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Post by toto on Mar 10, 2019 13:49:43 GMT
It’s likely almost everyone who has played any campaign in a paradox grandstrategy has lost the enitre army in one battle or war;or maybe you won the war bur lost more than 90% of your levies. Currently in game terms that would mean you would be completely screwed(for the former case) or severely vulnerable(for the latter). But if you thought about it,about losing your levies and think about the consequences of it there’s so many other problems. Think about it your levies are your subjects,their your nobles,retainers,peasants and landholders who swear you fealty. Every light infantryman lost is one less farmer in the field;every heavy infantryman,archer and light horsemen is one less tax paying landowner or retainer;more importantly every knight lost is one less nobleman to look after your lands,lead the levies and being a loyal companion. Not to mention the financial ruin one would face to replace equipment broken or looted,to manage inheritances and replace officials. War is inherently bad for stability,even if you haven’t lost too many men a long campaign always carry the risk of famine,raiding and not to mention mutiny. Having modifiers for such situations could simulate the risks of waging wars as leaders throughout history have faced,the internal pressures to find peace and to weigh the benefits. For example if you lost your entire levy,like all of it, you could face a massive hit to levy reinforcements,tax reduction,revolt risk and even levy size. Another such modifier fir when you have an overlong campaign could be negative tax modifiers,lower levy reinforcements, and chance for prosperity to drop. Having said all of this I understand that implementing such a system would require a lot of work and not being implemented but itd be amazing to see it happen
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Post by rufff1 on Mar 10, 2019 14:11:09 GMT
Thing is though (and I will grant GRRM isn't the best at counting) the world of Westeros is based on medieval Europe, where armies were tiny when compared to the modern period and roman/classical period - William the Conqueror conquered England with 17,000 men, the Battle of Agincourt was 9,000 men vs probably 15,000, the 1204 Sack of Constantinople was 15,000 Byzantines vs 20,000 Crusaders and Venetians, at the Capture of Jerusalem in 1099 the Crusader Army was less than 15,000, at the capture of Acre in the Third Crusade there were 25,000 on the crusader side, which sounds large until you realise it was crusading armies from England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Crusader States. When you consider that a country like say England generally had over a million inhabitants in this period the loss of an entire army certainly substantially reduces fighting capacity but your peasant base is largely unchanged. As for Landowners, who you are right a quite large percentage of whom would be on a decently sized battle, they tend not to be killed, sure some of them will, but even a fairly low status knight will be captured and ransomed rather than killed - it just makes more financial sense for both sides. The only battles where there is actually an economic effect from population loss (not from raiding or chevauchees) is when, as happened at Agincourt or Hattin, the winning side panic thinking they will lose, or something else causes a change from military norms and order their captives killed - Agincourt had a really detrimental effect on France and is described as the kiulling of the Flower of French Chivalry because the English panicked and suspended quarter, and Hattin was Saladin being deliberately merciless killing and enslaving captives as he felt that the Crusaders had broken too many treaties and could not be forgiven. In a normal battle even when an army is utterly defeated the peasants captured are killed or dispersed wiping out a tiny fraction of the total population, and then the nobles are released.
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Post by soulbourne on Mar 10, 2019 15:41:47 GMT
I'd agree with your point(Although a few caveats I'd counter but they're irrelevant to this topic) and point out that for medieval levies manpower wsn't the issue so much as actual equipment, since even the most basic equipment required a fair amount of work to construct and maintain(Needed storage spaces for equiement, skilled craftsman to refine the weapons, budgets to replace weapons lost due to poor maintenance, accidents, or training wear and tear, plus the time to actually produce-since even a simple wooden spear is pretty intricate to make as you need to find suitable sticks, carve them into a shaft, and then fire harden the tip which takes time and patience to do, and this is a pretty terrible use of reouces normally.
However, his suggestion does have merit, as far as the design philosiphy of the mod, and their view of GRRM's works. Apparently equipment is not an actual issue in this world, the reason why levies replace so poorly and why the main castle upgrades provide such a large bulk of troops is because the levy includes every man of fightig age in the territy. It isn't asimple calling of a sizable portion of men to a seasonal campaign, as far as the design of the mod is concerned every man beteen say 16 and 35 is called when you summon your levies, and thus when they die you have to ait for children to grow up and fathers too old for the war(or who survived) to comfort the many widows into childbirth.
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Post by toto on Mar 10, 2019 15:51:52 GMT
I was thinking the same thing about nobles being ransomed but since ingame you could only do that with courtiers it seems to me that a whole province modifier can be used to show at least some of the effects. For example every major conflict in westeros,the mod and in all honesty every ck2 game the general levy is called. Yes historically lords used small forces of their professional retainers because anything else is beyond usual medieval logistics but since you cant specifically call only specific troop types and there’s no retinue system,everyone is called. Given that and also that the westerosi economy is basically an agrarian one,which probably relies on food rent any sort of raising of the levy of peasants,as happens in the game and lore,has massive implications on everyone. That means less people on the field,less freeholders producing goods or managings peasants and petty lords or landed lnights having to arm themselves and their retainers. This should have impacts on the realm is me point. One thing you said that i found really interesting was how captives are treated. Itd be cool to see an event that comes up aftef battles which makes you choose how you would deal with them-whether to ransom them and make a few dragons,execute them to make a profit or release them becuase youre dumb. Itd be cool and sicne there are restrictions on placed by the system i think a simple modifier for provinces to show this would be enough
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Post by toto on Mar 10, 2019 15:54:26 GMT
I'd agree with your point(Although a few caveats I'd counter but they're irrelevant to this topic) and point out that for medieval levies manpower wsn't the issue so much as actual equipment, since even the most basic equipment required a fair amount of work to construct and maintain(Needed storage spaces for equiement, skilled craftsman to refine the weapons, budgets to replace weapons lost due to poor maintenance, accidents, or training wear and tear, plus the time to actually produce-since even a simple wooden spear is pretty intricate to make as you need to find suitable sticks, carve them into a shaft, and then fire harden the tip which takes time and patience to do, and this is a pretty terrible use of reouces normally. However, his suggestion does have merit, as far as the design philosiphy of the mod, and their view of GRRM's works. Apparently equipment is not an actual issue in this world, the reason why levies replace so poorly and why the main castle upgrades provide such a large bulk of troops is because the levy includes every man of fightig age in the territy. It isn't asimple calling of a sizable portion of men to a seasonal campaign, as far as the design of the mod is concerned every man beteen say 16 and 35 is called when you summon your levies, and thus when they die you have to ait for children to grow up and fathers too old for the war(or who survived) to comfort the many widows into childbirth. Counter away i had a feeling i made a few wrong points. Just had the idea from listenign to the british history pocast so i might make some mistakes |
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Post by rufff1 on Mar 10, 2019 16:12:46 GMT
I was thinking the same thing about nobles being ransomed but since ingame you could only do that with courtiers it seems to me that a whole province modifier can be used to show at least some of the effects. For example every major conflict in westeros,the mod and in all honesty every ck2 game the general levy is called. Yes historically lords used small forces of their professional retainers because anything else is beyond usual medieval logistics but since you cant specifically call only specific troop types and there’s no retinue system,everyone is called. Given that and also that the westerosi economy is basically an agrarian one,which probably relies on food rent any sort of raising of the levy of peasants,as happens in the game and lore,has massive implications on everyone. That means less people on the field,less freeholders producing goods or managings peasants and petty lords or landed lnights having to arm themselves and their retainers. This should have impacts on the realm is me point. One thing you said that i found really interesting was how captives are treated. Itd be cool to see an event that comes up aftef battles which makes you choose how you would deal with them-whether to ransom them and make a few dragons,execute them to make a profit or release them becuase youre dumb. Itd be cool and sicne there are restrictions on placed by the system i think a simple modifier for provinces to show this would be enough Yeah to be honest the prisoner mechanics of ck2 are ripe for an overhaul - medieval captivity for nobles was so bizarre - at one point in the Hundred Years' War the English captured the Grand Marshall of France and he stayed in England for 7 years or so becoming on very good terms with the English so much so that they wound up releasing him without ransom (if I remember correctly) whereupon the French king immediately executed him for being too pro English, similarly James II of Scotland was held hostage for a decade in England whilst his uncle who was regent found it convenient to not pay the ransom and wound up marrying an Englishwoman from the court, it would be cool if house arrest essentially made characters function as part of your court, taking part in feasts, befriending characters, having affairs, then from time to time you could have events fire where you either recruit or release a character you've had in house arrest for a while as you've become friends |
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Post by soulbourne on Mar 11, 2019 13:22:18 GMT
I believe as house arrest is a specific flag you could create a series of events around such fiascos. Especially since while under guard your not busy being too useful managing various parts of the palace so would have a lot of free time, a private suite, and a fair amount of resources at your disposal under a house arrest situation. So generally since your not doing paperwork or such you basically have time to wander around, chase serving girls, flirt with everyone, overindulge, go to pray if pious *cough*, and generally just fool around like on vacation. While leaving the place is generally unlikely, it wouldn't be uncommon to hang out with people in off duty rotations or proposition every woman there since your wife had a couple hundred miles and several thick walls between you. On the other hand, if you did develop some kinship with the captors during this, all that free time means a lot of time for gossip, so your likely to overhear plots, and be able to snitch on them or give the plotting some help(increased plot power or reveal the plot).
However, that all aside: The reason I mentioned the design philosiphy of this mod is that in base game CK2 you dont call up your entire province when you go to war, you call up your standing and prepared set of levies and men at arms-while sure you can't call individual units, you still have a very finite number you do summon. There are many thousands more left behind to tend the fields and their spouses, as your just calling up the people you have the equipment for. Baracks and such provide room for rotations of men and more importantly, armories to store their stuff in, so raise the "levy" by increasing the max number of soldiers you can give a weapon too. This is also why high martial characters get a notable boost, they devote their time optimizing logistics and supplies they have on hand, so can stuff more equipment in the same space and as a result have higher levies, while a poor martial tends to botch it and make very ineffective use of both his armory space and training attempts and thus can't support much at all. In the same way, the martial being assigned to train troops just causes him to devote more of his resources and budget to finding volunteers, making equipment contracts, and inspecting stocks to ensure that the supplies are ready to go at a moments notice.
This is also why in holy fury the pagans get the OP society boost to refill their levies and garrisons-it's not that the province is out of capable men and women so much as the actual on the books warriors are all gone. By sending out the call through the warrior society and using your own renown and reputation many freelance adventurers and bands of soldiers answer the call and take up resiednce in your military machine, utilizin your facilities instead of whatever they were before. This dates back even as far as old gods since prepared invasions summoned event troops that were merceanries, freelancers, and generally any guy with an axe who wasn't sworn to an active lord, and would answer your call for a chance at personal gain. Though that tended to be slightly more balanced than the current society boon.
The tl;dr being that as far as the mod is concerned, if you lose your entire army you in fact do lose all fighting age men, and thus most of your manpower. Even if that's not how it worked at any point in history, that is how it works in the mod. That's also why when you upgrde the main holding it's so expensive-your not just upgrading the main parts of it, your litterally causing 10s of thousands of settlers to come from other areas, and providing incentive for them to settle in your area, set up new trade routes, new villages, construct entire new sections of cities and such. It isn't just upgrading your castle, but placing money into expanding the entire barony as a whole, creating entire new villages and farm steads and everything attached to it in the civilian pop to support it.
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