EU3 proposal
I had a thought the other day of a neat way to split the map up QUITE a bit while keeping micromanagement to a minimum: the Province, and the Provincelet!
THE MAP:
Ok the map is mad up of thousands of provincelets, one for every county on the map (some are bigger/smaller than others as they all represent a certain amount of arable land, so desert ones are really huge) and moving armies is based on terrain but also how far apart the provincelets are from each other. You don't manage every provincelet though, you ONLY manage the provinces! New cities will form from events, and give you more provinces, and while these new cities will vastly improve efficiency (the farther a provincelet is from a city, the less goods/taxes/manpower you get) it reduces the importance of the old cities surrounding it.
A city can control as many as 12 or as few as 1 provincelet.
Provinces are where a city (taking up a provincelet) controls a number of nearby provincelets, where all their goods, manpower, and taxes flow to (each provincelet has a base tax value, manpower value, and produced goods) when you click on an area where that city is the provincial capital, you select that city.
In the event that you have 'abandoned' provincelets (no cities) then all the goods go to the nearest city anyways, and the inefficiency of it all reduces manpower and tax collection by 50% (unless of course, that's your ONLY provincelet cluster, in which case you get full taxes and manpower, but still no goods)
Many less advances civilizations cannot even GET cities, and are severely hampered by this, as all their trade inevitably flows into the European colonies that spring up.
TRADE:
Every city imports and exports goods to markets, the more markets you know about, the more markets you have access to. Having access to a market requires in some cases heavy fleet patrols, as you must constantly defend your access to rich foreign markets by rivals and pirates. You can hire pirates to interrupt rival trade and get a cut of their profits. These lines of trade are the Trade Routes. Trade routes can be closed by a hostile nation Closing it's Borders, by Blockading Straights, or by Trade Embargo. Being a strong trading nation requires a very strong navy to defend your far-flung trade routes.
POLITICS:
Royal dynasties create sort of de-facto alliances, and while seperate branches can certainly have rivalries, the same branch will inevitably share resources. As long as two countries share a Dynasty link, they cannot declare war without causing a civil war, have military access with each other, and get the option to enter the war on their side for free. In addition, there are historical coalitions that one can join to fight for a cause greater than petty politics, and that alliance is extremely specific. (the Catholic league is formed to war only against protestants, the Hanseatic League aids only in trade disputes etc) and one can join any number of coalitions as long as they aren't mutually exclusive.
One new peace demand is Annual Tribute of x ducats.
You can give troops and land as gifts to anyone you want, reducing badboy and increasing relations greatly. In addition, you can gift someone an 'annual stipend' to aid their struggles. Also, you can demand tributes (either lump sum or annually) or threaten war, if they refuse, you consider it an insult and gain a causus belli, unfortunately this is considered a badboy action regardless of success or failure, as it's the action of a thug
New vassal types:
Level 1: 'Vassal': While you have your own foreign policy, and have a high degree of independance, you gain automatic 'join in' prompts in wars, and your opinion of other countries tends to drift towards that of your mother country.
Level 2: 'Protectorate': This vassal relinquishes all military foreign policy decisions in exchange for automatic entrance of their protectee in any war declared against them (and vice versa).
Level 3: 'Semi-Autonomous': This vassal has no foreign policy whatsoever, and you can even give orders to their troops and build stuff on their land.
MILITARY:
You arm and train your troops yourself to different military doctrines and strategies, picking from:
Mounted Troops
Ground Troops
Seige Engines
Mounted troops require horses (duh) and each weapon requires a technology, especially seige engines. Mounted and Ground troops can be armed any which way, from bows, crossbows, swords, maces, muskets, rifles, pikes, pointy sticks, slings, you name it. Each unit of a certain type is a 'regiment', and groups of regiments are 'armies'
Your military doctrine can really shift the outcome of using certain weapon combinations
(each regiment being 1000 men, if you have 2 regiments of Knights, 3 regiments of Infantry, a few seige engines, and 1 regiment of Longbowmen, that's not a bad English army for Frace, but if you invade Scotland with their Pikemen and Skiltrun doctrine, you're in trouble)
Attrition is handled by Supply Lines, which if cut off cause horrid attrition until they can be recovered. Supply lines suffer from bad terrain and distance, and the longer the supply line, the more expensive the military maintenance, especially across continents. You can supply from allies.
Inside an 'empty' provincelet, you can built fortifications, and along borders you can build walls. You can build to seal off straights and with high enough tech, dig channels. The best place for an army to idle in is in fortifications.
I had a thought the other day of a neat way to split the map up QUITE a bit while keeping micromanagement to a minimum: the Province, and the Provincelet!
THE MAP:
Ok the map is mad up of thousands of provincelets, one for every county on the map (some are bigger/smaller than others as they all represent a certain amount of arable land, so desert ones are really huge) and moving armies is based on terrain but also how far apart the provincelets are from each other. You don't manage every provincelet though, you ONLY manage the provinces! New cities will form from events, and give you more provinces, and while these new cities will vastly improve efficiency (the farther a provincelet is from a city, the less goods/taxes/manpower you get) it reduces the importance of the old cities surrounding it.
A city can control as many as 12 or as few as 1 provincelet.
Provinces are where a city (taking up a provincelet) controls a number of nearby provincelets, where all their goods, manpower, and taxes flow to (each provincelet has a base tax value, manpower value, and produced goods) when you click on an area where that city is the provincial capital, you select that city.
In the event that you have 'abandoned' provincelets (no cities) then all the goods go to the nearest city anyways, and the inefficiency of it all reduces manpower and tax collection by 50% (unless of course, that's your ONLY provincelet cluster, in which case you get full taxes and manpower, but still no goods)
Many less advances civilizations cannot even GET cities, and are severely hampered by this, as all their trade inevitably flows into the European colonies that spring up.
TRADE:
Every city imports and exports goods to markets, the more markets you know about, the more markets you have access to. Having access to a market requires in some cases heavy fleet patrols, as you must constantly defend your access to rich foreign markets by rivals and pirates. You can hire pirates to interrupt rival trade and get a cut of their profits. These lines of trade are the Trade Routes. Trade routes can be closed by a hostile nation Closing it's Borders, by Blockading Straights, or by Trade Embargo. Being a strong trading nation requires a very strong navy to defend your far-flung trade routes.
POLITICS:
Royal dynasties create sort of de-facto alliances, and while seperate branches can certainly have rivalries, the same branch will inevitably share resources. As long as two countries share a Dynasty link, they cannot declare war without causing a civil war, have military access with each other, and get the option to enter the war on their side for free. In addition, there are historical coalitions that one can join to fight for a cause greater than petty politics, and that alliance is extremely specific. (the Catholic league is formed to war only against protestants, the Hanseatic League aids only in trade disputes etc) and one can join any number of coalitions as long as they aren't mutually exclusive.
One new peace demand is Annual Tribute of x ducats.
You can give troops and land as gifts to anyone you want, reducing badboy and increasing relations greatly. In addition, you can gift someone an 'annual stipend' to aid their struggles. Also, you can demand tributes (either lump sum or annually) or threaten war, if they refuse, you consider it an insult and gain a causus belli, unfortunately this is considered a badboy action regardless of success or failure, as it's the action of a thug
New vassal types:
Level 1: 'Vassal': While you have your own foreign policy, and have a high degree of independance, you gain automatic 'join in' prompts in wars, and your opinion of other countries tends to drift towards that of your mother country.
Level 2: 'Protectorate': This vassal relinquishes all military foreign policy decisions in exchange for automatic entrance of their protectee in any war declared against them (and vice versa).
Level 3: 'Semi-Autonomous': This vassal has no foreign policy whatsoever, and you can even give orders to their troops and build stuff on their land.
MILITARY:
You arm and train your troops yourself to different military doctrines and strategies, picking from:
Mounted Troops
Ground Troops
Seige Engines
Mounted troops require horses (duh) and each weapon requires a technology, especially seige engines. Mounted and Ground troops can be armed any which way, from bows, crossbows, swords, maces, muskets, rifles, pikes, pointy sticks, slings, you name it. Each unit of a certain type is a 'regiment', and groups of regiments are 'armies'
Your military doctrine can really shift the outcome of using certain weapon combinations
(each regiment being 1000 men, if you have 2 regiments of Knights, 3 regiments of Infantry, a few seige engines, and 1 regiment of Longbowmen, that's not a bad English army for Frace, but if you invade Scotland with their Pikemen and Skiltrun doctrine, you're in trouble
)Attrition is handled by Supply Lines, which if cut off cause horrid attrition until they can be recovered. Supply lines suffer from bad terrain and distance, and the longer the supply line, the more expensive the military maintenance, especially across continents. You can supply from allies.
Inside an 'empty' provincelet, you can built fortifications, and along borders you can build walls. You can build to seal off straights and with high enough tech, dig channels. The best place for an army to idle in is in fortifications.
