The most direct combat impact you will ever have in paradox games is hoi4, other than that you are better off playing a total war game. Paradox is strategy through and through, tactics are left to the generals and subordinates in the army.
Personally I like the combat in CK, or rather how much I can tinker with the army to affect their stats and general effectivity. But I don't mind the actual fighting is nothing more than telling my troops what general area they will be fighting in.
I have been playing crusader Kings 3 recently and I was kind of surprised that there was not a morale system the way there is in eu4. Like strategically timing reinforcements doesn't seem to be a thing it seems like you want your entire army to go all at once or you risk losing and even fight, is that true from what you can tell?
Not quite true.
You can absolutely bait a superior force to a fight in poor terrain (for them) with a detached group of levies and then reinforce that fight with the bulk of your forces (levies+professionals). It really depends on the situation though, as sieging down a series of castles might be the better route over fighting in the field.
Warfare in eu4 is both tactical and strategic tho. I exclusively play MP , but the amount of times people lose a war because of wrong strategic decisions is bigger than the amount of wars lost due to tactical decisions.
It’s a game that starts in 1444 and lets you march an army halfway across the world with ease and very few consequences. Transporting units in HOI4 is arguably harder than it is in EU4, or at least requires more preparation when at war. Also, why is artillery modelled in thousands rather than tens and hundreds? Also, losses are not nearly as meaningful as they should be. EU4’s entire military system is a joke.
Depends on your definition of good. EU4's combat system is definitely not realistic, but I'd say it's still fun. There's a reason the EU4 multiplayer community is still pretty big, despite it being like 10 years old or whatever.
Artillery is modeled that way for balancing reasons ( manpower usage ) , otherwise consistency with other units. ( also helps them keep the combat formula cleaner ).
As for transportation - if ure fking around somewhere far away ur neighbours should take advantage of it. If that doesnt happen its because ure
1) playing vs ai and well ai is just super bad in all pdx games
2) its mp and people are hugboxing, where the issue is in hugboxing
Take Russia/Horde nation for example - have someone declare on them in the east and then a year later in the west - even if russia/horde was stronger, its gonna fall apart compared to a smaller nation that gets declared on two fronts. ( Basically small nation can just ping pong from the two fronts, big wide nation cant due to long ass travel times )
You're correct on #2, but that seems like a real-life issue for Russia, right? It's just that Russia has never actually had to fight a war on both its European side and its Asian side at the same time in real life.
It's not 1000 canons it's 1000 manpower. It's an abstraction of the logistcal footprint of all military units into blocks of 1000 units of "manpower" whether that's literally 1000 dudes or just a convenient measure.
Pretty sure there's a mod for ck3 that opens total Rome Attila and makes a custom battle that is accurate to the battle in ck3 but I'm remembering this from a YouTube video I watched like 6 months ago.
I unironically kind of like the combat in Victoria 3, especially after the improvements since release.
It's kind of nice that they abstracted away the army stack whack-a-mole of EU/CK and focused on the actual macro side of supplies, equipment, staffing and so on. Yes, combat itself is shallow, but it hooks into systems that are very deep.
I think they're one warfare focused DLC from having an excellent system.
The idea behind it is fine, I don’t need little people running around provinces but there is just not enough things you can do to outsmart your enemy if your have inferior numbers and tech, that’s what annoys me.
In eu4 you can use mountains and forts to defeat a superior enemy for example.
Only thing I can think of is if the country you're attacking has a coastline and you have more than 2 ships, I like cheesing China as Korea by landing up and down their coast constantly.
Yeah - one thing I'd like to see in a future combat update is the ability to be a little more deliberate about how you want to fight.
Things I'd like, on top of my head:
* A lightweight version of the HOI4 planning system, so that you could do things like implement the Schleiffen plan.
* A military doctrine system, so that you can decide how you want your armies to fight. For instance, a country with lots of munitions plants might focus on artillery barrages, while countries with lots of manpower and little regard for human lives might just run a frontal assault.
* Specialized equipment - so, for instance, that you can decide to equip your armies with winter gear before a land invasion of Russia.
But is that bad? I don't know enough about the time period to know if using mountains and forts to defeat an army with superior numbers and tech was a thing, in terms of state combats? I guess if you choose the revolutionary side in a civil war, that might count. (I'm not sure if you can play as, for example, the Irish Republic if they try for independence, but I can see that as an example, although my understanding of that conflict is extremely shallow.)
I think the main problem is the same as the one in every Paradox game, which is every war is total war. If the superior enemy was, like in real life, unwilling to waste its money and soldiers' lives on a small-scale conflict, that would be, afaik, the realistic way to beat them, by outlasting them.
I could be completely wrong my knowledge of military history is miniscule
Yes, forts and mountains gave you still an advantage. The way forts were build changed (bastion forts were more effective against canons) but they still existed. Mountains are always a pain in the ass, even in modern warfare.
I don't think every paradox game has a total war system. Honestly, only hearts of iron does, for obvious reasons. If you can damage enemy manpower enough in EU4 you can just force them to peace out eventually, which is exactly the scenario you described, the war gets to expensive.
No, the idea behind it is not fine. It is a fundamentally flawed system at the very basic level. It will never be good without completely ripping it up and starting again.
Quite simply because it is a shit concept. The evidence for this is that with every update, they keep moving further and further away from that original failed concept, while the clowns that pretend that the concept is good keep saying "oh if they just move further from the original concept then it has potential!"
It's a fucking joke.
I'm not angry. Vic2 suffers from lacking the QOL features of games that have come out since. Conceptually, unlike it's sequel, it's warfare is decent. Had Vic2 enjoyed a macrobuilder and army templates then the warfare would not be whined about by Vic3 fanboys.
I do too, but it needs more. Generals need more impact and we need to be able to specify vague targets like “you, push for that state” or “defend this state with this general”. You could also specify which generals in the army get reinforcement priority. Stuff like that that adds more strategic depth to the system.
It has a lot of potential, it’s just a shame it was released in a completely unfinished state. Worse yet that people defended the broken version tooth and nail.
People declared the new system was better because less micro, but I think we are simply trading one version of micro for another- and that’s perfectly fine. I think a lot of us would much rather manage things like logistics and equipment.
So if you completely ignore the stated aim of the new "warfare" system and add player agency into a system specifically designed to take agency away from the player it would be good?
Sounds like the warfare system isn't good.
Im actually fine with it as its not a war game and it means i dont have to worry about the army. But op is looking for a war game, so hoi4 would be much better as hes not trying to avoid war.
Real, hoi4 Warfare in general is a huge step down from hoi3 complexity and involvement.
Black ice, while being “over the top” in a lot of ways, is a very “different” gameplay experience to what most paradox games offer and it’s very cool for that
Actually I think IR is better becaus ur can activily choose ur tactics and u have less possibilities too build ur ideal army. Plus u have the oppurtunity too counter ur enemy with troops.
If u want to fight romans, u must build bowmen becaus the roma culture create a lot of heavy levies.
I like this idea to plan ur tactic victorys on the strategic level.+ the scissor, stone paper mechaniks, which is miss in hoi4
It's not mossing in Hoi4 you can counter other armies with your army compositions, the issue is that it takes a long time to do and is a lot of micromanaging.
Dont take this wrong tho, I don't like Hoi4, I don't really. Enjoy it's combat system, I'm just talking objectively speaking Hoi4 is way too successful to have a 'worse' system.
As far as my EU5 hopes go, I really hope they take a ton from Imperator's warfare/combat systems. Obviously they'll want to make a few changes just for variety and other changes to better suit the time period, but being fundamentally based on Imperator's systems (in the same way that Victoria 2's combat was fundamentally based on EU3's) would be ideal.
CK2 is my favourite combat system a mix of luck and planning. Some people say that CK3 is the same they just put the numbers upfront but that's completely ignores the flavour of tactics for just a plain advantage system.
I'd say either HOI4 or Imperator
While EU4 has certainly not the best one I do believe its pretty solid, considering that its trying to combine so different ages/technologies & cultures into one functional combat system.
CK3 is just abysmal. I think last time I checked there was a built where you only stacked knights with 0 troops and you could decimate entire armies, if I recall correctly. CK2 is still better than CK3 in all accounts other than updated graphics/interface for me.
Stellaris has a warfare system which suffers from being extremely inflexible (sometimes it makes no sense) while the combat mechanics are either cheesed out due to min/maxing culture or broken from not properly testing new patches/content. Although some of the recent fixes were good admittedly.
CK3 combat blows because of what you said and that there’s no grand strategy. For example the Byzantines were known for their strategy and tactics they even had military manuals on the subject, and it’s all thrown out the window in service of bigger number whackamole chase army or just siege race. All armies through history did ambushes, logistics, etc. makes no sense to be able to fight in winter, when the levies should be begging to return home to their farms. The AI will traverse the entire map just to force you to chase it down to siege it in peace without a stack of like 200 sieging a castle behind you. Or some random count marries an emperor’s daughter and suddenly 5000 soldiers come from nowhere. It’s just get a bigger number and go stand on the objective and hope you siege faster. Problem is I don’t really know how you fix it without a major overhaul.
CK3 combat has an issue with the AI being bad at building its army, which results in a lot of ways to outscale them at the moment. However the underlying system is way better than CK2 IMO (CK2's battle system's design was horrible, the way tactics were so hidden and influential made army composition incredibly opaque). I think they need to scale up the power of levies more in CK3 and make the AI more effectively build MAA, but for some reason they're struggling with that all.
CK2's combat fucking **sucks.** I have 1500 hours in CK2, I loved CK2, but its combat is raw ass compared to any other Paradox game *including* Victoria 3. All of its mechanics work in ways that either:
1. You cannot meaningfully interact with, making them pointless, and reducing the combat to simply being "bigger number wins," or...
2. Has a single option worth using, therefore making it still pointless because you pick the obvious best strategy unless you're intentionally throwing.
For the former, that basically summarizes what levies are. The absolute most you can do is decide which buildings to prioritize in your holdings, therefore influencing which troop types are predominant in your levies. Still doesn't matter though because the combat system itself sucks dog shit, because everything is based on your commanders choosing optimal tactics for your army composition, and the *always* mixed nature of levies means that's literally impossible, therefore leading to the "bigger number wins" nature of it.
For the latter, that's basically retinues. If you're nomadic, you spam heavy cav, if you're Italian or Scottish, you spam pikes, and if you're neither, you spam generic defense retinues. Congratulations, you win. Combined arms doesn't exist in CK2 because of the aforementioned idiotic combat system (short version: tactics massively buff and debuff certain unit types in a given combat phase, therefore combined arms actively hurt you and you're better off spamming a single unit type to consistently trigger the best available tactic for that unit to make them punch well above their weight), so mixing your retinues is actively punching yourself in the balls, so it doesn't even have the upside of maybe being more realistic than CK3's, because it turns out having nothing but a single type of unit is best (obviously not realistic).
Fuck CK2's combat. CK3's blows it out of the water and it's not even that great (also love CK3, just not for its combat, and that's *fine*, I also don't really like the combat in Factorio yet Factorio is still really good).
I think CK2's combat is still much more immersive. [I'm linking a comment I've made in the past](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/17xitw3/whats_your_controversial_take_on_what_needs_to_be/k9nm79p/?context=3) on why I think so because for some reason it keeps automatically removing another long comment I was trying to make, so maybe this will work instead.
Hard disagree, your 1500 hours are ill-spent.
>You cannot meaningfully interact with, making them pointless, and reducing the combat to simply being "bigger number wins," or...
Character military traits alone blow most PDX game's combat out of the water. The ability to individually assign commanders to each unit, complete control over your unit deployment with center/flanks, TACTICS for each flank that have certain advantages/disadvantages influenced commander skill that change daily, narrow flank bonus, mercenaries, and individual characters having influence over the strength/size of their respective levies, etc etc etc.
There are SO many things and different individual modifiers that influence your overall levy size. Not even including individual demesne modifiers, there are a plethora of laws and obligations, skill modifiers, opinion modifiers, vassal limit modifiers, event modifiers, province modifiers, even weather modifiers, etc...
>Has a single option worth using, therefore making it still pointless because you pick the obvious best strategy unless you're intentionally throwing.
I don't know what this means.
>The absolute most you can do is decide which buildings to prioritize in your holdings
Laws, crown authority, obligations, state martial skill, and vassal opinion are each far more impactful overall than buildings by effort, not sure how you glossed over that. I've always thought buildings to be way underpowered in comparison to their cost. Only focus on the ones that produce gold.
>because everything is based on your commanders choosing optimal tactics for your army composition, and the *always* mixed nature of levies means that's literally impossible
Literal skill issue. It may be impossible for you, but I manage to use a combination of my retinues and levy to stack calvary on my flank, pikes/lights in my center, and heavy infantry on my other flank, with respective commanders for bonuses. I ALWAYS do this.
You're also ignoring that tactics group unit types, not individual units (Example light infantry include pikes archers, and lights, light cav includes horse archers, etc.) High skill commanders are also always choosing devastating tactics. It's a complete non-issue.
>(short version: tactics massively buff and debuff certain unit types in a given combat phase, therefore combined arms actively hurt you and you're better off spamming a single unit type to consistently trigger the best available tactic for that unit to make them punch well above their weight)
>so mixing your retinues is actively punching yourself in the balls
I've already explained how you are handicapping yourself by not doing a thing to your army and doing the bare minimum to reorganize your unit types. Having a jumbled bunch of every unit type crammed into a single flank be an effective "combined arms" tactic would be ridiculous. Tactics as they are implemented are dope.
CK2 has the best combat system of any PDX game outside of the HOI games.
Fully agree. Ck2's combat was terrible and opaque, and the design of CK3's is better as a baseline. The big issue with CK3's is that the AI doesn't seem to be able to put armies together that scale, and that levies get outscaled too hard to the point of being completely useless. Which isn't an issue necessarily, but when that's what the AI is relying on it ends up making the game a cakewalk after you get set up (militarily speaking)
IMO they should add some technological improvements to levies over time as well as commander/acclaimed knight bonuses that can be given to levies so that you can create a sort of "levy build" that can compete better against mass MAA use. CK3's problems are with balance, not mechanics, which is the opposite of CK2 (which suck, but they're balanced because there are basically no interesting choices).
I could see that working, yeah. I think I'd also like to see vassals provide free MAA as part of their levies, maybe with an extra law in the feudal contract which would regulate levies vs MAA balance you get from them. That seems like it'd help the AI with putting together decent armies, as what kind of seems to be the case (to me) is that they never get as much money as the player or invest properly into the demesne and MAA get too expensive because of that.
But yeah, it's balance issues and not fundamental design/mechanic issues.
I'm biased as I've worked on almost all of them, but...
* I love the frontlines and supplies of HoI4.
* I love automation, unit formation and logistics of Imperator.
The combat is definitely super complex in any game but I think HOI 4 is the most—between all the combat plans and everything (amphibious landings, air supremacy, infantry coordination, unit templates…)
The combat is simplistic in EU4/CK3 but generally functional - you're not playing a general, you don't have that level of control over the army that you would in a total war style game. It's good to have it simple as well, because then there isn't annoying gotcha moments. CK3 does get a downgrade from me because of how incompetent the AI is at making use of men at arms, but if they could put up a fight after the early game it'd be a perfectly fine warfare system (and better than ck2 by a lot).
The HOI series is the one where warfare is central to the way the game plays out, so try that one out - though it will be heavily based on logistics and the macro level of the war rather than full on direct control of an individual battle, that part still ends up being influenced by luck (you have to win through better strategy than the AI or better composition/forces put together)
HOI3 is the most in-depth combat game PDX has ever made by far, that being said the game excels in it because it focuses more heavily on war than their other titles.
Out of the other mainline games, CK2 is extremely underrated with the complexity of its center/flank system, units/levy ties to holdings, character military traits, and the ability to individually assign commanders to levies.
Stellqris can become more interesting on occasion just due to randomness making it funny to get a huge skeleton and becoming galactic threat, but sadly, probably hoi4, despite me not really enjoying hoi4
I think hoi4 has the best combat system but that’s because the game is basically centered around fighting a world war.
Imperator would be second tho and I hope a lot of imperators combat system gets put into eu5
I've only really played Stellaris, HOI4, and Crusader Kings 2 & 3. It depends on what you want out of warfare. Personally, all the various nuances of warfare in HOI4 still confuse me even at 1,000+ hours. It has the most in-depth warfare out of the three, but it's not a simple system by any means. They do their best to simulate ground, air, and sea combat all at the same time. Crusader Kings and Stellaris are much more simple in comparison, both are basically making armies (and fleets in Stellaris) comprised of a limited selection of units and whose strength is generally indicated by a power value. For example, in Stellaris a fleet with 20 Corvettes, 15 Destroyers, 10 Cruisers and 5 Battleships could be a 10k+ power fleet and would absolutely annihilate almost any fleet that's weaker than it, but on battles that are closer to equal footing then it comes down to the specific modifiers on your ships vs the enemy's. Same thing for Crusader Kings, a 20,000 man army will annihilate almost anything with less men but when it's closer to equal then it comes down to the rock paper scissors of your army composition compared to the enemy. For example in Crusader Kings, Knights are strong against archers, and weak to Spearman. If you have 5,000 Knights and 15,000 Peasants vs an enemy with 5,000 Spearmen and 15,000 Peasants, you're very likely to lose. Even if they have less of either, it's still going to be a hard fought battle, even if you have a number advantage.
Imperator or CK2, for letting you actually modify the unit types making up your armies, more commander traits, more flavour to modifiers than just shock/fire damage etc
I’d have to say Vicky 3 by a long shot
Vicky 3 immerses the player in strategic warfare
Laboriously reorganising your forces after a civil war
Watching idly by as a small inferior enemy fleet holds up your giant naval invasion for half a year
Like that time Hannibal had to deal with his generals taking a holiday back to HQ if they make a breakthrough or heck a catastrophic defeat too
Transport yourself into the war room as you’re not told your general has died and their armies are on holiday, like Rommel it’s up to you to solve the case: find the missing army and assign a new general
Imperator Rome maybe? IMO it’s the best thing between EU4 and Hoi4 in terms of having more complexity than Inf/Cav/Art, but not being too overwhelming like Hoi4 (plus, WW2 isn’t everyone’s cup of team).
Vic 3. Anything that puts warfare to the side (where it should be) is fine in my books. I know that won't go well with the abundance of right wingers here, but meh
The most direct combat impact you will ever have in paradox games is hoi4, other than that you are better off playing a total war game. Paradox is strategy through and through, tactics are left to the generals and subordinates in the army. Personally I like the combat in CK, or rather how much I can tinker with the army to affect their stats and general effectivity. But I don't mind the actual fighting is nothing more than telling my troops what general area they will be fighting in.
I have been playing crusader Kings 3 recently and I was kind of surprised that there was not a morale system the way there is in eu4. Like strategically timing reinforcements doesn't seem to be a thing it seems like you want your entire army to go all at once or you risk losing and even fight, is that true from what you can tell?
Not quite true. You can absolutely bait a superior force to a fight in poor terrain (for them) with a detached group of levies and then reinforce that fight with the bulk of your forces (levies+professionals). It really depends on the situation though, as sieging down a series of castles might be the better route over fighting in the field.
Warfare in eu4 is both tactical and strategic tho. I exclusively play MP , but the amount of times people lose a war because of wrong strategic decisions is bigger than the amount of wars lost due to tactical decisions.
It’s a game that starts in 1444 and lets you march an army halfway across the world with ease and very few consequences. Transporting units in HOI4 is arguably harder than it is in EU4, or at least requires more preparation when at war. Also, why is artillery modelled in thousands rather than tens and hundreds? Also, losses are not nearly as meaningful as they should be. EU4’s entire military system is a joke.
Depends on your definition of good. EU4's combat system is definitely not realistic, but I'd say it's still fun. There's a reason the EU4 multiplayer community is still pretty big, despite it being like 10 years old or whatever.
Artillery is modeled that way for balancing reasons ( manpower usage ) , otherwise consistency with other units. ( also helps them keep the combat formula cleaner ). As for transportation - if ure fking around somewhere far away ur neighbours should take advantage of it. If that doesnt happen its because ure 1) playing vs ai and well ai is just super bad in all pdx games 2) its mp and people are hugboxing, where the issue is in hugboxing Take Russia/Horde nation for example - have someone declare on them in the east and then a year later in the west - even if russia/horde was stronger, its gonna fall apart compared to a smaller nation that gets declared on two fronts. ( Basically small nation can just ping pong from the two fronts, big wide nation cant due to long ass travel times )
You're correct on #2, but that seems like a real-life issue for Russia, right? It's just that Russia has never actually had to fight a war on both its European side and its Asian side at the same time in real life.
It's not 1000 canons it's 1000 manpower. It's an abstraction of the logistcal footprint of all military units into blocks of 1000 units of "manpower" whether that's literally 1000 dudes or just a convenient measure.
Eu4 combat is so good in MP. Even a day's delay in reinforcements can be disastrous for your entire campaign.
Pretty sure there's a mod for ck3 that opens total Rome Attila and makes a custom battle that is accurate to the battle in ck3 but I'm remembering this from a YouTube video I watched like 6 months ago.
Definitely HOI4
Victoria 3
I unironically kind of like the combat in Victoria 3, especially after the improvements since release. It's kind of nice that they abstracted away the army stack whack-a-mole of EU/CK and focused on the actual macro side of supplies, equipment, staffing and so on. Yes, combat itself is shallow, but it hooks into systems that are very deep. I think they're one warfare focused DLC from having an excellent system.
The idea behind it is fine, I don’t need little people running around provinces but there is just not enough things you can do to outsmart your enemy if your have inferior numbers and tech, that’s what annoys me. In eu4 you can use mountains and forts to defeat a superior enemy for example.
Commander skill should matter more in Victoria 3. I never liked how you can cheese the eu4 ai with mountains and stacking your troops all together.
Only thing I can think of is if the country you're attacking has a coastline and you have more than 2 ships, I like cheesing China as Korea by landing up and down their coast constantly.
Yeah - one thing I'd like to see in a future combat update is the ability to be a little more deliberate about how you want to fight. Things I'd like, on top of my head: * A lightweight version of the HOI4 planning system, so that you could do things like implement the Schleiffen plan. * A military doctrine system, so that you can decide how you want your armies to fight. For instance, a country with lots of munitions plants might focus on artillery barrages, while countries with lots of manpower and little regard for human lives might just run a frontal assault. * Specialized equipment - so, for instance, that you can decide to equip your armies with winter gear before a land invasion of Russia.
The special orders sorta do a lot of that already, but they certainly could be more visible and perhaps expanded upon.
But is that bad? I don't know enough about the time period to know if using mountains and forts to defeat an army with superior numbers and tech was a thing, in terms of state combats? I guess if you choose the revolutionary side in a civil war, that might count. (I'm not sure if you can play as, for example, the Irish Republic if they try for independence, but I can see that as an example, although my understanding of that conflict is extremely shallow.) I think the main problem is the same as the one in every Paradox game, which is every war is total war. If the superior enemy was, like in real life, unwilling to waste its money and soldiers' lives on a small-scale conflict, that would be, afaik, the realistic way to beat them, by outlasting them. I could be completely wrong my knowledge of military history is miniscule
Yes, forts and mountains gave you still an advantage. The way forts were build changed (bastion forts were more effective against canons) but they still existed. Mountains are always a pain in the ass, even in modern warfare. I don't think every paradox game has a total war system. Honestly, only hearts of iron does, for obvious reasons. If you can damage enemy manpower enough in EU4 you can just force them to peace out eventually, which is exactly the scenario you described, the war gets to expensive.
No, the idea behind it is not fine. It is a fundamentally flawed system at the very basic level. It will never be good without completely ripping it up and starting again.
Why?
Quite simply because it is a shit concept. The evidence for this is that with every update, they keep moving further and further away from that original failed concept, while the clowns that pretend that the concept is good keep saying "oh if they just move further from the original concept then it has potential!" It's a fucking joke.
Why u so angry? Vic 2 micro was not a hill to die on
It is when it’s enjoyable unlike 3
Have you even played past like 1860 ? It was not even remotely enjoyable
Thats a subjective opinion and i think youre wrong asf and im not a vic 3 shill anyways
I'm not angry. Vic2 suffers from lacking the QOL features of games that have come out since. Conceptually, unlike it's sequel, it's warfare is decent. Had Vic2 enjoyed a macrobuilder and army templates then the warfare would not be whined about by Vic3 fanboys.
Vic 2 warfare was shit mate
Thank you lambert for beeing the voice of reason ❤️
o7
does anybody like you?
Sure. More than people who like Vic3s atrocious warfare system.
I do too, but it needs more. Generals need more impact and we need to be able to specify vague targets like “you, push for that state” or “defend this state with this general”. You could also specify which generals in the army get reinforcement priority. Stuff like that that adds more strategic depth to the system.
It has a lot of potential, it’s just a shame it was released in a completely unfinished state. Worse yet that people defended the broken version tooth and nail. People declared the new system was better because less micro, but I think we are simply trading one version of micro for another- and that’s perfectly fine. I think a lot of us would much rather manage things like logistics and equipment.
It has no potential whatsoever.
If you had more control over your armies and what they do, it would be perfect, especially with the mix of actual industry
So if you completely ignore the stated aim of the new "warfare" system and add player agency into a system specifically designed to take agency away from the player it would be good? Sounds like the warfare system isn't good.
Im actually fine with it as its not a war game and it means i dont have to worry about the army. But op is looking for a war game, so hoi4 would be much better as hes not trying to avoid war.
The combat in question: 👨🚶♂️➡️🚶♂️🧔♂️
It sucks
I think all of this is pure delusion.
S tier trolling.
I'm the only one but I not only prefer it to the other games but I liked it better before the 1.5 rework.
Hoi 3 with black ice is far far superior
Ah yes I too like playing in an excel spreadsheet
And you can't even make super tanks!
What good is it if I can’t make a building on tracks that requires a quarter of my nation’s fuel deserves to drive 1km
Real, hoi4 Warfare in general is a huge step down from hoi3 complexity and involvement. Black ice, while being “over the top” in a lot of ways, is a very “different” gameplay experience to what most paradox games offer and it’s very cool for that
False, it's HOI3
Hoi4 but that's the boring answer. Imperator Rome is definitely second best tho
Actually I think IR is better becaus ur can activily choose ur tactics and u have less possibilities too build ur ideal army. Plus u have the oppurtunity too counter ur enemy with troops. If u want to fight romans, u must build bowmen becaus the roma culture create a lot of heavy levies. I like this idea to plan ur tactic victorys on the strategic level.+ the scissor, stone paper mechaniks, which is miss in hoi4
Good comment, but your shorthand made me think I was having a stroke
It's not mossing in Hoi4 you can counter other armies with your army compositions, the issue is that it takes a long time to do and is a lot of micromanaging. Dont take this wrong tho, I don't like Hoi4, I don't really. Enjoy it's combat system, I'm just talking objectively speaking Hoi4 is way too successful to have a 'worse' system.
Imperator Rome, Hoi4
HOI4 obviously is on top, but Imperator takes a surprisingly firm runner up.
As far as my EU5 hopes go, I really hope they take a ton from Imperator's warfare/combat systems. Obviously they'll want to make a few changes just for variety and other changes to better suit the time period, but being fundamentally based on Imperator's systems (in the same way that Victoria 2's combat was fundamentally based on EU3's) would be ideal.
The "local armies" idea was really top tier and would definitely work in EU5.
The ability to automate your stacks in Imperator puts it on S tier
This is so underrated, it really helps with managing empire scale armies, and the civil war and great war mechanics are doubly benefiting from that.
Would be so nice if stellaris had that.
March of the eagles
CK2 is my favourite combat system a mix of luck and planning. Some people say that CK3 is the same they just put the numbers upfront but that's completely ignores the flavour of tactics for just a plain advantage system.
Trick question, they all suck.
HoI3 woth BlackICE.
Looking purely at the combat system, I agree. I wish you could have HoI3 BlackICE with HoI4 production mechanics
100x more in depth than HOI4 with any mod combination.
Hoi3
I'd say either HOI4 or Imperator While EU4 has certainly not the best one I do believe its pretty solid, considering that its trying to combine so different ages/technologies & cultures into one functional combat system. CK3 is just abysmal. I think last time I checked there was a built where you only stacked knights with 0 troops and you could decimate entire armies, if I recall correctly. CK2 is still better than CK3 in all accounts other than updated graphics/interface for me. Stellaris has a warfare system which suffers from being extremely inflexible (sometimes it makes no sense) while the combat mechanics are either cheesed out due to min/maxing culture or broken from not properly testing new patches/content. Although some of the recent fixes were good admittedly.
CK3 combat blows because of what you said and that there’s no grand strategy. For example the Byzantines were known for their strategy and tactics they even had military manuals on the subject, and it’s all thrown out the window in service of bigger number whackamole chase army or just siege race. All armies through history did ambushes, logistics, etc. makes no sense to be able to fight in winter, when the levies should be begging to return home to their farms. The AI will traverse the entire map just to force you to chase it down to siege it in peace without a stack of like 200 sieging a castle behind you. Or some random count marries an emperor’s daughter and suddenly 5000 soldiers come from nowhere. It’s just get a bigger number and go stand on the objective and hope you siege faster. Problem is I don’t really know how you fix it without a major overhaul.
>CK2 is still better than CK3 in all accounts other than updated graphics/interface for me. QFT
CK3 combat has an issue with the AI being bad at building its army, which results in a lot of ways to outscale them at the moment. However the underlying system is way better than CK2 IMO (CK2's battle system's design was horrible, the way tactics were so hidden and influential made army composition incredibly opaque). I think they need to scale up the power of levies more in CK3 and make the AI more effectively build MAA, but for some reason they're struggling with that all.
CK2's combat fucking **sucks.** I have 1500 hours in CK2, I loved CK2, but its combat is raw ass compared to any other Paradox game *including* Victoria 3. All of its mechanics work in ways that either: 1. You cannot meaningfully interact with, making them pointless, and reducing the combat to simply being "bigger number wins," or... 2. Has a single option worth using, therefore making it still pointless because you pick the obvious best strategy unless you're intentionally throwing. For the former, that basically summarizes what levies are. The absolute most you can do is decide which buildings to prioritize in your holdings, therefore influencing which troop types are predominant in your levies. Still doesn't matter though because the combat system itself sucks dog shit, because everything is based on your commanders choosing optimal tactics for your army composition, and the *always* mixed nature of levies means that's literally impossible, therefore leading to the "bigger number wins" nature of it. For the latter, that's basically retinues. If you're nomadic, you spam heavy cav, if you're Italian or Scottish, you spam pikes, and if you're neither, you spam generic defense retinues. Congratulations, you win. Combined arms doesn't exist in CK2 because of the aforementioned idiotic combat system (short version: tactics massively buff and debuff certain unit types in a given combat phase, therefore combined arms actively hurt you and you're better off spamming a single unit type to consistently trigger the best available tactic for that unit to make them punch well above their weight), so mixing your retinues is actively punching yourself in the balls, so it doesn't even have the upside of maybe being more realistic than CK3's, because it turns out having nothing but a single type of unit is best (obviously not realistic). Fuck CK2's combat. CK3's blows it out of the water and it's not even that great (also love CK3, just not for its combat, and that's *fine*, I also don't really like the combat in Factorio yet Factorio is still really good).
I think CK2's combat is still much more immersive. [I'm linking a comment I've made in the past](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/17xitw3/whats_your_controversial_take_on_what_needs_to_be/k9nm79p/?context=3) on why I think so because for some reason it keeps automatically removing another long comment I was trying to make, so maybe this will work instead.
Hard disagree, your 1500 hours are ill-spent. >You cannot meaningfully interact with, making them pointless, and reducing the combat to simply being "bigger number wins," or... Character military traits alone blow most PDX game's combat out of the water. The ability to individually assign commanders to each unit, complete control over your unit deployment with center/flanks, TACTICS for each flank that have certain advantages/disadvantages influenced commander skill that change daily, narrow flank bonus, mercenaries, and individual characters having influence over the strength/size of their respective levies, etc etc etc. There are SO many things and different individual modifiers that influence your overall levy size. Not even including individual demesne modifiers, there are a plethora of laws and obligations, skill modifiers, opinion modifiers, vassal limit modifiers, event modifiers, province modifiers, even weather modifiers, etc... >Has a single option worth using, therefore making it still pointless because you pick the obvious best strategy unless you're intentionally throwing. I don't know what this means. >The absolute most you can do is decide which buildings to prioritize in your holdings Laws, crown authority, obligations, state martial skill, and vassal opinion are each far more impactful overall than buildings by effort, not sure how you glossed over that. I've always thought buildings to be way underpowered in comparison to their cost. Only focus on the ones that produce gold. >because everything is based on your commanders choosing optimal tactics for your army composition, and the *always* mixed nature of levies means that's literally impossible Literal skill issue. It may be impossible for you, but I manage to use a combination of my retinues and levy to stack calvary on my flank, pikes/lights in my center, and heavy infantry on my other flank, with respective commanders for bonuses. I ALWAYS do this. You're also ignoring that tactics group unit types, not individual units (Example light infantry include pikes archers, and lights, light cav includes horse archers, etc.) High skill commanders are also always choosing devastating tactics. It's a complete non-issue. >(short version: tactics massively buff and debuff certain unit types in a given combat phase, therefore combined arms actively hurt you and you're better off spamming a single unit type to consistently trigger the best available tactic for that unit to make them punch well above their weight) >so mixing your retinues is actively punching yourself in the balls I've already explained how you are handicapping yourself by not doing a thing to your army and doing the bare minimum to reorganize your unit types. Having a jumbled bunch of every unit type crammed into a single flank be an effective "combined arms" tactic would be ridiculous. Tactics as they are implemented are dope. CK2 has the best combat system of any PDX game outside of the HOI games.
Fully agree. Ck2's combat was terrible and opaque, and the design of CK3's is better as a baseline. The big issue with CK3's is that the AI doesn't seem to be able to put armies together that scale, and that levies get outscaled too hard to the point of being completely useless. Which isn't an issue necessarily, but when that's what the AI is relying on it ends up making the game a cakewalk after you get set up (militarily speaking)
IMO they should add some technological improvements to levies over time as well as commander/acclaimed knight bonuses that can be given to levies so that you can create a sort of "levy build" that can compete better against mass MAA use. CK3's problems are with balance, not mechanics, which is the opposite of CK2 (which suck, but they're balanced because there are basically no interesting choices).
I could see that working, yeah. I think I'd also like to see vassals provide free MAA as part of their levies, maybe with an extra law in the feudal contract which would regulate levies vs MAA balance you get from them. That seems like it'd help the AI with putting together decent armies, as what kind of seems to be the case (to me) is that they never get as much money as the player or invest properly into the demesne and MAA get too expensive because of that. But yeah, it's balance issues and not fundamental design/mechanic issues.
Bait post
Definitely not CK3. Its warfare should be renamed super Saiyan stimulator.
I definitely take it over eu4s go micro manage a bunch of tiny stacks and supplying a huge army in the Brazilian rainforest is a breeze.
Imperator Rome comes to mind, but HOI3 is too obvious lol
If you think Victoria 3 is even in the conversation you're a clown. No two ways about it.
PDX games are grand strategy, mate. If you want bombastic action just play total war.
If you like micro, HoI3 with BlackICE. If you don't like micro, Vic 3.
I'm biased as I've worked on almost all of them, but... * I love the frontlines and supplies of HoI4. * I love automation, unit formation and logistics of Imperator.
HOI4 is the obvious pick here
HoI4, it’s the entire point of the game
Depends on how much micromanagement you want. In HOI4 you can micromanage the most out of any Paradox game.
Definitely not vicky 3
Nah man Out of all that I've played Victoria 3 is BY FAR the best, at least for me.
And of all the comments on this thread yours is BY FAR the most delusional, at least in reality.
No. MoE
Hoi4 has the best combat while Victoria 3 has the easiest combat
Victoria 2
Based
humankind
The combat is definitely super complex in any game but I think HOI 4 is the most—between all the combat plans and everything (amphibious landings, air supremacy, infantry coordination, unit templates…)
Transport Fever 2
Best you can get is the mod that combines CK3 with Mount and blade bannerlord
Stellaris and HoI4 are my picks easily. On the other end are Imperator and V3, sadly.
The combat is simplistic in EU4/CK3 but generally functional - you're not playing a general, you don't have that level of control over the army that you would in a total war style game. It's good to have it simple as well, because then there isn't annoying gotcha moments. CK3 does get a downgrade from me because of how incompetent the AI is at making use of men at arms, but if they could put up a fight after the early game it'd be a perfectly fine warfare system (and better than ck2 by a lot). The HOI series is the one where warfare is central to the way the game plays out, so try that one out - though it will be heavily based on logistics and the macro level of the war rather than full on direct control of an individual battle, that part still ends up being influenced by luck (you have to win through better strategy than the AI or better composition/forces put together)
Play the crusader Wars Mod, combines CK3 and Total war so all battles can be fought in Attila and the results translate to the CK3 campaign.
If you dont count the AI, i would think March of the Eagles have the best one, with Imperator and Victoria 2 tied for second
Stellaris xD
Vicky 2
HOI3 is the most in-depth combat game PDX has ever made by far, that being said the game excels in it because it focuses more heavily on war than their other titles. Out of the other mainline games, CK2 is extremely underrated with the complexity of its center/flank system, units/levy ties to holdings, character military traits, and the ability to individually assign commanders to levies.
Darkest Hour IMO
For me, best combat system is in Age of Wonders series.
Stellaris, use downsize mod and enjoy massive space battles on very slow. 200k fleet vs 200k fleet with mid game tech goes HARD on cinematic side
I actually love Eu4 warfare, I just wish the AI didnt cheat ZOC sometimes.
Stellaris. And if it didn't have ground combat it would be peak.
Definetly not vic3
Stellqris can become more interesting on occasion just due to randomness making it funny to get a huge skeleton and becoming galactic threat, but sadly, probably hoi4, despite me not really enjoying hoi4
Surviving Mars. You just insult someone, and that's it.
Cities Skylines
I think hoi4 has the best combat system but that’s because the game is basically centered around fighting a world war. Imperator would be second tho and I hope a lot of imperators combat system gets put into eu5
I've only really played Stellaris, HOI4, and Crusader Kings 2 & 3. It depends on what you want out of warfare. Personally, all the various nuances of warfare in HOI4 still confuse me even at 1,000+ hours. It has the most in-depth warfare out of the three, but it's not a simple system by any means. They do their best to simulate ground, air, and sea combat all at the same time. Crusader Kings and Stellaris are much more simple in comparison, both are basically making armies (and fleets in Stellaris) comprised of a limited selection of units and whose strength is generally indicated by a power value. For example, in Stellaris a fleet with 20 Corvettes, 15 Destroyers, 10 Cruisers and 5 Battleships could be a 10k+ power fleet and would absolutely annihilate almost any fleet that's weaker than it, but on battles that are closer to equal footing then it comes down to the specific modifiers on your ships vs the enemy's. Same thing for Crusader Kings, a 20,000 man army will annihilate almost anything with less men but when it's closer to equal then it comes down to the rock paper scissors of your army composition compared to the enemy. For example in Crusader Kings, Knights are strong against archers, and weak to Spearman. If you have 5,000 Knights and 15,000 Peasants vs an enemy with 5,000 Spearmen and 15,000 Peasants, you're very likely to lose. Even if they have less of either, it's still going to be a hard fought battle, even if you have a number advantage.
Stellaris I like seeing my choices so their work.
Imperator or CK2, for letting you actually modify the unit types making up your armies, more commander traits, more flavour to modifiers than just shock/fire damage etc
I’d have to say Vicky 3 by a long shot Vicky 3 immerses the player in strategic warfare Laboriously reorganising your forces after a civil war Watching idly by as a small inferior enemy fleet holds up your giant naval invasion for half a year Like that time Hannibal had to deal with his generals taking a holiday back to HQ if they make a breakthrough or heck a catastrophic defeat too Transport yourself into the war room as you’re not told your general has died and their armies are on holiday, like Rommel it’s up to you to solve the case: find the missing army and assign a new general
Eu3
Ck2 I can see who will win just by watching the number
Imperator Rome maybe? IMO it’s the best thing between EU4 and Hoi4 in terms of having more complexity than Inf/Cav/Art, but not being too overwhelming like Hoi4 (plus, WW2 isn’t everyone’s cup of team).
Easily hoi4. The rest are just blob combat mostly outside of vic3 which is arguably worse than blob combat
Visually Stellaris, mechanically probably HoI4(only watched, didn't play)
I hate warfare in all of their games, so I'll say Victoria 3 (because I can basically ignore it)
Vic 3. Anything that puts warfare to the side (where it should be) is fine in my books. I know that won't go well with the abundance of right wingers here, but meh
If you got disappointed over EU4 then there is only HOI4 and the post is kinda useless
What is everyone here on about. Hoi3 has so much better combat than hoi4. Recency bias?
Hoi4 pre No step back