Being forced into rushing for army/discipline ideas and tech doesn't make EU4s combat system complicated, it just shows how broken and lopsided all the calculations are to the AI side if your high-tech highly disciplined tactically advanced military can and does take massive morale and casualty damage in every shock battle phase, as is totally historical, right? That superior formation, tactics, morale, etc militaries are forced to outnumber weaker foes simply because 1:1 is an easy way to get your stack wiped.
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I'm just going to disregard this, since it's wrong. Maybe if you're fighting native americans or something you can inflict enough casualties in the first 9 days to go over OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE, but you're obviously just exaggerating or don't understand what's happening.
That's what you don't understand. That's why you don't see an issue with EU4s incredibly boring battle system where numbers are the most important factor. Because you play it straight and probably get huge casualties. And wonder why I do things like make every battle insta-wipe to save the always-retreating ping pong [then getting morale damage attacking a shattered retreating army who has .01 morale because they aren't allowed to insta-wipe for some reason].
Lower SHATTERED_RETREAT_SPEED_MODIFIER from 0.5 to 0.3 or something if you don't like chasing armies as much. May also consider changing LOW_MORALE_THRESHOLD and CANNOT_RETREAT_DAYS if you want armies to fight longer/shorter before retreating.
Obviously didn't read my post, so I'll say it again, you should raise OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE to 3 or 4 so wipes only happen over that ratio. It's also not just this value at work... it also either requires a certain number of casualties or a threshold of calculated advantage.
Because the battle system is broken and heavily favors AI getting no damage.
No?
So you are forced to doomstack.
Early game when there are fewer factors at work, yeah, numbers are important, but try beating Poland-Lithuania as Teutonic Order, or beating France as England in the HYW. Obviously outnumbered grossly, but it just means you've got to be play carefully and have a strategy.
So all battles are insta-wipes [or atleast you hope].
Because even with superior pips, morale, discipline, techs, ideas, you will get ridiculous casualties and morale damage against even a pitiful nation with 1:1 ratios of soldiers on flat lands.
So you make a huge doomstack and no longer have to worry about these fucked up, stupid calculations.
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Again, I think you're either grossly exaggerating or don't understand it. I'm guessing you never use mercenaries? If you don't want to ever use mercenaries, consider raising MAX_MANPOWER to 20 or something, so you can have more reserves for a planned difficult war. Just keep in mind that it'll also apply to France.
Do you understand why EU4 has a bad war system? Because numbers are the entirety of the calculation outside of horseshit dice rolls that the player needs to game in order to get anything useful out of.
Dicerolls aren't that important, but again, since you didn't read my post, try playing for a bit with COMBAT_DICE_SIDE set to 1. The scenario I recommend is the vanilla start as France, since you'll have a nice doomstack right next to a smallish English army. I agree that 10 sides is a bit much, but they really are needed. Tweak it to where you find it fun, I'd recommend 6-8.
Can we please stop pretending EU4 has a complicated battle system? It's build a huge stack or build more huge stacks to combat according to actual rules because the calculations are heavily against you. Also, the extent of 'flanking' in EU4 consists of.. building 6-8 mounted units and putting them in a doomstack. Man, that's some high strategy.
Thing is it actually is pretty complicated, just with little direct player involvement. There's a lot to consider that isn't obvious, like the effect of maneuver, combat width, moraledisciplineleadershipterrainmilitarytactics and so on. It's definitely more complicated than HoI3's combat, it's just that HoI has more precise stats. If you're looking for a
tactical game, where each battle can be fought with direct player involvement, there are tons of fantasy games that do that. Personally, since there are so many battles in EU, I think it'd be tedious.
And the nail in the coffin for EU4's combat system? It can't even simulate history correctly, which is the whole point of the game. Yes, that is the case of an army of 70000 being beaten by an army of 10000-15000, that is quite literally impossible to achieve in-game no matter how hard you try, unless you give crazy tech advantages and such to the smaller army. Even if they were only slightly off tech-wise and given a much greater discipline boost, it wouldn't make a difference.
With certain terrain it's doable in EUIV, even with equal tech.
Maybe the game isn't meeting your expectations in some regards, but I think you're just blowing up some things that could be easily changed on your own. If you find that you lose too much manpower, use mercenaries, take loans, maybe increase the max manpower that can be saved up. If you find that you don't like chasing shattered armies, lower their speed bonus. If you find that you're tempted to go for instant wipes every time and find it boring, change the "hardcoded" ratio that makes it possible. If you think the dice are too random, reduce its range. There are tons of valid criticisms that can be made of this game, mainly for things that
can't be changed, but your complaints are invalid when the solutions are easy and staring right at you.