Ok. Uncle. I don't understand combat.

[Terminus]

So, I've been playing EU3 off and on, and I've been more or less figuring things out as I go. I've also looked around for advice and info on the Internet. I still do not understand combat. Not even a little bit.

Ok, so there are different phases. How do I know how much damage a unit does in a given phase? Ok, great example. Chevauchee have 2 morale pips for offense and one pip in Shock. Latin Knights have one and one for morale, and one shock, as I recall. What's the difference, functionally speaking? Latin medieval infantry versus halberds: what's the difference in the math? Is it the kind of thing where halberds will do a ton of damage in the first "round" and then suck in the counterpunch round? And what the heck are the combat lines that you see during combat? How does that influence the fight, and can you affect that in any way?

I really like the game, I just need to know what the rules of combat are. Just picking armies and navies arbitrarily is really frustrating.

[Poppis]

Note: I am no expert in this game and as there is no one good place to look for these kind of things(the wiki being what it is) it is quite possible that not everything here is 100% correct. I'm sure others will correct me if I made any big mistakes.

Units have a shock, fire and morale value which are subdivided into offensive and defensive stats. For the most part you can treat offensive and defensive pips as the same(so total shock=offesinve shock + defensive shock).

[As a sidenote, I would imagine that calculating the exact amount of damage your units do would be very difficult as there are so many modifiers that affect it.]

About battles, there are 2 different phases in combat, fire and shock. The phase changes every 3 days(or was it 5) and the battle starts with fire phase. For each phase you also have a combat modifier which affects how much damage your army deals and takes. This modifier is the result of the dice roll(which is rerolled every phase), terrain and crossing modifiers(for the attacker) and the leader bonuses(or rather the diffence in the opposing leaders skill, so if u got shock 3 leader against shock 2 leader then every shock phase you would get +1 to your combat modifier). Combat modifier is not the only thing affecting your damage potential of course but it is the one that can vary quite heavily from battle to battle.

The combat lines represent your armies formation on the field. There's two rows visible: the front row and the back row. Each is 30 regiments wide(if u have more than 30 regiments in the army, I assume the rest are not represented in the field until you take some casualties). Only the front row is actually doing the fighting as far as I know(the rest being in reserve and filling in any caps as the battle goes on). The whole layout isn't terribly important although if your deployed units start to dwindle it's an indication that you're running out of morale as units with 0 morale cannot fight. Cavalry also has something called a flanking bonus that has to do with the army layout. If you have more regiments than your enemy in the front row, one regiment of cavalry will be placed on either flank of the first row. And even though they aren't facing an enemy, they can still do damage to the enemies left and right most regiments(and I assume without taking any damage in return). So you should always have at least 2 cavalry regiments in your army. Once your total army size starts to get higher so that your infantry already takes the whole front row(30 regiments) there's no more room for the flanking cavalry and the bonus is not available.

Discipline also effects your armies performance with 100% being the default. So with 104% discipline, your units would do 4% more damage.

Military tactics is another modifier which is only visible inconveniently in the ledger. It starts off as 0(1 if you follow the recommended inf/cav ratio in your armies, which is 50% for most western europian nations) and increases at certain tech levels. This will reduce your casualties significantly.

Finally, if you go to the military tab in the Domestic Management Interface you can see the fire and shock multipliers for your infantry, cavalry and artillery(along with how many regiments of each you have). These multipliers increase nonlinearly with tech(although you can't see it anywhere in the tech descriptions) and have an absolutely massive effect on how much damage you do(this is why cavalry, for example is so strong despite their seeming lag of pips).

[Terminus]

Well, first off, thanks for taking a stab at explaining this, that was a very thorough job and I totally appreciate it.

Ok, so, maybe the best way for me to outline what I don't get is by putting out a specific question. Alright, so I just got Heir to the Throne. I'd been going by the "cavalry smokes everything" tactical recipe, where I had cav for attacking and infantry for sieges and cannon fodder. I've played three games, all from the Grand Campaign start, two as Portugal.

I started one as England in HttT, and saw I had the choice between Latin Medieval Infantry and Halberd Infantry. Halberd has two pips in offensive morale, LMI one in each. I stuck with Chevauchee cav for the two pips in offensive morale. So, why would I care about Halberdiers? Are they there basically for a first-strike army, where you're counting on doing most of your damage on the initial shock round? Like are they there to guard against a strong defense during your attack? I'm coming from Total War, so I'm basically thinking in terms of morale as troop quality more than anything, where you'd use low morale crap troops to tie up the enemy's main body of soldiers while you send your trained soldiery to hit weak points in the line and so forth.

[Poppis]

Oh so you don't have all the expansions? That might change things as well since some of the stuff could have been added/changed in Divine Wind/later patches. All my points have been about the latest v5.2 of Divine Wind.

About the units, they will use both the offensive pips and defensive pips in every battle regardless of whether you are the attacker or defender.

Personally I just pick the unit that has the highest combined shock+fire(I seem to remeber hearing that the morale stat is less important). So for example at tech level 18 you have tercio, maurician and free shooter infantry available with the following stats: Tercio(6 fire, 5 shock) Maurician(7 fire, 4 shock) and free shooter(3 fire, 6 shock). In this case I would usually pick tercio or maurician(both with 11 combined shock+fire, plus they happen to have same morale, 10). In case of cavalry, I would probably go with the one with most shock pips(because cav gets huge shock modifiers).

In the case of halberdiers vs latin inf, I don't see either of them being any better than the other. I've used both in different games and haven't had any problems.

If you have leaders with lots of shock pips but little fire(or vice versa) you could use that to decide which unit to go for.

PS. For army composition, I would go with heavy inf armys(i'm talking about western europian nations here). At the start of the game I tend to have more cav which I then decrease as the game goes on(but always having at least 2 cav regiments). But this is one thing I know has changed in different versions of the game(I just don't know which ones). I do know that in some earlier versions cavalry was extremely powerful and many people used all cav armies since cav moved faster in the strategic map and there was no combined arms bonus. But since I have only ever played with DW v5.2 I don't know how it would work in your version.

[Dustpuppy]

I'm pretty sure it works such that if you started the engagement (attacking) you use the offensive rating as your fire/shock through the entire battle wheras if you were attacked you use the lower rating. If memory serves the manual seems to say differently but I'm pretty sure this is how it actually works. When I fought the arabs early on their calvary massacred me when I let them attack, but if I attacked them I stood a solid chance of wining. Arab cav has 3 shock pips but no defensive shock pips, which is why the casualties I was taking 1k per tick on defense, dropped to about 300per tick on offense (circa 1450). But the manual does seem to say differently

The different troops affect how you maneuver your armies. Using principly defensive troops I like to put foward one or two stacks of troops with a third mass of manuever behind. When attacked I send in the mass of maneuver to reinforce the attacked troops. If I'm going to win, the third stack moves to cut of the enemies retreat before the battle is decided, often gauronteeing they'll beat the AI there, and if I lose then they can attack and pin down the enemy troops while my other stacks retreat/rearm or get navally evac'd. At the very least the third stack usually gaurontees a 'safe' retreat though it costs a lot in attrition if the resulting stack is large.

Using offensive troops I have to make sure that I don't get attacked and use larger stacks to ensure I do not lose because I can't afford to split my armies. This results in taking more attrition if I'm fighting a big opponent (eg france w/o military drill) where I have to stack my troops deep to ensure victory. I find this useful against Arabs, because if you attack them you can pin them down in a high attrition province then repeatedly attack them with half their number of troops while the attrition burns them down to size.

In Divine Wind military drill is an i-win button before 1500AD so I just take it + patron of the arts, and swap out for QFTNW when I get the +2 stab event from a 5-6 star advisor (You can set the window aside while you swap out the idea, then accept the increase).

eta: anyway regardless of how it works, the manner in which you deploy your troops is going to be at least as important as the troop type you end up going with.

[Terminus]

Ok, so if you initiate combat, you're the attacker for the whole thing. Alright, that makes a little more sense as to why you'd want, say, chevauchee cav as opposed to latin knights.

So, with the offense/defense situation sticking with you through the entire encounter, you might conceivably build a stack of chevauchee and halberdiers strictly for attacking, while having a stack of latin medieval infantry and latin knights for holding territory or to "set a pick", so to speak, and just get in the way of attacking armies.

With that last example, here's another question. Let's say you've got your defensive stack of infantry and knights. They get attacked, so they're the defender for that exchange. Now, while they're engaged, you move in an offensive stack of chev and halberd (as a for instance) to flank. Does the game calculate that as a separate encounter, such that your offense stack is an attacker and the enemy stack is a defender in one context and an attacker in the original fight? Or does your second stack just get lumped in with the first and become a defender?

[Terminus]

Originally posted by Poppis:

Oh so you don't have all the expansions? That might change things as well since some of the stuff could have been added/changed in Divine Wind/later patches. All my points have been about the latest v5.2 of Divine Wind.

About the units, they will use both the offensive pips and defensive pips in every battle regardless of whether you are the attacker or defender.

Personally I just pick the unit that has the highest combined shock+fire(I seem to remeber hearing that the morale stat is less important). So for example at tech level 18 you have tercio, maurician and free shooter infantry available with the following stats: Tercio(6 fire, 5 shock) Maurician(7 fire, 4 shock) and free shooter(3 fire, 6 shock). In this case I would usually pick tercio or maurician(both with 11 combined shock+fire, plus they happen to have same morale, 10). In case of cavalry, I would probably go with the one with most shock pips(because cav gets huge shock modifiers).

In the case of halberdiers vs latin inf, I don't see either of them being any better than the other. I've used both in different games and haven't had any problems.

If you have leaders with lots of shock pips but little fire(or vice versa) you could use that to decide which unit to go for.

PS. For army composition, I would go with heavy inf armys(i'm talking about western europian nations here). At the start of the game I tend to have more cav which I then decrease as the game goes on(but always having at least 2 cav regiments). But this is one thing I know has changed in different versions of the game(I just don't know which ones). I do know that in some earlier versions cavalry was extremely powerful and many people used all cav armies since cav moved faster in the strategic map and there was no combined arms bonus. But since I have only ever played with DW v5.2 I don't know how it would work in your version.

Yeah, I just figured I'd not bother with DW since I don't have a lot of interest in the whole uniting Japan deal, and with EU 4 coming out soon it didn't make a lot of sense to go and buy all the expansions if I wasn't actually going to "use" them, although I might just do it for the sake of completeness.

Ok, so this is something I read about as a difference between IN and HttT. I definitely noticed that with IN I could make a stack of primarily cavalry and just run the table. Like it pretty much came down to whoever had more cav. But, in HttT I notice that at a certain number of cav (or maybe a certain proportion of cav to inf) the number's red. Supposedly the way that combat mechanics changed from IN to HttT means that you can't just spam cavalry in the early game and win anymore, but I haven't played enough to notice yet. Is that the case? How much does a "combined arms" help, if at all, and do they have to be in the same stack for that to count, or could you have a separate cav stack to move in as support and still get the benefit?

[Poppis]

Originally posted by Terminus:

With that last example, here's another question. Let's say you've got your defensive stack of infantry and knights. They get attacked, so they're the defender for that exchange. Now, while they're engaged, you move in an offensive stack of chev and halberd (as a for instance) to flank. Does the game calculate that as a separate encounter, such that your offense stack is an attacker and the enemy stack is a defender in one context and an attacker in the original fight? Or does your second stack just get lumped in with the first and become a defender?

In every battle both sides deal and take damage. Let's say you have an army of maurician infantry against an enemy army of free shooter infantry. When your men deal damage the game compares your offensive shock(or fire, depending on the phase) with the enemy defensive shock, in this case 3 off shock vs 2 def shock. So that's 1 shock difference which is then multiplied with terrain modifiers/leader stats/tech modiefiers etc. Then the enemy deals damage to your men, 4 off shock vs your 1 def shock. That's a difference of 3 which again is multiplied with all the different modifiers.

Originally posted by Terminus:

Yeah, I just figured I'd not bother with DW since I don't have a lot of interest in the whole uniting Japan deal, and with EU 4 coming out soon it didn't make a lot of sense to go and buy all the expansions if I wasn't actually going to "use" them, although I might just do it for the sake of completeness.

Ok, so this is something I read about as a difference between IN and HttT. I definitely noticed that with IN I could make a stack of primarily cavalry and just run the table. Like it pretty much came down to whoever had more cav. But, in HttT I notice that at a certain number of cav (or maybe a certain proportion of cav to inf) the number's red. Supposedly the way that combat mechanics changed from IN to HttT means that you can't just spam cavalry in the early game and win anymore, but I haven't played enough to notice yet. Is that the case? How much does a "combined arms" help, if at all, and do they have to be in the same stack for that to count, or could you have a separate cav stack to move in as support and still get the benefit?

I would definitely recommend DW unles you plan on getting EU4 right away. DW is not just about Japan, it adds tons of stuff that enhance the game play for all factions.

If you hover the mouse over the red cav number you should see what the maximum % is for cavalry. Combined arms bonus has to do with the military tactics modifier that I mentioned in my first post. I'm not sure about whether u need to have the cav in your army at the start of the battle or whether you can reinforce it later, but I would guess that you can bring the cav later and get the bonus from that point on.

[Duchy of Dogistan]

I acually like DW BECAUSE of the lowered manpower, it makes the game challenging for us experts,plus makes the game look 50% nicer. If you don't want to have low manpower then edit the static modifiers and cheat. I respect your opinion as DW has alot of problems.

[Terminus]

Ok, so now I'm torn. I want to get EU4, but it seems like I'd probably get a lot out of DW. I guess my options would basically be to either buy DW and just hold off on EU4 until there's a sale or they release some DLCs or something, or pass on DW and just move over to EU4 when it comes out.

It's not really a question of the money so much as I'd feel dumb buying DLC for a game that I'm going to stop playing in two weeks when its sequel comes out. BUT, there are a few other games coming out at the same time, so maybe it'd make sense to stick with EU3 for my strategy fix if I'm not even gonna get around to playing EU4 until it would come on sale anyway.

Decisions! Augh!

[Satoru]

EU4 pre-orders now come with a free copy of Crusader Kings 2.

Would you like more heroin with you cocaine?

What you're going to stop playing CK2 in 2 weeks anyway? No problem! Pre-order now and you 'll get a CK2 save game converter that will import your empire into EU4.

Sorry did we not give you enough meth?

[Senanima]

Or you can dig around here: http://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/307615-steam-group-buy-and-gift-requests-thread-v2/page-190

I got my EUIII with all the xpacs for only a couple bucks. Lots of deals on CKII right now too.

[Dustpuppy]

Originally posted by Terminus:

Ok, so if you initiate combat, you're the attacker for the whole thing. Alright, that makes a little more sense as to why you'd want, say, chevauchee cav as opposed to latin knights.

So, with the offense/defense situation sticking with you through the entire encounter, you might conceivably build a stack of chevauchee and halberdiers strictly for attacking, while having a stack of latin medieval infantry and latin knights for holding territory or to "set a pick", so to speak, and just get in the way of attacking armies.

With that last example, here's another question. Let's say you've got your defensive stack of infantry and knights. They get attacked, so they're the defender for that exchange. Now, while they're engaged, you move in an offensive stack of chev and halberd (as a for instance) to flank. Does the game calculate that as a separate encounter, such that your offense stack is an attacker and the enemy stack is a defender in one context and an attacker in the original fight? Or does your second stack just get lumped in with the first and become a defender?

I think I had it wrong based on the ingame description. The fire/shock values stay constant through the fight regardlss of who initiated, but they are modified by the moral bonuses (offensive/defensive) which depends on who is attacking/defending. How the moral damage modifiers work I'm still trying to figure out, but they are definitely affected by who is attacking/defending.

[Terminus]

Originally posted by Dustpuppy:

Originally posted by Terminus:

Ok, so if you initiate combat, you're the attacker for the whole thing. Alright, that makes a little more sense as to why you'd want, say, chevauchee cav as opposed to latin knights.

So, with the offense/defense situation sticking with you through the entire encounter, you might conceivably build a stack of chevauchee and halberdiers strictly for attacking, while having a stack of latin medieval infantry and latin knights for holding territory or to "set a pick", so to speak, and just get in the way of attacking armies.

With that last example, here's another question. Let's say you've got your defensive stack of infantry and knights. They get attacked, so they're the defender for that exchange. Now, while they're engaged, you move in an offensive stack of chev and halberd (as a for instance) to flank. Does the game calculate that as a separate encounter, such that your offense stack is an attacker and the enemy stack is a defender in one context and an attacker in the original fight? Or does your second stack just get lumped in with the first and become a defender?

I think I had it wrong based on the ingame description. The fire/shock values stay constant through the fight regardlss of who initiated, but they are modified by the moral bonuses (offensive/defensive) which depends on who is attacking/defending. How the moral damage modifiers work I'm still trying to figure out, but they are definitely affected by who is attacking/defending.

Ok, so if a unit has 2 shock, 0 fire, 1 off. morale, and 1 def. morale, then in the shock phase, if they're attacking, they have "3" and in the fire phase they have "1"? Or something like that?

I haven't actually done any math, but it seems like, at least in DW, a unit is designated the attacker or defender based on who initiates combat, and they stay that way through the encounter. So, in other words, stack A moves in to attack stack B, stack A stays "offensive" through the whole encounter.

In my earlier example, then, you get the most mileage out of Chevauchee when you use them to attack, and same goes for Halberdiers, with one doing the damage in Shock and the other doing it during Fire. Conversely, units that have strong defensive morale are good for "setting a pick", basically, or holding territory. The implication, then, for me at least, is that my previous strategy of building "balanced" stacks where morale is evened out is actually just making a stack that's never being used to its fullest potential. This also seems to explain why in my past few games I've been able to sweep through Morocco and Algeria with no problem in the early game, only to get crushed (even by slightly inferior numbers) by stacks on the attack; Charge Cavalry has 3 off. shock and 2 off. morale, but just 1 for defensive shock and morale.

[Dustpuppy]

Sounds like a good theory to me.

[Poppis]

Originally posted by Terminus:

Ok, so if a unit has 2 shock, 0 fire, 1 off. morale, and 1 def. morale, then in the shock phase, if they're attacking, they have "3" and in the fire phase they have "1"? Or something like that?

It depends on who they are fighting against. If you have 2 shock(offensive) and you're fighting against an enemy with 1shock(defensive) it will only count you as 1(which is then modified). Same for morale, it checks your offensive morale against enemies defensive morale, then modifies it to see how much morale damage you do(I'm guessing the morale damage is done each phase).