ZoC is still a mess

[Lithu]

Anyone thinking a fort system without movement blocking would be ok is wrong:
That would mean every war between big nations is decided by a single big battle.

That was often not true before 1.12 and it really doesn't have to be in a new system.

If you put say some movement slowdown due to enemy forts and some attrition for being too far from controlled territory ; the winner of the first battle could try to chase down the other army but would be unable to get to it, being slower, and would be progressively destroyed by attrition (it could be cumulative : 0,1% the fist month ; 0,2% the second... with a cap at 0,5% or 1%)(also : disable reinforcements for troops not in controlled/neutral territory and allow to protect some small armies in local forts, so your just raised new soldiers aren't destroyed if the enemy march on them)

 

[Shadowstrike]

The system will remain broken as long as two armies in the same location can have different move restrictions while fighting together, and as long as you can't look at a still image of the map with no units selected and tell me (with confidence) where all units can go.

I agree with this sentiment, but it's very easy to devise rules that incorporates ZoC that follows this. For instance:

* All enemy forts exert ZoC in one land province around them.
* All moves from non-ZoC to ZoC provinces are legal.
* All moves from ZoC to non-ZoC provinces are legal.
* All moves from ZoC to enemy fort provinces are legal.
* No movement from one ZoC province to another.
* No movement from enemy occupied-fort to other enemy-occupied-fort provinces.
* Sea zones always count as non-ZoC, and movement between sea zones and forts are always legal.

The one issue I see here is that you can mothball forts, then trap enemy armies (though they can always fight their way out). Of course, that could be avoided by teaching the AI to take mothballed forts as often as possible.

 

[maxirage]

ZOC may be a mess, but the people advocating for the return of the pre-fort system are completely delusional. Even the worst implementation of forts is far superior to release EU4. If you think otherwise, you are wearing industrial grade nostalgia goggles.

 

[Sauron44]

That was often not true before 1.12 and it really doesn't have to be in a new system.

If you put say some movement slowdown due to enemy forts and some attrition for being too far from controlled territory ; the winner of the first battle could try to chase down the other army but would be unable to get to it, being slower, and would be progressively destroyed by attrition (it could be cumulative : 0,1% the fist month ; 0,2% the second... with a cap at 0,5% or 1%)(also : disable reinforcements for troops not in controlled/neutral territory and allow to protect some small armies in local forts, so your just raised new soldiers aren't destroyed if the enemy march on them)

It takes at max. 3 months to chase down a retreating enemy army if we assume a decently sized nation (think historical European border France or so)
Attrition doesnt matter in that context.

1 % attrition does exactly nothing and increasing it to levels where it would actually matter will only lead to old problems (namely: the AI dying to it)

 

[Bibor]

This is what happens when people that pretend to be experts yet didn't bother mastering an important segment of warfare.

Perhaps it would be time to re-watch and memorize Reman's video and start building forts and moving units in ZOC mapmode, instead of "going with gut feeling" about how or why it should work and then complaining about the system.

The system might not be perfect, but it works.

 

[SolSys]

I agree with this sentiment, but it's very easy to devise rules that incorporates ZoC that follows this. For instance:
...

Those suggested rules still do not deal with the problem in the quote.

Edit: Should have probably explained my meaning -- the rules do not serve all use-cases.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You assume that the rules can be broken against the player without the player noticing.
That is wrong.

If you can play StarCraft 2 at 300 APM professionally you might be able to avoid ever getting caught looking away and therefore not seeing an enemy stack approach ZoC ever.

Even then I have doubts. This game doesn't have that kind of setup to allow rapid map-panning.

Player pathing manipulation means using the bug that illegal moves can be made because they were legal once?
Then that wont happen also because I dont mothball border forts and the AI starts moving their armies after declaring war and not before.

Most defenders of the fort rules don't know them as well as they think . You could pay for your forts from 1444-1821 and there are still ways through them. Depending on where they are located, multiple ways.

Show me an example of the things I said not applying, else I can just assume you cant cope with someone being smarter than you and actually understanding something you think is not understandable.

If you can first explain the screenshot I posted earlier in this thread off-hand by listing all the possible ways I might have been able to legally make that order, we can play ball. Otherwise, pointing a finger at me for not understanding is silly.

But if you could do that, you wouldn't have only mentioned mothballing above.

Anyone thinking a fort system without movement blocking would be ok is wrong:
That would mean every war between big nations is decided by a single big battle.
With everything else being kept the same the winner would chase down the rest of the enemy army and then carpet siege.

That is not how pre-1.12 wars between competent players went, so I don't see what leads to this conclusion.

You're telling people who routinely solo'd Oirat with Mongolia or Mamluks with Ethiopia that wars between nations were decided on one battle (they weren't) or that stronger nation always won + carpeted.

Meanwhile, the importance of troop positioning before/during wars declined with the implementation of ZoC. Getting 1/2 your empire assaulted down while you were abroad used to be a legitimate threat. Now a high level contemporary fort with defensiveness can hold out > 1 year in several parts of the game, allowing an army in India to consistently sail halfway across the world to relieve the siege. Holding defensive terrain? Gone, forts give you defensive bonuses regardless.

They didn't only add depth. They pulled some too. Still, TL : DR version is that it's strictly inaccurate to claim that wars were 1 big battle.

The one issue I see here is that you can mothball forts, then trap enemy armies (though they can always fight their way out). Of course, that could be avoided by teaching the AI to take mothballed forts as often as possible.

You can also still get trapped and lose movement options as a result of taking an enemy fort.

The system might not be perfect, but it works.

It is disingenuous and intellectually rude to say this without addressing the points made against them in this thread.

If you look at the screenshot I posted and tell me the system "works" I don't know what to say, other than that it's useful to understand what the rules are before defending them, and ZoC map mode won't tell you everything, or even what Reman showed in his video.

 

[Sauron44]

If you can play StarCraft 2 at 300 APM professionally you might be able to avoid ever getting caught looking away and therefore not seeing an enemy stack approach ZoC ever.

Even then I have doubts. This game doesn't have that kind of setup to allow rapid map-panning.

This is not a problem, the pause button exists.

If you can first explain the screenshot I posted earlier in this thread off-hand by listing all the possible ways I might have been able to legally make that order, we can play ball. Otherwise, pointing a finger at me for not understanding is silly.

But if you could do that, you wouldn't have only mentioned mothballing above.

I didnt bother because the AI will only be able to do this in the case of a mothballed or freshly built fort.

Additional ways a player can do this:
1. Having an exiled army march there with the path chosen so it doesnt get interrupted after the army gets unexiled.
2. Having mil. access into the country before the war, ordering the move and then declaring.
3. Having the army in a position where it can reach the target province and then shift-clicking to order it around the fort first.

I didnt check if 3 works but doing that achieves nothing anyways
There are 3 different ways I can gain mil access for Nr 2 but I wont list those cuz it doesnt matter.

I already said before that any way you can make a movement legal will make it ignore forts because the game doesnt check if the move to the next province is legal, it checks if the complete path is legal at the start.
Any change made later will not matter (aside from paths that are no longer possible to be taken like blocked straits)
I consider this a bug/oversight and not part of the rules.

That is not how pre-1.12 wars between competent players went, so I don't see what leads to this conclusion.

You're telling people who routinely solo'd Oirat with Mongolia or Mamluks with Ethiopia that wars between nations were decided on one battle (they weren't) or that stronger nation always won + carpeted.

Meanwhile, the importance of troop positioning before/during wars declined with the implementation of ZoC. Getting 1/2 your empire assaulted down while you were abroad used to be a legitimate threat. Now a high level contemporary fort with defensiveness can hold out > 1 year in several parts of the game, allowing an army in India to consistently sail halfway across the world to relieve the siege. Holding defensive terrain? Gone, forts give you defensive bonuses regardless.

They didn't only add depth. They pulled some too. Still, TL : DR version is that it's strictly inaccurate to claim that wars were 1 big battle.



You can also still get trapped and lose movement options as a result of taking an enemy fort.



It is disingenuous and intellectually rude to say this without addressing the points made against them in this thread.

If you look at the screenshot I posted and tell me the system "works" I don't know what to say, other than that it's useful to understand what the rules are before defending them, and ZoC map mode won't tell you everything, or even what Reman showed in his video.

Ok I will stop making assumptions on how wars were before forts because I didnt play before 1.12.

Troops getting trapped only happens in the example shown in remans video and when you siege a fort that is itself not in ZoC but the only province you can reach it by is. A special case that is both very rare and easy to remember.
The current system doesnt work because its rules can be ignored using a bug/oversight not directly related to it, not because it's "broken by design"

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is not a problem, the pause button exists.

Still not addressing the central issue. If you look at the situation without perfect memory of where everything was, you can't tell what moves are valid.

 

[ETAIPOS]

Meanwhile, the importance of troop positioning before/during wars declined with the implementation of ZoC. Getting 1/2 your empire assaulted down while you were abroad used to be a legitimate threat. Now a high level contemporary fort with defensiveness can hold out > 1 year in several parts of the game, allowing an army in India to consistently sail halfway across the world to relieve the siege. Holding defensive terrain? Gone, forts give you defensive bonuses regardless.

But this is what the forts are for! They are constructed to block enemy and slow him down until you can send your units to hopefully lift the siege. All those changes are in fact good and welcome if you want to see something resembling reality of the period, where campaigns often ended on the walls of well defended fortresses.
If forts allowed to hide a small army from enemy it would be perfect.

Obviously, all this is made moot as AI is allowed to march rapidly through any territory as if it was their own. Even your ally and rival of your enemy will let them pass happily, making all your borders insecure and allowing enemy bypass your forts. BDW this also can sometimes be used to your advantage if you can drop troops on their capital while they are away


If you want to fight player's ability to trap AI by mothballing, make it so that mothballed forts in wartime always have token, 5-10 men crew and fall within single phase like ordinary province, but still generate ZoC. Or just give forts ability to generate ZoC even if mothballed (after all, you pay for them all the time).

One thing I would like to see calculated is how much do you loose to devastation and haw much forts reduce those losses as they clear devastation rapidly in ZoCs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But this is what the forts are for! They are constructed to block enemy and slow him down until you can send your units to hopefully lift the siege. All those changes are in fact good and welcome if you want to see something resembling reality of the period, where campaigns often ended on the walls of well defended fortresses.

If you want something real for the period, a fort allowing a nation to return 50,000 from another continent in time to relieve a siege from a neighbor is not an example. That was easily punishable in the this era, and rulers knew it/did not do this. From average time of siege to coverage range abstraction there is little credibility to asserting this mechanic is functionally justified by realism.

 

[Sauron44]

Still not addressing the central issue. If you look at the situation without perfect memory of where everything was, you can't tell what moves are valid.

Perfect memory is not necessary.
If the bug I mention above gets fixed you only need to know the return province, nothing else.
And repeating what I already said, the current position gives a very small number of possibilities for that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Perfect memory is not necessary.
If the bug I mention above gets fixed you only need to know the return province, nothing else.
And repeating what I already said, the current position gives a very small number of possibilities for that.

You do not and can't know the return province of a unit belonging to another nation without remembering its previous locations, and those of units with which it can potentially merge.

 

[macd21]

If you want something real for the period, a fort allowing a nation to return 50,000 from another continent in time to relieve a siege from a neighbor is not an example. That was easily punishable in the this era, and rulers knew it/did not do this. From average time of siege to coverage range abstraction there is little credibility to asserting this mechanic is functionally justified by realism.

If realism was that important you wouldn’t be able to send 50,000 troops to the other side of the world in the first place. Etaipos’s point stands - from a gameplay point of view it’s better to give defenders a chance to respond to attacks, rather than having opportunist attacks cripple a defender with no chance of responding.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If realism was that important you wouldn’t be able to send 50,000 troops to the other side of the world in the first place. Etaipos’s point stands - from a gameplay point of view it’s better to give defenders a chance to respond to attacks, rather than having opportunist attacks cripple a defender with no chance of responding.

Better on what criteria? I prefer a game where you choice of where to locate your troops matters more often to one where it matters less often. I don't see any reason a different preference is inherently better, and from just what we've discussed so far there's more opportunity for skill variance when unit positioning matters more than less...something putting forts in obvious locations does not replace.

 

[Sauron44]

You do not and can't know the return province of a unit belonging to another nation without remembering its previous locations, and those of units with which it can potentially merge.

A unit being somewhere requires it to have moved there. (if it didnt it has no return province and can only move to the adjacent fort)
Which means the return province is one of:
1. the/a neighboring province outside ZoC
2. a province which allows a move from other neighboring provinces (read: all neighboring provinces from 1)
3. the/an adjacent sea tile.

Now give me an example were that amounts to more than 5 different movement options and I might consider your argument valid. (excluding option 3 because you know if that is possible or not)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A unit being somewhere requires it to have moved there. (if it didnt it has no return province and can only move to the adjacent fort)
Which means the return province is one of:
1. the/a neighboring province outside ZoC
2. a province which allows a move from other neighboring provinces (read: all neighboring provinces from 1)
3. the/an adjacent sea tile.

Now give me an example were that amounts to more than 5 different movement options and I might consider your argument valid. (excluding option 3 because you know if that is possible or not)

You need to know which movements are valid, not how many are potentially valid. Making an educated guess at return province =/= knowing return province, and the return province is a game rule.

 

[Sauron44]

You need to know which movements are valid, not how many are potentially valid. Making an educated guess at return province =/= knowing return province, and the return province is a game rule.

Play around potentially valid like it was actually valid and problem solved.
Also a specific return province for an army is not a game rule, it's an application of a game rule.

 

[macd21]

Better on what criteria? I prefer a game where you choice of where to locate your troops matters more often to one where it matters less often. I don't see any reason a different preference is inherently better, and from just what we've discussed so far there's more opportunity for skill variance when unit positioning matters more than less...something putting forts in obvious locations does not replace.

Unit positioning still matters - it matters a lot more than it did in the old system, precisely because of the new fort system. You can still take advantage of a distracted enemy, but you have to judge it more carefully. You can’t make huge gains just because you catch a lucky break. You can’t siege down France before they get their troops back. And likewise you can choose to risk sending your troops to another front, without having to instantly return home to drive off a carpet-siege. Or you can move behind a fort to gather allies and hire mercenaries for a counter attack.

The old system was terrible and won’t be coming back, thank god.

 

[Bibor]

It is disingenuous and intellectually rude to say this without addressing the points made against them in this thread.

You're forcing me to contribute, so here it is. After spending 30 minutes or so doing playtesting and re-watching segments of Reman's video here are my tips:

1. Fort Zones of control have strict demarcations along hostile borders, but extend their ZoC over neutral ones. Understand that if you attack Hungary as Ottomans, hungarian ZoC will spill over to Serbia and Bosnia.

2. To make sure no enemy can pass your border forts, your strategic depth must be 3 provinces or more.

3. Regarding unit movement, empty border provinces (no ZoC, no fort) are the fastest way to lose your sanity. Make sure that 2-province-deep friendly Zones of Control and forts cover all your borders.

These three rules should if not fix then at least ease the pain of managing most of special movement rules.