Implement a 3rd Division Bar - "Exhaustion" to break up 10,000km+ advances (and other things)

[Deliberus_KR]

The supply rework was meant to address this issue although the only thing it achieved was making encirclements harder (a good change so good work). Other than that the system is largely a failure which has been discussed in detail many times here and elsewhere so I won't re-tread the topic.

The main problems left to be solved are:

1) If the army balance is lopsided to one side, they can simply draw an advance line to the opposite side of the country, set the "Aggressively execute battle plans" and simply watch as your opponent eats the dust as they cannot hope to cope with all of the various advances that are being made everywhere (causing further encirclements) and makes a campaign end far quicker than it should (German Soviet War comes to mind if you are mildly competent at either).

2) The same as point 1 but, the opposite when you are the defender. Whenever, the player loses a choke point/highly defensible territory or many units to the AI, it feels like a downward spiral of death and so they just quit to menu (losing the northern parts of France, or the Daugava-Dnieper line as the Soviets especially).

3) Resting? Recuperating? Re-assignments? Reserve forces? Limited advances? Nah... head to the pacific with your division 24/7 and you'll be fine. The point is not to enforce realism but, to point out how easy and mind-numbing the game can be when your opposition had a small moment of weakness.

The solution proposed would be to add a 3rd bar to the division: "Exhaustion" (alongside Organisation and Strength) with it being coloured red. How would it work? Well, when the unit is fighting it gains exhaustion and gains debuffs (org regain, max org, attack, defense, reinforce rate etc. what have you) and when the division isn't fighting, it loses exhaustion. Most importantly:

- Exhaustion cap would need to be high enough to make further attacks unbeneficial (except for desperate delaying/pining actions).
- Attackers gain more exhaustion than defenders.
- Exhaustion increases and decreases slowly to and from the max cap which would take 1-3 months (i.e. it's not just a second organisation bar). It increases slowly so as to not incur immediate penalties that organisation already does and allows the units to still try and push. It also decreases slowly so that if the division is at or near the maximum exhaustion level, it cannot quickly start pushing again.

What would this solve?

- Having reserve divisions would make more sense because, if frontal troops are defeated then the enemy has to face reserve divisions that are fresh.
- Being knocked out of your highly defensible positions wouldn't be as detrimental anymore because, if you are able to hold the line for long enough then the enemy divisions will become exhausted and have to stop, allowing you to catch your breath.
- Same as the previous point but, for the opposite side as catching your opponent off guard or taking advantage of 1 mistake shouldn't cause a major collapse and an easy steamroll.
- Re-assigning units would make sense as exhausted units would be replaced to rest and others brought in to do the job.
- Re-assigning units would also mean having to keep watch of your advances to make sure that your units aren't too exhausted and aren't caught by an enemy counter attacking force with non-exhaustive troops (Operation Uranus).

But, hey that's just an idea.

 

[pro.gamer.69]

is this not pretty abstracted with org already? it takes 2-5 days of "rest" for a division to fully recover from combat. on top of that, while on our end divisions obviously appear to be fighting or moving while in combat/motion 24/7, resting periods are a given during those times (though maybe not fully, given that infantry can move at 4kmph forever).

 

[Deliberus_KR]

is this not pretty abstracted with org already? it takes 2-5 days of "rest" for a division to fully recover from combat. on top of that, while on our end divisions obviously appear to be fighting or moving while in combat/motion 24/7, resting periods are a given during those times (though maybe not fully, given that infantry can move at 4kmph forever).

As the attacker, if you have more org left over or sufficient enough org regain then you can simply continue to advance. Otherwise, if you get stopped or run out of org you can simply stop for 1 week and repeat the process while encircling enemy divisions on the way and simply cause a landslide that the other player or AI cannot recover from. I.e. Organisation is gained and lost quickly.

With exhaustion, the stat would be more so a long term debuff that increases slowly and decays slowly but, one that when reaching its max would incur heavy penalties. That's the one thing I forgot to mention, sorry will add it into the original post.

 

[Scyobi_Empire]

is that not just org? when you push into enemy territory you lose org, if you attack you lose org, ect

 

[Killer-Cosmo]

An abstract form of what you're describing is, I think, Supply Storage; where a division in surplus Supply will store extra supplies

Normally this is up to 150%, however increasing Supply Grace, like with special forces, allows for much greater amounts

I believe this links into what you're describing because it acts like a secondary divisional Fuel Capacity, except for supply. It means a division can go out of range of good supply for a limited amount of time (like advancing or encircling) and not experience Supply maluses; it is somewhat overlooked however since it doesn't last that long

 

[marcelo r. r.]

war fatigue(So we have time instead of distance) would make more sense and more easier to implement, also will make veterancy make more sense.

 

[Deliberus_KR]

is that not just org? when you push into enemy territory you lose org, if you attack you lose org, ect

As I pointed out to pro.gamer.69 the "exhaustion" stat/bar would be gained more slowly and lost more slowly than organisation. Regaining Org takes about 7-10 days at most. The "exhaustion" stat could be gained to max and lost from max in 1-3 months (depends on the balancing the devs want in the end) hence why I noted it would be a more long-term debuff that would prevent massive advances that steamroll the enemy.

An abstract form of what you're describing is, I think, Supply Storage; where a division in surplus Supply will store extra supplies

Normally this is up to 150%, however increasing Supply Grace, like with special forces, allows for much greater amounts

I believe this links into what you're describing because it acts like a secondary divisional Fuel Capacity, except for supply. It means a division can go out of range of good supply for a limited amount of time (like advancing or encircling) and not experience Supply maluses; it is somewhat overlooked however since it doesn't last that long

No, I'm talking about "exhaustion". It doesn't have anything to do with supply.

war fatigue(So we have time instead of distance) would make more sense and more easier to implement, also will make veterancy make more sense.

There are mods that implement war fatigue/war exhaustion however, they apply nationwide (if not all divisions) and is also not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about attaching an individual "exhaustion" bar/meter to each division.