Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #145 - Military Improvements

[Troyen]

Is this a guarantee, like have the Devs said they'll implement a rework in the future? I see a lot of people talking about a naval rework but I also noticed that the Devs haven't responded to this comment and its the second comment on this thread. Yikes.

Would be nice to get a confirmation, military improvements doesn't outright mean naval improvements down the line.

It was on their free patch roadmap:

Not Updated

• Making navies more important for projecting global power and securing control of coasts.
• Turning individual ships into proper pieces of military hardware that can be built, sunk and repaired rather than just being manpower packages.

But they've also said several times that navies weren't in scope for 1.9.

 

[NilsFabian]

Speaking of the Military, would it please be possible to upgrade your fleets all through the technologies without having to disband units and build new ones just to go form ironclads to dreadnaughts

 

[Science-Recon]

Because it wouldn't feel good to just sit at the border as France, waiting for the attackers to come without having any agency to counter it.

Wizz's suggestion of making it 'free' (i.e. noone would object) to violate (in this case) Belgium's sovereignty is a much better way to do it as that's essentially what would happen. France would consider/announce that Belgium is an enemy belligerent and the rest of the world would probably say fair enough. (UK for example would see Belgium as having violated it's obligation of neutrality.

Belgium should be forced by France to let them also march their troops though, not forced by the Universe itself.

 

[AlexNereča]

I'm somewhat concerned about how front prioritization will be handled. Currently, the game allows players to independently assign a front to either attack or defend(in a very cumbersome way), providing strategic flexibility and player agency. However, with the proposed changes, this level of control may no longer be possible. While I don’t necessarily prefer the existing system, having this degree of strategic granularity would be beneficial.

You currently set each army to attack or defend and then depending on what battle the army is engaging in it either has already started it as an attacker, is defending it as per the order, or is forced to defend because the enemy is attacking on all possible battles at the moment. The problem then is micromanaging each army by examining its real position on the front, rather than it being a problem of lacking agency across the entire front (or at least, assuming army positioning isn't just affecting travel time and otherwise cosmetic)

To address this, I suggest introducing a new map mode. When selecting a combined front, players would enter a 'strategic' map mode where each front that was combined is displayed individually with options to advance or defend from it, allowing them to decide whether that specific front advances or defends while keeping the benefits.

I actually do concur with this, and actually I think being able to set an army/location (or both) as having a specified strategy in this map-based way that makes it clear what the consequences of the army order would be with respect to geographical positions could be a good compromise in the meantime while the idea of manually drawing sections of the entire front to assign armies to (sort of like but different from HOI IV) is not quite possible to implement yet.

 

[Backstab]

Would you consider changing recruitment? It's quite annoying to recruit large armies. Instead it would be much nicer to have an abstracted manpower pool. That can be replenished by barracks. Those will then produce soldiers, sailors and officers that will go into (preferably separate) pools. Recruiting can then be done from military interface and would just have some cost and time associated with it, drawing from the manpower pool to fill it's ranks. Same with losses and replenishment, which will draw from the pool at a specific rate, affected by technology and supply.

Second, the supply of military goods or lack of, must directly reduce the ability to fight. It can't be that my lack of guns is just an extra expense. It must mean that my army might have bodies, but not guns. So a regiment of a 1000 with 500 guns should really be fighting like a regiment of 500 or very close to it.

Lastly, please add more military buildings, both industry and otherwise. There are no horses to supply cavalry, no uniforms. There is currently compete lack of any naval industry too. It would also be rather nice to be able to build fortifications - both inland and coastal.

 

[Wagner Joy Division]

"Hello, this is our upcoming warfare system fixes for 1.9 patch for our economy-focused game where warfare is absolutely not important for gameplay, unlike other Paradox grand-strategy games.
It is a logical continuation of our 1.1 patch for warfare system, 1.2 patch for warfare system, 1.3 patch for warfare system, 1.4 patch for warfare system, 1.5 patch for warfare system, 1.6 patch for warfare system, 1.6 patch for warfare system, 1.7 patch for warfare system, 1.8 patch for warfare system, 1.8.1 patch for warfare system, 1.8.2 patch for warfare system, 1.8.3 patch for warfare system, 1.8.4 patch for warfare system."

 

[AlexNereča]

Second, the supply of military goods or lack of, must directly reduce the ability to fight. It can't be that my lack of guns is just an extra expense. It must mean that my army might have bodies, but not guns. So a regiment of a 1000 with 500 guns should really be fighting like a regiment of 500 or very close to it.

Isn't this already going to happen with 50% supply setting the organisation target to ≤50 and resulting in armies having -50% (?) Defence/Offence etc.?

Lastly, please add more military buildings, both industry and otherwise. There are no horses to supply cavalry, no uniforms. There is currently compete lack of any naval industry too. It would also be rather nice to be able to build fortifications - both inland and coastal.

We're back to the same conversation of insisting more goods consumption for the armed forces without immediately considering the balancing concerns such as the necessarily increased costs that will arise. Also largely consider existing clothes goods to be a good abstraction rather than a bespoke building being required, similar argument goes for not duplicating livestock farms (however different in this case for actually setting up 'horse goods' consumption - I don't exactly know what the solution here is). From what we know looking at past dev comments, in the long-term obviously they're planning proper mechanics for construction of naval ships and fortifications (I suspect the former earlier than the latter, unless there's a way to implement forts without a partial rework of land warfare..)

 

[Bisonmask]

Would you consider changing recruitment? It's quite annoying to recruit large armies. Instead it would be much nicer to have an abstracted manpower pool. That can be replenished by barracks. Those will then produce soldiers, sailors and officers that will go into (preferably separate) pools. Recruiting can then be done from military interface and would just have some cost and time associated with it, drawing from the manpower pool to fill it's ranks. Same with losses and replenishment, which will draw from the pool at a specific rate, affected by technology and supply.

Second, the supply of military goods or lack of, must directly reduce the ability to fight. It can't be that my lack of guns is just an extra expense. It must mean that my army might have bodies, but not guns. So a regiment of a 1000 with 500 guns should really be fighting like a regiment of 500 or very close to it.

Lastly, please add more military buildings, both industry and otherwise. There are no horses to supply cavalry, no uniforms. There is currently compete lack of any naval industry too. It would also be rather nice to be able to build fortifications - both inland and coastal.

Mobile isn't letting me disagree with this comment but an abstracted manpower pool completely defeats the purpose of tying the military to pops

What we need is a way to import officers of the correct culture to provinces with none and a law that lets foreigners run part of the military (think Ottomans, Persia, etc.) with relevant associated penalties

Regardless of how they change the military imo they should never untie soldiers from the simulation, that simulation is why people like the game

 

[Serensius]

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.

Really really hoping to see this. It would make colonial gameplay a lot more immersive and challenging.

I think the HQ as a hub concept works well. Perhaps maintain the supply lines from HQ to the front, but add a less compute-intensive abstraction from the distance of barracks to HQ. This could include time modifiers to simulate travel, logistics, and other factors. Maybe add a small but scalable cost in bureaucracy and/or transport resources as well?

This would address the problem the original poster highlighted while incentivizing players to position their HQ near their barracks. It would also make HQ placement more strategically significant, rather than just relocating them whenever convenient.

Additionally, moving an HQ should require a settlement period - perhaps x weeks based on distance traveled plus a fixed number y of weeks, with a gradually diminishing organization penalty.

Regardless, thanks for engaging with us and considering our suggestions and questions!

Distance from barracks to HQ is a static value, so maybe this calculation can be done just once and saved to the formation. For example as a percentage modifier. This could be displayed in the formation panel and in tooltips. And maybe the AI could use it as a guide when creating armies as well (trying to keep the number as low as possible, i.e. building barracks where the units should be deployed).

 

[Ninking]

Dev Diary Stuff

All of these feel so very much needed, I'm really looking forward to this patch! But one military issue shone with it's absence, I'm just curious if there's been any work on it too: it feels quite common that when colonizing West Africa I end up with thin and snakey provinces, poor and arid but not "impassable" provinces, and even if I've managed to build railroads in the provinces and can see them on the map, my military units are unable to create a front by moving through it. Unless save scumming or similar "cheats", it always ends up as a walk-over to the local natives who have 2 skirmishers able to take everything, since my imperial elite troops are too fragile to go where obviously my civilian workers have no issue going.

 

[wisecat]

Hello!
Do I understand correctly that this new mechanic still won't allow us to designate a specific advance path or breakthrough and split enemy front and it will still be impossible to emulate such historical operations like Schlieffen plan or Brusilov offensive or Grant's advance along the Mississippi?

 

[GaussianCopula]

Hello!
Do I understand correctly that this new mechanic still won't allow us to designate a specific advance path or breakthrough and split enemy front and it will still be impossible to emulate such historical operations like Schlieffen plan or Brusilov offensive or Grant's advance along the Mississippi?

You understand it correctly.

Victoria3 simulates warfare on the strategic level while the operations you describe belong to the operational level of warfare. The Schliefen-Plan is an exception, because it covers both the startegic and operational level, but you CAN do the strategic plan (quickly beat France before Russia mobilizes), just not the operational Sichel-Schnitt part.

 

[monksimus]

Mobile isn't letting me disagree with this comment but an abstracted manpower pool completely defeats the purpose of tying the military to pops

What we need is a way to import officers of the correct culture to provinces with none and a law that lets foreigners run part of the military (think Ottomans, Persia, etc.) with relevant associated penalties

Regardless of how they change the military imo they should never untie soldiers from the simulation, that simulation is why people like the game

I think there is a way to have both here. If soldiers are recruited in a building (possibly with different PMs for officer rate to a different pool, maybe another for sailors) they can still go into a pool tracked by state and culture. Two issues, particularly since they split soldiers into 3 types, is that they can't swap types and return to the pool without completely rebuilding the barracks, and goods purchases happen at the barracks location not the HQ location. So you end up recruiting all your artillery from a single state where your factories are, not from where you have the best pops for soldiers. Not to mention you can't recruit sailors from inland states. I would just propose splitting those two things apart to let us get the best of both worlds and better reflect how soldiers are actually recruited.

 

[Backstab]

Isn't this already going to happen with 50% supply setting the organisation target to ≤50 and resulting in armies having -50% (?) Defence/Offence etc.?


We're back to the same conversation of insisting more goods consumption for the armed forces without immediately considering the balancing concerns such as the necessarily increased costs that will arise. Also largely consider existing clothes goods to be a good abstraction rather than a bespoke building being required, similar argument goes for not duplicating livestock farms (however different in this case for actually setting up 'horse goods' consumption - I don't exactly know what the solution here is). From what we know looking at past dev comments, in the long-term obviously they're planning proper mechanics for construction of naval ships and fortifications (I suspect the former earlier than the latter, unless there's a way to implement forts without a partial rework of land warfare..)

Yes, warfare should be very expensive. That's the point.

Not sure that I understood the point with supply the same way. My understanding is that this refers to the supply of armies. If not enough silly teachers them , their efficiency drops (and we really need to see how it ends up working, but that sounds great). However, the actual guns to supply the army are consumed by barracks, which right now relates simply to higher cost of guns, unless you run into shortage. I don't think such abstraction works with military equipment. You can't simply replace one type of ammo with other or substitute rifles with sharpened sticks.

On that note, even PM don't make much sense. How come my factory can make 10 muskets or 30 bolt action rifles (not actual numbers)? Would make more sense for the Hibs to simply have offense/defence modifier, but be harder to manufacture. Again, the point is that you should have a proper military industry that would be pretty difficult to turn a profit, but it's needed. Warfare should be expensive, even if we keep the warfare mechanics broadly as they are.

 

[Backstab]

Mobile isn't letting me disagree with this comment but an abstracted manpower pool completely defeats the purpose of tying the military to pops

What we need is a way to import officers of the correct culture to provinces with none and a law that lets foreigners run part of the military (think Ottomans, Persia, etc.) with relevant associated penalties

Regardless of how they change the military imo they should never untie soldiers from the simulation, that simulation is why people like the game

Why? What I suggest is that a manpower pool is created by barracks for building that would obviously require pops staffing them.

I think there is a way to have both here. If soldiers are recruited in a building (possibly with different PMs for officer rate to a different pool, maybe another for sailors) they can still go into a pool tracked by state and culture. Two issues, particularly since they split soldiers into 3 types, is that they can't swap types and return to the pool without completely rebuilding the barracks, and goods purchases happen at the barracks location not the HQ location. So you end up recruiting all your artillery from a single state where your factories are, not from where you have the best pops for soldiers. Not to mention you can't recruit sailors from inland states. I would just propose splitting those two things apart to let us get the best of both worlds and better reflect how soldiers are actually recruited.

Exactly what I'm proposing. Sorry if it wasn't clear from the post.

 

[IsaacCAT]

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.

Are you considering more supplies, more convoys or both for armies deployed overseas?

I very much like the idea of using nodes distance although nodes are not equidistant.

If you are not increasing the number of sea nodes, can they have different weights?

 

[BrotherJonathan]

I like that exiled armies will still suffer attrition. Makes it so having an exiled army is something you want to actively plan to avoid if at all possible.

 

[Quintillus]

Looks like 2025 might be the year I switch from Vicky II. All I ever wanted was the same warfare system as Vicky II, but with improvements to the UI, economy, politics, and flavour. Instead we got teleportation in the 1800s.

I do agree that Belgium shouldn't be forced by the laws of the world to allow France to counter-attack. I can see the option of giving a France a way to coerce Belgium. But I'm also reminded of my recent Vicky II game, where Prussia had access to Hanover, and as the aggressor (Austria), I couldn't finish off the Prussian armies hiding there. It was a strategic advantage for Prussia, and wasn't worth the infamy to deal with. Some variant of EU4's "Enforce Peace" or "Break Alliance" could work well here - forcing Hanover/Belgium to stop sheltering the Prussians, or to allow Austria/France to also have access, but still giving them the option to refuse (perhaps resulting in entering the war on the side of Prussia).

 

[pocketmedic]

Many of these changes seem great for improving the handling of the military system. My only concern with this is the exiled armies. While exiled armies would be far less common, especially during active war, due to the changes to front spaghetti, even in the current version there are HQ's which take an army large amounts of time to travel to the actually HQ center, the point where the army is considered stationed at the HQ. I think two changes would make this feel much better.

1. Adding additional points to HQ's where armies can be stationed, and having the game automatically pick the nearest point rather than the nearest HQ. This would help with armies traveling through very large HQ's like north/south china, siberia, Brazil etc.

2. Allowing Navies to act as mobile HQ's. Possibly including an increased supply upkeep for armies that are stationed on a Navy to simulate the logistical demands of an army being in the middle of an ocean, rather than on home territory. You could also make it so that, dependant on tech, the size of an army that the fleet can support would change. For example, you could at game start have it so that an army could station on a navy provided the navy is at least 75% the size of the army (eg. 100 army size to 75 ships), and you could have significant technologies for the navy like Landing crafts reduce it to, for example, 50% requirement. The numbers would have to be adjusted to make sure it isnt too easy to have large mobile HQs. It could even go as far as to assigning armies a "logistical requirement" based on not only the size of the army but also its composition, meaning that skirmish infantry would require more to support than line infantry, then add a "logistical capacity" to navies based on the types of ships in the navy, so advanced ships would be able to support a more advanced army when acting as a mobile HQ

Would love to hear anyones opinions on my suggestions!

 

[adil3tr]

Is it just me or do Vic3 dev diaries not show up on the Paradox Forum front page even when they're newer than all the other things on there?