More General Orders

1.1 Fixed! A mod that allows you more agency and choices in how much you invest into a war without going against the core design principles of the combat system!

This mod adds / changes three commander orders, totaling your options during a conflict to five. Firstly to go over the new orders, there’s two, one for attacking and one for defending.

Aggressive Assault :

Aggressive assault allows you to order your general to attack fast, hard, and without care for losses. This order is best for when you have a limited time frame on a war such as when troops are travelling to your front, and you need to secure gains before losing an advantage by winning a specific battle very soon, this is done by increasing advancement speed, kill rate, and morale damage. This order is bad for sustained usage and for pushing a disadvantage since it’ll make your losses even higher, as the increased pressure results in more attrition, and lower recovery rates.

To give specifics :

+75% Morale Damage
+75% Kill Rate
-50% Recovery Rate
+40% Attrition Risk (double of the normal +20% of advance)
+18 Advancement Rate (up from normal 10)

Counter Attack :

The new defensive order, this order is good for leveraging a manpower or production advantage over the enemy, or for staging a desperate defense to buy yourself a little bit more time. It’s bad once again for sustained usage, suffering the same attrition and recovery rate penalties and dealing the same bonus kill rate and morale damage. Counter-Attack has the unique trait in lowering the time penalty on enemy attacks, meaning the enemy will attack more often, allowing you to inflict more damage.

To give specifics :

+75% Morale Damage
+75% Kill Rate
-50% Recovery Rate
+40% Attrition Risk (double of the normal +20% of defend)
-30% Front Enemy Advancement Speed (down from normal -50%)

As for the balance changes Stand By has been replaced with Staff Exercises.

Staff Exercises.

This order operates the same as standby with sending a General Back to HQ to defend without general perks, and taking no attrition, however, the change is that Generals now utilize their time away from the front line to train, earning experience at half the rate of active battles. This is the default order during peace time.

Reasoning behind these additions!

The goal of the stand by change was to give players a mean to cultivate good generals on bad rolls, and more of a reason to use stand by rather than defend.

The goal of the two new orders was to give the player the ability to choose a military doctrine so to speak, allowing them to choose between fast, aggressive, and expensive wars against steady, cautious and economic warfare. That the game encourages with it’s mechanics now.

The new orders also model changes in warfare! Given that attrition grows and grows with larger armies into the late game, meaning the double attrition hurts more and more.

Testing :

I tested the numbers by running the mex-tex war several times, Texas will usually win the first battle using counter-attack, but will lose following battles from being outnumbered. The decreased timer on battles also gave Texas less time to regain morale. Hence, losing the follow-ups. Texas was unable to win using aggressive assault, showing that it should really only be used to push an advantage while you have it, such as when troops are moving in from afar. The casualties show Texas took much more attrition but less combat casualties which is sort of the idea, you’re trading long term involvement for a short term battle buff.

If you think these specific numbers are too op/up let me know.

Thanks for checking out the mod!