How long should reinforcing your entire army from nothing take?

[peteoj]

Just like the absence of any sort of badboy/AE system, that is present in all other paradox games, this is baffling. Manpower, in one form or another, ALSO exists in every other series - eu4 and hoi4 have literally manpower, vic2 had soldier pops, so basically just manpower 2. Why no manpower in ck3?...

So many good/benefitial mechanics are just simply missing in ck3 which is just so annoying considering it's the only modern medieval pdx game like why the hell are we still stuck with the terrible alliance, diplomacy and treaty systems that are still ck2 level when so many other games have come out since then that improved all those systems, like the fact that you can only declare war and take the specific land you started the war for is just crazy to me. I can't wait for eu5 so I can actually get some mechanical depth in a modern medieval strategy game.

 

[AchedTeacher]

Just like the absence of any sort of badboy/AE system, that is present in all other paradox games, this is baffling. Manpower, in one form or another, ALSO exists in every other series - eu4 and hoi4 have literally manpower, vic2 had soldier pops, so basically just manpower 2. Why no manpower in ck3?...

Manpower I'm good with. I'm not sure how you see badboy working out in CK3. It was horrid in CK2, where it applied to both conquest by war and inheritance by marriage, and most people still playing CK2 turn it off deliberately.

 

[Benismann]

Manpower I'm good with. I'm not sure how you see badboy working out in CK3. It was horrid in CK2, where it applied to both conquest by war and inheritance by marriage, and most people still playing CK2 turn it off deliberately.

Im not a game designer so idk, i quite like AE from eu4, but im very much not sure how applicable a system like that is to ck3. And im pretty sure just not having any kind of system like that is bad.

 

[Unknown Sage]

Idk man it works in eu4...

I think the key difference there is that in eu4 you have a sort of buffer in the form of manpower reserves. A single bad war where you get stomped on won't leave you completely unable to recover. If the war didn't last super long and you have manpower left in reserve then your armies recover relatively quickly.

stackwipe in ck3 however, and you have to recover those troops from scratch since you have no reserve pool, which is a problem if such recovery is super slow.

 

[Slime99]

I think the key difference there is that in eu4 you have a sort of buffer in the form of manpower reserves. A single bad war where you get stomped on won't leave you completely unable to recover. If the war didn't last super long and you have manpower left in reserve then your armies recover relatively quickly.

stackwipe in ck3 however, and you have to recover those troops from scratch since you have no reserve pool, which is a problem if such recovery is super slow.

I have a few ideas on how to potentially remedy these problems

• Make reinforcing speed slower
• Make battles far less deadly (give levies screen?)
• Make unraised army movement speed far slower (it's now 13.3x faster than by moving on land)

 

[AchedTeacher]

I have a few ideas on how to potentially remedy these problems

• Make reinforcing speed slower
• Make battles far less deadly (give levies screen?)
• Give rally points a max pulling distance for levies
  • Teach the AI to raise near the enemy/war target and only use as much as it needs
• Make army mustering speed far slower (it's now 13.3x faster than by moving on land)

If you want realistic outcomes in your game, you have to model realistic situations. CK3 is decently realistic in its engagement principle, in that close by armies will engage in skirmishing at range for a few weeks, after which moment either general can choose to retreat before any major damage is done on either side. I might suggest slight tweaks to this, for example I think the pursuit/screen phase should only be held if a melee has been going on for a certain amount of time, to signify you truly need to run away. If you just "retreat" on the first day of a melee, that's simply the general deciding not to give in to open battle, which happened all the time in historical warfare and typically there was very little the pursuing army could do to stop it. All things equal, two armed forces were roughly equally fast and it was very likely a pursuing army could never quite catch up to its target. I'd say:

• Make AI generals more likely to disengage within a few (let's say 3) days of melee, if they realize it's hopeless.
  • In such a case, give the retreating general a buff to screen or something.
• Make the outcome of "proper battles" (ones that play out its melee phase fully) more determining of warscore. Minor wars over a single county that do not threaten the existence of the top liege should not have the top liege engage its troops in "proper battles" if it can help it at all. If the Holy Roman Emperor is heavily outnumbered in a war against the king of France over the county of Zeeland, it should keep its troops in its heartland, behind fortifications and deny the French battles. He should use castles what they were used for: armies in waiting.
  • Moreover, such wars should treat heavy in-field defeats as good reasons to sit at the negotiation's table. If the Holy Roman Emperor loses even just 25% of its entire force in a proper battle in a war that determines the ownership of Zeeland, that should give something like 100% warscore to the king of France.
  • On the flip side, an independent count of Zeeland should not give up its war even if 100% of its forces were wiped out, so long as its castle is still standing.

 

[Benismann]

I think the key difference there is that in eu4 you have a sort of buffer in the form of manpower reserves. A single bad war where you get stomped on won't leave you completely unable to recover. If the war didn't last super long and you have manpower left in reserve then your armies recover relatively quickly.

stackwipe in ck3 however, and you have to recover those troops from scratch since you have no reserve pool, which is a problem if such recovery is super slow.

That is a fair point. But.... why dont we have manpower reserves? Ig thats coz levies are irregulars and having "levy reserves" would be kinda weird. But.... then just make it so you can only raise half of your levies at any given time, now you have some reserves, and the justification for that? Idk, someone has to keep your farms and fields operational after all...
Or even just straight up add levy pool.

Make battles far less deadly (give levies screen?)

I dont like that idea, just make battles have like 15% dead instead of current 30 by default. And maybe lower pursuit-to-damage conversion. Coz even right now, minor amounts of pursuit, like one on skirmishers or forest wardens or varangian vets doesnt really do anything coz the enemy almost certainly has some screen from some unit, and that's usually enough to block any gains from your pursuit it completely. Giving levies screen will only make that problem extend to default light cav too probably,

 

[Slime99]

That is a fair point. But.... why dont we have manpower reserves? Ig thats coz levies are irregulars and having "levy reserves" would be kinda weird. But.... then just make it so you can only raise half of your levies at any given time, now you have some reserves, and the justification for that? Idk, someone has to keep your farms and fields operational after all...
Or even just straight up add levy pool.


I dont like that idea, just make battles have like 15% dead instead of current 30 by default. And maybe lower pursuit-to-damage conversion. Coz even right now, minor amounts of pursuit, like one on skirmishers or forest wardens or varangian vets doesnt really do anything coz the enemy almost certainly has some screen from some unit, and that's usually enough to block any gains from your pursuit it completely. Giving levies screen will only make that problem extend to default light cav too probably,

I don't like artificially preventing you from raising levies. But if unraised army movement speed would be slower than it is now, it would not be effective to raise all of your levies if your realm is too large. Right now this issue hardly ever arises thanks to how fast they are. But the AI should be taught to only raise as many troops as it actually needs and to raise them near the war target or the enemy territory.