Basic warfare
From EU3 Wiki
Warfare is one of the three main methods of expanding your territory, the other two being diplo-annexation and colonization. Among the three, warfare offers the quickest means of expansion, but it does not come without risks, such as worsening diplomatioc relations and the dreaded badboy rating. In order to manage warfare, you need to understand several basic concepts.
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[edit] Army organization
Each army is organized into regiments of three different class: infantry, cavalry, and artillery. An army has a minimum of 1 regiment, and may have an unlimited maximum; though the supply limit of a province provides a practical maximum number of troops. Each type of unit has 3 numerical values used to calculate its performance in battles:
- Fire - Applies to the "fire" phases of the battle
- Shock - Applies to the "shock" phases of the battle
- Speed - Determines the base speed of the unit when moving between provinces. An army only moves as fast as its slowest unit.
Each unit has an offensive and defensive value for each. In addition to regiments, each army may be led by either a general or a conquistador, which have their own values for fire, shock, speed, and siege, which applies to the army's ability to capture a fortified province. The leader's values are added to the regimental values in calculating battle success. There are dozens of different regimental types for each class, depending on tech group, technology levels, and other factors. Generally speaking, however, infantry units have better fire numbers, cavalry units have better shock numbers, and artillery units are needed to besiege a province.
Armies should be built of a diversity of troops, considering their purpose. By far, the most important troops in any army are the infantry. They do the bulk of the damage to other armies, and are required to assault a fortified province. Cavalry are useful in the "shock" phases of a battle, and can profoundly impact the morale of the opposing troops; however they are useless in sieges. Artillery, on the other hand, are vital in a siege, but move so slowly that they are not effective in all situations. When considering a holistic battle plan, you will probably want several different types of armies:
- Siege forces consisting of infantry and artillery (defensive cavalry are optional if you expect to have to defend against cavalry-based attacks)
- Battle forces consisting of infantry and cavalry used to bust the seiges of the enemy and chase their forces around the map (artillery are NOT recommended in these armies since they only slow you down.)
- Reinforcement forces consisting of infantry only used to provide assault forces to besieged territories and provide for the final assault on a fort.
[edit] Introduction to Land Warfare
There are three types of land units. Infantry, the one you will be using most of time. Cavalry that costs more than infantry and has more shock damage which helps routing enemy armies. Finally, after a few years of Land Tech research, artillery that costs the most but is more than very helpful during sieges and is a great asset in any battle you fight.
At the beginning, at least until your enemy reaches level 3 or 5 of Land Tech, your cavalry will be unbeatable. Basic infantry stands no chance 1:1 with a cavalry unit, especially if it's led by a great general. So for your early wars (Castille - Granada, Aragon - Navarra, Burgundy - Lorraine, Poland - Teutonic Order, Sweden - Denmark and the likes) it is advisable to use armies consisting only from cavalry units.
So the basic early fighting strategy is to build one or two big armies of 4000 to 6000 cavalry and assign generals to them (depending on your budget and manpower of course, as well as on the size of your enemy). For smaller countries like HRE minors (little countries on the area of nowadays Germany) you don't have to overstretch yourself like you would if you are fighting with France or Lithuania.
Now you have to find main forces of your enemy and order your cavalry to attack them. Make sure you have at least the same number or bigger and if you can spare cash, assign a general. Your cavalry will fight and probably win with your enemy making him run away in a random direction. Many new players think that the war is won already, we're not that naive. You have to order your cavalry to march the way your enemy escapes (it is shown when and where he will arrive when you hover your mouse cursor over his army) and beat him again. You don't stop chasing them till the war ends or till they are all dead.
Now the second stage of your invasion. When their armies are beaten you can move on to sieging their cities. To this task you need a number of small 1000-2000 (bigger if you can afford) armies made of infantry. You march your unit to their provinces. When they are there, they will start a siege. It takes a year or two for enemy to surrender. A good general and artillery units can shorten this time significantly. Do not assault a city unless you have at least 10 times more troops than your enemy. Otherwise you will fail and in most cases, lose all your troops in the process. If you are really impatient, you can order an assault after the walls are breached, but remember that losses will be heavy and when your assaults fails, enemy will hold the city longer than he could if you didn't attack.
After having won a siege your army will place a garrison inside so the enemy will have to siege the city if he wants it back. Thanks to that you can move your army further into enemies territory.
If you want a really good peace deal, like taking over a lot of land, making them your vassals and paying you a lot of cash, you have to destroy all their armies and occupy all their provinces.
[edit] Generals
With every land battle you win you get some number of Land Tradition. The bigger the battle and the more casualties you inflict, the more Land Tradition you gain. High Land Tradition helps you recruit better generals and those you employ while "you have high land tradition" flag is up (90% and more) are real gods of war and their names are feared all over the world. You know such guys from history, Napoleon, Attila, Genghis Khan, Sobieski...
Strong generals are essential on higher difficulty settings.
However, good generals can be recruited already at 25-30%, and those (and slightly better) are the ones that will be most common throughout the first 200-250 years of the game. It could be recommended to try to save up your Land Tradition to at least the above numbers before recruiting a general, considering both the cost and the small decrease your Tradition suffers upon recruiting. Recruiting a general also consumes a diplomat (ie you train/promote him into a general).
Considered by many to be an emergency option, but very frequently used by most players and always by the AI, is the option of converting your (male) ruler into a general. His stats are determined primarily from his military attribute (meaning a 6 would be pretty good, a 9 a god, but a 3 not necessarily a complete loser) but also slightly from your Land Tradition. This option is free and doesn't use any diplomats, however it endangers your rulers life. To get your ruler killed in combat, or siege, decreases your countrys stability by 1, and of course risks the potentially nasty effects of a Personal Union, a Regency Council or a Succession War. But maybe the ruler wasn't that much to put in the shelf anyhow, and his successor is the Peter the Great you've been waiting for?
There is also one special general, the Conquistador. He is the only person skilled and brave enough to be able to lead his troops into uncharted Terra Incognita, but may only be recruited by a government following the National Idea of "Quest for the New World".
[edit] Domestic Policies
Whether your army is successful on the battlefield or not doesn't depend only on your soldiers and generals. If you want to fight a lot it is important to set your domestic policies and national ideas accordingly.
Cost and time it takes to recruit a unit depends on its price. The price changes when you move your Aristocracy/Plutocracy, Land/Naval and Serfdom/Free subjects sliders. The more aristocracy and land orientation you have, the cheaper your units are and the quicker they build. Free subjects makes your armies morale to grow.
Another important setting is your Offensive/Defensive slider. If you are all defensive it is easier to you to recruit artillery and to siege cities. But I advise to go all offensive, this makes your armies deadly and your leaders to be feared.
The last domestic policy you probably want to adjust is Quality/Quantity. If you have a huge country with a lot of manpower, you probably want to go for Quantity and small countries usually prefer to have elite armies instead of huge ones. I advise staying close to the middle here, and to Quality or Quantity depending on your personal preference.
It is easier to understand all of that comparing different countries. Start a game with Portugal and Burgundy for example and compare their sliders. Portugal is the best country to build a colonial and naval power. Ships build fast, have great morale, cost nothing in comparison with other countries. Burgundy is a predator, a country for warmongers. It is set 100% to offensive, its armies are strong and its leaders are more than capable. Portuguese army is no match for Burgundian one. But if you try to build a ship in Burgundy, you will see it costs you a lot more and builds a few times longer. If you try to colonise anything with Burgundy, you will notice how hard it is to get new colonists. This is the price they pay for their elite armies.
[edit] National Ideas
The first national idea for everybody who wants to fight early wars is Military Drill. It gives you a nice bonus of 0.50 to your armies morale. It makes them stand and fight in situations when others would run. And the longer they fight the bigger your chances for enemy to rout are.
If you are a small country and have difficulties in recruiting any army, you can go for National Conscripts (+50% manpower). It is useless for big players like England or France.
Grand army rises your limit of armies before penalty triggers on, engineer corps helps in sieges but the bonus in not significant enough to consider it useful, battlefield commissions rise your land tradition slowly which helps you in a war after a long period of peace to recruit good generals. Glorious Arms is the idea that allows you to make tons of prestige from land battles, so even after beating a small country you will have a significant prestige percentage and thus your diplomatic efforts will be more successful that they used to be.
Military Drill works for most of the countries, National Conscripts is useful for really small ones.
[edit] Fighting Using Attrition
One tactic when in a war is to first slowly wear down enemy numbers and moral.
Leave a gap(s) on your border so that the enemy will move armies into it. Then smash them with a bigger army (hopefully with a good general) then back off straight away. They will move in again but this time with lower moral and men. Smash then again. This works best if you have around 4+ regions on the border for your army to move between. The enemy (AI) will often try to attack them all rather than concentrating their forces.
The repeated victories will drive up your military tradition and give you a good war score. Once they are sufficiently weak move your armies counter attack and force peace.
[edit] Sea Warfare
There are four types of ships in the game. Big ships, light ships, galleys and transports. Only ships from transport category can carry your troops. Others differ in their speed, number of cannons and hull strength. The more here means the better and each battle is about numbers, hull strength and admiral skills.
Fleets can blockade ports reducing number of overseas income that targeted nation earns. You need Naval Tech level 2 for that. They can also blockade straits forbidding enemy armies to cross them. If you want to get advantage from that, for example holding Danish army on their capital island while you take over their other provinces you have to realize that your blockade doesn't work while your fleet is engaged in battle. That's why it's important to guard not only the strait but also sea sectors adjacent to it. This way your enemy won't be able to move his troops through the blockade after engaging your blocking fleet. Just make sure that others fleets are strong enough to keep him away from your main blockading fleet.
Many people don't know that. You don't have to build large fleets if you have a large colonial empire. You can take over pirate ships that appear next to your lands instead. Just send your fleet to where pirates are sighted (you must have seen such messages) and beat them. After each battle there is a chance that their ship will fall into your hands. A good leader (explorer or admiral recruited during "you have high naval tradition" flag) and strong navy can help here. This way I can get around 10 free Carracks a year in my British Caribbean. If you lack large colonial empire, you can always wage a war with a country who has strong navy and hope to take some of their ships during your battles. Just make sure you win, if you fail they have chances to get your ships.
[edit] Admirals
Very much like generals, but traveling the seas instead, the admirals are a very important factor to be able to get the upper hand, this time on water. Admirals are recruited exactly like generals, costs an amount of money, 1 diplomat and a bit of Naval Tradition. Naval Tradition is acquired from fighting Naval battles and causing/receiving casualties. The more Tradition you have, the better admirals you will have; at around 50% you'll get very able admirals with the ability to completely turn the tide in the Naval struggle. A ruler can never be converted into an admiral.
There is also one special admiral; namely the Explorer. This skilled person is good at, you guessed it, exploring, meaning he is the only admiral able to sail into, and reveal, Terra Incognita sea zones. You will have to have the National Idea "Quest for the New World" to be able to recruit an explorer. Exploring new sea zones will increase your Naval Tradition.
