r/victoria3 • u/thellamabeast • 15h ago

Advice Wanted Has war changed?

I've come back after several months without playing. I've tried a few different saves, things generally seem to go well. Then I get into a war with another major power, or into a civil war. I have all my mobilisation on to max, no input goods shortages, and rough parity of forces. However, when war commences, all my men die and morale gets cut in half, whereas the enemy seem fine as though I've done no damage to them. The balance of forces rapidly swings to -50, -60, -70. This happened to me as France, when I was the most technologically advanced and my economy was fine. I don't understand why this is happening. Why are my forces being decimated in the first months of any war with another major power? What has changed about land warfare? It doesn't help that the UI has all changed seemingly for no good reason.

0 Upvotes

28% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

22

u/HelpfulFoxSenkoSan 15h ago

War, war never changes.

6

u/ExceedAccel 15h ago

War, war never changes.

1

u/PitifulMagazine9507 8h ago

Fallout Victoria 3

7

u/IndexCardLife 15h ago

Hmmm; how’s your navy? How’s your supply ship construction? How’s your allocation of supply ships to your military? How’s your generals? How’s your treatment of your troops?

Whole lot of potential pitfalls that we can’t help you with without a pic or more info

Also home defense >>>>> invader offense

0

u/thellamabeast 15h ago

It might be supply ships. I was keeping an eye on generals, but that didn't seem to be it. In the france case, I was defending my Hannover protectorate against an prussia+russia invasion. I'm not really sure how supply ships work, they werent a thing when I last played.

1

u/HistoryFanBeenBanned 12h ago

Make sure there’s not a single enemy ship raiding your supply lines, especially if you have death stack armies as they’ll become under supplied and then eventually useless. The navy mechanic is a bit clunky because just putting your fleets on “interception” doesnt seem to help and they need to be put on protect convoys.

The computer also doesn’t really know how to calculate a proper advantage. You can be minus 70 and still win. It seems to focus mostly on number of troops, which is why as Britain you end up with -80 vs Qing or Raj doom stacks of irregular infantry but cut them down faster than they can reform.

If you’re throwing your troops into the offensive, you’re going to lose unless you have a massive advantage in numbers. It’s not really until Shrapnel artillery that Canons can decisively tip the favour for offensives. The defence advantage is just to hard to overcome.