Upkeep!

[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.


Darn! I did it again...

[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.