Europa Universalis 3 - Losing all battles

[jonnypolen]

Help! Inspired by the LPs in the Playground, I started a game of EU3. The problem is that I suddenly started loosing every single battle. I can attack 700 enemy soldiers with 11000 of mine, but I will still loose. It also happens instantly, so there is no real battle. What the fuck is happening? This is extremely frustrating!

Any suggestions?

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Is the morale of your army bottomed out? How is your military spending? I can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

 

[jonnypolen]

No, they have good morale. Maybe the military spending could be the problem? But I can't recall tampering with the military spending (don't even know how ) and my armies started loosing very suddenly.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion! I will try to figure out this "military spending" of which you speak!

 

[jonnypolen]

No, military spending seems to be fine.

My forts also surrender after two days of siege. This is infuriating!

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Are you playing with France?

 

[Raapys]

Can't see this being anything other than poor morale. You sure the bar is filled? Should be all green, or at least close. There's current morale and maximum morale. Leaders, national ideas, military spending, land/naval focus and technologies affect your maximum morale, while military spending also affects how fast it regenerates( it drops every day your army is in combat). Military spending can be cut down in times of peace to like 20-30%, but should really be kept at 100% in wars unless you're technologically superior or outnumber your opponent heavily.

Only other thing I can think of is that you don't actually have 11.000 men in that army, but eleven stacks with no soldiers in them because of lack of manpower or high attrition.

The reason for your fort's surrender could simply be that the enemy assaulted it. With a strong force you can assault a fort and take it in a manner of days instead of sieging it for months/years.

Also keep in mind that when you have gotten new units from research, you need to go to the military screen to replace one of the old units to be able to recruit them( and the old ones upgrade automatically I think). Military commanders can make a huge difference in battles as well.

 

[cardtrick]

When you lose immediately like that, is your army annihilated or does it retreat? That will tell us whether or not it's a morale issue.

Are you sure it's not that you have military (land) maintenance turned all the way down? That would lower morale to virtually nothing.

Is it possible there's a huge tech disparity? Or unit disparity? (E.g., are you a sub-Saharan or North American tribal nation fighting European conquerors?)

Basically, give us more details . . .

 

[Brotherman Bill]

I started a game as well, inspired by the LP's.

My problem is that as soon as my guys starts marching over foreign lands, they start deserting! Every month or so I lose 20-70 guys out of every regiment it seems, and then they replenish at the end of the month. Military spending is full. Is this a feature or something I'm doing wrong?

Also, every time I declare war on the Ottomans and beat them to pulp they get aid from a 25 000 strong Mamluk army that rapes me and force me to concede defeat. Is there any way I can break their alliance?

Also, when can I get republic? I'm playing Hungary on the earliest start, and my king and grown up heir died at the same time, and the incompetent council of sycophants that rules in the meantime can't declare wars Fucking monarchs die like flies, I lost my HRE emperor as well

 

[Raapys]

Even a gigantic tech disparity wouldn't really explain it though; 11.000 of the worst soldiers should give even 700 of the best ones a fight for a few days if they had morale.

Just thought of something else though; you're sure you're not trying to attack with only artillery-type units? They are great in sieges, but they always need support to be able to fight. And just as a side note, cavalry can't attack forts at all.

 

[Raapys]

I started a game as well, inspired by the LP's.

My problem is that as soon as my guys starts marching over foreign lands, they start deserting! Every month or so I lose 20-70 guys out of every regiment it seems, and then they replenish at the end of the month. Military spending is full. Is this a feature or something I'm doing wrong?

Also, every time I declare war on the Ottomans and beat them to pulp they get aid from a 25 000 strong Mamluk army that rapes me and force me to concede defeat. Is there any way I can break their alliance?

Also, when can I get republic? I'm playing Hungary on the earliest start, and my king and grown up heir died at the same time, and the incompetent council of sycophants that rules in the meantime can't declare wars Fucking monarchs die like flies, I lost my HRE emperor as well

Attrition. Click on a province, friendly or hostile, to see how many of your stacks it can hold. I think it's usually like 4-5 stacks of units in hostile territory before they start losing men. Capturing a territory greatly increases it, naturally. This is also something to keep in mind when you're not at war though; don't keep more men in a province than it can hold, or you will waste all your manpower.

Republic comes with Government Technology level 10'ish or something I believe.

 

[Quilty]

How come my generals always have either 1 or 2, max. 3 points in stats (and then never in all of them, only 2 in shock or 1 in fire, for example), and an average rebel commander has all four stats either maxed out or much higher than my own? It's crazy! They're fucking rebels, not strategic masterminds. Playing as HRE, btw.

Also, rebels rise up waaay too easily and way too often, and their numbers are insane. Where do hell do they get 15000 men? Was there ever such a huge rebellion in a single province in those days? Admittedly, I'm in the 16th century and I'm still a monarchy, so maybe they're just tired of ye old feudal system, but come on. Shut the fuck up, take your plow and go work my damn fields.

 

[Raapys]

Ye, never really liked the rebel system in these games. At any rate, you can hover your mouse over the rebel chance of a province to see what factors come into play and by how much.

Annexing provinces will give a huge rebel chance in that province that decreases slowly over 10-15 years or so, having an unaccepted type of culture/people will also increase rebel chance, as will non-state religion and such. Always trying to keep Stability at +3 will help, as each positive stability gives -1% chance of rebels in all your provinces( opposite is true for negative stability).

Your generals' stats are based on the Military Tradition you have when you hire them. The higher that is the better his stats.

 

[Bruticis]

Are you playing with France?

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Thanks raapys.

Also, rebels rise up waaay too easily and way too often, and their numbers are insane. Where do hell do they get 15000 men? Was there ever such a huge rebellion in a single province in those days? Admittedly, I'm in the 16th century and I'm still a monarchy, so maybe they're just tired of ye old feudal system, but come on. Shut the fuck up, take your plow and go work my damn fields.

Personally I find it a bit insulting that two or three fucking peasant uprisings can equal my entire army in numbers. I mean, how come raising troops is so expensive if every other man can just grab a pitchfork and jump into battle and perform almost on par with professionals?

 

[Topher]

Thanks raapys.

Also, rebels rise up waaay too easily and way too often, and their numbers are insane. Where do hell do they get 15000 men? Was there ever such a huge rebellion in a single province in those days? Admittedly, I'm in the 16th century and I'm still a monarchy, so maybe they're just tired of ye old feudal system, but come on. Shut the fuck up, take your plow and go work my damn fields.

Personally I find it a bit insulting that two or three fucking peasant uprisings can equal my entire army in numbers. I mean, how come raising troops is so expensive if every other man can just grab a pitchfork and jump into battle and perform almost on par with professionals?

Yeah, it's a little nuts but I've never had much trouble putting down rebellions as England in the early game, even when I'm outnumbered. Just send calvary, it's been working for me, at least during the first 80 years or so.

 

[cardtrick]

Rebellions are only a real problem when you're playing a low-tech nation (Africa, Americas, etc.) that doesn't have forts . . . then the rebels instantly capture provinces, and life is painful.

Otherwise, they've never been more than an annoyance to me. I actually worry more about the tax effects of revolt risk than the revolts themselves.

 

[Goliath]

How come my generals always have either 1 or 2, max. 3 points in stats (and then never in all of them, only 2 in shock or 1 in fire, for example), and an average rebel commander has all four stats either maxed out or much higher than my own?

The quality of your own generals depends on military tradition. Try recruiting a general when your military tradition is at 100%. He will be ridiculously powerful. I wouldn't recruit generals while your military tradition is below 50%. The generals will be crap and recruiting generals reduces military tradition.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Also, the strength of a rebellion depends on the province where they rise, I believe. The higher the pop/manpower of a province, the more rebels you'll have to deal with.

And yeah, Generals are based on your military tradition. You raise that by winning battles, national ideas, a building, and that's pretty much it that I can think of. It deteriorates at a rate of 3 or 5% a year.

 

[Furious Flaming Faggot]

Magna Mundi is much better if you want a more historical and historically plausible experience, i will never stop plugging it in every EU3 related thread on the Codex. With rebellions, it's a bit silly, but it works. You shouldn't have much of a problem with revolts as long as you've got a decent sized army in proportion to your territory, and you're not getting fucked over by another nation. Also, population in EU3 is very abstract, and rises extremely quickly, so it shouldn't be considered really representative of the province's actual population. Rebellion only gets really silly when you're playing as a tribal nation, or revolt risk is really high. You'll get three times the population revolting and getting killed yearly.

 

[jonnypolen]

Can't see this being anything other than poor morale. You sure the bar is filled? Should be all green, or at least close. There's current morale and maximum morale. Leaders, national ideas, military spending, land/naval focus and technologies affect your maximum morale, while military spending also affects how fast it regenerates( it drops every day your army is in combat). Military spending can be cut down in times of peace to like 20-30%, but should really be kept at 100% in wars unless you're technologically superior or outnumber your opponent heavily.

Only other thing I can think of is that you don't actually have 11.000 men in that army, but eleven stacks with no soldiers in them because of lack of manpower or high attrition.

The reason for your fort's surrender could simply be that the enemy assaulted it. With a strong force you can assault a fort and take it in a manner of days instead of sieging it for months/years.

Also keep in mind that when you have gotten new units from research, you need to go to the military screen to replace one of the old units to be able to recruit them( and the old ones upgrade automatically I think). Military commanders can make a huge difference in battles as well.

The bar is completely filled, and the regiments are full. Also, this is rather early in the game, so the technological disparity shouldn't be that much of a problem.

I even tried sending a regiment of soldiers to purge the sami from our lands (playing as Sweden), and they managed to lose with 4000 soldiers against
300 sami natives.

Could this be some sort of bug? I don't even get to see any battle information, the soldiers just run away and lose the battle after losing maybe 20 men out of 11000.

Truly, this is the decline of Sweden...

 

[Malakal]

What are Your sliders? Serfdom, quantity, defensive I think give lower morale. That with low starting morale means that unless You take some national ideas adding some Your troops can run after one or two bad rolls in combat. Military drill i vanilla is nearly a must in the first few decades.

 

[Raapys]

So what exactly is your morale? If you hover the mouse over the bar you should see a number, i.e. 1/1 or some such. And which soldiers are you attacking with?

 

[Conkrete Knight]

Magna Mundi is much better if you want a more historical and historically plausible experience, i will never stop plugging it in every EU3 related thread on the Codex.

And it will get really frustrating really fast if you are a newcomer, as MM has a tendency to even tear experienced vanilla players a new one.

 

[Raapys]

I seem to remember the rebels being even worse to deal with in Magma Mundi.

 

[Malakal]

Magna Mundi is much better if you want a more historical and historically plausible experience, i will never stop plugging it in every EU3 related thread on the Codex.

And it will get really frustrating really fast if you are a newcomer, as MM has a tendency to even tear experienced vanilla players a new one.

Its as easy as vanilla EU III, there is simply less money to go around in the beginning and a lot of 'fuck you player kindly die already' events that really make no sense other than arbitrary game balance. Framed? Massive noble opposition (in fully plutocratic and centralized monarchies no less!)? Preset Burgundy succession and Spanish wedding (MMP even had autoannexing of the Mamluks by the OE and autovassalization of Algeria)? The entire HRE system is one big bag of dongs. Yes, they made what they could with tools present to them, but still its way too heavy handed and annoying. Of course I play it exclusively since I am not challenged by vanilla or other mods, but still cringe every now and then.