This is probably a noob question with an easy answer but how do I keep my large armies at minimum maintenance whilst keeping smaller ones at max? Say for example I want to keep my main armies in my mainland while sending small armies off to suppress rebels. I want those small armies at max maintenance with my main armies at minimum. How do I accomplish this?
Army maintenance question
- Thread starter ramrom
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Really? Why's such an option not implemented in the game?
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Because then you could have all your reserves in the back and have manpower saved up in physical form
Condo will always be at full maintenance and full morale
Drilling armies will always be at full maintenance and 0 morale after 1 month
Merc armies will always be at full maintenance and full morale, but have increased maintenance so this isn't feasible long term
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It's possible for navies though via mothballing - that is there though because you want to use Light Ships for protecting trade in peace-times and the rest of your navy for war-times.
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But taking them off mothball uses up sailors repairing them no?
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In one DD (don't ask I don't even remember which DLC it was for, I think maybe Emperor) one of the devs mentioned that being able to mothball armies would seem nice for the sake of symmetry but it would be unbalanced because navies have so many more uses than armies. Don't entirely follow that logic, but it seems like the devs have decided specifically to design the game that way.
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sailor recover is so much slower so it's more balanced maybe? Navies also take far longer to recruit than armies, with blockades slowing them down even more although blockades also slow army recruitment down but for a lower total affect.
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Well you get their sailors back when you started mothballing while their condition ticks down. You often hit the cap of sailors then though so they are wasted. Unless you play a nation with very few ports (e.g Austria at the beginning) I rarely run out of sailors though. Usually I will start building new ships when the cap is reached though.
Even though it would make the game very unbalanced, I hate having to keep my entire army on maximum maintenance just because I have a conquistador exploring south America, or a few regiments protecting my colonies.
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The new merc system can do that. They are at full maintenance even if your regular army are not. I don't like the new merc system so much but I am able to adapt the meta...
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Because of this, the native policies are more economic choices than anything else. The -100% uprising chance isn't great, but it means being able to lower maintenance on your armies without issue.
Anyway, it's because of this that I often kill the natives in the early game. Costs some military (sometimes a lot!) but gives peace of mind.
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Yeah that's true. But the mercenary stacks scale with your development and cannot be split. It is very unviable to higher 20k stack of mercs to defend a colony where they will be taking attrition. Unless you were to hire a merc company early game when they are still small stacks, and never disband them.
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Yes that's true also. Actually, I do buy merc companies early and never disband them to do that kind of things
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The only reason armies aren't mothballable is because the paradox devs would have to make changes to the AI that didn't just result in "A mechanic is broken? Deleted. "
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What makes you say that? I'm inclined to believe their stated reasons.
Keeping a 4-6 troop free company around is something I normally do. And using them as a colonial force is actually interesting thing once I no longer need them at home. The problem is if I care enough about growing colonies rapidly to not take the option to have no uprisings, I probably have several colonies. Plus transporting them around as I move colony locations isnt worth the effort, but I can definitely see a viable niche for this. Thanks for the suggestion.
I still say the thing to make Marines much more useful is to have them use the naval maintenance slider. Then they would fill this role perfectly.
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because any time paradox finds a mechanic that is exploitable (but fixable) it's removed before it's changed.
And the current eu4 AI is a potato.
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