Manpower / Unit Limits

**Rick** · April 07, 2011, 08:21 AM

Could you explain a little more about your implementation of unit limits? As I was playing the Prussians it seemed like they should have access to a few more cav units. Am I wrong?

**JaM** · April 07, 2011, 08:45 AM

currently I'm rethinking the whole concept of unit recruitment limits. the best approach would be to link it with manpower every country has, but that is not possible without heavy scripting..

Therefore for now gold rule will be to have unit limits set for unique units, while standard units will be without limits and only limitation will be the cost of the unit. So if you have a strong economy, you will be able to field more soldiers.

Another goal is to properly model the real historical army costs based on army structure - point is to properly model conscription in late era especially with revolutionary units.
ETW is a perfect game that is very hard to balance properly as there are so many factions with completly different historical background and different combat style - you cannot just copycat all factions because if you do you will loose uniqness of exotic countries - you cannot give Maratha same combat style as Western Europeans have - they didnt fight that way and
portraing them that way is not just unhistorical but also boring - point is to properly simulate all realities of Marathas so you could have realistic experience when dealing with them.
Exactly same situation is with Native Americans.

So, again goal is to have Western European armies fight like they did in 18.century; Ottomans, and other eastern countries fight like they fought, same with India and Americas.

**Rick** · April 07, 2011, 09:01 PM

Originally Posted by JaM

currently I'm rethinking the whole concept of unit recruitment limits. the best approach would be to link it with manpower every country has, but that is not possible without heavy scripting..

Therefore for now gold rule will be to have unit limits set for unique units, while standard units will be without limits and only limitation will be the cost of the unit. So if you have a strong economy, you will be able to field more soldiers..

I like that. I'm with you in that limitations should be dealt with from an economic standpoint. I can't wait for this change. Looking forward to it.

**JaM** · April 12, 2011, 01:46 PM

ok, so in my current work files i made few changes to unit costs / limits / upkeep. currently there are will be several subcategories based on unit type - western type professional army / militias / feudal-like warrior types.

differences are simple - western type infantry has a considerable cost to recruit, and you need certain money for salary, supplies ammo etc..but they are not taken from working populace so they are not impacting your economy as forming militia will. They will need some time to train, but once fielded, they are soldiers for life. Upkeep price will be about 1/4-1/5 of their recruitment cost.

Militia units are productive men - mostly those who would work in manufactures or on field, calling up militia force is not as costly as forming professional unit, (you need to provide weapons and ammo, in Americas they even had their own...) but forming the militia will result in bigger draw on your economy - thus upkeep will be higher than with professional soldiers - so in the end militia will cost much less, but will have higher upkeep,therefore forming militia will be not a good idea in the long term.. here upkeep will be 1.5-2x higher than recruitment price, but recruitment price will be low.

Feudal warrior type is similar - again those warriors are coming from your fields, so forming them has the impact on economy (not as big as calling militia) but their recruitment cost is somewhere in between. This type should be also used for all Natives as calling to arms would reduce the resources tribe has (men were hunters in the first place, not warriors)

THis is just a work in progress so feel free to comment and add any thoughts, i feel it will take few updates to get it right

plus, i need to test how AI will react to new recruitment prices and upkeep (to be sure it wont create incorrect results)

**JaM** · April 13, 2011, 10:40 AM

small example how it will look like:

Let say line infantry unit will cost 1000, its upkeep then will be 250. its recruitment time will be 2 turns.
Militia unit (same number of men) will cost 200 ,but its upkeep will be 400 and recruitment time will be 1 turn.
Warrior class unit will cost 750,with upkeep 325,recruitment time 1 turn and restricted pool (based on what class men forming the unit are from)

there prices are just an example, real costs will be slightly different.

from that example with same amount of money you will be able to sustain higher professional army, than medieval-like warriors, and forming the militia will be not the preferred way how to defend the towns in the long term...

**JaM** · April 14, 2011, 12:30 PM

After few tests i decided to go with less radical but still similar change - best would be to describe it on example:

Professional Line Infantry - cost 1000, upkeep 250, recruitment time 2 turns
Feudal/warrior class - cost 750, upkeep 375, recruitment time 1 turn (restricted number of units based on social class of unit)
Militia unit - cost 500, upkeep 300, recruitment time 1 turn

again, in the end costs will be higher, but ratio will be similar. Building the professional army will be the best long term solution and practically best investment of all,but will cost the most, and will take more time. Militia units will be relatively cheap,but not that effective for their cost/upkeep, and Feudal troops will be less cost-effective in the long run, but faster to recruit.

**Rick** · April 14, 2011, 02:07 PM

The cost will certainly keep the armies small.

**Khassaki** · April 22, 2011, 02:26 PM

Originally Posted by JaM

Professional Line Infantry - cost 1000, upkeep 250, recruitment time 2 turns
Feudal/warrior class - cost 750, upkeep 375, recruitment time 1 turn (restricted number of units based on social class of unit)
Militia unit - cost 500, upkeep 300, recruitment time 1 turn

I don't think your distinctions are valid in practice. The limit is the number of recruitment slots and the maintenance cost of the troops, I don't even look at the recuitment cost most of the time. Line is the only thing I raise because I plan ahead. Give tribals a recuitment time of 0 and the same cost as regular infantry. Make militia 2/3rds the cost of regulars that recuit in 1 turn, but with 2 less moral and with a reduction in accuracy and reloading rate.

The real cost of regulars should be the level of upgrades the building needs before they can raised. Milita is what you raise because you don't yet have access to professional line training faculties.

Well, that is my idea anyway

**JaM** · April 23, 2011, 02:19 PM

0 recruitment time makes no difference. it worked in M2TW but not in ETW/NTW.

**Khassaki** · April 23, 2011, 09:59 PM

Originally Posted by JaM

0 recruitment time makes no difference. it worked in M2TW but not in ETW/NTW.

Ah, fine, it would just be nice for buffing garrisons when when it looks like they will be attacked next turn. Feudal troops just need to be mustered, not trained, so the 6 months window of the turn should be enough time to get them organsied.

**JaM** · April 25, 2011, 06:21 AM

with 4 turns per year it would be easier to model this precisely but ERr is mod that tries to improve vanilla game instead of completely different scale. It the reason why i didnt aimed this mod for eye-candy things like uniforms and i'm mostly using things that are in. It mostly because i think gameplay is more important than historically correct uniforms or other graphical things... Yes, it would be nice to have those, but that would require a lot of new units which in the end would bring very little in gameplay (or even make it worse). Another reason is that ERr was done by myself only (but of course i was using DaVinci's work for campaign balance) and originally this version i have created for myself in the first place.