In the beginning of the hundred years war France had about 5 times the manpower of England, and an even bigger advantage for armored troops and knights.
Anyway England succeeded to weaken the french, using fast moving columns pillaging on their ways while avoiding open battles and long sieges, winning key battles despite a big number disadvantage, like the battle of Poitiers at 1 vs 10, and taking important lords including king Jean II as prisoners, and finally wasn't far from complete victory in the first half of the war.
Even if we imagine that Jean II was some kind of a misguided warrior and Edward III a brilliant strategist, I doubt that in CK the outcome of this war would be something different than a complete french victory after no more than 10 years of war. A fact is : only numbers matters in CK war model, and having an advantage in number of knights matter even more than anything else.
The only thing actually allowing the player to win an assymetric war is exploiting the AI weakness and flaws of the game, ie by disbanding troops to teleport armies and resplenish them.
If you add to this the fact that navies are not simulated, and so the battle of l'Ecluse where the french fleet was destroyed couldn't happen, and an unlimited number of troops can cross the channel in one move, London would probably have been conquered by the french in year one or two of the war.
And the HYW is not the only example of victories in assymetric wars, crusades can give a lot others, where huge armies were defeated by smaller forces using ambush tactics, and having less problem with attrition.
As well in many cases crusaders armies would have been destroyed by far bigger armies of arabs without their fortifications to protect them while they were waiting for reinforcements. Yes, these genious (compared to all ck leaders) weren't fighting open battles before the sieges, they managed to make their armies enter their castles or fortified cities and defend them.
So... To simulate the period better, I think developpers should think about ways to make assymetric wars more viable.
Some thoughts about that...
1. In actual CK there is no way to adopt the fast moving columns strategy of the english, pillaging and burning villages and monasteries while avoiding long sieges, as you need to completely conquer a province before being able to pillage anything.
2. In actual CK, out of some badly coded events there are no prisoners of war you can ransom. Meaning even if they are lucky enough to win a battle like Poitiers the english wouldn't have their next 5 years of war paid by the huge ransom for Jean le Bon.
3. In actual CK, there seem to be an unlimited supply of boats allowing an unlimited number of troops to cross a sea at a time. In a more realistic model, even if the navies as units remain out of the game, the number of troops you can transfer by boat at a time should be heavily limited no matter your money (also you would need some agreements with the few states having a real navy to be able to bring a whole army to holy land).
4. In actual CK, attrition in non controled lands seem to be quasi linear instead of being based on the number of men you have to supply. Crossing a desert with some hundred of men is not more viable than crossing a desert with 40,000 (of course the 40,000 men army lose more men, but it's about the same %). Also attrition don't seem to affect morale to the point a smaller but supplied force can defeat a big unsupplied army in a desert, like it happened dozen of times during crusades.
5. There are no tactics, and all battles seem to be open battles having the same scenario no matter the terrain, including a shock phase where the party having the bigger number of armored troops/knights always take advantage. There is no way to ask an army to use guerrilla tactics to get more maneuver and ranged phases than shock phases, even if the army is full of light or ranged troops in an accidented terrain. As well retreats you decide have about the same effects as forced retreats, there is no viable way to use hit and run strategies with a mobile army of horsemen (and no way in the first place to build this mobile army as you are not allowed to chose to disband the infantry part of a company like the french historically often did as they were believing that only mounted knights matter).
6. There is no way to protect troops inside a castle when they wait for reinforcements. It seems that all leaders are of the most idiotic kind and chose to fight open battles in front of the castle gate instead of getting inside and waiting when they are outnumbered. The only effect of fortifications is slowing conquest and pillage of provinces after the battles, they don't give the desserved advantage to defending armies, nor even allow them to gain time.
I think CK really need a really different war model than the EU3 one. Medieval era warfare is not about forts with permanent garrisons taken after the main fight between armies of gentlemen sportively agreeing to fight open battle outside, we are not in the "war en dentelles" (english term ?) era. But in a time where armies were sufficiently small to take refuge inside fortifications and survive there sometimes during years, and when they were getting outside it was more often to raid undefended villages than to commit suicide openly fighting stronger armies (or waiting for them, sieging the local castles before taking all the undefended loot).
Anyway England succeeded to weaken the french, using fast moving columns pillaging on their ways while avoiding open battles and long sieges, winning key battles despite a big number disadvantage, like the battle of Poitiers at 1 vs 10, and taking important lords including king Jean II as prisoners, and finally wasn't far from complete victory in the first half of the war.
Even if we imagine that Jean II was some kind of a misguided warrior and Edward III a brilliant strategist, I doubt that in CK the outcome of this war would be something different than a complete french victory after no more than 10 years of war. A fact is : only numbers matters in CK war model, and having an advantage in number of knights matter even more than anything else.
The only thing actually allowing the player to win an assymetric war is exploiting the AI weakness and flaws of the game, ie by disbanding troops to teleport armies and resplenish them.
If you add to this the fact that navies are not simulated, and so the battle of l'Ecluse where the french fleet was destroyed couldn't happen, and an unlimited number of troops can cross the channel in one move, London would probably have been conquered by the french in year one or two of the war.
And the HYW is not the only example of victories in assymetric wars, crusades can give a lot others, where huge armies were defeated by smaller forces using ambush tactics, and having less problem with attrition.
As well in many cases crusaders armies would have been destroyed by far bigger armies of arabs without their fortifications to protect them while they were waiting for reinforcements. Yes, these genious (compared to all ck leaders) weren't fighting open battles before the sieges, they managed to make their armies enter their castles or fortified cities and defend them.
So... To simulate the period better, I think developpers should think about ways to make assymetric wars more viable.
Some thoughts about that...
1. In actual CK there is no way to adopt the fast moving columns strategy of the english, pillaging and burning villages and monasteries while avoiding long sieges, as you need to completely conquer a province before being able to pillage anything.
2. In actual CK, out of some badly coded events there are no prisoners of war you can ransom. Meaning even if they are lucky enough to win a battle like Poitiers the english wouldn't have their next 5 years of war paid by the huge ransom for Jean le Bon.
3. In actual CK, there seem to be an unlimited supply of boats allowing an unlimited number of troops to cross a sea at a time. In a more realistic model, even if the navies as units remain out of the game, the number of troops you can transfer by boat at a time should be heavily limited no matter your money (also you would need some agreements with the few states having a real navy to be able to bring a whole army to holy land).
4. In actual CK, attrition in non controled lands seem to be quasi linear instead of being based on the number of men you have to supply. Crossing a desert with some hundred of men is not more viable than crossing a desert with 40,000 (of course the 40,000 men army lose more men, but it's about the same %). Also attrition don't seem to affect morale to the point a smaller but supplied force can defeat a big unsupplied army in a desert, like it happened dozen of times during crusades.
5. There are no tactics, and all battles seem to be open battles having the same scenario no matter the terrain, including a shock phase where the party having the bigger number of armored troops/knights always take advantage. There is no way to ask an army to use guerrilla tactics to get more maneuver and ranged phases than shock phases, even if the army is full of light or ranged troops in an accidented terrain. As well retreats you decide have about the same effects as forced retreats, there is no viable way to use hit and run strategies with a mobile army of horsemen (and no way in the first place to build this mobile army as you are not allowed to chose to disband the infantry part of a company like the french historically often did as they were believing that only mounted knights matter).
6. There is no way to protect troops inside a castle when they wait for reinforcements. It seems that all leaders are of the most idiotic kind and chose to fight open battles in front of the castle gate instead of getting inside and waiting when they are outnumbered. The only effect of fortifications is slowing conquest and pillage of provinces after the battles, they don't give the desserved advantage to defending armies, nor even allow them to gain time.
I think CK really need a really different war model than the EU3 one. Medieval era warfare is not about forts with permanent garrisons taken after the main fight between armies of gentlemen sportively agreeing to fight open battle outside, we are not in the "war en dentelles" (english term ?) era. But in a time where armies were sufficiently small to take refuge inside fortifications and survive there sometimes during years, and when they were getting outside it was more often to raid undefended villages than to commit suicide openly fighting stronger armies (or waiting for them, sieging the local castles before taking all the undefended loot).
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