Proposal: Very High Unit Recruitment Cost

[CIaagent11]

I have not found a discussion of this anywhere. What happens if we set the recruitment cost very high, like 10 times the upkeep? That way the initial financial drought in SAI could be avoided, because having an army is not the expensive thing any more, training it is. Battles would really matter, because a lost legion would not easily be replaced. Couple this with a high casualty recovery trait for all generals, and legions would be a much more stable thing. You wouldn't be spammed by enemy armies, that pay for themselves by being lost. A lost army is actually gone in a finite sense, because it's recruitment was a singular cost.

Your empire has a finite per-turn earning capacity in the form of holding cities. This earning capacity has to be defended militarily. If the main cost of an army was recruitment, then it had to pay back it's recruitment cost by defending that much earning capacity. If it can't perform in battle, it was not a worthwhile investment to have that legion. The fate of your empire hinges on your ability to out-fight the defensive needs of your cities. Factions would essentially be 'drained' by war.

Right now there is essentially a premium on losing units. If you notice your finances dwindling, you think "better go battle someone to lose some upkeep". It doesn't really matter whether you win or lose, because if you lose you save the money and can build a new army. This way the game balances itself out easily, but it is unrealistic and boring.

It's just not realistic that it would be cheaper to disband a unit in iberia and retrain it on the german limes, than to move it from iberia to the limes. Armies were more of a stable thing. They were not lost, rebuilt, lost, rebuilt... Recruiting one would have been much more expensive than keeping it around for a few years, especially for roman factions. And if a legion was lost, how much money would that save in the short term? Some pay and supplies, I guess. But the infrastructure that transported the supplies still existed. Losing an army would not suddenly release a huge amount of cash that could be used for other things.

The question is whether this works, or messes up some game mechanic. Possibly the balance between factions might have a 'tipping point', with big factions becoming unbeatable. A workaround might be to make generals cavalry quite expensive. Since it is hardcoded for there to be 3 generals per 5 regions, it would naturally balance out the might of big factions.

[Majorien]

Right now there is essentially a premium on losing units. If you notice your finances dwindling, you think "better go battle someone to lose some upkeep". It doesn't really matter whether you win or lose, because if you lose you save the money and can build a new army. This way the game balances itself out easily, but it is unrealistic and boring.

It's just not realistic that it would be cheaper to disband a unit in iberia and retrain it on the german limes, than to move it from iberia to the limes. Armies were more of a stable thing. They were not lost, rebuilt, lost, rebuilt... Recruiting one would have been much more expensive than keeping it around for a few years, especially for roman factions.

completely agree !
particularly playing IB-SAI, with real name units and one place (even if it's sometimes wrong located ) to recruit it, i always considered that the price of my units are way too cheap. Reading for instance ammienus, we can understand how significant was the lost of one single unit, never replaced. And if you follow by exemple the theodosius campaigns (theodosius the father, general of valentinian), he always bring with him the same units, in britain, moesia or africa !
So yes, the price of training a new cohort of a legio should be very elevated, and very long. Ideally, you can't train more than X units of a legio (depends of the scale chosen).
and i'm more deeply involved, fearing for my precious units with their (real) names and history, than billions of standardized stacks. Less armies, more gameplay !

[Roma_Victrix]

I would only see this as a viable option (shouldn't be hardcoded into the mod) if it was applied to every faction and not just the Romans, in order to make things fair. Otherwise the Sassanian Empire would just conquer the ERE in a matter of turns and the WRE would have no chance against wandering Germanic hordes with ten full stacks wandering around their empire.

[Majorien]

> Rome Victrix : of course. even if barbarians should be able to raise more quickly and cheaper stacks of poor trained infantrymen... a kind of "forced conscription". Remember the 5 kings of alemanni against Julianus in Argentorarum : each one was followed by a "comitatus", guard composed by professional fully-equipped soldiers, and a large amount of semi-equipped peasants, destroyed by roman legion quite easily.

[Diocle]

> Rome Victrix : of course. even if barbarians should be able to raise more quickly and cheaper stacks of poor trained infantrymen... a kind of "forced conscription". Remember the 5 kings of alemanni against Julianus in Argentorarum : each one was followed by a "comitatus", guard composed by professional fully-equipped soldiers, and a large amount of semi-equipped peasants, destroyed by roman legion quite easily.

They almost wiped out the whole center of the Roman army, they routed a whole wing of extra heavy horse and if Julian himself didn't risk his own arse to rally his men, probably they would have won the battle, actually the Alamans were a very hard nut to crack for the Romans.

[Ragimund Von Wallat]

the new edu is comming with new econopmy and finally romans in civil war recruit legions...even palatinate and comitanesis ,also economy redone with realistic budget in solidii,realistic recruitement cost by equipment,and pay by class...merceneray pool also revised with alot more inf available,alot of veteranii around rome and cosntantinople ,battle movement sped reduced by 20% 12tpy campaign fixed(the bug for movement was due to season and supply trait that work with an antitrait being bugged and the malus stay permenently to the character) realistic movement on the strat map.all limes troop recuit in 0 turn comi and palatine troop take 1 every cav take 1,scholea 2.new mass system for horse and infantry and much much more,im almost finish i will start soon to send the file to our divine and glorious boss ...(example of cost ripense 3400,ripense armatus 7400,cataphracti 11 000)cost have been calculated with price of real equipment provided graciously to me by wulfgar and pay scale by diocle

ps sheild wall have been removed du to retardness of the ai,now allhe unit with SW ability use the all the time,mine give theyre historical yeild to gov,egypt and carthage now cash cow (due to grain) the surplus are reprensented by adding the appropriate tax bonus to the pharos in alexandria and the bath in carthage =),ive been working on all that for months,alone in the dark secretly,with only the smoke of too much cigarette giving a macabre glow to my screen =P thx to magister,diocle,wulfgar and all the other who gave me mines of informations when i nag them

[Majorien]

They almost wiped out the whole center of the Roman army, they routed a whole wing of extra heavy horse and if Julian himself didn't risk his own arse to rally his men, probably they would have won the battle, actually the Alamans were a very hard nut to crack for the Romans.

I don't have the same reading of the battle : if i remember, severus at the left had nothing to do, the center led by Julian, after the first shock of the five cunei formed by the comitatus of the kings had no big problems too, only the right wing, mainly because the cowardice of the prefect of cataphractii, broke the ranks by panick.
At the end, Romans lost 243 men. Alamans, more than 8000...
naturally this battle is not representative of all alaman warfare, but..

[Roma_Victrix]

the new edu is comming with new econopmy and finally romans in civil war recruit legions...even palatinate and comitanesis ,also economy redone with realistic budget in solidii,realistic recruitement cost by equipment,and pay by class...merceneray pool also revised with alot more inf available,alot of veteranii around rome and cosntantinople ,battle movement sped reduced by 20% 12tpy campaign fixed(the bug for movement was due to season and supply trait that work with an antitrait being bugged and the malus stay permenently to the character) realistic movement on the strat map.all limes troop recuit in 0 turn comi and palatine troop take 1 every cav take 1,scholea 2.new mass system for horse and infantry and much much more,im almost finish i will start soon to send the file to our divine and glorious boss ...(example of cost ripense 3400,ripense armatus 7400,cataphracti 11 000)cost have been calculated with price of real equipment provided graciously to me by wulfgar and pay scale by diocle

ps sheild wall have been removed du to retardness of the ai,now allhe unit with SW ability use the all the time,mine give theyre historical yeild to gov,egypt and carthage now cash cow (due to grain) the surplus are reprensented by adding the appropriate tax bonus to the pharos in alexandria and the bath in carthage =),ive been working on all that for months,alone in the dark secretly,with only the smoke of too much cigarette giving a macabre glow to my screen =P thx to magister,diocle,wulfgar and all the other who gave me mines of informations when i nag them

Ah! No more shield wall option? I'm going to miss that. It was so handy to be able to go in and out of it.

[Ragimund Von Wallat]

im sorry but the AI couldnt manage it...particulary advancing a SW unit to make you back of archers....then slowly walk back to his line being annihilated by missille fire....also the mass bonus wrecked the battle line dynamic,also the ai couldnt deploy them well.now the roman to roman battle are way more challenging and fun....the files are now being tested by the boss...once it released if some people really dont like it i will release an alternate edu for you guys

also depending on the people comment i may release further patches

[Roma_Victrix]

im sorry but the AI couldnt manage it...

That was part of the reason why I liked it.



But I understand.

[Ragimund Von Wallat]

shameless abuser!this time will be soon over mouHAhahAhhAH

[CIaagent11]

Looks delicious, Ragimund.

Whenever I installed a BI mod, the first thing I did was removing shield wall.

[Ragimund Von Wallat]

thank you,i wish you and others are as satisfied when it come out...the dynamic have been changed a whole lot...and with real budget as the scale is set at 1:1 that mean a presantalis army of 24000 is 8 stacks...campaign have to be well planned with officer wisely distributed among the army....but it also help to stabilise front,if you put at the border couple of stack if your ennemy cannot match it it will parks what he can facing you his side of the border...so effectively now you can be at war without battle every turns even with a big amount of stack....if you attack and destroy 12 000 ennemy troops all the elite one wont comme back the next turn as they take 1turn to build and also with a very high price of recruitement,if you help yourself with blockage the ennemy just cant raise any more

in a civil war as you start to take the upper hand you see the the ai is forced to draft and troops...you will see less and less armatus comi and palatines

[Majorien]

thank you,i wish you and others are as satisfied when it come out...the dynamic have been changed a whole lot...and with real budget as the scale is set at 1:1 that mean a presantalis army of 24000 is 8 stacks...campaign have to be well planned with officer wisely distributed among the army....but it also help to stabilise front,if you put at the border couple of stack if your ennemy cannot match it it will parks what he can facing you his side of the border...so effectively now you can be at war without battle every turns even with a big amount of stack....if you attack and destroy 12 000 ennemy troops all the elite one wont comme back the next turn as they take 1turn to build and also with a very high price of recruitement,if you help yourself with blockage the ennemy just cant raise any more

in a civil war as you start to take the upper hand you see the the ai is forced to draft and troops...you will see less and less armatus comi and palatines

it sounds incredibly realistic !!! i always dreamed of a mod in wich a big defeat is a real concern, not just a setback. every batte should be accepted only because it seems to end in a victory... or because your ennemy don't give you any choice !

[Ragimund Von Wallat]

well...a badly prepared invasion of illyria and and the western danube had turned wrong for me...shame shame i know...i loss too many troops and i was forced to cancel the move with only one city captured..it took me 18 months before i came back,in that time i had to raise 3 full legios of of unarmoured ripense to keep those pesky quaddi at bay while i was reforming,i couldnt afford any armored troops,cav was supplied by mercenary.

in the new system if you win a big victory destroyin alot of ennemy force you must go forward,beseige multiple cities at the same time and block passage to the ennemy with more ''battle-y'' stacks otherwise you stall....then you retreat...with the new economy now if any barbarian are let to control roman land they will become very rich and extremly dangerous...with time,if you let them a years or 2 occupying too much roman land they will have become migthy!...in one of my test game incompetent-valentinian let africa fall to the berber and now he have a hell of a figth trying to take it back because he couldnt strike them at the good time due to figthing with the quaddi around ravenna

so he had the double trouble of figthing them...with the loss of the grain of carthage,so less money to do so,as procopius i waited till he departed for africa and then i took italy from him mouhahahaoh yeah with the real movement of the strat map too big faction in territory act way better as they can move in there own land wayyy quicker,after having taken italy i noticed that after 3 months valentinian was sending berber auxiliary to me.

tou can also let a barbarian faction occupy roman land if he figth a roman ennemy of yours...you wait that they destriy each other and then you backstab and take it all for yourself...but watchout if they beat your roman foe to easily you take the risk of having a hell of a figth against them....so sending spy to see what happen and looking at the graph aat tne begining of each turn will be a must now

[Roma_Victrix]

Although this system makes sense for the numbered citizen legions of the late Roman Republic and Roman Empire, I don't think it should apply to the larger mass of different types of auxiliary troops and lighter troops that can be levied. It's true that Augustus was distraught over the loss of his legions at Teutoburg Forest. It's also true that when the Romans suffered devastating losses to Hannibal such as Cannae they were easily able to replenish their ranks because of the enormous pool of allied soldiers at their command from throughout Italy. Of course Republican Rome was a much different beast than the late Western Roman Empire, but I think you get my point.

[Ragimund Von Wallat]

i would be interested to hear more details of your theory if it dont bother you

[Metaluis90]

I would only see this as a viable option (shouldn't be hardcoded into the mod) if it was applied to every faction and not just the Romans, in order to make things fair. Otherwise the Sassanian Empire would just conquer the ERE in a matter of turns and the WRE would have no chance against wandering Germanic hordes with ten full stacks wandering around their empire.

Or this option only affects the human player regardless the faction he's playing.

It's just not realistic that it would be cheaper to disband a unit in iberia and retrain it on the german limes, than to move it from iberia to the limes. Armies were more of a stable thing. They were not lost, rebuilt, lost, rebuilt... Recruiting one would have been much more expensive than keeping it around for a few years, especially for roman factions. And if a legion was lost, how much money would that save in the short term? Some pay and supplies, I guess. But the infrastructure that transported the supplies still existed. Losing an army would not suddenly release a huge amount of cash that could be used for other things.

I did this for roleplay purposes, because I like having the diverse palatina and comitatenses legions the mod offers, but to be honest I never thought about this.


On topic, I find the idea very promising and historically too. The high recruitment costs and the fact that some legions can only be trained in very specific cities would make almost impossible to field that legion again, adding an extra value to them and in the long run would make you grow fond of your units.

For example, in my current Julian in Gaul campaign, I lost both my Invicti Juliani and Lanciarii Seniores in a failed siege of Aquincum held by the Iazyges, circa 359 AD, if I recall. I was furious since they were (and I think still are) the best units available at my disposal, and despite I've already taken Aquincum and seized the Balkans and Thracia provinces for the roman empire (which were took by the Iazyges, Ostrogoths and Quadii from the ERE), a campaign it took me aprox. 10 years in the 6tpy script to conclude it (I'm currently in year 370 AD) I still can't recruit the Invicti Juliani and the Lanciarii Seniores.

Now, I will re-recruit them when and if I capture the city where they're trained (Antioch, I believe) but, if this idea is implemented, I believe we would have second thought about if training a new legion is actually needed, and relocation of existing ones, limitanei and auxiliary troops would play a greater role in a campaign.