Did Wiz just suggest more military reworks coming this year after 1.9?

[lo24681]

so I had been under the impression that 1.9 was gonna be the only real military rework this year, but in the bugs thread I may have misinterpreted it but did Wiz really suggest we are gonna be getting more reworks this year?

 

[Helmut von Dandy]

We also plan to focus primarily on bug fixes and polish (such as military improvements)

Bug fixes and polish. Nothing about any “reworks”.

 

[marmot01]

I think he meant "such as the already mentioned military improvements", to illustrate the kind of polish he is referring to.

 

[47pik]

I think it’s important to distinguish between military and war. Military fixes are not war fixes. Fixing the issues with total wars are war fixes and can’t reasonably be fixed via the military mechanics - they’re a problem of the diplomatic play system.

Unless your primary concern is movable troops (god no please), a logistics system, or navies (honestly, probably going to end up it’s own system entirely atp) your problems are with the war/diplomacy systems, not the military ones.

I think people set themselves up for disappointment when the devs talk about military fixes, but everyone is expecting war overhauls. Case in point: the 1.9 fixes for military that… fix military, but everyone was mad about.

 

[lo24681]

just to clear things up, I was never expecting a full blown rework this year, since it’s been stated as much, I worded that weirdly, what I ment was more QOL adjustments similar to what we are getting in 1.9 based on the wording of wiz in that post

 

[Wizzington]

just to clear things up, I was never expecting a full blown rework this year, since it’s been stated as much, I worded that weirdly, what I ment was more QOL adjustments similar to what we are getting in 1.9 based on the wording of wiz in that post

We do indeed plan to do more military QoL and polish in the second half of the year. We want tp ensure the mechanics we have are in the best possible shape before we make any major additions to them.

 

[Superdark33]

just to clear things up, I was never expecting a full blown rework this year, since it’s been stated as much, I worded that weirdly, what I ment was more QOL adjustments similar to what we are getting in 1.9 based on the wording of wiz in that post

If theres still glaring issues, probably!

This rework is mostly so that the painpoints are dealt with, letting games play out more smoothly in the current system.

A future rework would need to solve all the rest of it to turn warfare into a fun part pf the game rather than something you occasipnaly have to do.

Edit: oh lmao Ninjaed by Wiz himself, thats funny

 

[Shiny Dog]

More Polish would obviously be welcome. Currently the only one we have is Krakow.

 

[za3tarani]

More Polish would obviously be welcome. Currently the only one we have is Krakow.

feels like too much polish already... we need to czech ourselves before we reich ourselves

 

[amocpower]

Unpopular Opinion : Trrade rework was much more needed then anything else.

 

[lo24681]

I’m just thankful they changed it from the initial trade system that was in the “unofficial” version.

 

[Bisonmask]

Unpopular Opinion : Trrade rework was much more needed then anything else.

You might want to sit down for this

 

[marmot01]

We do indeed plan to do more military QoL and polish in the second half of the year.

That's always welcome! I haven't been complaining loudly about the military in these 2.5 years, but I'm also coming to think it needs more than polish. In part I feel encouraged by seeing you taking on tasks like rewriting whole systems and adding systems like power blocs

Back when it was time to submit feedback forms I was deep into some other game, KCD2 or Cyberpunk, and I didn't feel like taking the time to think through feedback, but here is some now, since you are here

Starting with the design pillars of Victoria 3 warfare as defined in the dev diary, let's see how the game is faring:
1. "Anything achievable through war should also be achievable through diplomacy" - I'd say this is so in theory but not in practice, due to limitations which will hopefully be eased with the new diplo treaties system.
2. "War is strategic" - Not really, as I understand strategic. It's abstracted, as in "not tactical", but this isn't what "strategic" ought to mean. Due to how combat resolution works and how regiments are picked to participate, quantity of units is decisive in most wars, and the player has no strategic decisions to make once armies are assigned and war has started.
3. "War is costly. [...]" - not really.
4. "Preparation is key [...]" - nope. Just have more regiments, assign them to the front and hope for the best, assuming you have a proper mix of regiment types.
5. "Navies matter. Navies feel as important as armies, etc." - nope. Whether or not your trade convoys are cut for a while, if you occupy the enemy you've most likely won
6. "War changes" - (i.e. evolves throughout the timeframe), probably at the calculations level, but doesn't "feel" like it does.

So, I'd say 0.5 out of 6 achieved, not good.

Coming towards the end of a Russia Great Game run, and after multiple land wars against minor powers, one war against Britain, and on the brink of a war against Quing, I would list my criticisms of the system like this:
1. The AI doesn't seem to grade conflicts after they start, or make some kind of cost-benefit analysis on whether it's worth it to keep fighting for what is often a small prize compared to the cost of war expressed as military expenses over the course of the war. It always mobilizes for and wages total war. I'm curious what would the challenges be from development perspective, if you tried to implement such analysis capability for the AI.

2. Mobilization of armies and their deployment on one border or another, if allowed to do in peacetime, could be tied to events and affect the political and diplomacy systems more. Right now I think the only tie-in is that if you mobilize during a diplomatic play this makes it more likely for the AI to cede the main goal, especially if more non-main goals are piled up. But this just leads to a no-brainer decision to always mobilize during a play if it's relevant to the play's goal.

3. From UI and also UX perspective, warfare, and land warfare particularly, feels abstracted to such a degree that the player is not engaged with the system beyond assigning armies to fronts. The player knows he is at war, but after it commences, there is next to no input required, but an information overload with data related to the combat calculations. This is data the player can see and it explains why combat is resolved as it gets resolved, but the player can't act on it. The player has no control of the direction of attack or of the strategy employed by armies acting on a front. Maybe features like a deeper system of assigning armies "missions" or "stances" within the front an army is fighting on, maybe even charting war plans, or commissioning war plans to be charted by generals (i.e. "a general staff") can make the player more involved in warfare, without microing on the regiment level and the tired ping-pong of older paradox titles.

At present assigning armies to fronts seems to function much like assigning fleets to missions in older titles - there is a period of waiting until the fleets find each other, then the result is calculated, but the player can only observe. However, customization of the "fleets" this time around feels much too limited compared to what we could do with fleets in those older titles.

4. Presentation. Brainstorming moment: the 3D models of generals making silly faces and exaggerated postures are the first thing I would change. I would put instead two models of soldiers, in varying degrees covered with grime, mud, blood, and dust depending on how the battle is going I like the 2D pictures of army types, I could use more immersive artwork.

Edit: 5. Some kind of interaction between the political and military systems would make sense for some government types. It turns out that as the constitutional monarchy of Britain I am as free to declare war on anyone on any valid pretext as I would be in absolutist Russia. What if I am Orleanist France, and if I try to intervene in the Carlist war, this leads to a crisis of government and my government resigns (to take a real life historical example)? Securing political and foreign diplomatic support for a certain diplomatic play, before actually starting that play, could be a thing, maybe in the lines of how Plot support works in CK2. Support negotiations could be handled by a system like the diplo treaties as well.

Back in December I got to list some peculiarities of the 19th century which make warfare of that period challenging to model in a game such as Victoria 3:

There are some peculiarities of the 19th century that reflect on the military and its applications, which I don't think are easy to model properly in any game, and I don't think anyone ever has attempted it. Paradox's current approach is far too abstracted.

First off, this is the era of the European Concert. There is a massive disparity in power between the Great Powers and anyone else. The very deployment of a military force or the mere threat of that would be enough to give pause to smaller powers and affect their political stances. It's very hard to portray this in a videogame while keeping the game balanced and interesting for the player if he is this minor power. But - wink, wink - maybe that's where power blocs can become useful for minor powers? Get your GP big brother to intervene when you are having a problem with another GP?

Second, the means of application of military forces varied quite a lot - it was asymmetrical warfare in the colonies, jungles, deserts, mountains, etc. But it was symmetric warfare when it came to the wars in Europe, the Crimean war, the First World War. Depicting asymmetric warfare properly would flat out require a different ruleset and an alternative system, call it "Warfare 2.0". At least I'm having a hard time imagining it any other way. Maybe the implementation would look something like the occupation in HoI IV accompanied by attrition, emergent events, some specific other mechanics?

Third, we need an implementation ingame of the concept of limited wars - limited in terms of the theatre of war, and also limited in terms of the size of the forces involved. And the AI needs to abide by that. If we are having a spat with Russia in Afghanistan, this shouldn't have to end with me landing St. Petersburg, as the rest of the Great Powers are silently watching on.

These are all just broad strokes, and I can't give you the magic pill in one small post. But we all agree here that the current implementation of warfare is often absurd.

Edit: the Crimean war was a crazy outlier of GPs fighting amongst each other. For the most part, conflict between GPs should be resolved behind the scenes, maybe with a system similar to The Great Game, where one power gains an advantage in one area of the world, and another player gets an advantage in another part, to preserve the balance of power. This however has to be turned from a scripted progress bars thing into a generic system where various states of the game's systems can be quantified and attached a numerical value of "advantage" provided to this or that country. This needs further brainstorming.