How does battle work? what statistic am I missing?

[River]

I am trying to understand how battles in CK3 work, because there is a battle that I will always lose, but for the live of me, I don't know why.

Whenever I engage, or defend, CK3 tells me chances are balanced. in addition, the hint tells me I have a better commander and defend a river crossing. The enemy has no advantages as far as CK3 is concerned.
That being said, he has the numerical advantage. my numbers are 4381, his are 5145. That being said, I have fought the computer in the past, and he whooped my ass when I had a 2000 army advantage.

So, what I analysed:
- one aspect is the commander: However, mine has a total skill of 26, the enemy of 20
- Then there are skills: he is a winter soldier, but I am an open plains expert. They balance each other out
- Then there are the dice: in one fight, I threw only higher than him
- counters: We have each the same counters: Bowmen, cavalry and pikemen
- knights: True, I have 9 knights, the enemy has 12.
- Leading troops: This indeed adds a pretty high modifier of +6, but would that decide the battle so conclusively?

So, in a battle in which I only threw higher than my opponent, in which CK3 said chances are equal and recognised 2 advantages of me (river crossing and better commander). I am utterly and completely destroyed, even when I repeatedly threw better than him, and I have always without interruption had the advantage.

of my 4381 troops, I've lost 1542. The enemy on the other hand has lost only 571 of his initial 5145. What statistic am I missing?

[River]

I did some more testing.
I married my daughter to a commander with a martial skill off 28. Somehow, the enemy soldiers fielded a general with a martial skill of 13. even the difference in troops is less grand.
and I still lose utterly and completely.
the enemy general has "Never back down +5" and "Chivalry focus +5" and "Leading own Troops +5". Am I to assume that this is what makes the difference? that someone with a martial skill 15 higher cannot win due to some modifiers?

[Edmund Greyfox]

Could be a lot of things. The number of champions matter, as does the number and type of MAA's. Both have far higher attack/defense ratings then a levy troop, so if you're outnumbered in either of those categories you're at a disadvantage, even if you MAA's counter some of theirs.

Sheer numbers also matter. If i take an army that's nothing but MAA's and knights that =2250 up against an enemy that's nothing but levies that =4000 I'm probably going to lose, even though my army is better quality.

Honestly, the best way to win is to always outnumber your opponents by 20% or more, and to always have more MAA's, more knights, and a better commander.

[Chip56]

Overall: Careful about the odds the game shows you. They are super inaccurate when it comes to knights and maa and if multiple armies arrive with even a small delay.
Pretty much all the bonuses it shows are either pure numbers of your army or things that affect army advantage. However army advantage is only a bit more damage. 20% more damage for your troops if you are outnumbered 2:1 still means you get slaughered if its the same troops.

Some extreme examples when its going to go horribly wrong:
You have an army of 1k levies that just landed, enemy has 1k levies, defends a river crossing and has a better commander. Now it would probably show 3 big green things for the enemy and that the enemy will clearly win. If you have 30 knights with 20 prowess and a 200% modifier you can imagine how that round will really go...

Enemy has 5k levies and 1 stack of pikeman. You have 2500 heavy cav. It will show tons of advantages for the enemy but in truth those wont matter because their counter is only a few % effective since you have that much more cav than the enemy has counters. And your cav will slaughter the enemy. And that situation gets even worse in a battlefield that has limited combat width since your smaller army will fight with full power while the enemy gets a damage malus.

[River]

I thought it indeed might have been the MAA, so I checked those out in a more recent fight
Enemy (his MAA have a slight statistic increase):
- 300 Bow
- 300 Pike
- 100 Light foot
- 328 light foot
- 326 pike
Total: 1354
me
- 500 Bow
- 400 light foot
- 300 light foot
- 200 Konni (cavalry)
Total: 1400

So even MAA wise I outnumber him. True, his pikemen will block my Konni, but my Konni block his bowmen.


So, I managed to split his troops, my general is better, I have a numerical advantage, and CK3 says I will win decisively. I load until I manage a clear advantage, and it goes as follows:
ME | AI
4341 | 4045
-185 | -168
4160 | 3883
-185 | -168
3975 | 3715

I have the numerical advantage, I have more MMA and my overal advantage is +6 which should result in me doing 12% more damage. CK3 says I'll win decisevely. I still lose more troops than him each turn and eventually... I still get my ass handed to me.
it doesn't matter so much in this fight, as the enemy is sending reinforcement, and in 3 turns, I'm outnumbered again and either way, I'll lose the war.
I'm just trying to understand how combat goes.

also, is it me, or do predictions make a lot less sense since the DLC?

[Chip56]

Dont make the mistake to think that each maa is the same strength.
A regular heavy infantery for example is MUCH stronger than a regular skirmisher.
1:1 heavy infantery will even win against skirmisher even though they counter the heavy. The counter efficency depends on the amount of units that counter/are countered. At 1:1 ratio the counter will reduce the enemy damage by 45%
300 pike vs 200 cav: More units that counter= higher damage loss of cav.
200 cav vs 300 bowman: actually less units that counter = lower damage loss of bowman.
See https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/combat-mechanics-explained.1434737/ for more info about

[snuggleform]

Sounds to me like the knights are making the difference.

Btw, as a side note your konni are being countered with a 90% damage penalty while they're only countering the bows by about 30% or so, due to the number of them vs pike present. The counter system takes into account the quantity of the counter, not just the fact that they are present.

Your Konni might as well not exist due to the heavy counter, and he has a lot of pikemen which are significantly stronger than light infantry in a straight up fight. Your quantity of bowmen is helping you against his light infantry but his 600+ pikemen is way in his favor.

[Grunaldi]

Originally posted by River:

I am trying to understand how battles in CK3 work

to understand battles in CK3 you need to understand :
Advantage and Units Stats

1.Advantage
one point of Advantage gives you 2% more dmg
your commanders generate Advantage but things like river crossing or terrain and other things can also impact it like: disembarking is -30 Advantage so -60% dmg !

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare#The_advantage_modifier

2. Unit stats
Strenght :is basically size of a unit
Damage : used during fighting part of the battle to kill and rout enemies
Toughness: how much damage unit can take before killed or routed

Pursuit: used during retreat part of the battle to kill and rout enemies
Screen: how much damage unit can take before killed or routed during retreat

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Army#Stats

Levies have :
damage 10
Toughness 10

so if you have 1000 Levies
damage 10 000
Toughness 10 000

damage is calculated like this
during each "tick"(time progress in battle) you deal 3% of your total damage to enemies Toughness
so 10 000 damage is 300 damage per tick(modified by the advantage)


so lets take a more realistic example

Army 1
5 knights with same prowess of 10
300 Armored Footman
300 Bowmen
900 Levies

1505 total

vs

Army 2
10 knights with same prowess of 10
300 Armored Horsemen

310 total

Who do you think will win ?

Army 1 damage

knight with 10 prowess have 1000 damage
knights 5 x 100 = 5 000
Armored Footman 300 x 32= 9 600
Bowmen 300 x 25 = 7 500 BUT Bowmen are countered by Armored Horsemen
and they have same numbers so bowman will deal only 50% damage so
Bowmen 300 x 25 x 0.5 = 3 750
Levies 900 x 10 = 9 000

total 27 350 => 820.5 damage each "tick"

Army 1 toughness

knight with 10 prowess have 100 toughness
knights 5 x 100 = 500
Armored Footman 300 x 22 = 6 600
Bowmen 300 x 10 = 3 000
Levies 900 x 10 = 9 000

total 19 100

Army 2 damage

knights 10 x 1000= 10 000
Armored Horsemen 300 x 200= 60 000

total 70 000 => 2 100 damage per "tick"

Army 2 toughness

knights 10 x 100= 1000
Armored Horsemen 300 x 35= 10 500

Total 11 500

Army 1 would kill Army 2 in 11 500/820.5 = ~15"ticks"
Army 2 would kill Army 1 in 19 100/2100 = ~10 "ticks"

Army 2 will win unless there is significant advantage for Army 1

if Army 2 have would have an advantage of 23 or higher :

Army 1 would kill Army 2 in 11 500 /(820.5 + 56%=1 280)=~ 9 "ticks"
and Army 1 would win

[Сааребас]

@OP: you have too many light infantry, switch both for heavy infantry, switch your bowmen to pikes and keep the cavalry.

[angel of derp]

Just stack one kind of MAA so that you'll ignore their counter.

Konni are awesome. Stack them up to maximum.

[Crim]

Geez dude, you're not trailblazing here
just look up the info on wiki

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare

[glythe]

This might help you a bit about understanding MAA.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2767851158

Long story short you need to stack "advantage" as much as you can. Build superior MAA and you will crush the enemy even when at a huge disadvantage.

[River]

Originally posted by Talamare:

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare

Thanks for the link. while it is informative, it doesn't go into detail how a battle is calculated. What exact multipliers en statistics are used. ideally, I would love to see a turn per turn analysis of the numbers, and how those numbers are reached.

Originally posted by glythe:

This might help you a bit about understanding MAA.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2767851158

Long story short you need to stack "advantage" as much as you can. Build superior MAA and you will crush the enemy even when at a huge disadvantage.

informative, and indeed, that's what I gathered, just attack with large MAA that manage to block the enemies MAA. Thank you for the link

[Dante_Deepdarkness]

A part from what has been told, keep in mind that artifacts can influence too. The weapon my character wears give a +X% knights efficiency and a +Y% enemy mortal casualties (don't remember the exact number right now).
Despite the numbers aren't huge, if I remember it well around 12% is the highest I have seen, so an extra 10% knight efficiency is quite the difference in this game where MaA and Knights are the key to win battles.

Only at the beginning of the game I use the full army. Once you have some numbers of MaA, levies are most of the time quite useless.

[Crim]

Originally posted by Dante_Deepdarkness:

A part from what has been told, keep in mind that artifacts can influence too. The weapon my character wears give a +X% knights efficiency and a +Y% enemy mortal casualties (don't remember the exact number right now).
Despite the numbers aren't huge, if I remember it well around 12% is the highest I have seen, so an extra 10% knight efficiency is quite the difference in this game where MaA and Knights are the key to win battles.

Only at the beginning of the game I use the full army. Once you have some numbers of MaA, levies are most of the time quite useless.

I mean... 10% is 10%

it's actually less than 10% overall increase if you already have some increase....

aka

+10% when you have +100% effect = 110% = 10%
+10% when you have +200% effect = 210% = 5% increase

The Artifact is still absolutely insanely powerful tho

---
On the subject of the wiki... sigh whoever is incharge of it bloated it with out of battle info and removed info minutia of battle...

Pro Tip, there are unique MAA that offer 2x counter effect
Why is this a pro tip? This info isn't on the wiki!
It doesn't even mention it in game

From the game files
--
landsknecht
counters = {
pikemen = 0.5
light_cavalry = 2
heavy_cavalry = 2
}
It means they count as twice as many MAAs against those

[Dante_Deepdarkness]

Originally posted by Talamare:

I mean... 10% is 10%

it's actually less than 10% overall increase if you already have some increase....

aka

+10% when you have +100% effect = 110% = 10%
+10% when you have +200% effect = 210% = 5% increase

The Artifact is still absolutely insanely powerful tho

I understand your point, but at the same time Knights in this game are like the player in a Musou game, adding an extra 10% to them is... big. You can mostly don't care to rise levies against most of the map if you pick the right MaA, build the proper buildings (have to mix the economy and "war") and a couple of artifacts, and that without min-max the whole thing properly, just caring some.
That is why I also named the artifacts, they aren't the first thing to care for the battles, but they can bring in a good extra.