Why does Paradox keep saying their historical grand strategy games aren't about war?

[Ir0nSlug]

I agree there is not that much RNG overall, it's mainly that obfuscated information make it looks like RNG. There still is some crucial RNG, for instance in the way a large front will advance, you can easily get the enemy stuck at 0% because your general prefers to take random states rather that the one you claimed. A chance capital naval invasion is a thing.

Some of these things were fixed in the patches,

No, it hasn't been fixed. It's better, true, but it certainly is not fixed. You still have bad general relocation after front splitting, generals going back to their HQ after it or after a successful naval invasion. Front splitting itself isn't much better. The AI still breaks sometimes, mobilizing all its conscript but not moving any army.

I think I have warfare figured out 99%, except for a few bits. For instance, I got a message that an oversee army is suffering mass attrition despite having convoys secured by an unmatched fleet, and I have no input of why. Thinking of it, I suspect it was because the fleet securing convoys was slightly smaller that the army it supported, but that's just a wild guess. It's all guesses sadly.

As to win against superior opposition, apart by cheesing the AI I don't see it, but it's the case with all paradox title so I don't hold this against V3 warfare.

 

[Ir0nSlug]

All of this happened to me yesterday, it is my experience of the current patch, the only patch I have played as I started playing two weeks ago.

The armies die in battles do they not? Could also be attrition. I wasn't paying attention, men die, that's not the issue. The issue was that the armies would never replenish troops, ever. No matter what I did, moving them, leaving them at home where they had replenishments, not during the war, not after, not after several wars, 10 years, etc. To be very clear there were replenished troops waiting in the home region, just sitting there. As the armies lost men to battles or attrition it meant that army was permanently smaller and the only way I could fix it was to fire the general and hire a new one who would take the old soldiers + the replenishments and be back at full strength. Maybe there is another way to make them to add soldiers back into their armies from the replenishments in their home region, but I for the life of me could not get them to do it.

For front splitting, I have had armies abandon fronts and go home in the middle of wars, or the more common one is when more fronts form throughout the war, but as fronts are one all soldiers join ONE front. I have to micro manage fronts, and the myriad of splits, especially in larger wars. Just yesterday one small war against an African nation caused me to take the middle of their country, split it into like 6 different fronts, and then most of my generals went home after winning one or two, causing the nation to snake up the coast because I assumed they would be able to handle that small war. It was so weird. This system just seems bad? Maybe this was worse, as mentioned I started late, but this is my current experience.

Perhaps there are ways to get what appears to be RNG to work in your favour But none of that is intuitive, none of that is explained, and none of it makes sense. Why is a superior and larger army only consistently fighting small battles where their outnumbered enemy outnumbers them enough to actually win, despite being worse? For example why is my army of 500 fighting a bunch of battles against an army of 50 across a massive front line, one battle at a time where each battle is like 5 v 6 to their advantage? Simplified numbers but I hope you get my point. It is such a peculiar system. Why are my troops not fighting with larger numbers? Why are they not pushing through the massively thin enemy lines to take land?

I am no genius when it comes to war in the game, I do plenty wrong, that's fine. Hell it took me a week to realise you could even promote generals, I was so annoyed that army sizes were restricted to 20, and thought surely that cant be right. Part of the learning process, it is what it is. My issue is that the simplified and automated system is unintuitive, frustrating, and inflexible. Tbh I wouldn't really care that the system was simple and automated if none of the above were an issue.

For army replenishment, concentrating your barracks in few states and using the recruitment decree on them helps a lot, but attrition is so huge you risk quickly depopulating said states. I basically made Mexico an empty state this way in one of my runs. Also maybe conscription has an impact, conscripted batallions lacking the manpower to replenish, but I don't know about that, I try to use professional armies as much as I can since it makes the supplying much more manageable (no huge consumption peak on conscription) .

 

[Skuchney]

For army replenishment, concentrating your barracks in few states and using the recruitment decree on them helps a lot, but attrition is so huge you risk quickly depopulating said states. I basically made Mexico an empty state this way in one of my runs. Also maybe conscription has an impact, conscripted batallions lacking the manpower to replenish, but I don't know about that, I try to use professional armies as much as I can since it makes the supplying much more manageable (no huge consumption peak on conscription) .

Sorry, I think I wasn't clear. Say I build 100 barracks, or whatever they are, in one state and have a fully maxed general. Professional army, not conscription. He starts with 100 in his army, so there are none in the state. Then after a war, he's down to 80. The state replenishes the troops, there are now 20 reserves in the home state, and 80 in the army. They do not join his army. War ends, he goes home. They do not join his army. Second war, he starts at 80, ends at 60. There are now 60 in his army and 40 replenished in his state at home. So my solution was to fire the generals and hire + promote a new one. It works, now I have an army of 100 in the state under the new general. It was the only reliable way I could fix it.

I searched the issue online, other people have experienced it, maybe I overestimated how common an issue it is due to my own experiences. I tried solutions people had proposed like raising them at the start of the war, letting them sit in the home state until the new troops actually join in. Sometimes it randomly worked, other times not. It seemed finicky and unreliable and often I was fighting with reduced armies while I had reinforcements just sitting there in the states doing nothing, and nothing I would do would convince them they should join the army. It makes the lack of control really frustrating, because I just want to grab troops and tell them to get under a general, but I am hard blocked by a brick wall of automation that doesn't seem to be doing it's work. This happens to me A LOT.

 

[Ir0nSlug]

Sorry, I think I wasn't clear. Say I build 100 barracks, or whatever they are, in one state and have a fully maxed general. Professional army, not conscription. He starts with 100 in his army, so there are none in the state. Then after a war, he's down to 80. The state replenishes the troops, there are now 20 reserves in the home state, and 80 in the army. They do not join his army. War ends, he goes home. They do not join his army. Second war, he starts at 80, ends at 60. There are now 60 in his army and 40 replenished in his state at home. So my solution was to fire the generals and hire + promote a new one. It works, now I have an army of 100 in the state under the new general. It was the only reliable way I could fix it.

I searched the issue online, other people have experienced it, maybe I overestimated how common an issue it is due to my own experiences. I tried solutions people had proposed like raising them at the start of the war, letting them sit in the home state until the new troops actually join in. Sometimes it randomly worked, other times not. It seemed finicky and unreliable and often I was fighting with reduced armies while I had reinforcements just sitting there in the states doing nothing, and nothing I would do would convince them they should join the army. It makes the lack of control really frustrating, because I just want to grab troops and tell them to get under a general, but I am hard blocked by a brick wall of automation that doesn't seem to be doing it's work. This happens to me A LOT.

How ok, didn't notice that but it seems it could go unnoticed except if you take heavy army losses.

 

[Skuchney]

How ok, didn't notice that but it seems it could go unnoticed except if you take heavy army losses.

I... may have gotten a lot of troops murdered due to incompetence. I didn't even notice attrition was a thing. Which is hilarious considering I have thousands of hours in EU4, so I really should've known. So yeah, that ones on me. It would be nice if the new troops would just compliantly rejoin the death march.

 

[Ir0nSlug]

I... may have gotten a lot of troops murdered due to incompetence. I didn't even notice attrition was a thing. Which is hilarious considering I have thousands of hours in EU4, so I really should've known. So yeah, that ones on me. It would be nice if the new troops would just compliantly rejoin the death march.

I have no experience with EU since the 2, but attrition in V3 seems bonker. Nice (exploity) tips: your unmobilized troops (both pro and raised conscripts) will defend fronts that border their HQ without suffering attrition. They only lose general bonus, but it's generally meaningless in defense and not worth the attrition. It's a good strat to have strong border HQs + 1 or more strong inner land HQs for offensive actions.

 

[Skuchney]

I have no experience with EU since the 2, but attrition in V3 seems bonker. Nice (exploity) tips: your unmobilized troops (both pro and raised conscripts) will defend fronts that border their HQ without suffering attrition. They only lose general bonus, but it's generally meaningless in defense and not worth the attrition. It's a good strat to have strong border HQs + 1 or more strong inner land HQs for offensive actions.

I blame the hands off military approach for me just really not even stopping to think about attrition. All I considered was "am I winning? Do I need to micromanage these fronts? How do I get more men into these dying armies?". I just assumed the death rate was appropriate for people standing in lines shooting each other with rifles.

Good advice on the border HQ's. Now I know the urge to put my spare troops along the borders of threats was a good instinct, not just an aesthetically appropriate choice.

 

[Kyoumen]

No, it hasn't been fixed. It's better, true, but it certainly is not fixed. You still have bad general relocation after front splitting, generals going back to their HQ after it or after a successful naval invasion. Front splitting itself isn't much better. The AI still breaks sometimes, mobilizing all its conscript but not moving any army.

I think I have warfare figured out 99%, except for a few bits. For instance, I got a message that an oversee army is suffering mass attrition despite having convoys secured by an unmatched fleet, and I have no input of why. Thinking of it, I suspect it was because the fleet securing convoys was slightly smaller that the army it supported, but that's just a wild guess. It's all guesses sadly.

As to win against superior opposition, apart by cheesing the AI I don't see it, but it's the case with all paradox title so I don't hold this against V3 warfare.

"It's better" is essentially what I said. Some things were fixed in the patch, some weren't. Front splitting is much better than it was at release. Also generals now go to the nearest HQ if they are finished at a front rather than all the way home, which at least reduces the time considerably to redeploy them (assuming of course you have anything in the vicinity).

You will take attrition if your supporting navy is smaller than the army it transports and supplies, yes. Terrain also seems to make a difference (which it should; in fact, European armies should just melt in most tropical areas prior to discovering quinine and such).

Winning against superior opposition can include strategies like using your best defensive generals to bog down the main enemy thrust while sending the remainder to attack lightly or undefended territories, using your fleet to destroy the enemy supply lines, which vastly weakens armies, or using rope-a-dope by baiting their armies to attack you where you have a defensive advantage, wear them down, then go on the offensive before they can recover. Obviously there are limits you can't always overcome, but it let me thrash the DEI repeatedly as Korea long before I had a tech or numbers advantage over them.

 

[Crerar]

I think what people really miss is wiping out vastly superior enemies by taking advantage of the AI. Once I figured out how this new system worked it made total sense and is actually quite a clever way to do it.

 

[Soter I]

I think what people really miss is wiping out vastly superior enemies by taking advantage of the AI. Once I figured out how this new system worked it made total sense and is actually quite a clever way to do it.

yeah, capital sniping is totally not a thing

 

[zilla737]

CK3 Game Director:

"Warfare is not and never will be a primary focus for CK3" (Dev Diary #109 - Floor Plan for the Future)

Victoria 3 Game Director:

"The main reason is simply that Victoria 3 is a game primarily focused on Economy, Diplomacy and Politics and we felt a more strategic approach to warfare mechanics fits the game better than micro-intensive tactical maneuvering (Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #22 - The Concept of War)


I get the feeling that this shift is because they have completely given up trying to improve their AI and now they can just deflect their failures and poor design decisions with "well warfare is not really a focus of the game"

What's next? No war in HOI 5?

Paradox, your shift away from war in your historical GSG is idiotic. Please stop

CK3 isn't focused on war. Nor was CK2, but that was probably one of the most fun ways to play it if you didn't like the Glitterhoof nonsense. If you want to war in CK3, it's totally possible, and works as you'd expect. They fixed the bad ally AI best they can, as far as I'm concerned. It at least acts consistently (outside of crusades). AFAIK, they're still working on, or have fixed the AI for the crusades. They have never said it was perfect and have openly tried (and succeeded, imo), to improve it.

Vic3 isn't supposed to be focused on war, but instead, the economy, which is not working as advertised, so we'll see if they're deflecting to cover up their bad warfare AI when they actually have a functioning economy AI.
I think warfare's fine in Vic3 since they made it less opaque. Still buggy as heck, but it's at least a functioning AI. Very little has given me that impression about the economic AI. (I'm talking about the economic development AI. Trade is... working as designed).

And I'm all for the economy being the primary focus. However, there needs to be some focus on war, and that is clearly lacking.

I'd just like the economy being the primary focus as a viable strategy for.. I don't know, playing past the early game.

In paradox games, the AI is so bad that war is usually the optimal way to expand your resources.

For example, in vic 3, there is no reason whatsoever to convince someone to be your subject or join your customs union when you could just take their states away and optimize the buildings. Whats the point of convincing hanover to be in my customs union when the AI wont build any of their oil rigs? The only real solution you have is to take the state away and build the oil rigs yourself.

In Vic3, the AI is so bad that war is usually the only way to expand your resources.
You don't have to expand any resources in CK3 if you don't want to. Pretty sure expansion is about getting more titles as well, not resources (maybe titles are the resource), although there are some cool places to play with unique gold resources. You have options. I like the marriage game, way harder than war, but if quicker is optimal, then yeah, war is ideal. That's not a failing of the AI, though, just a play choice.
In Stellaris, war is the working as designed optimal way to expand your resources. It's a war game. Dunno about other PDX titles. Don't play them.

You really think CK3 is about managing relationships? Cmon bro. Seems like they barely matter, and events are so rng and not impacted by relationships.

Have you played CK3? I played for 300 years as a Duchy (early start) in Southern Bavaria without one troop lifting a sword except to get the four De Jure counties, wars forced on me by my many different lieges' involvement, and 1 or 2 times to defend direct threats that I wasn't able to manage otherwise. Not to say there weren't many many other threats, just that they didn't result in war, because you can manage relationships to avoid that if you want to. It was hard, but very satisfying. Do that and then talk about how relationships don't matter in CK3.

 

[Kyoumen]

In Vic3, the AI is so bad that war is usually the only way to expand your resources.

Depends on the resource. The AI will often expand plantations and primary industry fairly well, so getting countries into your customs union because they produce, say, a bunch of tobacco is fine. What they won't do on their own is monoculture opium (which is arguably accurate enough) or expand as efficiently as you, but it can still be a valid way of expanding your resource base without infamy. Oil and rubber you do have to do yourself at present, of course, but hopefully that'll change once you can invest in other countries.

Plus, of course, you then can get access to their pops, arguably the most important resource of all.

 

[zilla737]

Depends on the resource. The AI will often expand plantations and primary industry fairly well, so getting countries into your customs union because they produce, say, a bunch of tobacco is fine. What they won't do on their own is monoculture opium (which is arguably accurate enough) or expand as efficiently as you, but it can still be a valid way of expanding your resource base without infamy. Oil and rubber you do have to do yourself at present, of course, but hopefully that'll change once you can invest in other countries.

Plus, of course, you then can get access to their pops, arguably the most important resource of all.

In my experience, what they develop seems to be based on their strategy, which if agrarian, will do as you say. But let's say you have a shortage of iron in your market. That same agrarian AI puppet will not build an available mine even if you have the shortage when it's queueing. The code backs this up. Only AI's with the Industrialize strategy have any bonuses to industrial resource production. What the base values for an AI building choice are black boxed, if they exist outside of viewable files.

My point is the AI clearly doesn't contribute to a robust world economy, even if you play a chill game without 1000's of construction points. It needs to for Vic3 to not be a war game with a shoddy war AI, and instead what the OP quoted form DD22, and for it to prove or disprove the OP's claim that the devs are deflecting from bad work.

My secret conspiracy theory is they have a better war AI, and they released this one to deflect from bad work on the economic AI.