Discussion on how Levies actually Work

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Bovrick

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Aug 18, 2019
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Just thought it would be good to have a place to talk this over, as the Devs haven't exactly been open about how this works.

Levy Size

My understanding is that the Levy size of a Region is determined by:
(# Pops of an Integrated Culture, excluding slaves) * (Levy Size Multiplier)
If someone has a counterexample for this, can you please show it?

Levy Composition

This one is really confusing me. In the game itself, tooltips suggest that Nobles/Citizens will contribute to certain Unit Types called "Advanced", namely: Chariots, Elephants, Heavy Cavalry or Heavy Infantry; while Freemen/Tribesmen will contribute to "Basic" units: Archers, Light Infantry, Light Cavalry, Camels and Horse Archers. The game files also appear to have lines referencing these distinctions. However, when messing around with these values for Governorships witha a single Integrated Culture, it's become pretty clear that the classes have no bearing on the composition of units, only the Levy Template. Setting the Levy Templates to include the Basic/Advanced tags appear to just default to the respective Infantry units for each, though I haven't been rigorous with that check.

More worrying for me is that, as best as I can tell, the Levy composition in each Region is determined by a single Levy Template of a dominant culture there, even if that Culture isn't integrated. So while the size only accounts for Integrated Pops, if your integrated Pops become a minority in your Region, your templates can be taken over by a completely foreign, unintegrated culture. I believe this is what confused quite a few of us when watching the Bosporan stream; it's also observable when playing as the Seleukids - at game start the template for Ariana appears to be the generic Iranian, even through none of those cultures are Integrated; you can contrast this to the Levy from Persis, where the Persian culture dominates, with its own Levy Template.

Am I losing my mind, or has anyone had a better handle on how it works yet? I get that we've only had our hands on it for less than a day, so I'm not expecting too much yet - I've only gone deep-diving so soon myself because I'd been waiting to hear about it for some time.
 
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(# Pops of an Integrated Culture, excluding slaves) * (Levy Size Multiplier)
Good note on the "excluding slaves" part, I had no idea about this (but makes sense). I was trying to calculate why, from a pop size of 67 and a levy multiplier of 12.5% I only got 6 units.
 
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Levy size calculation seems right, with the final number rounded down. For example I had 20 integrated pops (excluding slaves) with a levy size multiplier of 24% giving me a levy size of 4 (4.8 rounded down).

Your thoughts on levy composition would also seem correct to me. Playing as a migratory tribe the levy template changed depending on the dominant culture of the region/province. When my primary culture (Germanic) was dominant I would get some heavy infantry, light cavalry and light infantry. After moving to Scythia and getting a different dominant culture my levy suddenly changed to light inf, light cav, horse archers and archers.
 
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If this "dominant culture per province" theory is correct then that would explain why Parnia's starting levy from its capital region is so far from what the template suggests, even though the region as a whole is predominantly Dahae.

Their levy should be 35% horse archers with few archers but is actually 50% archers and significantly fewer HA.
 
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However, when messing around with these values for Governorships witha a single Integrated Culture, it's become pretty clear that the classes have no bearing on the composition of units, only the Levy Template. Setting the Levy Templates to include the Basic/Advanced tags appear to just default to the respective Infantry units for each, though I haven't been rigorous with that check.

More worrying for me is that, as best as I can tell, the Levy composition in each Region is determined by a single Levy Template of a dominant culture there, even if that Culture isn't integrated. So while the size only accounts for Integrated Pops, if your integrated Pops become a minority in your Region, your templates can be taken over by a completely foreign, unintegrated culture. I believe this is what confused quite a few of us when watching the Bosporan stream; it's also observable when playing as the Seleukids - at game start the template for Ariana appears to be the generic Iranian, even through none of those cultures are Integrated; you can contrast this to the Levy from Persis, where the Persian culture dominates, with its own Levy Template.

Holy loly. This is like the exact opposite of the way I was expecting it to be calculated. Goddamn.

Well, I hope these are bugs.
 
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On the citizen classes I assume that this is working as intended and citizen ratios are not supposed to influence levy composition, it just means that for example a Heavy Cavalry Levy is linked to a Citizen pop, so when that levy dies, that pop dies.

The Levy Composition based on culture also seems to work as intended? The dev diary on levies explicitly mentions that you get what you get from raising levies, not necessarily what you want. So I guess the actual bug here is that we get Levies from Non-integrated cultures at all?
 
On the citizen classes I assume that this is working as intended and citizen ratios are not supposed to influence levy composition, it just means that for example a Heavy Cavalry Levy is linked to a Citizen pop, so when that levy dies, that pop dies.

The Levy Composition based on culture also seems to work as intended? The dev diary on levies explicitly mentions that you get what you get from raising levies, not necessarily what you want. So I guess the actual bug here is that we get Levies from Non-integrated cultures at all?
I haven't looked into the Pop-death mechanism, but that's a good theory, though it doesn't line up with what the tooltip itself says. I expect that the mechanism of deaths pays no attention to which units die though, there's no real link between units and any particular Pop as far as I can tell.

The thing with Levy composition is that it looks like it is very much not respecting the Pops you are raising a Levy from. The number comes directly from Integrated Pops, but what the Integrated Pops turn into is not related to their Culture - it can be related to the culture of Pops that are not being raised.
 
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To respond to this: yes there is an issue here, we're looking into exactly what and why that is.
 
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I do hope that this is fixed quickly, playing around with pops to maximise levy output is something I was really looking forward to, but it seems to be working very strangely at the moment.
 
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I do hope that this is fixed quickly, playing around with pops to maximise levy output is something I was really looking forward to, but it seems to be working very strangely at the moment.
I don't think the problem in question is the levy output from pops, this seems to work as intended, I reckon. The problem is the levy composition templates, i.e. that you end up with levy compositions from cultures that aren't integrated.
 
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I don't think the problem in question is the levy output from pops, this seems to work as intended, I reckon. The problem is the levy composition templates, i.e. that you end up with levy compositions from cultures that aren't integrated.
I was referring to the game distinguishing between different pop classes when it comes to constructing levies, I'm uncertain if they have abandoned this design in favour of templates but either way based on the DDs I was expecting to be able to improve troop quality by influencing pop types in my cities.
 
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I was referring to the game distinguishing between different pop classes when it comes to constructing levies, I'm uncertain if they have abandoned this design in favour of templates but either way based on the DDs I was expecting to be able to improve troop quality by influencing pop types in my cities.

Different pop classes do give different units, but this is based on their cultural template. So for example Macedonian, Italiotian, Epirote, Argolian, nobles and citizens give Heavy Infantry solely, while Thessalians and Bosporans get Heavy Cavalry instead.

Some cultures have even further splits. Cappadocian Nobles and Citizens get Heavy Cavalry and Chariots. While Bactrians get Heavy Infanty, Heavy Cavalry, and War Elephants from theirs.

So the template is part of the design where different pop classes get different levies. But you might have to strategically integrate and influence specific cultures to get the levies you prefer.
 
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Different pop classes do give different units, but this is based on their cultural template. So for example Macedonian, Italiotian, Epirote, Argolian, nobles and citizens give Heavy Infantry solely, while Thessalians and Bosporans get Heavy Cavalry instead.

Some cultures have even further splits. Cappadocian Nobles and Citizens get Heavy Cavalry and Chariots. While Bactrians get Heavy Infanty, Heavy Cavalry, and War Elephants from theirs.

So the template is part of the design where different pop classes get different levies. But you might have to strategically integrate and influence specific cultures to get the levies you prefer.
That might be the intent, but that isn't how it works right now. Arheo didn't actually say what it is supposed to be, so they might be sticking with the flat templates that are used now.
 
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Just thought it would be good to have a place to talk this over, as the Devs haven't exactly been open about how this works.

Levy Size

My understanding is that the Levy size of a Region is determined by:
(# Pops of an Integrated Culture, excluding slaves) * (Levy Size Multiplier)
If someone has a counterexample for this, can you please show it?

Levy Composition

This one is really confusing me. In the game itself, tooltips suggest that Nobles/Citizens will contribute to certain Unit Types called "Advanced", namely: Chariots, Elephants, Heavy Cavalry or Heavy Infantry; while Freemen/Tribesmen will contribute to "Basic" units: Archers, Light Infantry, Light Cavalry, Camels and Horse Archers. The game files also appear to have lines referencing these distinctions. However, when messing around with these values for Governorships witha a single Integrated Culture, it's become pretty clear that the classes have no bearing on the composition of units, only the Levy Template. Setting the Levy Templates to include the Basic/Advanced tags appear to just default to the respective Infantry units for each, though I haven't been rigorous with that check.

More worrying for me is that, as best as I can tell, the Levy composition in each Region is determined by a single Levy Template of a dominant culture there, even if that Culture isn't integrated. So while the size only accounts for Integrated Pops, if your integrated Pops become a minority in your Region, your templates can be taken over by a completely foreign, unintegrated culture. I believe this is what confused quite a few of us when watching the Bosporan stream; it's also observable when playing as the Seleukids - at game start the template for Ariana appears to be the generic Iranian, even through none of those cultures are Integrated; you can contrast this to the Levy from Persis, where the Persian culture dominates, with its own Levy Template.

Am I losing my mind, or has anyone had a better handle on how it works yet? I get that we've only had our hands on it for less than a day, so I'm not expecting too much yet - I've only gone deep-diving so soon myself because I'd been waiting to hear about it for some time.

hi, from what I understand and each culture has its type of formation, Greek type and inf. light and heavy with a percentage, then you have to take your population - slaves and calculate the collection percentage but you take debuf if the population is not happy with you ...


1613579896552.png


here I have 102 - 37 members and not slaves => then I shoot 20% which is my modifier soon 65 * 0.2 = 13

1613580009351.png
 
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To respond to this: yes there is an issue here, we're looking into exactly what and why that is.
ok it has a problem, but how should the population collection at least work? he would be:
  1. Does each type of population produce a type of unit in which it is defined by the percentage of the crop?​

  2. Slaves also count for the relocation or not?​

  3. All citizens (noble, civil, free and tribal men) count as one body and then divided by the percentage of culture ????​

  4. Citizens' happiness tell them to be collected for troops or not?​

  5. Has a minimum collection limit I see that it takes place with 2 citizens but that it produces 2 memos troops with 20% collection?​

  6. Does it have a minimum collection limit for integrated culture?​

  7. In the death of exchanges, is there a recovery tackle for this population?

    This and some very obscure points can be explained please.



    It would be interesting to put this information on the wiki and even within the game. another thing I missed is a graph showing the population of each territory in the total integrated to facilitate decision making.

    Taking advantage of the contact all population growth is showing how 0.00% but over time it believes it should be a label problem.

    1613582960731.png

 
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@pch91 it looks like your max has calculated correctly (13), has anything changed since you raised your Levy of 7? Laws changed or Units killed/consolidated, or Pops gained through a conquest?
Not sometimes it calculates very wrong, sometimes the calculation comes in this way right sometimes it comes totally wrong, the truth is that we have to wait for @Arheo to answer to really explain how it should be done or how it should behave in the case of military collection after all here you know the idea, nobody has any idea of how it is working or should work. it was never mentioned. who belongs to the count or if you have eligible troops by type of citizen. or if even and none of this has to do with population or a random number and this collection is the maximum but it has a minimum. after all we don't know anything because there is no place explaining how it works or should work, so I'm waiting for @Arheo's answer.