Optimal number of units in a settlement?

[SirRobin]

I have been thinking about garrisons, and how many units should be used per settlement.

If you have more units, you can tax the settlement higher, but you also pay more upkeep for the units.

After the number of free upkeep militia, is there any reason to add more units? (border cities should of course have larger garrrisons to defend against invasions)

If it makes sense to have more than the free number of units, how many extras? I have made some experiments, but haven't reached a conclusion yet.

It depends of course also on the city size ..

Any thoughts on this?

[Fred Putz]

I just add more units in border settlements. All other settlements will only have the free upkeep number of units.

[Protector]

I just add more units in border settlements. All other settlements will only have the free upkeep number of units.

Pls can you say how you know or where you can see which the current number of free upkeep is in a certain settlement ?

[sbroadbent]

I just add more units in border settlements. All other settlements will only have the free upkeep number of units.

Depends on how rebellious your regions are.

Been playing Khwarezmian Empire in 6.3. The far east regions (much of Iranian territory) have regular uprising of small bands of rebels. If you only keep free upkeep units in your settlements you're going to have to either import troops from the borders to deal with such problems, or recruit some short term muscle. For my needs, 6-8 Turkoman Cavalry in one or two groups are sufficient to deal with such problems.

Horse archers make it easy to quickly respond to threats and have an advantage when it comes to dealing with rebels. If horse archers aren't your factions specialty, you'll need to choose another rebel quashing strategy.

[Polycarpe]

I always stick with the number of free upkeep units. That way, I save money and control the public order. I never raise my taxes, the settlement's growth takes a punch with high taxes.

[newt]

You'll never reach huge city if you raise the taxes, keep the free units and fire the rest.

[Kawee]

Border settlements do require quite a heavy garrison though. The AI will spam stacks, and sometimes it can siege that one settlement 8-9 times in a roll, without you ever getting to retrain any troop, so heavy garrison is required. Everywhere else, just use up the free slot. Normal tax FTW!

[newt]

low tax FTW!

fixed

[Kawee]

@newt
Normal tax is better. You only gain 0.5% pop growth with low tax, but you gain a lot more money from normal tax. I think low tax also bring in some pretty nasty traits.

[SirRobin]

Thanks, I'll try that out next campaign - if the fixed textures ever appear so I can play the game again

[newt]

Thanks, I'll try that out next campaign - if the fixed textures ever appear so I can play the game again

What textures?

[SirRobin]

What textures?

The new, much bigger texture sizes that were introduced in 6.3 and make the game unplayable on my machine.

According to Ishan, the textures are being worked on to downsize them, and I hope that will make the game playable again for me.

[newt]

right click the picture of your wall

[Protector]

right click the picture of your wall

Found it. THX newt.

[Caesar Clivus]

Have you turned the unit detail setting down from the highest setting that SS sets by default?

[SirRobin]

Have you turned the unit detail setting down from the highest setting that SS sets by default?

Yep. And vanilla and SS6.2 works very well with the highest settings.

It's something new that was introduced in 6.3 and above.

I'm quite convinced it's the new content that has not been properly optimized - that is, textures are too large and possibly also the new models do not stay within the polygon budget.

[Caesar Clivus]

Open up the building browser and go to each of the walls. It'll tell you how many upkeep slots each level has.

[newt]

I'm posting the pic anyway

maybe someone else will need it.

[newt]

Let me know when you get a huge city with normal taxes.

As for traits, it works the same on normal. You will only get bad traits when a building finishes, and your taxes are lower than high

So keep them on low, and your general will get chivalry, which will increase population growth more than keeping taxes on normal. Set them to high the turn before a building finishes, then set them back to low.

[SirRobin]

So keep them on low, and your general will get chivalry, which will increase population growth more than keeping taxes on normal. Set them to high the turn before a building finishes, then set them back to low.

Come on, I thought you didn't like tedious micromanaging