Limited Wars

[Poliorketes]

Or if they do so successfully, then no one knows, which is the point!

It could be... but I think the people prefer better to spend their gold in recruit more soldiers, than making them look stronger or weaker, before they know if it will be useful or counter-productive. Maybe if you could do it in any moment and region... but as it is, is too 'slow' and difficult to coordinate...

I'm sure in some occasions can be useful, but I think the ignorance about the enemy must be continuous, and not something about 'troop camouflage'.

[Indirik]

The only way to give a small army a chance of victory over bigger armies would be to use a General/Marshal skill bonus system. Maybe there will be something of this in the new changes in warfare? 

Keep in mind that any change you add to allow some kind of tricky tactics, or character skill bonus to allow small armies to defeat larger armies could also very easily be utilized by those same larger armies to even more thoroughly defeat the smaller one. In fact, larger armies would be more likely to be able to take advantage of them, because they are more likely to be the ones to have the people with the requisite skills, simply because they have more people, and more resources to invest in those people.

People keep talking about adding the ability for a good general/marshal to allow them to use superior tactics to defeat larger armies as if only the smaller armies would have access to those tactics. Or as if the larger armies are dumb/incompetent/clumsy simply because they're large, and that the smaller armies as smarter/expert/agile simply because they're small. I have to say that this is just not the way the world works. How do you think those larger armies got large in the first place? Because the people that made them  and run them are smart.

Small armies beat large armies because the people that led those large armies made mistakes or were surprised. But the small armies can make mistakes and get surprised just as easily as the big ones.

[Anaris]

Furthermore, the way to make it more possible for small armies to surprise or outflank large ones is not to simply add some in-game skill bonus that directly buffs the entire army. It's to add more actual strategic and tactical options, so that (for instance) a small force might be able to hold off a large on in a chokepoint, while a raiding party from the smaller realm goes around a back way and starts harassing the larger realm's regions, disabling recruitment centers and stealing tax gold.

Naturally, if the larger realm is smart, they'll make preparations for this kind of situation, and the smaller realm will still lose. But it makes one more way that the larger realm could make a mistake that gives the smaller realm a fighting chance.

[Valast]

If some tactics took cohesion to pull off....  We know that smaller units build this at a faster pace, I wonder if it is possible to use the same sort of thing BETWEEN units.  Not listed for everyone to see perhaps but still something that would understand how well units work together.

Not just the use of encounter settings that are controlled by players but something at a social/common/humanistic level.

[Zakilevo]

Bigger armies won more often than smaller armies. It is because most of the time, only stronger nations could field big armies.

There are a lot of examples where bigger armies lost but most of the time, bigger armies were the invaders. Defenders either used guerrilla tactics to harass the invaders from multiple fronts to lower their morale or they had their men in strategically advantageous positions. Invaders always were in somewhat disadvantageous positions because 1) they had to fight in unfamiliar environments, 2) their supply lines were getting stretched as they invade deeper into their enemy's territory meaning it usually became increasingly hard to stop their enemies from harassing their supply lines, 3) morale issues, 4) political issues back in their home and others.

[Geronus]

Remove CS numbers from scout reports. There's no logical reason to be able to assess that. All you should see is the rough number of men in each unit, and what they are (infantry, cavalry, etc.). I also think SF should look like normal infantry to scouts. Might add a bit more uncertainty into the strategic game since you can't be sure just how good the enemy troops are; all you know is how many of them there are.

[Anaris]

Remove CS numbers from scout reports. There's no logical reason to be able to assess that. All you should see is the rough number of men in each unit, and what they are (infantry, cavalry, etc.). I also think SF should look like normal infantry to scouts. Might add a bit more uncertainty into the strategic game since you can't be sure just how good the enemy troops are; all you know is how many of them there are.

Good God, that sounds like a horrendous idea. Do you want to make everyone run screaming from the General position?

It's hard enough for players to properly evaluate relative strengths of armies, what with factors like army composition, movement rate, siege engines, etc. Removing CS from scout reports wouldn't just make it impossible for Generals to asses enemy armies, it would make it impossible to assess their own! And seeing SF as Infantry just doesn't make sense. You might as well say that Archers should look like Infantry; after all, when they're lounging around the camp, you can't tell if they fight with a bow or a sword.

No. I do not think this would help in any way, shape, or form.

Uncertainty can be added by other means, if we really feel that it's necessary. Crippling (or removing, since this would make people scout a lot less) the one tool people have for knowing what's going on around them is not the way to do that.

[Zakilevo]

Good God, that sounds like a horrendous idea. Do you want to make everyone run screaming from the General position?

It's hard enough for players to properly evaluate relative strengths of armies, what with factors like army composition, movement rate, siege engines, etc. Removing CS from scout reports wouldn't just make it impossible for Generals to asses enemy armies, it would make it impossible to assess their own! And seeing SF as Infantry just doesn't make sense. You might as well say that Archers should look like Infantry; after all, when they're lounging around the camp, you can't tell if they fight with a bow or a sword.

No. I do not think this would help in any way, shape, or form.

Uncertainty can be added by other means, if we really feel that it's necessary. Crippling (or removing, since this would make people scout a lot less) the one tool people have for knowing what's going on around them is not the way to do that.

I think adding uncertainty is definitely a plus. Something like infantry units not being as effective as they are in a certain terrain. Infantry is just too good at the moment while archers are somewhat unreliable.

[Anaris]

I think adding uncertainty is definitely a plus. Something like infantry units not being as effective as they are in a certain terrain. Infantry is just too good at the moment while archers are somewhat unreliable.

I definitely like the idea of different kinds of terrain modifiers. Various versions of that have been suggested over the years, to mostly positive reception. The trouble is implementing it in a clean and balanced way, that has enough effect to be meaningful, but not so much as to completely throw the game out of whack.

[Lorgan]

Do you want to make everyone run screaming from the General position?

I thought that's what you wanted when the general's access to information of their own armies was first restricted.

Honestly, I think it's a pretty neat idea (as far as the CS is concerned, not so much the unit type-mangling). It's pretty much the same as the "change appearance" option that was introduced a while back except that it's for everyone and not any hassle or waste of time at all. It could be made viable by removing the above mentioned restriction, heck why not remove it for everyone? It's always nice to be able to compare your unit with that of your army members.
And people would still need to scout and could still differentiate between a big-ass army and a small raiding party. Only sometimes they couldn't. And hilarity would ensue.

[Anaris]

I thought that's what you wanted when the general's access to information of their own armies was first restricted.

You'll note that that wasn't my call.

Honestly, I think it's a pretty neat idea (as far as the CS is concerned, not so much the unit type-mangling). It's pretty much the same as the "change appearance" option that was introduced a while back except that it's for everyone and not any hassle or waste of time at all. It could be made viable by removing the above mentioned restriction, heck why not remove it for everyone? It's always nice to be able to compare your unit with that of your army members.
And people would still need to scout and could still differentiate between a big-ass army and a small raiding party. Only sometimes they couldn't. And hilarity would ensue.

That's not the kind of hilarity we want. That's the kind of "hilarity" that makes people hate the game.

This whole line of thought reminds me of the "delayed messages" idea. Sure, it makes some sense from an IC perspective, and if it were accepted by the playerbase, it would add an interesting dimension that would require rethinking a lot of strategy.

But it would make people leave the game in droves, because it's not fun. Indeed, it's the opposite of fun.

[Lorgan]

I don't look at it from a realism perspective. I look at it from a gameplay perspective: everyone should have access to all the information of their own army, and the general should have access to that information for all armies. Battles would still need to show actual CS and I do believe you should be aware of the CS in your current region as well. However, showing a certain randomness in scout reports (you can still tell the strength of an army by looking at it's numbers, just compare it to your own, that's how everyone, everywhere does it), which is actually already something that's going on to a lesser extent today, does add gameplay. Not only does it give more worth to training and to RC quality but also actual tactical advantages to those who have put time, effort and gold into it (as is with everything in this game).

Just imagine: a realm invades you. They send 1,000 men. You have 1,400 men of medium quality troops who have 16,000 CS. You estimate their CS based on what you know of their RCs, the time they've had (you've given them) and/or previous encounters and then you decide whether to engage them or not.
You'd think that you should be able to beat them at those odds, but maybe those are 1,000 killer troops, diligently trained and recruited from RCs that have taken tens of thousands of gold to perfect. Or maybe it's simply all your enemy could muster.

The point is, you're not just mindlessly comparing CS to see whether you can or can't win a battle, adding or subtracting for fortifications. You're thinking about it and learning from your enemy. For the first time ever, to fight a war you would have to find out AND take into account the quality of your enemy's forces when devising a strategy. Strategy would be more than just getting the biggest number in the right place at the right time.
It would tie military operations in nicely with everything  on which you also spend thousands upon thousands of gold just for the purpose of those same operations.

[Zakilevo]

I definitely like the idea of different kinds of terrain modifiers. Various versions of that have been suggested over the years, to mostly positive reception. The trouble is implementing it in a clean and balanced way, that has enough effect to be meaningful, but not so much as to completely throw the game out of whack.

I am sure we can tweak numbers and think about the best way to implement it. But I think it would be a nice to have terrain modifiers since it definitely add uncertainty. Values shouldn't be fixed I think like the weather modifiers. Regions are big and I doubt even plain regions are entirely plain unless those regions are in the middle of a big plain.

[Kai]

I don't look at it from a realism perspective. I look at it from a gameplay perspective: everyone should have access to all the information of their own army, and the general should have access to that information for all armies. Battles would still need to show actual CS and I do believe you should be aware of the CS in your current region as well. However, showing a certain randomness in scout reports (you can still tell the strength of an army by looking at it's numbers, just compare it to your own, that's how everyone, everywhere does it), which is actually already something that's going on to a lesser extent today, does add gameplay. Not only does it give more worth to training and to RC quality but also actual tactical advantages to those who have put time, effort and gold into it (as is with everything in this game).

Just imagine: a realm invades you. They send 1,000 men. You have 1,400 men of medium quality troops who have 16,000 CS. You estimate their CS based on what you know of their RCs, the time they've had (you've given them) and/or previous encounters and then you decide whether to engage them or not.
You'd think that you should be able to beat them at those odds, but maybe those are 1,000 killer troops, diligently trained and recruited from RCs that have taken tens of thousands of gold to perfect. Or maybe it's simply all your enemy could muster.

The point is, you're not just mindlessly comparing CS to see whether you can or can't win a battle, adding or subtracting for fortifications. You're thinking about it and learning from your enemy. For the first time ever, to fight a war you would have to find out AND take into account the quality of your enemy's forces when devising a strategy. Strategy would be more than just getting the biggest number in the right place at the right time.
It would tie military operations in nicely with everything  on which you also spend thousands upon thousands of gold just for the purpose of those same operations.

You can make anything look good on paper but all this results in is more tentativeness and less precise tactics. As it stands it just makes the game more punishing because you reduce information given to the player without giving him tools or options (i.e. gameplay) to get it back.

[Anaris]

You can make anything look good on paper but all this results in is more tentativeness and less precise tactics. As it stands it just makes the game more punishing because you reduce information given to the player without giving him tools or options (i.e. gameplay) to get it back.

For once, sir, I completely agree with you.