Wiz, are you going to do something with cannons/artilery?

[uleslaw]

I'm sure you know that the way cannons are already handled in the game does not make much sense. One artilery unit - one cannon? - is presented as 1.000 cannon-soldiers, building one unit of artilery also requires 1k of manpower. During late game you can see an army composed of for instance 10.000 infantry, 5.000 cavalry and 20.000 cannon-soldiers. It is strange, because you do not need a lot of people to produce and use one cannon in battle (or maybe I do not know what those cannons are made of). You only need a lot money.

Ok, currently it is mostly a matter of immersion/realism (which, I know, is not a good argument), but with some improvements you can also add something to gameplay. For instance, in militarily-focused expansion you can introduce more types of artilery (good for battles or sieges) or let an army to capture some cannos after winning a battle.

So, any plans to change something?

 

[Will Steel]

If Paradox wants to represent artillery having that huge numbers due to crew and light infantry attached, they should buff up the stats for them to represent so and make them able to defend themselves. No one ever took 5,000 cannons to battle, or even 500 in that era.

A better option would be to rework the whole system. Keep infantry as units of 1,000; make cavalry units of 500 or 250; and make artillery units only as large as 50 if not less. That will allow construction of more realistic armies at least compared to what there is right now.

 

[Rusky]

TL;TR
In the end, the problem is not the army composition, but the A.I's handling of it's resources.


IIRC, a regiment of cannon did not consist of a single cannon and some men but a collection of them. Also, i don't think 1k men in the game is supposed to be like 1k men in real life.
The whole system is based on rules set by the game which are not even based on basic and overly generalized population numbers from that time period that the Devs could of pulled out their asses, not Reality.

So 1k regiment in the game can at different periods that the game takes place in, represent ether more or less troops then would actually be needed or used in even the most stretched of realities(it's why the company is called paradox)
And, while it is weird to see a 10k infantry with 20k artillery, this is only because the AI has no idea how to handle the battles and reinforcements properly. It can't properly plan for loosing all it's infantry and having only Cav and Cannons left to fight on the front lines.

The AI's attitude once the war starts is generally to shotgun the troops at you while attempting to muster a stack bigger then your biggest stack and maneuver around that.
But once the player gets hint of this, the player can make the war go into a stalemate where the enemy drains it's manpower, besieging and running around, and after a few battles has to rely on mercenaries to fill it's front-line, which never arrive on time or are picked off, and thus the AI is left with no manpower or money reserves, just a stack of Cav and Art that keeps getting beat back and forcing even more money loss cuz those things are expensive to reinforce as well as keeping the AI manpower 0. ( this keeps them from being able to save up money and manpower properly to build Inf.)


In the end, the problem is not the army composition, but the A.I's handling of it's resources.

 

[Quaade]

They could limit the number, in the defines you can set regiment size for any... Which would become more equal to real life... Like 1k inf, 0.2 cav, 0.1 cannons...

 

[Draecesstra]

Changing that number means also changing manpower. The Number 1000 is used for attition and costs. If u really wanted such a limited change for "realism", you have to change too many mechanics to be worth it.

It is not realistic, but works fine in the mechanics.

 

[Rusky]

Another problem is that there is no way to convert the regiments.
Maybe if we can take those 20k Artillery, take 10k of them, salvage/scrap/recycle what we can from the cannon equipment the 10k have and use the men to reinforce ether the Inf or Cav Regiments.

Also,
These(Cav and Art) were true resources of war that were not something easily replaceable with some cash and random men like they are in-game.

Skilled Cav-Men and Artillery Equipment were not something to just send out to get killed by having them walk around with no Inf. But something usually taken care of.

IIRC, the reason Napoleon got overthrown in the end by the Coalition is that he lost so much Cav and Artillery during his Russia campaign that eroded much, if not all, of his ability to project power outside France, thus destroying the military foundation for the Order he set up through his puppet states ruled by his relatives, which relied on France being able to send support when needed.
Emboldening the Great Powers to attack France and carve up Napoleons empire.

( kinda talking out of my ass here but, IMO)
Peasants can be trained to shoot muskets in volleys much easier then teaching them how to ride and handle a war horse and then ride as a unit with 100 other guys, and only the most competent would be able to fully work a artillery battery and thats after some training and learning basic math and measurement. ( this was something just not feasible at the time for a good number of peasants )

Side Suggestion----
Maybe make Cannons and Cav an actual resource that nations produce by building or having breeding-grounds/manufactures. Or rather then produce outright as in you got these many cannons or horses pilled up that you can send to the army, make it a threshold, where the nation can produce this many cannon in this amount of time and so on.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Changing that number means also changing manpower. The Number 1000 is used for attition and costs. If u really wanted such a limited change for "realism", you have to change too many mechanics to be worth it.

It is not realistic, but works fine in the mechanics.

Attrition doesn't even work as much as it should, so why take it into account anyway....

 

[Draecesstra]

Attrition doesn't even work as much as it should, so why take it into account anyway....

because attrition works like intended. it is capped at 5% for various reasons... but that cap is not the point if u want to downsize arty to 50 guys.

 

[beckermt]

So, any plans to change something?

Somehow I doubt vague complaints without solid suggestions and clear evalutations of gameplay impact are really going to spur the developers into action.

1000 cav and 1000 artillery are abstractions. The game is full of them. If we "fixed" them all, the game would be even more insanely complicated than it is.

 

[uleslaw]

Somehow I doubt vague complaints without solid suggestions and clear evalutations of gameplay impact are really going to spur the developers into action.

1000 cav and 1000 artillery are abstractions. The game is full of them. If we "fixed" them all, the game would be even more insanely complicated than it is.

I do not pretend I have a perfect solution or even solid suggestion, I am just asking wether they think something could/should be done here. It is a great game, but Paradox have proved many times they can still improved it. There are still several areas I think this game can be improved - this topic is about one of them.