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Dev Diary #44 - Battles

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Ave and welcome to another Dev Diary! Today I will be talking about how Battles work and what their consequences are. If you haven't already, I suggest you first read through the dev diary on Fronts and get acquainted with the concepts explained there.

Let's start off with a somewhat updated version of the Front panel. Do note that this is all still very much WIP and not all values are hooked in, balanced or polished. For example at the moment there are a lot more deaths in battles than there should be.

Who could’ve seen this war coming?

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In order for a battle to happen one side must have at least one General with an Advance order. Once this happens an advancement meter will slowly start to fill up and once it’s full a new battle will be launched. Various factors can increase or decrease the time it takes.

When the battle is created a sequence of actions unfolds before the fighting begins. All of these are in script and can be tweaked by mods as desired.
  • The attacker picks their leading General
  • The defender picks their leading General
  • The battle province is determined along the frontline
  • The attacker determines the number of units they can bring
  • The defender determines the number of units they can bring
  • Both sides selects their units
While there can be several Generals on the Front, only one is selected for each side in a Battle. They are not limited to selecting their own units and so may borrow additional ones from other Generals or the local Garrisons.

In addition each side randomizes a Battle Condition which provides bonuses (or penalties) to their units similar to Combat Tactics in Hearts of Iron 4. Unlike HOI4 though these are fixed for the duration of the battle. For example a General with the Engineer trait has a higher chance of selecting the “Dug In” Battle Condition which provides defensive modifiers.

Königgrätz anyone?
DD44 02.png


Now the shooting (and dying) finally starts! The battle takes place over a number of rounds and will continue until one side is either wiped out or retreats. The round sequence is roughly as follows:
  • Each side determines how many fighting-capable men it still has
  • Each side inflicts casualties on the other side
  • Each side attempts to recover wounded casualties
  • Each side also suffers morale damage according to casualties
  • If one side is wiped or retreats, the battle ends

Units have two primary combat values: Offense is used when attacking and Defense is used when defending. It is wise to plan ahead and specialize your armies for the war you are planning to fight. There are of course a whole bunch of additional modifiers used in conjunction with battles.

Crack open the fortress of Liège!
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Casualties are determined by both sheer numbers and the relative combat stats between the two sides. For example a numerically inferior force equipped with more modern weapons may still emerge victorious against a larger foe.

When a side takes casualties it is randomly distributed amongst its units with some caveats.
Each unit has a majority culture depending on the pops in its barracks and casualties are applied roughly in proportion to unit culture. So with 4 French/1 Flemish units fighting on the same side the French will take roughly 80% of the casualties.

Not all pops who take casualties will end up dead though. A portion of these may instead end up as Dependents of other pops. After a long bloody war a nation may thus end up with a large number of wounded war-veterans who need to be supported by the rest of the population. In the long term this may be a cause of unrest and financial strain on the economy.

Morale damage is inflicted in proportion to the casualties and will slowly recover over time outside of battles presuming the units are in good supply.

One step closer to Unification
DD44 04.png


After the battle is over two things will happen:

A number of provinces are Captured depending on how decisive the victory was, unit characteristics, Generals, etc. This will alter the frontline and the winner will occupy those provinces until retaken or the end of the war.
A victorious defender will only take back land that was previously lost to the enemy while a victorious attacker will push into enemy land and take control of more provinces owing to their aggressive posture.

Devastation is also inflicted on the State in which the battle was fought. Large, brutal battles waged with modern weaponry will increase the devastation caused. It reduces infrastructure and building throughput, increases mortality and causes emigration. These effects persist after the war and will take quite some time to recover.

That’s it for this week! Next week we switch over to the political battlefield and discuss Elections! *ducks back into the trenches*
 
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HawkSeraph said:
While so far I think vicky 3 looks promising, the one issue I have with this combat system is that it seems to me that it leaves little room for "outplaying" the enemy. In VII or EU4 or CK you can move your units smartly, ambush enemies, wipe their stacks before they can unify, force fights on uneven terrain, etc. Of course, that system is FAR FAR from flawless - I'm the first to admit that it could and should be improved. But I am seeing a huge lack of player agency here, I suppose. And sooner or later war is the meat of Paradox Games. I applaud the focus on other gameplay here, but I would like to be able to take more of an active role in warfare. This, so far, seems like it's quite pre-determined. What room is there for upsets?
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i really don't get people deriving satisfaction from beating a calculator at something.
 
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Shady_Steps said:
I was agreeing with your point that Paradox was listening to more positive voices, if you think you resemble my presentation of the Yes Men on this forum then that is something you need to think about. If not I am interested if you have any problem at all with Paradox's game design or if you think everything is going perfectly.
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I didn't say you called me a yes man or resembled one. I only said that someone is not a yes man for not agreeing with you. How can you tell a difference between a yes man and someone who likes everything Paradox suggests? You can't so using the term for anyone is just quite rude, the same way calling someone who doesn't like the direction VIC3 is going a hater would be.
 
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I'm personally fine with the new war system as of now, since I assume there will be at least somewhat more to it come release. However, I see where both the people complaining about the system and the people defending it are coming from. Also, there are likely a number of people who like PDX games mainly for the wars, and once the game releases some people may not think the war system has enough to get them to try Vic3.
What I'm more concerned about than the war system is the DLC policy. Seeing how PDX wants to price DLC for new games (see CK3), I'm worried that a very large amount of content and flavor (especially for more "secondary" nations) will be locked behind what are frankly steep paywalls compared to the game's price. Most nations in the game should be fleshed out in terms of content and flavor, unlike HoI4 for example, which didn't even have dedicated focus trees for most of the nations in Europe on release.
 
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Yeah, I don’t see changes to warfare coming until a major update
 
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prismaticmarcus said:
i really don't get people deriving satisfaction from beating a calculator at something.
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Neither does the calculator derive satisfaction from beating you. ( It's extremely fun to play against AI in RTS if it's an ML derived algo, that requires it to be 1 vs. 1 usually though, so in a competetive setting with symetrical balance, not necessarily playstyle ).
 
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DogTheBoss said:
Also, there are likely a number of people who like PDX games mainly for the wars, and once the game releases some people may not think the war system has enough to get them to try Vic3.
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and that's fine. if the game's not for you, it's not for you. don't buy it. play something else and move on with your life.
 
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No Stockpiles Lmao said:
The entire country starts a revolt timer and then you turn taxes down a bit when it gets close to firing, you mean, and the issue can be avoided entirely if you have enough cash on hand to tide you over for the duration of the war
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You can't make laws that quickly, in the game as we have read in the DDs.
 
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Shady_Steps said:
That is exactly my point, this forum has a large population of people who will defend any decision Paradox makes out of some Para-social mentality that leads them to feel like they are friends with a corporation. This causes critical voices to be drowned out by Yes Men. Paradox should know by now that the Yes Men will buy no matter what so they have no reason to focus on that demographic.
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It really is curious how practically every discussion about this somehow always ends up the same: with one side parroting the same arguments over and over despite them being rebutted months ago and then sure enough devolving into calling people who don't blindly hate Paradox yes-men or Paradrones or whatever the latest insult du jour is. Really shows the maturity and bad faith of that side, and how way too many people just cling to a belief that the developers can do nothing right.
 
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1. Can one general have more than one ongoing battle? E.g. if you have one defensive general opposing two attacking generals.

2. Say you have two generals along the same front. General 1 starts a battle and borrows troops from General 2. While that battle is ongoing, General 2 starts his own battle, so you have two battles at the same time. What happens to the troops General 1 borrowed? Will they return to General 2 or stay until the end of the battle?
Also, can General 2 borrow troops from General 1 as well?
 
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bendkok said:
1. Can one general have more than one ongoing battle? E.g. if you have one defensive general opposing two attacking generals.

2. Say you have two generals along the same front. General 1 starts a battle and borrows troops from General 2. While that battle is ongoing, General 2 starts his own battle, so you have two battles at the same time. What happens to the troops General 1 borrowed? Will they return to General 2 or stay until the end of the battle?
Also, can General 2 borrow troops from General 1 as well?
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doesn't a country have one general for each of its fronts? correct me if i'm wrong.
 
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prismaticmarcus said:
doesn't a country have one general for each of its fronts? correct me if i'm wrong.
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You can assign as many generals as you want to each front and give as many as you want attack and defend orders. But only one general can be involved in each battle.
 
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prismaticmarcus said:
well, Vic3 isn't much of a war game.
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It isn't a war game at all. From Dev Diary #0:
Our vision for Victoria 3 is to create what we call a ‘Society Sim’ - a game that is first and foremost about the internal workings of the 19th-century country that you are playing and how its society is shaped over the course of the game. Politics, Economy and Diplomacy are the three most important parts of the game - Wars are of course a part of the game (just as they were a part of the Victorian age), but Victoria 3 is *not* a wargame or a game about map painting.
Click to expand...
 
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HawkSeraph said:
While so far I think vicky 3 looks promising, the one issue I have with this combat system is that it seems to me that it leaves little room for "outplaying" the enemy. In VII or EU4 or CK you can move your units smartly, ambush enemies, wipe their stacks before they can unify, force fights on uneven terrain, etc. Of course, that system is FAR FAR from flawless - I'm the first to admit that it could and should be improved. But I am seeing a huge lack of player agency here, I suppose. And sooner or later war is the meat of Paradox Games. I applaud the focus on other gameplay here, but I would like to be able to take more of an active role in warfare. This, so far, seems like it's quite pre-determined. What room is there for upsets?
Click to expand...
We have yet to see it presented directly, but it's been said here or there that it's possible for a small country to hold off a larger one. In one of the AARs, the player mentioned that as Punjab he was able to stop several British invasions at great cost to his population. Hopefully the AI will be able to do it this time as well (though hmm, that might just be frustrating).
 
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CaptainGrimlock said:
I actually don’t mind this new system, mainly due to the fact that the economy will be complicated enough to manage. I don’t want to have to micro-manage 100 divisions at the same time.
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I feel like there's a huge miscommunication about the complaints of the new system. Most people are not upset that this system doesn't have units and divisions. They're upset that the front system makes every single war a one front war.
 
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