Albania! (And how to represent stubborn small states up against larger ones)

[Chamboozer]

Frankly I cant see a way to fix the issue without a major rework or making the game far less fun.

I have to agree here. This is something the current system can't do much to portray. It's a similar issue with Granada and Castile, where Granada held out for centuries, it has no hope of winning a war in EUIII. The closest thing I can think of to help fix this is to allow a country to put its army inside of a fortress. That will prevent a larger country from easily walking right over it as soon as the war begins.

 

[Raventhefuhrer]

Also consider making a slider put into heavily isolationism (or whatever the EU4 equivalent is) provide a hefty defensive bonus when fighting in defensive wars/in your own territory. Perhaps include the ability to raise additional 'militia' type units to supplement your standing army who can't leave their home soil.

That way a small country with high isolationism could potentially have all sorts of goodies to represent an extremely hostile population who says 'Stay the feck out!'

 

[Gogog]

That would help quite a bit but it doesn't help the fact that Castille can throw almost every Spainard on the peninsula at Granada.

If campaigns were realistically expensive that would be a huge incentive to use 'minimal' force. That just wouldn't be fun however.

 

[Eh up me duck]

I don't think there's a way of making tiny countries resist big countries, without medium sized countries being impervious to larger countries.
Either any bonus would be a flat rate that cut out after a certain point, making expansion counter intuitive, or it would make any offensive campaign an utter ball ache.

 

[icedt729]

I don't think there's a way of making tiny countries resist big countries, without medium sized countries being impervious to larger countries.
Either any bonus would be a flat rate that cut out after a certain point, making expansion counter intuitive, or it would make any offensive campaign an utter ball ache.

Sure there is. Just give a defensive bonus to provinces that have a Tribal Society province modifier. That means the Scottish Highlands, most of the Balkan mountains, the Caucasus, and other regions that historically were kindof a pain in the ass to conquer. The bonus disappears if the modifier disappears (which should happen naturally as the economy grows and people settle, or could be stamped out intentionally a la the Plantation of Ulster or the Highland Clearances).

 

[Chamboozer]

Sure there is. Just give a defensive bonus to provinces that have a Tribal Society province modifier. That means the Scottish Highlands, most of the Balkan mountains, the Caucasus, and other regions that historically were kindof a pain in the ass to conquer. The bonus disappears if the modifier disappears (which should happen naturally as the economy grows and people settle, or could be stamped out intentionally a la the Plantation of Ulster or the Highland Clearances).

That's too simplistic though. Say the Ottomans control Eastern Anatolia - those provinces would be tribal, but to be realistic would have to support an invader such as Safavid Iran, while being neutral toward an invader like Mamluk Egypt. And it also doesn't help non-tribal countries like Granada survive. A defensive bonus doesn't do much to help an OPM anyway when there's no logistics system - it would be a piece of cake for the Ottomans to maintain a siege of the Albanian provinces forever, so no amount of defensive bonus is going to do much to help them.

They'd have to make a whole new system to represent the strength and makeup of locals, and integrate it with the terrain of the given province. Even more difficult, they'd have to determine the loyalty of those locals dynamically. It's a lot of effort to create a system which the game is, IMO, not really capable of.

 

[icedt729]

That's too simplistic though. Say the Ottomans control Eastern Anatolia - those provinces would be tribal, but to be realistic would have to support an invader such as Safavid Iran, while being neutral toward an invader like Mamluk Egypt. And it also doesn't help non-tribal countries like Granada survive.

They'd have to make a whole new system to represent the strength and makeup of locals, and integrate it with the terrain of the given province. Even more difficult, they'd have to determine the loyalty of those locals dynamically. It's a lot of effort to create a system which the game is, IMO, not really capable of.

Ah, you're right. Those cases bring in a whole different set of issues.

 

[Chamboozer]

What they might be able to do is give tribal provinces increased attrition to represent attacks on supply lines. That should help them a little bit.

 

[Jaol]

Provinces could have levels of control using a different mechanic from the normal controller mechanism. So the OE could own and control Albania in the EU3 sense of the term (perhaps representing control over major fortifications), but Albanian rebels could have partial control over the provinces.

 

[PiriReis]

What about a system like the one with Scotland? When you try to conquer Scotland Highlanders pop up from nowhere making it a bit more difficult to subjugate Scotland...

 

[vanin]

Events from CK2 come to mind, in addition to troops not being reinforced over time at all when in hostile territory. In CK2 during a siege you will get many events telling you of enemy raids on your siege camp etc and I think that could be carried over in some capacity. Sure it happens strictly behind the scenes and the player has no control over it, but in such areas that were hard to conquer historically could have a greater amount of these events happening to enemy invaders. Also such territories were often poor and in-game have very low supply, which means that either a large force can't besiege it (and thus risk losing the siege to aforementioned events wittling them down) or sit there with a huge army that can live through such events but then risk losing alot of troops to attrition.

 

[EmmDubya]

It seems like, to an extent, your suggestions would come under the 'leader power' system that's being worked on - the fact that Albania finally succumbed after the fall of the great leader gives the suggestion that the leadership of this King was what kept Albania resisting - something that, even if not to such a huge extent, will probably be implemented through huge defensive bonuses.

 

[exenter]

It seems like, to an extent, your suggestions would come under the 'leader power' system that's being worked on - the fact that Albania finally succumbed after the fall of the great leader gives the suggestion that the leadership of this King was what kept Albania resisting - something that, even if not to such a huge extent, will probably be implemented through huge defensive bonuses.

I agree. The leader should matter much more, especially in regions with mountains and difficult terrain. A small army led by a superior leader should be able to defend against much bigger armies.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

I think you have to get to fundamentals, how were these regions able to hold out against invaders, while other regions feel easily? Was it all leadership, or were there other factors?

 

[Dawkins]

I think an interesting solution would be to make the AI (and perhaps the player) much more likely to vassalize rather than annex countries. Perhaps with heavy incentives (why spend 50 years trying to get a core on Albania, fighting rebellions, getting 0 or even negative income from the province when you could just vassalize them and get a share of their income for no fuss at all?) to encourage this.

That way, small countries don't necessarily get gobbled up, they exist as helpful allies and perhaps after many years of vassalization they could be diplo-annexed without fuss if you have especially good relations with the vassal. Plus, the Albania's of the world can bide their time for an opportunity to revolt and re-establish their independence while at the same time not having to live in constant fear of an eminent game over.

I think this is a good solution. I would also suggest having different levels of vassalization, from "paying tribute" through to "semi-autonomous region".

 

[Kalmar8]

Frankly I always vassalized Albania anyway. Too poor, weak trade goods and wrong religion/culture. I stopped doing that when magna mundi decided that vassals get magically released without a struggle. Which was annoying because I really didn't want to subjugate or even get tribute, I just didn't want them plotting with my neighbors.

David Vs. Goliath is always a problem in paradox games. The crux of the issue seems to be that there is nothing stopping large nations from directing the entirety of their forces at smaller enemies. China doesn't invade Burma with one or two armies which can be defeated in a campaign, it invades with a million men with no regards for losses. In reality if the Chinese invasion force was defeated there should be huge prestige and war exhaustion reasons to avoid sending more. Not to mention logistical or financial imperatives.

Frankly I cant see a way to fix the issue without a major rework or making the game far less fun.

I do play VickyII a bit, and they changed something recently in the economy -- suddenly maintaining a big army ceased to be a nobrainer and the world became a calmer place, and when I played as Spain practically every major campain resulted in debts so I couldn't warmonger around as I used before even as a smaller nation. So maybe there is a point there that (1) waging war should be more costly. I don't mean no fun, it's not a yes-no issue, you can scale it. In EUIII AFAIR you rarely go into financial troubles because of protracted war. There is that silly war exhaustion, which is so abstract hardly anybody know what it really stands for, but no other consequences of protracted conflicts.

(2) On the other hand the logistics doesn't even pretend to mimic the reality: for example the troops get automatically restored to their full strength even in enemy territory. If they didn't and were really only shrinking (enemy territory, so diseases; mountains imposing a heavy supply limit), yet still drain your money, you might consider conquering some Albania not worth the price. Especially if your taxes are annoying your own population and you'll need years to pay your debts anyway.

(3) The military system as it is now, means that the one who can muster more troops is the winner, and the winner is usually known even before the war starts. I don't remember a campain that failed because of bad leadership or difficult terrain and even strategic decisions are usually not that important. I find it wrong. History knows many examples of battles where being twice the numbers of the enemy didn't guarantee a victory. Terrain, leadership, technology and often luck turned out decisive. Some kind of determination modifier wouldn't also be a bad idea if you wage a defensive war and defend your cores in your territory with own population or even troops recruited in that province. Maybe there should be some measure of righteousness of the war and it should influence the battle, it would measure how much the troops are convinced to the cause. Are they just peasants forced by their lord to invade their neighbour, or do they defend their own land against dirty infidels, heretics or other barbarians.

(Anyway, maybe this way wars within HRE would be also largely prevented without the clumsy mechanic of "emperor demanding return of territory" and the like -- nobody would be determined to fight in an unjust war of conquest.)

 

[Chamboozer]

I do play VickyII a bit, and they changed something recently in the economy -- suddenly maintaining a big army ceased to be a nobrainer and the world became a calmer place, and when I played as Spain practically every major campain resulted in debts so I couldn't warmonger around as I used before even as a smaller nation. So maybe there is a point there that (1) waging war should be more costly. I don't mean no fun, it's not a yes-no issue, you can scale it. In EUIII AFAIR you rarely go into financial troubles because of protracted war. There is that silly war exhaustion, which is so abstract hardly anybody know what it really stands for, but no other consequences of protracted conflicts.

(2) On the other hand the logistics doesn't even pretend to mimic the reality: for example the troops get automatically restored to their full strength even in enemy territory. If they didn't and were really only shrinking (enemy territory, so diseases; mountains imposing a heavy supply limit), yet still drain drain your money, you might consider conquering some Albania not worth the price. Especially if your taxes are annoying your own population and you'll need years to pay your debts anyway.

(3) The military system as it is now, means that the one who can muster more troops is the winner, and the winner is usually known even before the war starts. I don't remember a campain that failed because of bad leadership or difficult terrain and even strategic decisions are usually not that important. I find it wrong. History knows many examples of battles where beeing twice the numbers of the enemy didn't guarantee a victory. Terrain, leadership, technology and often luck turned out decisive. Some kind of determination modifier wouldn't also be a bad idea if you wage a defensive war and defend your cores in your territory with own population or even troops recruited in that province. Maybe there should be some measure of righteousness of the war and it should influence the battle, it would measure how much the troops are convinced to the cause. Are they just peasants forced by their lord to invade their neighbour, or do they defend their own land against dirty infidels, heretics or other barbarians.

(Anyway, maybe this way wars within HRE would be also largely prevented without the clumsy mechanic of "emperor demanding return of territory" and the like -- nobody would be determined to fight in an unjust war of conquest.)

A perfect post - I agree with everything you've said. In particular, the need for military campaigns to be more expensive.

 

[LYNCHY]

a better system of supporting rebels should be implemented as well, for years france (now our greatest enemy) supported irish rebels without neccesarily causing an all out rebellion

 

[Don_Quigleone]

Military campaigns should be more expensive, and it should be harder to replenish troops.

What if the farther your troops are from cores, the less reinforcements you get, and the more attrition you're susceptible to? This would particularly work well if Core gaining is scaled with religion and culture. So the Ottomans would have an easy enough time in the Balkans, and Anatolia, but as they advanced further and further into Hungary, they'd begin to reach their limits. Also, due to Southern east Europe being wrong religion and culture, they'd take an extremely long time to get cores, so they wouldn't be able to simply wait for their cores, as that could take a very long time.

 

[Chamboozer]

I think it should have a lot more to do with the weather, rather than a flat distance modifier. Between the 15th and 16th Centuries the strength of fortifications dramatically increased, making it very difficult to successfully carry out a siege before the arrival of winter. If the game introduced something resembling a 'campaigning season' then it would be much harder for an army to conquer huge areas in one go.

Though if a logistics system were ever introduced, I would hope that it would take into account river and sea transport, a flat distance modifier would create all sorts of problems.