Paradox Games

There's a reason I like Spanish cultures. Caballeros <3

Really gotta get way of life. There's a few assholes I'd like to duel in my current save. Mainly the only 2 kingdoms within my empire. One got a queen and they instantly married the other kingdom. Male's dead now but their son's taken that kingdom and unless quite a few people die I'm going to have trouble soon.

I'm baaaaaaack

Ugh. Now even when I'm outnumbering the enemy I'm somehow losing battles >_< Is it because I don't have enough cavalry?

edited 26th Feb '15 1:06:38 PM by theLibrarian

Which game? If it's EUIV, it's possibly because numbers don't mean jack compared to morale.

If it's CKII, you might need to trick your enemy into a vulnerable position (or you are being tricked into a vulnerable position), control who your generals are, etc. Or just try to outnumber your enemy by an even greater amount.

edited 26th Feb '15 1:19:54 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

EUIV. It also doesn't help that on some phases of battle I'm losing over a thousand men per thing.

In EUIV large armies can and will routinely lose to much smaller ones, because the main stat that tends to decide battles is morale (and attackers start with a morale penalty, even if the defender is invading foreign land), and as a rule of thumb battles involving armies with more ten thousand men on both sides (but sometimes even less) will typically end in a morale failure before one side is totally destroyed, no matter how much more powerful than the other one of those armies is.

My basic solution for battles in EUIV is to have at least two armies work in tandem - usually around the same size, but having one "main" army and a slightly smaller "backup" army works too. The second army jumps into the battle halfway through to replenish morale (and numbers, if it has to), which - even if you were previously at a slight numbers disadvantage - should win you the day nine times out of ten unless you were getting seriously curbstomped before hand.

Imo, this is also a main reason why it's sometimes better to have allies/vassals around than always take care of wars yourself.

If you're losing a lot of men in comparison to your opponent, they could have better generals or units than you, as well. It's also linked to morale in a way (though I'm not entirely sure off the top of my head if morale and casualties are directly linked in EUIV), because you want higher Discipline to avoid Morale damage, and high Discipline also reduces casualties.

edited 26th Feb '15 1:54:15 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

So the general that I hired is part of the problem. I figured that he wasn't a good one to begin with >_<

There could be any number of reasons for that. Morale and discipline are big ones, as is quality of generals. Also, terrain is big, so pick your battlefield carefully.

Odd Nation Designer related observation: American culture has an enormous female name list and a tiny male name list, giving an American cultured custom nation an extremely high chance of getting a female leader if they're not a republic. I used English culture, though, and spent about 620 nation points on taking all of England's island holdings (France can have the mainland holdings (I mean, England can, too, but France is gonna kick their ass so hard)), an awesome heir, and on incredibly powerful NIs. Like 20% inf combat ability (one of my traditions), +100% mercenaries (the other tradition), 20% cheaper cores, 10% cheaper tech, and 10% discipline (ambition), and +2 colonists and merchants. No +morale, though. That said, more casualties inflicted (see: 20% infantry CA, 10% discipline) and fewer casualties taken (see: 10% discipline) can have dramatic effects on how much morale both sides lose.

edited 26th Feb '15 1:57:05 PM by Balmung

This just in: much like CKII a couple weeks ago, EUIV's DLC is on sale now.

Oh, wait. That's because of El Dorado. Duh... So... erm... yeah. That's out, too...

edited 26th Feb '15 1:59:06 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Also, Guns, Drums, and Steel vol. 2 is a thing.

Gonna metal this mofo up a notch.

Man, buying DLC for Paradox games is harder than it ought to be, because the descriptions for them don't differentiate between stuff you need the DLC to buy and stuff you get automatically by way of the coinciding patch...

On that note, I have no idea whether I actually want to get Art of War or not...

edited 26th Feb '15 2:08:38 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Item got for both Art of War and El Dorado. We'll see if I enjoy the game more now.

Ugh, this is why I prefer Total War games. At least things are more realistic there and it's not just "Dice roll, dice roll, dice roll".

Generalship and morale are still critical in a Total War game. Even if you outnumber the enemy, low quality, low morale units aren't going to win. A high enough dread rating on generals in older games will completely rout lower tier units without even fighting. Which would send higher tier units over the edge even quicker.

I fail to see how aside from general experience that I'm outclassed by people.

I'm not even sure I understand that.

Like my armies seem to be on-par with everyone else, aside from the generals.

Ah! Yes, that. Generals are important. They add to the different phases of the game. If you don't have a good general, the enemies will outclass you.

edited 26th Feb '15 3:19:48 PM by Journeyman

The thing is, you armies may not always be as equal as you think. For example, France gets a huge morale bonus from Elan! and Brandenburg/Prussia get all manner of crazy bonuses. Just because your units have the same pips doesn't mean that they're actually fighting at the same level.

Yeah, right. In TW, if you know how to play, you could completely obliterate the AI with much inferior forces in a way that is nowhere "realistic". Both games have its faults, really.

Also, most of the time, when people blame the "dice roll", they actually are playing badly. Yes, the dice can screw you over sometimes. But if you actually playing smartly, you won't lose and, if you do, it won't be by a big margin, meaning you can still keep going.

If you are consistently losing in a war, it is because you are messing up somehow. Maybe it is the generals. Maybe it is the terrain. Maybe it is the troop type, ideas, the technology or army composition. Most likely it is multiple of those things. Just look closely at your armies and your opponents and the answer will become evident.

I'm trying not to mess up. I just want to be good at the game XD Like, I'm pretty sure everyone still has Latin Medieval Infantry, I've tried to fight enemies in provinces with rivers and stuff...

edited 26th Feb '15 6:57:19 PM by theLibrarian

Guns, Drums and Steel Vol.2 isn't supported in English? Is that a Steam error? Hope so, because it redoes some of my favorite tracks (Stone Masons, My Kingdom, and Eire).

And that idea restriction is just moronic; another case of multiplayer balancing ruining it for the rest of us.

edited 26th Feb '15 7:17:46 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Unit type is just one of the many factors. And rivers are actually irrelevant, depending on the leader (if the enemy's general have more maneuver, they ignore crossing penalties). How are your tech and your opponent's? if they have higher tech, they might have more discipline or tactics, which makes a difference. More importantly, what are your national and military ideas, and your opponent's? As others have said, if you are fighting, say, France, chances are their troops are stronger by default, and there is little you can do about it. Countries like Brandenburg and Sweden are just as bad.

However, other terrain effects, such as forest, hills, and mountains cannot be negated by generals.

Also, if you're fighting Muslims, hordes, Ottomans (separate units from other Muslims), or most other non-Europeans, expect your (presumably) western or eastern troops to get steamrolled early on. Early European infantry are horrible, while everyone else has much better units until tech 12 or so (though the gap becomes more manageable around tech 9), when Europeans break even with their tercios (eastern catches up a little sooner and leads western for a while, but falls behind in the end). Cavalry is even more skewed.

---

The idea thing is a little less restrictive than the game makes it sound. It's actually no more than 50% of your current idea groups can be from a given category to choose another of the same, but you could still alternate ADM-MIL-ADM-MIL or something, instead of having to throw in a DIP group or something.

edited 26th Feb '15 8:57:09 PM by Balmung

Well that stinks. I guess I'll have to meld with them through a personal union or something.

Or marry into them at some point.