Will EU2MP players come to EU3 once Napoleon's Ambition is out?

[Peter Ebbesen]

- controller of the province receiving same or near same support in the province as owner+controller. Owner, who losts the control, gets same or near same support, as non-owner & non-controller. That made EU3 like CIV - no matter who owned the province, important who controls it. That kills the eu2 idea of biggest advantage of the defender - own lands. So no wonder that modern eu3 warfare (couple of months ago, when i asked several guys who play it), is gathering horde and moving against other horde.

In the one "open-forum" MP game I have participated in until now, I repeatedly and violently trashed the armies of those players who made war based on that mistaken belief. It helped that several of the players were also under the mistaken belief that fortresses weren't all that important because they only contain a few thousand men.

Using smaller and more maneuverable armies and only uniting them for big battles remains as important in EU3 as in EU2. As soon as you get past the early game and start building fortresses big time, the depth of your country and attritional warfare is as important as ever for bleeding a numerically superior enemy to death, and taking the fight to the enemy means you need to have a plan to deal with your own considerable attritional casualties.

Sure, making "one big horde", moving against another horde, and assaulting his provinces one by one and crushing him is eminently possible - if your opponent has no defensive depth or chooses not to utilize it based on him playing by the horde strategy too. If he has defensive depth, knows how to use it, and has built defenses, it is a great way to lose your horde, exhaust your manpower, and be methodically taken apart after your fury is spent.

I don't have the numbers to support this, but it sure feels like highlevel fortresses in EU3 (L4-6) are even harder and more risky to assault without waiting for a breach than highlevel EU2 fortresses were.

 

[smn_]

smn, the most worrying and wrong in eu3 tactic for me were:
- while you fight the battle in the end of the month, both sides doesn`t have attrition.

I have no idea if this is gone or not. Have to verify it.

- controller of the province receiving same or near same support in the province as owner+controller. Owner, who losts the control, gets same or near same support, as non-owner & non-controller. That made EU3 like CIV - no matter who owned the province, important who controls it. That kills the eu2 idea of biggest advantage of the defender - own lands. So no wonder that modern eu3 warfare (couple of months ago, when i asked several guys who play it), is gathering horde and moving against other horde.

There has been some change with this. I think controlling the enemy province now halves the attrition instead of reducing it to same level than owning it. I'll verify this in the evening.

- the way of the information of army`s arriving date. Since it is different period to reach different provinces, like in HoI and Vicky, the arriving date should be displayed same way - in separate window. Hovering over multiplie armies (often happenes with reinforcements and general battles) floods the eyes and bad help

No change with this one. This level of control would be fun, but I have no problem with lacking it. Quite the contrary actually, I wish there was a level of randomness included, so the real arrival date would be the estimated plus minus 3 days or something in that vein (I've always hated the attrition management by arrival date since I see it as a completely unrealistic exploitation of the game engine; attrition should be constant instead of calculated at a preset date).

- there were also other interface things which i disliked, linked with decision to make 1000 units instead of merged armies. But that will be never fixed of course.

Finding out how many regiments are cavalry and how many infantry is still cumbersome. The reinforcements policy is actually rather nice once you get used to it. Armies that have attrition but are in supply don't lose strength; only your manpower pool drains much faster.

The nice thing about regimental combat is that generals maneuver value affects the battlefield deployment, and in combat only the regiments that can actually reach the enemy regiment contribute to the damage done. This opens up a whole new tactical dimension of delay actions, where your 5k men under a decent commander can quite effectively delay a much larger army. This means that gathering a big horde with the best leader to defeat the enemy stacks in detail will not work, as I quite humiliatingly learned when my Burgundy got soundly beaten by the French AI.

 

[Tonioz]

The nice thing about regimental combat is that generals maneuver value affects the battlefield deployment, and in combat only the regiments that can actually reach the enemy regiment contribute to the damage done. This opens up a whole new tactical dimension of delay actions, where your 5k men under a decent commander can quite effectively delay a much larger army. This means that gathering a big horde with the best leader to defeat the enemy stacks in detail will not work, as I quite humiliatingly learned when my Burgundy got soundly beaten by the French AI.

Do they still automatically place cannons in the middle of the army at combat screen, so in first shock phase cannons gets most damage ?

 

[Tonioz]

In the one "open-forum" MP game I have participated in until now, I repeatedly and violently trashed the armies of those players who made war based on that mistaken belief...

Peter, i`m far from deny that in EU3 you still need to use the brain to get advantage over your opponent. You manipulate your armies to avoid attrition and able to merge them for general battle - this task is valid for all times.

The feature of garrison recharding rate is good valuable edition, but when you are receiving steamroll from opponent, your answer - escape or offer own big army. Which would suffer same attrition, as opponent, because of huge size.

But what your opponent can do, while he has upper hand - splitting own armies to deal attrition, being ready for counter-attack. The difference comparing EU2, that he can do it ON YOUR LANDS. Okay, i`ll wait answer from smn - were the things changed much in last versions. Last i know - proportion of support were much towards controller. In EU2 major support was always owned by owner.

Couple of weeks ago i played Nappy Dago`s campaign, and it was very rare show, when after several years of fighting, Nappy took Vienna and nearby, and my 100K stay for long time in 3-4 provinces (+ reinforcement) south of Duna, defending from bigger armies of Karl, Blucher and russians. That was nice realized exception, but basically in EU2 you can`t stay for long time at enemy lands, if defender could grab the same size defence army.

In EU2 i had many great campaigns, where i didn`t have upper hand, but could win thanks to attrition at my territories, and manipulating my troops to let the enemy suffer from attrition much more. Or it is always nice to let your opponent intercept you foolishly in the middle of your country, and then finding most men die from attrition and mostly only cannons left. EU3, instead, gives attacker possibility to settle good support at enemy lands.

 

[smn_]

Do they still automatically place cannons in the middle of the army at combat screen, so in first shock phase cannons gets most damage ?

No idea. Haven't played a game yet far enough to consider cannons useful.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

The feature of garrison recharding rate is good valuable edition, but when you are receiving steamroll from opponent, your answer - escape or offer own big army. Which would suffer same attrition, as opponent, because of huge size.

No, he'll suffer bigger attrition in general unless he can take down my fortresses before he confronts my army, because I can field much larger chunks of armies in my controlled provinces than he can in mine, and in order to take down my fortresses such that he does not suffer this significant disadvantage and drain on his reinforcements, he needs to either have small armies stationed for long sieges (and in danger of defeat in detail) or needs to gather huge armies in order to do assaults. Having an 1-2 province deep heavily fortified border with an aggressive neighbour means that unless you utterly fuck up or get distracted due to fighting on multiple borders, his attritional casualties will dwarf yours.

I'm never, ever, going to fight an enemy's big army directly on my border while I'm on the defensive if I can avoid it - I prefer to bleed him first, and fortifications are the way to do it. Either he bypasses them and take heavy attritional casulaties doing so, or he assaults them, possibly succeeding, possibly shattering his army, and in either case usually ripe for a counterattack unless he hugely outnumbers me. Fighting on my border, before he manages to take down my fortifications, is a job better left to smaller 20-30k armies stalling him and draining his morale if I have enough manpower to support the drain.

 

[Tonioz]

No, he'll suffer bigger attrition in general unless he can take down my fortresses before he confronts my army, because I can field much larger chunks of armies in my controlled provinces than he can in mine

The usual situation that assaulting army is enough big. Your counter-attacking army + assaulting army are always bigger than support limit of the province you control. So both attackers and defenders receives same percent of attrition.

I'm never, ever, going to fight an enemy's big army directly on my border while I'm on the defensive if I can avoid it - I prefer to bleed him first, and fortifications are the way to do it.

That is very good for EU2. Where attackers relatively big armies will always have attrition despite the fact of contol of the province.
In EU3 you can build positional attack to assault province and cover possible counter-attacks by placing armies nearby while garrison is growing. Then fresh conquered province give you nice support and used as next step as attacking next province. That let attacker keep domination, not wasting troops on blitz intercepting.

 

[unmerged(18425)]

The usual situation that assaulting army is enough big. Your counter-attacking army + assaulting army are always bigger than support limit of the province you control. So both attackers and defenders receives same percent of attrition.

In EU3 you can re-assault provinces back with a much smaller army that does not receive attrition, because the fort size has been downgraded by the assaults of the attacker.

In EU2 the defender had to assault the same garrison size as the attacker and thus had to use roughly the same army sizes for re-assaults, in EU3 this is not true.

 

[Tonioz]

In EU3 you can re-assault provinces back with a much smaller army that does not receive attrition, because the fort size has been downgraded by the assaults of the attacker.

So in described positional attack the attacker leave enough forces to cover growing garrison. And defender should beat it by counter-attack before re-assaulting.

 

[unmerged(18425)]

So in described positional attack the attacker leave enough forces to cover growing garrison. And defender should beat it by counter-attack before re-assaulting.

Yes, but if the attacker leaves forces behind all the time, he will lose the war. (unless he has such an enormous surplus of troops that he can overrun the defender easily, but that's always the case with a major power attacking a minor power).

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Let's assume the province supply limit of the border province you want to assault is 15. Then you want an army size of between 20 and 30 (or even more) in order to assault succesfully the fort of that province and be able to move on the next province, so you go over the attrition size of the province when you move in to assault. That cannot be avoided.
After the assault you have both suffered casualties because of attriton and because of the assault itself.

This is true for every province the attacker wants to assault. He suffers attrition and big losses for every assault he makes.

Then the attacker wants to move on to the next province inside the territory of the defender and he wants a large army to avoid the defender crushing his assaulting army, but he also wants to leave troops behind to cover the province, you say. How big would the army that's left behind to cover the province be? Afterall, the main army needs to stay strong enough to win the next assault, doesn't it?

But let's assume the assaulting army is truly massive and the attacker can afford leaving behind a significant force and move on to the next assault.

If the army size that's left behind is exactly 15 (so the attacker won't suffer attrition), the defender can attack this small army with an equal army (but with a good leader), to defeat it. Afterall, the army with the best leader of the attacker is probably in the main army, busy assaulting.
If the army that's left behind it's smaller than 15, the defender can defeat it even more easy, because his army will be larger.
And in the unlikely case that the army that's left behind is larger than 15, the attacker will keep suffering casualties and the defender not. And then the defender will simply wait a bit.

So, to sum it up: the defender doesn't need to suffer casualties in order to re-assault provinces back if he has the defensive depth to let the attacker come, but the attacker does suffer attrition in order to operate in the territory of the defender, right?
And the beaty of it all is that the defender also suffers less losses when he re-assaults and needs less big armies to re-assault, because the attacker did the main job of reducing the garrison

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In a general offensive war, the attacker will always suffer the majority of attrition, because he generally needs bigger armies than the support limit of provinces in order to defeat the forts in assaults. The defender, on the contrary, can keep armies up to the support limit in various provinces and can defeat with these armies the armies that the attacker left behind.
Also, the main army of the attacker will keep suffering attrition, till the defender chooses the moment it's small enough to attack. At this moment the defender will shortly combine his troops for one battle and attack.

Your theory of the attacker and the defender both suffering an equal amount of attrition only holds if the defender chooses to engage the main army of the attacker with a large army nearly immediately. Why would the defender do this?

 

[unmerged(27108)]

EU3, instead, gives attacker possibility to settle good support at enemy lands.

Which is a good thing imo. Because in Eu2 it is too easy to win war based on attrition. You only need to win battles at the right time and after a couple of years the attacker is ruined, thus winning the war by default.

Can't say for Eu3 though since I only played in SP.

So both attackers and defenders receives same percent of attrition.

Could be seen as realistic though. I think if you have 50k in a province, you can grab anything you want (exception being a situation where the peasant are going into the Maquis. Which is not always the case or simply not efficient). The attacked empire can't stop you with their bailiff and sheriff.

 

[Tonioz]

Which is a good thing imo. Because in Eu2 it is too easy to win war based on attrition. You only need to win battles at the right time and after a couple of years the attacker is ruined, thus winning the war by default.

FAL, i didn`t read your message detailed yet, sorry. I`ll do

Balinus, if your opponent is enough foolish to ruin troops in EU2 in attrition, you win, but that is not so easy as you described. Or the war would be always won by the defender, and you know that eu2 history doesn`t tell about such fact.
EU3 is based on eliminating this factor, giving the much better chance to win the war by those, who is stronger (MP and leaders, supported by enough ducats to pay for that).


But, yesterday i was told by akmych that support factors for owner and controller can be edited as mod. So if people enough interested to simulate support as in EU2, i might be interested to play EU3NA.

 

[BurningEGO]

The only country that makes atrition a bitch is Russia in EU2. Or Sweden-Denmark on its northern provinces.

As for the other countries, atrition is almost meaningless, unless you are unlucky enough to get winter in the province you are marching at.

I only have major atrition problems later on during 1800. Marching with 1000 artilery and 200k infantry might prove to be very hard!

 

[Tonioz]

Ego, more people think like you, more i love to fight against you and such people

 

[BurningEGO]

Ego, more people think like you, more i love to fight against you and such people

Atrition is rarely my biggest worry. But its true that fighting against countries you just got MA in is a lot easier.

Ask that to John.

 

[unmerged(64768)]

this band of hold-outs in the EU2MP forums, that not only wants EU3 reeled back to EU2.5, preferably based on pandering to what is currently in vogue in the EU2 MP community, but also prefer ten year old graphics technology.

I have great respect for you Ebbesen, but you are flat out wrong. And so are all the other people who claim that EU3 graphics are superb.

I have an excellent computer and I play a lot of games; from FPS games of the highest tier like Half-Life 2, to Strategy games like MTW2, and RPG games like Oblivion. I play games on the maximum graphics settings with no lag.

EU3 does NOT have better graphics than EU2. There are components of the EU3 graphics system that are better; the representation of cities in the building window when you click on a province. But if you look at the representation of the game in a holistic sense (I smell bacon. Is a hog about?) you will see that the game is a step back.

There are many things that go into a good graphics experience. Here are two important points to ponder:

1. Even graphically bad-ass games like MTW2 use enormous amounts of 2D graphics: buttons, interface components, etc. In this respect, EU2 is far superior to EU3. The interface is much more functional. Yes there may have been an occassional bug or poorly designed button, but far fewer than EU3.

2. Smoothness of display. Using 2D graphics, one can build a really good looking presentation of a map. Sprites can represent armies. Take a look at a game like Axis and Allies (the old board game conversion; not the crappy RTS). The game map was crisp, clear, and well designed. There are no flat motionless flags flying in the breeze.



There is a "cult of 3D" which believes that any conversion of graphics to a 3D display is good. This is absolute folly. What ends up happening is that a conversion results in a clunkier, disjointed, ugly looking game. EU3 is one of the games that has fallen into this trap. I have seen many others.

Civ4 is a great example of how to use 3D in a strategy game, even if the underlying game wasnt so great. Movement is smooth and natural, not clunky and stupid. And the interface is par-excellence. Too bad I didnt like the actual game.

 

[unmerged(27108)]

FAL, i didn`t read your message detailed yet, sorry. I`ll do

Balinus, if your opponent is enough foolish to ruin troops in EU2 in attrition, you win, but that is not so easy as you described. Or the war would be always won by the defender, and you know that eu2 history doesn`t tell about such fact.
EU3 is based on eliminating this factor, giving the much better chance to win the war by those, who is stronger (MP and leaders, supported by enough ducats to pay for that).


But, yesterday i was told by akmych that support factors for owner and controller can be edited as mod. So if people enough interested to simulate support as in EU2, i might be interested to play EU3NA.

How can you win offensive wars without taking heavy attrition? My perspective is that, sonner or later, you need to win battles. And it's quite easy to have big army when you are defender, pick your terrain and defeat a non-attrition army.

In other words, if the defender put 100k on 3 different province, waiting, the offensive need good maneover or 100k (with attrition).

so, unless you pick only weak opponent, you need more than just manoever.

Of course, war is not my prime ability.

 

[Tonioz]

How can you win offensive wars without taking heavy attrition? My perspective is that, sonner or later, you need to win battles. And it's quite easy to have big army when you are defender, pick your terrain and defeat a non-attrition army.

That is task to trick and manipulate your armies to cut your attrition and increase opponents attrition.
Answering your question directly is easy
When two big armies are more than the defender`s supply in his province - both receives same amount of attrition. So the defender doesn`t have key advantage just to put troops in one key province and stay.

So the proper decision comes to permanent control, manipulate and calculate troops arriving to cover siege, assault, battle. It is near same task for attacker and defender. But defender should try to avoid situation "attrition for both side", while attacker should try to get less attrition as possible or near equal losses for both sides, thanks to attrition.

 

[unmerged(27108)]

Tonioz I do agree, but in your mouth it sounds simple. Maybe too simple. And the prime hypothesis is that the defender put his big army on a single province (over the support limit).

As a defender I will of course put my big army on 2 or 3 adjacent province and move them as the enemy move and when the time is good, I'll converge to attack the enemy army that have already took attrition.

The trick is small retreat at the right time and big attack at the right time. under those circumstances, I think it is very easy to defend and the attacker take more attrition with this technique. The only thing that would crush me is overwhelming forces or a better general in front of me (the latter is easy to achieve ).

 

[unmerged(64768)]

That is task to trick and manipulate your armies to cut your attrition and increase opponents attrition.
Answering your question directly is easy
When two big armies are more than the defender`s supply in his province - both receives same amount of attrition. So the defender doesn`t have key advantage just to put troops in one key province and stay.

So the proper decision comes to permanent control, manipulate and calculate troops arriving to cover siege, assault, battle. It is near same task for attacker and defender. But defender should try to avoid situation "attrition for both side", while attacker should try to get less attrition as possible or near equal losses for both sides, thanks to attrition.

Which reduces in attrition from terrain effect enormously. Does it really make sense that the owner of the desert/mountain province will take the same attrition as the invader?