This is insane

[Asterix]

I am playing on Spain on easy difficulty. i've got a huge 100,000 man army in Spain itself and more outside in the colonies. However, every time i go to war with France, my armies get annhiliated. its extremely frustrating-i outnumber them slightly every time yet the beat the crap out of my armies. when i defend.

France is only 1 tech level ahead of me and we have fairly even armies. We fight mainly in the pyrenees and the plains right behind them.
And while i'm at it, how come whenever i go to war, my reinforcements never arrive?! my armies keep losing men without gaining reinforcements! my manpower is significantly less than the men needed to replenish, but considering my men haven't even ENGAGED IN COMBAT, why am i losing men?! keep in mind this isn't the tropics, this is Spain!

My Austrian allies managed to sieze almost all of France, however. i had dropped out of the war by this time so i couldn't get in on any of it.
what is going on? what am i not understanding? my armies are generally infantry and cavalry with a little more cav (maurician infantry and latin knights, haven't reached caracoles yet). perhaps it is because France is at land tech 22 and has access to Caracoles and i don't?

[empr guy]

what is your land army funding (or whatever its called)? If its not at full then you wont get reinforcments or win battles against an even enemy. Also your probably loosing men due to attrition,your homeland will be able to support alot of troops but not 100k and probably not more then 25k in the best provinces.

Two more things, what is your land morale? Its one of the most important factors, if your units' morale is 1 or two less then frances (there is an idea you can get that raises it by one which is very important since the AI almost always gets it [the only ones i've seen not get it would be italian states and other nations that are not trying to be military powers] and advisors/events can raise it a bit here and there iirc.)

Also in HTTT you get bonuses for balanced armies, as in less then half cavalry, which shouldnt be the reason you get raped though since in HTTT the AI still likes to use huge cavalry hordes with no infantry for the first 200 years or so...

[Asterix]

army upkeep is at 100%. morale is at like 4.
so how does this troop support thing work?
and also, what am i not understanding about land warfare?! even with all the possible factors involved i shouldn't be losing EVERY battle.

[thatguy]

Look, EU has a crap combat system, I loose all the time even when the odds arei n my favour.

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

You'll only lose if you've done a poor job organizing and manipulating your army.

[Darkarbiter]

Look, EU has a crap combat system, I loose all the time even when the odds arei n my favour.

They probably weren't. Apart from the diceroll which doesn't have THAT large an effect. If you have even die rolls, even sized armies and you're still seriously losing then the type of troops and quality you have is probably much worse.

[StandardUser]

army upkeep is at 100%. morale is at like 4.
so how does this troop support thing work?
and also, what am i not understanding about land warfare?! even with all the possible factors involved i shouldn't be losing EVERY battle.

since youre spain, your "land vs naval" might be towards naval while frances is towards land(which means you may have more morale with navies, but less with land troops). france and burgundy are land warfare beasts and against naval nations like spain land war will be a sure win. furthermore, the AI usually have great generals even when it seems it shouldnt. generals mean alot.
offensive war sometimes means a loss. do what i do. invade into a province or two with the bulk of your armies, wait for siege to end, and watch the AI suicide at you. its a great tactic when fought at river provinces(the terrain penalty for attacker may be -1 or -2 which often can decide a battle).
after youve won siege,advance to the most easy to take province, and continue this attrition war. the AI is really dumb, and if you block its land route with your armies, he will ususally suicide at you with small troops instead of flanking your empty rear. when you reach 99 warscore make him cede provinces that will create a bottleneck(the less provinces you border with the AI, the easier to garrison them with more troops and stack up kills from foolish assaults by the AI.

if france is ridicilously strong, you can block your border with troops(northern spain is easy to block) and raid thier colonies with overwhelming numbers.

always remember to have a colleague of war at capital and national idea that gives you tradition, so you will be able to outgeneral you dumb AI foe. dont bother to raise naval tradition - AI navies are miserably bad.

[Asterix]

thanks for the above post. yeah, my land versus naval is pretty heavily towards the naval side....i have a navy of 180 ships, to keep up the colonies and for transport and to make sure great britain doesn't get any ideas.
what i really don't understand is the supply system and the real nitty gritty mechanics of battles. if i understand that, i should be better able to fight battles and not feel like i'm shooting in the dark every time i go to war.

[empr guy]

well i cant help too much with the nitty gritty of the battles themselves, but for land support its simpley how many men you can get supplies for in that province. when you hold your mouse over a province it should show a number which is the support number which will mean you can put that many regiments there without taking attrition. In a mountain province that might not be a core then you would have a low supply limit, which means that your men are dying due to lack of supplies.

If you have too many and attrition is shown as red its unreplenishable, as in you loose men over time. In orange means you wont loose more troops due to attrition but your only getting enough to break even and the army wont replenish. Attrition in green numbers means your fine.

[Asterix]

thanks much. i didn't know that the attrition number colors meant anything, so thanks. i just went to war with Brandenburg and the Palatinate as Bohemia in my other campaign and thanks to my knowledge of attrition it worked like a dream.

EDIT: oh, while i'm at it, what do all the stats a general has mean? manouver, siege, etc.

[Nole4694]

To answer the generals, and this goes to the battle mechanics too:

First, the battles, each side rolls and obviously the higher roll causes more casualties, or at least fairs better in combat (don't know the specifics).

The first two stats for both armies and generals are for fire and shock. There are two alternating phases to battles, fire and shock, each with its own roll. The higher the number of ticks a unit or general has in either section the more bonus you get to your rolls (whoever has the higher shock gets a bonus on their shock roll and the higher fire gets one to fire). This is why generals and having advanced units are important.

Maneuver is to what degree your general increases army movement speed. As far as I know its just how quick they get around the map and has nothing to do with battles though I may be wrong. Useful for chasing down wounded enemies, or fleeing from a larger army.

Seige, I don't know exactly what it does but I think it makes sieges progress more quickly.

Theres more stuff that goes into it like Discipline and all that but thats the gist of it.

[Sevasti]

Matching your generals with the proper army line up is pretty important as Nole implied. A general with high shock value won't do you much good with an all infantry army and vice versa. While the shock phase tends to give the higher casualties it's the fire phase that will wear your army down in a prolonged battle. Also be aware of what units the enemy's army consists of. Going head to head with a strong cavalry army when you only have infantry, even if you have the upper hand in terms of quantity, will often crush you in the early game. If you really have to face such an army on those conditions make sure it is in a terrain that's in your favour (heavy forrest, mountains etc).

[Asterix]

so... what exactly is discipline and where can i see it? and i keep my cav and infantry in the same army, is this a bad idea? i am a nazi about organization and neatness so having tons of little armies annoys me.

[empr guy]

so... what exactly is discipline and where can i see it?

idk if its different in DW though, this is from HTTT

and i keep my cav and infantry in the same army, is this a bad idea? i am a nazi about organization and neatness so having tons of little armies annoys me.

no its a good idea to have both in one army, i personally try to keep balanced armies but thats not terribly important.

actually i just realized, the picture i just copied is from a very extensive begginers guide on paradoxplaza, and it includes a battle guide, heres a link http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...4#post11393484
you can see if that can help you out, theres a table of contents incase your wondering about anything else on page one.

[hellwyr]

one tech is very much in the beginning!!!!!
land attrition
moral
generals are very very important *army tradition
discepline
war exhaustion

there are so many factors to consider


and if you start a war against france or any other country you should have more than "a slight" bigger army.
and I ll tell you its very hard to conquer france because its gonna be a war depending on menpower and france has propbably more than u so u are gonna lose unless u do a blitzkrieg which means u need a grand army who can do this. Or you have alot of allies who follow u in war and keep france busy like burgundy, or u wait until france is in war with GB and or burgundy and u backstab her...*which gives franze a high warexhaustion awhich make ur odds higher

and you should have one army who fights the computer main army and a lot of small 1000 armies to seize the land so the computer is gonna split up his army, so you can split urs... its always action and reaction...

it s not good or bad to have both in an army, i think it sgood to have balanced armys BUT u need an additional army whch only consists of cavalary because its faster so u can hunt the enemy more easily in the end and or protect ur seized provinces.

[empr guy]

you don't need a bigger army then someone to beat them, you just need a better army and some stratagy, or even just some stratagy and a slightly bigger army.

The only other thing is that you dont really want one regiment armies everywhere since they are easy to kill and whenever you loose one the enemy gains one warscore and you loose the troops.

[hellwyr]

i meant 2000 regiments just bigger than the forts *or 1000 can be okay to....i always play like that and always win easily...