How to win battles

If you're here you probably think the combat is broken and everything is based on (un)lucky dice rolls.

Well guess what ? You're wrong.

In this guide i'll give you everything that is needed to maximise your wins.
However bear in mind that some close battles will still be influenced a lot by luck (Try winning a battle after rolling a double 0 ...)

Don't hesitate to ask questions / add me on steam if you have any question.

This guide has received a lot of positive reviews and I'm happy i've been able to help some newcomers. However this guide is outdated and will surely not be maintained.

I'd say most of it still holds true so if you're new and looking to get better this will be a good read, as far as ideas groups ranking you should look online for updated tier list because a lot of changes has happened since.

One of the best features to master if you want to win a lot of wars and battles is stackwipes and this is sadly not covered in this guide however if you want to know about it I strongly suggest you this video (not made by me) that will explain everything about it in depth :

So the first and more important thing is to have a correct army composition.

Let's take a look on a real battle.

As you can see there is two lines available for deployment for each army the white squares represents the available space for deployment that's left, as you may or may not know not every one of your troops are deployed in a battle if they exceed your Combat Width .

In this battle England has very little troops so France put his infantry on the front row and put cavalry on the sides to flank English troops, the rest of the French army is standing in the back row they can't attack nor be attacked and will reinforce the front row if a unit flees.

So what this tells us is that it's really important to have enough troops to occupy all the board if you don't you'll be easily flanked and the enemy will have an advantage over you.

How should I build my armies then ?

Well there is no static composition, you need to adapt your army composition to your military tech level, but there are some guidelines to help you.

Early game armies

In the early game (Mil tech 1 to Mil tech 8) Artillery is weak and useless in battles compared to infantry, so your armies should consist of some cavalry and the rest on infantry.

-As much infantry as possible
-4 Cavalry
-NO CANNONS !

Mid-Late game armies

As the game progresses you'll eventually hit Mil tech 13 this marks a huge leap for the cannons as they are now worth it to use massively into battles.

You should try as much as possible to fill the front row with infantry this is crucial since any gap in your front row will result in any additional cannon that can't go in the back row to go in the front and get slaughthered.

Indeed Cannons are best used in the backrow, as they are the only unit that can deal damage from there but they suffer a 50% damage decrease.

So, ideally you'll want :
-150% Combat width for infantry
-2 or 4 cavalry (It becomes inefficient as the game progresses)
-100% Combat width for cannons

But hey how am i going to field such huge armies !?

Again this is ideally, if you can't field those numbers get 2 or 4 cavalry first and then you could do 3 infantry for 1 cannon, but something that you need to understand is that recruiting armies by "stack" is inefficent you'll see a lot of people having far too many cavalry or cannons due to this stop thinking with stacks think with ONE ARMY that you'll split in multiple stacks not multiple stacks that you'll group into one army (Hope this is clear enough)

Common Mistakes

Here is some common mistakes that some do and why it's bad.

-Getting too much cavalry : This is ok in early game but as game progresses the cavalry gets destroyed in the fire phase keeping 2 or 4 cavalry for anything that's not a horde / eastern is better.

-Getting more cannons than your Combat width : This is useless. Your cannons will be standing in the reserves their whole life, cannons don't get damaged in the back row and thus don't need reinforcements NEVER TAKE MORE CANNONS THAN YOUR COMBAT WIDTH

-Not enough infantry : You can never go wrong with more infantry, but you can with too much cav or art, having a good infantry wall with reserves is really key as this will help you protect your cannons.

Technology is key to win battles.
If you enter a war without being superior or equal in mil tech to your opponent you're asking for a defeat.Even one level is critical (Especially in the early game).
Don't build barracks / Take military ideas / Harsh treat rebels until you're ahead on time.

But why is it so important ?

Well Mil tech gives a load of benefits ranging from tactics, morale,new unit types, flanking range and so on..

Here are the bonuses that mil tech can offer from better to worse.

-New unit type
-Morale boost
-Tactics boost
-Flanking range
-Buildings

The first 3 are crucial, never go to war if your enemy has a tech that gives on of those (except if he's very weak of course)

The last 2 are not important and can be ignored.

So always invest first in Tech before spending those points anywhere else thus never get a military idea group as your first group

Terrain is crucial in battles, always watch the terrain you'll fight on, plan carefully.

So what are the effects of terrain ?

Well it depends of the terrain but in general, it will give the attacker a malus both in the fire and shock phase it could also decrease the Combat Width (Mountains).

Never attack in bad terrain except if you outnumber the enemy greatly and / or out-tech them too.

A good strategy is to split your army and use a stack that is less big than your opponent army (Preferably all infantry as they will soak up damage) and position it on a good defensive terrain with a river crossing.

Ideally you'll have your baiting stack standing on a mountain with a river, causing both great maluses for the enemy and also reducing the combat width (meaning that your baiting stack will fight against less troops and thus take a lot less damage).

After the enemy attacked your stack move your army to reinforce it and beat the enemy.

All those things will help you get usefull modifiers in combat i'll explain to you how to get them and what they do.

Leaders : A leader has 4 stats Shock,Fire,Maneuver and Siege, siege is useless in fights as well as maneuver.At the beginning of a phase the two leader will see their stats compared and the one with more stats will have a bonus.

So a 4/2 leader vs 2/2 leader will give his army a +2 modifier on the fire phase and nothing on the shock phase.

Those modifiers are as powerfull as terrain modifiers or dice rolls and so leaders are extremely important, one thing important to note tho is that a fire leader is useless early game as shock is much better.

Prestige : The more prestige you've got the more bonuses you get, go below 0 and you'll have maluses instead. at 100 prestige you'll have a bunch of usefull bonuses but the only one that will affect battle is +10% Morale.
You can win prestige by making good peace deals, winning battles and sieges, hiring a special advisors, colonizing ect..
Prestige is easy to farm try to be as close to 100 as possible to do so i would advise you to go into wars against minors destroy them and make them concede defeat.

Power Projection :This is less important and harder to get, but each point will give you +0.1% morale.
You can win PP by basically having rivals and doing nasty things to them (Embargo,War,annexing provinces humiliating ect..)

Army Tradition : This is the hardest one to get but the better indeed a fully maxed out AT will give you :
+25% Morale of armies
+10% Manpower recovery
+10% Land morale recovery
+5% Siege ability
You can win this precious AT by winning or loosing battles, siegeing (Each siege gives +1 AT), killing of lot of people during battles and Stack wiping your enemy.

Let's start this by stating something that you really have to understand.

MILITARY TECH > MILITARY IDEAS

Really, never invest mil points in ideas or anywhere else before being ahead in tech because you'll loose at the end.

I don't care I came here to know what's the best military idea group !
Well it depends they all have advantages.

Aristocratic : Diplomatic + Cavalry group, good for eastern / hordes.

Plutocratic : Never took it some say it's godly some say it's worthless can't really say anything on that.

Offensive : Gives you nice base stats on leaders, Force limit boost and discipline boost(Most important late game stat) Very nice group very versatile, will make your armies stronger early and later on.

Defensive : Morale (Most important stat early),AT(You remember that thing that gives +25% morale ?),Less attrition for you and more for your enemies other than that the rest is kinda meh.
Good early group, bad late group (except for assault)

Quality : Combat ability + Discipline ( Both are the best late game stats) VERY BAD NAVAL IDEAS TO NOT MAKE IT OP
Weakest early group, best late group.

Quantity : Best idea group in SP, Fight wars on multiple fronts with the ability to siege 3627 provinces at once and your manpower still doesn't move (Oh wait actually I lied it's going up).
This ♥♥♥♥ scales like crazy every territory / bit of manpower/ Forcelimit your strenght will just skyrocket. Pick first with almost anybody then follow by a troop upgrade group (Offensive/Quality) if you need it

Naval : This group was designed for pro players that found the game too easy so they could dump their mil points on something worthless.

Idea group tier list :

GodTier (If you want to be MLG pro / QuickScope France) : Quantity
Tier1 (Very good, versatile) : Offensive
Tier2(Situational) : Quality,Defensive,Aristocratic
Tier3(Take this if the game is too easy) : Naval

As you saw there are different types of units for each tech and for each Tech Group.

So which one to take ?

Infantry

Infantry's goal is to soak up damage and have high morale, take the one with the highest morale pips.

Cavalry

Cavalry is here to do shock damage, take the cavalry who has the most shock damage.

Artillery

Art is here to do Fire damage, take the one with the most fire damage.

You can enact policies for the cost of1 ADM, DIP, or MIL point per month, providing powerfull bonuses, you need two idea groups to enact one.

-Economic + Offensive : 20% Artillery combat ability : Great, will dish out tons of damage Mid-Late game worth taking economic just for that.

-Economic + Quality : 5% Discpline : Nice bonus take economic for that only if you want to stack Discipline 5% is weak on it's own and not worth economic for that if you won't stack.

-Expansion + Quality : 1 Fire leader,0.5 army tradition : Ok-ish policy never take expansion just for it though.

-Innovative + Quality : 20% Infantry combat ability : Good policy, but not worth taking innovative just for that and since innovative kinda sucks compared to others now... Don't take it there's better.

-Religious + Quality : 2.5% Discipline + 10% morale : Nice policy, religious is already one of the best groups in the game take it.

Humanist + Quantity : 1 Shock leader, 0.5 army tradition : Bad policy, except if you're a horde then it's ok-ish

Aristocratic + Espionage : +20% Cavalry combat ability : If you're not a horde it's useless as nobody takes espionnage since it's crap, if you're a horde you might want to take espionnage for this amazing bonus.

Exploration + Quantity : 1 leader Maneuver +10% Manpower : Short lived policy since you generally take exploration to.. Explore (Duh) and then you switch to expansion.Not amazing but still a nice bonus if you have both groups already.

Well let's now take all we know on Idea groups and policies to try to make the best armies we can !

Take Quantity no matter what, what's behind is just some fun ideas you can pick on top of that.

The Holy Trinity

Ideas : Religious - Economic - Quality (Then add offensive if you want to)
From Ideas : 10% Combat Ability for Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, 5% Discipline, 5% Discipine(If offensive)
From Policies : 7.5% Discipline, 10% Morale + 20% artillery combat ability (If offensive)
Total : 10% Combat ability for infantry, cavalry, artillery, +12.5% Discipline, +10% Morale
Notes : Rather weak early game but after 3rd group this is a force to be reckoned everything synergizes extremely well together since your 3 types of units will deal more damage with CA, deal more damage and receive less with Discipline and fight longer with Morale. The Holy Trinity is the basic set to go for if you're not sure what to pick.
Followed by : Offensive : This will give you a 10% infantry, cavalry CA 30% artillery CA, 17.5% Discipline 10% Morale in total.
Get the discipline advisor for a 22.5% discipline total !

Genghis Khan would be proud
Ideas : Aristocratic - Espionnage - Quality
From Ideas : +20% Cavalry CA, 10% others, 5% Discipline.
From Policies : +20% Cavalry CA
Total : 40% Cavalry CA, 10% Others, 5% Discipline
Notes : Go for this if you're a horde or eastern (And a real man) even 50% Cavalry 50% Artillery with the penalty will do a lot of damage on this (especially if you have a good shock general)
Followed by : Offensive - Economic 20% Artillery CA, +1 Shock, Fire leader.

Me is Mlg pro me no need ideas to win :
Ideas : Naval
From ideas : Worthless pile of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Total : See line above
Notes : Synergizes best with switzerland (Especially if you try the Switzerlake achievement.)
Followed by : Take espionnage as well for maximum scrubness

Keep in mind this was made just for fun, you shouldn't really invest that much in military in SP, but the Genghis Khan army style with Poland is really fun you should try it :D

In this guide we talked a lot about those 3 modifiers who are crucials in battle, but which one is the best ?

It depends.
Morale will make your troops fight longer.
Discipline will give your troops more damage and make them receive less.
Combat Ability makes a unity deal more damage.

Early game morale is by far the best, but as the game progresses discipline becomes the best choice because stacking morale vs discipline in mid - late game is just bad, battles will already be longer so all your morale will do is that your units will take more damage than your opponent will.
On the other hand Combat Ability is even better than discipline in certain cases (Art, Cav) since the values are bigger the values of discipline given.

But CA and Discipline don't really compete they work together.

I would like to thank the EU4 community for helping me becoming a better player, especially TheMeInTeam and Atwix.

21/08/20 :
- Added disclaimer

02/05/15 :
- Added :Policies, best armies, Discipline CA Morale comparison..
- Changed : Idea groups description.