How to win an offensive battle?

[FM Helldiver Radio]

How do you win offensive battles?
Most of the time the defender brings in more troops regardles of how many troops are at the front in total.
Even with a much higer offensive value you lose due to beeing outnumbered.

What i´m supposed to do to win such a situation?

[kgkong]

Vic3 uses a very rudimentary calculation to determine supply. I imagine that the devs may intend to enhance it and make it more managed when they do potential province level patches/DLC. That's my guess for seeing that enhanced more.
But they also might release more about supplies in the next dev diaries for 1.1. Given how things look so far in the dev diaries, it looks like they're doing a lot to make these questions and concerns be more visibly answered in the UI in-game. Brings most things to more obvious locations and single tooltips.

[FM Helldiver Radio]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Are we talking a land battle between your border and the enemy border that is connected directly via land to your cap state? Or is it a land battle abroad?

It was Mexico vs USA (with socialist Mexico being the far dominant nation to america and the world - lol) a land war with direct contact of the core territories.

I finally won. Perhaps it simply was extreme bad luck for a period of time. I had enougth troops on the front. I planed carefully wich general to be there. Morale/Attrition was ok.

I really can´t tell what was wrong

[kgkong]

Originally posted by Gooru:

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Are we talking a land battle between your border and the enemy border that is connected directly via land to your cap state? Or is it a land battle abroad?

It was Mexico vs USA (with socialist Mexico being the far dominant nation to america and the world - lol) a land war with direct contact of the core territories.

I finally won. Perhaps it simply was extreme bad luck for a period of time. I had enougth troops on the front. I planed carefully wich general to be there. Morale/Attrition was ok.

I really can´t tell what was wrong

It's an awful front to fight along. Lots of mountains, low combat width due to mountains. Supply lines don't hold up so well along that front like a lot of others because of how wide it usually gets.

[Hugo]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

Also make sure that your battalions have their Barracks updated to the best Military Tech that you have and can support/implement, and that you have brought your Military salary levels back up from lowered peacetime levels.

This is completely irrelevant. Stats have no bearing on winning. Nothing. its only wether you get your guys in the battle.

[Hugo]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

If you're generals only take small number of battalions in, and the other side is able to bring in more, it's because your supply line isn't doing so well. Poor infrastructure, low population on your side of the front can contribute to that. Poor general traits that negatively impact supply line as well.

Then whey does the AI get way more when they attack. And I find it very hard to believe that every time the ai has more infrastructure, when I invested heavily in railways. Or is developing my country with industry crippling my army by using up infrastructure? And it is crippling because my army is made up of space-marines compared to them. But I lose because something the game does not tell me.

[Hugo]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Originally posted by Gooru:

It was Mexico vs USA (with socialist Mexico being the far dominant nation to america and the world - lol) a land war with direct contact of the core territories.

I finally won. Perhaps it simply was extreme bad luck for a period of time. I had enougth troops on the front. I planed carefully wich general to be there. Morale/Attrition was ok.

I really can´t tell what was wrong

It's an awful front to fight along. Lots of mountains, low combat width due to mountains. Supply lines don't hold up so well along that front like a lot of others because of how wide it usually gets.

But when the ai attacks on the same front they dont have any issues. Its only ever the player and russia whos army does not work.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Hugo:

Then whey does the AI get way more when they attack.

The side with the weaker (average offence vs average defence) troops gets a multiplier to the number deployed (topping out at .50 for attackers and .75 for defenders IIRC).

[kgkong]

Originally posted by Hugo:

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

If you're generals only take small number of battalions in, and the other side is able to bring in more, it's because your supply line isn't doing so well. Poor infrastructure, low population on your side of the front can contribute to that. Poor general traits that negatively impact supply line as well.

Then whey does the AI get way more when they attack. And I find it very hard to believe that every time the ai has more infrastructure, when I invested heavily in railways. Or is developing my country with industry crippling my army by using up infrastructure? And it is crippling because my army is made up of space-marines compared to them. But I lose because something the game does not tell me.

There's this:

The side with the weaker (average offence vs average defence) troops gets a multiplier to the number deployed (topping out at .50 for attackers and .75 for defenders IIRC).

There's also how good your general is. Command limit size. There's terrain modifiers for the province/state you're battling in that impact combat width. How well the supply line is that the general and his troops are using matters. This supply line is managed by infrastructure size and population for land, and sea lanes for anything abroad.

There's a lot of little details that go into warfare. It sucks that the UI doesn't explain it well and it's not like you can find everything in one play (right now). But warfare is no where near as broken. Most players aren't closely paying attention to consequences and reactions to choices they make in the game so they aren't picking up on these smaller mechanics. They come into the game with an expectation of HoI4, EU4 or Vic2 military not realizing that Vic3 is rebuilt from the ground up without loaning code from the other games. But the devs are working on improving the understandability of warfare (and adding a few minor changes to smooth things out so things don't look so disparaged as some of the newer and less skilled players are reporting).

[mklnk]

There's important info that's sort of buried in the interface. If your opponent is willing to attack into the front, keep your troops on defense. As more battles occur, click into the generals, and the battalions they're bringing into the battle and pay attention to the actual manpower counts they're bringing. As they continue to get their troops killed, they will reach a point where losses on the front line happen faster than their barracks can replenish, and they'll start bringing far less than the full 1000-per-battalion. This is when you change your order to Advance.

If you're in a situation where even on defend, you're taking more casualties than the enemy, then you're just outmatched and have no business being in that war, or at least no business planning to win it.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by mklnk:

There's important info that's sort of buried in the interface. If your opponent is willing to attack into the front, keep your troops on defense. As more battles occur, click into the generals, and the battalions they're bringing into the battle and pay attention to the actual manpower counts they're bringing. As they continue to get their troops killed, they will reach a point where losses on the front line happen faster than their barracks can replenish, and they'll start bringing far less than the full 1000-per-battalion. This is when you change your order to Advance.

If you're in a situation where even on defend, you're taking more casualties than the enemy, then you're just outmatched and have no business being in that war, or at least no business planning to win it.

Keep your troops on Standby***

Don't send troops to defend your front along your border right away. It causes attrition. Leave them on standby until the enemy takes attrition.

Other than this, yea good general advice.