many coffins - happy coffers

[fokin]

It seems that defeats and disasters are my pet peave. My last crushing defeat by Romans when I was playing as Athens reminded me about that annoying old game mechanics. When an army completely perishes suddenly coffers become full. Naturally, a lot of corpses mean many vacancies. But I am still not sure that ancient empires work similalry to contemporary corporations and I believe a massacre sometimes is not exactly the same as a mass layoff.

Don't you think that loss of the entire army should result in additional cash penalty? Is it doable in terms of modding and in phase with DeI future development?

[ThatWhichThinks]

It's just that you aren't paying for the upkeep of the army anymore. You won't pay soldiers who are dead. Granted, an army of that time would probably have a war chest in the field or be paid upon return home rather than constantly getting money each month, but as I understand it the main barrier to raising more troops for Greeks and successors at the time was manpower (or at least the right kind of manpower), not money necessarily.

[BMLlednar]

Don't Heroic Victories and Crushing Defeats already do...something? Compared to a more average victory or defeat I mean. I feel like I read something about that at one point. I don't remember any specifics though, so I may just be imagining things.

[JCB206]

Just now going through this in my campaign. A full stack of very good troops, all with 2 silver chevrons. Destroyed at sea. Money jumps 4k per turn. Just replace them and move on.

I'm not sure there should a monetary penalty for losing an experienced army, but it should hurt. Experience should mean more. Raising a new army should cost the same but be much less effective than the previous, until it gets it experience.

In the same game, I have a full legion sitting in Africa, all with 2 gold chevrons. I could disband them and the game would not be different in the least. Heck they have been sitting there training for about 50 turns.

Losing experienced units should matter.

[Dresden]

As pointed out, this is simply a function of the upkeep being gone for that army. If we made it so that you don't recover those funds, it would be extremely difficult/impossible to rebound from a devastating loss.

The loss of experienced troops is felt because they were experienced - you can't replace that immediately.

[fokin]

As pointed out, this is simply a function of the upkeep being gone for that army. If we made it so that you don't recover those funds, it would be extremely difficult/impossible to rebound from a devastating loss..

You know, I see this penalty more as a part of CAI improvement. That "recovery pill" is too arcadish for me. This phenomenon of such good prosperity just after a disaster is little bit wierd, isn't it?

Of course I also understand and respect a more gamer friendly perspective of "playabity" or "game design".

[ThatWhichThinks]

It's not a "recovery pill".

Before, you had an army. That army cost some money each turn in logistical costs, soldier salaries, etc. That cost was built into your expected net revenues for next turn.

That army gets destroyed.

You no longer have to pay for the cost of maintaining that army in the field or any soldier salaries since they are all dead, captured, or deserted.

When the next turn rolls around, you have more money than you expected because your expected budget assumed that you would be paying for the army that no longer exists. You didn't get any extra money. Your revenues are exactly as they were before, but instead of going to the (now destroyed) army, that money went into your coffers.

It's like this: suppose you buy a lamp. Every day that lamp uses electricity, which you must pay for at the end of every month. One month, the lamp breaks. You may notice that you have slightly more money in your bank account at the end of the month, but it isn't because someone gave you extra money. It's because you aren't using as much electricity because you don't have a lamp.

[sasquatch32794]

It seems that defeats and disasters are my pet peave. My last crushing defeat by Romans when I was playing as Athens reminded me about that annoying old game mechanics. When an army completely perishes suddenly coffers become full. Naturally, a lot of corpses mean many vacancies. But I am still not sure that ancient empires work similalry to contemporary corporations and I believe a massacre sometimes is not exactly the same as a mass layoff.

Don't you think that loss of the entire army should result in additional cash penalty? Is it doable in terms of modding and in phase with DeI future development?

I have thought about this issue a lot myself. It is very immersive breaking to me. Often times when a nation lost a large army that would spell doom. But in Rome 2 you just get all of that money back and can bounce unrealistically back. DEI has somewhat mitigated this problem by creating a large discrepancy between unit upkeep and recruitment cost but it is still not perfect. The best solution I have thought is by having a population mechanic. For one if you lost an army then sure you would have a bunch of extra money but you might not have the manpower to raise a second army.

Furthermore if you tied population levels to income then a player could start feeling a real degradation of economy from just losing troops and having to replace those troops. This in my opinion would be the best solution to the spammy mechanic.

[ThatWhichThinks]

Large defeats spell doom not because of economic troubles, but because of the physical difficulties of mustering an army and bringing it to the front.

When the Makedonians lost at Pydna, it was terrible that all of their pikemen were massacred by Romans, but the real trouble for Makedon was not the monetary cost of raising another army, it was time and manpower (or at least the type of manpower). To my knowledge, Makedon was not in financial trouble during that war with Rome (at least no more than any other people fielding an army). Pydna was a disaster largely because the elite corps of pikes that the Romans captured/massacred could not be replaced. So, yes, a population addition would be awesome, but Mitch's project is apparently dead since he was hired by CA (which is understandable), and I can't imagine the kind of work it would take to write such a system from scratch.

The only penalty that might make sense that may be feasible is a faction-wide PO penalty after an army is destroyed, but even that would likely be difficult to implement (I certainly am not good enough to code it).

[sasquatch32794]

Large defeats spell doom not because of economic troubles, but because of the physical difficulties of mustering an army and bringing it to the front.

When the Makedonians lost at Pydna, it was terrible that all of their pikemen were massacred by Romans, but the real trouble for Makedon was not the monetary cost of raising another army, it was time and manpower (or at least the type of manpower). To my knowledge, Makedon was not in financial trouble during that war with Rome (at least no more than any other people fielding an army). Pydna was a disaster largely because the elite corps of pikes that the Romans captured/massacred could not be replaced. So, yes, a population addition would be awesome, but Mitch's project is apparently dead since he was hired by CA (which is understandable), and I can't imagine the kind of work it would take to write such a system from scratch.

The only penalty that might make sense that may be feasible is a faction-wide PO penalty after an army is destroyed, but even that would likely be difficult to implement (I certainly am not good enough to code it).

There is absolutely an economic impact of losing battles.
1) Replacing a fully equipped army is very expensive. There is a cost in training and equipping soldiers. Addmittidley this is already in place in total war games with 'recruitment cost'.

2) You cannot continually lose and replace thousands of the most productive demographic of society at that time and think there would be no economic effects at all. Of course there would be. For more prolonged wars like the second punic war this effect would become very much more pronounced.

[Furgon]

Mitch's project is apparently dead since he was hired by CA (which is understandable)

Makes one think they bought the competition As I remember Mitch's announcement about this system produced a nuclear blast effect.

Upkeep sure is understandable from gameplay perspective, after all the game is designed to be a wargame, not a simulator like most of the game audience want it to be. And for that I personally don't buy 'logical' explanation to this and other things. Spending half or more of kingdom income on 'logistics' is totally unbelievable.

"Yangdi ordered the enlisting of soldiers in 611. He instructed them to gather in present-day Beijing. The force gathered by year's end was one of the greatest according to the Book of Sui. Allegedly 1,133,000 troops were mobilized. This does not count the number of laborers and soldiers that were required to carry provisions to support the massive army. Some argue that the Chinese deflated the army size when keeping record after the war. This leads to an estimation of about 2,000,000 if the supporting soldiers are included. The army began to move in early 612, and due to its size, it took 40 days for all of them to depart. The long line of soldiers stretched for about 400 kilometers (250 mi)'
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goguryeo%E2%80%93Sui_War

Yet upkeep in monetary counting wasn't the issue, it is supply failure that contributed largely to their defeat. So again, 'logically' I can even question shouldn't upkeep be removed at all with the introduction of supply system. This sure would be a big pain to balance evething together again.

[JCB206]

Just an idea. Could there upkeep not go back in your coffers for say 2-4 turns. That being the money that was stored with the army for the "next payments" or something. That way, you couldn't replace them immediately. Just a thought. Might not even be possible. Thanks

[FlashHeart07]

IMO the only way to introduce ideas like these would be through scripts as the game engine offers a lot of limitations. Many of the things people ask for have already been tried out but failed due to the game engine.
Luckyli there are other extremely talented scripters other than Mitch modding Rome 2. Litharion and Magnar being some of them

[zonks40]

I would prefer to think that the wages that the dead would have received have been forwarded to the widows, and the food and equipment for the soldiers already spent.

Edit...
In a way this is already in the game to an extent, in Rome 1 a unit that had a 10% contingent would only cost you 10% of the upkeep, however in Rome 2 I'm pretty sure that even if you have the minimum soldiers in a unit, you still pay the full upkeep.

[JCB206]

I would prefer to think that the wages that the dead would have received have been forwarded to the widows, and the food and equipment for the soldiers already spent.

Edit...
In a way this is already in the game to an extent, in Rome 1 a unit that had a 10% contingent would only cost you 10% of the upkeep, however in Rome 2 I'm pretty sure that even if you have the minimum soldiers in a unit, you still pay the full upkeep.

You are correct Sir. I believe you pay the full amount regardless of the amount of soldiers. In game this is considered that you are spending the money on new recruits. But maybe replenishment should be like 10%+ on upkeep, since training new soldiers and arming them probably cost more.

[fokin]

Many good thoughts gentlemen. I like the concept about manpower and quality. One of the solution could be a temporary increase in cost and time of the higher tiers units recruitment.

Moreover mercenaries also should be more expensive due to prestige drop of losing employer. Different sources about mercenary warfare depict mercenaries as greedy and very pragmatic organizations, which were not so prone to sacrifice for a lost cause.

[JCB206]

Many good thoughts gentlemen. I like the concept about manpower and quality. One of the solution could be a temporary increase in cost and time of the higher tiers units recruitment.

Moreover mercenaries also should be more expensive due to prestige drop of losing employer. Different sources about mercenary warfare depict mercenaries as greedy and very pragmatic organizations, which were not so prone to sacrifice for a lost cause.

I actually have an entire breakdown of mercenaries cost and upkeep if the staff would like to see it.

Mercenaries did not cost more in most cases than professional troops. Just more than militia. Militia was the backbone of every single country during this time period. Almost all of the full time soldiers in this time period were mercenaries. Not entirely but mostly full time professional "home" troops were the elites.

Making mercenaries exremely expensive is just a Rome 2 gaming thing. In reality the only reason they were considered "expensive" by most countries is that they signed 10 month contracts. While the militia could be called up and paid very little for a couple of months service, with no contract. Any full time professional force is a huge drain on the economy, regardless if they are factional troops or mercenaries.

They weren't hired to just be disbanded after a battle. That would be truly dumb by an individual to hire himself out for one battle. They wanted to perform garrison duty for the year and fight maybe one battle. It was a job.

Mercenaries were a part of almost every major battle. They were needed to help the elite to strengthen the backbone of the militia/levies and allied troops. But they would have to paid for the year even if you hired them for 1 fight, like the Ptolomies at Raphia. They are experienced troops in their own fighting style and also hired individually and armed by the state, usually as Thueorpi but sometimes armed as pikemen and other formations. There were not many highly experienced troops in fighting formation just standing around in provinces to wait to be paid for a few weeks to win one battle and then go back home.

[FlashHeart07]

So the cost of Mercs should be decreased to match that of core faction troops?

[JCB206]

So the cost of Mercs should be decreased to match that of core faction troops?

It all depends on how you balance historical realism vs game play I suppose. Players are used to using mercenaries for quick hiring for battles and then disband them. Players seem to like that. But no, it didn't work that way in reality.

Most professional troops made the same as most mercenaries as far as upkeep, sometimes a little bit more. All mercenaries had to receive a food allowance while some professionals had to buy provisions out of their pay. Also heavy cavalry was extremely rare. While mercenaries were unemployed, their commander had to support them and horses were many times more expensive to feed. A little over 8 times more expensive to feed.

[Dresden]

Mercenaries are cheaper to hire but much more costly to maintain. Their cost actually matches their upkeep, which makes sense to me (you hire them for a constant wage was the concept).