Fort Blocking Is Unacceptable

[Hadrada]

I don't normally post threads to complain but this time Parodox has seriously damaged one of the best games in history.

Saying that I cannot move my army into a directly adjacent territory because the neighboring territory has a fort in it is beyond ridiculous. Not only is that fort hundreds of miles away I still cannot bypass the fort when I have it under siege. Paradox, for the love of God! How does a sieged fort hundreds of miles away stop me from moving my army unopposed into an adjacent territory?

This is beyond absurd. If you wanted to add a tactical level of this kind, simply increase the attrition for my army because I cannot establish a proper trade routes.

This is the first time I have literally had a bad experience playing Europa. I've purchased a significant amount DLC for this game and I will not purchase any more until this madness is rescinded.

I will return to the previous update until cooler heads prevail.

[jimmybackman1]

Try to imagine the forts as magical unicorn forts that puts up forcefields blocking access and it will be easier to cope. :)

[dr pussy]

I think that, as someone said early, it doesn't make much sense that a castle is blocking wide tracts of land, but I think it makes minors easier and more enjoyable to play, as you can't get carpet sieged and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the ass, and also adds an element of strategy and a sense of a frontline to the game.

If you can just march your troops straight to the enemy capital even with a line of forts on the guy's border, there's something wrong with your game's realism, because real wars were not mad dashes to the enemies capitals and little clumps of 2000 men each spreading out over an entire country.

The update actually reminds me a little bit of the Hearts of Iron combat, actually. Maybe this is how occupation and such will work in HoI 4?

[AlienWired]

It's so funny, when the forts were first implemented into the game, I complained that it was ridiculous that only 800 untrained rebels could competently hold a castle from being taken by 10,000, and when I relayed the historical facts and various data, I was railed against for taking the game "to serious, it's just a game"..... Now, all sorts of folks are reaching for historical records to show that the way that forts are currently implemented is far to unrealistic, not historically accurate, etc etc etc....

The irony is thick, if not just down right hypocritical.

[dr pussy]

Messaggio originale di Ultrix Prime:

Messaggio originale di Drayden:

THEY ARE TURN BASED.

The main thing ZOCs do is keep one side from running through and around armies to hit a capital and try and do cheese with warscore without actually fighting.

literally this is the most important thing and what makes this the huge improvement that it is

[Rabob]

Messaggio originale di Captain47:

Well think about it from a historic standpoint. When you see maps of countries, in any time period, do you see forts scattered at equal numbers throughout the entire nation? No, they're clustered around the borders to prevent troop movement. If troops were able to circumnavigate these forts then there wouldn't have been any point to them.

Granted, it isn't reasitic that a fort can stop movement from a province away, but that's the mechanic to stop gameplay breaking.

In history there simply weren't multiple forts in every single province of an empire; to me that's more unrealistic than this new system.

What do you call castles then?
In Limburg alone there are at least a dozen of those. (1 province in EU4).

These "forts" are often not there to prevent enemies from going deeper into the country, but to protect the riches/people during a war or assault.

The only real kind of fort like the system in EU4 is the Great Wall of China...

I expected the system to be entirely different: You siege a fort and the zone of control cannot make units at that point and is looted through the main fort. You would need far more units to siege and it is only sieged if enough men are present. So you cannot carpet siege fortresses.

Messaggio originale di Emok:

Historically, armies never left unconquered forts behind because of the risk that the enemy will brake their chain of supply, or attack their rear. So an army can move past a fort but commanders never did it.

It also removes all the running around the map chasing armies (in the game). That was simply stupid....

Whatever the case the army movement on the map should be restricted either by forts or terrain.

I don't think you know what the word "never" means. A fort does not need to be conquered even, a good siege can be effective enough against raiding parties.

Also in a lot of wars, armies raided and plundered during the war to supply themselves. Or they demanded a wartax (supplies) kinda thing from the places they were staying.

[Wolliver]

I like the fort system, but it is weird. As Brandenburg, I was unable to siege Konigsberg or Memel because forts blocked it, even though me/my allies had sieged out every other province they owned.

[Hadrada]

No one here is arguing that we should convert EU4 into a simulator. People bring up realism to help illustrate why certain mechanics erode the game experience and detract from immersion. I'm not saying that their aren't problems with the previous system. I'm pointing out that this not a good way to fix those problems.

[Hadrada]

Have you really fought the AI much in this update? The AI REALLY struggles with the path finding and it makes it much easier to disassemble an AI opponent much larger than you.

This update imbalances the game. It doesn't add balance. This update gives an advantage to human players and drastically slows the pace of a multiplayer game.

If you read my comments, I'm not simply arguing that this is the wrong solution. I'm also proposing a solution. Replace the zone blocking with attrition damages. It simplifies the path finding and makes combat more intuitive. It also prevents you from marching past my forts to slaughter my treating army (as the attrition will have severely weakened your force.)

Attrition is actually a more deadly tool to fight a larger foe with than zone blocking. Assuming both parties are competent with zones it will mostly just slow the game down.

[Tex]

Carpet sieging was a gamey tactic, this was a way to fix that. It works fine if you plan ahead.

[dr pussy]

Messaggio originale di Ultrix Prime:

Messaggio originale di true "russia" is P-RUSSIA:

I think that, as someone said early, it doesn't make much sense that a castle is blocking wide tracts of land, but I think it makes minors easier and more enjoyable to play, as you can't get carpet sieged and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the ass, and also adds an element of strategy and a sense of a frontline to the game.

If you can just march your troops straight to the enemy capital even with a line of forts on the guy's border, there's something wrong with your game's realism, because real wars were not mad dashes to the enemies capitals and little clumps of 2000 men each spreading out over an entire country.

The update actually reminds me a little bit of the Hearts of Iron combat, actually. Maybe this is how occupation and such will work in HoI 4?

This is very well written and good points. I've said the same thing. Small countries benefit a great deal and don't just get smashed based on an RNG decision to hulk smash a small country. The player can now manage their country's fate better.

And I certainly agree that having a zone of control that spans hundreds and hundreds of miles in the case of some/many provinces is a bit far fetcched. However, realism arguments really don't apply well to EU4. Kings and Queens didn't have mystical monarch points flying out their butts to cause provinces to suddenly like being in their kingdoms. There wasn't a mystical army tradition number tic'ing up and down that determined the quality along with a die roll of a nation's generals.

So there, to me, is a lot of fanciful stuff in this game by its nature.

Messaggio originale di Drayden:

No one here is arguing that we should convert EU4 into a simulator. People bring up realism to help illustrate why certain mechanics erode the game experience and detract from immersion. I'm not saying that their aren't problems with the previous system. I'm pointing out that this not a good way to fix those problems.

I agree with the necessity to keep up suspension of disbelief, as, in fact, this is a game in which a fleet of ships is cheaper to maintain than a unit of horsemen. When it comes down it, however, I believe the fort system is also a gameplay improvement. While I too have become frustrated with it at times, it is an interesting element and it makes isolationism a valid strategy, in my opinion.

[Surimi]

Messaggio originale di Drayden:

Attrition is actually a more deadly tool to fight a larger foe with than zone blocking. Assuming both parties are competent with zones it will mostly just slow the game down.

Attrition is a joke after a certain point in the game. Even 2 months of extremely high attrition is nothing if it means you can wipe and enemy stack because the enemy will lose more than you will.. Furthermore, this only simplifies the pathfinding if we assume that the AI doesn't care about attrition damage.

I mean, either you make it something absolutely insane like 40% base attrition in which case you may as well block it because noone is ever going to take that and the AI will just hilariously kill itself, or you just remove forts altogether because everyone's just going to keep blitzkrieging around like elite SS Panzer divisions if there's no meaningful restriction on doing so.

I can see how there could be a middle ground, but you'd be pretty hard pressed to find it and even harder pressed to make the AI respond to it properly. AI improvements always take time.

[Rabob]

So what some people are saying here is that:
We should shoot ourselves in the foot to level the playing field, because the AI is an incompetent opponent who sniffs too much glue.

Seems rather silly to me.

[Rabob]

Messaggio originale di Ultrix Prime:

Messaggio originale di Rabob:

So what some people are saying here is that:
We should shoot ourselves in the foot to level the playing field, because the AI is an incompetent opponent who sniffs too much glue.

Seems rather silly to me.

I liked the Magic Unicorns with Force Fields much better. This sounds better than foot shooting

edit: (or glue sniffing for that matter)

Better to hear a soft lie than a hard truth I guess :p

[Pumba70]

I have to WWI this game now and go through another country to get where I'm going because a line of forts literally makes it so I can't get past them. Tis cray.

[dr pussy]

Messaggio originale di Deep Hurting:

Messaggio originale di Drayden:

Attrition is actually a more deadly tool to fight a larger foe with than zone blocking. Assuming both parties are competent with zones it will mostly just slow the game down.

Attrition is a joke after a certain point in the game. Even 2 months of extremely high attrition is nothing if it means you can wipe and enemy stack because the enemy will lose more than you will.. Furthermore, this only simplifies the pathfinding if we assume that the AI doesn't care about attrition damage.

I mean, either you make it something absolutely insane like 40% base attrition in which case you may as well block it because noone is ever going to take that and the AI will just hilariously kill itself, or you just remove forts altogether because everyone's just going to keep blitzkrieging around like elite SS Panzer divisions if there's no meaningful restriction on doing so.

I can see how there could be a middle ground, but you'd be pretty hard pressed to find it and even harder pressed to make the AI respond to it properly. AI improvements always take time.

I think the middle ground is keeping the blocking but reworking it so that you can go past forts into the zones they control but not past those, allowing you to to reach a little into the enemy's territory but limit them slightly, and then add an attrition modifier onto that while in the fort's ZoC, behind or infront of the fort. This would keep forts important but, in my opinion, would solve some of the trash pathing and annoying kiting in MP.