What Army Upkeep costs do you manage?

[OG Grenadier]

Trying to compare notes. Generally speaking I try to keep my total military costs under 50,000 florins.


Your thoughts oh esteemed chaps?

[Iustinianos]

Depends enitrely on how much income I get ofcourse. In peace-times I usually try to keep it around my tax income. The income I gain from trade, mer.trade, mining and farmin I use for development of my cities and retraining/upgrading units. When at war I usually am around 10.000-20.000 florins more then my tax income. (full-scale total war that is)

This is my finance scroll as it looked when the war with the Mongols started, I started recruiting more and more. When the war was at it's height the armour upkeep was about 25.000 more then my tax income.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[OG Grenadier]

Hey good post. That looks pretty modest. I am at the Late Era game and try to keep my army upkeep under 50K.

[August]

Depends entirely on the situation: size of the kingdom, relations with neighbors, number of wars being fought, the vulnerability of provinces and so on and so forth...

[Fenix_120]

60 -80% of my income goes to army upkeep.



This can be anywhere from 1 - 100,000 a turn.



But its usually around the 5,000 - 50,000 area depending on what mod im playing and what era and how far I am in the game.


For an example, in EB my army upkeep was 20,000 and all I had was two full stack armies, as opposed to SS 6.1 where 20,000 will get you closer to 4 full stacks.

[Erlinggra]

I try to keep my army upkeep at 2/3 - 1/3 of my total income. Depending on my agression level.

[Henry707]

Not me. I'm lean & keen. Being in business myself, I'm always looking to cut costs, slash budgets & de-mob units.

It's a great exercise to take your military costs & shave off percentages. I love it - de-mobbing powerful but expensive units to increase your income!!!

Always a challenge when you look around & think where to cut. My experience is that high upkeep units, horses & the navy are always good places to start.

Get your finances straight & you will be in a great position to respond. I also think it is realistic as professional armies were small in the most part, particularly in Europe - you rely largely on milita. That's why I love the Italians!

With money all things are possible - mercenaries etc !!

Henri.

[themoob]

I keep my army upkeep as tiny as humanely possible during peace times, and use it to build a large treasury.

Then once I hit war, I usually keep the army upkeep as high as it can go as long as I make over 2000 (1000 for smaller factions) profit per turn.

[ssmarine]

I keep my army upkeep as tiny as humanely possible during peace times, and use it to build a large treasury.

Then once I hit war, I usually keep the army upkeep as high as it can go as long as I make over 2000 (1000 for smaller factions) profit per turn.

Thats generally what I do. I just go all out for a war and when its over I consolidate my army, disband and merge armies, etc. In the late game though I tend to be at war so much that my army upkeep is about 3 quarters of my money. I usually just pillage and burn enemy cities every turn to cover costs. In the end though it mostly depends on the faction I am. If you play as someone whos backed into a corner like england or Norway you can leave free upkeep units in all of your rear towns so army upkeep is pretty cheap.