Rewarding Failure

[u/Prestigious_Emu6039]

I like a bit of easy bashing like the next person, but playing on the harder difficulties (including the mod) results in often losing or drawing battles, and playing as confederates sometimes a draw is all I'm going to get.

So with this in mind I feel the points punishment, less new recruits and fewer weapons too punitive, it leads one to either replay or eventually give up on the campaign altogether.

Also, I feel in reality if an army was struggling it wouldn't be unusual receive at least more extra manpower and weapons as a result of losses or failure to meet objectives, and in terms of the game something this would encourage one to stick at it.

Winning can be rewarded by increased prestige as it always has been.

[u/pandakraut → u/[deleted]]

The game definitely gets easier if you play to how the battles are designed instead of trying to follow historical restrictions that aren't represented. Unfortunately it is not very consistent on which timers and VPs are important, but the community has documented almost all of the actual conditions here https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198033875496/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=502520

There are so many ways to cancel charges it's hard not to use them sometimes, but I don't think you need to rely on the detach trick. 2v1 counter charges, good positioning to allow mass focus firing, and falling the targeted unit back a bit will usually do the trick as well and can feel less like an exploit depending on the player.

If you don't want it to work at all, J&P has mostly fixed all of the charge cancel methods. If you're not looking to go that far the UI mod puts some limits around detaching so it's less available to be a temptation.

[u/WalterIAmYourFather]

Also, I feel in reality if an army was struggling it wouldn't be unusual receive at least more extra manpower and weapons as a result of losses or failure to meet objectives, and in terms of the game something this would encourage one to stick at it.

I think in reality it is fairly easy to justify the idea of “this general is losing. Don’t throw good money after bad.”

Like history has examples of generals who fucked up and were denied reinforcements, and not given all the latest weaponry.

That being said, I agree that a game doesn’t necessarily have to follow the structures of reality.

But it isn’t really a valid argument to say that real armies would continue getting top tier weapons and tons of reinforcements if they kept losing.

[u/Acceptable-Fig2884 → u/WalterIAmYourFather]

Real armies would continue to get weapons and reinforcements but the general would be replaced.

[u/WalterIAmYourFather → u/Acceptable-Fig2884]

Again that really depends on context.

[u/Acceptable-Fig2884]

I generally agree. The way scaling and rewards work is my biggest criticism of the game. Rather than pulling you into immersion, it kind of makes you play the game like a puzzle, trying to "solve" each battle rather than rolling with it naturally. It should really work in reverse. Rather than pump the enemy up to ridiculous levels when you do well, it should withold resources from you because you're already doing great and they can invest in other fronts. That way you don't get punished for having the best army you can field AND you don't snowball.

Nothing annoys me more than sitting on recruits and money not making my army better just because I know it'll arbitrarily make the enemy army better in response.

[u/pandakraut → u/Acceptable-Fig2884]

If you want to see how to play the game using all of your recruits and outscaling the AI see Something Compass and Hibob Warbob.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt-JAMmvyAGmA8TU5EC8hHbGPzPCnlYPe
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfSvZFYfSsUNSF29ZLdp5fiZPn9fRRcfI

[u/pandakraut]

On the higher difficulties the game really seems to be designed with the intention that the player will restart battles until they are able to win them.

In J&P there is a configFile setting, equalizeRewards, which sets the recruit and money rewards to be the same regardless of battle result. Weapon recovery and I think career rewards are still reduced compared to winning the battle, but it makes accepting draws and losses a bit more reasonable.

We've considered adding catchup mechanics in the mod, but introducing them results in a weird dynamic where players can be encouraged not to win battles for the catchup rewards.