How does war score work ?

[Bozz 💀]

I mean, I attack to take Aetolia, i hold the whole province and have only victories in battles and I'm at -9 war score lol how does that work ?

[galadon3]

Not! Youre missing some details here

[Turncloak]

could be -9 if the war goal hasn't been met? I dunno need more details.

[soldier6661111]

Screenshot(s)?

[SPAMBO]

Friendly/Allied forts will occupy adjacent territories. Check to see if the whole war goal province is actually occupied.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

Because you probably didn't secure the wargoal. You might have chosen the wrong province.
Otherwise, that might be a bug.

[Bozz 💀]

I have secured the war goal provinces and won a few battles, still war score was around -9 until I managed to take their capital and another province, then it switched to +12 and I managed to make peace before their stack of 300K+ troops decimate my legions xD

The thing is, I can hold them off if I don't go deep inside their territory, I thought I would just take the province wargoal and hold it there until peace is forced or I completelly destroy their armies... But nope it stood around -9 even though I killed like 15 of their armies.

I don't understand why.

Also I really don't like the whole legion systeme, why can't I merge armies is beyond me, I mean I have several 500-5k armies and a few big ones, they mostly have ♥♥♥♥ generals because I can't have a good general for everyone.
and it's a chore to manage them all in the same time :/

[galadon3]

You can see the breakdown of the warscore events on that war-screen.

Did you by chance have a bunch of small allies? Those can cost tons of warscore, I had a war as egypt against the seleukids, kicked their ass north of libanon into asia minor but in the meantime their fleet, wich I just didnt manage to catch killed the 1-10 ships fleets of all my tiny greek allies and somehow the game awards tons of warscore for that (guess because he destroyed the WHOLE NAVY of one of the participants or something like that).

[Resoula]

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

I mean, I attack to take Aetolia, i hold the whole province and have only victories in battles and I'm at -9 war score lol how does that work ?

It doesn't. That's not how the game works. So you've left out details, or ignored UI indicators. The game tells you everything that contributes to your war score and why on the UI screen. Missing your objective? The game will tell you that and it will specify exactly how much war score you're missing as a result of that. Every occupation and battle is summarized on the war's screen; as well as their point contributions.

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

I have secured the war goal provinces and won a few battles, still war score was around -9 until I managed to take their capital and another province, then it switched to +12

If it suddenly switched all at once, then you likely did not understand what war goal you selected. Suddenly taking your war goal will delete all negative war score accrued by now holding the correct target.

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

The thing is, I can hold them off if I don't go deep inside their territory, I thought I would just take the province wargoal and hold it there until peace is forced or I completelly destroy their armies...

This is indeed how the game works. If you don't aim for 100% war score, then holding your target until the war expires will result in you receiving your target without forcing a peace. If it expires without you holding your target then the peace will be white.

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

Also I really don't like the whole legion systeme, why can't I merge armies is beyond me, I mean I have several 500-5k armies and a few big ones, they mostly have ♥♥♥♥ generals because I can't have a good general for everyone.
and it's a chore to manage them all in the same time :/

You can't merge armies because they have different leaders, or systems. One governor will not allow another governor to command his levies. One legion's leaders will not command another's troops. Just attach the units to a lead stack and you have effectively merged without merging. You can also automate stacks entirely, deleting the "chore" present in most paradox games of this style.

[soldier6661111]

The not being able to merge armies is important. The armies come from different sources, with leaders who obviously would not give control over their forces to someone else and who have different loyalties.

[Bozz 💀]

The whole legion systeme is complete trash, I mean I really liked the game until you get a bigger empire and you have to fight ennemies that have like 50 different armies aznd you spend hours just countering their armies all over the map, not fun at all....

[galadon3]

Wich has ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to do with the legion system, you need to understand how the AI wages war, one of the important things is to take provincial capitals and the fortresses because then the whole teritory is controled by you wich means you can see any troop movement within and bordering those areas, thus you can see big stacks of enemy armies come and react by combining your stacks to counter them.
For the same reason you should at least put a lvl 1 fort into each of your provinces, so they cant be just taken over by tiny stacks.
Also plan your wars ahead of time. See where the AI could attack you and either station armies there or decide that its territory you have them occupy as long as the war goes and don't really care about it.
Also make sure you rule the seas and either block or sink their main fleet.
At that point unless they have just more armies then you you can march forward in the areas you want to actually grab.

Also we still have no information about the warscore breakdown your initial post was about.

[Bozz 💀]

That first war was like 70 years ago in my game.

I had 10 wars with macedon and never took 1 single territory xD

The thing is, I can't fortify the border because provinces are not loyal and I have to develop north Iberia to counter Carthage.
Macedon declares war on me everytime the truce ends.

They have around 400.000 troops with all their mercenaries, I have around 350.000 with my own.

I can't counter them, I mean I take the province the war is about, then take everything around it, then the 40 Macedonian legions + all their vassal armies arrive and if I don't stack my armie I get obliterated, if I stack my armie I spend 1 year killing stack after stack that obviously come back later but at this point they are 10-15 macedonian armies that went through the frontline and start taking all my forts from macedon border to north Italy which is fortified (they are several lvl 5 Forts they need to pass to get into italy)
And yes I have a few level 4 forts with trenches but macedon takes them easy with several 40K stacks at some point.

So I go back to Illyria to liberate my territory but by then macedon armies that I defeated are back and liberating the northern territory I just took xD

the 5 last wars were about that and ended in white peace.

No way I can compete with their navy, they have like 688 ships while I have 77 ships and I just don't have the money to keep a navy running with all the legions I have to keep around to counter their doom stacks.

[Bozz 💀]

Also this game thinks I owe him money or something, it's crazy all the events I get where it basically just robs money out of me, "pay 1.700 gold or suffer -10 Happiness in this province for 60 months" I get that like every 5 minutes...

[galadon3]

You are paying upkeep for several lvl 5 fortresses wich is most likely ruinously costly and you apparently have areas you snatched up but never properly assimilated and developed and thats apparently over 100 years into the game.
Sounds like early overstretching into territory that isnt worth much and then not developing it into proper assimilated provinces.

Also it would be a lot easier to give any real advice if you stopped exagerating wildly, I know its a favorite technique in rants but really doesn't help with any analysis.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

And you'll learn how to defeat them all easily later. First, learn how to make your legion and adapt to your enemy. There're every strengths and weakenesses shown. Your military tradition trees will help, the military tech trees too.
As Rome, you should be able to overcome any foe.