[Important Poll] Aggy's Recruitment System

[Agamemnon]

Now, I've noticed that overall most IH-es seem to be currency-based. While that makes sense, paying out money for volunteer regiments simply does not. So, I propose a new system. A percentage value of each region's population is available to recruit. Once it is recruited, it cannot be replenished except by population growth, which is a different percentage of the population. The fewer troops you recruit, the more your population will grow and vice versa, as well as even versa vice. There are four types of troops.

Regulars

Volunteers

Conscripts

Elites

Regulars can be recruited from any region and are the standard, professional troops. They have average rate of fire and combat ability and have average morale, but they cost money.

Volunteers can be reruited from any region and represent the, well, volunteers who made up most US and Confederate armies in the ACW, as well as the regiments of many other armies who volunteered. They are free, are good melee fighters, and have good morale, but are poor shots, and the volunteering process makes forming these regiments take a while.

Conscripts can be recruited from any region and represent those pressed into service against their will. They are free, but suck at everything, and recruiting them will lower your national happiness. However, they also insta-spawn as soon as you order them.

Elites can be recruited only in your capital region and those surrounding it (adjacent). Any Regular or Volunteer regiment who does something awsome will automatically become an elite unit. They cost quite a bit to train and take a long time, but they have amazing melee ability, are great at shooting, and will never ever retreat unless you order them to.


Needless to say, this system is best for "modern" games, from the 1500s-WWI. However, it could also be used in ancient games, and medieval games, if modifications are made.


I also recommend a modified version of Fred's dice-roll-number system, but that would be in a different poll.

[Pericles of Athens]

No.

[EmperorBatman999]

It sounds interesting, and I kind of like it on paper. But I doubt it'll work. I prefer money. Besides, volunteer units aren't technically free because of uniforms, supplies, weapons and maybe officers.

[Agamemnon]

I know, it's rough. But, they would at least be a lot cheaper, and this would eliminate the "My men are regulars, yours are volunteer. I beat you hahaha" that I see a lot. It would be more even and more like RL. In the ACW, the CSA beat the union all the time, despite have fewer men and "weaker" volunteer troops. Of course the volunteers would cost money for recruitment and upkeep, but less than regulars.

[Kip]

Volunteers are often highly motivated - hence why they "volunteer" for service. It's really no surprise that a volunteer-based army would trounce a conscripted one.

My issue with this is that you're tying recruitment to individual provinces. It's realistic, sure, but I'm all about streamlining the process for ease of play and convenience of modding. I would rather see this (good) concept simplified into a nation-wide unit cap (e.g., your country can field X number of elites, Y number of regulars, and Z number of volunteers - with X and Y depending on the wealth and population of your provinces, and Z varying depending on political and social issues)

[Agamemnon]

That was the original idea, I changed it to provinces so that the numbers could be dependent upon events within them, and conquering more land, cutting taxes for new provinces, etc. would take effect. For example, if there was famine in Virginia, I wanted it to be that you couldn't recruit many Virginians. It wouldn't affect the number of Californians you could recruit.

[Kip]

Awesome in concept, but too much micromanagement in my opinion.

[Agamemnon]

Suit yourself, suit.

[Dan the Man]

I liked Gunny's recruitment system that I had planned (AHEM!) to use in RotM. Nothing against this one, his was just much more user friendly. You could add it up at the same time you added up your income. Because of that, I must regretfully say that my answer is no. You put a lot of effort into this, Aggy. I'm sorry to shoot it down.

[Agamemnon]

You could add this up in the same way, it just, like I said, puts more importance into people than into money. Governments most of the time wouldn't have paid for equipment until at least the late 1700s, so there is little reason to make them pay tons of money to recruit troops.