Upkeep!

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Playing as Prussia I am only a couple of territories away from the Long victory. It's so frustrating only being able to maintain 3 stacks (even with virtually no navy) when I have to leave a full stack in a city for 8-10 years for resistance to foreign occupation to subside. Combine that with the AI's unwillingness to declare a truce even after I beat back attacks and counterattacked to take some of their own lands, and it really draws out the games - frustratingly rather than rewardingly.

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Oh yeah. I meant to ask if anyone has any tips on getting captured cities to accept you more easily. I'm already rebuilding government repression type buildings as soon as I can. Religion isn't the big factor it was in MxTW, but I'm plugging away at that too. I just need my armies to be more mobile and less police oriented.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Change your government type to a constitutional government, it has less problems with unrest. Demolish all unrest causing buildings in newly captured regions especially schools.

[Babblearossa]

I'm not terribly far into my first post-patch campaign, but I've taken to keeping taxes up (instead of exempting for a few turns, another option ) and letting them rebel while keeping a 1/2 stack in the city. The rebels so far are always a few milita and maybe a gun or two, ez pz. Then I get the 5 point military crackdown bonus.

[Fisherking]

I think population size has an impact but eliminating the faction seems to have some positive results on it also.

This is a some what new problem and the best methods may yet to be discovered.

I know that the worst place I have captured so far was Brandenburg as Austria. I went through 3 full cycles and started on a fourth before it subsided when East Prussia fell. I kept the school and had religious differences of course, but I did build a pleasure town.

Places like the Rhineland and Hanover had it before the patch. I shudder to think of what it will be like now.

If you have the funds you can tare out a town and build one of the happy places.

It is meant to slow your progress but with Prussia I didn’t have any long protracted unrest. I was able to take all the required areas in 10 years. I left Poland with one region and made them a protectorate and that also brought me Coreland as a protectorate.

Once you have dragoons it will be much less of a problem.

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Dragoons provide a bonus to keeping civil unrest down? If I remember correctly, the narrative mentions this but I didn't know it would be reflected in-game. By far the worst for me was Vienna. I had to keep a full stack there for ~18 turns and a half stack for another 10 to put down the continuous rebellions. When I captured it the plebs were at -30something happiness. I have never seen the occupation figure shrink by more than one per turn, regardless of how many troops I keep there. You would think a brutal peacekeeping force led by a decorated general would have a long term impact by influencing the rate in addition to the per-turn garrison.

[Fisherking]

Dragoons do double the amount of any other units. 20 dragoons would be the equivalent of 40 of any other troops. That is both dragoons and light dragoons that get the bonus.

There upkeep is more but not so much as two line infantry.

[Babblearossa]

You would think a brutal peacekeeping force led by a decorated general would have a long term impact by influencing the rate in addition to the per-turn garrison.

You would think, but there were still rebellions against rome, and really there ain't much in history to compare to rome's brutality when it came to keeping a population in line.

[Vlad Tzepes]

What I mostly hate is the inequity. Let me explain:

As United Provinces I took (and eliminated) France. The discontent level was so high that even with tax exemption and a full stack left as garrison I couldn't hold the province. Then I gave it to the Spanish in exchange for peace (secretly hoping for a revolt and a new France, maybe a new trade partner?). For the next 15 years, Spain/AI had no problem holding France with a minimal garrison (2 or 3 units).

I took it again. It is rioting again, even though Paris it's now garrisoned with a full stack of light dragoons and militia. I decided to keep France, no matter what, just to see how long it will take for it to calm down. It's like an experiment now. 8 turns later it's still tax exempted and still in the yellow/red. It costs me a lot of upkeep. Next time, I'll just sell those nice juicy fat national provinces I take.

If there's a secret on how the AI suppresses so efficiently newly conquered regions, I would love to find it out.

[FactionHeir]

A gifted province automatically loses all unrest from foreign occupation, even if it is at max currently. A bit silly if you consider that you and your ally are at war with someone, you take their province and sell/gift it to your ally and he has no problems at all.
Works the other way around too of course, but unrealistic.

[Fisherking]

What I mostly hate is the inequity. Let me explain:

As United Provinces I took (and eliminated) France. The discontent level was so high that even with tax exemption and a full stack left as garrison I couldn't hold the province. Then I gave it to the Spanish in exchange for peace (secretly hoping for a revolt and a new France, maybe a new trade partner?). For the next 15 years, Spain/AI had no problem holding France with a minimal garrison (2 or 3 units).

I took it again. It is rioting again, even though Paris it's now garrisoned with a full stack of light dragoons and militia. I decided to keep France, no matter what, just to see how long it will take for it to calm down. It's like an experiment now. 8 turns later it's still tax exempted and still in the yellow/red. It costs me a lot of upkeep. Next time, I'll just sell those nice juicy fat national provinces I take.

If there's a secret on how the AI suppresses so efficiently newly conquered regions, I would love to find it out.

With France from the UP the religious problem will multiply the problem. Also the churches that are in the province have to be torn down and rebuilt to your religion. Move in all the priests you can muster as Catholics and Protestants don’t convert very quickly. Anything you can convert to pleasure centers work better. One or at most two churches and two or three pleasure centers should ease the problem quickly, but the unrest will die down after the third cycle anyway so in another four to six turns they should get better.

[Babblearossa]

Also I think the discontent keeps dropping by one per turn, without resetting to max, if a province changes hands again before discontent reaches zero. Been playing hot potato with austria and berlin as the potato and now it's down to a manageable 15. Could be confused about this though, I often am.

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Move in all the priests you can muster as Catholics and Protestants don’t convert very quickly.
I have never seen religious unrest higher than 2, which is pretty laughable when you are in the red by 30 (good ol' Vienna).

[Babblearossa]

I have never seen religious unrest higher than 2, which is pretty laughable when you are in the red by 30 (good ol' Vienna).

Checking on my current turn as swedenaria in 3 spots that are still upset;

moscow, orthodox/prot 64/36 and 1 college of divinity(prot) gives rel.hap bonus 2 no re.unhappiness penalty
warsaw, 100% catholic and no church buldings gives no rel.hap bonus and rel.unhappiness penalty -2
berlin, 100% prot and 1 college of divinity ( prot ) gives rel.hap bonus 4 and no rel.unhappiness penalty.

so it looks like you can get a +4 and in comparison to taking over a heretical country +6

I'm only looking at lower classes, nobles only worship money as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, and swedes are protestants, though i've never actually met a swedish protestant.

[Oaty]

I have never seen religious unrest higher than 2, which is pretty laughable when you are in the red by 30 (good ol' Vienna).


If there's more than 2 different religions the unrest can get high.

I've seen religous unrest get as high as 6 with 4 different religions

With 3 different religions I believe the unrest is 3

[FactionHeir]

Highest i've seen is 10 for the barbary states when i conquered them as france.

[AussieGiant]

I'm now at 1780 as a Prussian Monarch and unrest is getting to be a real issue.

I had about 8 uni's going nuts for the last 30 years but now I'm selectively shutting them down in certain provinces to reduce clamour for reform.

I've also lowered tax on the peasants to the lowest and risen the nobility tax to the second highest to compensate. It's a good solution as I'm just about to have all the techs done by the end of the game. It's been well balanced actually.

I took the UP states and had massive unrest until I realised I didn't need the two new Uni's at all so I shut them down and opened churches instead. Now I need a few Dragoons to crack heads and I back onto attacking France for the last 20 year push.

It's getting a little exciting.

-EDIT-

And I've found the upkeep to be just about right. You can't have full stack armies running around at the start of the game. That comes with time and patience.

Now as the dominant military faction in Europe I can field 3 and half stacks and a total of 1 and a half naval stacks. half are 3rd rates with two 2nd rates then a frigate flotilla with 5th, 6th and brigs for the northern sea.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In my Spanish campaign I can field ten stacks, two very expensive (all above third rates) fleets and a squadron of 6 medium ships. I am at the year 1780 also. Having a lot of trade does make a difference.

Since I have changed my government early in the campaign to a constitutional monarchy (CM) I had hardly any unrest problems. In 1770 I captured Istanbul and within a couple of turns I was able to leave the city without any garrison. Since CM doesn't have any unrest problems other then clamor for reform, I just wait a couple of turns and build a theater so resistance to foreign occupation and religious unrest are hardly a problem.

[AussieGiant]

Interesting to hear Monsieur Alphonse. That's a hell of a lot of stacks. :2thumbsup:

I guess it makes sense. I got a trade route to the spice islands at the beginning but then could not really afford a proper navy until about 1740. That's nearly half the game running on just two sea trading spots.

So much for the Spanish being hard to get going.

[Fisherking]

Oh! I quit my Spanish Campaign when I saw I was not shipping any tobacco from the Americas only to find later that it was an undocumented change to the trade game. That was sure fun!

I was a little frustrated after just getting enough money to start improvements, only to have to spend everything I had on three ships to free my one trade port from blockade by Genoa. Who by the way had been a friendly trade partner up until then…

That was like 1711. I am glad that after about 60 years of suffering Spain can begin to show something.

Every campaign is a bit different. Some go your way others don’t.

I'll try again some time.:laugh4:

[Monsieur Alphonse]

It took me 25 turns to get the mission done and have New Spain join me. By that time I could field some 2 and a half stacks. My fleet was very tiny consisting a small squadron of two galleons, a fifth or fourth rate and some light vessels. I was very lucky especially during my two wars with France. Development was slow but you need to upgrade those buildings. Once you start to expand the administrative taxes are going up so capturing more regions doesn't give you more money. From around 1725 / 1730 I was able to use my taxes to pay for my army (4.5 stacks) and navy (growing) and use the income from trade to pay for new buildings in my regions. By researching enlightenment techs you will get lower recruitment costs and lower upkeep.

[NimitsTexan]

Playing as Prussia I am only a couple of territories away from the Long victory. It's so frustrating only being able to maintain 3 stacks (even with virtually no navy)

Especially considering, given that a unit is more or less supposed to be a regiment, European armies should be able to field of a 100+ regiments (e.g. at least 5 full stacks).

[AussieGiant]

Especially considering, given that a unit is more or less supposed to be a regiment, European armies should be able to field of a 100+ regiments (e.g. at least 5 full stacks).

Wildly optimistic there and totally not accurate. France perhaps, otherwise name me one nation in Europe that had a 100 000 man armies for any length of time.

List:

France

next?

[NimitsTexan]

Wildly optimistic there and totally not accurate. France perhaps, otherwise name me one nation in Europe that had a 100 000 man armies for any length of time.

List:

France

next?

The British Army at the end of the Seven Years War had 100,000 men in 115 regiments. (5 stacks)

In the 1740s, the Prussians had 85,000 men under arms. (4 Stacks)

During the War of the League of Augsberg, the French army fielded 250,000 - 400,000 men. (12-20 stacks).

The Austrian Army at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars/Wars of Revolution was 200,000 strong (split between Austria and Italy). (10 stacks)

The Russian Army of 1800 was 400,000-500,000 strong. (20-25 stacks)

[AussieGiant]

References NimitsTexan? And please don't Wiki me. :balloon2:

About the only military force greater than 100 000 for any length of time in the period was France.

I'd say at a rough stab most of the main powers at the time could just manage 100 000 troops for a limited amount of time.

Please note my point is not that it wasn't possible, but simply that it wasn't sustainable for any length of time. Most big battles were 30 000 to 60 000, and when those battles occured it was pretty much everything that could be mustered at the time.

The exception was France of course, but it was extremely unusual.

My List:

Start of 1700

France: 200 000

Spain: 44 000

Dutch: 80 000

English:30 000

Austria: 25 000

Prussian: 40 000


http://www.spanishsuccession.nl/balance.html

[stufer]

Aussie Giant,

The website you have linked to is a great website and I use that all the time. However, it is only dealing with the very beginning of the century. Industrialisation and urbanisation led to rapidly increasing popluations in the 18th Century and the armies of most European nations rose to match.

There were a lot of 100,000 plus armies in Europe later in the century. For at least half the period covered, Britain had an army of between 80 and 100 regiments - just of infantry. There were cavalry regiments on top of that, plus pioneers, artillerists etc... Britain's was considered a small army for the time.

Don't forget that colonial powers raised local forces too - Indian troops, American troops, native troops of all kinds.

The British had a massive mercenary army of the East India company too - don't know the size of that but it wasn't considered part of the British Army.

I'm reading a great book at the moment called Redcoat by Richard Holmes. Has a lot of detail in there about Britain and the army scarcely dipped below 100,000 in that period (1750-1850 - so a good half of the time period covered by the game). He says it was a small army by the standards of the age and scarcely up to the task of protracted continental war without being in a coalition of other allied nations. It was better suited to raiding etc... and colonial conflict. The true might of Britain lay in the Navy.

Don't have a lot of info about other nations though. Perhaps others could comment.

[AussieGiant]

Hey stufer,

Well I'm learning something here if that is the case.

I certainly recognise the British Army as small in comparison to the rest of Europe for the time period, but France was the most massive force due to a combination of conscription and volunteering. It was hovering around 250 000 from memory for most of the period.

I'm interested to see some references. I'm more than happy to be corrected.

The only thing I can think of to create my current understanding is that perhaps I'm getting mixed up with the usual number of troop numbers present at the time of major battles, as opposed to the entire standing army of the time.

I read that Prussia got up to 100 000 around 1750 odd, but was knocked back to 60 000 thousand after a few battles due to the army being made of fresh conscripts. Pretty impressive when you think of the size of the place.

[Slaists]

Aussie Giant,

The website you have linked to is a great website and I use that all the time. However, it is only dealing with the very beginning of the century. Industrialisation and urbanisation led to rapidly increasing popluations in the 18th Century and the armies of most European nations rose to match.

There were a lot of 100,000 plus armies in Europe later in the century. For at least half the period covered, Britain had an army of between 80 and 100 regiments - just of infantry. There were cavalry regiments on top of that, plus pioneers, artillerists etc... Britain's was considered a small army for the time.

Don't forget that colonial powers raised local forces too - Indian troops, American troops, native troops of all kinds.

The British had a massive mercenary army of the East India company too - don't know the size of that but it wasn't considered part of the British Army.

I'm reading a great book at the moment called Redcoat by Richard Holmes. Has a lot of detail in there about Britain and the army scarcely dipped below 100,000 in that period (1750-1850 - so a good half of the time period covered by the game). He says it was a small army by the standards of the age and scarcely up to the task of protracted continental war without being in a coalition of other allied nations. It was better suited to raiding etc... and colonial conflict. The true might of Britain lay in the Navy.

Don't have a lot of info about other nations though. Perhaps others could comment.

Supposedly, the British Empire's standing land army numbered only 30,000 at the time then the American Revolution began (1775). By the end of that war (1783), the number was closer to 100,000.

[stufer]

Yeah, the British Army tended to rise and fall depending on the crisis at hand, to be fair. It certainly wasn't as constant as I made out just above. But you have to balance that with a permanently enormous navy though.

Take a look at the txt file in this link - it shows Austria, Prussia, Russia and France in particular to have enormous armies - many of the others are smaller than 100,000 though. But those four are much more than 100,000.

http://www.le.ac.uk/hi/bon/ESFDB/Armies/armies.html

Can't tell how accurate this is and it doesn't give a constant view of the whole period - just parts of it.

Cheers
Stu.

[stufer]

Oops, sorry to double post.

Aussie Giant,

Yeah, I'm mostly talking about regiment numbers with the British and may be getting that mixed up with numbers of men. To be fair to you, the size of the regiments themselves tended to reduce during extended peace time, so the size of the army would be somewhat smaller. It is hard to give exact numbers but I know there are some in this redcoat book. It's at home and I'm at work (shouldn't be doing this!) so I'll have a look when I get home and post what numbers I can find.

The Brits tended to raise 2nd battalions during wars and leave the regiments with one battalion during peace.

I think what we'll find is that most countries tended to leave their armies at small sizes during long periods of peace but rapidly expand them when wars broke out.

[AussieGiant]

Good information there. Although it's built into my brain to cross reference at least 3 pieces of information to generate a good idea.

Still just from a quick scan, some armies did indeed reach up to 300 000 at certain points. Arguably there were perhaps 3 to 5 countries able to field 100 000 plus armies in the 100 years of the game.

So I'm leaning towards my initial statement that fielding 100 000 plus standing army for decades is not really appropriate.

I'm familiar with the English 2 regiment solution. However many regiments operated at around 500 to 800 men at any one time.

Therefore the 1 regiment/battalion = 1000 men, is somewhat of a misrepresentation.


And yes Britain's navy was colossal for the time so people need to take that into consideration.

[Fisherking]

But now it is a severe strain to field a squadron of 74s or even sloops for that matter. Building an army much over 10,000 can break the budget in the first 30 years.

GB was at war for about 60 of that 100 years with France alone. Austria certainly is not even going to muster 30,000, or three stacks which may be the better way to count in this discussion.

The upkeep is just too darned high and only raises over time.

Before we had people complaining that the money was just too good but also that the enemy was just too strong. They thought that was boring.

Well I think not having the money to field an army is frustrating. That weak enemies are hardly worth fighting. That trying to build a trade empire when you cant buy ships is crap.

It makes the game tedious and frustrating.

The hyper active AI is more a distraction than a threat. (They have no troops either)

The game had a better feel to it before. I am sorry some people were so good they got board, but this was it is much too slow and much too small.

There needs to be some middle ground!

I also want to see naval invasions too, but I can sure do without the idiot AI as it behaves now.

Of course it won’t be much if all the AI can afford is 6 men in a rowboat.:smash:


Darn! I did it again...:embarassed:

[stufer]

Hi fellers,

500-800 men per battalion is probably about right. Although on paper, 950-ish is battalion strength, they scarcely ever reached that - even in peace time.

Had a look through Redcoat and have some pieces of info.

Prussian Army of 1751 was about 133,000. In 1786 it was 190,000. That is a lot bigger than I would have supposed for such a small country. Interestingly, Richard Holmes puts the numbers of native Prussians in that force at 80,000 for the 1786 army. That's an incredible number of foreign troops that served.

The British Army at it's peak in 1815 was 233,852. Obviously, this is at the end of the greatest war of the age so that is an inflated number. By the 1830's it was at a peacetime establishment of 133,000. However, this is outside the time frame of the game, and Britain's populataion had just about exploded in the early part of the 19th century.

I'm leaning more towards Aussie Giant's assertion that it really only grew so large at times of crisis, then went down to much smaller levels.

However, Fisherking makes a good point that these crisis times were very common in the 18th century and so there were large periods of time that would see enormous armies.

Probably for game terms, upkeep is a little on the high side, but not too much. After all, one can make massive armies at the expense of zero growth in the economy, which would seem to be the right balance. But factoring the naval aspects too, we probably need upkeep to come down a little.

This is fine for the player, who can recruit huge armies when needed, then disband them when it's over. What would be great is if the AI would do this too. Having intense wars that see huge armies flourish and little spent on new buildings and improvements, then the war ends and the armies diminish. Of course, I think we're all yet to see the AI make peace at all, so it is a slightly redundant point!

Once they get diplomacy sorted, that's the kind of thing I'd like to see. Well, I can dream can't I?!

Still, I'd love to hear info on other nations too - not just Britain. If anyone has any, please share.

Also, I can't recommend Redcoat highly enough. It is a superb book dealing with all aspects of army life in this period and it is extremely well-written. I always keep it by me when playing Empire. I have been suffering with long load times and so it's indispensible while waiting for a battle to load etc...

Cheers
Stu.

[AussieGiant]

Hi Stu,

That seems a pretty measured approach and position. Hopefully CA come by and have a look.

@ FK, upkeep probably does need to come down a little as Stu mentions but not too much. I think even though historical accuracy is required to a point, the game needs some type of progression with army size as well as development. We've seen that in starting positions and technology advancement at the start of the game.

It's a bit chessy, but it is a game and some aspect of achievement and progress needs to be created before getting certain things, like a big army, a big navy, advanced tech's, large impressive buildings.

[NimitsTexan]

References NimitsTexan? [/URL]

Battle for Europe by Charles Spencer

Crucible of War by Fred Anderson

http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[Razor1952]

Playing as Prussia I am only a couple of territories away from the Long victory. It's so frustrating only being able to maintain 3 stacks (even with virtually no navy) when I have to leave a full stack in a city for 8-10 years for resistance to foreign occupation to subside. Combine that with the AI's unwillingness to declare a truce even after I beat back attacks and counterattacked to take some of their own lands, and it really draws out the games - frustratingly rather than rewardingly.



getting this thread back on track.

2 things also to do

1. check your ministers traits , often they have -1 or -2 repression so kick them out. Also put in if you have the right govt , those with +1 traits.

2. Let your province rebel and crush those rebels , that gives +5(or=6) which degrades over time. Do it again if necessary, and do it while your army is still at home. Crush two rebellions and you get +10 , make sure you play out the battle to crush all the troops, otherwise they will escape and you won't get the bonus till they are all eliminated.


As mentioned.
Also build dragoons or cheap upkeep troops to garrison when your main army leaves

As for religious , I have seen -4/5 but can turn this to +2 by converting populace. Gang up your religious agents and send en masse.

Of course destroy all colleges and even demolish all towns to build churches/bawdys till things stabilize.

Otherwise dissent just degrades -1/turn


Btw you usually can get a peace (and a protectorate) if the opponent is done from 2 to 1 provinces. Otherwise taking 2 provinces and immediately suing for peace usually works. getting a peace also gets all their troops out of your provinces and allows you to regroup. Usually also protectorates made this way will redeclare after a few turns, then you eliminate that faction.

It actually a bit of an exploit as their appears to be no penalty diplomatically for breaking alliances/ peace treaties except for the target country to you.