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First game ever, blah blah blah, see above. Went Evangelical Anglican, started convincing my Brits it's totally normal for your King to Talk to God And Also Sometimes Murder His Wife. All of a sudden, Full Blown Spain gets ornery and starts attacking my little dangler territory in southern France. My entire defensive pact of Plus-Sized-Burgundy, Portugal, and Austria abandon me. I used time travel to preposition my troops there in a defensive position, but I still got rolled hard. Fine, retreat back to the Mother Island for an Oops-I'm-hosed counterattack à la Market Garden. Get rolled again. Even maxing my army I'm still getting stack wiped easily. So here are my questions: - Was I supposed to raise multiple waves of armies/navies and send them to the grinder until I've completely exhausted my manpower and taken out multiple loans? It seems easier to just roll over and present my hairy b-hole via convenient "Total Surrender" button, where Spain takes dangler territories and 1/10 of my lunch money for a decade. - Is everyone angry at me because I went Special Protestant? I'd prefer to still have alliances that actually protect me rather than the Official Divine Blessing of Aggressive Divorce.
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Apr 17, 2018 04:42
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For battles it's easier if you have a screen cap, because there's a lot of stuff that could have happened. I believe Spain get's their +5% discipline way before GB so that would affect things. If your allies were Catholic, which they normally are except Burgundy, that could have been part of why they dishonored the call to arms; low relations.
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Apr 17, 2018 05:06
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Firebatgyro posted:Anyone in the GB culture group (irish/scottish/welsh/etc) can get it, you have to have 10+ provinces to fire it though. irish minors are in the celtic culture group, not british, unless this has changed with the new patch
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Apr 17, 2018 05:07
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Were your allies involved in other wars at the time? That's the most common cause for the AI to dishonour a defensive CTA in my experience
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Apr 17, 2018 09:03
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So what's the trick to circumnavigation? My fleets keep dying, even though I've explored a circle all the way around the world. I'm using Early Frigates. I've got colonies pretty much in a big ring too, and I'm shoring up blind spots in the East with fleet basing. Is there a good view to help me figure out where my holes are?
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Apr 17, 2018 14:41
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MadJackal posted:First game ever, blah blah blah, see above. Post a screenshot of a battle with Spain and we'll be able to better tell you what went wrong. The most common and painful mistake is being behind on military technology, you never ever want to fall behind on that as it can be a huge gap in army quality. Was Spain a mil tech or two ahead of you? Was your army maintenance turned to full? Assuming you're the same mil tech and have similar sized armies fighting, you should be able to hold your own. Spain will have better troops than yours but not by much.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:29
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A date wasn't specified but if you're in the Age of Reformation then Spain gets a massive -30% Received Shock Damage from their special age ability which can let them crush armies that aren't prepared.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:35
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What’s the best placement of merchants/trading port for Brandenburg-Prussia? It seems like with two estuaries in the Baltic and one in Lübeck you should be able to make a boatload of trade money, but I can’t pull it off.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:11
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There is a lot of tradepower in the English Channel pulling money out of Lübeck so if you really want the big bucks you need a lot of light ships protecting trade. Also obviously also conquer all the centres of trade in the Lübeck and Baltic nodes.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:30
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skasion posted:What’s the best placement of merchants/trading port for Brandenburg-Prussia? It seems like with two estuaries in the Baltic and one in Lübeck you should be able to make a boatload of trade money, but I can’t pull it off. Post your map.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:36
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Fister Roboto posted:Post your map. good advice for whenever somebody asks for advice also good advice in general because i like looking at your maps
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Apr 17, 2018 16:42
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Fister Roboto posted:Post your map.  Kurland and Saxony are my vassals, I'm about to start moving in on the minors right below Denmark.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:42
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Put your trade capitol in the Baltic if it isn't already, and place merchants in Krakow and Novgorod. You won't be able to make poo poo in Lubeck until you make some serious headway into there. A single estuary is a drop in the bucket compared to what Denmark and the Hansa are swinging around. You probably won't even match England's projected trade power.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:49
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Depending on how troubled Denmark gets you should probably try and nab Sjælland for the Sound Toll. And definitely grab Lübeck asap for its coastal center and plonk your trading capital onto it. Then you'll want to use all of your light ships to protect trade and stop the english channel from stealing it all. Crush the Hansa!
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Apr 17, 2018 16:53
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JerikTelorian posted:So what's the trick to circumnavigation? My fleets keep dying, even though I've explored a circle all the way around the world. I'm using Early Frigates. I've got colonies pretty much in a big ring too, and I'm shoring up blind spots in the East with fleet basing. Is there a good view to help me figure out where my holes are?
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Apr 17, 2018 18:59
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I'm having a fun Brandenburg game where I am in a near constant state of coalition wars from my expansion but I have so far not... lost? And did win the last one, right now nobody near me can war me so I think i'll have time to rest and to gobble up some of the OPMS I took winning the last war. I have lucked out in that literally every ruler beyond the ones at game start have had 5 or 6 mil.
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Apr 17, 2018 23:08
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Pellisworth posted:Post a screenshot of a battle with Spain and we'll be able to better tell you what went wrong. Military tech was even at 10. I've put all my unit types to the most modern. Maintenance was full, fort was turned on for a few months. My forces were outnumbered, but I was on a fort, in a forest, across a river.     And to top it off, Burgundy and Portugal are now allies of Spain. I'm revving up the time machine and kicking Henry right in his divorce-hungry balls and staying Catholic. Maybe I'll still have some allies this time around. MadJackal fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 00:56
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Your general was terrible, the enemy general had high maneuver so he probably didn't take the river penalty. You have way too much cav and not enough cannons. You should have a full combat width minus two of infantry, two cav at most for flanking unless you get cav bonuses like hordes or poland. And your whole back row should be full of cannons. Try and keep your forts on so your army tradition doesn't decrease and you'll be able to roll better generals and you'll get a bonus from having higher prestige which Spain probably does.
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Apr 18, 2018 01:08
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MadJackal posted:Military tech was even at 10. I've put all my unit types to the most modern. Maintenance was full, fort was turned on for a few months. My forces were outnumbered, but I was on a fort, in a forest, across a river. Can you post a screenshot during the battle if you have an earlier save you can load? That way we will be able to see the Morale and Tactics/Discipline of both sides. Both sides lost similar amounts of casualties, so you didn't get smoked there. You're just outnumbered and they won, all it takes is a few not-so-great dice rolls. One thing of note: you have way too much cavalry. It's more expensive than infantry and there isn't much benefit to having more than a handful per army, more importantly with a 21/16 ratio of infantry to cavalry you're close to the penalty for having more than 50% cavalry in your front line. It's entirely possible your infantry got chewed down below the threshold and your army ate the penalty for having too much cavalry. Really though that looks like a pretty standard loss. They brought 10k more front line than you did and probably have higher Morale from their NIs. Also, their general has higher Maneuver score than yours, which negates the river crossing penalty. A pretty even battle, overall, if you threw in 10k more infantry and staggered your armies to maximize morale you could win. Gaius Marius posted:And your whole back row should be full of cannons. Eh, artillery would have made a significant difference but in 1520 it's not that powerful on the battlefield. Artillery really gets monstrous around 1600. Edit: also, don't get discouraged by losing just one battle. Keep fighting! Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 01:08
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MadJackal posted:but I was on a fort Forts don't do anything to help your armies, they just restrict movement until they're sieged down
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Apr 18, 2018 01:17
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Wafflecopper posted:Forts don't do anything to help your armies, they just restrict movement until they're sieged down Don't they guarantee you get defender bonuses regardless of who actually gets to the province first?
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Apr 18, 2018 01:21
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Wafflecopper posted:Forts don't do anything to help your armies, they just restrict movement until they're sieged down They do allow you to use the terrain penalty to your advantage if an enemy is sieging the fort. in MadJackal's situation, the best move would be to withdraw his troops behind the fort to Aquitaine province, ship in 10k+ infantry from the island, hire a better general and a Discipline or Morale adviser, then attack the besieging Spanish army. That doesn't win the war but it's a winnable battle.
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Apr 18, 2018 01:22
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Wafflecopper posted:Forts don't do anything to help your armies, they just restrict movement until they're sieged down They mean your always the defender so defensive forts are a great way to force a battle with the enemy in positive terrain. Pellisworth posted:Eh, artillery would have made a significant difference but in 1520 it's not that powerful on the battlefield. Artillery really gets monstrous around 1600.
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Apr 18, 2018 01:23
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I knew that, I somehow just completely forgot while making that post  I should probably get some sleep
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Apr 18, 2018 01:51
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Pellisworth's Practical Guide to EU4 Land Combat: This isn't an exhaustive writeup but will cover the main points. EU4 combat is kind of an opaque mess and not well-explained in-game. Two armies meet and roll dice (+general pips) to determine damage until one side runs out of morale. Morale is king, because it is what decides battles. The attacking army gets a terrain penalty to their dice rolls when applicable and a river crossing penalty only if the defending general's Maneuver score is equal or higher than the attacker. That means if the attacking general has a higher Maneuver, the river crossing penalty is negated. If you attack an enemy besieging a fort you control, the penalty is reversed and the besieger eats the penalty. So, it is to your advantage to lure enemies into sieging forts in rough terrain so you can attack the besiegers and benefit from the terrain penalty. Shock is the most useful general stat early in the game, Fire and Siege become more important later on. One combat width (increases with Military technology) of infantry + cavalry can fight on each side, only artillery can attack from the second row. However, all units engaged in battle, even if they are above the combat width and not actually fighting, take morale damage. So the ideal way to fight a battle is to send in one combat width of infantry + cavalry and however many artillery you have, then micro in reinforcement infantry as the engaged troops run out of morale. This gives your troops a morale boost and keeps them fighting longer overall. It's not really practical to micro this exactly, but the AI doesn't do it at all and will smash all their army in at once even though only a small portion can actually fight, so it's to your advantage to micro reinforcements at least a little. There are three unit types whose usefulness changes over the years due to technology. Infantry are cheap and do mixed shock/fire damage. Cavalry are expensive and do strong shock damage but eat poo poo from fire damage. They're a bit better than infantry early in the game but fall off. Uniquely, they have a long flanking range and are better at looting. Neither of those are particularly useful, since flanking only really applies when you're already winning a battle and looting is whatever. What I'm saying is cavalry are pretty bad. Artillery are expensive and do strong fire damage from the back row. For the cost, they suck in battle early on but after the first century or so become very powerful in combat. They also provide a bonus to sieging down forts. An "ideal" army composition is infantry and artillery equal to your combat width plus maybe 2-4 cavalry but you can skip the cavalry. Then send in reinforcing infantry as the battle progresses. A more practical army composition is infantry equal to combat width plus a few extra (since you're not going to micro perfectly and want a buffer), maybe 2-4 cav, and as much artillery as you can afford. Then send in infantry reinforcements. So, if your combat width is 20, I'd say have a standard army be: 24 infantry 2-4 cavalry if you want I guess up to 20 artillery depending on what you can afford, definitely max it out later in the game separate stacks of infantry nearby to reinforce In terms of stats/modifiers, if you have to pick one morale is the best. Discipline, combat ability, etc are all good but stack multiplicatively with each other and morale. Get some morale ASAP, then a mix of other stuff. tl;dr Make sure to keep on par with military technology and raise maintenance to full. Use terrain to your advantage, lure enemies into your forts in rough terrain or otherwise make use of the terrain penalty. Send in combat width plus a few of infantry and as much artillery as you can afford. As battle progresses, send in more fresh infantry to reinforce. Pray to the RNG gods. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 02:03
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I sometimes literally do not cav, just infantry to limit + artillery behind. Unless I am Poland I am often Poland and into space Also I like the new innovation mechanics, they are nice and reward you for tech rushing by letting you... tech rush more among other things.
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Apr 18, 2018 02:43
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For what it’s worth, I played an England game when the new dlc came out with basically all the advice of this thread regarding army size/composition, generals, terrain, etc, and the English armies still got regularly rolled by France and Spain in evenly pitched battles. Just England, especially in the new dlc, should be rolling in the dough almost immediately so absorbing a few bad losses didn’t matter much
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Apr 18, 2018 02:50
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AtomikKrab posted:I sometimes literally do not cav, just infantry to limit + artillery behind. Unless I am Poland I am often Poland and into space Unless you're not in Europe then you'll never get any innovativeness ever.
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Apr 18, 2018 02:57
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EwokEntourage posted:For what it’s worth, I played an England game when the new dlc came out with basically all the advice of this thread regarding army size/composition, generals, terrain, etc, and the English armies still got regularly rolled by France and Spain in evenly pitched battles. Just England, especially in the new dlc, should be rolling in the dough almost immediately so absorbing a few bad losses didn’t matter much France and Spain both get a big honkin morale bonus from national ideas. England doesn’t.
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Apr 18, 2018 04:28
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is there some kinda mod that just plain turns around the whole "only in Europe" and makes it "only not in Europe", like for institution spawn and whatnot
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Apr 18, 2018 05:57
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Deceitful Penguin posted:is there some kinda mod that just plain turns around the whole "only in Europe" and makes it "only not in Europe", like for institution spawn and whatnot This looks like what you're after: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=780337760&searchtext=
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Apr 18, 2018 06:26
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England's ideas are actually quite bad for everything but naval if I recall, which basically means they are bad for everything.
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Apr 18, 2018 06:45
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Pellisworth posted:Pellisworth's Practical Guide to EU4 Land Combat: The system is more elegant than I gave it credit for, but also who the gently caress can micromanage battles to this degree. Like, I appreciate that they crammed a Civ V hex management system of combat to counter the DoomStacks, but this is suited for turning the game speed down to 1 and micro managing to an absurd degree. The one thing I'm screwing up on is not investing in more cannons though. Too many horsies, not enough boom. The AI seems to know exactly when to retreat or attack and then splinter off into a perfect raiding wave to take territory. Also, the colonization system is great, but I was really surprised when my colonies on the East Coast declared themselves The Thirteen Colonies and then immediately started pissing off the natives I'd so carefully nurtured relationships with. Guess it's time for another 15 minute tutorial. Game is the tits though, the depth is insane and the diplomacy is top notch. MadJackal fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 07:13
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Shaman Ooglaboogla posted:England's ideas are actually quite bad for everything but naval if I recall, which basically means they are bad for everything. they are stupidly good for economy and making megabucks, +20% Goods Produced what the hell that's absurd MadJackal posted:The system is more elegant than I gave it credit for, but also who the gently caress can micromanage battles to this degree. Like, I appreciate that they crammed a Civ V hex management system of combat to counter the DoomStacks, but this is suited for turning the game speed down to 1 and micro managing to an absurd degree. it's based on a tabletop game lol They really need to revamp combat for EU5 because it's a silly ahistorical mess I mean, nobody even really had a standing army in the 1500s except the Ottomans and kind of Spain, it was all mercenaries. Sweden's entire thing is they instituted conscription very early, but even then relied heavily on mercenaries. For as much as the game tries to be vaguely historical with mechanics it... very much isn't.
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Apr 18, 2018 07:27
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Rapner posted:This looks like what you're after: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=780337760&searchtext= Yeah, I found that one but it adds extra ones and removes the dates, which is bad, especially the extra ones It also doesn't stop Europe from having them Like, if you use the console to embrace institutions before the times they're supposed to, you actually stop it spawning in the right place, so I've been doing that, but all the growth modifiers are irritatingly eurocentric as well it's kinda crazy to think that this game is teh least eurocentric one too
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Apr 18, 2018 07:32
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Pellisworth posted:they are stupidly good for economy and making megabucks, +20% Goods Produced what the hell that's absurd Unless you want to nerf yourself with quantity ideas your armies are going to be a majority mercenaries past the first 100 years or so. And also in those first years you are going to be dropping maintenance to 0 when at peace which pretty accurately simulates disbanding your levy armies.
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Apr 18, 2018 08:14
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Pellisworth posted:they are stupidly good for economy and making megabucks, +20% Goods Produced what the hell that's absurd Having just come off reading a fairly dense book on the Thirty Years War (Europe's Tragedy), the idea that you could march 20,000 men across the Holy Roman Empire in wartime and arrive with 20,000 men at the other side is utterly alien to me. It's all like, "We landed 10,000 men to siege this island" and then half a page later "The 500 bedraggled survivors were evacuated, PS there's a plague"
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Apr 18, 2018 08:25
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Or marching 30k men through the middle of the Sahara desert with no losses to conquer the interior of West Africa (never touching the coast) with reinforcing being so quick and easy the army was always at perfect full strength. Firebatgyro posted:Unless you want to nerf yourself with quantity ideas your armies are going to be a majority mercenaries past the first 100 years or so. And also in those first years you are going to be dropping maintenance to 0 when at peace which pretty accurately simulates disbanding your levy armies. Poil fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 09:57
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I love Victoria II but being able to March your armies through the uncolonized interior of Africa from Sokoto to Ethiopia is hilarious. The way armies work is weird, wonky, and ahistorical but I prefer it to Vicky or ckii which has more depth and units but is way less intuitive and less fun
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Apr 18, 2018 11:22
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Gaius Marius posted:I love Victoria II but being able to March your armies through the uncolonized interior of Africa from Sokoto to Ethiopia is hilarious. Feel like I'm going to go down the rabbit hole with this one, but in what way are Victoria 2's armies "more intuitive" than Crusader Kings 2's armies? CK2's "Raise troops with two clicks, mash together into doomstack" is pretty drat intuitive, and Victoria 2's army system is opaque as gently caress.
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Apr 18, 2018 11:33
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