Suggestions on how to make land leader manuver score more useful

[Denkt]

I feels manuver score on land leaders (generals) matter way to little, how many times have you looked for that 4 shock general or even a good fire general but gotten an excellent manuver general which you discarded right away because of the knowledge that manuver hardly matter if you compare to shock and later on fire so here I and maybe you try to suggest ways to make manuver more useful.

Each manuver point give 10% increase to how many cav your army can use without getting the penalty:
As a western tech nation you need to have a infantry for each cavalry otherwise you get a penalty.
This change would mean a 5 manuver general would never get the penalty allowing western and other nations focus on larger cav armies, open up new strategies and boosting the usefulness of manuver.

Which phase a battle start in should be random, a good manuver general having the advantage of getting his optimal phase:
Battles become rather predictable that they always start with the fire phase, this is also a reason why cav suffers later on.
However what if this was not the case, then maybe that large cav army could give heavy losses to an infantry based one before the fire phase, making battles and army builds more interesting.

Manuver could give a slight increase to moral recovery of the army:
An little boost that allow the army to recover faster from battles, not as changing as the point above but still add something.

Manuver could increase reforcement speed:
This is my least liked idea because that you probably could micro your general to maximize this bonus, but at the same time it would be nice if manuver effected how fast your army can recover so you would see a noticable difference between a good manuver lead army and a not so good manuver lead army.

 

[IIWW]

I feels manuver score on land leaders (generals) matter way to little, how many times have you looked for that 4 shock general or even a good fire general but gotten an excellent manuver general which you discarded right away because of the knowledge that manuver hardly matter if you compare to shock and later on fire so here I and maybe you try to suggest ways to make manuver more useful.

True, manouver is pretty much useless now. It reduces attrition (or, rather, increases supply limit, but that hardly ever matter from midgame on)

Each manuver point give 10% increase to how many cav your army can use without getting the penalty:
As a western tech nation you need to have a infantry for each cavalry otherwise you get a penalty.
This change would mean a 5 manuver general would never get the penalty allowing western and other nations focus on larger cav armies, open up new strategies and boosting the usefulness of manuver.

A bit OP, maybe 5% would be better. Still a lot, but it wouldn't give westerns 100% cav army.

Which phase a battle start in should be random, a good manuver general having the advantage of getting his optimal phase:
Battles become rather predictable that they always start with the fire phase, this is also a reason why cav suffers later on.
However what if this was not the case, then maybe that large cav army could give heavy losses to an infantry based one before the fire phase, making battles and army builds more interesting.

You want moron generals? Tell me which general wouldn't start with some bombardment. It's obvious thing to do, and even if one of the leaders would try to start with a cav charge, he would still get the loses from enemy arty/infrantry fire.

Manuver could give a slight increase to moral recovery of the army:
An little boost that allow the army to recover faster from battles, not as changing as the point above but still add something.

Thats the best of Your proposition, as Patton said "I never had to regroup my armies, and this seemed as the favourite thing to do in british army". Since morale is pretty much responsible also for organization (in HoI f.e.) it's brilliant idea.

Manuver could increase reforcement speed:
This is my least liked idea because that you probably could micro your general to maximize this bonus, but at the same time it would be nice if manuver effected how fast your army can recover so you would see a noticable difference between a good manuver lead army and a not so good manuver lead army.

How to micromanage this? Reinforcement arrives at the begining of the month, so it's no more cheesy than any other teleportation of generals (for battle, for sieging. Oh, how I like giving an army a great leader a day before it's attacked. AI doesn't have time to stop the movement ). So I'd say thats a great idea.
The last two ideas seems the best imho, they certainly fit the manouver skill.

 

[BaZERGer]

Maneuver already increases reinforcement speed, just only for locations where you aren't already at 100%(as it caps at 100%), but outside of your own territory, it does have an effect. Maybe if attrition reduced the local reinforce speed by 10% every 1% suffered, the value of maneuver(and attrition) would increase, especialy within hostile territory.

They could also make maneuver vs maneuver affect the retreat restriction during battles, so higher maneuver than the enemy general would have shorter duration of a battle before he can retreat from it, and the enemy would have to wait longer before he could retreat.

 

[Denkt]

A bit OP, maybe 5% would be better. Still a lot, but it wouldn't give westerns 100% cav army.

Maybe 5% is better, atleast both 10% and 5% allow for more cav focus for most tech groups and I wouldn't say it will make manuver op by itself anyway.

You want moron generals? Tell me which general wouldn't start with some bombardment. It's obvious thing to do, and even if one of the leaders would try to start with a cav charge, he would still get the loses from enemy arty/infrantry fire.

Battles represent all military actions in a province which can be things like smal skirmishes, a manuver general would probably chose the best locations to make most use of his strength and neutralize that of his enemies, it also makes battles more interesting but it will probably not make cav op.

They could also make maneuver vs maneuver affect the retreat restriction during battles, so higher maneuver than the enemy general would have shorter duration of a battle before he can retreat from it, and the enemy would have to wait longer before he could retreat.

Could maybe work with something like +- 1 day*manuver difference, it would allow for both easier stack wipes and for easier escapes, add in that manuver effects recovery and you got some hard armies to destroy.

 

[IIWW]

Battles represent all military actions in a province which can be things like smal skirmishes, a manuver general would probably chose the best locations to make most use of his strength and neutralize that of his enemies, it also makes battles more interesting but it will probably not make cav op.

This system would need to distinguish small battles (where starting from shock is indeed possible) and large ones (in which this is simply stupid). I think that the generalization isn't bad right now. And even if one of the leaders decides to charge, the enemy still will fire his guns before the charge goes to his lines. That's basic assumption: larger range inflicts damage first. You'll always (unless totaly surprised) be able to fire before enemy would be able to use melee.

 

[Denkt]

Here is some more suggestions:

Instead of lowering a units weight better manuver could instead lower the losses from attrition by like 10% for each point, making high manuver much more useful for armies that would be over the attrition limit anyway.

At the start of the battle manuver could increase or decrease the comebat width by 1 for each manuver point advantage over the enemy depending on your army size and enemy army size, lower if enemy got the larger army or increaseing if you got the larger army.

 

[Denkt]

Maybe a good idea to bring this up again as the new patch is known.
Let the suggestions begin again.

 

[Johan]

It already is a -1 or +1 in about 90% of all battles...

 

[Squirrelloid]

It already is a -1 or +1 in about 90% of all battles...

Sure, but that's -1 or +1 if there's a river, regardless of relative difference in maneuver.

A Maneuver 6 general beats a maneuver 1 general just as much as he beats a maneuver 5 general. But in terms of point distribution he's dedicated a lot of his pips to maneuver. A 1/x/6 general is a lot worse than a 6/x/1 general in any imaginable situation.

And if your enemy managed a maneuver 6 general, having maneuver 5 or less is completely irrelevant, you're losing the maneuver game anyway. And you'd much rather those pips were anywhere but maneuver at that point.

In short, +-1 is a really small payoff for what's a large pip investment.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sure, but that's -1 or +2 if there's a river, regardless of relative difference in maneuver.

A Maneuver 6 general beats a maneuver 1 general just as much as he beats a maneuver 5 general. But in terms of point distribution he's dedicated a lot of his pips to maneuver. A 1/x/6 general is a lot worse than a 6/x/1 general in any imaginable situation.

And if your enemy managed a maneuver 6 general, having maneuver 5 or less is completely irrelevant, you're losing the maneuver game anyway. And you'd much rather those pips were anywhere but maneuver at that point.

In short, +-1 is a really small payoff for what's a large pip investment.

Maneuver influences mobility rate (potentially crucial, even war-changing), reinforcement speed, and supply limit too. I don't see why it needs to be stronger than it is, being outclassed there is already potentially problematic as you can run afoul of run-bys or get spam assault-occupied.

A 5-6 maneuver general is basically your ideal draw for a mid-late game assault stack, and makes an incredibly annoying looter too.