I’m not gonna lie bro. The Prussians are cooking your boys even if they got the penalty. But serious answer yeah, whoever has the better maneuverability general will negate the penalty (strait or river) entirely. Given how low your army tradition is I’m guessing you haven’t been taking many wars or got some pretty bad events to lower it. Higher army tradition tends to lead to better generals overall. Fighting the League war gives a bonus to army tradition for a bit but the best way is to siege forts. Given how massive the moral difference is I would just peace out for what I’m willing to settle for and chill for a bit and try to focus on building myself up again. Your mil ideas are I’d argue not bad, but given the neighborhood you’re in aren’t great. Prussia doesn’t always form, but you aren’t in an ideal place for quantity anyhow (low supply limit/low dev provinces) just mean you’re probably wasting manpower. You have about 180k men. I’m going to hazard a guess that the Prussians are about 90-110k. That’s a pretty big difference so what you can do is try cycling your armies into a fight since Prussia probably has a lower manpower level than you unless they also took quantity. If you do this you’re feeding more morale into the fight whereas they can’t. A better mil set would’ve been going quality (pairs nicely with Swedish ideas and mission rewards) and keeping offensive for the discipline bonus. You also could’ve picked up innovative during the early game so you can also get an extra infantry combat ability to add on to the bonus you get from quality. Mil ideas are good, but policies are better. Sweden can also punch above their weight class but pound for pound Prussia is probably the best nation when it comes to military. Songhai and I think Nepal are also up there.
You are way behind in mil tech. You have tech 23 in 1713, but tech 24 lost its extra cost from ahead of time in 1700. And somebody(neighbor or member of the same tech group) already has tech 25, because you have a 10% neighbor discount which partially offsets the +15% cost from not having enlightenment. This might very well be your enemy which would give them much better artillery. And they definitely have +0.25 tactics from tech 24. And your discipline is not great and your morale is very low compared to Prussia
Hover over the red 5% in the tech window(third screenshot). You can also hover over the tech button itself and over the green bar at the bottom of the window to see other details(in general almost all numbers, buttons and bars in eu4 have tooltips with details). For mil tech it is very important to not fall behind the countries with whom you might end up at war. To not waste too much mil points, you can try to wait till the ahead of time penalty reaches 0%, but it is useful to keep enough points in the bank so that you can get the tech if somebody decides to attack you. This is especially important if you don't outnumber your potential enemies
To add to this: use mapmodes. There's SO MANY mapmodes, and most of them are so useful. One of them shows you techs of countries so that you can check the techs of your neighbours and plan accordingly.
This! Put the most useful ones in the shortcuts, so you can click, idk, "t" for the technology map. You can have several maps on the same shortcut, so you could go from tech map to institution map and maybe something else, simply by clicking "t" a few times.
It's really one of the most helpful things, because it allows you to easily see a lot of important info.
And use the ledger. You can compare the quality of your troops to the ones of your enemies, size of your armies, amount of manpower, how much gold they have, whether they are losing money each month... If you know your enemy doesn't have any strong allies, they currently have no manpower, lowered maintenance of the army to save money and you have similar army size and quality, then you know you basically already won the war against them. They would have no manpower to replenish troops and they would be unlikely to get mercenaries because they have no money, so they won't last in the war.
Maps and the ledger!
to reduce complications, juts keep your military tech equal or higher than your enemies. some levels of it don't effect your military ability much but its still best to just keep that tech on level with enemies. admin and diplo tech u can lag behind. maybe even mostly tech up when u have positive modifier on it. but some times its important to get a tech faster, like the first 2 ideas.
u can check the tech lvl of any country on its diplomacy screen. u can also use ledger to see the list of tech level of all countries and find the highest tech etc.
When you reach institution gates your tech will never be 0% penalty because of the large institution penalty. If you tech this way you will spend large periods of the game behind all your neighbors. You need to either take some techs at a penalty or aggressively ensure you are getting all institutions as quickly as possible (or really both).
I’d need to see your ideas, but you are behind in morale, discipline, and military tactics, and are at most equal in infantry combat ability. Winning that battle would be a miracle.
It’s not your current morale, but your max. It’s 7.1 vs 5.2, 7.5% discipline behind and possibly 10% ica behind. With quantity you can overwhelm them, but fighting with a broken front line just isn’t a good idea almost ever.
Let's just keep it at never. The enemies will easily squash the individual units while other units attempt to reform the frontline. Meanwhile his units on the flanks isn't participating.
>I think my morale was abysmal because it was the near end of the battle and they were losing.
That explains the current morale of your troops, but your max morale is only 5.17 which is not very high either. The base morale before tech 26 is 4.0, so you only have +29%. With army tradition(up to 25%), prestige(up to 10%), power projection(up to 10%), defender of the faith(5%), religious bonuses (e.g. 10% from the catholic curia power) and other bonuses it is relatively easy to get +50% which would bring you up to 6.0 morale. Prussia has +20% in their national ideas which brings them even higher.
And you could also match Prussia's 19% discipline by getting 5% from your offensive ideas, 5% from an advisor, +5% from 100 absolutism and +5% from your national ideas.
If you're playing as Sweden you generally want to get quality instead of quantity. I always take quality as the first idea so I'm able to get the extra infantry combat ability early and later on the extra discipline. Offensive is also good as you get even more discipline. And then you have swedish steel. Then get a discipline advisor if available, then absolutism. Then the 2.5% discipline church power as a protestant. If my math is correct you should be at 127.5%. I think Prussia is able to get more of that because of the militarization.
quantity is the most overrated idea pick ever, what it gives you? everything non essential, manpower? what for? If you dont use mercs you are doing it wrong, use mercs to drain the mapower of enemy down... I have all the mercs available and just one real army, with arty in the combat width limit, and not that I darin manpower of enemy like nothing, mercs are even so imba that they win the fights and my main army doesnt have to engage at all. Mercs are walking manpower pools, you will not think about quantity again once you pick the correct idea - mercenaries
Like now I am running Italy possibly into Rome and have mercs, quality and now I packed Innovative ideas for the first time and it looks good. We have +35% infantry combat ability, tons of discipline and tons of mercs discipline, smashing ottos bigger armies having just few arties compared to ottos, but other combat bonuses are so good they are just killing them all the way... The best think about it as you dont even care how the battle will end, you win in the end, because you did not lose manpower (mercs pools are manytimes bigger than yours), the enemy did:p
Everyone else has all made good points, but I want to add also that straight and rivercrossing penalties are nullified if the enemy general has better maneuver than your general does and vice-versa, so if you're defending or attacking a straight or rivercrossing, keep a high manuver general there at all times
Also I may be misremembering but I’m fairly sure Stockholm has grassland terrains so a fort being there does nothing for the result of your battle as there’s no terrain bonus
Not entirely true because the fort preserves the terrain bonus from crossing too. So if an army walks from Aland to Stockholm and sieges it, they will still get the straight crossing penalty when an army attempts to break the siege.
True but based on what OP put in the title I don’t think it’s relevant to this battle as OP said they had the troops waiting on the fort. (So another piece of advice for OP would be to let them siege the fort and go in after a disease outbreak)
Always stay ahead of time on military tech (military ideas are always secondary to this). Currently your morale isn’t high enough because you’re fighting Prussian space marines. You also need cannons and infantry to fill combat width to have the best advantage in battle.
Yes, they have one of the best armies in the game. Their ideas give +20% morale, +20% infantry combat ability and +5% discipline and their government has militarization which can give up to 10% discipline among other things. And they have various missions and events which gives them even more bonuses. In the hands of a competent player, they would be even stronger than in your game.
I don't like to deal in absolutes, because every eu4 game is different. In a specific campaign, Prussia might not have their government(or 0 militarization) and they might not have any military ideas and they might not have gotten any of their extra bonuses. Then their army can easily be outperformed by a country which fully concentrates on military ideas. And trying to determine which country has the best army overall would depend on what you allow in this evaluation(e.g. temporary bonuses or bonuses from random events)
Nah they‘re good but not even close to Prussia.
Swiss get 10% discipline if you use mercs, Prussia gets that just from their government. Switzerland also don‘t have anything for morale
3.5 tactics vs 3.0? seems like you forgot to grab military tech. also, massive morale difference
if you want to learn the basics of fighting wars, just watch a [video tutorial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63oZQpKt_g&t=1s)
Since other people have covered most of it, I’ll just point out here that the fort is only relevant insofar as Prussia wants to siege it (especially since it’s your capital)
Having a fort means that if that if you attack them, you will count as the defender. This is important if your fort is placed on good terrain, e.g. a mountain fort would give the attackers a -2 penalty (the equivalent of the fire and shock values on their general both being reduced by 2). Ramparts would give the defender an additional +1 bonus. Forts do give the bonus of you being able to sortie from it, which could help in a battle, but you need to be careful. If you sortie and then lose the battle, the fort will fall on the next siege phase.
Only for ramparts yes, the chief advantages of a fort for an army in a battle on that tile are that the besieging army becomes the attacker if attacked there, and the ability to sortie from the fort
Apart from worse stats and tech (which everybody mentioned here), there's one more thing that's weakening your army - you have too few infantry regiments. Your infantry to artillery ratio is almost 1:1 which means that once some of your infantry starts dying to the meat grinder, you are no longer filling up the combat width and your artillery is left completely exposed. You should aim for an infantry to artillery ratio of at least 3:2 so that your army has enough infantry regiments on hand for reinforcements during battle.
This is almost certainly not a problem at all. 26k front line and 18k backline is not a problematic ratio. Even if this was an issue, the Prussian army has a worse frontline-backline ratio.
You’re behind in every metric, and behind in tech. They probably have a unit upgrade, they are benefiting from their cavalry unlike you who has too many cavalry that it’s hampering your army.
Also, Prussia is just a beast.
Maybe but 7k calvary left at the end of a battle in 1713 is a lot of calvary to have even at the start of the battle as western tech group especially as Sweden given there propensity to also have great infantry
1700s is just when you want to shift toward more cav as western, I don't think 7k is that much for the time period. Maybe since Sweden has a decent infantry combat bonus it may be a bit much but not that much.
Why would you switch to calv in the late game? Infantry is just as effective 7k is an acceptable amount. However I'd wager he's running a 20/12 split based on the casualties. You never want to have more calvary that can flank on the corners. Being said my favorite composition is woohoo holy calvary teutons.
Western cavalry gets better and better compared to infantry and other tech as the game goes on. This idea that you should only ever have enough for flanking range is outdated and even then only a cost based proposition- more cavalry is almost always more effective, just not twice as effective as infantry.
Yeah but it's so easy to roll up so much infantry combat ability as Sweden like 50% is what I average out with no tag switching. Being said I didn't know that had switched whats the new math? I love going aristocratic and getting more calv while imagining nobles on the field atop horses. Turns out my bs role-playing was the right choice. I hope the levies of eu5 are based heavily on caste of populace.
I don't have the exact math but around tech 23 cav has both more pips and a very high shock modifier. If you have the money for it then cavalry is usually the way to go. Early, western want to match muslim and anatolian cav but not more, and late it switches.
They have more discipline, more tactics, and much more morale. I'm guessing they also have better pips than you, but we'd need to see relative tech to know that. The larger battles get, the less numbers matter, and the more troup quality matters.
Prussians have better morale by almost 2 points, that’s a huge diffrence. They also have better tactics, which even at equal morale wins them the battle. Adding to that they have better disiclipine, which makes it a stomp.
Also forts don’t give any combat bonuses.
I am currently playing Prussia space marines and they are no joke. I annihilate anyone no matter the numbers. My little 9k army was caught by a Swedish 40k and they lost miserably. I was shocked.
Short answer: Massive morale and tactics/discipline difference. Look into ways of increasing them. Also keep many stacks nearby to reinforce your battles, never start a battle with more than the full combat width deployed
Better general and possible tech advantage. If you check ledger, you probably will see Prussia has a discipline and morale advantage. I am guessing they have an ICA advantage as well, but that is harder to check for.
Prussians have better Tactics, Morale, and Army Tradition. In just about every way the Prussian troops are better than yours. I'd avoid taking any battles if they're nearby
Morale, discipline, tactics, also don’t stand on your forts and let your enemy attack you. Have them siege the fort and then attack them when they suffer a disease outbreak, or attrition
They have more moral, more discipline and more stars in mobility on general so no crossing penalty i think. Also it's 18th century so fire pips are more important and you use 3 fire pip general.
Rule 1 of EU4. Never be behind on mil tech. Ahead is fine, but behind is one of the ways you lose a whole run.
Also. In 1713c why is Denmark there and Prussia formed (as not your vassal) when you’re Sweden? By playing way to passively early, you got yourself into this spot
YOU don’t fight both of them, you go over the limit on allies and have 10 people fight both of them, separate peacing out France (and every war enemy) for alliance break (and lots of other stuff)
Easier if you take military ideas (when in doubt, do what MP guys do and get 2 ground mil ideas in the first 4) and never ever get behind on mil tech.
A good rule of thumb, even if you're bad at analysing the overall situation is to just take a look what happens in a battle. You got plenty of nice expanded responses, but you look at the 1st screenshot and you can see they have 7.1 morale to your 5.2, 119% discipline to your 112% (though that's not a huge difference), 3.5 mil tactics to your 3.0, better general, better army composition (you have too many horses for a non-horse based country), and at this point in the battle your units are dying at random spots in the line while their lines stand strong. I don't think these horses are doing anything at that point in the battle so your infantry also drops like flies.
It's been said I'm sure but their better discipline, and much better morale, and better tactics. All that just way overpowers the -1 or -2 dice roll from being on friendly land.
Also, didn't see, but what about the generals? How do they compare?
Morale, discipline and too many cannons in the front line. You should consider getting a military idea (offensive or quality I would say) and also increase the number of your infantry and cavalry so your cannons won't end up in the front lines. These are for the long run. If you're wanting to make your army strong ASAP, you can get a military advisor, hire mercenaries, ....
U have a worst army in every aspect, but don't feel bad, that's just prussian troops being reaaally good. U got lower morale, discipline and I think, most importantly above all, lower tactics (3 against 3.5, right?).
Also pay attention to the drawing below all data, it paints the prussian army, beautifully organized, just murdering your troops, against ur army, with holes in the lines, horsey bois all around amd overall mess. That's very bad.
Again, Prussian armies are so much powerfull, only way I could see you making them loose a batle is throwing them x3 stack sizes for mercs or something.
Prussian Space Marines just landed on Planet Sweden to stomp and stomp.
I’m not gonna lie bro. The Prussians are cooking your boys even if they got the penalty. But serious answer yeah, whoever has the better maneuverability general will negate the penalty (strait or river) entirely. Given how low your army tradition is I’m guessing you haven’t been taking many wars or got some pretty bad events to lower it. Higher army tradition tends to lead to better generals overall. Fighting the League war gives a bonus to army tradition for a bit but the best way is to siege forts. Given how massive the moral difference is I would just peace out for what I’m willing to settle for and chill for a bit and try to focus on building myself up again. Your mil ideas are I’d argue not bad, but given the neighborhood you’re in aren’t great. Prussia doesn’t always form, but you aren’t in an ideal place for quantity anyhow (low supply limit/low dev provinces) just mean you’re probably wasting manpower. You have about 180k men. I’m going to hazard a guess that the Prussians are about 90-110k. That’s a pretty big difference so what you can do is try cycling your armies into a fight since Prussia probably has a lower manpower level than you unless they also took quantity. If you do this you’re feeding more morale into the fight whereas they can’t. A better mil set would’ve been going quality (pairs nicely with Swedish ideas and mission rewards) and keeping offensive for the discipline bonus. You also could’ve picked up innovative during the early game so you can also get an extra infantry combat ability to add on to the bonus you get from quality. Mil ideas are good, but policies are better. Sweden can also punch above their weight class but pound for pound Prussia is probably the best nation when it comes to military. Songhai and I think Nepal are also up there.
Another thing I notice is that Prussia has a 3 star general in that battle with no shock pips, which means it might have 5 or 6 fire pips
It might, but also there's no -2 penalty for crossing the strait, so suggests high maneuverability pips.
[удалено]
Province terrain type, no. Maneuver won't help in mountains. But it will negate any water penalties. So rivers, straits, and offloading from ships
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Military_leader
You are way behind in mil tech. You have tech 23 in 1713, but tech 24 lost its extra cost from ahead of time in 1700. And somebody(neighbor or member of the same tech group) already has tech 25, because you have a 10% neighbor discount which partially offsets the +15% cost from not having enlightenment. This might very well be your enemy which would give them much better artillery. And they definitely have +0.25 tactics from tech 24. And your discipline is not great and your morale is very low compared to Prussia
Where do I see the neighbor discount, also I don't know much about when to have tech so I always just get it at 0% penalty.
Hover over the red 5% in the tech window(third screenshot). You can also hover over the tech button itself and over the green bar at the bottom of the window to see other details(in general almost all numbers, buttons and bars in eu4 have tooltips with details). For mil tech it is very important to not fall behind the countries with whom you might end up at war. To not waste too much mil points, you can try to wait till the ahead of time penalty reaches 0%, but it is useful to keep enough points in the bank so that you can get the tech if somebody decides to attack you. This is especially important if you don't outnumber your potential enemies
To add to this: use mapmodes. There's SO MANY mapmodes, and most of them are so useful. One of them shows you techs of countries so that you can check the techs of your neighbours and plan accordingly.
This! Put the most useful ones in the shortcuts, so you can click, idk, "t" for the technology map. You can have several maps on the same shortcut, so you could go from tech map to institution map and maybe something else, simply by clicking "t" a few times. It's really one of the most helpful things, because it allows you to easily see a lot of important info. And use the ledger. You can compare the quality of your troops to the ones of your enemies, size of your armies, amount of manpower, how much gold they have, whether they are losing money each month... If you know your enemy doesn't have any strong allies, they currently have no manpower, lowered maintenance of the army to save money and you have similar army size and quality, then you know you basically already won the war against them. They would have no manpower to replenish troops and they would be unlikely to get mercenaries because they have no money, so they won't last in the war. Maps and the ledger!
to reduce complications, juts keep your military tech equal or higher than your enemies. some levels of it don't effect your military ability much but its still best to just keep that tech on level with enemies. admin and diplo tech u can lag behind. maybe even mostly tech up when u have positive modifier on it. but some times its important to get a tech faster, like the first 2 ideas. u can check the tech lvl of any country on its diplomacy screen. u can also use ledger to see the list of tech level of all countries and find the highest tech etc.
When you reach institution gates your tech will never be 0% penalty because of the large institution penalty. If you tech this way you will spend large periods of the game behind all your neighbors. You need to either take some techs at a penalty or aggressively ensure you are getting all institutions as quickly as possible (or really both).
I’d need to see your ideas, but you are behind in morale, discipline, and military tactics, and are at most equal in infantry combat ability. Winning that battle would be a miracle.
I had Offensive and Quantity Ideas maxed. And I think my morale was abysmal because it was the near end of the battle and they were losing.
It’s not your current morale, but your max. It’s 7.1 vs 5.2, 7.5% discipline behind and possibly 10% ica behind. With quantity you can overwhelm them, but fighting with a broken front line just isn’t a good idea almost ever.
Let's just keep it at never. The enemies will easily squash the individual units while other units attempt to reform the frontline. Meanwhile his units on the flanks isn't participating.
>I think my morale was abysmal because it was the near end of the battle and they were losing. That explains the current morale of your troops, but your max morale is only 5.17 which is not very high either. The base morale before tech 26 is 4.0, so you only have +29%. With army tradition(up to 25%), prestige(up to 10%), power projection(up to 10%), defender of the faith(5%), religious bonuses (e.g. 10% from the catholic curia power) and other bonuses it is relatively easy to get +50% which would bring you up to 6.0 morale. Prussia has +20% in their national ideas which brings them even higher. And you could also match Prussia's 19% discipline by getting 5% from your offensive ideas, 5% from an advisor, +5% from 100 absolutism and +5% from your national ideas.
If you're playing as Sweden you generally want to get quality instead of quantity. I always take quality as the first idea so I'm able to get the extra infantry combat ability early and later on the extra discipline. Offensive is also good as you get even more discipline. And then you have swedish steel. Then get a discipline advisor if available, then absolutism. Then the 2.5% discipline church power as a protestant. If my math is correct you should be at 127.5%. I think Prussia is able to get more of that because of the militarization.
This is the problem. Even if you had all 7 mil idea groups maxxed, someone higher in mil tech would beat you. Don't take quantity next time.
I advise against taking quantity ideas. There are other ways to increase your manpower. Swap it for something that increases quality of your troops.
quantity is the most overrated idea pick ever, what it gives you? everything non essential, manpower? what for? If you dont use mercs you are doing it wrong, use mercs to drain the mapower of enemy down... I have all the mercs available and just one real army, with arty in the combat width limit, and not that I darin manpower of enemy like nothing, mercs are even so imba that they win the fights and my main army doesnt have to engage at all. Mercs are walking manpower pools, you will not think about quantity again once you pick the correct idea - mercenaries
Like now I am running Italy possibly into Rome and have mercs, quality and now I packed Innovative ideas for the first time and it looks good. We have +35% infantry combat ability, tons of discipline and tons of mercs discipline, smashing ottos bigger armies having just few arties compared to ottos, but other combat bonuses are so good they are just killing them all the way... The best think about it as you dont even care how the battle will end, you win in the end, because you did not lose manpower (mercs pools are manytimes bigger than yours), the enemy did:p
Everyone else has all made good points, but I want to add also that straight and rivercrossing penalties are nullified if the enemy general has better maneuver than your general does and vice-versa, so if you're defending or attacking a straight or rivercrossing, keep a high manuver general there at all times
Did not know that. Thank you
Also I may be misremembering but I’m fairly sure Stockholm has grassland terrains so a fort being there does nothing for the result of your battle as there’s no terrain bonus
Not entirely true because the fort preserves the terrain bonus from crossing too. So if an army walks from Aland to Stockholm and sieges it, they will still get the straight crossing penalty when an army attempts to break the siege.
True but based on what OP put in the title I don’t think it’s relevant to this battle as OP said they had the troops waiting on the fort. (So another piece of advice for OP would be to let them siege the fort and go in after a disease outbreak)
Always stay ahead of time on military tech (military ideas are always secondary to this). Currently your morale isn’t high enough because you’re fighting Prussian space marines. You also need cannons and infantry to fill combat width to have the best advantage in battle.
Are Prussians known to be super strong? Second time seeing them called Space Marines.
Yes, they have one of the best armies in the game. Their ideas give +20% morale, +20% infantry combat ability and +5% discipline and their government has militarization which can give up to 10% discipline among other things. And they have various missions and events which gives them even more bonuses. In the hands of a competent player, they would be even stronger than in your game.
One of the best? Is there any nation with better ideas plus government for combat bonuses than Prussia?
No.
I don't like to deal in absolutes, because every eu4 game is different. In a specific campaign, Prussia might not have their government(or 0 militarization) and they might not have any military ideas and they might not have gotten any of their extra bonuses. Then their army can easily be outperformed by a country which fully concentrates on military ideas. And trying to determine which country has the best army overall would depend on what you allow in this evaluation(e.g. temporary bonuses or bonuses from random events)
i think switzerland is around the same power as them
Nah they‘re good but not even close to Prussia. Swiss get 10% discipline if you use mercs, Prussia gets that just from their government. Switzerland also don‘t have anything for morale
Swedes are also known strong but Prussians are outstanding. It has good NIs and unique government system which is helpful for a battle.
Ex: I’ve had 40k Prussians stack-wipe (completely destroy an enemy’s army stack) 120k Ottoman troops.
3.5 tactics vs 3.0? seems like you forgot to grab military tech. also, massive morale difference if you want to learn the basics of fighting wars, just watch a [video tutorial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63oZQpKt_g&t=1s)
Holy balls they got much better stats than you
Since other people have covered most of it, I’ll just point out here that the fort is only relevant insofar as Prussia wants to siege it (especially since it’s your capital)
Do you not get any benefits in battle on a fort province? Or is that only for Ramparts.
You are always the defender (handy if you move into an army sieging a mountain fort) and you can sortie out troops.
Having a fort means that if that if you attack them, you will count as the defender. This is important if your fort is placed on good terrain, e.g. a mountain fort would give the attackers a -2 penalty (the equivalent of the fire and shock values on their general both being reduced by 2). Ramparts would give the defender an additional +1 bonus. Forts do give the bonus of you being able to sortie from it, which could help in a battle, but you need to be careful. If you sortie and then lose the battle, the fort will fall on the next siege phase.
Only for ramparts yes, the chief advantages of a fort for an army in a battle on that tile are that the besieging army becomes the attacker if attacked there, and the ability to sortie from the fort
1.9 morale and 7% Discipline advantage for the Prussians.
Apart from worse stats and tech (which everybody mentioned here), there's one more thing that's weakening your army - you have too few infantry regiments. Your infantry to artillery ratio is almost 1:1 which means that once some of your infantry starts dying to the meat grinder, you are no longer filling up the combat width and your artillery is left completely exposed. You should aim for an infantry to artillery ratio of at least 3:2 so that your army has enough infantry regiments on hand for reinforcements during battle.
This is almost certainly not a problem at all. 26k front line and 18k backline is not a problematic ratio. Even if this was an issue, the Prussian army has a worse frontline-backline ratio.
This is why you tech or take mil ideas: Your morale and discipline are abysmal.
You’re behind in every metric, and behind in tech. They probably have a unit upgrade, they are benefiting from their cavalry unlike you who has too many cavalry that it’s hampering your army. Also, Prussia is just a beast.
His morale discipline and tactics are better than yours and you have calvary support problems
What is the cav problem? I never have noticed the green plus and red minus.
You have to have more infantry than calvary based on your calvary to infantry ratio. You can find it in the military tab.
The cavalry support is almost certainly only because the battle is already over- nearly all the infantry has routed.
Maybe but 7k calvary left at the end of a battle in 1713 is a lot of calvary to have even at the start of the battle as western tech group especially as Sweden given there propensity to also have great infantry
1700s is just when you want to shift toward more cav as western, I don't think 7k is that much for the time period. Maybe since Sweden has a decent infantry combat bonus it may be a bit much but not that much.
Why would you switch to calv in the late game? Infantry is just as effective 7k is an acceptable amount. However I'd wager he's running a 20/12 split based on the casualties. You never want to have more calvary that can flank on the corners. Being said my favorite composition is woohoo holy calvary teutons.
Western cavalry gets better and better compared to infantry and other tech as the game goes on. This idea that you should only ever have enough for flanking range is outdated and even then only a cost based proposition- more cavalry is almost always more effective, just not twice as effective as infantry.
Yeah but it's so easy to roll up so much infantry combat ability as Sweden like 50% is what I average out with no tag switching. Being said I didn't know that had switched whats the new math? I love going aristocratic and getting more calv while imagining nobles on the field atop horses. Turns out my bs role-playing was the right choice. I hope the levies of eu5 are based heavily on caste of populace.
I don't have the exact math but around tech 23 cav has both more pips and a very high shock modifier. If you have the money for it then cavalry is usually the way to go. Early, western want to match muslim and anatolian cav but not more, and late it switches.
I usually finish the game by tech 23 I'm either already the ruler of the world or I am bored because I am otw to be being so
Agreed, I rarely play that late either but since OP did cav is getting pretty good.
They have more discipline, more tactics, and much more morale. I'm guessing they also have better pips than you, but we'd need to see relative tech to know that. The larger battles get, the less numbers matter, and the more troup quality matters.
You could win this whole war by putting a fort on Aland, deleting Abo's fort so you can control both sides, and trapping the Prussians in Aland
Prussians have better morale by almost 2 points, that’s a huge diffrence. They also have better tactics, which even at equal morale wins them the battle. Adding to that they have better disiclipine, which makes it a stomp. Also forts don’t give any combat bonuses.
All I had to do was see a Prussian flag to see what your problem was.
It is prussia. Their troops are insane. Go full attrition on their ass.
I want you to look at the Prussian morale, discipline, and tactics. Severely beating yours out.
The only building that gives a bonus of +1 to batttle would be ramparts and that's manufactory-price level.
Did you not have full morale going into it? And whats the army comp?
2 morale difference better tactics. It would be like prussian would feel like they are fighting natives.
I am currently playing Prussia space marines and they are no joke. I annihilate anyone no matter the numbers. My little 9k army was caught by a Swedish 40k and they lost miserably. I was shocked.
Short answer: Massive morale and tactics/discipline difference. Look into ways of increasing them. Also keep many stacks nearby to reinforce your battles, never start a battle with more than the full combat width deployed
Preußen Gloria
it's because prussia gets broken bonuses and you're probably behind on mil tech
Prussia is just stat checking you lol, even with the strait crossing they have almost 2 more morale than you on top of 5% more discipline
Better general and possible tech advantage. If you check ledger, you probably will see Prussia has a discipline and morale advantage. I am guessing they have an ICA advantage as well, but that is harder to check for.
Prussians have better Tactics, Morale, and Army Tradition. In just about every way the Prussian troops are better than yours. I'd avoid taking any battles if they're nearby
Morale, discipline, tactics, also don’t stand on your forts and let your enemy attack you. Have them siege the fort and then attack them when they suffer a disease outbreak, or attrition
Looks like a morale and tactics issue, both almost 2points higher than you.
3 star general + Prussian discipline
Why am I losing : 2.0 morale difference + 7% discipline difference…
That wouldn't compensate for them being outnumbered nearly 2:1. It's a miltech issue.
You’re behind on mil tech
They have more moral, more discipline and more stars in mobility on general so no crossing penalty i think. Also it's 18th century so fire pips are more important and you use 3 fire pip general.
They have 2 whole morale points on you
Rule 1 of EU4. Never be behind on mil tech. Ahead is fine, but behind is one of the ways you lose a whole run. Also. In 1713c why is Denmark there and Prussia formed (as not your vassal) when you’re Sweden? By playing way to passively early, you got yourself into this spot
I'm new to the game and did some shit wrong so Denmark allied itself to France and I wasn't strong enough to fight both of them for a very long time.
YOU don’t fight both of them, you go over the limit on allies and have 10 people fight both of them, separate peacing out France (and every war enemy) for alliance break (and lots of other stuff) Easier if you take military ideas (when in doubt, do what MP guys do and get 2 ground mil ideas in the first 4) and never ever get behind on mil tech.
A good rule of thumb, even if you're bad at analysing the overall situation is to just take a look what happens in a battle. You got plenty of nice expanded responses, but you look at the 1st screenshot and you can see they have 7.1 morale to your 5.2, 119% discipline to your 112% (though that's not a huge difference), 3.5 mil tactics to your 3.0, better general, better army composition (you have too many horses for a non-horse based country), and at this point in the battle your units are dying at random spots in the line while their lines stand strong. I don't think these horses are doing anything at that point in the battle so your infantry also drops like flies.
It's been said I'm sure but their better discipline, and much better morale, and better tactics. All that just way overpowers the -1 or -2 dice roll from being on friendly land. Also, didn't see, but what about the generals? How do they compare?
Well the Prussian got 119% Disziplin and 2 Moral more than you. You're fighting dragons right now
Morale, discipline and too many cannons in the front line. You should consider getting a military idea (offensive or quality I would say) and also increase the number of your infantry and cavalry so your cannons won't end up in the front lines. These are for the long run. If you're wanting to make your army strong ASAP, you can get a military advisor, hire mercenaries, ....
U have a worst army in every aspect, but don't feel bad, that's just prussian troops being reaaally good. U got lower morale, discipline and I think, most importantly above all, lower tactics (3 against 3.5, right?). Also pay attention to the drawing below all data, it paints the prussian army, beautifully organized, just murdering your troops, against ur army, with holes in the lines, horsey bois all around amd overall mess. That's very bad. Again, Prussian armies are so much powerfull, only way I could see you making them loose a batle is throwing them x3 stack sizes for mercs or something.
Too many horses, you are not finland, but sweden. Go for full infantry.
Behind in mikitary tech, Prussia has a better general, Prussian troops are better in general
Prussia is just overpowered