Skirmishing and Raiding Vastly Underrepresented in Games

[notly1988]

Most conflicts in a war, including wars between major powers like the War of the Roses, consist almost entirely of skirmishes, raids, and fortification defense/destruction. The set-piece battles play very little role. But set-piece battles are basically all there are in most grand strategy games, and what does exist in the way of fortresses or raiding (for example, you can build forts in EU4 and raze the land of a province) are largely irrelevant and unnecessary. In RTW you automatically lose a battle you quit if the enemy is sitting in their fortified positions and refuse to leave, which is nonsense - if you're cooped up behind your city walls you can't do jack about me leaving.

The focus is almost always on troop concentration, big slug-fests and assault-style sieges. Now these did have an important function in certain historical wars, but I feel like skirmishing and raiding are practically non-existent and their important role in disrupting supply lines, communication and destroying infrastructure and manpower are ignored by most games.

One of the exceptions I can think of are the Grand RTS games like Age of Empires, where skirmishing and raiding are actually useful. But most games it just doesn't exist (along with manpower, supply lines, communication, etc.)

Now I know a lot of people don't think this is 'fun' and just want to powerbomb enemies with doom stacks and have frentic 20 minute RTS battles, but I really like the management/operational aspect of games, and I know lots of other people here do, too. Are there any games where skirmishing, raiding and holding positions (as opposed to amassing huge stacks and dropping them onto enemy armies) is actually represented and useful? A game that forces you to actually fight a war like a real war instead of a death match.

[TheGrayMouser]

You should check out Ageod games. They are operational and the combat is thus abstracted but supplies etc are represented

[SirGarnet]

[Aye, a detection and combat/evasion system means raiders can often give plodding adversaries the slip and ravage stores and wagon trains behind enemy lines that lack enough guards. A few regiments can delay an enemy offensive when a depot goes up in flames.

It is also useful to appreciate that catching raiders requires enough of the right troops and patient diligence though both are scarce resources. Mechanisms like this are essential for a convincing portrayal of asymmetric warfare.