How low army maintenance in peacetime?

[unmerged(69250)]

Hi everyone!

I was just wondering, how low army maintenance do you guys have when in peacetime? 50%? 75%? I know that there is a difference if you are safe with your neighbours, low vs high risk for rebellion and so on. But please give me your input on this because I never really got into the army maintenance thing in EU2 (always had full army maintenance at all times).

 

[DCyDe]

Armies need 0.5 morale to be able to move out of a province to fight rebels, so it depends on your max. morale for armies, but between 30-40% should be enough.

 

[Dogia]

Do we have control over maintenance levels? I wondered if we did but could not find where.

 

[Haresus]

It is on the economy screen, one of the few sliders there.

I go from 10-50% during peacetime. It depends on how much money I need to save at that current moment, because I need to pay for all those high level advisors and have a small reserve in case some event arrives.

 

[Dutchling]

I was able to kill rebels with 0% maint as Portugal. This was by accident though.

 

[Maldenic]

I generally do 0.2 or 0.4 (ie. 10% or 20% maintenance) during peacetime, depending on the danger. If you only have one rebellious province, then just sitting your army in it should drop the revolt risk down enough, and also remember that the rebels will start at a low morale too, so if you are already in the province you will beat them if your army is larger. If there is a really high chance of something bad happening, then I find 1.0 morale (50%) is perfectly fine, since they'll get to full morale by the time they've marched to where you need them. But usually I find the same can be said of 0.4 morale.

 

[unmerged(69250)]

Thanks so 50% sounds safe then. The game seems really good. Been playing EU2 for all these years because I hated EU3 (atleast when I played it at launch) and so EU4 seems like the perfect balance between scripted (historical) and sandbox.

 

[unmerged(139685)]

It depends. How long can you afford to wait until your armies are ready for combat again, should you be attacked? How much deterrence do you need against opportunistic neighbours? What can you afford?

 

[unmerged(148491)]

10% is enough - it is nearly no difference in morale, but it still makes your troops replenish slowly after crushing rebels as opposed to no reinforcements when its 0%.

If you go for massive military idea spending and get a lot of morale from these, you can basicaly fight wars with low maintenance

 

[LemonMonk]

100% maintenance at all times. Never know when someone will declare wars or rebels will turn up. Also might forget to change their maintenance at wartime. I might be a bit paranoid..

 

[Cynical Dreamer]

Hello,

As posted by someone on another thread, if you are not expecting combat soon, there really isn't any reason to keep your maintenance over 5/10 %, as it only impacts moral. You can just scroll it up again one month before war and you should be fine. On a sidenote : unpaid soldiers should create a possibility of mutiny, reinforced in the case of mercenaries.

 

[Red_warning]

If there is 0 % chance of revolt I crank it down as far as I can. If there is a chance for revolt, I keep it at 50 - 70 % depending on the size of my stacks.

 

[unmerged(303856)]

Hello,

As posted by someone on another thread, if you are not expecting combat soon, there really isn't any reason to keep your maintenance over 5/10 %, as it only impacts moral. You can just scroll it up again one month before war and you should be fine. On a sidenote : unpaid soldiers should create a possibility of mutiny, reinforced in the case of mercenaries.

I agree that half maintenance is a good peacetime compromise between security and economy. However, I don't think that low maintenance represents the state simply refusing to pay some of its soldiers. I see maintenance as the level of combat readiness, which is why it impacts morale without causing unrest. There isn't much to support either interpretation of maintenance, but my view allows me to accept it logically.

 

[unmerged(148491)]

Half of the slider is actually 75% of their wages being paid. Slider at the bottom is 50%. It definately doesn't mean unpaid soldiers .

isn't any reason to keep your maintenance over 5/10 %, as it only impacts moral.

Not only morale but also reinforcement rate - one should probably remember that (slider at 10% will reinforce at 10% rate)

 

[Takeo92]

I always give them maintance 1% and save money up. Usually have no rebells due surpression.
That way you can get an 20k Men army with just 5 (good) provinces. And once war starts, you just increase maintance to max (so you got -5, -7 balance), but that doesnt matter, have always 300 gold saved for war, which is easy when you have lowest maintance during peace. Just dont go to war too often.

 

[unmerged(303856)]

I always give them maintance 1% and save money up. Usually have no rebells due surpression.
That way you can get an 20k Men army with just 5 (good) provinces. And once war starts, you just increase maintance to max (so you got -5, -7 balance), but that doesnt matter, have always 300 gold saved for war, which is easy when you have lowest maintance during peace. Just dont go to war too often.

With that strategy, aren't you sacrificing Military Monarch Points for ducats? That seems like a terrible tradeoff in the long term, and something that should only be done in an emergency. Even in a situation where you are desperate for money, I would rather take loans than spend MMP for the sake of money.

 

[Cossack8559]

I like to lower it near zero when i feel there are no threats to my nation. If i feel there is a slight chance one of my neighbours may invade, i keep it at 50%. If i feel that a stronger nation or two or more neighbours may attack me at any time, i keep it at full. It depends on the situation really.

 

[AndPimentel]

I usually keep between 5~10% the whole peacetime In EU3, but in EU4 I guess I'll keep between that for some time and when armies are fully reinforced 0% because unlikely EU3 it doesn't seem to affect manpower. If some rebel uprising occurs, I will set 50%~100% depending on their forces, sometimes the rebel uprising occurs in the same province my main army is in, even at lowest morale, I beat and hunting them without changing maintenance. hahah

 

[Rey]

There are some nasty events that pop up when you have low army/navy maintenance. I always keep mine above 50% because rebels.

 

[Illanair]

I generally keep it at half, even during small wars - If I know I am going on the offensive I will usually ramp it up to full and take out a loan if the budget isn't balanced just before I declare.