How long should recovery of levies take?

[Chlodio]

Situation: you raise all your levies and they all die somehow.

In CK2, this hardly takes any time. Historically, recovering from a military disaster took a long time, which is a reason why realms only raised the needed amount, not all they could muster.

If we say that the age demographic for service is 15 to 60, the composition of the army might be something like:

• +50 10%
  
• 40–49 20%
  
• 30–39 30%
  
• 20–29 25%
  
• 15–19 15%

And if 15% subdivided by 5 we get 3%. Meaning it would take a decade to recover 30% of your levies; 33 years for a full recovery.

 

[Serenity84]

But that assumes you did in fact muster all you could. Or more accurately that what you could muster is everything you could manage, down to the last scrap. In practice there would usually be more people who could be conscripted. But maybe they're lower quality troops.

I agree though that it should take a lot longer than in CK2.

 

[IlikeTrains]

I think long-term consequences should matter in the game. If all the men from the levy die in war, manpower should recover slower for the next ~20 years.

 

[Drakken]

Total war didn't exist in the Middle Ages.

You levied troops by sending in your deputies and sargeants-in-arms around, mustering whatever men they could find in their area by guile or by guts. In exchange for the right to work fields and farm men and villains had to to be available for conscription, but this was for defence and their time of service was restricted until they had to return to harvest their land. At most, fighting time would be in spring and throughout the summer.

Even if your troops are wiped out, most are not killed. The vast majority would flee or desert before or during the battle. Casualties, in general, were rather on the low-end. So a defeat, in itself, would not be a significant demographic disaster. What would be a demographic disaster, rather, is the devastation caused by troops, mercenaries, and armed warbands moving around pillaging, looting, and burning - and the various plagues and illnesses carried around by these marauding troops.

Only Knights, vassals, and mercenaries would be full-time fighters, either becasuse they were paid or didn't need to work for their subsistance. WIth your homage to your Liege, you would be required to maintain a number of equipped men-of-war, sargeant-at-arms, and horses for war. These could afford to train themselves for combat and would be deadly against untrained levies.

 

[PK_AZ]

Answer is: it depends on what kind of feeling you want your game to have.

 

[Gurkhal]

It kind of depends on. In my opinion militia-warriors should take very fast to recover, professional soldiers some more and troops based on nobles take a great deal of time to regrow.

 

[KermitxTheFrog]

what i like about the new knights system is that it can kinda be a middle ground peasent levies might recover rather quickly but if all your knights die it will take along time to find characters to replace them

 

[Chlodio]

Total war didn't exist in the Middle Ages.

I agree with you, I have been saying the same thing.

You levied troops by sending in your deputies and sargeants-in-arms around, mustering whatever men they could find in their area by guile or by guts. In exchange for the right to work fields and farm men and villains had to to be available for conscription, but this was for defence and their time of service was restricted until they had to return to harvest their land. At most, fighting time would be in spring and throughout the summer.

Generally, villeins were not, they were forbidden from owning weapons and leaving the property for more than a day. Though there is a small exemption related to arrière-ban.

Also, where do you pull your information from? Would you recommend something to read? I have only read Feudal Armies 1066–1300.

 

[Chlodio]

Looking at CK2 files, there seems to be 25% annual recovery tick...

 

[Jia Xu]

I definitely want to see at least a game rule for like 80% slower levy recovery. In CK2, I felt like I was always at full power. There was never really a point where I needed to look at the levy bar and ask myself if this is a good use of my manpower.

Slower levy recovery also makes mercenaries more valuable.

 

[DukeDayve]

The only response I could give to this would be: "longer than it takes in CK2". I don't know how much longer... just longer. I suppose the problem with this is how do you balance it? I'd like to see a Manzikert-level military disaster utterly cripple an empire and put it in a very vulnerable situation where it either stagnates very slowly or, if well managed, recovers very slowly. I don't know how they'd do that without making that empire (or large kingdom, or whatever) easy pickings for everybody around it.

 

[Drakken]

That is why when my military is on sound footing, I begin to change my vassals' obligations toward paying scutage - more money to hire retinues and mercenaries, and I won't piss off my vassals by hiring their soldiers all the time

 

[fall back]

Levy’s should recover quickly when at peace and slowly when at war
Take an example household it has 6 men 1 is to young to fight 1 is to old 1 is the family head that leaves 3 but if you take all 3 there is no one left to farm and the likelihood of one randomly dyeing is high so to take 2 and have the 3rd die unexpectedly would leave you in the same place so you only take one bit then the head brings out a purse and it contains 3 silver coins that he was saving and he offers the call up man 2 of them now that house has no men able to be called for duty

 

[Gurkhal]

The only response I could give to this would be: "longer than it takes in CK2". I don't know how much longer... just longer. I suppose the problem with this is how do you balance it? I'd like to see a Manzikert-level military disaster utterly cripple an empire and put it in a very vulnerable situation where it either stagnates very slowly or, if well managed, recovers very slowly. I don't know how they'd do that without making that empire (or large kingdom, or whatever) easy pickings for everybody around it.

Personally I fear that this would be impossible without a very good AI.

 

[Wolfshield156]

Keep in mind that levy are no longer the main fighting force. Levy are now Junk troops, who even if they make up majority of your force, they will not be your primary fighting force. Man at arms( who basically a combination of retinues and levy troops) are now primary force for actually winning battles. Levies basically being a serf given a weapon and some training now, they should be quicker to train up. Man at arms on other hand representing semi professional soldier should take awhile to retrain after their loss.

 

[Weyird]

I too would like levies to recover slower than in CK2, but not by too much.

I also think that the income of a provence should be lowered if the manpower pool of that province has been depleted.

I also think it'd be hard dor the AI to deal with these issues.

 

[DPS]

Keep in mind that battle losses weren't just men killed or permanently disabled. In fact, in most cases, they weren't permanent losses. In battle, an army might lose half of its effective strength in a battle, but maybe only 10% of those were permanent losses. They were stragglers who could be rounded up, routed troops who could eventually be rallied, or even captive who might be released after the war, or possibly be ransomed, exchanged, or paroled even before the war was over.

Of course in some cases, armies did suffer massive, permanent losses.

 

[Chlodio]

Keep in mind that battle losses weren't just men killed or permanently disabled. In fact, in most cases, they weren't permanent losses. In battle, an army might lose half of its effective strength in a battle, but maybe only 10% of those were permanent losses. They were stragglers who could be rounded up, routed troops who could eventually be rallied, or even captive who might be released after the war, or possibly be ransomed, exchanged, or paroled even before the war was over.

Of course in some cases, armies did suffer massive, permanent losses.

I'd like it if the game actually kept a track of prisoners of war. Say I ultimately win a war, but the enemy won some battles during the war and has 2,000 prisoners from my ranks, thus when the peace is drafted I automatically pay him 200 gold for the release of the prisoners.

 

[General Karthos]

It would be nice if we could have a break down where it lists "dead" and "missing/fled". The missing/fled return fairly quickly, but the dead makes a long-lasting dent in your manpower.

So if you have an 8000 man levy, and you lose a battle, with 400 dead and 4000 missing/fled, Your levy would get back to 7600 fairly quickly, but the 400 dead would take much longer to replenish. 10 years or so most likely, with 30-50 coming back each year as boys who were too young mature into men who are old enough to fight.

That's how I'd do it myself.

 

[Wolfshield156]

There seems to be this feeling that our levies represent our total adult male population. I don't think that's very credible. It shouldn't take the time for a kid to mature for new levy to be created. The replenishment rate should represent training time and not someone growing up. And levy troops should only take a few months( if that) to train as in new game represent ill trained and ill equipped farmers made to fight. Man at arms on the other hand should take quite awhile to retrain.