What a moment
This is somewhat better, but the diplomatic wasn't too bad. So you can go either way. I like this one better though.
Why have they been so bad?
Dark foreboding for Spain
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İsn't this one concluded, and it's to bring wares to your home node in the most complicated way possible?
W
Would a 40 cav 40 art 0 inf work? If so, would it work better than the 0 cav 40 inf 40 art? How much flanking does cav have?
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lol, good one, yes, and it depends on whom you are asking the question. Despite the plethora of the explanations, guidelines, showcases, forum discussions, aars, playthroughs, or memes, over more than ten years, there is always the odd comment of I don't understand how trade works one can see on multiple platforms, and it seems it is not related to being newly introduced to the game or its concepts. It happens. Remembering the young days during eu2 trying to figure out how to get more merchants.For the first part, yes it will work. It costs 2,5 times more to maintain, and with higher shock capabilities and flanking range, the stackwipe-chances increase, yet it involves many other variables. Understanding the point of view for the second question, unfortunately there is no single, quick, simple answer that would satisfy this inquiry.
It depends on more than one variable that change the outcome wildly: by age-tech level, tech group, chosen ideas, tag specific ideas, economic situation, tag abilities, battle location, etc. and for both belligerents in any given combat.
Even the chosen land unit type will drastically change the results: Playing with europe-tags, fighting the code-europe-tags? Battle modifiers put aside, while at tech level 5, the player armies are almost always devastated by the code armies when the player is the attacking side.
That is because majority of the players and the code tags almost exclusively choose men at arms type infantry, which has no fire pip naturally, but in particular they have no offensive shock pip too; only one shock pip, but defensive. That means, without the extra battle modifiers, at the same tech level, with the similar army sizes, the defender will win in most cases. Now add the battle modifiers, army size, AND the code ability of favourable dice rolls: The defensive code armies do annihilate the offensive player armies, and at the shock phase, so at the first die roll as the armies barely touch each other before the first tick of time, in almost all cases.
But add the cavalry in that equation: They are all latin knights until tech 10. Now higher cavalry numbers will affect the outcome heavily, and it is limited to 50% by default.
And now bring the horde at the same tech: They are all eastern steppe cavalry, and they can field higher numbers of cavalry as the allowed cav-inf ratio is higher, and battle in steppe province, add battle modifiers discipline, morale, etc - instant stackwipe - sad latin knight tears.
That is because majority of the players and the code tags almost exclusively choose men at arms type infantry, which has no fire pip naturally, but in particular they have no offensive shock pip too; only one shock pip, but defensive. That means, without the extra battle modifiers, at the same tech level, with the similar army sizes, the defender will win in most cases. Now add the battle modifiers, army size, AND the code ability of favourable dice rolls: The defensive code armies do annihilate the offensive player armies, and at the shock phase, so at the first die roll as the armies barely touch each other before the first tick of time, in almost all cases.
But add the cavalry in that equation: They are all latin knights until tech 10. Now higher cavalry numbers will affect the outcome heavily, and it is limited to 50% by default.
And now bring the horde at the same tech: They are all eastern steppe cavalry, and they can field higher numbers of cavalry as the allowed cav-inf ratio is higher, and battle in steppe province, add battle modifiers discipline, morale, etc - instant stackwipe - sad latin knight tears.
But will point out one other side-concern: The late phase of the game is associated with the 40-long armies, such as in this question.
There is another limitation regarding the size. There is no province that can practically supply such an army, unless the run involves bizarre actions such as hyping a province more than 50 dev. There is no credible gain by increasing the dev of any province -any province- more than 40. None. Nought. Zero. Nil. But since it has become even more easier to achieve such inflated dev numbers, the supply limits can perhaps accommodate such armies, 40-40, so a 80k army unit.
Which is, by any account, ridiculous.
In the end, those armies will be moving, and not every province can supply that, thus enormous and unnecessary attrition. And the player is... not the code, lol. The code can run around with such army sizes, and from the beginning to the end, because... yeah, low attrition.
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Why would Brittany ever betray her faithful friends?
In all seriousness though, every moment Spain is our ally is a moment they aren't our enemy. While it would be nice to betray them and take their land/colonies, I would still like their help against France. And ideally I'd like to place a Dreux family member on the throne and get a union.
We'll revisit our Spanish foreign policy once France is dealt with.
They were ultimately unsuccessful. And now their riches are ours!The British were surely trying to emulate your successful comeback by massing in the Southern Pacific.
Cavalry has no movement speed bonuses in EU4 as far as I'm aware. Every unit moves at the same rate. What makes cavalry unique though is its high damage in the shock phase of combat (remember combat has two phases: fire and shock. Fire comes first, and the two types alternate after that) and its ability to flank. Cavalry starts with 2 flanking range. By the end of the game it'll be up to 5.
Flanking attacks do more damage I think, but I'm not sure on the exact benefits or calculations.
ATM all my armies are 80k (40-0-40). I probably should've made them 50-0-40 or similar. But we have enough armies to reinforce each other and prevent cannons from spilling over into the frontlines.
Thanks for the explanation @filcat! Your detailed analyses are always welcome!
I agree with basically everything said, though I have something to add below:
For your first question, as filcat points out, it depends.
Cavalry-to-infantry ratio is a soft cap on how much of your frontline should ideally be cav. Going over the cap gives increasingly severe penalties to tactics score.
Western countries (like Brittany) be default have the lowest ratio. That ratio can be modified by your idea group/policy picks, your government (hordes, for example), even your religion (Sunni muslims get 10% more ratio). Cavalry is really strong early-game before artillery starts outpacing it, so depending on your ratio and buffs to cavalry (some nations, like Poland, are encouraged with combat bonuses to cav in their ideas) you are better off running cav-heavy armies.
I would only recommend using an all cav frontline stack if you've managed to get the ratio up to 100%.
Also agree here, though I tend to split armies in half and have them in adjacent provinces. All my 80k stacks in Britain are split into groups of 40k to prevent attrition. Whenever a battle happens, that's when they're grouped up.
Next chapter tomorrow! Thanks everyone for reading!
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Forgot to answer this. In short: the AI is horrible at using transports, and Blambangan has the powerful nation of Sunda as an ally. Sunda and Blambangan are based in AE Asia, so have an easier time fighting against whatever isolated stacks Spain manages to transport over from Europe. If Spain were smart (read, a player), they would ship armies over first, then declare.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE: Final Preparations
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(April 1726-April 1739)
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(April 1726-April 1739)
We have a small amount of inflation I think because of an event, so I pop our Mission as a remedy. I also activate the 2 others below it, giving a large sum of cash, Prestige, and other benefits.
Almost as if the game knows our plans with France, we get a massive +10% Discipline for the next 6 years because our Commandant Advisor is so talented.
For each type of Advisor (Philosopher, Artist, Reformer, etc.) you can get a once-per-game event which gives a bonus in their specific field. You get the bonus either way, the 2 choices in the event just let you choose between Prestige or Stability (or admin points if your Stability is maxed out).
(Brittany may be a colonizing imperialist, but at least women have a place in our court).
Some of the other Advisor bonuses have fired already this campaign, but we’re lucky that the Commandant one has waited until now. France should be quaking in their boots!
Our next Age Ability is picked up: a +3 to sieging forts. The max for everyone is normally +5, but now we’re at +8 (assuming we have enough artillery for the full bonus).
Another Idea is taken which gives a relation-slot. Later, the next one is grabbed (+2 Diplomatic Reputation) And Spain returns Sale to Morrocco once we ask nicely.
Our forces are nearly ready. Everybody is being shipped back to Britain for the coming conflict.
Unfortunately, Spain then calls us into a war against Pasai. I can’t refuse, not now. I may need Spain as a distraction against French might.
The war goes fine. In fact, here’s a screenshot of how well our armies do with that extra Discipline.
Here you can see us sieging a level 8 fort. Our extra artillery helps immensely. The province falls after only 227 days, and that’s without a Spy Network against Pasai! If you’re ever sieging a fort, make sure you have enough cannons for a full bonus, rearrange your armies if you have to. The extra micro is worth it.
As that happens, we complete Influence Ideas. The final 2 slots plus the finisher are shown below:
We also get some new Policies. I take the one giving extra Favors growth so we can fleece Spain and Vijayanagar quicker.
This war is an easy, albeit annoying, distraction. That extra Discipline comes and goes in the blink of an eye. We weren’t able to bring it to bear against our big blue nemesis.
We grab an Age Ability which lets us activate the Forced March ability on our armies for free.
Forced March is an army toggle, letting that army move faster at the cost of 1 mil point per province travelled. Armies with the toggle activated also don’t recover Morale. This Age Ability just removes the mil point cost.
Here’s some surprising news from Europe. The Ottomans has lost 1 province to a Czech-Italian alliance.
France is still on the warpath, even daring to attack the Pope himself (relocated to Germany ever since Savoy took Rome).
Spain takes 3 provinces in their war. We get nothing despite our hard work. The monument in Pegu would’ve been a fine addition to our collection. I make sure to mark some provinces, so Spain knows we want land over here. Since they weren’t marked before, they didn’t care.
Surat is returned to Gujarat. Tangiers is returned to Morrocco.
After taking another Policy for cheaper subject integrations, I annex Kong and Jenne.
We catch up on diplo tech and again take the next admin tech far ahead-of-time. The bonuses were good, plus we got Innovativeness.
Russia now shares a border with Bohemia, so the Czech-Italian bloc again finds itself under attack. Can they pull off another miracle?
Despite the delays in Asia, we’re nearly ready to attack France. At least the war experience we’ve gained has increased our lagging Army Tradition, giving us a new generation of much better generals.
We’re at around half our land forcelimit already, with the economy and manpower for more if we wish. France still has us beat in terms of quality, but not by much. And if we have enough numbers, it won’t matter. Crucially, France is now low on manpower. Their constant wars of aggression have taken a toll.
With some diplomatic power finally free, I move our main trade node to the English Channel. It’s time to compete with France there more directly. At first our income goes down, even with our merchants given time to readjust, but once I assign our navy to protect trade, we get an extra 210 ducats. That’s 210 ducats that aren’t in French hands.
France is now down to 4th place in total income. The gap between 1st place (us) and everyone else continues to grow.
We’re able to take another Mission now because our home trade node is the highest valued node in the world (the North Sea was not, the English Channel is). This boosts our income even more.
Ceuta (Spain) and Baroda (Vijayanagar) are returned.
We finally declare war on France. Spain won’t join immediately because we have no more favors. We’ll call them in later.
Our fleet doomstack obliterates some French lights in the first engagement of the war.
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