lutin grognon I'm not talking about morale, it was full. I'm talking about every regiment of the French army consisting of 200 men. Although I was able to get some delicious stackwipes in my England game with literally one dude defeating 40k.
Depleted France's Elan + quality with their ridiculous manpower base? With shitty quantity troops? Wow man good job beating France at the end of your world conquest game you impress us all.
+Just me Quantity is a waste IMHO, even Aristocratic ideas are better. Especially as a country with some bonuses to military traditions. The extra manpower is nice, but it's nothing special. I'd still say that Quality is the shittiest group because you have 3 mediocre bonuses for your armies and 1200 mana wasted on navies (who the fuck wants navies anyway when you can make your enemies squeal with superior, offensive tactics) - the only worth while things in that idea groups is the extra discipline and tradition decay, which is also undermined by two guaranteed pip's provided by Offensive ideas.
Just go 2/4/6 with cav, buy as much artilery as your combat width can allow and use the rest for your infantry. Just make sure there's more infantry than artilery since artilery is slow as fuck to recover and will cost you shitload of manpower, gold and time. Cheers.
+Nightowl Is the first available artillery still worth getting? I see it only has one fire pip. (OK, it has one siege pip, too, so I know it will be useful in sieges.) I'm currently playing as Korea, and I keep fighting Ming, so I clearly need all of the advantages I can get. But artillery is expensive and slow to recruit, and I've only got the first artillery in the game, which doesn't seem to be very good (just one fire pip, as I say). My economy is pretty good, though, so I _could_ afford it. And it's not as though I've got the force limit or manpower to steamroll Ming through numbers. Any ideas?
Ive just been doing 34k stacks (20 inf, 4 cav and 10 cannons). Have worked wonders for me. But its just up to a certain point. You will need more inf/art later on
dont use trade ideas , watch the ae and if you are in Iberia , north germany , france or italy try to go to either genoa lubeck venice and english sea. Give all centers if trade to burgers , upgrade to level 2 and make states only the ones that give allot of trade powet , i was Religious defensive adm quantity humanist france ans was making 150 duccats from trade and i didnt have italy , and i was making 250 duccats per month so yeah , i was holding 100k arty with 100k mercs and i was still making money.Always take quantity.you can even hold maybe one third or half of your inf as normals
From mil tech 26 onwards you dont need cavalry anymore if your enemy fields an army big enough. If you both fill out the front row there is no flanking and later (tech 26 like I mentioned) infantry are stronger than cavalry.
The battles may have been a little skewed because of your better tactics, but your tutorial is sound and really helps. Also don't cannons prevent damage to the units in front of them, I remember hearing that somewhere.
TheDefeatedGamer The tactics advantage resulted in approximately a difference between taking 61% damage instead of 70% damage from the Ottoman units, or 610 casualties instead of 700 per 1000. 9% fewer casualties is significant, but not enough that it obscures the meaning, nor enough to matter in the battle alone, though even after 100 phases you would only have taken an extra 9000 casualties, which is easy to restore over the time it would take to fight said battles.
Yeah but the reason tactics is so OP is because it stacks - the ratio between troops quickly gets more and more in your favour you keep dealing roughly the same amount of dmg while theirs drastically falls as their center completely breaks and the more men they lose the more morale dmg they take, the shorter the battle is and that just seals the deal
One little math note - 61% damage compared to 70% damage is not a 9% decrease in actual damage taken. It's actually a 13% decrease because 61/70 means you're taking 87% of the damage you would have been taken.
Oh, thats actually really helpful! (Btw: Thanks for the amount of informational EU4 content in the last months) If I may voice a wish: A comparison of National Ideas would be really interessting and entertaining to watch. But not like a Top10, but rather a broad comparison. For example I was really surprised that the Portugese Ideas were that much worse than the Spanish ones. I personally think the french ones are great.
What convincing do you need? All OP said is facts, honestly, look at the title of the video - it's obvious that you can win with shit army composition against an enemy with crap ideas and shit military tech, but when fighting a stronger or equal opponent this stuff matters.
Dude.... i hate the dice system... I know if im gambling im not rolling a snake eyes as much as EU4 screws me over in the game! Ive had a 23k stack get cut down to 8k after rolling continuous 0s against 12k enemy army.. no river crossing penalty.... I was +1 on mil tech.. Why am I mad despite winning? Manpower and ducats per month took an unnecessary blow
MrDanno2 saw a Smolensk run on reddit with full cannon stacks. With both the front row and back row full of cannons and the fire phase being first resulted in quick battles if a bit casualty heavy
So for 473 hours I've been making armies wrong, no wonder I'm so strong in mid game but it all falls apart in late game. (my army template after unlocking canons is 10 infantry, 5 cav and 5 artillery per stack)
Small stacks helps to avoid attrition but they are vulnerable I usually keep my "small" stacks near each other and then combine forces when attacked to fill the combat width and avoid huge losses.
The 25% flanking range at level 10 tech actually helps with damaged cav since cav with reduced size (say 750) has its flanking range reduced by 25%. The tech at 10 negates that meaning your cav can flank for a longer amount of time.
Please make video explaining everything about trade making a hell lot of money with it. I really enjoy your vids keep up the good vids man !! xD Also i use trick where i sent all my cavalry 1 day before my main army meaning i have cavalry at my center and anhilating my enemies
Bloody Dk how to make a powerful trade 1-make sure you are the powerful in your home node 2-now conquer the next powerful node (the one that you can deal with) 3-colonize 4-make sure your home node can connect to the new world's trade node 5-if not then conquer a node with connection to the new world 6-conquer india and whole spice islands also the ivory coast and the cape of good hope 7-now you have a trading empire
Mate, 3.2% of your 60k is 1920 men per tick. Two years of walking around, and your current manpower is bye bye. You really should be more careful with stacking like that, or your attrition losses will be pretty much as high as enemies combat losses.
This was much better then the last version you did, the other one was very good but it did have a few mistakes here and there. I did still notice one or two mistakes though. Cannons can actually fight in the front row, in fact they double damage in the front row! But they also take double damage which is why it's generally very bad to have them on the front row. How ever... you can flank with cannons on the front row against army's that are smaller then yours and the cannons won't take any damage.
@darkfireslide you have a 0.2 tactics advantage and the generals are completly different. if you want to test the effect of unit composition you need to find a foe with equal tactics and equal general (or no generals), as tactics also influences the amount of your people dying.
The problem of a lean cav stack vs a heavy cav stack is your shock phase damage is minuscule. Your enemy is effectively free of any good dice roll you may have. Flanking range is not the only thing that decides ideal inf to cav ratio.
That's hilarious, the Ethiopia-ottoman war at the start of the vid looks exactly like a game I once played. Conquered the horn, conquered Egypt, and immediately got spanked by otto-blob
Awesome video this would have been a great help in learning about army compositions, but alas I was not lucky enough to have Darkfireslides excellent tutorial videos to learn how to play Eu4.
i outgun my enemy by 20-30k and my military tech is ahead of time but I would always lose battles. This video helped a lot thanks! :D before that I used mainly infantry and around 20K cavalry with only a few artillery like 10k in a army of 60k and money isn't even my problem
I feel like early levels, if you have the money, more cav is great, as it unravels the end of the line and gets stronger shock pips early in general. Also isn't it generally better to run your 6-8 reinforcement troops in a separate army behind, and run it into the battle a few days late, to keep reinforcement morale up?
most provinces wont hold 30 inf+4cav+27cannons without taking attrition. keep your army in more manageable stacks where you need 2 or 3 stacks to fill out combat lines, it's not pretty, but your manpower will love it. Knowing this, when fighting big armies, keep your stacks together so they can fill the ranks when needed, also making max use of morale boost that reinforcing gives.
He is talking about proper battle stacks, not the actual armies you want to move around on the map. Just make a proper stack, then split it in two (or even three if need be) to avoid attrition. Keep the smaller stacks 1 province apart, and just combine them back to your proper battle stack when you know that combat is imminent.
I was kinda stunned by it too. Morale is still really important, but in the late game if you fight an enemy with like 120% discipline vs your 100% but you have much higher morale, you'll still win the battle but your casualties will be noticeable higher.
I think it is the point here that cav are better then inf. Of course cav are more expensive, so you don't want them taking any damage. So 4 cav on the flanks will result in more flanking damage without taking any damage too the expensive units.
Could you please make a video explaining the economical system in the game? Trade power, taxes, production, the way various buildings interact with them, best ways to use traders and the like.
You know, you can just divide your army up in two parts as long as your not fighting battles, keep them close and then when they (or you) attack, you put them together again, only for the time of the battle, though. This way you don't lose half your army every 2 years (0.97^24=0.48 (meaning 24 months with 3% attrition)
Great video, I had no idea battle mechanics were that complex. But I'd like to know, does shift consolidating your regiments, so theyre at full strength, after a battle help at all?
Bobby Monroe it'll negate the negative manpower effects of having to replenish all your regiments, though obviously you'll end up with a less numerous army.
Why use to much infantry in the front row? If you match there combat width with you're infantry, and have cavalry on top of that, you're cavalry is actually used. In your first battle, the cavalry was mostly useless due to the flanking range.
You don't shift + consolidate troops. That is one fundamental wrong. "Attacking unit strength : If the attacking unit has below its maximum of 1000 men, damage will be reduced proportionally."
from other videos ive watched it says early game you should have 2-4 cavalry and late game 0-2 cavalry... and artillery i heard they do damage on the front row its just that they take a lot of damage too.. which is different from what ur saying how artillery cant do damage on the front row... i dunno which is correct.. im just stating the difference in what ive heard
Nope, I'm certain it's the opposite. Front row will always deal full dmg, back row either none, if cavalry/infantry or half if artillery. Once your front row of foot soldiers dies and the artillery shifts to the front line you'll usually see the damage being done is increasing by alot in the fire phase, however since artillery has no defense, they will also die as quickly.
Juicysilver Lol, what no they TAKE double damage in the front row. They deal normal damage in the front row and half in the back. Check out the wiki and see for yourself.
@darkfireslide I think you should also mention late game scenarios where the enemy has full Inf fronts and you try to flank with cavs. Does the math actually work out if you attempt to fill your front row with cavs while the enemy has inf across from those cavs?
you dont want arty at the same as your combat width, because if front row units die they get pushed to the front... you want maybe 4 of the backrow be inf for reinforcments
Well, that helped me but I currently have some questions. First, is it okay with the force limit ? I mean, that's a lot of troops, just for one army. Do you always need Quantity ideas to achieve this force limit ? Also, this kid of army can take a lot of attrition, okay, so, is it a good idea to split the army in four when you want to march, or siege, and only regroup for battles ?
It is a good idea to split armies for sieges as they'll take less attrition; this video was more to show how to maximize your competence in a battle specifically. Quantity helps with achieving maximum combat width, but having a large empire works fine as well.
I see you use 29k infantry/ 11k cav/ 17k cannons. So 29/11/17, I usually prefer 11/9/10. you need to have more infantry than cav. Infantry is good against infantry, cav against infantry and cannons against both of them and siege.But mostly I use this formation because of attrition. Attrition is the one who kills you your army.
countered by the massively increased attrition and the inflexibility however, you could see the ottomans were everywhere whereas he had to pick one fight at a time
Under what circumstance will art. (or any "superfluous" inf. and cav.) take damage on the back row? Will enemy units automatically deal damage to the back row if the field a wider line than you? Does it have to do with flanking?
I was just watching your top ten ideas video and this too; I'd really recommend you make your videos with more than one take. Great info otherwise, it's just kinda jarring when you seem so self-conscious when you mess up.
Darkfire: don't forget not everyone who watches your videos is a veteran. You referred to "stack" numerous times and I've been under the impression that any army is a stack. Now I'm thinking a proper stack is 30,000 soldiers? Pointing out something simple like would go a long way.
kraze1982 Um, stack is not just an eu4 term in fact it's been used long before. Yes it refers to an army. The last bit where you say that you are confused by saying that a proper stack is 30k is just down to your poor comprehension or english skills since if you understood you would know that just because something isn't proper doesn't mean that it's not that thing...
I'm not sure that I'm the one with questionable "comprehension or English skill". I simply asked if a proper stack was 30,000 soldiers and the numbers he referenced were in regard to that proper stack.
The basic unit of infantry/cavalry/artillery is the "regiment." Troops are recruited by the regiment. Regiments have 1,000 men at full strength, but they can go as low as 0 men. (These are called "empty" regiments.) A "stack" is one or more regiments that have been grouped into an army. ("Stack" and "army" have the exact same meaning in EU4.) Armies/stacks are usually referred to by their current size rather than their full-strength size. For example, an army of 20 regiments at half strength (so 10,000 men) would be called a "10-stack." After reinforcing back to full strength it would be called a "20-stack."
Late answer, but with "proper" stack he means the army you want to engage with in an actual battle, not the smaller sized armies you run around with on the map. A "proper stack", or a "doomstack" is an army that's built for optimal battle, ignoring attrition totally. You would usually split this stack into two smaller armies to avoid attrition. If you are fighting in really bad terrain, it might even be worth it to split it into three. Early game this is usually just up to your max combat width of mixed Inf/Cav, with a few extra Inf regiments. The more Cav the better, as long as you avoid insufficient support (your Inf/Cav ratio). At tech 13 and 16 Art gets noticeable bonuses, so you should start adding more and more Art to your armies at this point. Late game armies start at tech 22, when you basically want max combat witdh of Inf AND Art, with extra Inf for reinforcements. Cav is not worth it in lategame armies. At this point, the only thing that matters is the Fire phase, and Cav does almost all of its dmg in the Shock phase. Might keep 2 around in each proper stack, just in case you aren't fighting a full combat width battle.
Granted your comment is a year old but someone might find this and wonder the same thing: Sieging doesn't work like normal combat. You just need X troops based on the garrison size, the exact number of regiments needed to siege it are listed as number near the top right of the siege window I think. It's there somewhere on the siege window Then the # of cannons is based on fort level gives you the bonus to the roll. If you mouse over it the bonus roll # (Cannon icon I think) will tell you how many cannons = what + to the roll. Now that is counting in 1000s. So if you have 3999 and need 4K you wont get it. But you can have 10 regiments at 50% strength (5000 total manpower) and still get the bonus. So I normally bring 1 more arty reg with just in the off chance I lose a few but up to you. Then whatever I feel like in inf as an escort to prevent insta stack wipes. (Main army is always close enough to bail them out if jump my siege stacks). If you have enough guns you can spend 50 mill mana to blow a hole in the wall as well. Helps if you really need to get it over with. Or can't blockaded it to help offset the -2 from it not being blockaded. You can also assault the fortress with inf if you have breached the walls (Normally or by cannon). If I recall only 5K can fight per day? But the more siege skill you have the better chances you have. It's normally a huge manpower waste to assault forts unless they are tiny or I have some huge morale boost. Horse's do nothing to help minus help meet the min army size needed to progress the siege. Well that and defend your army if it gets attacked while siegeing (Normal combat then). But But keep in mind the nation helping their forts counts as the defenders when relieving a fort under siege. So if you plan on playing turrtle with forts a pure defence blip unit types would be better as you are the defender even if "attacking" a hostile army that is sieging YOUR fort(s).
+50% flanking range, and Albania being eastern tech gives them 60% supply modifier. So, if I did the calculations right, you should have +4 more calvary than the west at the start, +5 from level 17, and +6 from level 23 mil tech. But still though, never have more calvary than infantry in an army !!
+Red Oblivion Well, Albania is not a Horde... But if you're a horde, you can have all calvary stacks untill you have westernized/reformed government...
Sorry, but I am a little confused here. First you say, we should have some infantry regiments in the back row to refill the losses suffered in the front row. Then you say entire back row must be filled with artillery. What is the exact strategy?
You need infantry in reserves to refill casualties, not ones in the back. Your entire back line should be filled with artillery to have an optimal amount of damage. However many infantry and cavalry it takes to fill your front line, you should have that plus an additional 6-10 regiments to replace casualties as the battle rages on.
Yeah, I was asking about those extra 6-10 regiments to replace casualties. where do they stand in the stack before the battle begins? Do they form part of the back row or they dont show up in the srack at all untill casualties occur?
could you do a guide on trading and money making ? I can't seem to get anywhere as smaller less economic nations like ireland and can only make money as a huge nation with big trade at start like ming.
It is a pity that Paradox has missed out on how army compositions work properly. Should that composition be used in reality, it would be an expensive slow army that performs poorly.
Can you tell me how to properly siege and deal with that stupid mercenaries stacking which bot is doing when he loses his army, then suddenly have more army of merc than you do.
Liber Philosophus Bot nations cant go bankrupt as far as I know, even if they do, its on way bigger debt than human player. You can carpet siege if "Your land movement is blocked by hostile forces".
it really sucks when the AI does that. It can be almost impossible to win on manpower alone. try to save up some money and infuse your armies with mercs. if you're being attacked, running the enemy into debt should make them at least white peace easily. Only foolproof way to deal with it is to just have much better troops and stackwipe them. Sometimes I will try to seige the enemy fort and if i see an enemy army approaching ill add a bunch of mercs to it quickly then get rid of them after, just to survive the battle
The Meekofpie it should be around your combat width. The example I gave in the video was at 27 width, so you would want 27 people to cover your frontline, so 23 infantry and 4 cavalry in that "proper" stack, then add an additional 6-8 regiments of infantry to cover losses.
you have to do a vid about prussian space marines especialy with new govt in my game by time i made germany i had with a general that gave inf combat +10% and a quality idea event for +5% dicipline i had 150% diciplin and 50% inf combat ability it was stupid good
can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong please?? in any game, no matter who I play as I can never make the newer kind of Regiments, like for example I'm germany, its. 1778 and I can only make the first Kind if infantry from 1444 (in ALL provinces) can someone tell me how tf I can fix this??
This might sound stupid, but did you change the regiment type/model in the army tab, next to the religion tab? I guess you are also teching up the military technology?
iirc, the top row of pips are the stats if you're attacking, the bottom row are your stats for defending, so it largely depends on your playstyle. also if you have a really good shock or fire general or bonuses to either of those areas, try and stack that stat more to make the most of it
![[EU4] In-Depth Analysis of Institutions](/img/n.gif)
That moment when you took quantity and your enemy has depleted his units, but you have fresh. And the enemy is France.
lutin grognon There is no luck. It will happen eventually, if you attack with half a million men.
lutin grognon I'm not talking about morale, it was full. I'm talking about every regiment of the French army consisting of 200 men. Although I was able to get some delicious stackwipes in my England game with literally one dude defeating 40k.
I did that as the Ottomans for a PU over a metastasized France and force-converted them to Protestant. Protestant Ottomans are not broken at all. :)
Depleted France's Elan + quality with their ridiculous manpower base? With shitty quantity troops?
Wow man good job beating France at the end of your world conquest game you impress us all.
+Just me Quantity is a waste IMHO, even Aristocratic ideas are better. Especially as a country with some bonuses to military traditions. The extra manpower is nice, but it's nothing special. I'd still say that Quality is the shittiest group because you have 3 mediocre bonuses for your armies and 1200 mana wasted on navies (who the fuck wants navies anyway when you can make your enemies squeal with superior, offensive tactics) - the only worth while things in that idea groups is the extra discipline and tradition decay, which is also undermined by two guaranteed pip's provided by Offensive ideas.
All this time I've been thinking I need more cav than cannons... maybe thats why I always lose so many battles?
nosirrbro i always did 40% cavalry of my infantry lol
Just go 2/4/6 with cav, buy as much artilery as your combat width can allow and use the rest for your infantry. Just make sure there's more infantry than artilery since artilery is slow as fuck to recover and will cost you shitload of manpower, gold and time. Cheers.
+Nightowl
Is the first available artillery still worth getting? I see it only has one fire pip. (OK, it has one siege pip, too, so I know it will be useful in sieges.)
I'm currently playing as Korea, and I keep fighting Ming, so I clearly need all of the advantages I can get. But artillery is expensive and slow to recruit, and I've only got the first artillery in the game, which doesn't seem to be very good (just one fire pip, as I say).
My economy is pretty good, though, so I _could_ afford it. And it's not as though I've got the force limit or manpower to steamroll Ming through numbers. Any ideas?
Ive just been doing 34k stacks (20 inf, 4 cav and 10 cannons). Have worked wonders for me. But its just up to a certain point. You will need more inf/art later on
viikmaqic what point is that because I'm new to the game and need some tips on army comp.
27 Artillery! bye bye ducats.
Trade +200 per tick in 1600 +trade ideas
dont use trade ideas , watch the ae and if you are in Iberia , north germany , france or italy try to go to either genoa lubeck venice and english sea.
Give all centers if trade to burgers , upgrade to level 2 and make states only the ones that give allot of trade powet , i was Religious defensive adm quantity humanist france ans was making 150 duccats from trade and i didnt have italy , and i was making 250 duccats per month so yeah , i was holding 100k arty with 100k mercs and i was still making money.Always take quantity.you can even hold maybe one third or half of your inf as normals
From mil tech 26 onwards you dont need cavalry anymore if your enemy fields an army big enough. If you both fill out the front row there is no flanking and later (tech 26 like I mentioned) infantry are stronger than cavalry.
The battles may have been a little skewed because of your better tactics, but your tutorial is sound and really helps. Also don't cannons prevent damage to the units in front of them, I remember hearing that somewhere.
TheDefeatedGamer no, arty gives half of their pips to defend the unit in front of them
TheDefeatedGamer The tactics advantage resulted in approximately a difference between taking 61% damage instead of 70% damage from the Ottoman units, or 610 casualties instead of 700 per 1000. 9% fewer casualties is significant, but not enough that it obscures the meaning, nor enough to matter in the battle alone, though even after 100 phases you would only have taken an extra 9000 casualties, which is easy to restore over the time it would take to fight said battles.
Yeah but the reason tactics is so OP is because it stacks - the ratio between troops quickly gets more and more in your favour
you keep dealing roughly the same amount of dmg while theirs drastically falls as their center completely breaks
and the more men they lose the more morale dmg they take, the shorter the battle is and that just seals the deal
One little math note - 61% damage compared to 70% damage is not a 9% decrease in actual damage taken. It's actually a 13% decrease because 61/70 means you're taking 87% of the damage you would have been taken.
interesting
I literally just blurt out "WHAT?!" when he said that artillery prevent incoming fire damage. This guide is excellent man, thank you so much!
Oh, thats actually really helpful! (Btw: Thanks for the amount of informational EU4 content in the last months)
If I may voice a wish: A comparison of National Ideas would be really interessting and entertaining to watch. But not like a Top10, but rather a broad comparison. For example I was really surprised that the Portugese Ideas were that much worse than the Spanish ones. I personally think the french ones are great.
lul the troll from Dora the Explora
this would have been much more convincing if it wasn't against armies half your size rolling 0s
What convincing do you need? All OP said is facts, honestly, look at the title of the video - it's obvious that you can win with shit army composition against an enemy with crap ideas and shit military tech, but when fighting a stronger or equal opponent this stuff matters.
Dude.... i hate the dice system... I know if im gambling im not rolling a snake eyes as much as EU4 screws me over in the game! Ive had a 23k stack get cut down to 8k after rolling continuous 0s against 12k enemy army.. no river crossing penalty.... I was +1 on mil tech.. Why am I mad despite winning? Manpower and ducats per month took an unnecessary blow
....outnumbered
racist comment deleted. take that shit elsewhere.
stfu sjw trash
Proper army comp: All artillery
Not good artillery on front takes x3 damage from enemy
kethup
so you're saying we need 3x more artillery. good idea, MORE CANNONS
This man predicted artillery only before artillery only was a thing
Dan
oh my
Daniel Jakes oh gee..
OMG this is the exact video I needed earlier when I was confused about Calvary to infantry ratio thanks dark
@6:45 yes they can and they cannons do double damage in the front row as well as take double it.
MrDanno2 saw a Smolensk run on reddit with full cannon stacks. With both the front row and back row full of cannons and the fire phase being first resulted in quick battles if a bit casualty heavy
Hands down best eu 4 guides on youtube. Thanks man. concise, in-depth, and clear.
So for 473 hours I've been making armies wrong, no wonder I'm so strong in mid game but it all falls apart in late game. (my army template after unlocking canons is 10 infantry, 5 cav and 5 artillery per stack)
lmao same
Shellshock97 same here almost 500 hours in always lose and still a noob. Don't know why I even try to play but I'm determined to get better
Small stacks helps to avoid attrition but they are vulnerable I usually keep my "small" stacks near each other and then combine forces when attacked to fill the combat width and avoid huge losses.
I've passed 1000
better late than ever....
Excellent video. Played since EU3 and have never gotten the specifics of army phase combat. Here you sum it up beautifully in 15 mins :) Subbed :)
So, this is why my beautiful Prussian armies keep getting wiped by the 1720.
Wow man I've watched a lot of your videos and subscribed after this one. Great videos with great content, keep it up!
Great explanation. I sort of knew alot of this stuff but this really helps to make it all clear, thanks.
Holy shit dude. Keep up these videos, just watching a few of your vids practically doubled my skills. Good shit.
Yeah it makes a huge difference when you know the correct Army compositions. The game really starts to open up.
The 25% flanking range at level 10 tech actually helps with damaged cav since cav with reduced size (say 750) has its flanking range reduced by 25%. The tech at 10 negates that meaning your cav can flank for a longer amount of time.
Darkfireslide - I'm impressed with you knowledge as 4k hours player. Keep on doing good job!
Please make video explaining everything about trade making a hell lot of money with it. I really enjoy your vids keep up the good vids man !! xD Also i use trick where i sent all my cavalry 1 day before my main army meaning i have cavalry at my center and anhilating my enemies
Bloody Dk how to make a powerful trade
1-make sure you are the powerful in your
home node
2-now conquer the next powerful node (the one that you can deal with)
3-colonize
4-make sure your home node can connect to the new world's trade node
5-if not then conquer a node with connection to the new world
6-conquer india and whole spice islands also the ivory coast and the cape of good hope
7-now you have a trading empire
Juls Bern man its hard to have it flowing right as Ottomans. This smugglers are so annoying unless i conquer them all
make trade ships, that usually works
You should have prefaced that with "Start as a babby nation in Western Europe"
Arumba has a good trade vid
Mate, 3.2% of your 60k is 1920 men per tick. Two years of walking around, and your current manpower is bye bye. You really should be more careful with stacking like that, or your attrition losses will be pretty much as high as enemies combat losses.
vytarrus physically hurts seeing all that attrition loss from player deathstacks
vytarrus I'm aware, I was trying to show how unit stacking works.
vytarrus just split armies in half or thirds to march around then regroup before battle
John Carr That's a good solution!
never really notice attrition..just split em up when not fighting and keep them a tile away from each other for fast reinforcement if needed
This was much better then the last version you did, the other one was very good but it did have a few mistakes here and there. I did still notice one or two mistakes though. Cannons can actually fight in the front row, in fact they double damage in the front row! But they also take double damage which is why it's generally very bad to have them on the front row. How ever... you can flank with cannons on the front row against army's that are smaller then yours and the cannons won't take any damage.
You have the best EU4 tutorial videos hands down.
@darkfireslide
you have a 0.2 tactics advantage and the generals are completly different. if you want to test the effect of unit composition you need to find a foe with equal tactics and equal general (or no generals), as tactics also influences the amount of your people dying.
Martin Haller except that we had a battle where the Ottomans had a better general.
Martin Haller shows what you know. You completely ignored national and chosen ideas. Which WOULD also make a difference in battle.
would you always have the same tactics and generals?
I just got EU4 and I’ve only done 1 campaign as Russia and I would be baffled when my 45k stack would lose to a 30k stack, thanks so much!
The problem of a lean cav stack vs a heavy cav stack is your shock phase damage is minuscule. Your enemy is effectively free of any good dice roll you may have. Flanking range is not the only thing that decides ideal inf to cav ratio.
By late game, the shock phase doesnt even matter.
That's hilarious, the Ethiopia-ottoman war at the start of the vid looks exactly like a game I once played. Conquered the horn, conquered Egypt, and immediately got spanked by otto-blob
I always take extra some extra infantry in case some of my units are wiped out in front. I don’t want my artillery taking casualties
This video btw motivated me to play Ethiopia, it was really fun, thx m8
Awesome video this would have been a great help in learning about army compositions, but alas I was not lucky enough to have Darkfireslides excellent tutorial videos to learn how to play Eu4.
i outgun my enemy by 20-30k and my military tech is ahead of time but I would always lose battles. This video helped a lot thanks! :D before that I used mainly infantry and around 20K cavalry with only a few artillery like 10k in a army of 60k and money isn't even my problem
I feel like early levels, if you have the money, more cav is great, as it unravels the end of the line and gets stronger shock pips early in general. Also isn't it generally better to run your 6-8 reinforcement troops in a separate army behind, and run it into the battle a few days late, to keep reinforcement morale up?
most provinces wont hold 30 inf+4cav+27cannons without taking attrition.
keep your army in more manageable stacks where you need 2 or 3 stacks to fill out combat lines, it's not pretty, but your manpower will love it. Knowing this, when fighting big armies, keep your stacks together so they can fill the ranks when needed, also making max use of morale boost that reinforcing gives.
He is talking about proper battle stacks, not the actual armies you want to move around on the map. Just make a proper stack, then split it in two (or even three if need be) to avoid attrition. Keep the smaller stacks 1 province apart, and just combine them back to your proper battle stack when you know that combat is imminent.
Ah i see i always built armies as 14k infantry, 6k cav and 2k cannons i see my mistakes XD
1inamillion & Co so sad what is a canon even...
This is about how the army composition should look in reality.
With polish ideas, late game 20 infantry, 8 cav, and 12 cannons work well
Thanks, I feel like I finally understand how to do that now!
did you notice thath in right corner are 666 :D
Why? FOR SATAN OFC!
That is the video that I was looking for. Thx
dark when you say that morale doesnt affect casualties your wrong as morale affects the damage your troops do so... yay?
If you look at the formula in the wiki, morale doesn't actually cause damage unless the enemy troops rout entirely.
rip... #blamearumba
I was kinda stunned by it too. Morale is still really important, but in the late game if you fight an enemy with like 120% discipline vs your 100% but you have much higher morale, you'll still win the battle but your casualties will be noticeable higher.
well then... does that mean janissaryderp isnt so strong then?
Sometimes though simply getting the extra warscore is enough, especially if your the defender and are just trying for white peace.
great vid. been looking for this for forever. keep it up :)
Infantery flanks 1, you only need 2 cav before tech 18. (Not 4)
but a cav is better than an inf early
Ragatokk Um no, 50 percent cav would mean that the moment you enter battle you have over 50 percent cav.
I think it is the point here that cav are better then inf. Of course cav are more expensive, so you don't want them taking any damage. So 4 cav on the flanks will result in more flanking damage without taking any damage too the expensive units.
Could you please make a video explaining the economical system in the game? Trade power, taxes, production, the way various buildings interact with them, best ways to use traders and the like.
Nyarl's channel Click the trade map, the rest becomes clear from there. At least that how I began to learn how it works.
You know, you can just divide your army up in two parts as long as your not fighting battles, keep them close and then when they (or you) attack, you put them together again, only for the time of the battle, though. This way you don't lose half your army every 2 years (0.97^24=0.48 (meaning 24 months with 3% attrition)
Does the artillery have to be EXACTLY the combat width, 36 artillery plus infantry and cav is ALOT of cash
darkfireslide ı love your channel bcuz you re calculating mass of mosquito in every time
Great video, I had no idea battle mechanics were that complex. But I'd like to know, does shift consolidating your regiments, so theyre at full strength, after a battle help at all?
Bobby Monroe it'll negate the negative manpower effects of having to replenish all your regiments, though obviously you'll end up with a less numerous army.
Great video really helped me out thank you :)
So this is why my army looses even when it has 2x more morale, troops and a better commander. I never knew this!
I almost quit the game cause i didnt know why i was loosing thanks man
So someone is re-uploading this a bunch of times, may wanna look into that
Why use to much infantry in the front row? If you match there combat width with you're infantry, and have cavalry on top of that, you're cavalry is actually used. In your first battle, the cavalry was mostly useless due to the flanking range.
So that's how I lost so so so much land on my recent Muscovy run. A depressing amount of land. Too infantry heavy.
You don't shift + consolidate troops. That is one fundamental wrong.
"Attacking unit strength : If the attacking unit has below its maximum of 1000 men, damage will be reduced proportionally."
why is nobody anywhere mentioning or caring about terrain....
from other videos ive watched it says early game you should have 2-4 cavalry and late game 0-2 cavalry... and artillery i heard they do damage on the front row its just that they take a lot of damage too.. which is different from what ur saying how artillery cant do damage on the front row... i dunno which is correct.. im just stating the difference in what ive heard
Dark, cannons do full damage from the back row and half from the front
Nope, I'm certain it's the opposite. Front row will always deal full dmg, back row either none, if cavalry/infantry or half if artillery. Once your front row of foot soldiers dies and the artillery shifts to the front line you'll usually see the damage being done is increasing by alot in the fire phase, however since artillery has no defense, they will also die as quickly.
Cannons do double damage if they're in the front row but also take double damage according to DDRJake
Juicysilver Lol, what no they TAKE double damage in the front row. They deal normal damage in the front row and half in the back. Check out the wiki and see for yourself.
IMO, you can't have too much cavalry until Tech 16, unless your economy can't handle it or you're running into the insufficient support penalty.
@darkfireslide I think you should also mention late game scenarios where the enemy has full Inf fronts and you try to flank with cavs. Does the math actually work out if you attempt to fill your front row with cavs while the enemy has inf across from those cavs?
you dont want arty at the same as your combat width, because if front row units die they get pushed to the front... you want maybe 4 of the backrow be inf for reinforcments
But he stated that at 5:58 :/
Hey nice video :)
what about the ottomans? I heared about that you can have more cavalry ? how is the proper army stacking as the ottomans?
Well, that helped me but I currently have some questions.
First, is it okay with the force limit ? I mean, that's a lot of troops, just for one army. Do you always need Quantity ideas to achieve this force limit ?
Also, this kid of army can take a lot of attrition, okay, so, is it a good idea to split the army in four when you want to march, or siege, and only regroup for battles ?
It is a good idea to split armies for sieges as they'll take less attrition; this video was more to show how to maximize your competence in a battle specifically. Quantity helps with achieving maximum combat width, but having a large empire works fine as well.
I see you use 29k infantry/ 11k cav/ 17k cannons. So 29/11/17, I usually prefer 11/9/10. you need to have more infantry than cav. Infantry is good against infantry, cav against infantry and cannons against both of them and siege.But mostly I use this formation because of attrition. Attrition is the one who kills you your army.
Can you do a video on trade? This was very helpful thanks
What about attrition because of too many troops?
How does the flanking range for Shammar work? It already got 25% in the national ideas, which would mean it is essentially useless late/early game.
I am quite curious: Has that nowledge helped you against Ottomans in that war? What have you gained/lost?
Dzejdzejkab ... what... ofc that knowledge would help, more effecient troop usage means that your manpower goes further.
countered by the massively increased attrition and the inflexibility however, you could see the ottomans were everywhere whereas he had to pick one fight at a time
Under what circumstance will art. (or any "superfluous" inf. and cav.) take damage on the back row? Will enemy units automatically deal damage to the back row if the field a wider line than you? Does it have to do with flanking?
Automans. Yup. That's what they are.
late game I usually shoot for 20k infantry 10k cavalry and 15k artillery as a European
I was just watching your top ten ideas video and this too; I'd really recommend you make your videos with more than one take. Great info otherwise, it's just kinda jarring when you seem so self-conscious when you mess up.
I normally do about 2/3 infantry and 1/3 calvalry
2:37 27-12 is 15 bro.......................
Darkfire: don't forget not everyone who watches your videos is a veteran. You referred to "stack" numerous times and I've been under the impression that any army is a stack. Now I'm thinking a proper stack is 30,000 soldiers? Pointing out something simple like would go a long way.
kraze1982 Um, stack is not just an eu4 term in fact it's been used long before. Yes it refers to an army. The last bit where you say that you are confused by saying that a proper stack is 30k is just down to your poor comprehension or english skills since if you understood you would know that just because something isn't proper doesn't mean that it's not that thing...
I'm not sure that I'm the one with questionable "comprehension or English skill".
I simply asked if a proper stack was 30,000 soldiers and the numbers he referenced were in regard to that proper stack.
a proper stack the way he means it is having the right composition of troops relative to your tech. Not about the total troop count.
The basic unit of infantry/cavalry/artillery is the "regiment." Troops are recruited by the regiment. Regiments have 1,000 men at full strength, but they can go as low as 0 men. (These are called "empty" regiments.) A "stack" is one or more regiments that have been grouped into an army. ("Stack" and "army" have the exact same meaning in EU4.) Armies/stacks are usually referred to by their current size rather than their full-strength size. For example, an army of 20 regiments at half strength (so 10,000 men) would be called a "10-stack." After reinforcing back to full strength it would be called a "20-stack."
Late answer, but with "proper" stack he means the army you want to engage with in an actual battle, not the smaller sized armies you run around with on the map.
A "proper stack", or a "doomstack" is an army that's built for optimal battle, ignoring attrition totally. You would usually split this stack into two smaller armies to avoid attrition. If you are fighting in really bad terrain, it might even be worth it to split it into three.
Early game this is usually just up to your max combat width of mixed Inf/Cav, with a few extra Inf regiments. The more Cav the better, as long as you avoid insufficient support (your Inf/Cav ratio).
At tech 13 and 16 Art gets noticeable bonuses, so you should start adding more and more Art to your armies at this point.
Late game armies start at tech 22, when you basically want max combat witdh of Inf AND Art, with extra Inf for reinforcements. Cav is not worth it in lategame armies. At this point, the only thing that matters is the Fire phase, and Cav does almost all of its dmg in the Shock phase. Might keep 2 around in each proper stack, just in case you aren't fighting a full combat width battle.
Throughout this whole video, you lost more than twice the manpower to attrition than to actual fighting
I'm confused, if you fill your back line with artillery where do you put your back up infantry?
how does this interact with carpet sieging? should all the cannons be in the reinforcements?
Granted your comment is a year old but someone might find this and wonder the same thing:
Sieging doesn't work like normal combat.
You just need X troops based on the garrison size, the exact number of regiments needed to siege it are listed as number near the top right of the siege window I think. It's there somewhere on the siege window
Then the # of cannons is based on fort level gives you the bonus to the roll. If you mouse over it the bonus roll # (Cannon icon I think) will tell you how many cannons = what + to the roll. Now that is counting in 1000s. So if you have 3999 and need 4K you wont get it. But you can have 10 regiments at 50% strength (5000 total manpower) and still get the bonus. So I normally bring 1 more arty reg with just in the off chance I lose a few but up to you. Then whatever I feel like in inf as an escort to prevent insta stack wipes. (Main army is always close enough to bail them out if jump my siege stacks).
If you have enough guns you can spend 50 mill mana to blow a hole in the wall as well. Helps if you really need to get it over with. Or can't blockaded it to help offset the -2 from it not being blockaded. You can also assault the fortress with inf if you have breached the walls (Normally or by cannon). If I recall only 5K can fight per day? But the more siege skill you have the better chances you have. It's normally a huge manpower waste to assault forts unless they are tiny or I have some huge morale boost.
Horse's do nothing to help minus help meet the min army size needed to progress the siege. Well that and defend your army if it gets attacked while siegeing (Normal combat then). But
But keep in mind the nation helping their forts counts as the defenders when relieving a fort under siege. So if you plan on playing turrtle with forts a pure defence blip unit types would be better as you are the defender even if "attacking" a hostile army that is sieging YOUR fort(s).
I just like to outnumber them
How does this effect nation with improve fanking range (eg Albania)
+50% flanking range, and Albania being eastern tech gives them 60% supply modifier.
So, if I did the calculations right, you should have +4 more calvary than the west at the start, +5 from level 17, and +6 from level 23 mil tech.
But still though, never have more calvary than infantry in an army !!
+Red Oblivion
Well, Albania is not a Horde... But if you're a horde, you can have all calvary stacks untill you have westernized/reformed government...
/nevergowesternbecauseyoucanjustdothatthingwhereyougetfreemonarchpointsareyouabletoreadthisthengoodjobtoyoumisteranderson
Sorry, but I am a little confused here.
First you say, we should have some infantry regiments in the back row to refill the losses suffered in the front row. Then you say entire back row must be filled with artillery.
What is the exact strategy?
You need infantry in reserves to refill casualties, not ones in the back. Your entire back line should be filled with artillery to have an optimal amount of damage. However many infantry and cavalry it takes to fill your front line, you should have that plus an additional 6-10 regiments to replace casualties as the battle rages on.
Yeah, I was asking about those extra 6-10 regiments to replace casualties. where do they stand in the stack before the battle begins?
Do they form part of the back row or they dont show up in the srack at all untill casualties occur?
okie, thanks for the clarity.
Now i have knowledge to destroy my enemys
Do you half the artillery damage, because they just do damage in the fire round?
Nope, Artillery does actually do shock damage, just a very tiny amount. They just do half damage because they're in the backrow, basically.
If they can't even fight in the front row why do they even advertise their damage to be as if they were?
they can fight in the front row theyd just lose a lot of casualties
could you do a guide on trading and money making ? I can't seem to get anywhere as smaller less economic nations like ireland and can only make money as a huge nation with big trade at start like ming.
can umake movie with Japanese Nanbu nation! i am trying to play it , it seems hard spot
It is a pity that Paradox has missed out on how army compositions work properly. Should that composition be used in reality, it would be an expensive slow army that performs poorly.
Cavalry can flank from the back, can it not?
Does this apply to older versions of the game? I use 1.11.4
Can you tell me how to properly siege and deal with that stupid mercenaries stacking which bot is doing when he loses his army, then suddenly have more army of merc than you do.
Just keep fighting. Full stacks of mercs will make the country go bankrupt eventually. Carpet sieging is a fine solution.
Liber Philosophus Bot nations cant go bankrupt as far as I know, even if they do, its on way bigger debt than human player. You can carpet siege if "Your land movement is blocked by hostile forces".
it really sucks when the AI does that. It can be almost impossible to win on manpower alone. try to save up some money and infuse your armies with mercs. if you're being attacked, running the enemy into debt should make them at least white peace easily. Only foolproof way to deal with it is to just have much better troops and stackwipe them. Sometimes I will try to seige the enemy fort and if i see an enemy army approaching ill add a bunch of mercs to it quickly then get rid of them after, just to survive the battle
Liber Philosophus not always
He says have 4 cavalry per proper stack or 6 per proper stack. What does he mean by proper stack? 20k? 40? 60?
The Meekofpie it should be around your combat width. The example I gave in the video was at 27 width, so you would want 27 people to cover your frontline, so 23 infantry and 4 cavalry in that "proper" stack, then add an additional 6-8 regiments of infantry to cover losses.
Ok I see Thanks! This is really helpful!
i allways had the same amount of Cav and Arty
cant see anything is description
happens when ur so early
1:11 "automans"
Cannon's maintence is expensive...
you have to do a vid about prussian space marines especialy with new govt in my game by time i made germany i had with a general that gave inf combat +10% and a quality idea event for +5% dicipline i had 150% diciplin and 50% inf combat ability it was stupid good
can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong please?? in any game, no matter who I play as I can never make the newer kind of Regiments, like for example I'm germany, its. 1778 and I can only make the first Kind if infantry from 1444 (in ALL provinces) can someone tell me how tf I can fix this??
I literally just lost a battle where i fought 46k polish troops with 125k of mine help me omg
This might sound stupid, but did you change the regiment type/model in the army tab, next to the religion tab? I guess you are also teching up the military technology?
*how to procrastinate*
How to select unit types by pipes
Vlad Chelu sal
iirc, the top row of pips are the stats if you're attacking, the bottom row are your stats for defending, so it largely depends on your playstyle.
also if you have a really good shock or fire general or bonuses to either of those areas, try and stack that stat more to make the most of it
+thesherbet thanks. if i want a offensive playtrough as ottomans what should i choose?
just a great video
you sound like the late Alan Colmes
Really good video.