Warfare style - offensive or defensive?

**hellheaven1987** · February 18, 2013, 09:28 PM

I always have trouble to determine whether I should move my slider to more offensive or more defensive. It seems be defensive is not a good choice if you are land connected with someone, yet in other hand offensive slide make siege rather slow. So any suggestion?

**Ciciro** · February 19, 2013, 11:51 AM

I go for offensive, but i play defensive. IE i let the enemy come to me, then i attack once attrition hits.

**Musthavename** · February 19, 2013, 03:33 PM

Tbh, I find this slider is the only one that doesn't matter that much. Defensiveness is useful, but frankly it only comes in useful if I'm being mass sieged and if that's happened I've probably lost. I tend to go for Offensive if possible for the +Shock on generals, which I prefer over the +Siege, but honestly I tend to leave this slider be more than any other. Quality vs Quantity is far more important from a military standpoint.

**~~The Kybrothilian~~** · February 20, 2013, 05:15 AM

Originally Posted by Musthavename

Tbh, I find this slider is the only one that doesn't matter that much. Defensiveness is useful, but frankly it only comes in useful if I'm being mass sieged and if that's happened I've probably lost. I tend to go for Offensive if possible for the +Shock on generals, which I prefer over the +Siege, but honestly I tend to leave this slider be more than any other. Quality vs Quantity is far more important from a military standpoint.

So is it always better to have it full quality? Or is quantity good in any situation?

**Musthavename** · February 20, 2013, 01:01 PM

I always find the problem is that Quality only gives you a large bonus if you already have large amounts of manpower - in which case you probably want the Quality. But really, it comes down to this for me. Outside Militia Act, some nation specific decisions and advisors, there's very little one can do to improve their Discipline, except the Quality slider. Manpower however can generally be rectified by simply building appropriately.

**Ferdiad** · February 20, 2013, 01:18 PM

Does going full defensive help out with siege time on your end? Might help with rebels.

**hellheaven1987** · February 20, 2013, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by Ferdiad

Does going full defensive help out with siege time on your end? Might help with rebels.

Yes, if you have a commander lead that siege; the main general bonus is you can build more arty now, but overall I find siege chance is more related with your military tech than anything else.

**ShockBlast** · February 20, 2013, 04:25 PM

Both play styles have their merits but I think that defensive takes the cake,at least for me.

A defensive style is more helpful for a player who mixes expanding in his home continent and establishing colonies.
If you do that the moments in which you will be caught off guard or in need of troops is be quite a few,even if you are France you can

up by angering Castile/Spain , England/UK and Austria at the same time.

In my current game as Highlander(

) Scotland I found myself helped by the decision of going defensive and on the "receiving" end of a defensive warfare.

In my late game invasion of Japan I found out to my horror that I have to siege some provinces like 3 or 4 times more then others and even if the siege was at 100% and the wall was broken my 18K strong infantry was butchered by the garrison of 3 or 4k while in other parts of Japan I could assault the settlements when it reached 100% and had the wall intact and take it swiftly.

An offensive player will have to chase the enemy army around but a defensive player can play you siege mine I siege yours and win hands down also a defensive player gets smaller prices for artillery units (25% iirc)

Well it seems that D&T is quite different, defensive gives a wooping 75% more to the fort no wonder that 15k african army couldn`t take my level 1 fort and it signed a white peace with me

So without too many words offensive for a player who doesn`t plan on expanding oversees and defensive for a player with oversees territories.If you are Castile/Spain or France I guess it`s not such a big deal which way you go since you can throw you fat arse on people`s heads.

**Musthavename** · February 21, 2013, 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by Ferdiad

Does going full defensive help out with siege time on your end? Might help with rebels.

Defensiveness, the bonus that Defensive gives, increases the time it takes for your forts to get sieged (on average). So yeah, if you've got a large Empire vulnerable to rebels, Defensive is a better slider to go than Offensive. On the flip side, Offensive gives generals additional shock which is far better than siege (because if your general is sitting on a siege, you're wasting him). So take whichever you want, but in the grand scheme it's not one of the big clinchers.

**hellheaven1987** · February 21, 2013, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by Musthavename

Defensiveness, the bonus that Defensive gives, increases the time it takes for your forts to get sieged (on average). So yeah, if you've got a large Empire vulnerable to rebels, Defensive is a better slider to go than Offensive. On the flip side, Offensive gives generals additional shock which is far better than siege (because if your general is sitting on a siege, you're wasting him). So take whichever you want, but in the grand scheme it's not one of the big clinchers.

Technically Offensive is more a direct approach against enemy's force, while Defensive is more a indirect approach. Still if you have full Free Subject the downside of Defensive is not too bad.

**Lord Romanus III** · February 28, 2013, 09:04 PM

In my multiplayer experiences, defensive is the way to go for a late game strategy. It gives you cheaper artillery (huge plus, as this is the second most important unit once you have Gustavans) and longer fort times (slows down rebels and vassal states who might be sieging you), which is worth it for the loss of .10 morale.