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This week's debate : Defensive versus Offensive

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Defensive versus Offensive

  • Defensive

    Votes: 20 15,6%

  • Offensive

    Votes: 108 84,4%
  • Total voters
    128
Hi,

Please reffere to the table I posted in the previous page. You dont loose morale for choosing Defensive, you just GAIN morale for choosing Offensive.

The only drawback for defensive is shock rating and for offensive the drawback is expensive artillery.
 
If u don't lose morale for going defensive than that is a bug as u should lose some (mayeb that's part of the faulty 1.02 :D ). There is a 0.20 gap from full defensive to full offensive, also the fact that at full D u, quantity-quality at 2 by default, u have 6 points assigned, at full O u got 8. Only artilerry costs more but never posed any problem whatsoever for me.
 
I voted offensive, but if you play a country like France, which has a lot of historical leaders then the best way would be to go defensive. There are plenty of other sliders, which will help you with army morale (quality, land and free people) and you do not have to worry about your default leaders at all. Think about it.
 
Hmmm, it seems that i am the only one who doesn't care about morale at all?

Offensive is the first slider i move, and i move it to the 10. Simple as it is, i use 100% cavalry armies, untill i hit tech 20 or something. And i would actually prefer to have low morale. It would help me to utilize mongol hit-and-run tactic. For some strange reason, shock phase is a real killer, and huge armies got killed in it.
So, i would go to offensive 10. Quality, OTOH... i think position 4 is as good as 10...

And yes, this slider is probably somewhat unbalanced, (and definitly in early game). Maybe removing shock penalty would balance it? 2 difference in S value wouldn't be so debilitating...
 
i find this one of the least important sliders - sorry i'd rather lose my -1 stab for centralization, innovations, sea power and free trade then for this one

maybe i would care a bit more for it if the difference between off and def was a bit more decissive

best regards,

Avocado
 
I have voted 'defensive'. I know, it's got all the disadvantages, etc, etc. But does it? There are plenty of other places to increase the morale of your troops, thus, the only draw back is that shock value. I've been concentrating on small Asian states, and I have found that sieges are very much necessary when fighting a monster like China. Assaults just don't succeed enough times, and when they do, your army has had its heart ripped out of it, pretty much ending your war.
 
I think it is a bit silly to have this discussion when you also get historical leaders. With historical leaders I see the "defensive" option being the more agressive. War would be fought like this. 1 Attack army under historical leader with shock 3 siege 1. The siege would be carried out without assaults with a generic shock 0 siege 2 leader. The historical leader maneuvers to keep enemy armies away from the siege and does one or two assualts here and there against forts he can take in one go. I say defensive is better. Siege is the most valuable asset late game when Gibraltar is considered a weak fort.
 
Hmm, quite the landslide for offensive in this poll, eh? Well, me too...although I don't max the offensive slider, I usually leave it around 8.
 
kav:

Morale seems to be more significant than #'s of troops in determining victory. If you can get a significant morale advantage, then army size isn't really much of a problem, that I've found. I tend to max out my sliders toward increased morale.

But you still can't escape the fact that offensive is a priori better: more benefits, fewer disadvantages.
 
Originally posted by BiB


Yeah, right :D Why do u bother researching then ? It just adds morale basically :D
Click to expand...
I don't. Once played with land tech 2 until early XVIII century:D. Who needs land tech, it only lowers your cavalry shock value:cool:


Just kidding;)
 
A digression from the offensive/defensive debate...but answering my own question above, in case anybody else out there is a little slow about finding efficient search terms...

A search for the word "debate" under thread titles authored by BiB will generate a list limited to these polls.

There've been some very interesting discussions in them. Good idea for a serial topic.
 
Even with the lower morale bonus, a 4 shock rating on every general means that (especially if you have quality to where your fire is 3 or 4) often your standard guy is better than a lot of special leaders. Sure, cannon are expensive as all get out, but if you have a decent enough income that is a miniscule price to pay for excellent leaders. Being defensive just isn't worth losing shock rating (and being in between just trades morale for cannon price).
 
Originally posted by JWorth
A digression from the offensive/defensive debate...but answering my own question above, in case anybody else out there is a little slow about finding efficient search terms...

A search for the word "debate" under thread titles authored by BiB will generate a list limited to these polls.

There've been some very interesting discussions in them. Good idea for a serial topic.
Click to expand...

I used the same structure every time so it'd be easy to find thru search. Keeping the structure throughout is also the reason there isn't a middleground option present either even though it would be useful. Keep the same structure for every one of the 8.
 
The only way I could see going defensive is if you had some nice generals later in the game (18th century) and then you could use your 5-5-5 or such general for offensive ops and have your default leaders do seiges...otherwise offensive all the way.
 
ehem

Well, while i didnt get time to test out my idea for a high siege bonus...
I noted what not having good troops ment..and maybe a bit unbalance here aswell..

I played Spain with 2-3-3 troops with solid morale...vs

2-4-4 french troops with almost the same morale...

Now I used mostly generals to compansate for my lacking troops but the result was kinda shocking..

I suffered staggering losses, which makes me wonder..
just HOW much is the diffrence 3 and 4 in a stat.
The manual is wonderfully vague on all so I dont really know..

Janster
 
offensive, if you go defensive the enemy always attacks your defenceless siege armies =(
 
Originally posted by shawng1
Raolf,

Having a "1" is better than having a "0," which is the default ranking. It means that you gain a slight bonus each month when the seige results are computed. I can't say how much that effects on average, but it IS usually significant and noticable--if you compare two leaders trying to seige the same sized fortresses.

Also, when the computer tries to decide who has the honor of "leading" the seige--and thus taking the province--the second factor looked for, after "monarchs present," is "highest seige rating present." Having a king around is always the best way to lead the seige. But monarch-leaders are rare. And using them too often gets them dead, which is also bad. But the only way not to have control of a seige if you are at war and have a historical leader with a seige value is if the alliance leader has one with an equal seige rating--or another nation has one with a higher rating.

So a "1" in a seige value is always better than a "0." And it'll let you "steal" seiges sometimes too.
Click to expand...

Unless I'm mistaken a 1 siege value allows an army with no cannons to seige as effectively as an army with 1 cannon and no leader, and an army with one cannon to seige as effectively as an army with 3 times the cannon strength of the fort, and an army with 3 times the cannon strength of the fort to seige as effectively as one with 10 times the connon strength. This makes a BIG difference in the results of an assault - assualts when the defenders seige value is above 0 will rarely suceed and will become increasingly costly as the seige value rises. Assaults when the seige value is below 0 will usually succeed first try. For assaulting it's not as good as 3 in shock, but it's stil a big plus.
 
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