campaign question

[oho_slith]

How do sieges and supply work?
What time period is one turn.
The screenshots only show me some regions and some armies which I can splitt.
Can you explain the campaign a little more detailed?

[rbodleyscott]

It would be a bit hard to explain the campaign in detail without reproducing the whole campaign manual. Various strategic elements such as finances, manpower, supply, attrition, on-going troop morale and so forth need to be taken into account to optimise your chances of success, but overall the strategic side of the campaign is streamlined to require a minimum of micromanagement, so that the battles take centre stage.

What you won't be doing is fighting a lot of one-sided battles where one side has no chance. Every battle should be a challenge appropriate to the difficulty level you have set. This is because armies automatically refuse battle and retreat if they deem themselves overmatched. Also local garrison and militia units may be mobilised to assist the field army of the province owner. However, there is a significant fog of war element affecting scouting estimates by both AI and player, which can result in poor decisions if estimates of enemy numbers are wrong.

Moreover, there is the option to Auto-Resolve smaller battles. The algorithm for this takes into account your previous record during non-autoresolved battles in the campaign so far, so once you have proved your generalship in a particular campaign, you won't need to play out every small action for fear of getting a worse result if you allow a battle to be autoresolved. Larger battles, however, must still be played out using the normal Pike and Shot battle system.

To quote the manual in answer to your specific questions:

1.12. Sieges

If an enemy province is undefended [by a field army] when it is invaded, or its army retreats, or loses a battle, the town(s) or other strong-points of the province come under siege by the invaders.

The chance of the province falling to the invader depends on the strength of the besieging force and the number of turns the province has been continuously under siege. When determining the strength of the besieging force, foot are worth more than horse, and medium or heavy artillery are worth even more.

The besieging army suffers attrition each turn from combat casualties, disease and desertion. If the province has not capitulated by the end of Autumn the besieging army breaks off any sieges and retreats.

If a province capitulates, the besieging army will automatically leave an appropriate garrison, those units being removed from the field army roster.

1.3. Campaign Year

There are six campaigning turns each campaign year: Early Spring, Late Spring, Early Summer, Late Summer, Early Autumn, Late Autumn.

Armies abandon any on-going sieges and retreat into winter quarters at the end of the Late Autumn turn. Troops can be raised in any turn if funds and manpower are available.

[Alan Sharif]

This sounds...............GREAT.

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Alan Sharif

This sounds...............GREAT.

+1

[bungle53]

Will the campaigns be multiplayer or only against the ai

Thanks

[rbodleyscott]

ORIGINAL: Dogsoldier53

Will the campaigns be multiplayer or only against the ai

Only against the AI.

[Matto]

Looks great, looking for it today

I'm Pike & Shot owner, but do not have first DLC. Do I need it?

[Andrew Loveridge]

It is a stand alone title, and includes the Tercio to Salvo scenarios. You can enter your base P&S serial number as a coupon when buying it to get a $30(US) discount.

[Matto]

Great, thanks for answer and discount

[MechFO]

Excellent expansion, and I think the game could benefit a lot from expanding is this area, especially more real maps like in the 3 new campaigns. Endless skirmishes get a bit old without some larger theme to give them context and meaning.

One feature I'm missing is disbanding units. As I understand they can suck manpower you might want to use elsewhere.

Also is it possible for f.e. Reserve Pike to upgrade to normal Pike? I think I've seen normal Pike upgrade to Veteran Pike but have not seen Reserve change it's name.

[rbodleyscott]

ORIGINAL: MechFO
Also is it possible for f.e. Reserve Pike to upgrade to normal Pike? I think I've seen normal Pike upgrade to Veteran Pike but have not seen Reserve change it's name.

Because of the way the engine works, they don't change their names. They do, however gain experience and elan and can end up equivalent to normal or veteran units.

[FroBodine]

I haven't played much of the campaign yet. Do you see the actual upgrades on the unit statistics anywhere? For example, does it show a bonus attack number, morale, etc?

[rbodleyscott]

ORIGINAL: jglazier

I haven't played much of the campaign yet. Do you see the actual upgrades on the unit statistics anywhere? For example, does it show a bonus attack number, morale, etc?

You will see the Experience and Elan descriptions for each unit if you R-click on one of your armies to inspect the OOB.

These affect the Quality of the unit which will in turn affect the unit's fighting stats, morale tests and so on.

You may, however, not see much immediate movement in Quality rating because each UI Quality adjective (e.g. Untrained, Raw, Below Average, Average, Above Average, Superior, Highly Superior, Elite) covers a range of values. The Quality value is itself made up of the average of the unit's Experience and Elan.

Troops gain Experience by fighting in battles, but although they gain Elan in a victorious battle, they can lose it again due to the drudgery of the campaign sapping their morale, especially sieges, retreats and poor supply. The net effect may sometimes be that the Experience is above the starting value for their unit type, but the Elan is below the starting value, leaving the Quality value pretty close to where it started!