWEEN BOTH PARTICIPANTS BY THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. EVEN IF YOU BRING ONE MILLION MEN ONLY 20000 WILL FIGHT IF THATS THE SIZE OF THE ENEMY ARMY.

My bad, in that case... no idea

I've been complaining about warfare since the very first dev diary so you wont see me defending it at all lol.

 

[Challenge]

Not unlike the situation that led the Light Brigade to charge a dug in, heavy Artillery Regiment.

I wonder if his stats could show a reason behind this odd behavior. The DD on warfare did mention that generals' stats could influence how the battle goes. That, however, seems a bit extreme.

 

[Ex Mudder]

I'm still trying to figure out how Russia sent 100k troops to fight the US in the mexican american war.

 

[sterrius]

I took a few questions about combat and explained on the topic below.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/help-understanding-frontlines-system.1550540/


but im yet to find why X troop goes first.
Terrain buffs/penaltys
and how combat widht works. (EDIT: Found the widht on game files, posted on the topic above).

 

[Zymes]

I don't need to move stacks around. I just need this general AI to be fixed to not keep using my low morale units instead of the full morale reserves that do nothing.

 

[Tukata]

The AI in general and everything related to it seems completely broken. We'll need a patch asap, mods can't do everything.

 

[GermanDave]

My general keep sending in my weakest units in battle.

...

I just watched cloak71 an Hoi4 streamer fight Austria as Prussia and the automatic frontline system decided that it would be a good idea to send in the smallest stack of units without artillery to attack an Austrian doom-stack. 71cloak couldn't control where units would concentrate for an attack.
Is this what people wanted. Glad I didn't purchase this game. After so many years with this game engine PDX could not figure out a cross between the hoi4 frontline system and Vic2, sad.

 

[stalindlrp]

Honestly my biggest issue with the system is it doesn tell you anything. Same tech, same number of regiments but somehow i had less then half the power and no explanation why it had such a disparity.

 

[Inquerion]

My general keep sending in my weakest units in battle.

I have 40 vs 10 on the frontline. And my general keeps sending in conscripts without any manpower in every fight which for some reason becomes 3 vs 3.

I have 20 fully manpowered armies which are never used in a single battle.

He also chose to send in the low morale troops every fight instead of my full morale troops.

The end result is I lose the entire war. This makes no sense at all.

I have no way to remove my weakest army or consolidate anything.

This is game breaking.

Well, people were saying that system will work like this since April or even since warfare DD. You wanted automatic warfare, you have automatic warfare.

I remember being downvoted to hell when I said that General AI will never be on the level of the player and that's why OPTIONAL micro would be nice to have in the game.

People said: "Micro removed? Great! Now warfare will be really good since, there will be no warfare meta anymore! Now warfare will be "fair" and balanced for the player and AI!" - 500 upvotes back then.

 

[sterrius]

My general keep sending in my weakest units in battle.

I have 40 vs 10 on the frontline. And my general keeps sending in conscripts without any manpower in every fight which for some reason becomes 3 vs 3.

I have 20 fully manpowered armies which are never used in a single battle.

He also chose to send in the low morale troops every fight instead of my full morale troops.

The end result is I lose the entire war. This makes no sense at all.

I have no way to remove my weakest army or consolidate anything.

This is game breaking.

1 - its late but it looks like im getting somewhere with the always sending weak troops.

Look if they are all linked to the same barracks. It looks like the game always select the top barracks from the general to go first even if there is 100% troops in another barracks from another state under his command.

Its a bug.

2 - about all fighta being 3x3.
There is widht in the game.
And its also clear there is a max value of troops per battle.
Similar to eu4 but without the reinforcement mechanic.