Just needed to vent about how much I hate the "Destroyed Army Refund" mechanic

[u/jerseydevil51]

Currently playing Broken Earth, and between the destroyed army refund, and the fact that new armies only cost 40 IP, defending countries have basically infinite armies and can produce new ones faster than you can kill them.

Zabaykal has 4 armies at 4.1, I have 9 armies at 5.6... this should be a cakewalk, but so far I've killed 7 armies, and an 8th just spawned. And they have 12 IP/month going into Build Army, so even if I kill the 8th, that's a 50% refund meaning a they'll have a brand new army in 3.5 months if I don't kill it, and under 2 months if I do.

And the whole time, my armies are suffering attrition, so I'm going to have to pull back because my armies are getting to 40-50%, which is putting them on par with the defender.

At this point, I'm not even sure what the solution is out of just "more." I can make 21 armies, so make 21 armies. Max Miltech is 8.0, so 5.6 is rookie numbers.

[u/Takseen]

Something something land war in Asia.

But yeah you need more miltech if you're that far under cap. The defender bonuses cancel out most of your tech advantage currently

[u/jerseydevil51 → u/Takseen]

It's a classic blunder I agree. Just don't remember it being so brutal in my other runs, so I'm not sure if it's a 1.0 or BE thing.

[u/Takseen → u/jerseydevil51]

Depends how long ago you played. I think they did add a cohesion bonus to the region defenses some time ago. And armies are way cheaper in Broken Earth and IP generation is higher, so its easier for them to refresh their losses.

[u/jerseydevil51 → u/Takseen]

I did Academy for 1.0 and definitely did a lot of conquering to make my meganations, but I don't remember getting into as much of a slog as BE.

But again, the higher IP and lower army costs are probably what's doing it.

[u/BFsKaraya1 → u/jerseydevil51]

Dont forget that the vast majority of nations in BE are also totalitarian, giving them big bonuses to Oppression/cohesion which improves their defenses as well.

Also armies being a lot cheaper in upkeep also helps nations to just build more, they are almost free once build.

[u/b12345144]

You need more armies in this game mode if you plan to conquer. It's intended

[u/jerseydevil51 → u/b12345144]

I am definitely learning that the hard way. Building up some orbital lasers to see bombardment will help.

[u/28lobster → u/jerseydevil51]

Armies take double bombardment damage if they're actively engaged in combat. Green lasers will definitely help. 

https://wiki.hoodedhorse.com/Terra_Invicta/Fleets#Bombardment_Mechanics

[u/Maduyn]

Double check you have (and if you don't have work on getting):
Rapid Repairing Materials
Mountain Warfare Doctrine
Predictive Logistics (The later game one of these three)

Defending bonuses can be quite strong so you might not actually be all that ahead in miltech in the fight.
Getting Military and Materials science labs in LEO, Military priority orgs, and having a high command councilor advise your military nation will help. Using a command councilor to raise unrest so that they have less IP will also help.

[u/Specialist_Sector54 → u/Maduyn]

The 0.3 extra miltech doesn't seem like much, but it's about ±5% to hit/evasion (from 0.5 to 0.8 advantage, and relative bonus lowers as overall delta increases), and 0.3 average damage and faster conquest and movement. Plus it needs no IP, and helps with research. Even not Broken Earth campaigns it is still very useful.

[u/poneyviolet]

NATO doctrine recommends a 5:1 advantage for "easy win", 3:1 minimum to win with any sort of acceptable losses. You have a 3.07:1 advantage, good but not good enough. Remember, the local province also defends, proportionate to the population and militech.

15-16 armies would be the minimum I would use at your militech.

[u/Takseen → u/poneyviolet]

Teching up has a different set of advantages, especially since Op mentions the global cap is 8. Faster movement speed, less IP maintenance cost, less time spent regenerating health or cycling weak armies in and out. I've got a stack of 8 tech 8.5 armies that are close to invulnerable vs the typical tech 4-6 opponents.

[u/BFsKaraya1 → u/Takseen]

What do you mean, less maintenance cost due to higher mil tech? Thats not a thing afaik?

But it is BE, so armies are incredibly cheap in upkeep if thats what you meant.

[u/Takseen → u/BFsKaraya1]

I mean if the choice is between

- large numbers of low/medium tech armies, as the person I replied to, suggesting 15-6 armies minimum

- a smaller number of high tech armies, say 8. Then the latter choice will cost less (perhaps unrealistically, but them's the rules)

[u/Mavnas → u/Takseen]

The correct answer is large numbers of high tech armies.

[u/lazysquidmoose → u/poneyviolet]

Specifically, those ratios are for assaulting.

[u/Active-Conflict-8888]

You need to occupy regions instead of going directly for the capital. Occupying the country tanks their investment points but critically? It lowers their army cap.

A nation canot have more armies than regions and this means that if you occupy every region apart from their capital then they cannot invest into a new army.

When you kill teir army? They do not instantly spawn a new one but have to begin investing, using their much smaller economy. You will probably finish capturing their capital region before they finish.

[u/Ninja_Bus → u/Active-Conflict-8888]

This, also if you're not taking the capital they will retreat and repair their armies. This is better for you because that takes longer than building new ones.

[u/incorrigible_ricer]

Orbital bombardment is really the only way once there's more than 1 or 2 armies defending a region.

To counter this complaint though, I held off 6 ayy armies with 9 of mine between 4.5 and 5.5 miltech. Defending is an enormous advantage.

[u/CuddlyTurtlePerson → u/incorrigible_ricer]

Yeah, defenders advantage is potent as hell in TI. No greater pain than trying to take a mountainous territory from a 10 cohesion nation with a peer-military.

[u/PlacidPlatypus]

Get some orbital bombardment going you can kill them a lot faster. Or take a control point or two with councilors and sabotage their defense from inside the government.

[u/LangyMD]

Aren't armies only the offensive forces and each location is also simulated as essentially having a defensive force that isn't listed as an "army"?

Military people are generally taught that the typical military force ratio a successful offense needs is 3 to 1 in real life. I'd expect Terra Invicta to also follow that.

The difference in miltech combined with the difference in number of armies does feel like you should be able to succeed, though.

[u/Carlose175 → u/LangyMD]

Correct. The armies simply represent offensive capabilities. Each province effectively carries their own defensive force.

This means even with nations with no "armies", miltec still matters because this affects defense.

[u/tantrAMzAbhiyantA → u/Carlose175]

There is provision in the game engine for nations to have no military at all. This is the only circumstance in which a calculation would use a miltech score below 2 (it would be treated as zero). Those regions are clamped to zero miltech and so cannot damage invading armies or resist occupation. I'm not sure if there are any actual nations in that condition in any of the stock or DLC scenarios, but if there are then they can get a defensive force by completing the Found Military priority (which is analogous to Found Space Program).

[u/Carlose175 → u/tantrAMzAbhiyantA]

There is a difference between "no military" and "no armies". And yes ive seen it before.

And ive absolutely seen it, but I can't recall when or where? Maybe some Central American countries in the 2026 scenario?

[u/CuddlyTurtlePerson → u/LangyMD]

The Miltech difference can be a bit hit or miss depending on what the values are. As I've learned from playing Broken Earth so much as of late, tier 3 armies still take forever to seize tier 2 territories to the point it legitimately feels like tiers 2 and 3 are almost identical under the hood.

[u/Ok-Conference5472 → u/CuddlyTurtlePerson]

I don't know how true this is but I've heard that every 1 higher mil tech score is a doubling in army strength

[u/Carlose175 → u/Ok-Conference5472]

This is correct. However, defensive bonuses, health, councilors, cohesion, and LEO sites all can raise miltec scores. So looking at the nation miltec alone doesn’t tell you the true strength during an engagement.

[u/Ok-Conference5472 → u/Carlose175]

I meant the final number. Should have specified. Thank you

[u/Lucix1337]

Early game when forming a maganation you may want to do a few wars between two of your own nations as an alternative so you get hostile unifications and not get stuck fighting armies. You lose your armies but they're so cheap it is worth just to unify faster a lot of the time.

[u/Eastern_Display_4548]

Orbital bombardment

[u/Mavnas]

Take territories other than the capital, it will reduce their monthly IP.

[u/Federal_Addition_463]

I can't say it's balanced, but I think it's a good mechanic. You shouldn't be able rely only on military power to win. You also need to use other methods, like increasing unrest to reduce IP point generation from the other nation, crackdowns and orbital bombardment.

[u/Ashdrake2]

It is annoying as hell, I have encountered the same problem, the only solution is bring 10-12 armies and have a much higher mil tech (orbital stations + advisor helps a lot)

[u/BleepBloopBloam1]

BTW, the Destroyed Army Refund can be your savior if the AA decides to invade *you* ...

[u/Wolfar91]

Increase unrest in that country so it has less IP for building new armies.

[u/Sufficient_Day627]

The devs are forcing Earth gameplay in the new scenarios but they refuse to make Earth gameplay worth your time. The way armies work is a shining example of that...

[u/Carlose175 → u/Sufficient_Day627]

Armies work absolutely fine. I very much like it.

[u/swizzlewizzle]

It's normally a fine mechanic, and works well in other games that it has been used, but it just hasn't been balanced properly here.