anyone else let down by late game combat?

[D-Black Catto]

I usually stop playing the game around 100-150 years in. The reasons for that are multiple. First is the amount of micromanagement I need to do. Second, is that it's getting ahistorical as I'm blobbing beyond suspension of disbelief. Third, my country is too strong and it's getting boring.

And fourth reason is the state of wars in late game. When it's in between major powers and coalitions, and armies blob into hundreds of thousands large doomstacks. Most of warfare is making a doomstack, anticipating the enemy doomstack, and having a decisive battle. Of course, because of fog of war you don't know how the enemy is moving, so even as agressor you just wait until enemy doomstack appears and then merge all your armies to have at it.

Rinse and repeat.

After doomstack is defeated, you can take care of fotresses usually by the means of assault.

You don't need to worry about attrition anymore (both because of your huge manpower and various supply limit and attrition countering buffs/ideas/suff) and sieging fortresses is becoming progressively pointless. Also, trying to fight a war of attrition is often pointless too as superpowers have virtually infinite supply of money/loans/gifts from their allies. You just need to destroy their armies and then quickly take their land before they get to recruit more.

That's....very boring imo.

[QTV]

Then don't play the game like that.

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by QTV:

Then don't play the game like that.

Did you even read the comment completely? Lmao

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by D-Black Catto:

Most of warfare is making a doomstack, anticipating the enemy doomstack, and having a decisive battle. Of course, because of fog of war you don't know how the enemy is moving, so even as agressor you just wait until enemy doomstack appears and then merge all your armies to have at it.

I don't do this. Combat width still applies in the late game. Units above the combat width sit there doing nothing but taking morale damage until enough of their comrades are killed. Then they fill in the holes, but they do so at less than full effectiveness.

It's more effective to use multiple armies at every stage of the game. Each of those armies has a full combat width of infantry and cavalry up front and a full combat width of artillery behind (once artillery unlock and upgrade some, of course). Then you reinforce major battles with a stream of additional armies, as many as needed. Each fresh army enters the fight undamaged, unlike the doomstack approach. You can also retreat the damaged army once a fresh one takes its place. If the fight lasts long enough, it can even be sent in again after it recovers.

The AI doomstacks because it's bad. You can do better.

[D-Black Catto]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Originally posted by D-Black Catto:

Most of warfare is making a doomstack, anticipating the enemy doomstack, and having a decisive battle. Of course, because of fog of war you don't know how the enemy is moving, so even as agressor you just wait until enemy doomstack appears and then merge all your armies to have at it.

I don't do this. Combat width still applies in the late game. Units above the combat width sit there doing nothing but taking morale damage until enough of their comrades are killed. Then they fill in the holes, but they do so at less than full effectiveness.

It's more effective to use multiple armies at every stage of the game. Each of those armies has a full combat width of infantry and cavalry up front and a full combat width of artillery behind (once artillery unlock and upgrade some, of course). Then you reinforce major battles with a stream of additional armies, as many as needed. Each fresh army enters the fight undamaged, unlike the doomstack approach. You can also retreat the damaged army once a fresh one takes its place. If the fight lasts long enough, it can even be sent in again after it recovers.

The AI doomstacks because it's bad. You can do better.

that's in my opinion also a doomstack. once a battle starts, you know the enemy ai will drop everything to reinforce the battle with all their aviable armies, army after army, and you will do the same

it's still the "pull everything into decisive battle" mentality

[ChaffyExpert]

You should try my mod Fall of the Empire, it adds challenges to large empires and an extra challenge.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by D-Black Catto:

Originally posted by Marquoz:

I don't do this. Combat width still applies in the late game. Units above the combat width sit there doing nothing but taking morale damage until enough of their comrades are killed. Then they fill in the holes, but they do so at less than full effectiveness.

It's more effective to use multiple armies at every stage of the game. Each of those armies has a full combat width of infantry and cavalry up front and a full combat width of artillery behind (once artillery unlock and upgrade some, of course). Then you reinforce major battles with a stream of additional armies, as many as needed. Each fresh army enters the fight undamaged, unlike the doomstack approach. You can also retreat the damaged army once a fresh one takes its place. If the fight lasts long enough, it can even be sent in again after it recovers.

The AI doomstacks because it's bad. You can do better.

that's in my opinion also a doomstack....it's still the "pull everything into decisive battle" mentality

The fact that I don't stack my armies until necessary means they're not technically a doomstack, lol. But I do understand what you're saying. I agree, I want the few fights I engage in to be decisive. I generally ignore AI armies and focus on sieging down their forts, but if the AI decides to try to break a siege, then sure, I make it pay for doing so.

I still never "pull everything" in though, because by the late game I'm certain to outnumber anyone by a large margin. Each thrust into enemy territory towards a fort will be with a swarm that's probably equal in size to their entire army--but that swarm will be spread out until there's some reason to combine it, one stack at a time.

[Ashling]

I like making historical empires or unifying a culture/subculture into a nation-state so I don't tend to have big blobby armies until the late, late game where it feels sorta earned. It is weakening myself, but I do find setting a goal to make the Dutch East Indies or an alt-history Norwegian Japanese Company more fun than being an opportunistic land grabber (although blobbing is fun in its own way!)

[QTV]

Originally posted by Mr.M:

Originally posted by QTV:

Then don't play the game like that.

Did you even read the comment completely? Lmao

I did, yes. And here is the thing, by deliberately not playing well you can actually make the game a lot more fun.

[Dummkopf]

Yes, very boring game that we play for thousands of hours for some reason. I don't think many people play the late game. I sure don't. You can always limit yourself to make the game more interesting. No allies is a good start, and no loans. I don't recommend very hard settings though. It basically just makes the late game come sooner, and you have to deal with blobbing AI's.

[BlueBangkok]

Yeah, I think that most of the late game boring combat is due to the way AI behaves.
Once you realize that AI:

- Has perfect no fog-of-war vision, and thus will always run away from stronger stacks and beeline towards weaker stacks.
- Will always target the weakest belligerent / provinces.
Then you realize that most of the combat is the same and you can abuse the AI to the extreme (like "chase" otto stacks to a blockaded coastline and wipe them).

This is true for the entire game but it's more pronounced in late game.
The game is still fun to play, but combat AI should be more random, make mistakes, and generally behave in more immersive ways.

[Kapika96]

TBH I can't think of a single strategy game where I've really liked the late-game content.

So it doesn't really bother me to just start new games in EU4 either. It's what I'm used to and early game is what EU4 does best. Think the only way to make late-game actually fun would be a late game start. But anything after the 1444 start hasn't been supported for a long time so is likely to be a mess, plus using a late-game start still has other issues.

[BlueBangkok]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

TBH I can't think of a single strategy game where I've really liked the late-game content.

I've quite enjoyed late games in Stellaris. Since the game itself is simpler than EU4, its late game is also quite simple, and has its own quirks (crisis, events, fallen empires, etc.).

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

TBH I can't think of a single strategy game where I've really liked the late-game content.

Stellaris doesnt seem that bad.

Although early game there still is SIGNIFICANTLY better due to exploration

[dbond1]

I'm cool with it. I enjoy the big alliance wars that the game evolves to. A million+ on each side, stuff like that.

What I don't like are forts. I don't like the ZoC system to start, and then the AI nations carpet themselves in level 8s and it's such a slog. I feel like EU IV has probably got it backwards, and fortifications should become less influential near the end of the game.

Still, not all that many of my runs get to 1750. I usually wrap it up when I've managed the achievements I was going for. Some do however get close to the end. ALl depends on whether I've hit my objectives for this run.

[bri]

Originally posted by BlueBangkok:

Originally posted by Kapika96:

TBH I can't think of a single strategy game where I've really liked the late-game content.

I've quite enjoyed late games in Stellaris. Since the game itself is simpler than EU4, its late game is also quite simple, and has its own quirks (crisis, events, fallen empires, etc.).

The main problem with current Stellaris is that the late game lags quite ridiculously unless you intentionally avoid a massive population build-up. Of you avoid that by playing earlier versions then you need to rely heavily on mods to fix a number of things that weren't so well done in the early days.