Why are stack wipes in the game?

[Pellucid]

I'm curious about why stack wipes are still in Europa Universalis. I understood why they existed in EU1, 2, and to some extent 3, due to the difficulty with programming the AI to understand when it's winning or losing a war, and certainly up until EU2 where 100% warscore was virtually mandatory to get any concessions from an AI nation. It seems, however, that EU4's manpower system and the comparable robustness of the peace AI no longer necessitates one nation being able to erase the existence of another's army. From what I understand (and correct me if I'm wrong, as my historical forte doesn't cover a lot of the game's scope), such complete erasures were relatively rare during the timeframe of EU4; perhaps almost as rare as large nations like The Mamlukes being annexed in one go, and that action seems to be anathema to the current developers.

Additionally, I'm not sure what stack wipes add to the game in terms of mechanics other than to signal "OK now you've definitely lost the war" (unless you have a robust economy and a lot of access to mercenaries). I can think of a lot of things it takes away: realism when fighting less advanced nations, for example ("The Chinese army vanished instantly upon sighting the Portuguese landing force; scientists cannot explain their disappearance to this day, but it almost certainly had something to do with aliens"), along with an unrealistic portrayal of the way smaller nations resisted larger ones during the period (welp, we lined up and fought them face to face and now our army's just gone forever). It also unfairly advantages the human player, who is more capable of exploiting the stack wipe mechanics than the AI is.

Imagine if real war worked the way it does in EU4, with one army being defeated and another chasing it all the way across its entire fatherland so it can finish them off before their morale can recover. I'm honestly surprised I don't see this brought up as often as I see many other engine issues brought up around here.

So does anyone know why stack wipes still exist? Have the devs ever addressed this? Did I miss something obvious?

 

[Rambo Panda]

I can kind of rationalize stack wipes not as the entire army being killed off, but the morale being shattered beyond recovery and the remaining survivors desert and take off. I'm not a fan of the stack wiping as a necessity, but without it a war would take forever. As long as an enemy has a sizable army it's very reluctant to even make white peace, I find that even with their army routed and at less than half strength the AI still thinks it has a chance. The whole war enthusiasm and overwhelming dominance of the war length and army size in peace negotiations make even small one-sided wars take years to complete sometimes.

 

[ssuperflash1]

When the army dissaperas, not all of it dies. Some of them are "supposed" to surrender, runaway, reform elsewhere, etc. Of course they actually DON'T reform elsewhere but you get my point.

 

[Pellucid]

When the army dissaperas, not all of it dies. Some of them are "supposed" to surrender, runaway, reform elsewhere, etc. Of course they actually DON'T reform elsewhere but you get my point.

If that were the case you'd get some of your manpower back after a wipe.

 

[ssuperflash1]

Which is why I said their supposed to and they don't.

 

[Demonsul]

If that were the case you'd get some of your manpower back after a wipe.

Why? They've deserted or surrendered. The 'run away and reform elsewhere' is what happens in a shattered retreat anyway.

 

[unmerged(811747)]

I'm okay with the retreat mechanics, except when armies are globetrotting (think that's getting reduced to a max ten provinces in 1.5).

But I'd like to see a system where all, or 1/2 or a 1/3 of the remaining stack-to-be-wiped returns to the country's/countries' manpower pool. Simulating an abandoned army that needs to be rebuilt from scratch, rather than reinforced, at usual costs. It seems a bit weird after meticulously defeating 5,000 infantry in one battle, sees the massacre of the remaining 30,000 infantry in the stackwipe battle. Especially with stacks that have 0 morale at the beginning of a war.

Of course you need to strike that balance of never ending wars, as soldiers should die, but instead of the stack wipe, at least consider that some soldiers may return to duty.

Why it's been dev'd the way it has... dunno. But I feel manpower should work both ways - e.g. shouldnt disbanding an army give you some manpower in return???

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

Stackwiping isn't a mechanic designed to make the AI "smarter". Stackwiping is a mechanic designed to prevent endless ping-pong caused by low-morale armies retreating after the minimum battle time, which has the side-effect of minimizing the amount of losses an army takes. In EU3, it wasn't uncommon for 20k stacks to require fighting upwards of 20 battles before they finally were finished off, because it took too many casualties before the stackwipe would trigger.

 

[Pellucid]

Stackwiping isn't a mechanic designed to make the AI "smarter". Stackwiping is a mechanic designed to prevent endless ping-pong caused by low-morale armies retreating after the minimum battle time, which has the side-effect of minimizing the amount of losses an army takes. In EU3, it wasn't uncommon for 20k stacks to require fighting upwards of 20 battles before they finally were finished off, because it took too many casualties before the stackwipe would trigger.

That ping pong is only possible because the fort system doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be realistically possible, after you ping an enemy army, for you to send a huge army deep into enemy territory to pong them back. They should have a great deal of time to regroup before you're able to push past their fortresses and castles and engage them again.

That is to say, an unrealistic and silly mechanic has been "fixed" by creating another, arguably MORE unrealistic and silly mechanic, when the real culprit is dancing around thumbing its nose at us as it has been since EU1.

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

That ping pong is only possible because the fort system doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be realistically possible, after you ping an enemy army, for you to send a huge army deep into enemy territory to pong them back. They should have a great deal of time to regroup before you're able to push past their fortresses and castles and engage them again.

That is to say, an unrealistic and silly mechanic has been "fixed" by creating another, arguably MORE unrealistic and silly mechanic, when the real culprit is dancing around thumbing its nose at us as it has been since EU1.

Stackwiping is fine. It's more unrealistic to expect every last man in the opposing army to need to be hunted down and killed -- when a stack wipes, as said above, it can be assumed that not everyone is dead, just fled/in hiding and unable to return. I do think that the ease at which stackwipes happen now though definitely needs to be tweaked. And it might be a decent idea to add some sort of "trickleback" effect which would cause a percentage of the manpower "lost" in a stackwipe to slowly return to the pool. Not all of it. Probably something closer to between 30-50% of what's lost. But stackwiping should definitely still be a thing that exists.

 

[Pellucid]

Can you cite a positive thing stackwiping adds to the gameplay? What would be the disadvantage of removing it? The only one I've heard is ping-pong, but that's not demonstrably worse than armies vanishing.

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

Can you cite a positive thing stackwiping adds to the gameplay? What would be the disadvantage of removing it? The only one I've heard is ping-pong, but that's not demonstrably worse than armies vanishing.

Uggggh I clicked the wrong button after I typed up a nice long response and now it's GONE.

Summarized: Stackwiping lowers tedium, makes it easier on someone trying to win their war, helps drill home the "you are way outmatched", and combats the problems with the morale system wherein low morale actually makes armies harder to kill.

 

[Pellucid]

Uggggh I clicked the wrong button after I typed up a nice long response and now it's GONE.

Summarized: Stackwiping lowers tedium, makes it easier on someone trying to win their war, helps drill home the "you are way outmatched", and combats the problems with the morale system wherein low morale actually makes armies harder to kill.

Do you think any of these problems could be solved in different ways that have less negative effects?

For example, the morale system issue could theoretically be solved by allowing the victorious army to kill routing soldiers a la CK2 combined with allowing a routed army to regain a chunk of morale (perhaps half or slightly under) once their retreat is over.

I guess my issue is that stackwiping is a frustrating way to solve the problems you listed, and is far from the only possible solution.

 

[hwoosh]

the problems with the morale system wherein low morale actually makes armies harder to kill.

This, this right here, is the single most frustrating thing in EU: watching two ostensibly huge armies pecking away at each other for months at .1 morale and a few dozen casualties a day.

The change that introduced automatic per-day morale decay in all battles helped with this, but even with that change battles still often draaaaaaaag.

 

[x260bm]

National armies didn't really exist in Europe during much of the period covered in game. Soldiers fought for who ever paid them. If they lost a battle, a lot of the times they would leave to find work elsewhere or even get recruited into the winning side. In other parts of the world, wars were fought more like how they are now or in the ancient world. It is difficult to model for a video game.

 

[StarDolphin]

That ping pong is only possible because the fort system doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be realistically possible, after you ping an enemy army, for you to send a huge army deep into enemy territory to pong them back. They should have a great deal of time to regroup before you're able to push past their fortresses and castles and engage them again.

That is to say, an unrealistic and silly mechanic has been "fixed" by creating another, arguably MORE unrealistic and silly mechanic, when the real culprit is dancing around thumbing its nose at us as it has been since EU1.

It also shouldn't be possible to control an empire that spans the world and micromanage it at the same time at any point in the EU timeframe: Communication would kill ya. There is a reason why kings lead their armies, and it isn't because they were better generals. Also the toll an army of the types in EU have on the country side just by being in them is staggering.

But I don't think anyone has come up with a reasonable mechanic that would model these things and (this is key) still be fun.

My understanding is that armies often did fight entire campaigns in hostile territory, passing over entrenched enemies in favor of shattering armies. That is why you hear stories of campaigns to reenforce armies, after raising more troops you should have to send them fighting through enemy territory to connect with whatever you are sieging. (I seem to remember something about this from Rome's war's in Spain. For that matter, the Punic war certainly wasn't a war of steadily advancing armies, taking territory province by province...

 

[The-King]

If that were the case you'd get some of your manpower back after a wipe.

Nations get manpower if their stacks get wiped based on how big the stacks are. Think of it as they are no longer organised but can return to fighting the war once the regiments are rebuilt.

 

[Grubnessul]

Can you cite a positive thing stackwiping adds to the gameplay?

Yes, it prevents endless pingponging.

 

[Chevaresqye]

Yes, it prevents endless pingponging.

There are many better way too avoid endless pingpong. Make battle casualty increase tons of war exhaustion, so both player and AI will have to be more hurry to get a peace deal. Less dragging, no carpet siege, more realism.

 

[Andy_Dandy]

That ping pong is only possible because the fort system doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be realistically possible, after you ping an enemy army, for you to send a huge army deep into enemy territory to pong them back. They should have a great deal of time to regroup before you're able to push past their fortresses and castles and engage them again.

That is to say, an unrealistic and silly mechanic has been "fixed" by creating another, arguably MORE unrealistic and silly mechanic, when the real culprit is dancing around thumbing its nose at us as it has been since EU1.

+ to all this. Improved fort system is essential for the next step in EU battle evolution.