This is something that I have heavily advocated for to no avail in EU4, but I will do so here in Imperator: there needs to be a distinguishing between Conscripted soldiers and Professional soldiers in Imperator for the warfare to truly shine.
While I could wax philosophical about the importance of representing such a difference in an age where Professional armies began to be formulated and organized for the first time in history and men were often expected to provide their own arms and armor, or cite examples demonstrating the superiority of a citizen-soldiery over slave-soldiers and tribesmen, I believe it would be redundant to my case: generally speaking, most people familiar with this period are familiar with those concepts.
Rather, I’ll keep my case brief: forming a distinction in manpower between these two classes is one of the most important steps towards representing differences in quality without needing to give significant and incontestable military bonuses to the Romans, Greeks or Carthaginians in the same way that the French and Prussians get +20% Land Morale in EU4. The way a split in manpower could feasibly work is that each pop type provides an amount of manpower: Citizens provide a small amount of manpower exclusively for the professional pool and Tribesmen and Slaves provide some manpower exclusively for the conscript pool. Freemen provide the most manpower: most of it going to the conscript pool, but a lesser amount to the professional pool (not as much as the citizens provide, however).
From there, every unit type can be recruited as either being a professional regiment or a conscripted regiment: rather than working as a flat bonus to unit stats, however, a professional unit’s bonus would instead vary depending on the unit type. So a Professional Heavy Infantry regiment would be vastly superior to a Conscripted Heavy Infantry Regiment, but a Professional Light Infantry regiment would not be as advanced compared to a Conscripted Light Infantry Regiment. Then, bonuses to Professional units can be added to the military tradition trees: for example, the Romans, Greeks and Carthaginians could get boons to the amount/ratio of professional manpower they get from Citizen and Freemen pops to give them an edge in quality without making it innate, while Celtic ideas could give bonuses to professional unit types (such as Light Infantry) that aren’t as good as some others to make them competitive and match their historical tactics. Of course, Professional units should also have drawbacks: they should be more likely to give their loyalty to commanders than conscripts, and cost more in maintenance. Additionally, as the professional pool would naturally be smaller than the conscripted one, the loss of large amounts of manpower from it would actually hurt.
This system would have a large number of advantages:
1): Balance – this would allow for the potential of larger military bonuses to the historical powerhouses of the period without making it innate: meaning that, unlike in EU4, you wouldn’t always be at a -20% Morale disadvantage because you’re fighting France. With sufficient maneuvering, cunning and careful composition you can still overcome a professional Roman army with ease, and Rome would feel the loss of that manpower. Furthermore, it would provide another money sink and make standing armies more of a threat in peacetime, as they were historically.
2): Modularity – by giving ratio differentials to pop types and different bonuses to different unit types, the game becomes even more modular. Say someone wants to make a medieval era mod – well, now, not only will their nobility pops not be contributing to the same manpower pool as their serf pops, their dismounted knights will be superior to some city guard.
3): Historicity – this would allow for a closer modelling of the historical realities of any army, and why some armies consistently succeeded over others in certain fields.
4): Choice – it gives more and interesting choices to the player: ‘do I recruit mercenaries for my professional units and make up the rest with conscripts to avoid the risk of my professional regiments backing a pretender?’ or ‘do I go with a small but highly trained army against a foe that outnumbers me?’ and so forth.
5): Uniqueness – it allows for ingame factions to feel even more unique without feeling unfair by having even more varied approaches to warfare, partially dictated by their civilization level. You're not going to get highly trained legions from some tribe in Arabia or Britain, but you might get highly trained skirmishers and cavalry.
While I could wax philosophical about the importance of representing such a difference in an age where Professional armies began to be formulated and organized for the first time in history and men were often expected to provide their own arms and armor, or cite examples demonstrating the superiority of a citizen-soldiery over slave-soldiers and tribesmen, I believe it would be redundant to my case: generally speaking, most people familiar with this period are familiar with those concepts.
Rather, I’ll keep my case brief: forming a distinction in manpower between these two classes is one of the most important steps towards representing differences in quality without needing to give significant and incontestable military bonuses to the Romans, Greeks or Carthaginians in the same way that the French and Prussians get +20% Land Morale in EU4. The way a split in manpower could feasibly work is that each pop type provides an amount of manpower: Citizens provide a small amount of manpower exclusively for the professional pool and Tribesmen and Slaves provide some manpower exclusively for the conscript pool. Freemen provide the most manpower: most of it going to the conscript pool, but a lesser amount to the professional pool (not as much as the citizens provide, however).
From there, every unit type can be recruited as either being a professional regiment or a conscripted regiment: rather than working as a flat bonus to unit stats, however, a professional unit’s bonus would instead vary depending on the unit type. So a Professional Heavy Infantry regiment would be vastly superior to a Conscripted Heavy Infantry Regiment, but a Professional Light Infantry regiment would not be as advanced compared to a Conscripted Light Infantry Regiment. Then, bonuses to Professional units can be added to the military tradition trees: for example, the Romans, Greeks and Carthaginians could get boons to the amount/ratio of professional manpower they get from Citizen and Freemen pops to give them an edge in quality without making it innate, while Celtic ideas could give bonuses to professional unit types (such as Light Infantry) that aren’t as good as some others to make them competitive and match their historical tactics. Of course, Professional units should also have drawbacks: they should be more likely to give their loyalty to commanders than conscripts, and cost more in maintenance. Additionally, as the professional pool would naturally be smaller than the conscripted one, the loss of large amounts of manpower from it would actually hurt.
This system would have a large number of advantages:
1): Balance – this would allow for the potential of larger military bonuses to the historical powerhouses of the period without making it innate: meaning that, unlike in EU4, you wouldn’t always be at a -20% Morale disadvantage because you’re fighting France. With sufficient maneuvering, cunning and careful composition you can still overcome a professional Roman army with ease, and Rome would feel the loss of that manpower. Furthermore, it would provide another money sink and make standing armies more of a threat in peacetime, as they were historically.
2): Modularity – by giving ratio differentials to pop types and different bonuses to different unit types, the game becomes even more modular. Say someone wants to make a medieval era mod – well, now, not only will their nobility pops not be contributing to the same manpower pool as their serf pops, their dismounted knights will be superior to some city guard.
3): Historicity – this would allow for a closer modelling of the historical realities of any army, and why some armies consistently succeeded over others in certain fields.
4): Choice – it gives more and interesting choices to the player: ‘do I recruit mercenaries for my professional units and make up the rest with conscripts to avoid the risk of my professional regiments backing a pretender?’ or ‘do I go with a small but highly trained army against a foe that outnumbers me?’ and so forth.
5): Uniqueness – it allows for ingame factions to feel even more unique without feeling unfair by having even more varied approaches to warfare, partially dictated by their civilization level. You're not going to get highly trained legions from some tribe in Arabia or Britain, but you might get highly trained skirmishers and cavalry.
