Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #145 - Military Improvements

[yurcick]

Blockades will absolutely be able to affect supply lines. We are also looking into increasing the overall supply use of armies deployed overseas (based on sea node distance) to make it harder to logistically support huge deployments far away.

While this is wonderful news, still, this is somewhat worrying.

Basically, you remove the arbitrary and ahistorical way for Britain to win Opium Wars that has been in use in 1.0-1.8. This way was “just send the redcoats to occupy the Forbidden City”, and it wasn’t at all logistically reasonable or perhaps even possible in the first half of the 19th century.

But will you add the historical way to enforce Qing capitulation, that is to strangle coastal trade and occupy/destroy coastal forts with naval and limited marine action?
With how wargoals have always worked, Qing would just never surrender. And while the ability to send tens of thousands of troops overseas certainly wasn’t good, it filled the gap. What will now?

 

[Martenzo]

This would mean that for example any force you are naval invading with would be 100% wiped out if beaten back after taking a state, which I don't think would be great. In general you'd get a lot of army wipes where previously you had army teleportations. I don't think this is too realistic either - there are plenty of historical cases of armies stuck in enemy territory who were able to make their way home.

There are also plenty of historical cases of a crushing defeat because an army found itself encircled or besieged, unable to bring its full size to bear in a field battle, and was effectively destroyed as a functioning army due to being unable to escape. Most notably the French disaster at Sedan that utterly decided the rest of the Franco-Prussian war. I understand such a mechanic won't be coming in 1.9, but maintain the opinion that the warfare mechanics can't be considered "complete" until they're able to simulate the disintegration of trapped or besieged armies.

 

[yurcick]

Yes, they get the option to navally invade or through Belgium.
If you send a fleet along the army you selected, it will be a naval invasion. If you don't, they'll use the land route.

This means that regardless of how much your French navy outnumbers the American one, they will still be able to march on Champagne as if they’re entering Virginia, right?
Can’t say I like this “providing military access without being a participant” thing, sounds undercooked.

 

[LeandroB]

These could all be avoided by having units on the map...

 

[WombatOverlord]

I think there may be a weird interaction due to allowing military access rights both ways in a war. If you as Prussia start an invasion of France via Belgium, what is to stop France from simultaneously starting an invasion of Rhineland? Essentially the two invading armies will harmlessly pass through eachother in Belgium and them possibly both succeed in their invasion.

 

[fusei]

So does the new military access system remove the old system where overlords could call in all their military exempt vassals after the war started?

 

[Darth_Siddius]

First of all: Great changes, looking forward to it!

But I got a question, while reading:

With the new Front-Merging, if Prussia would invade through Belgium into a French state, and open up a new bridgehead, both Fronts should get merged, right?
So then, what would be the advantage of it in this situation? Does Frontline-length impact anything of the warfare?
Because right now, we would only have a slightly longer frontline and one additionally occupied state, not much more. So to confuse the enemy, we'd probably have to invade somewhere up north in Pas-de-Calais to achieve a bigger impact, I guess.

Or do you have any special idea for that in development already? Just curious, I am very fond of the new changes and are looking forward to them!


PS: To reduce rage, mobilized armies in an HQ should be automatically assigned to a land-invasion in its strategic area too, just like with naval invasions, and not have to be specifically sent to the opening frontline, my idea

 

[bfunk86]

I'll take whatever mliitary fixes we can get but I really hope you guys eventually take a step back and just tear down everything military related in this game and rebuild it. It's worse than just buggy, it's not fun.

 

[Jimboy93]

This is amazing guys. We’ve come a long way, but it’s great to see how this game is steadily becoming what many have wished for. I’ve already pre-ordered the season pass. Keep up the good work!

 

[Kallar]

Sadly more bandaids on a system to broken to fix. Still hope there will be a full revision. Sadly it wont be in the way the majority of players would want. I dont see the value in putting more effort into this. Noone would be mad if you just admitt its gonna be totally reworked and not invest more into this. I know the yesman here will always praise every change but to this day everywhere outside of pdx moderated space aka steam, sociel media etc the overwelming demand is to implement a propper system. You can do a dum dum system for all those who enjoy the current. Talk to Tinto how their automated ai movement works and give us our unit stacks back. You could double your player count just by announcing this change.

 

[Imperator Yggdrasil]

I like how y'all have taken a creative approach to make Military Access fit with this game's unique military system; expanding the invasion system to include Land Invasions was a clever solution

 

[bfunk86]

Does Belgian territory get devastated when two powers clash via the new invasion mechanic? What is the effect on the Belgian player if Germany and France use its territory to fight each other?

 

[Mazdayasna]

I love all the changes that you make, it will make the war better. Will you consider to make your vasalls or allys don't attack with your troops when you are in a defence stand because that can really make you lose a war

 

[SirMax06]

In the event an army is encircled why not provide the player an event to chose between two options; 'surrender' which allows the army to move through enemy army at the cost of radicals, or 'fight to the death' where the army will be wiped out if defeated.

 

[Traum77]

As we state in the Dev Diary, granting one country military access will also grant their opponents military access.

Sorry just curious about whether this situation would occur:

• Prussia declares on France
• Belgium grants Prussia military access
• Prussia prepares an invasion of France through Belgium
• France also prepares an invasion of western Prussia, also through Belgium (as they now also have access)
• There are now two extra fronts, both of which have third country in the middle, in which no war is being fought

That scenario seems kind of silly, especially in the Belgium situation where there is a relatively thin stretch of land connecting Belgium to Prussia: are we expecting that the two armies are simply passing each other on their way to their respective fronts, peacefully enjoying a Belgian ale on the way?

Or, is it first-come, first-serve on the use of a third-country to plan an invasion? I.e. if Prussia invades first, France can't invade until after they've defended the Prussian invasion, at which point Prussia is on some sort of cool-down?

 

[Haresus]

France on the other hand will only be able to defend this front and cannot push into Belgium. The conditions to see this front disappear are the same as for naval invasions, so after 3 failed attempts, the front disappears and the attackers return to their HQ.​

But what if France wants to fight back and take the fight into Prussia? Well, they can also open a second front via Belgium. When any country uses their military access via a neutral country to invade another country, their enemies will also gain military access to the neutral country.
So keep that in mind when you go around securing these rights.

This seems a bit strange to me. Wouldn't it be more reasonable for France to have an option (after, say, demanding that Belgium ends the military access to Prussia) to declare war on Belgium and then push through Belgium? Why is Belgium able to play both sides here, why are the French and Prussian troops marching through Belgium not fighting each other?

Why didn't Belgium in WW1 just give both the French and Germans military access if they could have this mutually beneficial arrangement instead of facing an occupation?

I just want things to work in a sensible way here. It makes sense that Prussia wants military access from Belgium to attack France across a wider front/avoid fortifications or something (I don't actually know what the in-game benefits of attacking France through Belgium vs attacking France through actual Prussia would be other than confusing the AI?), and it makes some sense that maybe a Belgian government would allow this if they were feeling particularly pro-German, but the French government should be furious. Relations should crash between France and Belgium, rivalries should form, and if they get the chance they should be attempting to invade Belgium and the rest of the world should be saying that Belgium got what it deserved for violating its neutrality (no guarantees on Belgium should apply).

 

[GenMcMuster]

A good chunk of why split fronts is so frustrating is how quickly wrapped up "undefended" fronts can be and much of the current "meta" revolves around creating fronts the AI won't put an army on. While what im seeing here makes troops less likely to leave fronts undefended it doesnt solve the issue of if you create a front an army doesn't have access to right away you can steam roll and wrap up the entire theatre with no casualties.

Would you consider fronts being able to draw on any troops in an HQ whether they're stationed, in movement, on other fronts for defense in a diminished state (limited combat with and defense/org penalties due to being "unprepared") to model armies being dispersed within a territory rather than only existing when they're camped on a front.

In other words: If there's sizable forces in an HQ that aren't all tied up in battles, fronts without armies attached to them will be green ~90s instead of grey 0s for attackers.

That way if for whatever edge cases remain where fronts could be left empty, if there's armies worth speaking of in the area, you won't be able to just "walk in" but will have to put down some token resistance which will take time to allow the player/ai to actually get armies to respond. After all we already have this behavior regards to stationed armies defending against naval invasions.

Because you guys can do everything to make undefended split fronts very rare, but the first time one DOES pop up without my notice without time to respond and I lose territory as a result, I'll still feel as frustrated with this system as before the improvements as "Open fronts leading to random 1870 blitzkriegs even when I have armies in the area" is what bothered me moreso that there could be multiple frontline i need to address in the first place.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

I can't agree with France not being able to attack Belgium. They're aiding and abetting their enemies, why wouldn't France attack Prussian troops still in Belgium?

 

[Kaiser Tiberius]

>They can march through neutral and enemy territory

Why do they gain the ability to march through enemy territory when they got to the point that they have to become exiled by the action of the enemy force? What should happen is that they should be erased from existence in that instance(flavor could be either killed or turned into PoW) like in HoI4 encirclement, just getting some extra attrition while marching through a territory of a state that is actively trying to kill you seems silly.

I think it could work if attrition is significantly high and there's a huge organization and supply penalty-- representing a defeated force dispersing and trying to make it back to their lines. High enough attrition would render a surrounded force practically useless and basically a paper army with very little manpower anyway.

If possible, maybe also pause manpower recovery?

 

[Loco_HUN]

I am dissapointed and also worried, here is why:

Dissapointed, because these changes, at least as I have read them, don't seem that significant.

"There’s much less unintentional shuffling of armies along a front". So it is still there, together with the front split it just now apaprantly less terrible...
The organization impact is an ok one.
The army teleportation: better than what we had, but still not the best, an encircled army (exemple, germany and turkey sourrounding austria, and that army is retreating from bohemia to italy, happened a lot with me), so that army will still will walk out of the circle while the enemy just sits there and watches. The armies not being really tangible, and too abstract is still there. At least they get an attrition...

And finally, the Military access..... This is the most underwhelming. It's basically a naval invasion on land, there is really not much to say.

This is the dissapointing part, but what's more important, is the worry part:
We didn't see at the end "of course these changes are jsut temporary measures, as in the future we are working on a large military overhaul", no we get a "We will continue addressing issues..." dear Paradox, we don't have a situation where we have a smooth, working military system, with few issues, but rather a disfunctional system, that demands an overhaul.

And the fact that it is not implied that big changes are coming, makes me to belive that Paradox either dosen't want, or what's worse, CAN NOT strech it further, and has reached the limits of what can be changed in this system.

Not gonna lie, I was hoipefull about the next patch and a patch after that, but after this DD, I don't think it's the case, wanted to buy the mechanics pack too, but I don't know if I will, unless a major overhaul to the army and navy is coming.

Another thing, you are saying "that's the feedback we got from our forums, and discord.." I can assure that, there are way more things to say about the military, but you are getting this feedback, because you have purged your forums, in my opinion. I agree there was a lot of toxicity, but there were also many valid and moderated opinions, that are jsut no longer there. I am on those forums currently, and I see what's happening there. It's a 80% complience and downplaying of the fact, that this game is suffering from a severe lack of polished, deep and well working mechanics, in war particularly, but in other areas aswell.

Now, the trade update does look good, but the elephant in the room is still not adressed, and from the closing words it dosen't look like that it will be. I hope I am wrong.

I guess we have to wait for Gilded Destiny...