Combat tactics?? Lets hear em.

[MythTrip]

Hey Paradox, for the 1001st expansion, how about real combat? 3 flanks are already nicely in place....but all you can do now is assign commanders with "heavy infantry leader" on your heavy infantry wing, etc. Or are there any tactics I'm missing?

[kaiyl_kariashi]

play a tactical rts if you want micro.

This isn't a tactical rts. It's a GS rts.


Aside for that, you can also manipulate what tactics your armies pick by careful manipulation of your flank compositions as well as the culture of the commanders you've chosen.

As well as the traits of said commanders.



Combat is a lot deeper than most people realize, simply because there isn't much point. Unless you're dealing with wildy different army compositions due to government/regional specialities, Bigger usually wins. It's not quite as clear cut as it was pre-army overhaul, but it's still pretty true most of the time.


Min-maxing only really comes in when you're fighting a very close battle, or fighting armies that normally can hard counter you, since with careful manipulation you can always pick counter tactics for those units and give yourself a massive advantage vs them instead of relying purely on your commander choosing the right tactics out of a potentially large pool of possible tactics.

(like cav heavy vs tribals, who get constantly nailed with charge tactics that completely skip the skirmish phase is the only phase tribal troops are good in for the melee phase and chase phases which cav are good in. Now some tribals can trigger a tactic that skips back to the Skirmish phase from the Melee phase, and makes them MUCH stronger than they appear, but only specfic ones can use that tactic since it's a cultural tactic).

[Mr Conspicuous]

game needs new improved combat system but thats core mechanic and i am guessing we wont seen a new and improved combat system until ck3... ck2 combat system is its weakest link so outdated and so utterly simple.

[Varainger]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Hey Paradox, for the 1001st expansion, how about real combat? 3 flanks are already nicely in place....but all you can do now is assign commanders with "heavy infantry leader" on your heavy infantry wing, etc. Or are there any tactics I'm missing?

you appear to be missing quite a lot about the system:
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Combat_tactics

Too complex and unituitiv/uninformative as well in my opinion.

There are a few good combat mods, just for info.