Reinforcing armies

[Majestic7]

Despite this being my first post on these forums, I've been playing Total War series since Shogun. Excellent mods like EB and RTR have made the games even more enjoyable. I decided to post my question/request at EB forums simply because this mod is the one I play most nowadays. I even uninstalled MTW2 and Kingdoms since their battles didn't feel "right" after getting used to the combat model offered by RTR and EB.

Simply put, I'm very, very annoyed about the way reinforcing your armies works. If your forces suffer losses, you must walk them home to the nearest city that has sufficient infrastructure or the right location to build the unit to get them back at full strength. Don't get me wrong - I like the way EB handles recruitment in a more realistic way, not allowing you to recruit, say, Italian elite troops from an Indian city month after you've conquered it. However, moving units or armies back and forth for replacing losses is simply annoying from a gamist perspective. It requires such obscene amount of micromanagement and consumes gaming time that the game becomes less fun. Often when my empires grow larger I tend to stop playing because I can't be bothered to spend hours just to move armies back home for retraining or the like.

This has left me wanting for a better way to handle replacing losses, that will take less time. It would be nice if a player could retrain his troops in any and all cities on the map. However, the retraining process should take more time and money the further away you are from the closest province capable of producing the unit being retrained. The money and time taken would represent the reinforcements travelling where the unit is based. The said process might as well make the unit disappear from the map completely, thus abstracting the process of the troops moving back home, being filled back to full strength and marching back. The real point is to have a way to refill your stacks without micromanagement. I want playing a game to be fun, not feel like work - and moving those units back and forth is tedious and boring.

So, please enlighten me oh wise modders of this community - is a such change even possible? Does the game engine itself somehow prevent this wish of mine from reaching reality? Is there somewhere a mod that changed the retraining method to what I'm describing - either for RTW or MTW2? Is there perhaps a minimod that does this to EB? In my opinion, EB would be pretty damn close to perfect if the retraining was just a bit easier to accomplish.

[Pharnakes]

I feel your pain, check out my thread a few posts down, my attempt to do something about this.

EDIT:linky.

[Sarkiss]

hm, i actually enjoy this micromanagement part. thats one of the things making game realistic. you really have to think twice before expansions about the direction, logistics... i could never go back to vanilla type mods with any factional troops allowed in any province. annoys me the most.
there is always mercenaries (and quite a few) to fill the ranks
good luck

[TWFanatic]

EDIT: Didn't see that post ^

You don't need to send units home to retrain. Just train units in your homeland provinces and ship (or march) them overseas. You can combine the weakened units by clicking on a unit card, dragging it over and dropping it onto another unit card of the same unit. Do this to strengthen the veteran units with the reinforcements.

There, no more retraining. Just reinforcing. Of course, the greater you expand your empire, the more you will have to worry about the logistical challenge of having a long chain of reinforcements between your homeland and the battlefront. This discourages the blitzkrieg unless you can manage to make enough money fast enough to invest in ways of making the shipment of new recruits faster (better roads, transport fleets protected by navy fleets) or to invest in new, local military forces (mercenaries, regionals) to join your core of veterans.

[MiniMe]

Reinforcement logistics is the one of the main reasons I enjoy playing mods with AOR system.
In vanilla total war games sooner or later I began to think something Yodalike "Begun the Clone War has" cause all cities are all the same

[Maeran]

maintaining supply depots (normally a designated city or fort in my games) with reserves of factional/useful foreign troops is a challenge I enjoy greatly. especially since these non-combatant soldiers are still costing you money, as are your transport fleets. As for the last, I try wear down squadrons so as to reduce the cost during their retirement as ferries.

[Rottweiler]

Reinforcement logistics is the one of the main reasons I enjoy playing mods with AOR system.

Same here. I love the feature. Brings much more challenge and realism.

Mods like EB and RTR are not really for overly busy or impatient players.

[LorDBulA]

Majestic7 I think You are taking wrong approach to Your problem.
Long logistic lines always where a problem and they are ment to be a problem in EB.

What was already told is the best solution in my opinion.
Reinforce Your troops and dont march them back and forth.
Did Alexander turned back to Macedon to retrain troops? No he trained them in Macedonia and send them to the front.
Marching units back is only reserved for my best units with big experience, if situation allows it (rule of thumb, if they are not silver they are not worth to be send back).
And still theyr place in army is not left empty. Fresh recruits fill in the ranks while veterans are retraining and later veterans are send as reinforcments for the not so fresh recruits ( or used in different army depending on situation ).

But this alone wont solve Your problem. Its great at first but if You go further from Your homeland the problem will return.
Native troops are next step. Usually You can find good replacements for You low to mid level troops ( sometimes locals can be even better then factional troops ).
The trick is to use only the best elite units from Your homeland and replace low to medium quality units with local troops.
Elite guys die much slower so they will last longer giving You time to bring in reinforcements. Light troops die easy so they must be replaced locally.

The last line of defence against attrition are mercenaries. This guys are proffesionals, good quality troops.
If You are still waiting for reinforcements, cant hire quality troops local, go mercenary.

Playing like this can give You much satisfaction when reinforcements reach the front line in right moment, although You had to foreseen the need for them 4 years earlier to have time to train them and then march them to the front line ( i usually dont send single units since this would be micromanagement nightmare ).

Also its fun to watch how Your army composition changes especially if You are expanding in different directions.

[Majestic7]

Yes, I know about combining units - I just think it (moving reinforcing units) to be almost as tedious and boring as moving the units back home for retraining. It doesn't solve the problem of being forced to use most of your gaming time for marching reinforcements around manually. Games such as Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron have portrayed replacing losses so much better, because manual input from player is not required.

Oh well. If there is not even possibility of easy solution, I guess I must just endure. I tend to end up having two bunches of main armies in the same front, with one army (with one or more full stacks) advancing and fighting, while the second marches home for retraining. It costs a lot, sure, but saves me a lot of trouble.

Naturally logistics are one of the most important part of warfare, I just don't want to be forced to micromanage too much. Strategy games aspiring to reach high realism level always have a problem balancing enjoyable gameplay with emulating real warfare. I guess Total War and EB have done the best they could. I have to check out that military settlement mod when it is ready, though.

[marodeur]

Also its fun to watch how Your army composition changes especially if You are expanding in different directions.

That's true and really cool, especially if playing someone like pontos, QH, the diadochi kingdoms or the greeks, who historically hired mercenaries and locals unscrpulously. With the romans I always try to use only a few auxilliaries supporting my legions (like archers or cavalry). Only in level IV provinces I allow myself some local guys who will only be used in their respective province. So in a way I fight fire with fire and get to know all the different local troops, but for offensive operations I 'll only use my roman legions.

[blacksnail]

No, not with the limits of the RTW engine and EB's recruitment system.

The best way to get around this is to not retrain, but instead combine units. If you end up with remainders that are less than half strength, you can build a fort behind your lines to hold them. This way you can constantly cycle your reinforcements, particularly if you're in a particularly grueling defensive position that sees battle every turn.

Beyond this, what the historians would tell you is that the whole point of EB is to represent historicity as much as we possibly can. It would not make sense for the Romans to retrain hastati in Carthage because that never actually happened. It encourages you to think strategically - can you create a large enough army to accomplish your conquest quickly? Are you able to send a reserve without overextending yourself? Can you recruit local auxiliaries or hire local mercs to hold your objectives, as they are easy to replenish locally?

[Rodion Romanovich]

Despite this being my first post on these forums, I've been playing Total War series since Shogun. Excellent mods like EB and RTR have made the games even more enjoyable. I decided to post my question/request at EB forums simply because this mod is the one I play most nowadays. I even uninstalled MTW2 and Kingdoms since their battles didn't feel "right" after getting used to the combat model offered by RTR and EB.

Simply put, I'm very, very annoyed about the way reinforcing your armies works. If your forces suffer losses, you must walk them home to the nearest city that has sufficient infrastructure or the right location to build the unit to get them back at full strength. Don't get me wrong - I like the way EB handles recruitment in a more realistic way, not allowing you to recruit, say, Italian elite troops from an Indian city month after you've conquered it. However, moving units or armies back and forth for replacing losses is simply annoying from a gamist perspective. It requires such obscene amount of micromanagement and consumes gaming time that the game becomes less fun. Often when my empires grow larger I tend to stop playing because I can't be bothered to spend hours just to move armies back home for retraining or the like.

This has left me wanting for a better way to handle replacing losses, that will take less time. It would be nice if a player could retrain his troops in any and all cities on the map. However, the retraining process should take more time and money the further away you are from the closest province capable of producing the unit being retrained. The money and time taken would represent the reinforcements travelling where the unit is based. The said process might as well make the unit disappear from the map completely, thus abstracting the process of the troops moving back home, being filled back to full strength and marching back. The real point is to have a way to refill your stacks without micromanagement. I want playing a game to be fun, not feel like work - and moving those units back and forth is tedious and boring.

So, please enlighten me oh wise modders of this community - is a such change even possible? Does the game engine itself somehow prevent this wish of mine from reaching reality? Is there somewhere a mod that changed the retraining method to what I'm describing - either for RTW or MTW2? Is there perhaps a minimod that does this to EB? In my opinion, EB would be pretty damn close to perfect if the retraining was just a bit easier to accomplish.

There's a simple solution - don't retrain! Instead send units to the front and refill. You just need to retreat the armies to just behind your "frontline" and safely put them into the army. Additionally, you need to use more mercenaries. Do like this: fill your army with mostly your own troops. Go on the offensive. As casualties mount, replace by mercs for as long as possible, and then fall back and join some newly trained troops from home. The logistical difficulties have two other great effects on the campaigns:
1. you will not just move up to engage the nearest enemy army at all times. You need to manouvre, carefully await a good opportunity, to keep casualties down, and only go to battle when you've got a good chance of winning.
2. you will actually spend a lot of time NOT conquering, but instead trying to hold off enemies. If you lose an entire army in a disastrous defeat battle, you're likely to lose many settlements before you can replace the army. This forces you to not blitz over the map, but sometimes wait for the enemy to attack you instead.

[Decimus Attius Arbiter]

I have a tactic that I hope to try out where I combine units and send those couple of fractional sized units you end up with back to the nearest town. In the same turn I build reinforcements which get sent down before or just as my wearied troops arrive. I keep combining the fractional units into fullsize ones and eventually can just send those down rather than waiting a turn or more to recruit new ones. I still pay a little more in upkeep, but the initial training cost is murder when you want to build infrastructure. I call it the piggybank tactic.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

I can see why you posted this thread.
Well, everyone feels the same way about re-recruiting armies. However, the game itself can not be modified and it is the most realistic way.

In history, Alexander the Great actually ordered one of his generals to come back to Greek Peninsula and sail back to Asia minor with native-greek reinforcements. And then he filled other parts of his armies with mercenaries and Asia-natives. EB's intention of not allowing players to re-recruit armies right away in conquered lands is to apply this historical facts.

I know it can be pretty painful to go through this process, but what can i say? You just have to get used to it. This is way EB is the best mod :)

Also it really makes you to prepare more carefully for an invasion or war.

ENjoy :)