The game needs a rework of the military system

[Lakedaimon]

EU5 is a game that tries to work with more smaller decisions that have a greater impact over time compared to EU4. However, when you look how the military works you don’t really see the same changes. I would shortly describe what the problem with EU5 military system is, how historical development happened and how EU5 could be adjusted to make it more detailed, more varied, and more historical accurate while mostly using existing game mechanics.

At the moment military development happens in big steps as changes are locked just behind the institutions. Basically, every Age has one new military with new units and new boni and you either researched all of it or are still researching it. The two big military developments that we see thorough the game (using levies and mercs to relying more on a standing army; Cav being OP to Inf and Arty playing a more important role) happen abruptly once you reach certain technologies and build the necessary buildings. The biggest problem I personally have with the system is that it is not varied at all because you almost always have the answer right in front of you: A full Cav stack is OP because of the stats and it is quite rare to not be the right answer in the early and mid game. Because of that you mostly have to just watch some youtuber to see what the current meta is and then just build the same army composition until you win.

When we look how warfare changed historically in the same period we can see that 3 things become very apparent: Changes in warfare were slow, uncertain and often reactive to outside influence.

The importance that certain unit types and weapons played changed slowly over decades and not jut with one technological development. A good example is the role artillery played. Over 500 years we can see how it was not really used at all to being an important and integral part of the battlefield. This development happened because cannons became more accessible, more mobile and Generals learned how to implement new developments in armament on the battlefield.

With every new weapon or tactic uncertainty remained how effective it would be. Uncertainty that only disappeared with every new test on the battlefield. Sometimes certain armies and generals where rewarded for risking unproven weapons and tactics but it was a risk that had to be paid in blood.

Because of the risk that is always present in war we can also see that developments in warfare often happened as reaction to something and rarely happened just for the sake of development itself. The dutch did not invent their new infantry doctrine (depicted by the platoon fire advance) because they were bored but they needed to find a solution how to win against the might of the Spanish tercios. Similarly, the French attack columns and usage of elan against the linear formations of the enemy came down to having inexperienced masses that couldn’t really fight in lines but knew how to form a big block and run at the enemy.

How could EU5 depict the changes in warfare in more detailed and historical accurate way? I think that it should focus on slowing developments down and making changes more reactive. The good thing is that EU5 already has the perfect game mechanics to achieve this: Values and Estates.

By adding military “values” we can, for example, recreate the slow development of infantry relying more on muskets and less on pikes. You just have a value pike-muskets and depending on where your army currently is you have boni vs cavalry or infantry while the boni are affected by technology and decisions (developing the bayonet will increase the anti cav value for the muskets side of the value meaning over time you want to move towards 100% muskets. Certain decisions could also be done through a system similar to privileges for estates. Like implementing certain organisational structures that have upsides and downsides (different recruitment methods, training regimes, brigade/division/crops structures).

Most importantly, these changes should be primarily impacted by outside influences and not just your personal will to click a button. For example, having a rival with mostly cav armies should push your army towards using more pikes or developing new weapons/tactics against them. Being located in different environments should also push your army towards adapting to them, like Swiss armies just fighting better in mountains because they live and train in the mountains. This would also mean that big countries cant specialise that much as they have multiple enemies in different terrains to fight while smaller countries can specialise in fighting on their territory against the big country who is threatening them.

I obviously don’t know how exactly all these changes could be implemented and if they would achieve the desired effect, but I think it would make EU5 a better more detailed and historical accurate game and create more interesting situations and decisions that would also help smaller countries in defending against big empires.

Before ending this post, I want to mention two related aspects that would, however, need different mechanical solutions: Siege cannons and armed merchantmen.

Before the 30 years war cannons were mainly used for sieges. These cannons were often not an organic part of the army but were ordered from and crewed by civilian cannon makers. To represent this in the game I would argue that cannons should be mercenaries that are only available in regions with many cannon makers. Once a siege is started or about to start you will recruit them in their region and must slowly move them to the besieged castle. They should be quite effective but expensive and slow to use. If you look at sieges in the 14th and 15th century you will see that even the HRE emperor struggled to bring sufficient siege cannons to the boarder of is empire as it was expensive and took weeks or months to move.

Until the 18th century most navies complemented their small fleet of purpose build warships with a huge number of merchantmen who were already somewhat armed or received a small number of extra guns for each war. This was especially the case when naval warfare relied more on boarding and less on firepower. EU5 can depict this by having stronger naval levies that include light and heavy ships with a lower hull strength or increase the combat strength of transports, so they are a threat in bigger numbers. Trading empires focused on oversee trade like the Dutch should have a larger naval levy of larger ships to represent their bigger armed merchant fleet that had to traverse the oceans.

[mathalamus]

the latest rework failed. the hourly ticks are gone now. they wont make another one.

[eaerion]

Originally posted by mathalamus:

the latest rework failed. the hourly ticks are gone now. they wont make another one.

The hourly ticks are gone cause people are confusing performance and pacing. The main argument against hourly ticks was that the campaign takes too much time even on highest game speed.

[mathalamus]

and yet the issue was severe enough that paradox ripped out the entire thing. specificlaly reworking the entire game to work without hourly ticks.

that isnt a small change. its a massive one that admits straight up that the hourly ticks failed its goal.