Faster unit replenishment/Higher upkeep cost?

[MagicCuboid]

I'm playing as England, and I've noticed that I've never needed to raise taxes in my provinces in order to conduct wars with France, and this doesn't jive well with me historically speaking. I've attempted a relatively historical approach - I've even heavily modified the English royal family to include the split between the de Blois branch and the Plantagenets : - but I still seem too rich for my own good. Isn't it true that in the early medieval period (the first three Plantagenets specifically), the kings relied on very high taxes in order to support their levies and mercenaries on the French war front?

Since this circumstance is pretty common across all medium to large factions, I'm wondering if in game terms it should be relatively easier to "scrounge up" a levy/militia army (thus, offer faster recruitment rates for these types of units), but much harder to maintain them in the field (with higher upkeep costs). Before I go ahead and start trying this out, I'm wondering about the community reaction. Has anyone thought of this before? Would it cripple the AI? Does it make sense to anyone historically?

[Ichon]

It makes sense historically, England nearly went bankrupt several times at the state treasury level and abandoning debt payments to Italian bankers nearly brought Florence to ruin. Free upkeep is ment to show that militias did not normally go on campaign but fought only defensively. However the upkeep cost relative to SS economy is minuscule. Part of the issue is that how armies are portrayed in SS is rubbish most of the time with most armies half or more militia. So we have first that militia are too cheap and 2nd too numerous where more expensive knights, mercenaries, and household/vassal troops made up majority of a campaign army. That is nearly impossible in SS because majority of rosters are castle based and RR restricted. Ideally recruitment of militias in 1100s to 1300 probably should be severly lower and some current castle troops moved to cities so that higher proportion of armies are made with higher upkeep troops along with raising upkeep of militia much higher. There is a high.opportunity cost to militias. Basically those men normally paying taxes are out fighting and dying in wars mean less taxes and less successful wars in most cases. Swiss and a few others exceptions. AI handles.higher.upkeep as well as it does.now basically not well but no worse so AI goes to 0 cash flow(bankrupt) anyway. So militias should be less available and lower army composition which requires some low tier castle troops.moved.to city since castles are usually less than 1/3 portion of regions but have over 60% of most factions rosters only available to be recruited there.

[MagicCuboid]

Sounds like in a more historical setting, the city/castle dynamic would be done away with and recruitment would be up to buildings in a "Local Recruitment" and "Area Recruitment" line. The local recruitment would supply militia-based units, which would be more expensive to have in the field but free for defense in the cities. The area recruitment would cover the levy-based professional units from the surrounding towns and villages. Then perhaps feudal building types to recruit the knights, since they would certainly be found in cities as well as castles.

I kind of like the "game-y-ness" of having to choose whether a settlement is money-raising city or an army-raising castle. Perhaps there could be other incentives for a settlement to be defined as such, because it would be a shame to lose them.

For this kind of conversation, though, I should probably join you folks over in the RR/RC thread, eh? Thanks for the response Ichon.

[Ichon]

It doesn't require totally doing away with city/castle split but that split is artificial and honestly not really sure what it accomplishes in the game other than to give advantage to human player who can attack centers of AI military production in castles and then face mostly militia armies that are much weaker at the same time boosting players own army with full center of army production. RWs HURB mod or BGRV and Alltowns mods are the best examples so far. For SSMAP I'm trying to talk Ravenant and Fair Prince into moving just a few of the castle units into cities in an effort to make it more that castles have 50% of army productions and cities 50% but we'll see.

The current ratio for most factions is 4-5 militia units in city plus maybe 1 higher tier unit around 1400 that hardly anyone ever sees. Take France for example- castles produce 29 of that faction units in castle and 11 are produced in cities but 5 of that 11 don't even appear until after 1300 or later so basically there are 6 city units and 9 castle units most people see(other 20 castle units are post 1300). However those 6 city units have about 2x the availability per region and refill about 2x as quickly so if France had 3 cities per 1 castle which is about the map ratio then France as a faction will produce about 12-1 militias vs castle units. Usually the militias die quicker since they aren't as good but even if 2x as many militias die as castle units it will still be a 6-1 militia composition in most armies 100 turns into a campaign. Players that gain enough territory can of course overcome that anyway since if they control 5 castles they can make all castle armies but fight AI armies which are 6-1 or 8-1 militia and win easy battles which is how I see most campaign AARs go in SS and from my own experience. That is why I started 1390 mod since over half the units in SS most players never see which is quite a waste. However there is still the problem of balance in 1100-1300 eras so that is why I am helping out with SSMAP right now and hopefully making things better both economically and roster wise where most factions will have 1 or 2 current castle units available in city before 1300 but at lower rate than available in castle. Turks for example should have large portions of their armies as archers but right now they are lucky to get 10% of their army as foot archers and 10% as HA which means a typical Turk army is looking like a crappier version of a European army while late English army can easily have 30% or more archers between the various types of longbowmen in castles and archer militias that have really wide availability after 1200.

Most SS submods recently are taking this problem into account as you see HURB, BGRV, alltowns, SSMAP, etc are all degrading the artificial city/castle split to varying degrees.

[Byg]

BGRV has the following features relative to this question: immediate unit replenishment and higher upkeep costs.

Sustained military activity affects the economy via reduced harvests, increased supply cosumption, reduced population and possible debt with interest for individual nobles who are overburdened with taxation and troop supply.

After a military campaign armies can be disbanded, replenishing the population and increasing production again.

You can only really have tons of money by refraining from raising troops for a sustained period, and instead you will need to spend a lot on maintaining peace.