offensive/defensive power values... bug?

[theone1]

so i'm looking into the battle report and notice that my colonial brigade has the same off/deff power (1!!) as the natives in africa... they also have guns (lolwut?:blink ! how is this possible? i'm taking huge casualties!! how can a modern army get it's ass beaten by tribemen with spears and arrows?? also how is it possible that indigenuos warriors have the same off/deff power as a modernized army?

[montgomeryjlion]

Define modern army....

Anyway, here's a few things to keep in mind:

1. Very few African armies at this point were armed only with spears. They had been trading with Europeans for years and knew how to use rifles, despite the pictures.
2. It's their country. They know the terrain, they live off the land, the climate has minimal effect on them.
3. It's totally alien to your troops, even the colonial and "native" troops. They don't know the terrain, they're tied to their supply system, which is not designed in any way for African conditions, and the climate is a literal killer.

As time advances, new inventions will move you ahead of the natives and enable your troops to handle the climate better.

There was a very good reason why most inland jungle areas were not colonized until the 1880s and later and even then only very lightly.

[theone1]

come on... prussian army vs indigenuos army and i lose every battle despite numerical superiority? not to mention technological superiority... just ridiculous.. i took 22.000 casualties to few hundred captured natives... it doesnt even show how many have i killed...

another bug is that in 1862 the game starts refering to Prussia as Germany, and Sardinia-Piedmont as Italy even tho none of them has united yet...

[montgomeryjlion]

You've obviously never been to Africa.
Anyway, look back through the history and you'll see we've discussed this ad-infinitum.
For the record, I agree with you to a certain point, but the game is the way it is.
It matches the way history should be, but not the way I would do it.

The battle results do indeed seem ridiculous.

Only explanation I can come up with is that it's not only the battle, but also Guerrilla fighting, disease, climate, etc.

By the time you actually fight, 1/3 of your army is down with disease (A not uncommon ratio for European Armies in Africa), 1/3 is low on supply, and all are exhausted. So a African army who knows its way around and can ambush you can easily defeat you.

Or, to quote Judy Garland "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto"

Togo isn't Europe so Prussian armies aren't equipped or able to handle the conditions.

My main issue with the whole thing is when I am defending a coastal fortress, I still get similar results.

That's not right, but I agree that there's no easy way to fix the system.

[theone1]

Well colonial brigades are supposed to be trained specificly for harsh jungle environments and terrain, right?

Great powers armies were better trained and equiped so they should have some kind of advantage anyway. And even tho african tribes might had rifles and guns, they were equiped with obsolete guns and rifles and weren't as efficient soldiers as westerners due to the simple fact that westerners had handled guns and rifles centuries before africans and so developed better tactics.

[montgomeryjlion]

Well colonial brigades are supposed to be trained specificly for harsh jungle environments and terrain, right?

Since Prussia had no colonies in 1850, how were they supposed to train them?
You think you can learn to deal with African conditions in a year or two?

Great powers armies were better trained and equiped so they should have some kind of advantage anyway. And even tho african tribes might had rifles and guns, they were equiped with obsolete guns and rifles and weren't as efficient soldiers as westerners due to the simple fact that westerners had handled guns and rifles centuries before africans and so developed better tactics.

They do have an advantage but it's greatly outweighed by the disadvantages I noted before. Look at how difficult it was to conquer the American West which was done without the massive logistical and climate issues faced in Africa.

Read some history and think about what is really happening.
Can't help you beyond that.

And look at the old threads on the Paradox Forum where we discussed this at length.

[Sir Garnet]

Well colonial brigades are supposed to be trained specificly for harsh jungle environments and terrain, right?

Colonial troops enjoy two benefits - one is substantially reduced attrition due to harsh environments. The other is significant protection from supply decay, which is a killer in places where the safe supply level is at or near the minimum of 5. They are also conveniently sized to be provided with General Supply by colonial structures.

LIke other troops they can have cohesion destroyed by long marches into hard-to-enter regions so they are almost ineffective when engaged by the perky natives.

Great powers armies were better trained and equiped so they should have some kind of advantage anyway.

They were better trained and equipped for what they were trained and equipped for.

And even tho african tribes might had rifles and guns, they were equiped with obsolete guns and rifles and weren't as efficient soldiers as westerners due to the simple fact that westerners had handled guns and rifles centuries before africans and so developed better tactics.

- You're can get just as dead from an obsolete weapon, and more embarrassed
- "Efficiency" is about how well you make use of what you have. This has always varied with troops and leadership, as well as training/experience appropriate to the type of fighting you are doing - some natives could easily have the edge here, including in knowledge of tactics for the circumstances.

- Remember the type of battlefield is important in the game mechanics, including such issues as engagement range and the frontage that can engage, which can deprive firepower and numbers of much of their strength, on top of any cohesion problem.

"

FRONTAGE

The maximum number of elements that can deploy and fight in a battle will vary depending on the region’s terrain. Sub-units unable to deploy will be held in reserve and will relieve weakened frontline troops during the battle.

Note: Fighting in terrain with limited frontage is well suited to delaying tactics. A veteran defending Force in such terrain may even force the enemy to break and cancel their assault, despite their numerical advantage.

The frontage space occupied by a sub-unit depends on its maneuverability on the terrain type.

Example: Regular Units are quite slow in mountainous terrain and take up significant frontage space as a result. Light troops and Partisans, on the other hand, are much faster in mountains and take up less frontage space. This means that, in this particular case, you could engage the enemy with many more Partisans than regular Units. Cavalry have a big frontage advantage over infantry in good weather in clear terrain.

Elements with higher health (hits remaining) are more likely to fight, and those engaged are more likely to be engaged again – while routers are less likely to be engaged again."

and

"Range determines which elements can fire during a round of combat. The initial range of a battle depends on local weather and terrain, which can even the odds for a force facing an opponent with stronger long-range firepower. Troops relying on assault will want to open the battle as close as possible. Troops with superior artillery and long-range firearms will prefer clear terrain on a fair day."

Guess what starting range will be in dense jungle?

[yellow ribbon]

why the hell is everyone so damn eager to seize colonies as soon he has enough transport fleets to ship forces in...
and then nearly always by force... ???

get some idea what we Germans did in name of Prussian expansion. Why did we use excessively the kind of protectorate instead of colonies, we had not the time for living a hundred years in an active battle zone...

so we just placed the forces, enforced contracts and managed some penalty by military expeditions---

22.000 Prussian men on African soil? ROFL...

http://www.savageandsoldier.com/articles/africa/GermanWars.html

and now everybody shall understand the importance of the alt-F3 cards, especially the pacifying card

if to alter anything in this results... give tribes higher level of the ability to hide on certain ground to prevent such silly battles and force people to use the colonial options after they have established military control over the coastal region

second, give us a reliable total number of enemys losses. i do see it so often that own battle losses are not compared to the importance of the gained ground, but only of the number of prisoners in F10.
people need the experience of success, due to the long time scenario of 70 years this was lost partially for average gamers (this ones who spend lots of hours a day with gaming)
they seem to need more than one single pop up screen to show them the number of KIAs... sometimes size does matter

[Sir Garnet]

why the hell is everyone so damn eager to seize colonies as soon he has enough transport fleets to ship forces in...

Because the diplomatic game is not deep enough to keep people occupied?

[montgomeryjlion]

Because the diplomatic game is not deep enough to keep people occupied?

I think that's a very good point although I would make it both the diplomatic AND economic game. It should be a lot tougher and an ongoing issue to keep your economy and trade occupied.

But, IMHO, very frankly, what the game needs is a lot more "flavor", in terms of events. I've proposed, and will propose again that once/if the game is fixed to the point where it has a functioning diplomatic/economic system, to get together a group of modders to add a lot more flavor events.
Volunteers welcome.

[yellow ribbon]

"But, IMHO, very frankly, what the game needs is a lot more "flavor", in terms of events. I've proposed, and will propose again that once/if the game is fixed to the point where it has a functioning diplomatic/economic system, to get together a group of modders to add a lot more flavor events.
Volunteers welcome."

we both would understand us very well

due to work i would be too unreliable for programming, but the day you need a researcher or any external having a view about it... i´ll be there.

*********************

first of all, most complex diplomacy went into the very well implemented colonial actions (what is announced to be working in the next beta /topic: the already influenced areas) and you have the choice to use it, or as mentioned to enforce your will for experiencing short term success with military clumsiness
(for my view, attrition for non-expeditionary / non-colonial forces i too low and major fights should be restricted to sieges of tribal towns, as kind of gunboat policy at land, and european forces fighting each other)

some greater part went into the event based character of the game, and even in the events with rate of chance within a certain time frame and tech-triggered events / modifiers.
the fewest part went into the informations of ledger F1 and the superficial part in F9, while reaction of the target nation is sometimes questionable.

i do understand the point, but HAVE to question it with good reasons

so, its strictly a concept of strategy within a long time frame, lacking true comparative advantages (to unbalanced, but they are working/worked on this) nations could exploit

for a complex diplomatic system there are too few countries and i have a growing fear that this is gonna take a way HOI did... prepare for the action in diplomatic borders and then steamroll until you feel happy.
Is the engine ready to deal with it, i do know no games engine working sufficiently (for my understanding and expectations) in this questions.

that could be funny in scenarios, but in a that ambitious game about 70 years of strategy its a kind of raping minorities on the map and devs in real life at the same time

before a diplomatic system could be used in really complex ways it must be independent of events and under the pressure of economic comparative advantages.
thus not only floating within parities, but totally free.

its also necessary to limit the number of regiments per country to the total population of lets say all five or ten years or to substract for every couple of brigade a division or corps
if not, all strategical points of the game will go down to the river and AI will be exploited for not reacting proper against mounting economic and military numbers in few areas.
anyway, it would destroy the event character

the alternative is a that complex diplomatic system where far more events and in-case-of-events are implemented.
And thats truly a point for modding after they earned their lot with the stable game... (its not meant as critic, my honest opinion is that the EBIT should truly be for the game development and not for any active and devoted community)

however, as above "occupied time" is mentioned it not a forgone conclusion, that the way the diplomatic action is experienced by gamers i correlated to their wish to have tremendous success as soon as possible and not after 1600 turns... what would be a pity for this genre

i just ponder how that people bought a more than 1600 turns taking strategy game.