Can't get reasonably army tradition

[LAG]

Hello, i'm fairly new to the game and on my current second campaign playtrough.

I've run into a continous problem where i am constantly at war but can't get any proper army tradition, leaving me with 1 star generals constantly while the AI get's 2 and even 3 star generals.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=912395893
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=912395947

Why is it so that i'm not even able to scrape a singel army tradition from a massive battle like this? i somehow managed to get 3.5 army tradition from wiping out some rebels but that's the exception and not the rule.

Even when sieging (which takes a long time when you're sieging star forts) i'm barely able to get 30 army tradition before it decays.

Any advice?

i've got exploration, quantity, expansion, aristocratic and trade ideas.

[FM]

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Military_tradition

[TheSaboteur]

The easiest way to increase it is to get policies and ideas that increase army tradition. Defensive, Quality, Espionage/Aristocratic all give paths towards this goal.

[LAG]

Originally posted by Mr. Whiskers:

The easiest way to increase it is to get policies and ideas that increase army tradition. Defensive, Quality, Espionage/Aristocratic all give paths towards this goal.

so actually going to war is useless?

[Omniconda]

If you can afford it keep your Forts turned on. 1 fort per 50 dev will really help your tradition decay rate

[c00lizz]

Originally posted by LAG:

Originally posted by Mr. Whiskers:

The easiest way to increase it is to get policies and ideas that increase army tradition. Defensive, Quality, Espionage/Aristocratic all give paths towards this goal.

so actually going to war is useless?

Depends on the type of war. Massive wars with multiple armies, tons of sieges and lots and lots of battles build up army tradition very nicely. Also remember that losing battles gives more tradition than winning.

[LAG]

Originally posted by Omnious:

If you can afford it keep your Forts turned on. 1 fort per 50 dev will really help your tradition decay rate

should i have lots of cheap forts for that or do higher tier forts give more?

Originally posted by c00lizz:

Originally posted by LAG:

so actually going to war is useless?

Depends on the type of war. Massive wars with multiple armies, tons of sieges and lots and lots of battles build up army tradition very nicely. Also remember that losing battles gives more tradition than winning.

I'm currently playing as spain and is rivaling france. We're the strongest and most numerous countries in the world but battles are mostly massive stacks and slow sieges due to high level forts.

Would it work to simply suicide 1 unit stacks for army tradition?

[yyyyzryrd]

Originally posted by LAG:

Originally posted by Omnious:

If you can afford it keep your Forts turned on. 1 fort per 50 dev will really help your tradition decay rate

should i have lots of cheap forts for that or do higher tier forts give more?

Originally posted by c00lizz:

Depends on the type of war. Massive wars with multiple armies, tons of sieges and lots and lots of battles build up army tradition very nicely. Also remember that losing battles gives more tradition than winning.

I'm currently playing as spain and is rivaling france. We're the strongest and most numerous countries in the world but battles are mostly massive stacks and slow sieges due to high level forts.

Would it work to simply suicide 1 unit stacks for army tradition?

Suiciding stacks will just cost you more in both manpower and cassh in the long run. Just, use ideas.
Some countries such as Brandenburg seem to always have above 20 AT, though, so I'm just gonna say it depends on which country you're playing as if the risk:reward factor is even a problem.
Such as: France can buy it. Poland, eh, with quantity I suppose it can lose a few men. Muscovy, it regenerates its whole army within a year so yeah why not fam lmao smh xdxa rip.

[killerbill0787]

The higher your army tradition the faster it decays. You can leave forts turned on to slow the decay and I always get my new general right at the end of the war when it should be highest (before the post war decay starts) also ideas are key to slowing the decay so you're able to get it higher.

[LAG]

Originally posted by killerbill0787:

The higher your army tradition the faster it decays. You can leave forts turned on to slow the decay and I always get my new general right at the end of the war when it should be highest (before the post war decay starts) also ideas are key to slowing the decay so you're able to get it higher.

I managed to get one 2 star general in the entire game.

there must be some mistake or bug involved here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=912995744

it's not that i'm bad at combat or don't understand how it works, i just don't get the expected rewards.

Sieging a province at best gives me 0.3 army tradition, every combat i engage in gives me 0.1 army tradition or in the case of very weak stacks i get outright 0

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913004274

i even tried to kill off a sizeable stack against rebels to see if i got more tradition form loosing a battle:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=912399186

while i did get 0.4 this time, that's still not nearly enough and for some reasont he rebels got more?

from the wiki i see that:

Relative strength of nations. This unknown factor determines the conversion ratio between casualties inflicted and tradition gained. It may depend on any or all of the following factors: national base tax, force limit, army size, unit types, unit quality, total manpower, current manpower, etc. If there are multiple nations on the same side of battle, their conversion factors appear to be averaged. Large nations can therefore gain considerably more army tradition from battles by fighting with smaller allies.

so am i not gaining any tradition because my nation is ranked #1 i the world? if so that's a terrible game decision.

any mods that would give more tradition?

[LAG]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913012781

This makes the game unplayable for me.

[mischa.zehnbauer]

Army tradition is a long-term project for most nations. Don't expect to jump from 0 to 50 in your casual five years of mostly running around and occasionally fighting battles.
Without at least two sources of AT, you won't get into the higher regions without constantly being at war. Succesful sieges are far more reliable, but killing tons of enemies works as well. Also generals aren't entirely determined by AT.

Ideas, NIs and Policies add pips as well, so taking those relevant groups pays off twice.

Originally posted by LAG:

there must be some mistake or bug involved here:


it's not that i'm bad at combat or don't understand how it works, i just don't get the expected rewards.

What did you expect? You didn't deal many casualties, so I guess you were hoping on being considered a lot smaller then Ottomans. Of course I also don't know how exactly the conversion thing works, but it's definitely not usual the difference between Great Power #1 Ottoman and GP # 3 Spain (just an example). Kill Otto stacks as Albania and you will see your AT grow.

Originally posted by LAG:

Sieging a province at best gives me 0.3 army tradition, every combat i engage in gives me 0.1 army tradition or in the case of very weak stacks i get outright 0

First part shouldn't be the case. It should be 1 per siege afaik. Please check that again.

Originally posted by LAG:

i even tried to kill off a sizeable stack against rebels to see if i got more tradition form loosing a battle:

That's useless. Inflicted casualties matter and stackwipe. This is also why your idea of sending small stacks to death won't work. No casualties => No AT
I can only speculate how rebels are treaded in terms of their "size", but I guess they are judged by the size of their stack. Honestly, I am often confused about prestige and AT gain from rebel fights and I don't claim to be able to explain that case.

Originally posted by LAG:

so am i not gaining any tradition because my nation is ranked #1 i the world? if so that's a terrible game decision.

any mods that would give more tradition?

Well, it's a balancing decision. You don't have to like it, but it has it's use. It's one of the two main things that prevents people from solely maxing money and mercs. The second one is disciplin.

Furthermore, every country can get around 40-50 AT with ease. Decay rate at 40 is 2 points per year. That can easily be countered by idea groups or policies or even battles, as long as you manage to rack up 20 of those 0.1 battles per year (yes, that would be tedious ^^). Higher ranks as in 80+ have to be earned, but seeing how great the boni are, that's a good thing.

[LAG]

Originally posted by mischa.zehnbauer:

Army tradition is a long-term project for most nations. Don't expect to jump from 0 to 50 in your casual five years of mostly running around and occasionally fighting battles.

I'VE BEEN AT WAR FOR OVER 100 YEARS
and i haven't been killing off pathetic natives, i've conquered half of england and been at war with france twice.

I didn't become #1 in the world by staying a pacifist.

Without at least two sources of AT, you won't get into the higher regions without constantly being at war. Succesful sieges are far more reliable, but killing tons of enemies works as well. Also generals aren't entirely determined by AT.

higher regions?! i can barely get above 20

Ideas, NIs and Policies add pips as well, so taking those relevant groups pays off twice.

to put it black & white, without an idea to passivly boost tradition it would be impossible, litterly impossible, for me to get above 35 army tradition.

I'm not saying i want 100 army tradition here, i want enough tradiiton to at least get 2 star generals. I can't get the minimum required.

What did you expect?

1 army tradition.

You didn't deal many casualties, so I guess you were hoping on being considered a lot smaller then Ottomans. Of course I also don't know how exactly the conversion thing works, but it's definitely not usual the difference between Great Power #1 Ottoman and GP # 3 Spain (just an example). Kill Otto stacks as Albania and you will see your AT grow.

i expected to be considered equal or get some other result that 0.1 by fighting the biggest guy in the world. I did not.

and how many would you consider to be "enough" casualties? even with 3-4 as many kills we're still just talking 0.3-0.4 tradition. I doubt i'd ever get 1.

First part shouldn't be the case. It should be 1 per siege afaik. Please check that again.

That is not the case.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913037424
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913037492
You'll see here that im getting tradition for helping an ally siege.

The usualy result is this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913043608
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913043646
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913041662
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=913041738

yup, that's right. I get nothing.

litterly 0

That's useless. Inflicted casualties matter and stackwipe. This is also why your idea of sending small stacks to death won't work. No casualties => No AT
I can only speculate how rebels are treaded in terms of their "size", but I guess they are judged by the size of their stack. Honestly, I am often confused about prestige and AT gain from rebel fights and I don't claim to be able to explain that case.

buddy i stackwipe them i get nothing, they stackwipe me i get nothing.

The rebels i wiped the floor with got 5 tradiiton while i got 0.

prob because im a big nation and they are size 0

Well, it's a balancing decision. You don't have to like it, but it has it's use. It's one of the two main things that prevents people from solely maxing money and mercs. The second one is disciplin.

Furthermore, every country can get around 40-50 AT with ease. Decay rate at 40 is 2 points per year. That can easily be countered by idea groups or policies or even battles, as long as you manage to rack up 20 of those 0.1 battles per year (yes, that would be tedious ^^). Higher ranks as in 80+ have to be earned, but seeing how great the boni are, that's a good thing.

the reaosn i don't like it is because it's not working.

and i don't want to be forced to pick an idea simply to have a bare bones chance of victory.

[Aeru]

you basically don't have enough forts to maintain army tradition. On your last screenshot I see 0,19 army tradition for maintained forts. Maximum is 1,00. So if you had more forts you could have a monthly gain without being at war, sieging or fighting anything.

[LAG]

Originally posted by Aeru:

you basically don't have enough forts to maintain army tradition. On your last screenshot I see 0,19 army tradition for maintained forts. Maximum is 1,00. So if you had more forts you could have a monthly gain without being at war, sieging or fighting anything.

that still doesnt solve the issue of not getting warscore from battles and sieging.

but yhe,i could build a couple of forts. I only have about 7 around the edges of my territory.

it would still only give me +1 giving me 20 more tradition. Though since i have so little in the first place it'd probably double it.

[Yxklyx]

You should get significant AT from sieging down forts. I believe I got 1 AT from a level 6 fort.