Brigades disappearing randomly?

[unmerged(228064)]

I too think it is a bug. With most nations, it is normal to lose a brigade or two over a long period of time, but whenever I play as Prussia,NGF, or Germany, my military is prone to massive brigade deletions during times of war or peace, without any rebellions. It almost always seems that when I start a game with Prussia, the amount of brigades a can field drops almost instantly from something like 60 brigades to something like 25-30 brigades, and it really sucks

 

[delra]

We already talked that. Prussia thing happens via religious conversion moving soldiers from one POP to another. You have to go through your army two months into the game and simply disband all the regiments that are based on a shrinking POP and rebuild them from POPs above 1000 men. Focus on soldiers in Brandenburg doesn't hurt either.

 

[ow592]

today I played as austria and lost 2 brigades within few months

Vic2 is one of the most complex games and it is too much unnecessary micromanagement in it e.g. controlling the SOI every six months

 

[unmerged(133356)]

In two different instances, I've mobilized, only to see my max supportable brigades drop by as much as 50% over the next year.

 

[ow592]

50%? why so much?

which nation did you play?

 

[unmerged(133356)]

50%? why so much?

which nation did you play?

I recall that one was Prussia.

I wish I knew why.

 

[unmerged(230647)]

Ive also encountered this but not in my early game. Atm i am playn as Oman and has taken the Arab peninsula and Isreal. Early in that game when i had just taken the arab nations i had many brigades that rebelled, in fact i had no political rebels only rebel brigades.
My theory is that i had recruited more brigades than was allowed (like having 60 with only 40 allowed), the excess brigades kept rebelling and i kept killing them. When i stopped at the army limit they stopped rebelling, now with a stable army of 118 and 120 allowed i never have rebelling brigades.

So in short: Its possible to recruit more brigades than can be supported and if you do they will rebel.

 

[delra]

Well, first of all, don't go to war without Medicine and maxed Tactics tech. This will reduce damage taken by POPs and prevent disappearences. Fight on defensive with hand-picked generals and defending fortifications. Don't enter enemy territory in pursuit and don't run around enemy territory ping-ponging his armies EU3 style. It'll quickly ruin your soldier POPs.

Brigades don't disappear immediately, it's possible to have a brigade for a while even after the POP it's built from shrank too much to upkeep it. If you keep recruiting from other POPs, you can temporarily go above your support limit. It won't cause additional revolt risk, brigades rebelling is due to normal societal reasons like wanting trinket pensions - not fixed upkeep limit, you can check rebel numbers and reasons in issues in politics screen. Soldiers that are parts of rebel factions have symbols of those factions above their POP icon in the army screen. In general I wouldn't recruit anything other than infantry out of minority POPs because they will either rebel or assimilate over time rather than grow so it's a waste in the long run.

Prussia losing part of the army is due to Soldier POPs converting to different religions and assimiliting culturally. You should delay big army investment until that's done, generally don't overinvest in the army until you have Guards enabled.

 

[unmerged(133356)]

Well, first of all, don't go to war without Medicine and maxed Tactics tech. This will reduce damage taken by POPs and prevent disappearences. Fight on defensive with hand-picked generals and defending fortifications. Don't enter enemy territory in pursuit and don't run around enemy territory ping-ponging his armies EU3 style. It'll quickly ruin your soldier POPs.

Brigades don't disappear immediately, it's possible to have a brigade for a while even after the POP it's built from shrank too much to upkeep it. If you keep recruiting from other POPs, you can temporarily go above your support limit. It won't cause additional revolt risk, brigades rebelling is due to normal societal reasons like wanting trinket pensions - not fixed upkeep limit, you can check rebel numbers and reasons in issues in politics screen. Soldiers that are parts of rebel factions have symbols of those factions above their POP icon in the army screen. In general I wouldn't recruit anything other than infantry out of minority POPs because they will either rebel or assimilate over time rather than grow so it's a waste in the long run.

Prussia losing part of the army is due to Soldier POPs converting to different religions and assimiliting culturally. You should delay big army investment until that's done, generally don't overinvest in the army until you have Guards enabled.

"Don't fight until" sounds good until you're being attacked by Russia in 1846...

 

[delra]

Increase relations so they don't get acquire region on you. And when in doubt, mobilzie.

Either way, AI has no stomach for long wars and worst case scenario is you will lose a part of Poland in exchange for a huge economic boost in occupied Schlesien and upper house voting in health care due to huge WE.

Oh, and get Age of Colonialism. Russia doesn't outpace UK in industry in 1850 with that fixmod.

Still, at all cost avoid raising their WE too much (don't blockade), in Vicky2 lost wars is what wakes up the bear.

 

[ow592]

@deldra: thank you for your tipps and workarounds. but do you agree with me, that it is some thing that is wrong in the game (e.g. brigades disappearing because pop changes culture/religion) and the DEVs should repair it?

 

[unmerged(133356)]

@deldra: thank you for your tipps and workarounds. but do you agree with me, that it is some thing that is wrong in the game (e.g. brigades disappearing because pop changes culture/religion) and the DEVs should repair it?

Well, personally, I think it's bizarre that units disappear and the supportable units number drops because of people changing flavors of Christianity...

 

[delra]

I think it's a very early and deep design choice to make brigades off particular POPs (and not merge them at province level for example) and Paradox won't change it until Vicky3. POPs shrinking due to losses and conversions and player losing his brigades is a product of that design choice. Might be unwanted but I doubt design will be changed to address that. And I'm unsure if I'd call it a bug. It'd be a bigger problem if you were allowed to keep brigades even though there's no population to support them.

It doesn't ruin my games as long as I know how it works and whom I should expect will disappear. Starting Prussian army will either die in France or be disbanded to be replaced with Guards anyway. And if they don't die, they will soon come back as Protestants joining their POPs and raising support limits again there. I had no trouble fielding a 300-400k armies in the 1860s or 1870s as Prussia.

Age of Colonialism puts a different perspective here because it disarms colonies and slows down colonial assimilation reducing the possible amount of brigades that may later disappear. So Javan Infantry will not lose a soldier POP that easily because it assimilates into a Dutch POP there.

I think it's enough a reduction for the problem to be ignored in the long run. At least I don't lose my sleep over it now.

 

[dulahan]

Another thing that can happen is the brigades which are part of an organizing Rebel Faction sometimes revolt. Usually a few weeks before the big revolt. So one or two rebelling and getting killed is sometimes easy to miss as the main army wastes them in moments.

 

[Kailvin]

I think it's a very early and deep design choice to make brigades off particular POPs (and not merge them at province level for example) and Paradox won't change it until Vicky3. POPs shrinking due to losses and conversions and player losing his brigades is a product of that design choice. Might be unwanted but I doubt design will be changed to address that. And I'm unsure if I'd call it a bug. It'd be a bigger problem if you were allowed to keep brigades even though there's no population to support them.

It doesn't ruin my games as long as I know how it works and whom I should expect will disappear. Starting Prussian army will either die in France or be disbanded to be replaced with Guards anyway. And if they don't die, they will soon come back as Protestants joining their POPs and raising support limits again there. I had no trouble fielding a 300-400k armies in the 1860s or 1870s as Prussia.

Age of Colonialism puts a different perspective here because it disarms colonies and slows down colonial assimilation reducing the possible amount of brigades that may later disappear. So Javan Infantry will not lose a soldier POP that easily because it assimilates into a Dutch POP there.

I think it's enough a reduction for the problem to be ignored in the long run. At least I don't lose my sleep over it now.

Finally. Its glad to see someone else who thinks that way.
Well honestly i dont see a problem with it. It makes assimilation a neat game mechanic. Honestly though what other purpose is religon in pops. It dosent increase militancy if you have moralism. So other then to give you a perverbial C-block recruiting units. I cant see any reason for it.

 

[unmerged(133356)]

It's a model without a reality to reflect, however.

People don't leave the military by the thousands because some of the neighbors back in their home town switched flavors, and most countries didn't draft or recruit people into units by which church they happened to grow up attending.

 

[unmerged(90249)]

It's a model without a reality to reflect, however.

People don't leave the military by the thousands because some of the neighbors back in their home town switched flavors, and most countries didn't draft or recruit people into units by which church they happened to grow up attending.

Today it is true, but in that time ...

Let say the Austrian, then Austro-Hungrian army was based on the model used in VIC2 :

units were OR Italian, OR German, Or Hungrian OR Tcech (spelling?) OR Slavic.

Officers had to speak those languages , study and exams were implemented for that. A person as the late Field Marshal Von Bohm Ermoli (Marshal of Austrian Empire, Marshall (Hon) of Germany and GErneral of Tchecoslovaquia (Hon)) had to be fluent in ALL of them.

Those units (from the company level up to the Div level) were ethniques based on the language, with specific geolocation recruitement.

Same for France until the middle of the 1980 (I believe it was abandoned officially in 1976/1977; but it took time to implement); because climatic reason : The north east part of France is cold, as low as minus 20 C during the winter with max of minus 47C; the Atlantic coast is extremely Humid, and the southern part may seems hot like hell for soemone coming from said north eastern part). Futhermore, it was also language problems, with many recruit barely spoken the same french as the officiers or the non com officers (in 1985, I had 2 recruits from Compiegne neighboor who did nt speak french at all but Picard , and I had another one From Lille who had to translate back and forth ...)

So yes it may be sound crazed for a youth in 2011, but it sound also real life problem for people older who had to deal with the very same problem not so long ago.

P.S. I named the name of the Towns/Region to make it clear it did happend, and it was real even if it was also 'epyphenomenous' mean rare but not unusual.

 

[Mutineer]

Execly, model base on reality!

Actually if you read history to up to WW2, regiments were recruited from same village/town. Against, for reason of common culture, improving coherence of the army.
Read history and you see that it was often case that whole village/town lost there man because there units were destroyed. Books written about that!