Can't win battles against major powers......why?

[Zion_Shall-Fall]

I simply can't even win a single battle against major powers unless I have like 5 times nore men. I'm playing as Castille, currently rank 29 militarly while most major powers are 30. I go into battle with 70regiments (30 impulse infantry,20cavalry,20cannons).My army only attacks others if I have at least a 2:1 or even 3:1 number advantage.........and I loose absolutely all battles against either Austria,Russia,Ottomans,Brandenburg or whoever in Europe.I don't get it.I only defeat enemies in colonies lol. Tips?

[Kagemin]

The difference between military lvl 29 and lvl30 units is pretty huge. Up to 9 pips for infantry, and 16 or 17 for cavalry.
Also take good care about where you're attacking the enmy, many kinds of terrain give a penalty to the attacker. Often it's better to lure the enemy into attacking you.
The chosen ideas as well as the national ideas have a huge influence too, Ottomans and Brandenburg for example get a huge combat bonus from their national ideas alone, not to mention military ideas they picked.

Your best bet is to pause theg ame during a battle and take a look at the modifiers and numbers. How do your morale/discipline/military tactics compare to the enemies', how good are the leaders, and so on.

There are so very many things influencing battles that it's hard to tell, but generally the actual numbers don't matter anymore past a certain point.
The combat width determines how many soldiers can fight at any one point, Infantry and Cavalry in the first row, artillery also from the 2nd row. Every regiment past that just sits around and watches their comrades die until full regiments get destroyed so that they can step up. Usually either side either breaks or retreats before that happens though.
Also note that it determines the number of fighting regiments, not the number of fighting men. If you have lots of understrength regiments you are very far behind right from the start, regardless of the total numbers.

[The Silver Santana]

Two things.

First, check discipline and military ideas. France, for example, can easily get 150% disciple through quality and offensive ideas and their nationals. Even equivilent tech levels will get shreaded at 100% discipline vs. 150%, and I don't think castelle gets any discipline bonuses by nessecity. Additionally, quality idea tree can give you @ 10% bonuses to all units as well. Basically, you might be facing 160% boosted units at least!

Second, military tech. As the guy above said, that's your problem here, probably moreso then ideas.

Combine the two, you can end up with over 200% combat effective units against someone only one tech level behind you.

[Onion]

Also 70k troops is just useless. Check out combat widht and attrition.

[Alex]

Castile gets +5 Disc from their first national idea "The Reconquista". Castile isn't designed to be a military power, it's more of a trade nation that is amazingly good at colonizing fast.

If you want to be a strong military nation you need to put it all into ideas pertaining to the military, like quality, offensive, defensive are the 3 staples to being a sucessful military power.

[Zion_Shall-Fall]

Thanks for all the tips....there are quite a few things i didn't know about combat.

[Ellye]

Personally, I like this army composition as a rule of thumb:

(Combat Width) * 1.2 Infantry
4 Cavalry
(Combat Width) Artillery

For example, if you're expacting battles in a plains-like terrain with a Combat Width of 28:

33 Infantry
4 Cavalry
28 Artillery

You'll have enough Infantry to fill the entire front row, with a few cavalry on the flanks, and a large number of infantry reserves to fill for your casualties. Plus, and most importantly, you'll have a large row of Artillery on your backline. Artillery can fire from the back row, and their help defending units in the front row, so it's ideal to have enough of them.

Do note that Cavalry is a lot more relevant earlier in the game, so you might want to have a bit more of them earlier on.

[bradypp]

Don't forget generals, army tradition/discipline and technology. Also why is your army so big, the morale will be lower. Imo have armies up to 25 units with a general and move next to each other in wars.

[TacoCat]

The most important factor in winning battles is military tradition which contributes in getting the best generals. Plus military tradition increases the fighting capability of your soldiers. The highest mil tradition I ever got was 50. Something and I was Castille. When I engaged in battles, I had a general with 4+ stats across all skills commanding my army and for every skirmish, the enemy lost 1000+ men to my 300 casualty. Its generally military tradition, which decreases over time and the only way to maintain it is by constantly engaging in wars and fighting enemy armies, which depletes your economy + stability. Its very tricky trying to balance economy and a strong military.

[Meneldil]

I also couldn't win a single - apparently - balanced battle in my first game as France, despite all the bonus I had, and despite setting up decent armies. It took me a while to figure out that I was one military tech behind my opponents, as I focused too much on ideas. Being at 9 when they're at 10 will get all your men dead in no time.