Am new so probably will have many more questions to come: Question no.1 how to naval invade?

[Blunder Bro]

I know how to move troops onto enemy land via sea, but in my current game, Castile vs Morocco, I can't cross via Gibraltar as don't own it yet, and I am getting crushed when landing troops.

My enemies always doomstack 15-21k armies when possible and I saw a 15k army lurking about, so I send 25k. But my stupid troops drip feed themselves into the meat-grinder in approx 5k groups, so of course they are going to get rekt.

But no matter where I land when I reload the save, a larger army is always waiting. What is worse is that I recon the enemy army going off far from where I land, the zone looks clear and then a 15k doomstack appears on the landing zone tile, just as it is too late to cancel the landing sequence. More troops feed into the meat-grinder, but they are too slow and I take 100% losses and my enemy looses basically nothing. HOI4 and the tutorial did not prepare me for this at all.

Do I need more boats? Probably?!?! In typical paradox fashion you have to seek out the wisdom of the all-knowing mystics to figure out some basic ♥♥♥♥ the game leaves out completely in the tutorial. I play HOI4 just fine now, but I still only have a vague idea of why some of what I do even works in a fight. Battlefleets I get, but escorts I just throw as much ♥♥♥♥ at the fan until it clogs up and explodes.

[grotaclas]

A naval landing takes a long time which allows the AI to amass their troops to fight you. And you get a -2 penalty to your dice rolls which makes it likely to lose the battle. But you can abort a naval landing at the last minute by moving your ships.
You either need a lot of transport ships so that you can land more troops than the enemy is willing to fight, or you have to wait till enough enemies are far enough away(e.g. because they decide to walk around the Mediterranean) or you have to let them come to you to fight them, or you have to get a better landing spot or you need military access to walk over the strait. Maybe Morocco will ask Granada for access if you stop blocking the strait with your ships. Or you can try to ask them yourself.
A better landing spot could be Ceuta if it is owned by Portugal and either Portugal is not in the war or because it is not occupied. If they are not in the war, you have to ask them for military access and fleet basing rights. Then you can place your troops in one of your provinces which borders the same sea tile, land your ships in the same province and then attach your troops to the ships (small button near the top of the army window) and then move the ships directly into ceuta. This only takes a few days and you can immediately return the ships to get more troops. If you can't get fleet basing, you can try to get mil access from some other african country and land your troops there and once they are all together, you can walk to the enemy.

[Blunder Bro]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

A naval landing takes a long time which allows the AI to amass their troops to fight you. And you get a -2 penalty to your dice rolls which makes it likely to lose the battle. But you can abort a naval landing at the last minute by moving your ships.
You either need a lot of transport ships so that you can land more troops than the enemy is willing to fight, or you have to wait till enough enemies are far enough away(e.g. because they decide to walk around the Mediterranean) or you have to let them come to you to fight them, or you have to get a better landing spot or you need military access to walk over the strait. Maybe Morocco will ask Granada for access if you stop blocking the strait with your ships. Or you can try to ask them yourself.
A better landing spot could be Ceuta if it is owned by Portugal and either Portugal is not in the war or because it is not occupied. If they are not in the war, you have to ask them for military access and fleet basing rights. Then you can place your troops in one of your provinces which borders the same sea tile, land your ships in the same province and then attach your troops to the ships (small button near the top of the army window) and then move the ships directly into ceuta. This only takes a few days and you can immediately return the ships to get more troops. If you can't get fleet basing, you can try to get mil access from some other african country and land your troops there and once they are all together, you can walk to the enemy.

Dice roll? What? When? Why? Where? How? Who? Why don't these games make learning these things easy in the slightest! I love these games now, but the learning curve is torture.

Yeah I did wait till they were far away, and I didn't see them return before. Every spot ends the same. Well after 2 years they didn't, but I can't just rely on that all the time, or else I will never be able to defeat a country that isn't land connected.

Okay that Portugal access bit might actually be my only way to beat them. Thanks.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Dice roll? What? When? Why? Where? How? Who? Why don't these games make learning these things easy in the slightest! I love these games now, but the learning curve is torture.

If you look at the battle screen, you can see that every three days both sides roll a dice. The dice roll will be modified by several factors which are shown in the screen if they are present(e.g. the -2 from naval landing, up to -2 for terrain, up to +6 for the difference in pips of the generals). Then the offensive pips of your units are added to this and the defensive pips of the enemy units subtract from it. And this number influences the casualties which you deal. You can find more info on the wiki: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare#Combat_sequence

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Yeah I did wait till they were far away, and I didn't see them return before

You would have to confirm where they actually and do that for enough of the enemy troops(you can see the total troop counts in the war overview window) so that the rest poses no threat. And you have to make sure that the troops are so far away that you have two months to land and one month(this varies depending on their fort defense and your siege ability) to occupy the province so that you can bring in more reinforcements. Being a few provinces away is definitely not enough. Egypt would be far enough for example.

[Purodiusa]

Creating a beachhead is always a challenge when fighting an enemy over water, just as it is in real life.

There's multiple ways to do it. Here's a few.

- Brute force. What you're describing. Trying to do it with brute force by winning a naval landing battle is about the worst method unless you drastically outnumber them.

- Land in neutral territory. The AI is dumb and won't be able to counter this. Get military access with one of their neighbors, land in their territory, preferably 2-3 provinces away from your destination, and walk into enemy territory. Only challenging if the neighbor doesn't like you, in which case you might need to spend time raising their opinion or giving them bribes. Do note you might already have conditional access if the person you're at war with has access with them.

- Delayed beachhead. Unless the enemy you're fighting is *entirely* overseas, you don't have to make a beachhead right away. Siege down what you can access, and then when you peace out you can take one of their overseas provinces solely for landing on in a second war.

[Blunder Bro]

Originally posted by grotaclas:

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Dice roll? What? When? Why? Where? How? Who? Why don't these games make learning these things easy in the slightest! I love these games now, but the learning curve is torture.

If you look at the battle screen, you can see that every three days both sides roll a dice. The dice roll will be modified by several factors which are shown in the screen if they are present(e.g. the -2 from naval landing, up to -2 for terrain, up to +6 for the difference in pips of the generals). Then the offensive pips of your units are added to this and the defensive pips of the enemy units subtract from it. And this number influences the casualties which you deal. You can find more info on the wiki: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare#Combat_sequence

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Yeah I did wait till they were far away, and I didn't see them return before

You would have to confirm where they actually and do that for enough of the enemy troops(you can see the total troop counts in the war overview window) so that the rest poses no threat. And you have to make sure that the troops are so far away that you have two months to land and one month(this varies depending on their fort defense and your siege ability) to occupy the province so that you can bring in more reinforcements. Being a few provinces away is definitely not enough. Egypt would be far enough for example.

Oh thanks for explaining this in the tutorial, game! Thanks for telling me to declare what on Grenada and send an army in, then telling me I have all the basics I need to play the game, game... Seriously the tutorial sucks, it tells you to do something (click this then that) but doesn't tell you why you are doing it or the intricate and complex factors that make up what you are doing.

Thanks for the information, but I am still quite overwhelmed and confused. I knew of the pips but there is nothing obvious to explain it in game. All the tutorials I have watched suck. They tell you "Okay you need to get this adviser, and give these estates X privilege, but they do not explain what the bonuses actually are, or why they are selecting ones that reduce max absolutism??? What even is that effect, and when should I worry?? They don't say!!!!! Why do tutorial guys refer to everything as "V" "P" and other letters, assuming you know what they are referring in the programmer code-speak? I have learnt nothing from any of these "Beginner tutorials".

I think I need to find my own personal tutor I can message, or else I am going to clog the discussion board every-time there is something that I can't figure out that tutorials and google can't explain.

Rant over. Sorry. Anyway, so yeah, as far away as Egypt? Well I guess there is no point in naval invasions then. No way they will be that far away.

[Blunder Bro]

Originally posted by Purodiusa:

Creating a beachhead is always a challenge when fighting an enemy over water, just as it is in real life.

There's multiple ways to do it. Here's a few.

- Brute force. What you're describing. Trying to do it with brute force by winning a naval landing battle is about the worst method unless you drastically outnumber them.

- Land in neutral territory. The AI is dumb and won't be able to counter this. Get military access with one of their neighbors, land in their territory, preferably 2-3 provinces away from your destination, and walk into enemy territory. Only challenging if the neighbor doesn't like you, in which case you might need to spend time raising their opinion or giving them bribes. Do note you might already have conditional access if the person you're at war with has access with them.

- Delayed beachhead. Unless the enemy you're fighting is *entirely* overseas, you don't have to make a beachhead right away. Siege down what you can access, and then when you peace out you can take one of their overseas provinces solely for landing on in a second war.

1. Brute force isn't necessarily the worst if you troops don't drip feed themselves days apart from each other. I had zero tool-tip warnings that they weren't all travelling together or that there was any risk, unlike in HOI4. As far as I could tell, I could see through the fog of war as far as Tlemcan border, their army moved away, my guys were seconds from landing and I saw no enemy armies move back the entire time. Then suddenly a massive army teleport in and my guys decided that drip-feeding is attack plan.

2. Yeah Grotaclas mentioned something like getting access with Portugal and walking across land instead. I am not familiar with conditional access though. If only there was a section for that in the main game tutorial...

3. Yeah I have never even come close to finishing a first war, haha. But i'll remember that. So what? I can't just take everything in a peace conference for war no.1?

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

I think I need to find my own personal tutor I can message, or else I am going to clog the discussion board every-time there is something that I can't figure out that tutorials and google can't explain.

What you need is the wiki. Here's a link to one of its most important pages: Land Warfare. https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_warfare

Reading this page carefully will explain many crucial concepts to you. For example, in your OP you mentioned that "My enemies always doomstack 15-21k armies when possible."

But those aren't doomstacks. Your enemies understand the concept of combat width, and you don't but need to. When you have questions, hit the wiki. Then, when or if things are still unclear, ask questions here. This forum is a great resource.

[Malvastor]

It sounds like what happened is you tried to move a 25-stack using a fleet that only had 5 or so transport ships. Each ship can only carry 1 regiment at a time, so your army splits into chunks of 5 to be moved by the fleet. The tutorial probably doesn't mention that but it's pretty intuitive- if you watch your army move and check the number of ships in your fleet you can see it happen.

[Kapika96]

Yep, the tutorial sucks (and is massively out of date too!).

For your situation I'd suggest just waiting until you siege Gibraltar. Once you occupy that, and have naval control of the adjacent sea province, you should be able to just march across the strait with your full army (may require a military access agreement with Portugal if they still own Ceuta). Much easier than trying to actually invade via your fleet.

For your fleet though, the number of transport ships you have determines how many units can be transported at a time. If your army is just going in chunks of 5k then you likely only have 5 transport ships. Build more to be able to land more troops at a time.

Also, invading Morocco is a bit difficult. Even without the naval landing a lot of their forts are on hills/mountains, so they're going to have a big home terrain advantage over you. Any troops that join a battle immediately from crossing the strait or disembarking from ships is further penalised too, making it even easier for Morocco to defend themselves.

[King Naru The Tyrant]

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Originally posted by Purodiusa:

Creating a beachhead is always a challenge when fighting an enemy over water, just as it is in real life.

There's multiple ways to do it. Here's a few.

- Brute force. What you're describing. Trying to do it with brute force by winning a naval landing battle is about the worst method unless you drastically outnumber them.

- Land in neutral territory. The AI is dumb and won't be able to counter this. Get military access with one of their neighbors, land in their territory, preferably 2-3 provinces away from your destination, and walk into enemy territory. Only challenging if the neighbor doesn't like you, in which case you might need to spend time raising their opinion or giving them bribes. Do note you might already have conditional access if the person you're at war with has access with them.

- Delayed beachhead. Unless the enemy you're fighting is *entirely* overseas, you don't have to make a beachhead right away. Siege down what you can access, and then when you peace out you can take one of their overseas provinces solely for landing on in a second war.

1. Brute force isn't necessarily the worst if you troops don't drip feed themselves days apart from each other. I had zero tool-tip warnings that they weren't all travelling together or that there was any risk, unlike in HOI4. As far as I could tell, I could see through the fog of war as far as Tlemcan border, their army moved away, my guys were seconds from landing and I saw no enemy armies move back the entire time. Then suddenly a massive army teleport in and my guys decided that drip-feeding is attack plan.

2. Yeah Grotaclas mentioned something like getting access with Portugal and walking across land instead. I am not familiar with conditional access though. If only there was a section for that in the main game tutorial...

3. Yeah I have never even come close to finishing a first war, haha. But i'll remember that. So what? I can't just take everything in a peace conference for war no.1?

Wars are not always easy to win, its even more difficult when you have to cross via transport because it is a perfect defensive position. It is very simple, be ready to lose a lot of men to do it.

1. The tutorials mention that 1 transport can carry 1 military unit. It should go without saying that means, if you cross via transport with 20 units and 5 transports, only 5 will cross at a time. You must have just not paid attention to when they returned, happens to me every now and then too, AI can see all your units and where they are going.

3. You dont have to be greedy. Not every piece of land or objective is going to be got in 1 war, war score alone prevents that. If a war is presumed to be costly, sometimes its best to use it as a spring for a 2nd war to take what you really want. Sometimes its best to just take one piece of land that makes getting the goal a little more easier.

Since your new, its important to keep in mind Aggressive Expansion. I dont recall if the tutorials mention it, but if you go too far and fast in expansions, you may find yourself at risk of coalitions.

[M82]

Originally posted by Purodiusa:

Creating a beachhead is always a challenge when fighting an enemy over water, just as it is in real life.

There's multiple ways to do it. Here's a few.

- Brute force. What you're describing. Trying to do it with brute force by winning a naval landing battle is about the worst method unless you drastically outnumber them.

- Land in neutral territory. The AI is dumb and won't be able to counter this. Get military access with one of their neighbors, land in their territory, preferably 2-3 provinces away from your destination, and walk into enemy territory. Only challenging if the neighbor doesn't like you, in which case you might need to spend time raising their opinion or giving them bribes. Do note you might already have conditional access if the person you're at war with has access with them.

- Delayed beachhead. Unless the enemy you're fighting is *entirely* overseas, you don't have to make a beachhead right away. Siege down what you can access, and then when you peace out you can take one of their overseas provinces solely for landing on in a second war.

Conditional access goes both way...

[Blunder Bro]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Yep, the tutorial sucks (and is massively out of date too!).

For your situation I'd suggest just waiting until you siege Gibraltar. Once you occupy that, and have naval control of the adjacent sea province, you should be able to just march across the strait with your full army (may require a military access agreement with Portugal if they still own Ceuta). Much easier than trying to actually invade via your fleet.

For your fleet though, the number of transport ships you have determines how many units can be transported at a time. If your army is just going in chunks of 5k then you likely only have 5 transport ships. Build more to be able to land more troops at a time.

Also, invading Morocco is a bit difficult. Even without the naval landing a lot of their forts are on hills/mountains, so they're going to have a big home terrain advantage over you. Any troops that join a battle immediately from crossing the strait or disembarking from ships is further penalised too, making it even easier for Morocco to defend themselves.

I honestly have no idea how forts work. Another great thing the tutorial left out.

Also it left out why when the AI engages in privateering, I get looted from every port I have, from the moment I press play at start or the second I take ships of hunt pirates. They never catch any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pirates, and what's worse is that when I do privateering back at them, I don't get anything at all for months. And that's if my guys don't go rogue immediately. I build a fleet of 6 lights and the go rogue the moment I press play, ♥♥♥♥ you game...

[Blunder Bro]

Originally posted by King Naru The Tyrant:

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

1. Brute force isn't necessarily the worst if you troops don't drip feed themselves days apart from each other. I had zero tool-tip warnings that they weren't all travelling together or that there was any risk, unlike in HOI4. As far as I could tell, I could see through the fog of war as far as Tlemcan border, their army moved away, my guys were seconds from landing and I saw no enemy armies move back the entire time. Then suddenly a massive army teleport in and my guys decided that drip-feeding is attack plan.

2. Yeah Grotaclas mentioned something like getting access with Portugal and walking across land instead. I am not familiar with conditional access though. If only there was a section for that in the main game tutorial...

3. Yeah I have never even come close to finishing a first war, haha. But i'll remember that. So what? I can't just take everything in a peace conference for war no.1?

Wars are not always easy to win, its even more difficult when you have to cross via transport because it is a perfect defensive position. It is very simple, be ready to lose a lot of men to do it.

1. The tutorials mention that 1 transport can carry 1 military unit. It should go without saying that means, if you cross via transport with 20 units and 5 transports, only 5 will cross at a time. You must have just not paid attention to when they returned, happens to me every now and then too, AI can see all your units and where they are going.

3. You dont have to be greedy. Not every piece of land or objective is going to be got in 1 war, war score alone prevents that. If a war is presumed to be costly, sometimes its best to use it as a spring for a 2nd war to take what you really want. Sometimes its best to just take one piece of land that makes getting the goal a little more easier.

Since your new, its important to keep in mind Aggressive Expansion. I dont recall if the tutorials mention it, but if you go too far and fast in expansions, you may find yourself at risk of coalitions.

Again, I would be ready if the ai didn't cheat with suddenly appearing.

Doesn't mention that to my knowledge, but it is hard to miss a lot of things in this game. I have to google everything.

But if I whoop them good and they can't stand against me, can't you just take everything?

It vaguely mentions it I think, but as usual it doesn't explain much and ignores most of the game.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Again, I would be ready if the ai didn't cheat with suddenly appearing.

The AI never cheats "with suddenly appearing." They were moving outside of your units' viewing range.

The entire list of AI cheats can be found here: https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Artificial_intelligence

It has been exhaustively researched over the past nine years by players poring through the game files. Any time you think the AI is cheating, check that list. If it isn't on there, it's not a cheat. It's a game mechanic you don't understand instead.

[Malvastor]

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Yep, the tutorial sucks (and is massively out of date too!).

For your situation I'd suggest just waiting until you siege Gibraltar. Once you occupy that, and have naval control of the adjacent sea province, you should be able to just march across the strait with your full army (may require a military access agreement with Portugal if they still own Ceuta). Much easier than trying to actually invade via your fleet.

For your fleet though, the number of transport ships you have determines how many units can be transported at a time. If your army is just going in chunks of 5k then you likely only have 5 transport ships. Build more to be able to land more troops at a time.

Also, invading Morocco is a bit difficult. Even without the naval landing a lot of their forts are on hills/mountains, so they're going to have a big home terrain advantage over you. Any troops that join a battle immediately from crossing the strait or disembarking from ships is further penalised too, making it even easier for Morocco to defend themselves.

I honestly have no idea how forts work. Another great thing the tutorial left out.

The details of fort rules are intricate, but the basics are simple: enemy forts prevent you from occupying the fort province until the fort is sieged down, impede movement of your armies around that province, and revert any adjacent provinces you occupy to the owner's control. The tutorial makes you siege down two forts in Granada to complete it, so you should have got the basics from that.

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

Also it left out why when the AI engages in privateering, I get looted from every port I have, from the moment I press play at start or the second I take ships of hunt pirates.

Privateering isn't really a major enough mechanic to get much tutorial focus. But basically, ships set to privateer steal trade power in a node and convert it to cash for the nation that owns them. It's honestly not something to worry about; the AI's unlikely to do enough privateering to seriously hurt you.

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

They never catch any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pirates,

Fleets set to hunt privateers don't actually capture or fight enemy ships. They just reduce the amount of trade power privateer fleets are able to steal.

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

and what's worse is that when I do privateering back at them, I don't get anything at all for months.

If you're setting fleets to privateer, you should be getting a little bit of monthly cash from them. Check your income/expenses in the top left; it should show under "Spoils of War".

Originally posted by Demonic Cookie:

And that's if my guys don't go rogue immediately. I build a fleet of 6 lights and the go rogue the moment I press play, ♥♥♥♥ you game...

Ships don't go rogue. It's just an event that can fire if you have ships privateering. All it does is give you a slight penalty to the money you get from trade. If you got it immediately after sending a fleet to privateer, that's just random luck.

You're upset with the tutorial, but keep in mind that this is a game with a lot of mechanics, many of which are recently added or often changed. A full playable tutorial that covered everything would basically just be a whole campaign on its own; since that would be tedious, the tutorial is mainly there to walk you through the basics of stuff like unit movement. Part of the game is poking around discovering how the mechanics work and how best to take advantage of them. When you run into something you don't recognize (which never stops happening; even players with thousands of hours in the game discover new elements they were totally unaware of) check the wiki for a description of how it works.