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BelisariuS.F · 2012-08-18T08:41:57+00:00

This post is a part of this post. How warfare historically looked like in the EU time span in Europe? In that time frame wars were waged in two main, distinct ways. The first was war of attrition. The significant difference between Europe and the rest of the world was that, because of various causes (this itself could be a subject for a an article), practically never happened that a single empire would conquer entire, or most of the continent (and held it for centuries). In other regions empires had been rising and falling regularly. Europe, after the Rome's fall, have been consisting of a large number of countries of varying size, and even for Napoleon it was impossible to turn Europe into a single state (and this difference is the main reason why Europe has ultimately overtook other regions - more states -> more competition between various technologies, ideologies, political systems; impossible for a single state, single ideology or religion to suppress progressive ideas in the entire region -> faster progress). European states mostly didn't have resources to allow their armies operate on the enemy territory long enough to defeat him completely and conquer his country (and defend themselves against the enemy's allies), so mostly they didn't even try it (especially since the second half of the XVII century; even the Frederick the Great was unwilling to venture his armies more than four days' march from a supply base or over twenty miles from a navigable river). Wars mainly consisted of sieges (for example, Nine Years war - 7 major battles, 21 major sieges; French invasion of Dutch Republic in 1672 - 0 battles, 6 sieges) and the purpose of most battles was to protect the army conducting a siege. Even after a won battle the winning army didn't chase the enemy to finish him off, because it didn't have enough resources to keep it for long (attrition was to high). Peace was a result of long negotiations, which were completed only when the warring states were exhausted by war. Territorial result of those negotiations was at best a transfer of some provinces (sometimes, like in Seven Years' War, there were NO territorial changes in Europe). The second type of warfare was ultimately established by Napoleon. It was characterized by a fast tempo of operations and spectacular results. Without getting into much detail, corps system, living of the land and the organizational skills and military talent of Napoleon allowed for rapid maneuvers over a wide area (like during the Ulm campaign) and maximally exploiting a won battle (as it happened after the battles of Jena-Auerstadt). It lead to short wars, lasting several months resulting in decisively defeated enemy army and occupied enemy capital. How the warfare in EUIII looks like against those two types of warfare? Well, it lies somewhere between them. On the one hand attrition is much lower than in was in reality (partly because it is reduced by auto-reinforcement). The result is that we can romp deep in the enemy territory not caring much about attrition (only caring about manpower, if we have it too little). On the other hand, lost battle doesn't have that much negative impact on the defeated army as it was historically. Defeated army can run away, regenerating its morale, and the only effect is that the next battles will be shorter (and attacking the enemy from several provinces won't make any difference, since the game doesn't take encirclement into account). The ultimate effect of this is ping-pong, where we are chasing the defeated army province after province and we have to fight several battles until we defeat it completely, or we have to back off because the morale of our army reached to low a level. So, ultimately we are able to occupy most of the enemy country (or all of it, in case of the smaller countries), but we are not able to decisively shatter the enemy army and win the war even if we had not occupied any provinces. I propose changes that would allow us to utilize both types of warfare. Attrition must be significantly raised, and best if it gets higher in provinces farther from the provinces controlled by us (or allies). It should be so high, that it will scare the players (and AI) away from chasing the enemy army into his territory. It will cause, that the military operations will be concentrated near borders, so a defeated army could withdraw inside the country and regenerate (of course if the country is big enough). Army that is conducting a siege, when attacked, should receive penalties to its defensive capabilities. Sieges should not start automatically after entering the province, but there should be a button for starting and breaking the siege. Wars would be focused on sieges, and battles would be mainly fought to protect an army conducting a siege. All of this would allow to represent the attritional warfare that dominated in that period. The next significant change should be that lost battles should be much more devastating for the defeated army. After a lost battle the army should regenerate much slower than in EUIII, and if attacked again shortly after a lost battle it should cease to exist as an effective force. To make it possible, I would introduce a second parameter, besides morale, describing the effectiveness of the army - cohesion. I think that morale alone is not sufficient enough to describe the effectivenes of the army unit. Morale is good enough for a single soldier, but to describe effectivenes of the whole army unit more essential is the general cohesion and organization of the unit. So I would add cohesion, and change behavior of morale a bit. Morale should regenerate faster. Cohesion should work as a modifier - the lower the cohesion, the less effective the army is and the greater the danger of loosing. Maybe after a lost battle some of the soldiers of the lost army should be immediately transfered to manpower (the lower the cohesion the greater the number of transfered soldiers)? I could represent, for example, those soldiers who deserted after the battle, and it would make a defeat more significant. I think that it would be best if a negative effect of low cohesion would rise not linearly, but exponentially. Thus starting a battle with cohesion that is not max or near max should be a bad idea. Moreover, cohesion should change much slowly than morale. Especially in battle it should fall slowly than morale (so, for example, the winning army could finish the battle with 80% cohesion and the losing army with 40%). And it should regenerate much slowly after a lost battle. One more important thing - flanking and surrounding the enemy (attacking from more than one province) should give LARGE bonuses to the flanking army. Combination of high attrition, serious disadvantages of low cohesion and bonuses gave to the flanking army would cause, that the player (and AI) would have a possibility of rapidly and decisively defeating enemy forces, but he would have to plan especially for this. It wouldn't suffice just to chase after the enemy army from province to province. You would have to plan the placement of your armies and their maneuvers, to catch the enemy army when its exposed the most. The need to defeat some particular enemy in such a way, could have an influence on our longterm strategy and diplomacy. For example, we could try to gain military access to some country which would allow us to outflank the enemy forces through the provinces of that country. Or just try to take those provinces by force. In this system warfare would also be influenced by a character of the region where the war is taking place. A region with smaller provinces and more friendly terrain would be easier for maneuver warfare than bigger provinces and more difficult terrain (generally it would be better for this system to add more provinces). We could introduce other factors influencing the warfare, like giving commanders bonuses to their efficiency of conducting sieges, bonuses to the speed of movement, bonuses lowering attrition etc. We could make some provinces to have a negative influence on cohesion, so it would be smart to avoid them. Historically, that kind of regions fulfilled an important role in many campaigns. For example, Portugal during the Napoleonic wars. Portugal was surrounded by terrains that were very difficult for any army, so it was best to avoid them. That's why Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, which were placed on the friendly passes, where so important to control. The level of the state's development should also have an influence on the character of warfare. Higher levels of the government tech should lower the attrition (the state became more efficient in providing supply to its armies). The highest levels of land tech should introduce the living of the land, which should allow armies to move on the enemy territory for some time with much reduced attrition. So, the farther in campaign we are, the more of maneuver warfare there should be. Also, the offensive defensive slider could introduce bonuses to those two types of warfare. Now, what the war during which we destroyed the enemy forces should give us? First and foremost, it should give us a possibility of gaining more provinces than we could get with the same warscore in war won only by occupying provinces. How to achieve this? Well, first we have to force the enemy to surrender, even if we had not occupied his provinces. My idea (maybe you will have a better idea) is to introduce a special king of victory, lets call it "total victory", which can be achieved after fulfilling some conditions. What conditions? The game should monitor the size (and maybe the state the army is in (cohesion level)) of the enemy army in relation to our army (the allies should also be somehow taken into account). If the enemy army becomes too weak in relation to our army, then the first condition is met. The second condition will require us just to occupy the capital of the enemy. So, to totally defeat the enemy we need to shatter his army and take his seat of power. Then we should receive the full warscore, be able to take ANY enemy province (excluding his capital) for a much lowered warscore cost. Other peace conditions also should cost less. The enemy if forced to accept that kind of peace proposal. That kind of warfare and victory would be more profitable, more satisfying, more fun, but harder to pull off. All of this would make wars more varied and more interesting. At the one side of spectrum we would have wars consisting mainly of sieges and battles protecting the sieges, ending when the war exhaustion becomes to high. On the other side of spectrum we would have wars consisting of maneuvers and decisive battles and ending with the enemy forces shattered. And the rest somewhere in between. Of course, everything should be properly balanced, because too much wars of attrition would become boring (at least I suspect), and too much total victories would lead to blobism. And of course, AI should be smart enough to be able to conduct a maneuver warfare, trying to flank the enemy, recognize that its army is exposed etc(but after HOI3 Paradox have some experience with this).

Thread starter BelisariuS.F
Start date Aug 18, 2012

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Captain Gars

Lead AI Programmer

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Aug 18, 2012

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#11

Please don't spam the forum by opening up a half dozen threads.

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