Castle vs. City Free Upkeep

[Kobal2fr]

But i don't like the idea of free upkeep as something for both cities and castles, having it for only cities helps emphasis the differences between the 2.

With reducing the building times and constructions time for military buildings you can get access to better troops quickly, and with increased income from cities you won't need as many cities to support your castle produced troops.

Then a possible idea (but admitedly, one I've not thought through at all, I'm just flinging it as it strikes me) would be to give the polar opposite to castles : free units ! As in, units costing 0 to buy, but with a normal or perhaps higher than average upkeep.

They'd have to be low to medium-level troops only (like unarmored sarges, or non-pavise X-bows), replenish slowly and have a limited max pool, but could be summoned instantly to defend a castle, no matter how bad the economy. Heck, you could survive with nothing BUT castles as your treasury spirals ever downwards to set new records in the negative.

EDIT : (of course, one would also have to add in the "Lombardian bankers are after you !" event in such a case :p )

(plus it would satisfy the OP and his "knights were supposed to serve at least 40 days for free", I suppose.)

[Furious Mental]

No, it simply is true. You can go and read the contemporary accounts and records and see for yourself. Even in war time alot of important castles had minimal garrisons because castles were formidable enough that a very small but vigilant garrison could hold off a much larger force, and a large garrison needed lots of supplies, which meant it lasted less time in a siege and was harder to support on the surrounding countryside when not besieged. To take the example of England in the High Middle Ages, in the First Barons' Wars only Dover had a garrison of the size you see in MTW2- most other castles, including some that successfully withstood escalades for months, had garrisons that were tiny by comparison- in one case 13 men. The same was true in the Hundred Years War, which is why even free companies numbering less than 20-50 men found it easy to simply climb into castles at night and take over them if the nightwatch was lazy or simply absent, and then hold such castles for years on end. Indeed, garrisons numbering the hundreds were found to be a drawback, as was demonstrated in the purging of the free companies from Champagne in 1359- these garrisons were simply too large to sustain themselves and had to vacate their fortifications and face the numerically superior French. In peacetime garrisons were even smaller or non-existent altogether even in important castles, and the only place where there were really permanent garrisons were in the marches. In England Dover was an exception because it lay in the path of any force coming across the Channel. But for a king or a baron to fill up a castle with soldiers in peacetime was a serious provocation, indeed the only new royal stone castle built in England in the reign of Richard I was in response to that sort of conduct by one of his earls. To rely on feudal obligations to do that also went way over what the king or nobility was considered to be entitled to do. People talk about knight service as though it was inviolable and entirely at the discretion of said lord or king. Quite the opposite. Even when fighting a hated enemy like the Scots Edward I had to send his lieutenants to plead his case for war before county courts in the northern shires of England just to raise the forces he needed. If he had asked hundreds of knights simply to turn up at a royal castle just for kicks he wouldn't have gotten far. To maintain a large and permanent garrison generally meant relying on stipendiary troops who would serve as long as they were paid and didn't care about being separated from an estate. They might be part of a royal or baronial military household or a mercenary company, but were patently not serving under the obligation of knight service. As such it cost vast sums to sustain large garrisons and there was little point in incurring the expense during peacetime. As I said above a tiny garrison was usually perfectly adequate both for protecting the castle and patrolling the castellery (one only needs to read accounts of the massacre of the French Jacques to know how easily a small but experienced military unit could crush spontaneous uprisings which lacked proper strategic and tactical leadership), and a large garrison was usually just cumbersome.

[Agent Smith]

No, it simply is true. You can go and read the contemporary accounts and records and see for yourself. Even in war time alot of important castles had minimal garrisons because castles were formidable enough that a very small garrison could hold off a much larger force, and a large garrison needed lots of supplies, which meant it lasted less time in a siege and was harder to support on the surrounding countryside when not besieged. To take the example of England in the High Middle Ages, in the First Barons' Wars only Dover had a garrison of the size you see in MTW2- most other castles, including some that successfully withstood escalades for months, had garrisons that were tiny by comparison- in one case 13 men.

"Knights were also obliged to serve in the garrisons of royal and baronial castles and, although service in both the field and a castle was not really practicable, many knights found themselves obliged to fulfil both duties. The period of service in a garrison varied from two weeks to two or three months, the shoreter period usually being served more than once a year, and a rotation of knights ensured the castle was always well garrisoned."

-Terence Wise
Medieval Warfare

Terence Wise has written a lot of books about medieval warfare and is pretty knowledgeable on the subject:

http://www.randomhouse.com/author/re...authorid=70864

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...Terence%20Wise

[Foz]

But i don't like the idea of free upkeep as something for both cities and castles, having it for only cities helps emphasis the differences between the 2.

With reducing the building times and constructions time for military buildings you can get access to better troops quickly, and with increased income from cities you won't need as many cities to support your castle produced troops.

I don't particularly like the idea of removing any differences between the two either, but I don't see anything else that can get the job done without compromising some other aspect of their differences, and those things would generally not do it as well either.

Concerning your notion that increased city income will mean you need less cities to support castle troops, I will again point out that there is a difference between needing less of something and in fact not benefiting at all from having more. The latter is what needs to be done to fix the disparity between the human's situation versus that of the AI, and your proposed city income fix will instead mean the player can benefit a lot more from flipping castles to cities. That the player doesn't need to do so is a moot point: you don't need to even now, it is just a good idea economically. How much more of a good idea will it be when cities make even more money??? By increasing city income you are actually making castles even less important, and also making the problem between the two settlement types worse, not better.

So to recap, I am looking at this as primarily an issue of players being able to gain tremendous advantage from doing something the AI cannot - flipping a castle to a city. That fact that you should do so to play optimally is a clear indicator that castles are underpowered by comparison, and the change you've suggested, Lusted, to have a city be able to support even more castles and make more money, really only serves to make the cities even more overpowered. If it remains gainful (and by your method even more so) to convert a castle to a city, players will continue to do so as much as possible, and that will continue to mean the AI is disadvantaged by it, and more so the more powerful a city is by comparison. The only real fix is to actually make them balanced somehow, and raising city income is exactly the opposite of that.

[Guru]

I've been reading this thread with interest and thought I'd write my opinions...

Well, first, I think it's hard to define how the medieval military system actually worked. It probably was not similar everywhere. When you state historical facts I'd like to know what country you are talking about, for example. Things certainly were quite different in Spain, Denmark and Egypt. Still, in MTW2 all countries handle the military system in the same way, basically.

I find the game's city-castle system a bit strange. What I've understood is that castles were mostly built to protect cities and towns? When the town was threatened the people would abandon the town and seek refuge in the nearby castle. So it would be cities with castles and cities without castles as well as minor castles without towns nearby to protect. Those lone castles would serve as forward camps or regional control centers.
If that system was transfered to MTW2, there would be towns with castles, town without castles (which the player could still build) and lone castles which the player could build at the localation of his choosing. A bit like the current forts in MTW2. The player could upgrade all castles (and city walls). Those lone castles would have an upkeep cost but no income.
This was just a rough idea. I like the game's city/castle -system good enough.
If I'm wrong about something please correct. Especially the history part.. I hate being wrong.
I'm playing modded game with free upkeep in castles. Nevermind history. It's a game after all and the main point is gameplay (for me at least).

Guru out

[Agent Smith]

I've been reading this thread with interest and thought I'd write my opinions...

Well, first, I think it's hard to define how the medieval military system actually worked. It probably was not similar everywhere. When you state historical facts I'd like to know what country you are talking about, for example. Things certainly were quite different in Spain, Denmark and Egypt. Still, in MTW2 all countries handle the military system in the same way, basically.

I completely understand. The book I'm reading and referring to is mainly referring to England, France, and many parts of Germany where Feudalism had been mostly adopted in the section I quoted. Feudalism existed in one form or another across Europe, but to lesser degrees and later development. So, you're right, you can't lump them all together. But, the game is inherently lumping them all together as practicing feudalism, so that's why I'm being general for game purposes.

But you are right. The Italian city states are a good example, where they relied heavily on mercenaries to guard their cities and fight their wars (mostly mercs from Germany), and they occupy another section in the book I'm reading. Russia practiced feudalism to some extent, but the area was so vast that it couldn't be counted on and was difficult to implement in a wide spread fashion. Etc.

[Lusted]

Concerning your notion that increased city income will mean you need less cities to support castle troops, I will again point out that there is a difference between needing less of something and in fact not benefiting at all from having more. The latter is what needs to be done to fix the disparity between the human's situation versus that of the AI, and your proposed city income fix will instead mean the player can benefit a lot more from flipping castles to cities. That the player doesn't need to do so is a moot point: you don't need to even now, it is just a good idea economically. How much more of a good idea will it be when cities make even more money??? By increasing city income you are actually making castles even less important, and also making the problem between the two settlement types worse, not better.

But why will i be making it worse? Castles provide the better troops, and if you want to support castle armies and improve settlements you need cash. By making cities produce more cash a single city can better support castle troops, and so you can have more castles. There is just no substitute for castle troops, and unless you weant to spend the game making huge amounts of cash with not much to spend it on there is no reason to have more cities.

So to recap, I am looking at this as primarily an issue of players being able to gain tremendous advantage from doing something the AI cannot - flipping a castle to a city. That fact that you should do so to play optimally is a clear indicator that castles are underpowered by comparison, and the change you've suggested, Lusted, to have a city be able to support even more castles and make more money, really only serves to make the cities even more overpowered. If it remains gainful (and by your method even more so) to convert a castle to a city, players will continue to do so as much as possible, and that will continue to mean the AI is disadvantaged by it, and more so the more powerful a city is by comparison. The only real fix is to actually make them balanced somehow, and raising city income is exactly the opposite of that.

But you see it's actually helping the ai. With it's tendency to very rarerly convert settlements, having cities able to produce more cash the ai can better support it's castle produced troops. Cities make cash, castles produce the best troops. My changes make cities produce more cash, and castles get access to better troops more quickly and cheaply. You will always need castles to produce your best troops, and cities to support them. If cities make more income you can have fewer of them supporting the same amount of troops as a larger amount in vanilla, so you can have more castles.

[Furious Mental]

It's all very well and good for you to give some general quote from some bloke in a book but can you actually give me some examples of places where every castle was constantly filled with knights even in periods of extended peace? I suspect not but I'm interested to know. As I said above even in times of continuous private and public warfare such as the First Barons' War in England and the Hundred Years War in France it is rare indeed to come across references to large garrisons- because they were invariably expensive and cumbersome and usually unnecessary. In the Hundred Years War the vast majority of warfare was carried on, on both sides, by small groups of soldiers operating out of numerous castles and other strongholds. And as I have pointed out they were expensive because there were only so many feudal soldiers around and as such stipendiary soldiers had to be relied upon. I have never heard of a castle that has had hundreds of knights enfeoffed around it- there is no way that that number of knights could possibly be supported in such a small area. In other words to rely on feudal obligations to maintain large garrisons meant concentrating the soldiers in one place while leaving other places with a skeleton garrison. Aside from that the simple fact, which Wise appears to ignore, is that lords and kings could not just demand knight service when they felt like it even if they were supposedly entitled to. To simply demand that knights turn up at a castle when there was no conflict in progress or imminent was simply to make oneself unpopular. Maybe you are just misinterpreting Wise. Wise says a rotation of knights ensured the castle was always "well garrisoned". It is quite clear that in the opinion of medieval castellans a castle with a very small number of soldiers was still considered to be "well garrisoned" in most circumstances.

[Foz]

But why will i be making it worse? Castles provide the better troops, and if you want to support castle armies and improve settlements you need cash. By making cities produce more cash a single city can better support castle troops, and so you can have more castles. There is just no substitute for castle troops, and unless you weant to spend the game making huge amounts of cash with not much to spend it on there is no reason to have more cities.

But you see it's actually helping the ai. With it's tendency to very rarerly convert settlements, having cities able to produce more cash the ai can better support it's castle produced troops. Cities make cash, castles produce the best troops. My changes make cities produce more cash, and castles get access to better troops more quickly and cheaply. You will always need castles to produce your best troops, and cities to support them. If cities make more income you can have fewer of them supporting the same amount of troops as a larger amount in vanilla, so you can have more castles.

Perhaps I'm not being very clear.

What you've suggested is not helping the AI by comparison. Consider what happens when I continue to employ the strategy I always have: 4 or 5 cities to one castle. I will still have 3 or 4 castles that constantly produce troops, like I always have (though often not constantly in production due to monetary concerns). However, with the increased city income, 4/5 of my settlements will now make loads more cash. By comparison the AI, while gaining the same benefits, does not do so as often or as much because it will not shift its castles to cities, so it is benefited by your change far less than I am, as I will have MANY more cities than the AI will and so I benefit 2 or 3 times as much if cities are improved in any way. So while you could say it helps the AI, it does not help the AI when compared to the player: the player actually gains MORE ground from your proposed change through switching castles to settlements, which is exactly what we're supposed to be trying to reverse.

So what I am saying is that your system doesn't change the optimal ratio of cities to castles much if at all, so it also has failed to address the disadvantage of the AI caused by its many castles being far worse than the cities the player will always switch to having more of. Making it more viable for the AI to have castles by improving cities is not a good approach, since it means improving the cities, and the player can always choose to have more cities than the AI and thereby gain a big advantage. You have to either make cities less useful in order to make it not worthwhile to flip castles into cities, or you have to make castles good enough that you shouldn't necessarily flip them into cities. Either way the behavior absolutely must be prohibitive to the player automatically flipping all spare castles to cities since we want the player to be best off in the same situation the AI is: a 1-to-1 ratio. Since increasing city income actually promotes flipping the castles and thereby wrecks the ideal 1-to-1 ratio, it is quite obviously going to be detrimental to removing the problem.

The basic idea boils down to the fact that true balance is going to happen at the point where the player benefits the most from the ratio of cities-to-castles that exists naturally on the map already, since that will have removed any advantage gained from flipping settlements to cities, and simultaneously proven that castles at that point are as worthwhile to have as cities are. Any other optimal ratio means the player gains an unfair edge by employing that given ratio, and is therefore undesirable as it gives the player an advantage. The corollary is that any other optimal ratio inherently disadvantages the AI since it can't use any non-standard ratio... so getting cities and castles to be equally viable but still different and thus promoting the 1-to-1 ratio will by definition provide players with the most challenging AI since we'll have optimized conditions for the AI's natural state of affairs.

[Agent Smith]

I quoted a man that has written several books and is well versed in medieval history and warfare, and you are giving information that isn't even cited. It's all well and good to just throw info around. At least I'm giving sources.

That aside, Furious, you're logic is fundamentally flawed because you are holding some notion that there was no need for a garrison during "times of peace." That's not true. The garrison was as much a personal police force as it was a defensive unit.

And you completely missed what I said from Wise's quote, which is what I'm trying to tell you. The feudal garrison duty was mostly to BARONIAL and ROYAL castles, not every castle in the entire kingdom. It was one of the duties a knight owed to his landlord, and the Barons were the highest landlords other than the king.

So, yes, your average, everyday small castle could very well just have maintained a garrison of 10-20 soldiers. However, like I've been trying to say, many, many more were present in the Baronial and Royal castles (i.e., the biggest ones), and they were regularly staffed by many knights and possibly other commoners. And that's what I'm getting at about upkeep. The provinces on the campaign map in M2TW are very large, and only have one representative castle in place.

"The thing to remember is that a castle was a residence as well as a private fortress. Most of the time the castle operated as a small, large, or medium-sized household.

Now, the number varied hugely depending on the size of the castle. During the civil wars of King John's reign, Odiham was defended by a garrison of three knights and ten men-at-arms. And that's about as small as a garrison would get. However, Rochester Castle at the same time was held against King John by a garrison of a hundred knights and men-at-arms and a whole variety of lesser men. So we're looking at garrisons that went from a dozen or so to several hundred, though several hundred would have been exceptional.

Some of the people in the garrison were paid, such as the crossbowmen. Medieval society was a sort of interlocking network of relationships between people based on feudal obligations and on money and very often a bit of both. People who did jobs in the castle were often paid. They might have been local people with a long-standing personal or family relationship with the lord and his family as well."

-Prof. Richard Holmes
British Military Historian

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostemp...et/castle.html

The larger variety may have been exceptional (i.e., in small numbers of castles), but in M2TW we're talking about ONE castle in an entire large region. Having a garrison of several hundred in a castle is completely historical in that context. And that isn't even subjectively adding together all of those smaller, 10-20 men garrisons as well that would've dotted the country side. Note, even the smallest garrisons had feudal knights that would be in garrison, as was their feudal duty.

At times of war, this could swell even more dramatically, growing larger as time went on and kingdoms moved away from feudalism. In the Livonian War (1557-1569), a total of 11 castles were garrisoned by aroud 3,000 troops. That's about 300 men per castle which, ironically enough, is the same number of troops for 5 DFK in game (if you're playing on a normal setting). That information is present from the Lithuanian Institute of History (http://www.istorija.lt/lim/lesmaitis2004en2.html).

Does that suffice?

[Lusted]

What you've suggested is not helping the AI by comparison. Consider what happens when I continue to employ the strategy I always have: 4 or 5 cities to one castle. I will still have 3 or 4 castles that constantly produce troops, like I always have (though often not constantly in production due to monetary concerns). However, with the increased city income, 4/5 of my settlements will now make loads more cash. By comparison the AI, while gaining the same benefits, does not do so as often or as much because it will not shift its castles to cities, so it is benefited by your change far less than I am, as I will have MANY more cities than the AI will and so I benefit 2 or 3 times as much if cities are improved in any way. So while you could say it helps the AI, it does not help the AI when compared to the player: the player actually gains MORE ground from your proposed change through switching castles to settlements, which is exactly what we're supposed to be trying to reverse.

But only if you play like that. I very rarely convert castles to cities and generally maintain a 1:1 ratio, or slightly more cities.

So what I am saying is that your system doesn't change the optimal ratio of cities to castles much if at all, so it also has failed to address the disadvantage of the AI caused by its many castles being far worse than the cities the player will always switch to having more of.

But not all players play like that, and with the changes the player doesn't have to convert to cities as much.

Making it more viable for the AI to have castles by improving cities is not a good approach, since it means improving the cities, and the player can always choose to have more cities than the AI and thereby gain a big advantage. You have to either make cities less useful in order to make it not worthwhile to flip castles into cities, or you have to make castles good enough that you shouldn't necessarily flip them into cities.

But that is already shown in the differences, which are more prominent in my mod due to increased effects of corruption and religion and distance to capital penalty. So because of the good order in castles and large number of recruitment slots and best units are valuable, and in cities, which have increased free upkeep slots and better income but which are less able to deal with the increased effects of unrest.

Either way the behavior absolutely must be prohibitive to the player automatically flipping all spare castles to cities since we want the player to be best off in the same situation the AI is: a 1-to-1 ratio. Since increasing city income actually promotes flipping the castles and thereby wrecks the ideal 1-to-1 ratio, it is quite obviously going to be detrimental to removing the problem.

I don't get why increasing the income is going to flip things too far in favour of cities. You can only use so much money, so having individual cities churning out more cash allows the player to have more castles, more armies and still upgrading settlements without converting large amounts of castles to cities.

so getting cities and castles to be equally viable but still different and thus promoting the 1-to-1 ratio will by definition provide players with the most challenging AI since we'll have optimized conditions for the AI's natural state of affairs.

That's exactly what im going for. I've already moved towards it a bit in LTC with the increased recruitment slots, free upkeep slots, increased DTC and unrest penalties which make castles more useful, and the latest changes will push it further in promoting the difference and moving towards a 1:1 ratio.

[Foz]

But only if you play like that. I very rarely convert castles to cities and generally maintain a 1:1 ratio, or slightly more cities.

...

But not all players play like that, and with the changes the player doesn't have to convert to cities as much.

Everything in the game is subject to "only if you play like that" statements, so it's really not helpful to say that. That something is possible is sufficient enough to imply it matters and should be accounted for, and just because you play the game one way doesn't mean you can design things only accounting for your own play style.

I don't get why increasing the income is going to flip things too far in favour of cities. You can only use so much money, so having individual cities churning out more cash allows the player to have more castles, more armies and still upgrading settlements without converting large amounts of castles to cities.

It's not going to flip things too far in favor of cities: things are already too far in favor of cities, and I'm simply saying increasing city income does nothing helpful to alleviate that. It's attacking the problem from the wrong end. If you make the city more desirable by increasing its income, it stands to reason that having more cities then means you benefit even more from them, so I think your suggestion that raising city income promotes more castles in some way is just poor logic. You can't promote more castles by making cities better, it simply does not work that way. You promote castles by making CASTLES better.

I am trying to understand why you think that will work, though. Are you saying that you think you can pump up the economy so much that the player will need more castles to continue spending away enough money? If so, I doubt the validity of such an argument. A mere handful of castles can recruit enough units over a few turns to make huge dents in your treasury and raise your upkeep thousands of florins, so for this to even be close to having a shot, you have to be talking about astronomical boosts to the cities in order to mandate an equal number of castles, otherwise the income can just be offset by more standing armies everywhere and more recruitment from existing castles. If you do boost the income that much, more problems are born:

- The economic difference between cities and castles is hugely increased, meaning AI economies will suffer horribly if they happen to acquire 2 castles instead of 1 of each, and will thrive ridiculously if they acquire 2 cities. That inconsistency alone is likely enough to sink the idea.
- The AI will become inundated with cash. It has proven that outside of war it can spend little more than it currently makes on VH, so increasing city incomes by much is virtually guaranteed to flood it with florins which has a variety of negative effects like corruption-related VnVs.
- Factions will be way off balance depending on their starting situation. For instance Milan that already makes oodles of cash will make even more, and is almost guaranteed to dominate Europe b/c of its superior starting position.

In contrast, free upkeep in castles avoids those various pitfalls. It actually lowers the economic difference between the two settlement types, promoting better stability no matter which settlement type a faction acquires. The AI gets no cash build-up out of free upkeep either: it simply alleviates what would otherwise be a burden from defending the castle (yet another benefit: we want it to defend castles). There may seem to be little difference, but the AI appears to handle free upkeep far better than it handles increased cash income, so I am counting it as a plus for free upkeep. Lastly, factions will be much more balanced in their starting positions since castles will be in less of a hole economically right off the bat, which helps marginalize the advantage of factions with otherwise-great starting position by giving the previously less-advantaged a more viable start.

If you still think it can work, then hopefully you can write back how you think it can be achieved without any of the pitfalls that seem to be everywhere. I'm certainly interested if you've figured out something I've not thought of to stave off all the problems.

[Gaiseric]

I agree with alot of the points that were mentioned here. I agree that Historically, except in trouble spots, most garrisons were kept at a minimum to avoid high upkeep- whether that be a soldiers wage, or the cost of his food and lodgings. Since money was in short supply, It makes me wonder wether the local peasents were required to supply these to the garrisons-no matter how large they were. Thus I still think that a few free upkeep slots in castles would be good. The units recieveing free upkeep wouldn't necessarily be garrisoning the castle, but they could represent the amount of men that could be called up under their service contracts to help defend the province that is about to be besieged. Most likely many of these men wouldn't have been in the besieged garrison, but would be outsid the castle, hampering the enemies supplies, making small raids on the enemy, and defending the provincial assets. Either way I really need castle sieges to be more challenging and fun, even if it seems a little ahistorical. The larger, free upkeep, garrisons of a Castle will make it more challenging and more fun to take.

If you decide against adding Free Castle Upkeep Slots, would there be a way to make all the enemy towers shoot at me. Then I will at least feel like I had to fight my way into a Citadel that is only gaurded by one unit. Maybe something can even be added like in MTW1, where my army takes causualties when I besiege a province. Anything to added to provide more realism or more challenge would be great.

As for the player swiching his castles to cities to recieve an unfair advantage: Why dont you balance the map layout a little and not allow the player to convert. Or at least make it an extremly expensive process. This would definatly give castles more emphasis because most factions need them to produce their powerful units. Therefore control of castles would be vital. I know one tactic I use in my campaigns is to take all the enemies castles right away so that they are stuck fighting me with their crappy millitas. Maybe, to make castles more important, they should be the only place that you can recruit siege weapons and maybe ships? Or to lower the city millitia stats so that castle units would be very hard to beat.

Just my 2 cents worth. If you dissagree please let me know.

[Whacker]

Meh, I'll toss in my two cents. First, I still don't really like the concept of cities vs. castles in the game, but that's just my own deal. Second, I think free upkeep in castles makes a lot of sense. That's why I've given the larger cities and castles larger free upkeep and recruitment slots based on their size, and made just about everything except merc and siege equipment upkeep free when in a properly tech'd-up city/castle. While it does help me out in a way, it really does seem to help out the AI in terms of cash. I also run a version of the "give the AI cash every turn" script to help it out some, which also seems to give it a good boost.

As for the 'castles only stategy' not being economically viable/doable/smart, that's just tripe. Even before I decided to go with the free upkeep slots deal, I ran a campaign as the English where I convered EVERY city I could into a castle and left it that way. Ended up 'winning' by turn 100, and owned 99.9% of the map except Rome by turn 150ish, and all but about 15 settlements were castles, and all of my castles had at least 8 DFKs as garrison. I was swimming in cash by turn 40 or so and was having trouble keeping my treasury under 50k each turn about turn 70ish, before finally deciding to periodically dump it all on the Popester. Going with all castles is perfectly doable, you just don't get access to the some of the nice city-only units and structures, which depending on your faction may or may not be all that wonderful to begin with.

[Lusted]

Everything in the game is subject to "only if you play like that" statements, so it's really not helpful to say that. That something is possible is sufficient enough to imply it matters and should be accounted for, and just because you play the game one way doesn't mean you can design things only accounting for your own play style.

But when modding how the hell do you take into account all the different play styles? You can't, and i don't, as i make the mod for myself.

It's not going to flip things too far in favor of cities: things are already too far in favor of cities, and I'm simply saying increasing city income does nothing helpful to alleviate that. It's attacking the problem from the wrong end. If you make the city more desirable by increasing its income, it stands to reason that having more cities then means you benefit even more from them, so I think your suggestion that raising city income promotes more castles in some way is just poor logic. You can't promote more castles by making cities better, it simply does not work that way. You promote castles by making CASTLES better.

But i have amde castles better, you seem to forget this. with the increased effects of religiou sunrest and distance to capital penalty, and the increased recruitment slots castles ARE better in my mod.

You keep on coming back to the topic of money. If you carry on playing with a 5 to 1 city to castle ratio or something in the next version of LTC you'll end up with more money than you can spend, and as a result lots of bad traits. So you'll want to have more castles, and also with individual cities producing more cash you can support more castles, so you'll want to have more castles to produce more of the best troops.

[dopp]

But i have amde castles better, you seem to forget this. with the increased effects of religiou sunrest and distance to capital penalty, and the increased recruitment slots castles ARE better in my mod.

Will this include the option to switch large and huge cities back into castles? I shudder at the thought of controlling Antioch and Baghdad from Europe if the distance to capital penalty is increased.

[Lusted]

No not atm, might look into it.

[Furious Mental]

"you are giving information that isn't even cited."

Alot of what I have said is not susceptible to citation. How can I cite proof that you will rarely come across references to large garrisons in the Hundred Years War except by telling you to read to every primary source out there?

But as far as some of the more specific claims go, well.

Regarding the small size of most free companies in the Hundred Years War, see the account of the Bascot de Mauleon in Froissart's Chronicles, and also Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years in the French Countryside. For the suppression of the free companies in Champagne and potentially cumbersome nature of large garrisons, The Hundred Years War vol II by J Sumption. Wright's book remarks extensively on the difficulty of supporting large garrisons and the expedient which even small ones had to turn to of extorting or pillaging the surrounding area to the point of being unproductive.

Regarding Edward I and the difficulty which even he had raising troops with feudal obligations, Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience. Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings by Morillo goes through in detail the reliance of the Norman kings, especially William I (who probably relied more than any other monarch on castles for internal security) chiefly on stipendiary soldiers to provide substantial garrisons for strategic castles both in England and Normandy.

Now I don't like to go around forums dropping names but if you imply that I'm pulling stuff out of thin air well I don't have much choice.

Now it is true that in the space of a province in MTW 2 you would find castles with substantial numbers of soldiers inside them. But frankly I think you are confusing garrisons and feudal soldiers with military households. If there was a baron or a king in a castle there would always be an unusually large number of soldiers there, but their job was not to garrison the castle except as an incident of accompanying said baron or king. And their obligations were personal, not feudal, in nature. And they did have to be paid. In fact Orderic Vitalis referred to the armies which Henry I collected from his large garrisons in Normandy (which were drawn from his military household, not feudal soldiers) as "mercenarii". Brown in English Castles makes the point that this is why most castles in peacetime were nearly empty most of the time- whoever owned the castle was elsewhere. I suppose if you aggregated all the feudal soldiers in a province you would get a reasonable number of man hours served in garrisons. But then again you would get the same result aggregating all the militia in cities and towns, so back to the original point at last, I don't see why cities shouldn't get free upkeep units. My own view is that free units should depend on public order in a province and should also impact on public order in a province, which would actually reflect the political dimension of enforcing military obligations.

[Agent Smith]

"you are giving information that isn't even cited."

Alot of what I have said is not susceptible to citation. How can I cite proof that you will rarely come across references to large garrisons in the Hundred Years War except by telling you to read to every primary source out there?

But as far as some of the more specific claims go, well.

Regarding the small size of most free companies in the Hundred Years War, see the account of the Bascot de Mauleon in Froissart's Chronicles, and also Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years in the French Countryside. For the suppression of the free companies in Champagne and potentially cumbersome nature of large garrisons, The Hundred Years War vol II by J Sumption. Wright's book remarks extensively on the difficulty of supporting large garrisons and the expedient which even small ones had to turn to of extorting or pillaging the surrounding area to the point of being unproductive.

Regarding Edward I and the difficulty which even he had raising troops with feudal obligations, Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience. Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings by Morillo goes through in detail the reliance of the Norman kings, especially William I (who probably relied more than any other monarch on castles for internal security) chiefly on stipendiary soldiers to provide substantial garrisons for strategic castles both in England and Normandy.

Now I don't like to go around forums dropping names but if you imply that I'm pulling stuff out of thin air well I don't have much choice.

Oh, so EVERY source ever agrees with you? Some of the things you said, like very specific historical information that you are asserting, isn't subject to citation? Get off your high and mighty horse for a moment and read through everything I said. I didn't even CARE that you weren't citing sources. I don't expect people to do that online. It is only when I pull a very specific reference from a military historian to show what I mean while you mock it as if it isn't worth a dime that I pointed it out.

In fact, I have cited two military historians that are saying the exact same thing I am, so I really don't even get what you are arguing about.

Now it is true that in the space of a province in MTW 2 you would find castles with substantial numbers of soldiers inside them. But frankly I think you are confusing garrisons and feudal soldiers with military households. If there was a baron or a king in a castle there would always be an unusually large number of soldiers there, but their job was not to garrison the castle except as an incident of accompanying said baron or king. And their obligations were personal, not feudal, in nature. And they did have to be paid. In fact Orderic Vitalis referred to the armies which Henry I collected from his large garrisons in Normandy (which were drawn from his military household, not feudal soldiers) as "mercenarii". Brown in English Castles makes the point that this is why most castles in peacetime were nearly empty most of the time- whoever owned the castle was elsewhere. I suppose if you aggregated all the feudal soldiers in a province you would get a reasonable number of man hours served in garrisons. But then again you would get the same result aggregating all the militia in cities and towns, so back to the original point at last, I don't see why cities shouldn't get free upkeep units. My own view is that free units should depend on public order in a province and should also impact on public order in a province, which would actually reflect the political dimension of enforcing military obligations.

I am not confusing anything. It is what it is, and it is exactly what I said. The Baronial and Royal castles were always well garrisoned. Portions of those garrisons were under feudal obligation (i.e., why they should have free upkeep slots). The ENTIRE garrison wasn't under feudal obligation. Like the one quote I already put down, it was a mix of feudal obligation, paid soldiers, or a combination of the two (such as knights who were garrisoning past their obligation).

Household troops were a later development in most of feudal France and England when the Feudal system began breaking down further and there was more of a move towards fielding larger amounts of mercenaries, which didn't really begin (in England at least) until the 14th century, when Free Companies began to emerge with greater force. In fact, you continually keep referring to the 100 Years War, which didn't begin until the middle of the 14th century, well over half way through the M2TW timeline. M2TW starts in 1080.

Prior to the 100 Years War, the Kings of feudal systems didn't nearly have enough money to just hire out garrisons and relied on feudal obligations to at least fill part of the roles. Furthermore, you also still seem to be acting under the assumption that a garrison did nothing but mill about inside a castle. I'll quote another section from Wise:

"It is important to remember that the castle was not a place of refuge, but a center of military power from which the surrounding countryside could be dominated, or a vital pass commanded, or a seaport or trade route along a river be protected. Therefore, a castle's garrison frequently contained a large proportion of mounted men who patrolled an area with a radius of about 30 miles. In times of siege, sorties were often made from postern gates, for even under siege conditions the castle maintained the ability to take agressive action."

Furthermore, again, of course the smaller castles in the kingdom weren't heavily garrisoned, which is what I think you are confusing. That's perfectly logical. Often times, smaller fortifications and castles were the home of lesser nobility, so it was their own personal duty to protect their own homes. It was the highest landlords, the Barons and Kings, which required the feudal duty of garrison to the largest extent.

Like I've also been trying to say, the game operates under an assumption that the factions use a feudal system like that of England or France, and those systems relied upon feudal duty to garrison large baronial and royal estates. I've already shown that larger castles could have upwards of several hundred men in garrison. So, that, including the aggregate of the entire countryside in a game province, can add up to a lot of soldiers. At least you seem to agree with me on that. That's all I'm trying to point out: castles deserve at least some upkeep slots to represent the obligation of feudal duty to garrison castles of the largest size.

As for cities, there were no "free" militias. Cities, like those in Italy, didn't operate on the principles of feudalism like the rural areas where castles were the center of power. In almost all cases, especially in Italy, their "police" forces were paid individuals because the city had enough wealth to afford it, unlike feudal lords. Sure, people could be called up in times of war, but they weren't policing the streets simply because they could be called up. Why do you need a city garrison in the first place? Primarily to deal with public order. Therefore, that is why I think cities should not have free upkeep.

I hope that at least clears everything up, and I apologize if I'm coming across harshly. I just run across this online all of the time, which is the whole:

"Oh yeah? Cite it!"
"Ok, here you go."
"Well, those aren't good enough."

Endless circle. You asked for sources, and I gave you several that stated what I am saying. And it's hard to have the conversation, too, when you keep focusing on the 100 years war in the middle of the 14th century when I'm talking generally about the game starting in the 1080 period.

Oh well, rant over. Accept it for what it's worth. I suppose we should just leave it and let the peanut gallery figure out what they agree with (if they are even reading our discussion at all).

[Whacker]

Will this include the option to switch large and huge cities back into castles? I shudder at the thought of controlling Antioch and Baghdad from Europe if the distance to capital penalty is increased.

Sorry mate, not possible. I tried to add that same feature, the game ignores any convert_to statements for stone walls on up when trying to make them convert to castles.

[Agent Smith]

Sorry mate, not possible. I tried to add that same feature, the game ignores any convert_to statements for stone walls on up when trying to make them convert to castles.

I'm not sure that it would be prudent to drive tens of thousands of people from their homes out into the countryside, anyway

[Whacker]

I'm not sure that it would be prudent to drive tens of thousands of people from their homes out into the countryside, anyway

Chivalrous weenie!

[Agent Smith]

Chivalrous weenie!

So I'm a nice guy...

Plus I don't want those tens of thousands of people knocking on my door when all is said and done. I guess I could always hit the extermination button. One click, that quick!

[dopp]

I thought castles just meant you were focusing on the rural aspect and cities meant you were concentrating on building up the towns. Nobody needs to move house just because you convert Rome into a castle.

[Whacker]

I thought castles just meant you were focusing on the rural aspect and cities meant you were concentrating on building up the towns. Nobody needs to move house just because you convert Rome into a castle.

Cities = Give me lots and lots of cash! Also only one set of walls to breech, which is frightfully easy.

Castles = Sit back and laugh whilest your foes toss themselves at your walls. Three full layers of def. @ Citadel level + your best military units = pwnage.

Also to my knowledge Rome starts out as a stone wall city, which cannot be converted to a castle. Once you hit stone walls in a city, that's all she wrote, no going back.

[Furious Mental]

"Household troops were a later development in most of feudal France and England when the Feudal system began breaking down further and there was more of a move towards fielding larger amounts of mercenaries, which didn't really begin (in England at least) until the 14th century, when Free Companies began to emerge with greater force. In fact, you continually keep referring to the 100 Years War, which didn't begin until the middle of the 14th century, well over half way through the M2TW timeline. M2TW starts in 1080."

The focus on the HYW is not obvious to me. I've given examples that go right from the Norman conquest of England down to the Hundred Years War, which is to say, the whole span of the Middle Ages. Household troops were not a "later" development- they existed long before the hard and fast tenurial obligations of feudalism and they long outlasted it. As I pointed out, the armies of the Dukes of Normandy, and then the Anglo-Norman kings of England, were based on household troops who were almost all stipendiary, and said household troops, along with mercenaries hired on a short term basis, formed essentially all large garrisons in Normandy and England. This is because feudal soldiers simply were not numerous enough and served too little time and disliked being away from their land too much to be of use in that respect.

The fact that you seem to be confusing later military developments such as the expanded magnate affinities and mercenary companies with the ancient military household (which goes right back to the German war band) suggests that we are somewhat at cross-purposes here. Household troops served permanently under a personal obligation. In the 14th century they were supplemented with men retained under contracts of indenture, who could be called up for military service but did not necessarily serve constantly. Mercenary companies were something else altogether- groups of men who relied on constant military service to survive and formed a military enterprise. Such men rarely if ever banded together to form mercenary companies within England but were very common elsewhere Free companies were basically a phenomenon of the breakdown in public order and constant private warfare in places like France, Italy and Spain. Anyway to use the concentric analysis of Bean in From Lord to Patron, the household was the core, the part time retainers were the middling, and mercenary companies were the outermost reaches of a magnate's affinity.

"Prior to the 100 Years War, the Kings of feudal systems didn't nearly have enough money to just hire out garrisons and relied on feudal obligations to at least fill part of the roles. Furthermore, you also still seem to be acting under the assumption that a garrison did nothing but mill about inside a castle."

Feudal troops were often not suitable for long term, large garrisons, for the reasons I gave above. Flash forward from the Norman conquest to the Angevin kings in the 12th/ 13th centuries and you will find that they preferred to simply have landholders owing knight service commute it with a money payment, which money was then used by the kings to hire professionals. The fact that partition had divided knights' fees into plots too small to actually support a knight contributed to this. Aside from that, feudal sergeantry often served no useful purpose in the long term because all sorts of arcane obligations had been worked out when a castle was first built and then ossified when the original sergeant died and his land was devised, alienated, and otherwise split between many others; Coulson in Castles in Medieval Society (in other respects a fairly useless text) gives plenty of examples of ridiculous sergeantries which both the putative sergeant and the castellan preferred to just commute for a cash sum. The royal lieutenants who were the chief military supporters of the Angevins (e.g. William Marshal) also relied on military households of soldiers compensated by wages or money fiefs in a fashion very similar to the Anglo-Norman kings- see Crouch, 'Debate: Bastard Feudalism Revised'. Of that large garrison mentioned above which held Dover for John and Henry III under Hubert de Burgh, it is likely that fewer than a third of them had any tenurial connection to de Burgh at all.

"It was the highest landlords, the Barons and Kings, which required the feudal duty of garrison to the largest extent."

Actually because of their large military households and ability to simply demand money from numerous people lower down the feudal hierarchy instead of actual military service they could and did rely on these permanently serving, chiefly stipendiary soldiers. It was frequently difficult for the higher nobility to collect feudal soldiers in one place because the estates of the higher nobility were often dispersed all over the country. In fact kings distributed land in that way precisely for that reason.

"As for cities, there were no "free" militias. Cities, like those in Italy, didn't operate on the principles of feudalism like the rural areas where castles were the center of power. In almost all cases, especially in Italy, their "police" forces were paid individuals because the city had enough wealth to afford it, unlike feudal lords. Sure, people could be called up in times of war, but they weren't policing the streets simply because they could be called up. Why do you need a city garrison in the first place? Primarily to deal with public order. Therefore, that is why I think cities should not have free upkeep."

In times of war military obligation frequently became, of necessity, universal for the entire male population, for the very simple reason that they often had to defend their community or perish. The Hundred Years War is good example if I may commit an apparently cardinal sin and cite it once more. Now for me the obvious way to reflect this is free militia units.