New Military FAQ (patch 1.2.1)

[Kanitatlan]

These is a repeat of the 1.1 military FAQ thread with all accumulated information and updates for 1.2.1

I am going to make a number of posts in this thread that I hope will together form an effective military FAQ covering all the aspects of land operations. I have done no proper naval analysis as yet and therefore that area will be left uncovered. As I add FAQ posts I will add them to an index here. As forum members post corrections/suggestions I will update the main posts – each main post will end with a statement of the form “modified for all posts up to #nnn”. If you feel that a FAQ has not adequately reflected posts I claim to have reviewed then feel free to comment again but please try to keep down the repetition on subjects I haven’t yet reviewed. I will try to keep a record of reviewing in this first post so viewers can keep track of what is going on. I am hoping that this may ultimately end up reposting in the FAQ section and/or be transferred to the EU III wiki

Please note that FAQ sections may be initially posted incomplete and out of order

How Battles work

• Casualties in combat - Post #2
• Morale in combat - Post #3
• Battlefield Deployment
• Conclusions

Evaluating Unit types
Technology
Morale
Leaders
Attrition - post #5
Sieges
Military economics
The Art of War and how it applies
EU3 Military strategies and tactics

• General Principles
• Sneaky Tricks (tactics)
• Sneaky Tricks (strategy)

Managing Wars

• Starting wars
• Ending Wars
• War Exhaustion
• War mongering and its consequences

Planned content for which I lack information

Siege Assaults
Naval stuff generally
Tradition and leader generation

[Kanitatlan]

Military FAQ Part 1 - Casualties

Introduction

This post is concerned with the mechanism whereby units take casualties and how to understand the likely casualties your units will cause or take. The FAQ assumes that you have read the relevant section of the manual which gives the raw statement about how combat work but this will leave most players with little appreciation of what this means in practice.

Combat consists of a series of combat resolutions extending over a significant period in days. There is a single combat resolution for each 5-day period, which is then applied in each successive day. This will then give similar but not identical results on each of these days. The results vary because the strength of the two sides will change so typically casualties slowly decrease but there may be more subtle effects when regiments fall out of line.

The combat types are currently 5 days shock action followed by 5 days fire action repeated in turn until one side runs out of morale. This has some important implications for battle analysis. In particular

• The number of fire days in a complete battle will almost always be less then the number of shock days and will certainly never be more
• Combat against defeated and retreating enemies will always be shock days only as they are pushed into new retreats before the first fire day occurs

How it works

Be cautious in reading and understanding this section since inflicting casualties is not the only issue in battles and you need to be conscious of actually winning the battle as well, which is covered by the morale section and results in some significantly different conclusions.

Actual combat is resolved using the following formulae. The process is the same for fire days as it is for shock days, simply using fire factors instead of shock factors, so I will provide just the one general illustration.

On each day the game evaluates how many casualties each side inflicts on the other by the following…

Attack+Dice+Terrain+Leader-Defence = score

Where
Attack = the attack rating of the friendly unit
Dice = that periods dice roll (in the range 0-9)
Terrain = any terrain adjustments, these are applied to one side adjusting both attack and defence (see below)
Leader = a positive or negative adjustment reflecting the difference in capability between the friendly leader and the enemy leader (applied to both attack and defence)
Defence = the enemy target unit’s defence score.

One of the most important issues to understand in this formula is which parts affect both attack and defence and which only effect one of them. This is because anything affecting both can be considered as twice as significant.

Terrain, for example, affects both and therefore a –1 for terrain is worth 2 points and should be considered like a –2 on the dice rather than –1. (In actual fact it matches –1 on your dice roll PLUS +1 on the enemy dice roll). In 1.2.1 cavalry receives a doubled penalty for terrain which makes river crossing and woods/mountains much more of a combat hazard for cavalry than they are for infantry.

Attack factors, Defence factors and the Dice roll only have a singular effect and therefore they only count for one point per point. Leader values and terrain effects are applied to both attack and defence and therefore their factors apply twice and should be evaluated as worth 2 points each. (Note that versus cavalry each terrain point can be considered to be worth 4 points). This makes high grade leaders extremely powerful.

Terrain modifiers

-1 for forest, marsh or hills
-2 for mountains
-1 for river crossing

Terrain issues are adequately explained in the game manual

Having calculated a score this is then looked up on the following tables to obtain the number of casualties inflicted on the enemy. The process is…

1) Look up the casualties per 10,000 on the casualty table
2) Multiply by the relative strength of the attacking unit (compared with 10,000)
3) Multiply by the tech level modifier for unit class and combat type (see below) (seen in game on the ledger page before the first army page)
4) Subtract casualties

The manual states that the attacker goes first but casualties appear to be calculated based on start of day force strengths.

Note: I have used casualties per 10,000 so that the results are in whole numbers rather than fractions.

This table is at least very close to correct but I cannot be certain of exactness. The formula is

(score-1) x 3.5 for scores of 2 and above (the figure 3.5 proven correct within an accuracy of better than 2%)
3.5 for a score of 1
2^(score-1) x 3.5 for scores below 1 (this amounts to halving the casualties for each point below one)

The figures in this table can be looked up in the game files but are not visible in game except for checking your current level in the ledger (page immediately preceding the first army page). The table is incomplete and only covers tech levels up to 35 (year 1735). Actual tech levels in the game extend to level 59 BUT this is dated 1825 and hence not typically reachable. The change from the patch is purely the leading values for cavalry shock, which no longer start at 4 but slowly work up to it.

See unit analysis section for more information and analysis.

Worked examples

This is all a bit complex for most players so here are a few worked examples simply designed to illustrate the workings of these formulae. This are not intended to provide insight into particular combat situations.

1.
1 Latin Knight fighting 1 Latin Medieval Infantry, both at full strength at tech level 0
2 examples with different dice rolls

Knights: 1 attack + 5 dice = 6 => 5 x 3.5 x (Tech modifier) 1 = 17.5
Infantry: 0 attack + 5 dice = 5 => 4 x 3.5 x 0.5 = 7

Knights: 1 attack + 0 dice = 1 => 1 x 3.5 x (Tech modifier) 1 = 3.5
Infantry: 0 attack + 9 dice = 9 => 8 x 3.5 x 0.5 = 14

Best possible result now gives the infantry a chance whilst cavalry, on average, still retain a significant average advantage.

This nicely illustrates the situation at low tech-levels. The tech level modifier gives the cavalry a 2:1 advantage in causing casualties and this easily overwhelms all other factors. This remains the dominant factor in land combat until infantry fire factors start to become significant and the relationship changes. Bear in mind that although this shows cavalry as superior for a large part of the game it does not make them more cost effective.

1 Caroline infantry (5/4) fighting 1 Grenzer infantry (2/6), shock action

Caroline: 5 attack + 6 dice – 6 defence = 5 => 4 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 17.5
Grenzer: 2 attack + 6 dice – 4 defence = 4 => 3 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 13.125

Difference is quite limited and easily overwhelmed by the dice roll.

Now trying both of the above against 1 Latin Knight

Caroline: 5 attack + 7 dice – 0 defence = 12 => 11 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 48.125
Knights: 1 attack + 7 dice – 4 defence = 4 => 3 x 3.5 x 4 = 42
Grenzer: 2 attack + 7 dice – 0 defence = 9 => 8 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 35
Knights: 1 attack + 7 dice – 6 defence = 2 => 1 x 3.5 x 4 = 14

(dice roll of 7 chosen to keep on the linear part of the casualty tree)

The purpose of this example was to show that defence factors become more prominent when infantry fights cavalry than when they fight each other. The conclusion being that Caroline infantry is better than Grenzer when they face each other but Grenzer does better against enemy cavalry. See unit evaluation section for more details

Repeating the above with lower dice rolls allows us to look at calculations below the linear section of the table. Using 1 Knight versus 1 Grenzer

Knights: 1 attack + 9 dice – 4 defence = 6 => 5 x 3.5 x 4 = 70
Knights: 1 attack + 8 dice – 4 defence = 5 => 4 x 3.5 x 4 = 56
Knights: 1 attack + 7 dice – 4 defence = 4 => 3 x 3.5 x 4 = 42
Knights: 1 attack + 6dice – 4 defence = 3 => 2 x 3.5 x 4 = 28
Knights: 1 attack + 5 dice – 4 defence = 2 => 1 x 3.5 x 4 = 14
Knights: 1 attack + 4 dice – 4 defence = 1 => 1 x 3.5 x 4 = 14
Knights: 1 attack + 3 dice – 4 defence = 0 => 0.5 x 3.5 x 4 = 7
Knights: 1 attack + 2 dice – 4 defence = -1 => 0.25 x 3.5 x 4 = 3.5
Knights: 1 attack + 1 dice – 4 defence = -2 => 0.125 x 3.5 x 4 = 1.75
Knights: 1 attack + 0 dice – 4 defence = -3 => 0.0625 x 3.5 x 4 = 0.875

Grenzer: 2 attack + 9 dice – 0 defence = 11 => 10 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 43.75
Grenzer: 2 attack + 7 dice – 0 defence = 9 => 8 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 35
Grenzer: 2 attack + 3dice – 0 defence = 5 => 4 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 17.5
Grenzer: 2 attack + 0dice – 0 defence = 2 => 1 x 3.5 x 1.25 (Tech) = 4.375

Notice how the more linear and closer spread of the Grenzer means that this combat is very strongly dependent on the cavalry dice role. An interesting side issue is that this combat can be dramatically affected by leadership. Give the infantry a level 6 leader against none for the cavalry and they are completely protected from the higher combat results. The cavalry will vary from ineffective to very moderate whilst the infantry will always achieve reasonable results.

Do it the other way round and the cavalry are shifted to spectacular results as against modest for the infantry.

This illustrates nicely that leadership is more significant for an effective tech level disadvantage in unit scores. It is not an illustration that leaders are more significant for cavalry.

Test worked example

This example has been left in the FAQ but is based on testing patch 1.1 behaviour. It is no longer an accurate model for the actual parameters in the game but remains an accurate analysis of how the game behaves.

This worked example based on the first few days of the Battle of Alexandria is intended to demonstrate the accuracy of the casualty rules worked out so far and perhaps provide some insight into other factors. The battle is between a French cavalry army, tech level 25 Galoop cavalry, under an excellent general fighting against a Kara Koyonlu mixed army of tech level 10.

After 1 day of battle





After 2 days of battle

By inspecting individual units I can tell that the overlapping Qara Koyonlu end units have not been attacked and all units have attacked the enemy unit opposite to them or nearest at the ends except both the right hand French cavalry have been attacked by a Kara cavalry. The red lines on the display illustrate the apparent Kara lines of attack. This gives no immediate insight into the battle AI’s operation but does suggest that in normal battles nothing very weird is going on.

Qara tech level 10, French tech level 25. Oddly enough these have no impact on shock modifiers. Infantry have 1.0 and cavalry have 4.0 for both sides. Qara units are cavalry 2/2/2/0 [morale a/d shock a/d] and infantry 3/2/1/0 whilst the French have 4/2/4/2.

The dice roll appears to have compensated for the leader but the two are not actually equivalent. Our leadership increases the casualties that we inflict and decreases the casualties that the enemy inflicts whereas the enemy’s superior dice roll only improves the casualties that they inflict.

Working out the battle we get…

Casualties
French Cav versus Kara Any = 4+3+2-0 = 9 -> 8x3.5x4 -> 112
For the whole force 112 x 7 x 6,845/7,000 = 767 casualties when, in fact, 762 were reported. This is assumed to be the result of rounding errors with casualties being evaluated separately for each unit.

Kara Inf versus French Cav = 1+5-(2+2) = 2 -> 3.5
In fact, in the middle of the line the French cavalry took 3 casualties each on the first day and 2 on the second day. This clearly shows a casualty rate of 2.5 rather than 3.5 so there is a slight discrepancy here indicating that the FAQ is not entirely correct.

Kara Cav versus French Cav = 2+5-(2+2) = 3 -> 2x3.5x4 -> 28
At the left flank this should be 80.8 casualties scaled for day 1 losses (all the exposed units in the Kara line are at 888 men). The actual losses by this end unit are 80 so we have as good as an exact match there. At the other end we have a similar match (worked out separately but seems correct).

Over all losses are a reasonably good match for the FAQ going as 155/784 on day one and then 142/762 on day 2. The declining rate simply reflecting the shrinking size of the two armies.

[Kanitatlan]

Morale

Unit Morale is an extremely important characteristic and a major influence on whether you win or lose a battle. If you go to your country tabs (click on the shield at the top left of the user interface) and select military you have a display of preferred unit types and other information. Hover your cursor over the stars for land units and you get a unit Morale tool tip as illustrated below. This will show you what your maximum morale is and how it is made up.



One of the most important things to understand from this is what all those percentages mean. They are very misleading as what they really mean is a simple additive bonus to your morale level. +50% means that 0.5 is added to total morale. This makes some of those available bonuses rather less attractive than you might first think, especially the +50% for selecting military drill as a national idea.

I think this display shows examples of all the possible sources of morale increases breaking down as follows.

• Technology – ranges from 0 to 3.5
• Current Ruler – I think this is 0.1 x military rating
• Sliders, +/-0.1 Offensive, +0/0.1 Land Naval, +/-0.05 Serfdom
• +0.5 for military drill
• +0.5 Defender of the faith
• +0 to +2.0 for land maintenance
• + Half of prestige (+0 to +0.5)
• -0.25 player and +0.5 for AI on very hard

In my view one of the most revealing aspects of this is the poor showing of the military drill national idea and the tiny effects from slider settings. After viewing this I would seriously consider ignoring the morale issue when considering slider settings. If you want extra morale then it is worth considering defender of the faith rather than military drill especially if you are a large country. You can achieve the effect of military drill for 1,000 ducats, admittedly a lot of money but national ideas are quite precious.

A very important issue is the rising significance of the technology contribution, which will slowly reduce the importance of all the others. Also, rather obviously, maintenance has a profound affect on morale especially at low technology.

Current morale increases on the 1st of each month the same as reinforcements are received. This occurs whether the unit is retreating or not and is therefore received every month except when in actual combat. The morale of each regiment is increased by 30% of its maximum value.

With this recovery rate we can see that the maximum morale levels is a proper measure of the long-term ability of units to win battles as well as short-term. The rate of recovery means that it has the same impact on winning a battle 3 months into a campaign as it does on the battles at the start of a campaign. This makes the subject very simple and literally requires no more discussion.

Moving on we need to look at the role of morale in combat. It turns out that the combat algorithms for morale are identical to those for casualties except for three factors. Firstly the loss rate multiplier is 0.05 morale loss rather than 3.5 men, secondly leaders do not affect morale combat and finally that morale damage is not scaled by unit strength. The non-application of leader modifiers is amazingly significant and has a profound impact on how leaders influence battles. Just remember that a high ability leader only has indirect affects on winning a battle since all he can do is kill enemy soldiers. It is the weakening of enemy regiments that helps a good leader win not his influence on morale loss. This has some implications looked at further on other sections.

The combat phase is split as described in the casualty section using fire factors and shock factors as appropriate to determine casualties. In both phases the morale attack and defence values for a unit are used to adjudicate morale combat. The attack and defence factors are used in the usual way but are multiplied by the appropriate combat type multiplier (ie the unit types fire multiplier on fire days and the shock multiplier on shock days). This requires no further description since the casualty section provides an adequate explanation about how it works.

[Kanitatlan]

The following images show some example battles from the early stages of several of the later scenarios for EU III. They are provided as illustration for the accompanying battlefield deployment analysis. The images on their own do not provide fully detailed data and the analysis is supplemented by use of the tooltips available on the battle screen to see actual unit strength.



Battles1

Commentary

Battle of Breisgau

This is an early campaign battle where both armies are engaging at full strength. As can be seen both armies have equal quality leaders but the Austrians have a dice roll advantage and terrain benefits. For some reason the French force has been seriously misdeployed. Despite having superiority in numbers this has been thrown away by putting significant forces in the second line. For optimum deployment the French force should have 6 more infantry regiments in the front line with the cavalry pushed out to be fully on the flanks. As it is they are going to suffer serious negative consequences for their cavalry force and over all battlefield results. Admittedly the dice roll is sufficiently bad that this battle will go badly for them anyway.

This battle illustrates one basic rule that seems to be applied. Artillery are deployed in the centre surrounded by infantry and then cavalry on the flanks. If there are more troops than will fit in the line then infantry are removed and pushed to the second line.

Battle of Abnaki

This is a classic all cavalry army battle with the full force deployed and taking advantage of the cavalry ability to flank the enemy. This particular battle has an optimum force deployment for both sides and this seems to be normal when the larger force is deploying an all cavalry army.

Battle of Elsace

This is our first illustration of an overriding theme throughout these battles. The normal sequence of units has been overridden by a second rule, which is that the weakest units are deployed first. This has displaced some of the artillery regiments from the centre to make room for weaker infantry units. This can be seen amongst the cavalry with the weaker ones deployed inside of the stronger.

The French have done better in this battle with their cavalry being deployed in proper flanking positions. The weakened cavalry regiments are the outer ones from the earlier battle of Breisgau where they suffered severely due to the incomplete deployment of the French army.

The deployment is again clearly sub-optimal for the French. They would do better by deploying a couple of reserve infantry regiments rather than the two badly depleted cavalry regiments. Also the concept of deploying the weakest units first seems questionable.

I presume the logic here is that morale damage inflicted and received is unaffected by unit strength and that therefore the weakest regiments are as good as the strongest for defeating the units opposite them. By this argument the choice of units is completely neutral about whether the strongest or weakest should be deployed to line centre. Further investigation is required to prove if the weakest rule is worked out by morale or strength (but appears to be strength)

(apologies for the repeat image)

Battle of Meissen

This is an odd one. The Prussian army arrived as a single force and I have no idea why there are infantry regiments at the end of the line. Again this is sub-optimal as the Prussians could engage one more regiment by having their left flank cavalry and infantry swap places. In this case I have no idea what the battlefield AI is thinking of. The deployment is as if the extra infantry arrived afterwards but I am certain this was not the case.

Battle of Neumark

This is another conventional battle demonstrating the policy of weakest deployed nearest the centre. Note that the rules seem to be.

1) Weakest infantry / artillery deployed next
2) If strength is equal then artillery before infantry
3) Cavalry deployed on the flanks – weakest first

Unfortunately I haven’t any examples with sufficient cavalry to illustrate how the deployment AI decides when to stop deploying infantry/artillery and to deploy cavalry instead.

I also have no idea how the strange deployment at Meissen came about.

For some of these battles (and the following ones) I resequenced the regiments in the army to try to affect battlefield deployment. This made no difference whatsoever. The battlefield deployment appears to be entirely determined by the battle AI and there is no way to influence it except by splitting your force and have them arrive on different days.

Frome experience on other battles and posts on the forum it is apparent that when additional forces arrive at a battle they are added to the flanks of the engaged force.



Battles2 – note that all images are separate battles despite being in the same locations

Battle of Neumark

This is a classic demonstration of weakest to the centre. In addition we have hints that the switch from infantry to cavalry occurs when the full enemy line has been covered, at which point cavalry are added to the flanks. This is consistent with most images and very believable as a principal but some do not conform. If it is the normal principal then it is not optimal if less than 4 cavalry regiments are available and there remains surplus infantry.

Battle of Meissen

This is an interesting battle as the Prussians have matched the enemy line with infantry and then added cavalry to the flank. This again illustrates sub-optimal deployment as the infantry held in reserve could easily be engaged.

Battle of Neumark

This is an interesting battle as the Saxon infantry and single Austrian Infantry at the centre of the line are clearly not the weakest units. I probably should have checked their morale but failed to do so but it seems unlikely that they would have the lowest morale. The Austrian deployment in this battle may be good at winning the actual battle but only at the cost of massive casualties to their infantry regiments. In fact the main consequence was their cavalry only being part engaged during the shock days and then becoming fully engaged in the fire days once the infantry fell out from reaching zero strength/morale. Again an example of anti-optimal deployment.

Battle of Neumark

This is another interesting deployment with the two sides lines extending on opposite flanks past each other. In this case the Austrians have a regiment pointlessly in reserve. Otherwise everything is as expected from previous examples.

Battle of Lausitz

This odd battle has cavalry in the middle of the line. I have no idea why it is there and this is again definitely not optimal deployment. The Prussians could engage 5 regiments as long as the flank positions are manoeuvre rating two but one is infantry which cannot engage.

Battle of Neumark

This final battle is an excellent illustration of the weakest first doctrine and is otherwise consistent with previous deployments of infantry and cavalry. Von Daun could put up a much better fight if the stronger units were deployed to the centre. As it is the Austrian reserves of morale won this battle but at great cost in casualties.

If anyone else has any insight into how the battlefield AI is working then please post.

[Kanitatlan]

Attrition

Attrition is an extremely important part of military operations and therefore it is important to understand exactly how it works. An army will suffer attrition at the current rate for a province if they exceed the province’s supply capacity and the following circumstances apply.

1) On the 1st day of every month
2) When they arrive in a province

It is important to appreciate that number (2) event as this can cause very high attrition levels in relatively short times. Further details and exceptions will follow after the main numerical analysis.

Attrition rates are as follows based on province and prevailing weather/climate conditions

Base 5%
mild winter +2%
normal winter +5%
severe winter +10%
tropical +5%
desert summer +5%
desertion event +5% (spies)
Looted +5%
Out of supply +5% (no I don’t know how this happens)

Note that weather changes at exactly the same time as attrition and takes time priority (ie comes first). This means that month end attrition is based on the new weather conditions which may differ from those that you were planning on.

The attrition rate is based on full strength regiments and therefore 5% means –50 men per regiment. If your force is already substantially reduced this makes a big difference to the actual percentage strength loss in a round of attrition.

Support capacity in a province is calculated as follows.

First calculate the province base capacity…

Base capacity = 1
+ base tax rate x 0.2 (note that this is base tax rate excluding all bonuses)
Army camp gives +2 (for everyone in the province)

Then multiply by the stance modifier…

If you are an owner occupier (owner and controller) then x5 (includes colonies)
Allied territory or military access x4
If you are the controller then x3
If stationary (besieging) then x2
Otherwise x1 (includes uncolonised territory)

This is the total shown in the province view but is not the actual capacity used (see below for further modifiers). The displayed value is rounded to the nearest whole number but fractions are retained. This means that a capacity shown as 5 may be anywhere from 4.6 to 5.4 and therefore the province display values should be used with care.

Now adjust for situational modifiers
Mild winter –2
Normal winter –5
Severe winter –10
Tropical –5
Desertion event –5 (spies)
Desert Summer –5
+leader manoeuvre rating

The general rule of thumb is that the capacity is modified by the attrition level above 5% with the only exception being looted provinces and out of supply where capacity is unchanged but attrition level is increased.

The final capacity figure is then compared to the total forces in the province (not just yours) and if you exceed capacity then you will suffer attrition (and the army display will indicate it). Note that capacity is based on 1,000s of men and not numbers of regiments. Fractions are retained and therefore capacities in enemy territory must be watched very carefully. Note that you may be suffering attrition because of the presence of an enemy army whilst they suffer no attrition due to their differing stance. It is also worth checking whether being stationary will eliminate your attrition and delay further movement.

Naval transport has slightly different rules

Capacity is 6,000 men and is only modified by the leader assigned to the land units. If the force being transported exceeds this then they will suffer 5% attrition. I have not checked but I expect the presence of friendly forces in other transports will cause you to exceed capacity. Only month end attrition applies during naval movement but you can suffer attrition when boarding ship as this counts as a “land” move.

If a force is landed in a port then land movement attrition does not apply but if they disembark by movement then this counts as a normal land move.

Attrition and Battles

Battles have a very special effect in that attrition does NOT occur if at the point it should apply the army is engaged in battle. This affects both month end and province arrival attrition. This can be used very effectively to avoid attrition by moving into enemy occupied provinces and/or starting battles at appropriate times. The effect includes being in battle with natives due to either random native combat or player initiated attack natives command.

[Darkrenown]

Awesome, thanks!

[berhaven]

great work!

[alpreb]

I have always been astonished by your research behind Paradox game mechanics.
Great work

[Kanitatlan]

Leader effects

Whilst the effects of leaders mostly get described in other sections it seems sensible to collate all their effects in one place to make it clear what they do for you. The first thing to do is to list off their effects.

Leader Fire Score
This value is added to the attack strength and defence strength of your units. Its effects are equivalent to being added to your fire day dice rolls AND subtracted from the enemies dice rolls BUT only so far as it affects casualties. Leaders only affect casualties, they do not affect morale combat in any way.

Leader Shock Score
This is exactly like fire score but applies to shock values.
Maximum value 6

Leader Morale Score
This doesn’t exist. This is important and I can’t help repeating it a few times. Leaders have no direct effect on morale combat.
Maximum value 6

Leader Manoeuvre Rating
Movement speed is increased by 5% for each point of leader manoeuvre skill.
Local support capacity is increased by 1,000 men for each point of leader manoeuvre skill.
Maximum value 6

Leader Siege Rating
This acts as a direct bonus to the siege formula at each 30 day siege resolution cycle (see sieges for more details)
Maximum value 1 without modifiers but up to 3 with

That is about it for leaders. The consequences are dealt with elsewhere.

If anyone can write a paragraph on leader values in relation to tradition at the time of generation then it will be inserted here. I also need information on the accumulation of tradition.

Leaders are generated randomly but can have the following bonus scores applied. For all properties except siege there are capped ability values that won’t be exceeded even if the bonus indicates it should. I assume that leaders have the modifier added to their random values before they are rounded to the nearest whole number.

Offensive up to +1.25 leader shock
Defensive up to +1.25 leader siege
Quality up to +1.25 leader fire
Engineer Corps Idea +1 leader siege

[Kanitatlan]

War Exhaustion

War exhaustion is something that happens after you have spent time at war. Its only effect is to increase the revolt risk in every province by the current war exhaustion level. This can accumulate into something quite painful if you let it get out of hand. The taxation penalties of revolt risk can be significant even if the military drain of putting down revolts doesn’t cause you problems. There are two key properties of war exhaustion, your current level and the maximum that can happen to you. The factors affecting both are as follows.

base max 10
max +2 if collecting war taxes (or is it +2 every time in the current war)
+1 each time you collect war taxes
max -0.11 x Monarch diplomacy
-1 per year at peace
+0.5 per year at war
-0.3 per year if defender of the faith (is this whilst at war as well as peace?)
up to max -2 for centralisation
up to max -2 for narrow minded
max -1 for absolute monarchy
no directly useful national ideas
+(manpower of new units / max manpower) when new units are built

I, and many others, have seen AI nations get to WE levels approaching 20 which, combined with the AI’s penchant for collecting war taxes, suggests that collecting said taxes will cause a +2 to maximum WE each time you call on war taxes. This must obviously have some expiry period but I couldn’t venture to guess what it is. I suspect it will be something to do with being at peace and the maximum may decay at a similar rate to the current level.

Some factors on WE are worth examination since this is an isolated subject. The first simple point is that you can afford an average of 2 years at war to 1 year of peace over the long term and still achieve a return to zero WE between wars. If you end up with more war than this then you have a big problem. Obviously if you have a very long war that takes you to maximum then this maximum level becomes important and with the normal base level (ie Max of 10) it will take you 10 years to work off.

If however you become defender of the faith then you can manage with a ratio of 6.5 years of war to 1 of peace. As well as this improved ratio you will also get to average much lower WE during war time as you accumulate at 0.2 per year instead of 0.5. This makes defender of the faith very desirable for any player going for world conquest as it will allow you to break the back of the bad-boy wars without going to high levels of WE.

Defender of the Faith

This little section is designed as a round up of the Defender of Faith status.

It costs 1,000 ducats and last until you lose a war
Only one country can be defender of each faith
You get +0.5 morale on all your units (same as military drill national idea)
You get –0.3 WE every year (war or peace)
There are suggestions that a turbo-annex event putting you at peace with the broken nation may cause you to lose defender of the faith status. I’m not sure if this is true, sometimes true or false.

Again, I need volunteers to write a short précis on the consequences of revolt risk

[-Delta-]

I made the experience that you don't have to lose a war to lose DotF, I've lost it repeatedly after signing a white peace with the Incas after seizing half a dozen of their provinces, which I think sucks as I have quite clearly won the war.

[Kanitatlan]

This is a short post for those of you wondering what impact 1.2 had compared with 1.1. This is not difficult as the military changes are quite simple but their impact is significant.

The main change is in the cavalry shock multipliers. In 1.1 cavalry had a shock multiplier of 4 for a very long period with two consequences compared to 1.2

1) Cavalry’s ability varied very little over time since it was dominated by the appearance of new units and these are relatively rare and the scores did not increase dramatically. This meant that all Latin Knights where effectively the same irrespective of tech level.
2) Cavalry had a tremendous advantage over infantry in the early years

In 1.2 this has changed with cavalry shock multipliers starting at 1. In fact cavalry combat multipliers are twice the infantry multipliers up to around tech 20 where we return to the old sequence of values. This involves the multipliers steadily increasing and therefore we now get…

1) Cavalry ability improves significantly over the period and a tech lead will give you better cavalry multipliers and hence a significant benefit against lower tech cavalry. This will be especially obvious when fighting non-Latin obsolete cavalry units. It also means that not all Latin Knights are equal, your current tech level may make yours significantly better than someone else’s.
2) The cavalry advantage is now hugely toned down so they are twice as good rather than 4 times as good.

The other change is that early fire type units (eg long bowmen) have shock factors instead of fire factors so that their firepower ability isn’t completely ignored by the game. This makes many bow units good unit choices.

Over all the changes make a tremendous difference to the value of infantry on the early battlefield so that all cavalry is no longer automatically the best choice. It may be your best choice but that depends on secondary factors and you will have to wait for the unit analysis section for more information on that.

[Kanitatlan]

Originally Posted by -Delta-

I made the experience that you don't have to lose a war to lose DotF, I've lost it repeatedly after signing a white peace with the Incas after seizing half a dozen of their provinces, which I think sucks as I have quite clearly won the war.

I guess that answers our question, a "draw" loses you defender of the faith status. You should have asked for 25 ducats. I suppose this means the peace treaty derived from a turbo-annex is a draw as well. This is an issue that could do with being resolved.

[berhaven]

Originally Posted by Kanitatlan

War Exhaustion

War exhaustion is something that happens after you have spent time at war. Its only effect is to increase the revolt risk in every province by the current war exhaustion level.

Please note that there there is (or at least is so stated in the tooltips) another effect of WE: it acts as a negative modifier of your stability recovery speed, i.e. the more exhausted you are the slower your stab rec is.
In the early stage of the game (or even later if you have no art academies) this can be really painful and theoretically can bring you into negative stab growth if you do not invest enough.

I also have the feeling (but not direct test to validate it) that WE have some kind of effect in peace treaty stubborness. I noticed that countries with very high WE (around or above their limit) tend to accept treaties sooner. Thic can easily be caused by other factors that usually work in the same direction of WE, like army depletion, manpower, stability and warscore.

Last note on WE: IIRC in previous games owner WE was applied to occupied provinces while now (at least in 1.2.1) occupier WE is applied.

Generally speaking, I recommend to avoid to deliberately go to war with high WE, unless there are very strong reasons to do it anyway, even if it means that Military Tradition will be usually low.

[berhaven]

Originally Posted by Kanitatlan

I guess that answers our question, a "draw" loses you defender of the faith status. You should have asked for 25 ducats. I suppose this means the peace treaty derived from a turbo-annex is a draw as well. This is an issue that could do with being resolved.

The "draw" is considered as an unsuccessful outcome. Embargoes are not revoked automatically after a white peace.

A little flavour note on the war outcome: I find a little annoying that with respects of monarch log (the page you get after resigning) a war which ended with the force vassallization of you enemy or with him releasing three independent nations is considered as "unsuccessfull". It looks like the only variable taken into account is the number of provinces grabbed to the enemy.

[Palle]

Originally Posted by Kanitatlan

Leaders are generated randomly but can have the following bonus scores applied. For all properties except siege there are capped ability values that won’t be exceeded even if the bonus indicates it should. I assume that leaders have the modifier added to their random values before they are rounded to the nearest whole number.

Offensive up to +1.25 leader shock
Defensive up to +1.25 leader siege
Quality up to +1.25 leader fire
Engineer Corps Idea +1 leader siege

Do these apply to default "No Commander" leaders as well?
Does .25 matter anything? If the number is rounded to nearest whole number doesn't +1.25 equal +1?

[Kanitatlan]

Originally Posted by Palle

Do these apply to default "No Commander" leaders as well?
Does .25 matter anything? If the number is rounded to nearest whole number doesn't +1.25 equal +1?

They adjustments do not apply to no commander leaders making it useful (if rather expensive) to purchase lots of leaders if you have a good source of bonuses but no military tradition. In particular, if you have siege leader bonuses then putting a +1 (or even +2) leader on each siege is a significant benefit.

My theory about leader generation is that the game generates a full precision floating point random number in the appropriate range for current military tradition, adds the bonus and then rounds. This would mean that all fractions have influence over the final outcome.

Unfortunately I have done no surveys of leader generation to discover the rules and it would be very, very useful if someone fancies doing this. Just publish a table of tradition, leader values, current modifiers for all the leaders you generate. It may take quite a few examples to get a good analysis but I'm sure it can't be that hard to deduce how it works.

[Kanitatlan]

Originally Posted by berhaven

Please note that there there is (or at least is so stated in the tooltips) another effect of WE: it acts as a negative modifier of your stability recovery speed, i.e. the more exhausted you are the slower your stab rec is.
In the early stage of the game (or even later if you have no art academies) this can be really painful and theoretically can bring you into negative stab growth if you do not invest enough.

I also have the feeling (but not direct test to validate it) that WE have some kind of effect in peace treaty stubborness. I noticed that countries with very high WE (around or above their limit) tend to accept treaties sooner. Thic can easily be caused by other factors that usually work in the same direction of WE, like army depletion, manpower, stability and warscore.

Last note on WE: IIRC in previous games owner WE was applied to occupied provinces while now (at least in 1.2.1) occupier WE is applied.

Generally speaking, I recommend to avoid to deliberately go to war with high WE, unless there are very strong reasons to do it anyway, even if it means that Military Tradition will be usually low.

You are quite right. I should list the stability effects and will edit the original post later.

The peace treaty effects should be covered in a peace treaty FAQ but I am nowhere near being able to write one. I suspect WE is taken directly into account by the peace treaty algorithms but I see no clear evidence of its effects. I played a turbo-annex experiment on France where I had their entire nation taken except for the capital and held that position for about 12 years. Throughout that time their WE was escalating but this didn't appear to have any affect on the ridiculous peace offers they made to me.

[akmych]

in addition to Kanitatlan's great work:
http://www.europa3.ru/faq/units-eng.xls
tables of all units in the game, with their characteristics and tech demands.

[Primus Inter Pa]

Apologies if you already explained this and I missed it. I haven't had a chance to read this indepth yet.

But take your test example:

Knights: 1 attack + 9 dice – 4 defence = 6 => 5 x 3.5 x 4 = 70

Which is, if I'm understanding right,

Knights: 1 attack (attacker's unit attack value) + 9 dice – 4 defence (defender's unit defense value) = 6 => 5 (result of preceding calculation - 1) x 3.5 (casualty modifier) x 4 (tech modifier) = 70

Is that all right?

So the defending unit's tech modifiers do _not_ matter in relation to the casualties they will take?

So fire defense for cavalry and shock defense for artillery are indeed important values to take into consideration?