Reading all comments on that and from my own experience, I can only say that cannon attrition seems to be too high. These things are NOT dying from hunger or sickness...
Manstein
Manstein
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The high rate of cannon attrition and their high destruction rate when laying siege to a fortress makes it nigh-on impossible to take your expensive cannon-stuffed army from province to province, blasting all on your way.
in my experience with russia (i am not sure if anyone else who has the game can back me up) cannon attrition has not been very high. in novogrod (sp? i dunno 
) i built 30 cannon along with some 5,000 infantrymen. i marched down to kazan (which i had conquered in the first five years of the grand campaign) losing only 1 cannon, but about 530 infantrymen. its true that most of the provinces are large and can support great numbers of troops as opposed to the small english or german provinces, but i dont think that cannon attrition is too high anywhere. that is just my opinion, and keep in mind that i played the game once and only for about 100 years.
) i built 30 cannon along with some 5,000 infantrymen. i marched down to kazan (which i had conquered in the first five years of the grand campaign) losing only 1 cannon, but about 530 infantrymen. its true that most of the provinces are large and can support great numbers of troops as opposed to the small english or german provinces, but i dont think that cannon attrition is too high anywhere. that is just my opinion, and keep in mind that i played the game once and only for about 100 years.
Heh, guys. Attrition for cannons is absolutely spot on.
There is a good work around for lessening the amount of loss of the precious cannon though.
Make 2 armies. One is a mixture of 3:1 cavalry and infantry. Have them lead the path to your chosen sieging destination. Make sure this army outnumbers your enemy by at least 10-20%, unless you have a very powerful leader. Have the main army defeat the main forces of your enemy.
Once and IF they are cleared, 2nd in the second army, which is small, yet composed of a small proportion of infantry or infantry/cavalry mixed with 90% of the artillery.
If you're going to move artillery across long distances, don't expect for the entire load to arrive in one piece at your destination. Especially during winter, and when traversing hazarous terrain.
Sapura
There is a good work around for lessening the amount of loss of the precious cannon though.
Make 2 armies. One is a mixture of 3:1 cavalry and infantry. Have them lead the path to your chosen sieging destination. Make sure this army outnumbers your enemy by at least 10-20%, unless you have a very powerful leader. Have the main army defeat the main forces of your enemy.
Once and IF they are cleared, 2nd in the second army, which is small, yet composed of a small proportion of infantry or infantry/cavalry mixed with 90% of the artillery.
If you're going to move artillery across long distances, don't expect for the entire load to arrive in one piece at your destination. Especially during winter, and when traversing hazarous terrain.
Sapura
Sapura: What exactly does '90% of the artillery' mean? That the second force should consist of 90% artillery? Then for besieging a fortress with 10000 garrison we would need at least 10k infantery and 90k cannons!!! *gulp*
Hartmann
Hartmann
No ..
90% of the artillery you have conscripted for the attack on the enemy fortress / or as the initial conscription for an attack on the whole country.
90% is just a figure. Can be 80, can be 75, can be 95%. However the BULK of the artillery would need to be in the 2nd army proceeding behind the main force. The big down side to this plan is that if your main army is routed, the enemy army will no doubt try to advance on your little artillery baggage train .. and that could be utterly devastating.
e.g. conscript say 10,000 men. 8,000 is infantry. 2,000 cavalry and 100 pieces of artillery.
Main Army would have e.g. 7,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry and 10 pieces of artillery to help in the battle against the main enemy force.
2nd Army, the artillery tabor, would have say 3,000 infantry, 500 cavalry and 90 pieces of artillery.
Sapura
90% of the artillery you have conscripted for the attack on the enemy fortress / or as the initial conscription for an attack on the whole country.
90% is just a figure. Can be 80, can be 75, can be 95%. However the BULK of the artillery would need to be in the 2nd army proceeding behind the main force. The big down side to this plan is that if your main army is routed, the enemy army will no doubt try to advance on your little artillery baggage train .. and that could be utterly devastating.
e.g. conscript say 10,000 men. 8,000 is infantry. 2,000 cavalry and 100 pieces of artillery.
Main Army would have e.g. 7,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry and 10 pieces of artillery to help in the battle against the main enemy force.
2nd Army, the artillery tabor, would have say 3,000 infantry, 500 cavalry and 90 pieces of artillery.
Sapura
Thanx, now I get a better grasp. But still: If I want to besiege a fortress at all, I have to have at least as much infantry as the garrison of the fortress, right? (At least, thats what I experienced. ) So it seems to me that Your second army is too weak to do more than 'bedecken'. (Apart from that, You will not get 10k infantry total, if You only conscript 8k )
Hartmann
[This message has been edited by Hartmann (edited 22-11-2000).]
)Hartmann
[This message has been edited by Hartmann (edited 22-11-2000).]
Heh, umm what I ment was this: Both armies will join each other in the enemy province during the besieging of the city. Of course making sure your cavalry doesn't participate in the assault since its just cannon fodder during sieges. In other words
a) you'll have enough men to lay siege to a particular fortress
b) you'll have more artillery because less of it was lost due to war operations before reaching the city.
As for the infantry figure, it was just a hypothetical scenario.
Sapura
[This message has been edited by Sapura (edited 22-11-2000).]
Sorry Sap,
Can't see that this changes anything or why you suggestions make artillery losses any more historically correct. As I also asked on the atttrition thread - provide me sources stating that armies generally lost 10% of their artillery in a month's regular operations, and then I might believe you.
A) This is exactly the way I operate.
B) The Artillery still dies in droves in the siege operations against the enemy fortress. Unless (surprise) one removes a lot of infantry so that the artillery crew will no longer be eating their cannons for snack. Well - I assume they must be eating their cannon, otherwise it makes no sense for so many of them to be put out of action.
I never have my artillery involved in battles if I can avoid it - something which is wildly ahistoric in itself, since one of Gustaf Adolf's great innovations was the use of combined artillery/infantry.
Can't see that this changes anything or why you suggestions make artillery losses any more historically correct. As I also asked on the atttrition thread - provide me sources stating that armies generally lost 10% of their artillery in a month's regular operations, and then I might believe you.
A) This is exactly the way I operate.
B) The Artillery still dies in droves in the siege operations against the enemy fortress. Unless (surprise) one removes a lot of infantry so that the artillery crew will no longer be eating their cannons for snack. Well - I assume they must be eating their cannon, otherwise it makes no sense for so many of them to be put out of action.
I never have my artillery involved in battles if I can avoid it - something which is wildly ahistoric in itself, since one of Gustaf Adolf's great innovations was the use of combined artillery/infantry.
q rovide me sources stating that armies generally lost 10% of their artillery in a month's regular operations, and then I might believe you.
Provide me with sources stating that they didn't. I don't have to prove myself to you, the beta team spent 8 months on this game and I'm sure they researched it well. 30+ beta testers seem to think the attrition factor is perfect for artillery. They know a lot about history, military history and the engine of this game. So _I'm_ sorry, strategy but it's going to stay the way it is for now at least. If you're having problems with it, ask Johan to show you how to edit the stats to lower attrition yourself, if its possible.
q:B) The Artillery still dies in droves in the siege operations against the enemy fortress.
Perhaps you should lay siege instead of all out assaulting the fortress non stop so you can capture the city as quickly as possible. Want to lose less, besiege the fortress first and wait for their defenses to weaken. Then assault, rather than the all out assaulting from beginning to end where you lose 20,000 men and all your artillery. If you did that sort of stuff in real life, you'd be long dead at the hands of your own men before ordering a another inconclusive assault on a fortress.
q I never have my artillery involved in battles if I can avoid it
Well, thats your choice. I usually have between 10 and 20 pieces of artillery in major battles. Though the losses in these can be a tad excessive at times (even if one is the victor), I think it still works well.
Sapura
[This message has been edited by Sapura (edited 23-11-2000).]
rovide me sources stating that armies generally lost 10% of their artillery in a month's regular operations, and then I might believe you.Provide me with sources stating that they didn't. I don't have to prove myself to you, the beta team spent 8 months on this game and I'm sure they researched it well. 30+ beta testers seem to think the attrition factor is perfect for artillery. They know a lot about history, military history and the engine of this game. So _I'm_ sorry, strategy but it's going to stay the way it is for now at least. If you're having problems with it, ask Johan to show you how to edit the stats to lower attrition yourself, if its possible.
q:B) The Artillery still dies in droves in the siege operations against the enemy fortress.
Perhaps you should lay siege instead of all out assaulting the fortress non stop so you can capture the city as quickly as possible. Want to lose less, besiege the fortress first and wait for their defenses to weaken. Then assault, rather than the all out assaulting from beginning to end where you lose 20,000 men and all your artillery. If you did that sort of stuff in real life, you'd be long dead at the hands of your own men before ordering a another inconclusive assault on a fortress.
q I never have my artillery involved in battles if I can avoid it
Well, thats your choice. I usually have between 10 and 20 pieces of artillery in major battles. Though the losses in these can be a tad excessive at times (even if one is the victor), I think it still works well.
Sapura
[This message has been edited by Sapura (edited 23-11-2000).]
One area that does however need tweaking is the 'cover' area when in an enemy province. Greven just brought it to my attention, I didn't see that the attrition when covering the city was that bad. One of the things that was missed, oh well. Easily fixable by Greven / Johan.
Sapura
Sapura
Provide me with sources stating that they didn't. I don't have to prove myself to you, the beta team spent 8 months on this game and I'm sure they researched it well.
I won't bother, because at the size of many (if not most) real armies of the period (pre 1700) were, they wouldn't suffer from attrition at all. I'm sure that was researched well also.
Perhaps you should lay siege instead of all out assaulting the fortress non stop so you can capture the city as quickly as possible.
Want to lose less, besiege the fortress first and wait for their defenses to weaken. Then assault, rather than the all out assaulting from beginning to end where you lose 20,000 men and all your artillery.
Sorry Sap, but you still misunderstannd my point.
If you besiege the fortress, (without special military leaders) you would tend to loose 7% artillery a month, and the siege will typically take at least 6 months (if not even longer - a year's time seems very typical). By the time the siege is over, you would have lost easily half of your artillery and an equal amount of your infantry.
Assault it immediately, and (with 120 cannon) you'll loose once from monthly attrition, and take the fortress with 1-2 storms and very low losses (typically no more than 10-17%) from the assault (the place where you can suffer heavily is when you are marching away afterward). Better yet - use no cannon at all and take 30k-40k infantry - you won't loose any artillery, and you'd still take the fortress in 2-3 months with minimal losses.
I always assault immediately (if I have the forces for it) and take the fortress with relatively few casaulties compared to the losses I take in those few situations where I have tried long sieges. When I use artillery, I operate in exactly the way you have prescribed (including retiring to my own territories for winter) and simply put: it is inefficient in comparison to the comparable effect achieved by a rapid, blitzkrieg strategy.
To win wars, you need to capture provinces. To win wars quickly (usually a good thing, I'm sure you'd agree), you need to capture them quickly.
If you did that sort of stuff in real life, you'd be long dead at the hands of your own men before ordering a another inconclusive assault on a fortress.
But if you do that in EU, you win wars! And you can win them in less than a year of campaigning (as borne out by 3 campaigns by Denmark against Sweden).
So in EU the belief in the short victorious War is not a dangerous illusion, it is an easily achievable fact.
Obviously (without meaning any disrepect guys) 30+ betatesters can agree that the historical model is flawless all they want - the simple fact is that it is not; otherwise blatantly unhistorical tactics like the above wouldn't be possible. And why should I believe that attrition in any way reflects historical fact for cannon, when it is plainly not correct in so many other cases ?
Nations of Europe did not amass armies of 400k professional troops and keep them fed in their home country (as I've seen Holland do) - is that historical? Two armies of 60k clashing, with both sufering 50% losses? Armies of 4k troops defeating 10 times their numbers? With comparable technologies mind you - I know the English frequently achieved this in India - funnily enough probably the only place in the EU gameworld this would be impossible, since the huge amount of cavalry the indian empires start out with would massacre 4k men in short order.
Now personally, I don't care a jot whether or not the game is perfectly historical. That is not the point (since the point where you can make a game 100% historical is still far off in the future) - the only reason I bring this up is because I find the 'Well, this was historical' arguement to be somewhat out of place - especially in the case such as artillery where justifying this is impossible (in most sources the amount of cannon lost on the march is not mentioned at all. As cannon were very expensive and a symbol of high status, I very much doubt this would have been the case if any had been lost).
The point is (or so I thought), to create a well-balanced game, with historical chrome. My point is that - at least for a medium-size power such as Denmark - cavalry and artillery are a quite unnecesarry unit. Quite simply, you can have terrific success without either of those units after the first 30 years. You can disagree with this all you like, but this is a simple fact (as borne out by my current game as Denmark - read the AAR - and also from what I understand by the experiences of several other players who have stated something simmilar.
The reason for this are many, a complex interplay of several game mechanisms (not least the variable prices for units with different nations and yes - some weaknesses in the AI - one of which happily seems to be fixed in v1.03). I can't help it if I have the kind of mind that enjoys ferreting out the 'holes' in a game system. Comes of studying AI too much, I guess.
But IMO, one of the greater factors contributing to the 'uselessness' of these units is the attrition of these units - especially during sieges. And (you know this already) my suggestion is to fix this.
Reduce artillery attrition on march, during sieges, and in battle.
Increase artillery attrition when retreating.
Reduce cavalry attrition during sieges.
Increase the difficulties of assaulting a fortress, at least in the early going (and increase the effect of artillery in siege operations - it would be nice if the garrison also suffered losses).
And essentially, Johan and the gang may make use of my observations or not as they want - I only bring these things up because I would like to see an already quite good game become even better.
I rest my case (besides, I have to get back to working on Imperium so that, in a years time, I can hear people complaining about the AI in my own game and claiming that it isn't historical for hellenistic xystophoros cavalry to loose 10% troops from attrition).
Regards,
/Strategy
I won't bother, because at the size of many (if not most) real armies of the period (pre 1700) were, they wouldn't suffer from attrition at all. I'm sure that was researched well also.
Perhaps you should lay siege instead of all out assaulting the fortress non stop so you can capture the city as quickly as possible.
Want to lose less, besiege the fortress first and wait for their defenses to weaken. Then assault, rather than the all out assaulting from beginning to end where you lose 20,000 men and all your artillery.
Sorry Sap, but you still misunderstannd my point.
If you besiege the fortress, (without special military leaders) you would tend to loose 7% artillery a month, and the siege will typically take at least 6 months (if not even longer - a year's time seems very typical). By the time the siege is over, you would have lost easily half of your artillery and an equal amount of your infantry.
Assault it immediately, and (with 120 cannon) you'll loose once from monthly attrition, and take the fortress with 1-2 storms and very low losses (typically no more than 10-17%) from the assault (the place where you can suffer heavily is when you are marching away afterward). Better yet - use no cannon at all and take 30k-40k infantry - you won't loose any artillery, and you'd still take the fortress in 2-3 months with minimal losses.
I always assault immediately (if I have the forces for it) and take the fortress with relatively few casaulties compared to the losses I take in those few situations where I have tried long sieges. When I use artillery, I operate in exactly the way you have prescribed (including retiring to my own territories for winter) and simply put: it is inefficient in comparison to the comparable effect achieved by a rapid, blitzkrieg strategy.
To win wars, you need to capture provinces. To win wars quickly (usually a good thing, I'm sure you'd agree), you need to capture them quickly.
If you did that sort of stuff in real life, you'd be long dead at the hands of your own men before ordering a another inconclusive assault on a fortress.
But if you do that in EU, you win wars! And you can win them in less than a year of campaigning (as borne out by 3 campaigns by Denmark against Sweden).
So in EU the belief in the short victorious War is not a dangerous illusion, it is an easily achievable fact.
Obviously (without meaning any disrepect guys) 30+ betatesters can agree that the historical model is flawless all they want - the simple fact is that it is not; otherwise blatantly unhistorical tactics like the above wouldn't be possible. And why should I believe that attrition in any way reflects historical fact for cannon, when it is plainly not correct in so many other cases ?
Nations of Europe did not amass armies of 400k professional troops and keep them fed in their home country (as I've seen Holland do) - is that historical? Two armies of 60k clashing, with both sufering 50% losses? Armies of 4k troops defeating 10 times their numbers? With comparable technologies mind you - I know the English frequently achieved this in India - funnily enough probably the only place in the EU gameworld this would be impossible, since the huge amount of cavalry the indian empires start out with would massacre 4k men in short order.
Now personally, I don't care a jot whether or not the game is perfectly historical. That is not the point (since the point where you can make a game 100% historical is still far off in the future) - the only reason I bring this up is because I find the 'Well, this was historical' arguement to be somewhat out of place - especially in the case such as artillery where justifying this is impossible (in most sources the amount of cannon lost on the march is not mentioned at all. As cannon were very expensive and a symbol of high status, I very much doubt this would have been the case if any had been lost).
The point is (or so I thought), to create a well-balanced game, with historical chrome. My point is that - at least for a medium-size power such as Denmark - cavalry and artillery are a quite unnecesarry unit. Quite simply, you can have terrific success without either of those units after the first 30 years. You can disagree with this all you like, but this is a simple fact (as borne out by my current game as Denmark - read the AAR - and also from what I understand by the experiences of several other players who have stated something simmilar.
The reason for this are many, a complex interplay of several game mechanisms (not least the variable prices for units with different nations and yes - some weaknesses in the AI - one of which happily seems to be fixed in v1.03). I can't help it if I have the kind of mind that enjoys ferreting out the 'holes' in a game system. Comes of studying AI too much, I guess.
But IMO, one of the greater factors contributing to the 'uselessness' of these units is the attrition of these units - especially during sieges. And (you know this already) my suggestion is to fix this.
Reduce artillery attrition on march, during sieges, and in battle.
Increase artillery attrition when retreating.
Reduce cavalry attrition during sieges.
Increase the difficulties of assaulting a fortress, at least in the early going (and increase the effect of artillery in siege operations - it would be nice if the garrison also suffered losses).
And essentially, Johan and the gang may make use of my observations or not as they want - I only bring these things up because I would like to see an already quite good game become even better.
I rest my case (besides, I have to get back to working on Imperium so that, in a years time, I can hear people complaining about the AI in my own game and claiming that it isn't historical for hellenistic xystophoros cavalry to loose 10% troops from attrition
).Regards,
/Strategy
Hi strategy,
since You´ve posted the link to imperium on HOTU, I´m looking forward to Your game!
I have an idea, how the superiority of different strategies like Your´s (screwing cannons and cavalry, assaulting fortresses immediately) and Sap´s (mix of artillery, infantry and cavalry, besieging fortresses) can be proved: Play a multiplayer game! It´s always the success of action which is the criterion of truth (yes, I´m a pragmatist). By the way: my own strategy involves cavalry, but like You I tend to avoid artillery.
Cheers, Hartmann
since You´ve posted the link to imperium on HOTU, I´m looking forward to Your game!
I have an idea, how the superiority of different strategies like Your´s (screwing cannons and cavalry, assaulting fortresses immediately) and Sap´s (mix of artillery, infantry and cavalry, besieging fortresses) can be proved: Play a multiplayer game! It´s always the success of action which is the criterion of truth (yes, I´m a pragmatist). By the way: my own strategy involves cavalry, but like You I tend to avoid artillery.
Cheers, Hartmann
Single-player and multi-player games can't help but be entirely different game environments. What works against an AI isn't likely to work against a player.
There are many ways in which my strategy would become less effective - e.g., by the simple expedient of having armies ready to counter siege storms - as I do against the AI. However, the AI is incapable of this (and getting an AI to be so capable is likely no easy matter).What I do know is that my method works extremely well in the single player game at least pre-1610. Case in point my final war against Sweden (in the AAR), where I had captured 7 out of 8 Swedish provinces in 16 months of fighting and was only kept from taking the last one at the same time by the incompetence of my allies (I'd like to see this done using Sap's method) - this without reloads of course.
This despite my armies being at numerical parity with the Swedes (and them having historical leaders).
If you besiege the fortress, (without special military leaders) you would tend to loose 7% artillery a month, and the siege will typically take at least 6 months (if not even longer - a year's time seems very typical). By the time the siege is over, you would have lost easily half of your artillery and an equal amount of your infantry.
Assault it immediately, and (with 120 cannon) you'll loose once from monthly attrition, and take the fortress with 1-2 storms and very low losses (typically no more than 10-17%) from the assault (the place where you can suffer heavily is when you are marching away afterward). Better yet - use no cannon at all and take 30k-40k infantry - you won't loose any artillery, and you'd still take the fortress in 2-3 months with minimal losses.
I always assault immediately (if I have the forces for it) and take the fortress with relatively few casaulties compared to the losses I take in those few situations where I have tried long sieges. When I use artillery, I operate in exactly the way you have prescribed (including retiring to my own territories for winter) and simply put: it is inefficient in comparison to the comparable effect achieved by a rapid, blitzkrieg strategy.
To win wars, you need to capture provinces. To win wars quickly (usually a good thing, I'm sure you'd agree), you need to capture them quickly.'
And that is exactly what everybody will do when playing this game! You want to win and win big too. The only way is to use resources efficiently. That means, and let me put it in other terms, that investing in other than infantry units is a waste of money. I myself, have resigned from trying to build them and am quite succesful in my game with Holland. I have conquered all of Germany, (continental) Denmark, Hanse, Switserland, some french provinces, all of china and have kicked the spanish out of South America (by 1700) and did it with just inf....
Reduce artillery attrition on march, during sieges, and in battle.
Increase artillery attrition when retreating.
Reduce cavalry attrition during sieges.
Increase the difficulties of assaulting a fortress, at least in the early going (and increase the effect of artillery in siege operations - it would be nice if the garrison also suffered losses).
This would have been my exact tip. I actually expected the game to have these features already and I was soon disappointed.
And essentially, Johan and the gang may make use of my observations or not as they want - I only bring these things up because I would like to see an already quite good game become even better.
Histrory is a matter of interpretation. And don't give me 'that you have found in your research that', because the game was made to be a game, not an encyclopedia. I understand and very much appreciate the efforts in making this game so historically accurate (being dutch) and that is why I bought it. But playing the game and making full use of all it's possibilities in the process would be nice... The argument of historical accurateness doesn't seem to be a very valid one, in my opinion. The game is for the gamers, not for the history books...
Assault it immediately, and (with 120 cannon) you'll loose once from monthly attrition, and take the fortress with 1-2 storms and very low losses (typically no more than 10-17%) from the assault (the place where you can suffer heavily is when you are marching away afterward). Better yet - use no cannon at all and take 30k-40k infantry - you won't loose any artillery, and you'd still take the fortress in 2-3 months with minimal losses.
I always assault immediately (if I have the forces for it) and take the fortress with relatively few casaulties compared to the losses I take in those few situations where I have tried long sieges. When I use artillery, I operate in exactly the way you have prescribed (including retiring to my own territories for winter) and simply put: it is inefficient in comparison to the comparable effect achieved by a rapid, blitzkrieg strategy.
To win wars, you need to capture provinces. To win wars quickly (usually a good thing, I'm sure you'd agree), you need to capture them quickly.'
And that is exactly what everybody will do when playing this game! You want to win and win big too. The only way is to use resources efficiently. That means, and let me put it in other terms, that investing in other than infantry units is a waste of money. I myself, have resigned from trying to build them and am quite succesful in my game with Holland. I have conquered all of Germany, (continental) Denmark, Hanse, Switserland, some french provinces, all of china and have kicked the spanish out of South America (by 1700) and did it with just inf....
Reduce artillery attrition on march, during sieges, and in battle.
Increase artillery attrition when retreating.
Reduce cavalry attrition during sieges.
Increase the difficulties of assaulting a fortress, at least in the early going (and increase the effect of artillery in siege operations - it would be nice if the garrison also suffered losses).
This would have been my exact tip. I actually expected the game to have these features already and I was soon disappointed.
And essentially, Johan and the gang may make use of my observations or not as they want - I only bring these things up because I would like to see an already quite good game become even better.
Histrory is a matter of interpretation. And don't give me 'that you have found in your research that', because the game was made to be a game, not an encyclopedia. I understand and very much appreciate the efforts in making this game so historically accurate (being dutch) and that is why I bought it. But playing the game and making full use of all it's possibilities in the process would be nice... The argument of historical accurateness doesn't seem to be a very valid one, in my opinion. The game is for the gamers, not for the history books...
I found out by playing yesterday that at mid-game and onwards you can't win without artillery. Why? Because assaulting fortresses at higher levels and higher tech levels is extremely costly. Tried to assault a lvl 3 fortress with 23 000 inf. When I had 4000 men left I wasn't allowed to continue and fortress morale was still good. So i bought some cannons, actually 20 and 16000 infantry and moved in and laid a siege, and what happened. It fell within a year. This all happened in 1608 down in Mexico...
On attrition in siege:
When you move an army into a province it automatically besieges the province. The buttons 'cover' (bottomleft) and 'siege' (bottomright) are too small... They should have been called 'Detatch force to Cover' and 'Detatch force to Siege'. If you for exampel want to screen a fortress and move on then click cover-button once. However, I at least, thought that besieging was when they both were shaded thus the force split into 5-25 parts, but that is not so. If one splitt the force in this way the attrition level will raise as the sum of all small units 'weights' will be greater than the 'weight' of one whole army. Did not know this until today.
/Greven
On attrition in siege:
When you move an army into a province it automatically besieges the province. The buttons 'cover' (bottomleft) and 'siege' (bottomright) are too small... They should have been called 'Detatch force to Cover' and 'Detatch force to Siege'. If you for exampel want to screen a fortress and move on then click cover-button once. However, I at least, thought that besieging was when they both were shaded thus the force split into 5-25 parts, but that is not so. If one splitt the force in this way the attrition level will raise as the sum of all small units 'weights' will be greater than the 'weight' of one whole army. Did not know this until today.
/Greven
I think 23k men is on the low end, even for taking a lvl 2 fortress. It can be done with that few, but I'd only attempt it if I was desperate. Against a lvl 3 fortress, obviously more troops would be needed for this to be successful.
But speaking from what I've seen, greater than lvl 2 fortresses are rare by 1610 (still quite an amount of lvl 1 fortresses around as well). Against the major powers (France, Poland, Russia, Spain) it is easy to find some lowly fortified provinces (lvl 1 or 2), take these and force them to surrender two provinces and an indemnity.
About 'Cover' vs 'Besiege' - yes, these buttons don't seem to function very well. Also, if you detach a covering force it will often get attrited down within a couple of months, so that it will retreat - when I've used this function I usually detach a besieging force or 2 covering forces instead. I think it would have been better if one could simply just reorganize troops during a siege.
/Strategy
Maybe it's just me, but in most games I've played, the fortresses of the more important provinces are lvl 3+ around 1600 without many exceptions.
Still, assaulting seems too easy, as I usually don't bother sending in more than 15k men to take a lvl 2 fortress by assault.(unless it's winter, when I don't bother at all)
However, taking a lvl 3-4 fortress without cannon is exceedingly expensive in terms of manpower, but since infantry (cannonfodder) is fairly inexpensive and most semi-large nations can call on a manpowerbase of atleast 40k, it's never a problem for me to recruit enough...
At lvl 5 (20000 men 30-40 cannon) things get hairy, and I very seldom assault unless I've got a GOOD leader and at the very least 60k infantry.
Also, I've noticed the amount of soldiers and cannon in the fortress has a lot to do with the size of the province. I've seen both 5k and 10k in a small (lvl 2) fortress.
So in other words: make assaulting without cannon harder, and assaulting WITH cannon easier.
Also, I don't see why one should lose cav and arty while assaulting, since this is an infantry only action!
I would love to read a rationalization for that one!
Still, assaulting seems too easy, as I usually don't bother sending in more than 15k men to take a lvl 2 fortress by assault.(unless it's winter, when I don't bother at all)
However, taking a lvl 3-4 fortress without cannon is exceedingly expensive in terms of manpower, but since infantry (cannonfodder) is fairly inexpensive and most semi-large nations can call on a manpowerbase of atleast 40k, it's never a problem for me to recruit enough...
At lvl 5 (20000 men 30-40 cannon) things get hairy, and I very seldom assault unless I've got a GOOD leader and at the very least 60k infantry.
Also, I've noticed the amount of soldiers and cannon in the fortress has a lot to do with the size of the province. I've seen both 5k and 10k in a small (lvl 2) fortress.
So in other words: make assaulting without cannon harder, and assaulting WITH cannon easier.
Also, I don't see why one should lose cav and arty while assaulting, since this is an infantry only action!
I would love to read a rationalization for that one!