Ahistorically big armies in EU2

[unmerged(22496)]

The Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410 was one of the greatest battles of that times, much bigger than many later battles, fought by all available to mobilize forces of Poland, Lithuania and Teutonic Order. There were also a lot of mecenaries and troopers form minor allies fighting on both sides. Moreover Teutons were supported by numerous so called guests (knights seeking fame mobilized by Teutonic diplomacy).

The battle was a turning point of history. Modern historians counted engaged forces so many times and so exactly, that we shouldnt question the outcome.

In Battle of Grunwald took part 15000 warriors fighting at Teutons side, including 9750 warriors of Teutonic Order, and 3700 of their mecenaries, rest were forces of german duchies and guests.

On polish side there were 30000 forces, including 20000 polish warriors and mecenaries, 10000 Lithuanians and their minor allies.

Remember, that were all availble forces of those two aliances, mobilized with extreme effort!

My conclusion: manpower matters (and use of mecenaries) in EU2 should be revised. Howgh!

 

[imb39]

This may well be true (alright it is true) but is the game balanced as it is? That is the crucial aspect to consider.

 

[DPS]

This has been discussed many times before. The consensus has always been that the manpower levels in the game are roughly 10 times the historical level. That is, if a country begins the game with a 15,000-man army, historically it probably had about a 1,500-man army. However, this seems to be the case pretty much for every country, so noone is getting an unfair advantage or an artificial disadvantage from it. If you tried to fix it, you'd have to change a lot of other stuff I think. You'd probably have to make troops cost 10 times as much as they currently do, but then you'd have to adjust the cost of everything else in the game to balance it out. Not worth the effort IMO.

 

[LordLeto]

Save us a few pages, paraphrasing:

"This is a game set in a historical setting. Not a Historical Simulation."

 

[Chaingun]

This has been discussed many times before. The consensus has always been that the manpower levels in the game are roughly 10 times the historical level. That is, if a country begins the game with a 15,000-man army, historically it probably had about a 1,500-man army. However, this seems to be the case pretty much for every country, so noone is getting an unfair advantage or an artificial disadvantage from it. If you tried to fix it, you'd have to change a lot of other stuff I think. You'd probably have to make troops cost 10 times as much as they currently do, but then you'd have to adjust the cost of everything else in the game to balance it out. Not worth the effort IMO.

You can simply cut troops by 10 alright. By the following things might have to be rebalanced with it unless some global constant was used in program code (now 1000 if that's the case):

Manpower
Support limits
Fortresses
Perhaps battles

The second problem is that this solution is not universal. You expect to have grand armies in Napoleon times, and while EU2 armies (those of overgrown human countries), regularly exceed historical levels it can be argued to be a lower denominator than 10 nontheless.

 

[unmerged(49330)]

You wouldn't really have to rebalance anything if you just said that a stack of "1" represents 100 instead of 1000.

 

[unmerged(25936)]

The numbers in the game are abstractions, not meticiulously calculated historical figures. An army of 10,000 in EU2 vs an army of 5,000 does not represent 10,000 men vs 5,000 men, it represents 2 times as many men in Army A vs Army B.

The game is a gross abstraction on many levels including population levels for cities, goods for provinces, province arrangement themselves, the countries used in the game as opposed to some left out, culture, religion, CB shields, events, DP sliders, ships and how they're abstracted, colonization, exploration, etc, etc, etc ,etc ,etc

on
and
on
and on

Holy crap

The ONE thing you're complaining about is hardly the ONE abstraction in EU2. So specifically pointing out one thing, quite frankly, is a bit silly.

If this is the only thing that you consider to be off from history, well.... =/ If you realize this is one of many abstractions/simplifications, then why specifically complain about it? Accept this as you accept all of the other things in EU2. If you do that, you'll find the game quite enjoyable.

Edit - Btw the French massed 40,000 to 50,000 for Agincourt in 1415, the Ottomans upwards of 100,000 for the siege of Constantinople in 1453, so it's not as though you could just scale down all the numbers and get an accurate figure.

 

[unmerged(22496)]

The ONE thing you're complaining about is hardly the ONE abstraction in EU2. So specifically pointing out one thing, quite frankly, is a bit silly

The game have some educational values, so i let know about manpower abstraction to those who didn't know / didn't know about scale of it.

French massed 40,000 to 50,000

25,000 to 40,000. I'm picky today o

My conclusion: manpower matters (and use of mecenaries) in EU2 should be revised. Howgh!

I know that it won't be done.

 

[unmerged(37350)]

Well, You can also see it this way, That when you send your 40000 army versus Commander Mcdonalds 37000 army you battle out for weeks at a place, send troops there, send troops here, doing tactical manovers and killing of lietunants in small battle's.

 

[unmerged(25936)]

25,000 to 40,000. I'm picky today o

That's fine, you are however incorrect, regardless of how picky you wish to be.

I get my figures from Desmond Stewarts The Hundred Years War, confirmed by Nicolas' History of the Battle of Agincourt and of the Expedition of King Henry the Fifth in France 1415

Where do you get your figures?

 

[Snake IV]

That's fine, you are however incorrect, regardless of how picky you wish to be.

I get my figures from Desmond Stewarts The Hundred Years War, confirmed by Nicolas' History of the Battle of Agincourt and of the Expedition of King Henry the Fifth in France 1415

Where do you get your figures?

I can support him . I saw a program of the battle of Agincourt as late as yesterday. And IT said a number even less than than that.

 

[Snake IV]

Don't you guys think that it would be possible to delete a zero in the grafics if you whant a tenth of the game number?

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Even in the post-Napoleonic era it was common for very small armies to operate in remote areas. In the Mexican-American War of 1846, the largest single military force operating west of the Rockies was only 2500 men, and the bloodiest battle had casualties measured in dozens.

 

[unmerged(45766)]

Even in the post-Napoleonic era it was common for very small armies to operate in remote areas. In the Mexican-American War of 1846, the largest single military force operating west of the Rockies was only 2500 men, and the bloodiest battle had casualties measured in dozens.

Well, that's the difference between military operations in densely populated areas and mil ops in remote areas.

At Austerlitz (in plain Napoleonic era), armies fielded over 75.000 soldiers (austro-russian forces were around 90.000 IIRC). This is really in the scope of EU2's scale.

What is really bad, sad and sorry, is that EU2's military engine applies equally to Europe, Asia and the colonies. Principles (and scales) of war were different, and that is, IMHO, the weakest part of EU2. Big armies should really be very hard to field in the colonies (or plainly outside of the "national" territory - Europe for europeans, Asia for asiatics, etc).

At least, this can be a wish for EU3.


@Snake : this might be useful, just to modify the display (nothing else, as the engine uses the full numbers). I don't think anyone but Johan could do this, however.

 

[Chaingun]

At Austerlitz (in plain Napoleonic era), armies fielded over 75.000 soldiers (austro-russian forces were around 90.000 IIRC). This is really in the scope of EU2's scale.

It depends; it is the challenge which may come from the AI. In multiplayer however you're likely to see armies of 100 000 up to 500 000 men (on each side!) clash in the Napoleonic style end game. And that's not the entire standing force but rather just a significant part of it. Total men at arms for manpower rich countries in an Eurocentric EU2 MP end game range from about half a million to around two millions (the new conscription center cost system introduced in the beta patch shows its effect here to limit it a bit). All of this assumes of course the MP campaign was started in about the 15th or 16th century to let human nations have enough time to be built up with maximum efficiency.

 

[unmerged(21146)]

In MP, once you reach the XVIII century the greatest powers have, at least, 500k. Before a great war, each country can have one million of unhistorical soldiers

 

[unmerged(45766)]

That's one of the reasons why I don't play MP, among others. I'd rather run a wargame with friends around a tabletop.

 

[unmerged(37350)]

Well, someone said they only had like 2500 soldiers in the Mexico war thingy, Well you really have around that amount in the new world, The Manpower suck over there.

 

[unmerged(2695)]

Troop numbers is one thing. I can live with these hordes. What irks me is the number of cavalry you can raise. IRL the ratio used to be 100 infantry, 10 cavakry, 1 gun.

But then again, EU II is not "history", ir's historical. And has the right flavour.

 

[Pellucid]

All you'd have to do is not display the final number of the unit size. i.e. lop off the last number.

15000 would become 1500

The game already does this; units actually have power out to 2 or 3 decimal places beyond the displayed number (i.e. your 15000 unit was probably more like a 15000.36)