Aren't armies in CK2 too big?

[unmerged(47028)]

Lithuanian-Polish army in 1410 at Grunwald had 16,000-39,000, one of the biggest battles in Middle Ages. In CK2 Lithuanian-Polish kingdom can raise 65,000 together with a retinue in 1330. I assume that at Grunwald all opponents had all spare units therefore it means that in the game we have 1.7-4.1 times more than should be.

Teutonic Order had 11,000-27,000 at Grunwald. They can raise 7,500-15,000 in crusaders alone in no time plus additional levies from all lands in Prussia and Livonia. Add supporters from Europe and you can get many times more in CK2 than Teutonic Order had in the historical battle.

Currently army sizes remind me Napoleonic times. I had a war with HRE. Four 35,000 stacks arrived. Previously in 1.06 stacks were 10,000 now inflation is threefold.

Shouldn't PI adjust numbers to make them more realistic?

 

[tnick0225]

They are rather gigantic numbers, but my worry is if they lower them they need to lower the Horde's numbers as well, otherwise GH will steamroll all of Europe including the HRE.

The Horde is already nasty, but if they lowered the European numbers and left the Hordes alone well yeah whole bunch of sad days would occur.

 

[unmerged(47028)]

They are rather gigantic numbers, but my worry is if they lower them they need to lower the Horde's numbers as well, otherwise GH will steamroll all of Europe including the HRE.

The Horde is already nasty, but if they lowered the European numbers and left the Hordes alone well yeah whole bunch of sad days would occur.

I guess, amending the Horde numbers is easy

 

[rashtrakut]

I guess, amending the Horde numbers is easy

The army in the1320s is a bit large but should still be bigger than the early 1400s because of the population loss from the black death

 

[Divi]

Lithuanian-Polish army in 1410 at Grunwald had 16,000-39,000, one of the biggest battles in Middle Ages. In CK2 Lithuanian-Polish kingdom can raise 65,000 together with a retinue in 1330. I assume that at Grunwald all opponents had all spare units therefore it means that in the game we have 1.7-4.1 times more than should be.

Teutonic Order had 11,000-27,000 at Grunwald. They can raise 7,500-15,000 in crusaders alone in no time plus additional levies from all lands in Prussia and Livonia. Add supporters from Europe and you can get many times more in CK2 than Teutonic Order had in the historical battle.

Currently army sizes remind me Napoleonic times. I had a war with HRE. Four 35,000 stacks arrived. Previously in 1.06 stacks were 10,000 now inflation is threefold.

Shouldn't PI adjust numbers to make them more realistic?

A full napoleonic corps could go from 30,000 (army of italy) to 80,000 (grande armée) men, so I'm not sure how you derive napoleonic armies. That said the numbers are probably off by half.

 

[kiahoga]

well what about the 4th crusade when Frederick I Barbarossa had an army of 100,000 men according to sources that didn't count his knights.

 

[Slym]

I'm pretty sure that a crusading HRE can get more than 100k troops in this game pretty easily.

 

[nijis]

Chroniclers also massively overcounted armies. Frederick's army probably didn't top 20k.

The biggest problem isn't the number of troops available for mobilization, it's rather that there aren't enough disincentives to mobilize your realm's entire army at once. A 20k+ strong doomstack should be an impressive, rare, scary sight, even for the largest empires.

Attrition is considerably undermodeled. 30k is probably the maximum one can feed from the countryside in most parts of the game, in optimum campaigning season (after the harvest). Even small armies, like Lancaster's 3k-strong 1373 chevauchee, could bring themselves to the brink of starvation by campaiging in the wrong region in the wrong time of year.

Levees should also be more expensive -- kingdoms could pretty easily bankrupt themselves in war even without turning to mercenaries.

Massive armies should also be slowed -- moving a 10k+ force out of camp and into a column every morning was no mean undertaking.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the campaign season should be limited. Smaller forces might winter in front of a besieged castle, but a really big army should be forced to assemble, bring the enemy to battle, and get at least part of the way home before the weather turns really bad. This means that sprawling empires will only be able to mobilize forces near the enemy, most of the time.

Much of this does not apply to the Mongols, so long as they stuck to rich grasslands where their ponies could graze and provide milk. (Big medieval warhorses, despite their physically strength, were actually quite delicate and died very easily, and you also couldn't use them as mobile milk factories.)

Not all of this would be easily modeled in the Clausewitz engine, and not all of it would be easy to do with the AI.

A limited campaign season would provide some challenges -- ie, the AI would only mobilize its forces if the objective was within seasonal striking distance. One solution might be to up the ability of unmobilized troops to provide passive defense, so, when in doubt, the AI could simply hold.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Tip: disable retinues for a much better game.

 

[RabidAnubis]

Chroniclers also massively overcounted armies. Frederick's army probably didn't top 20k.

The biggest problem isn't the number of troops available for mobilization, it's rather that there aren't enough disincentives to mobilize your realm's entire army at once. A 20k+ strong doomstack should be an impressive, rare, scary sight, even for the largest empires.

Attrition is considerably undermodeled. 30k is probably the maximum one can feed from the countryside in most parts of the game, in optimum campaigning season (after the harvest). Even small armies, like Lancaster's 3k-strong 1373 chevauchee, could bring themselves to the brink of starvation by campaiging in the wrong region in the wrong time of year.

Levees should also be more expensive -- kingdoms could pretty easily bankrupt themselves in war even without turning to mercenaries.

Massive armies should also be slowed -- moving a 10k+ force out of camp and into a column every morning was no mean undertaking.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the campaign season should be limited. Smaller forces might winter in front of a besieged castle, but a really big army should be forced to assemble, bring the enemy to battle, and get at least part of the way home before the weather turns really bad. This means that sprawling empires will only be able to mobilize forces near the enemy, most of the time.

Much of this does not apply to the Mongols, so long as they stuck to rich grasslands where their ponies could graze and provide milk. (Big medieval warhorses, despite their physically strength, were actually quite delicate and died very easily, and you also couldn't use them as mobile milk factories.)

Not all of this would be easily modeled in the Clausewitz engine, and not all of it would be easy to do with the AI.

A limited campaign season would provide some challenges -- ie, the AI would only mobilize its forces if the objective was within seasonal striking distance. One solution might be to up the ability of unmobilized troops to provide passive defense, so, when in doubt, the AI could simply hold.

Yeah, wars in this game suck.

 

[Divi]

Tip: disable retinues for a much better game.

The problem isn't retinues, it's mega-levies; regions are raising 10 times their starting levies about 200 years into the game. Retinue are only a problem because they result from absurd levies (and because the base numbers are ridiculous). Large realms should likely have vassal levy penalties, and imo vassal duchies shouldn't count in retinue capability.

 

[monsterfurby]

A limited campaign season would provide some challenges -- ie, the AI would only mobilize its forces if the objective was within seasonal striking distance. One solution might be to up the ability of unmobilized troops to provide passive defense, so, when in doubt, the AI could simply hold.

Some mods simulate seasons and their effect on attrition. So far, the AI seems to handle that quite alright.

 

[barny]

The numbers are a bit too big, yes. But you have to remember that "numbers available during battle" and "overall army size" are two different things. What is clearly too large are the retinues. In the late game you get over 100.000 men as a standing army with even a medium sized empire.

 

[unmerged(47028)]

A full napoleonic corps could go from 30,000 (army of italy) to 80,000 (grande armée) men, so I'm not sure how you derive napoleonic armies. That said the numbers are probably off by half.

I agree, maybe my observation is a bit wrong Nonetheless, the observation is closer to the Napoleonic wars than the Middle Ages wars. I have checked the list of Napoleonic battles. Most of the battles were at corps level 20,000 - 50,000. This is what we have now in CK2 against HRE. Large and significant battles were 80,000-150,00 (some reaching 200,000). However, what I had in CK2 is HRE 110,000 spread in 3 adjacent provinces versus mine Lithuanian-Polish 60,000 in 2 provinces. You can imagine this like a grand battle where 1 province is 1 flank.

Napoleon mustered 700,000 for Russian invasion, I can muster 500,000 for the same purpose with a standard HRE without expansions.

So conclusion is, even if current CK2 has non Napoleonic era numbers it has numbers of a very close era.

well what about the 4th crusade when Frederick I Barbarossa had an army of 100,000 men according to sources that didn't count his knights.

I had 300,000 for the same purpose without retinues.

 

[mchaza]

people mention battles like those battles represented the total man power those nations fielded. Sure in some cases that is true, such as the Battle of Hatin which basically had all of the strength of Jerusalem, but for alot of nations if such a battle were to occur they could raise up a new army, while it wont have the harden warriors that were present in the first force, it would be capable of defeating a foe especially weakened by a major battle. While the main tratic of the AI and players in CK2 is to gather up all your levies and retinues and smash them against their opponent, with the main tactic being reaching the enemy before they could unite with a sufficient force to defeat it and what even forces should arrive during battle.

Like some said above, fielding such a army at that time was unfeasible since supplying such a force would be massive undertaking, which the infrastructure at the time was unable to cope until a much later date. Also Armies declined in numbers no doubt around the 14 hundreds when forces moved from have peasant levies to more professional standing armies (which would later be replaced with armed peasants with the introduction of guns, which would then move to the more professional forces we have today).

 

[Divi]

Like some said above, fielding such a army at that time was unfeasible since supplying such a force would be massive undertaking, which the infrastructure at the time was unable to cope until a much later date. Also Armies declined in numbers no doubt around the 14 hundreds when forces moved from have peasant levies to more professional standing armies (which would later be replaced with armed peasants with the introduction of guns, which would then move to the more professional forces we have today).

First off, almost no country should have professional standing armies by the 1400s. The Ottoman Empire, France, debatably Burgundy, extremely debatably the Mamelukes. Secondly, the introduction of guns didn't turn armies into masses of peasant rabble, despite the whining of english chroniclers, it facilitated the creation of professional armies in most places it was adopted.

And armies didn't decline in numbers except where demographics caused severe population losses, it varied with the scope of wars.

So conclusion is, even if current CK2 has non Napoleonic era numbers it has numbers of a very close era.

Like I said, at least off by half.

 

[bmullins0118]

Instead of playing armchair general, why don't you all just go back in time and find it out for yourselves?

 

[A_Dane]

The army in the1320s is a bit large but should still be bigger than the early 1400s because of the population loss from the black death

This. But then again, the black death isn't really represented all that well atm. Shouldn't hit the nobles/royals as hard as it does (they were ones who could run away after all, but there's a lot of factors to it), but should make warfare and your economic extremely unstable.
Although I do believe it's too easy to assemble armies and they're quite too large atm. I kinda miss the CKI take on warfare: it was expensive, it was something I could spend years of planning in advance, to make sure I didn't find my self in a downwards spiral.

 

[Rozmarzony]

I can't play without that mod.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?648709-Mini-Mod-Doomstack-be-Gone!

 

[theKing1988]

I can't play without that mod.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?648709-Mini-Mod-Doomstack-be-Gone!

I was just about to suggest this to the OP, and the mongol armies have been nerfed as well so the change is all over the board.