My late game always sucks... help

[Um cachorro feliz]

I really love this game, but everytime I reach 1700-1750 my armies get rekt so easily that I just get frustated...

My last run was as Ottomans, trying to do Master of India achievment... In war, my 59k army with 30 men, 25 cannons and 4 cavalry got wipped by a 26k swiss army... in My capital, with a Lvl 3 fort (me as defender)...

I know I just may be doing something wrong, but dont know what.


ATM I have these army stats:

108%discipline
22.7 Army Tradition
2.4 Military Tactics


How do I improve this situation?

[YourLastWill:)]

eat da poo poo

[CidDaBird]

Look up guides on reddit man, theres penty to learn late game there and how to make a strong early game so then you don't run into this.

[tonypa]

Originally posted by Petro-sama:

I really love this game, but everytime I reach 1700-1750 my armies get rekt so easily that I just get frustated...

My last run was as Ottomans, trying to do Master of India achievment... In war, my 59k army with 30 men, 25 cannons and 4 cavalry got wipped by a 26k swiss army... in My capital, with a Lvl 3 fort (me as defender)...

How do I improve this situation?

Western (europe) unit types are best late game units while Anatolian units are better at the start. Meaning if everything else is equal, western european army will always win against other types in late game.

But it also depend which ideas you got, how good generals and advisors are, prestige, power projection and piety. Plus both countries can have multiple temporary modifiers. Do you still have Janissaries bonus?

Check the Ledger >> Score Comparison >> Military Rating >> hover cursor over the number

How much Land Morale and Discipline you have and how much Switzerland has?

[gghadur77]

Are you, at any point in time, behind on military tech? I don't just mean "at the moment" but at any point in the time range when you say your army sucks? Having lower military tactics than the enemy makes your army noticeably weaker.

Also unless they changed it in a recent update, Ottoman units have fewer total pips than western European ones in the late game. My experience in earlier versions of the game is that this makes little difference if you've invested heavily in army quality, but if you haven't, or if you're behind on military tech regularly, then this might add together with those problems to make your soldiers extra weak.

If you care about army quality, and you should because the game is basically about military strength, then be sure you are taking military idea groups that boost army quality. I typically take defensive, offensive, and quality ideas regardless of what country I am playing and the result is that I have a better army than the AI by late game whether I'm playing as Brandenburg or as some country like Portugal that gets no army bonus at all from national ideas.

Lastly, are you sure you're funding your army, and are you using generals? Your army quality stats you list above aren't amazing but they're good enough that the only reason I can think you'd be getting stack wiped by smaller armies is if your troops are starting with low morale (because you aren't funding the army fully) or if the enemy has a godly general and you have none at all. If you have a general and a fully funded army at full morale that's at most 2 tech levels behind then it would seem as though you should be slaughtering a force that's half your size no matter how good the enemy's quality.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you lose a battle it can become a stack wipe where it otherwise would not if your troops are unable to retreat. I'd be surprised at this happening in Constantinople since it's not an island, but if the straits are blocked and your European provinces are all occupied maybe it would happen. They change subtle battle mechanics often enough that I might just not know because I play an earlier patch version; take everything I say with a grain of salt for that reason as well.

[Damphair]

both your army tradition and discipline is not up to date for late game, that's early game stats. You should be running with at least 120% disc and 50-70 army tradition, go Quality, Offensive, maybe Aristocratic/Defensive. Hire disc advisor, see if you can activate a good military policy, fight wars alot to keep army tradition high and getting a good cash flow.

[Um cachorro feliz]

Originally posted by tonypa:

Originally posted by Petro-sama:

I really love this game, but everytime I reach 1700-1750 my armies get rekt so easily that I just get frustated...

My last run was as Ottomans, trying to do Master of India achievment... In war, my 59k army with 30 men, 25 cannons and 4 cavalry got wipped by a 26k swiss army... in My capital, with a Lvl 3 fort (me as defender)...

How do I improve this situation?

Western (europe) unit types are best late game units while Anatolian units are better at the start. Meaning if everything else is equal, western european army will always win against other types in late game.

But it also depend which ideas you got, how good generals and advisors are, prestige, power projection and piety. Plus both countries can have multiple temporary modifiers. Do you still have Janissaries bonus?

Check the Ledger >> Score Comparison >> Military Rating >> hover cursor over the number

How much Land Morale and Discipline you have and how much Switzerland has?

Land Morale = 2.33
Dscpl = 0.25


Enemy has: Land Morale= 3.05; Dcpl = 0.15. ... But also have Quality ideas.


I just have Quantity and half way of Offensive... We both are mil tech lvl 20.

[Um cachorro feliz]

Originally posted by gghadur77:

Are you, at any point in time, behind on military tech? I don't just mean "at the moment" but at any point in the time range when you say your army sucks? Having lower military tactics than the enemy makes your army noticeably weaker.

Also unless they changed it in a recent update, Ottoman units have fewer total pips than western European ones in the late game. My experience in earlier versions of the game is that this makes little difference if you've invested heavily in army quality, but if you haven't, or if you're behind on military tech regularly, then this might add together with those problems to make your soldiers extra weak.

If you care about army quality, and you should because the game is basically about military strength, then be sure you are taking military idea groups that boost army quality. I typically take defensive, offensive, and quality ideas regardless of what country I am playing and the result is that I have a better army than the AI by late game whether I'm playing as Brandenburg or as some country like Portugal that gets no army bonus at all from national ideas.

Lastly, are you sure you're funding your army, and are you using generals? Your army quality stats you list above aren't amazing but they're good enough that the only reason I can think you'd be getting stack wiped by smaller armies is if your troops are starting with low morale (because you aren't funding the army fully) or if the enemy has a godly general and you have none at all. If you have a general and a fully funded army at full morale that's at most 2 tech levels behind then it would seem as though you should be slaughtering a force that's half your size no matter how good the enemy's quality.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you lose a battle it can become a stack wipe where it otherwise would not if your troops are unable to retreat. I'd be surprised at this happening in Constantinople since it's not an island, but if the straits are blocked and your European provinces are all occupied maybe it would happen. They change subtle battle mechanics often enough that I might just not know because I play an earlier patch version; take everything I say with a grain of salt for that reason as well.

Is it worth to invest in such quantity of military ideas? and yeah... my armies were fully funded .

[Um cachorro feliz]

Originally posted by Draglord:

both your army tradition and discipline is not up to date for late game, that's early game stats. You should be running with at least 120% disc and 50-70 army tradition, go Quality, Offensive, maybe Aristocratic/Defensive. Hire disc advisor, see if you can activate a good military policy, fight wars alot to keep army tradition high and getting a good cash flow.

I always find difficult maintain army tradition at high levels ... I had it at almost 50 at certain time of the game... but at the time I got too blobby, It began to fall... victories gave almost nothing (between 0.3 and 0.1) and have a yearly decay of -1.8

[228collin]

work on army tradition

[CaptainSpacetime]

You can keep Tradition up by not mothballing forts. Also taking uh, Defensive/Offensive I think has Trad bonis?

Quantity for Ottomans probably isn't worth it, since you've already got a lot of dudes, a decent economy, and a strong early game (Quant really shines in snowballing you out of the gate).

Also check out the policy pairs that give Mil bonuses. Those can really boost you.

I ran the Inf/Arty quality boosts, the +disc one, and the other siege boosting one and was stack wiping dudes while outnumbered as GB:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1390891513

[dogshocker]

Originally posted by YourLastWill :):

eat da poo poo

Very funny reply....I often feel like this when playing this game.

[Daniel Potter]

22.7 army tradition is a bit low, isn't it? Army tradition makes your units have more morale (+25% when on 100), and makes you roll better generals.

You get a -5% decay of army tradition a year. At most (at value 100), you will lose 5 army tradition a year.

You can keep your army tradition high by keeping your forts up. The maximum you can get from forts is +1 army tradition. For a nation like Ottomans, this isn't a problem.

Plus, there are 3 ideas, that lower the decay of army tradition. One in Defensive Ideas, one in Quality Ideas. Both of them give +1 to army tradition.

Then there is one in Aristocratic Ideas, that gives -1% to army tradition decay. I especially like aristocratic, because of the diversity it provides (manpower, army tradition, diplomat, lowers mil tech cost, siege of generals +1, and improves cav).

Anyway, with all that you will only have -1 army tradition every year at value 100.

Also, prestige gives you nice bonuses. One of them is +10% to morale. But i mostly keep it high for +50% relations, to have aggressive expansion fall faster.

Then, finally keep your mil tech high. Hire lvl 3 advisers if you are falling behind.

Keep your discipline high. It "multiples" the damage your units deal, and decreases the damage your units get.

Finally, late game its all about cannons. Keep enough cannons to fill your whole second row. Again, for ottomans, you don't need to worry about cannon cost so much.