Is Army Maintenance Supposed to be So Crushingly Expensive?

[unmerged(26764)]

I played a Sweden game up into about 1870. Sweden is easy to industrialize, and has a pretty small population. All my factories were profitable, some highly. I had an army of about 25 brigades.

So why does my economy tank when I turn up military maintenance to full? Even extracting the maximum tax I could, with tariffs, and cutting education pay, I was losing hundreds per day. One brief war and I was absurdly in debt, risking the entire game crashing around me. If it matters, my factories included all the important military goods -- canned food, small arms, ammunition, liquor, etc.

Is this supposed to be like this? This Swedish game should have been perfect conditions -- small army, rich country, tiny navy. If Sweden can't pay to supply its army, who can?

 

[magitsu]

Did you mobilize? Mobilizing has severe penalty to production.
Yes, industrialized 1870 Sweden should afford 25 brigades.

I'd compromise: 100% national stockpile, 0% soldiers. Demobilize as soon as possible. Lower national stockpile when there is only sieges to be done.

 

[Foxd1e]

I have the same problem with Prussia, even before I mobilized my troops. I wish the game made it easier to afford an army, like HOI games had War Time Economies that really helped out. Vanilla Vic II was fine, maybe a little easy, but now in AHD i'm getting crushed.

 

[unmerged(107578)]

Army maintenance goes through the roof when at war, bear in mind.

 

[delra]

You no longer are able to run all-cavalry or all-guards armies, should stick to infantry for smaller countries, and infantry+artillery for bigger ones. I think it's a change for the better. And in the end, its' good to have own production, if you can keep it above the water, so your military spending goes back to your POPs in the end closing the loop. So look at what your armies need that's most expensive (Artillery, Luxury Clothes, Steamers, Wine), and produce it yourself, boosting demand with your stockpile slider whenever your industry runs into trouble.

 

[Foxd1e]

Silly me thought it would get better with better infrastructure, and high lvl railroads. I was wrong. Fighting a war with Austria to assert Prussian Hegemony bankrupted me, I ended up raising taxes, taking loans, my Great Power status was in danger. What made my eyeballs nearly roll out of my head was I was bankrupted by 75 brigades+20 Reserves, and Austria toted 104 brigades + 50 Reserves and they kept their units very well supplied the entire war. I was paying over 1400 a day to keep my Stockpile at 100% I can only imagine they were paying close to 3000. What's the secret? How can a nation support a large army now? Or is the way to go with Small Elites armies such as all Dragoons, Guard, and Artillery?

 

[andersonm]

It is way more expensive now, but I think more accurate, honestly the only country who actually turned every available soldier POP into a soldier outside of a major war would be North Korea and we all know how rich they are! To help the issue though, I keep the national stockpile slider at 25% or below when at peace and use that time to build up an enormous cash reserve.... ideally enough to last you a year or two, and then you've got your national bank to give you a bit of a cushion. Eventually though it will bankrupt or cripple most countries if you have 100% national stockpile and every possible Guard / Dragoon built...

 

[1alexey]

Not sure what problems people have.
Prussia can easily beat Austria or France on day 1.

The "high score" of forming Germany is around 1841-1842 so,..

 

[Foxd1e]

Not sure what problems people have.
Prussia can easily beat Austria or France on day 1.

The "high score" of forming Germany is around 1841-1842 so,..

We are talking about A House Divided. It's a totally different game. I doubt there is any high scores for it yet. Do you even have Vic II? Because I don't see it among your games. In Vanilla Victoria II I never lost a war. Even NGF vs. Russia. But AHD is a whole different beast. I feel like I'm gonna have to figure out some new strategies andersonm's suggestion is pretty handy. Anticipate the 100% Nat.Stckpl by building up several years worth of cash cushion.

 

[aqvamare]

actually the first good post about ADH that you can loose wars now.... i really rethink my opion and i will buy the addon.

 

[1alexey]

We are talking about A House Divided. It's a totally different game. I doubt there is any high scores for it yet. Do you even have Vic II? Because I don't see it among your games. In Vanilla Victoria II I never lost a war. Even NGF vs. Russia. But AHD is a whole different beast. I feel like I'm gonna have to figure out some new strategies andersonm's suggestion is pretty handy. Anticipate the 100% Nat.Stckpl by building up several years worth of cash cushion.

Capitan obviousness says i am also.
Alternatively go check the AHD-empires tread.

 

[Fipse]

I didn't had any money problems with Prussia/NGF/Germany. True, in the first years it is a bit hard with Prussia but i was able to offered big standing armys with good mixes of Inf and Art. With germany i build all guard armys without a problem.

 

[grimkm]

I played a Sweden game up into about 1870. Sweden is easy to industrialize, and has a pretty small population. All my factories were profitable, some highly. I had an army of about 25 brigades.

So why does my economy tank when I turn up military maintenance to full? Even extracting the maximum tax I could, with tariffs, and cutting education pay, I was losing hundreds per day. One brief war and I was absurdly in debt, risking the entire game crashing around me. If it matters, my factories included all the important military goods -- canned food, small arms, ammunition, liquor, etc.

Is this supposed to be like this? This Swedish game should have been perfect conditions -- small army, rich country, tiny navy. If Sweden can't pay to supply its army, who can?

Just finished my first game with Sweden. Perhaps did wrongly as others have suggested about production, but can confirm..very expensive to run that army. I did some expansion into Egypt and colonized eastern Africa and built a massive navy as well..but I could barely keep my stockpile above 10% until the last few years. Not cool as Russia really had it in for me either. The only way I was able to survive was through playing the puppet master..allied with France and Austria to fight my battles for me.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

This may be why the AI seems to go bankrupt so often. In my game, both the USA and Russia went bankrupt. (Russia right before declaring war on me and then stomping me with an absurd number of brigades all on max supply. I was only able to survive with much Prussian help.)

Some of this was probably my fault. I had about half guards -- maybe too many -- but no art. My tax efficiency was lowish and I had a liberal party in power that didn't let me raise poor tax over 50% -- I could have booted them for the conservatives. But even if I had done both, I don't think it would have made much difference. The debt per day was so much higher than anything in my budget, even with maxed railroads for the era and lots of profitable factories. I burned through a cushion of about 200k and then went deep into the red.

I'm fine with high maintenance. But this really seems way too much. Running a reasonable size army at full national stockpile for a year or two shouldn't crash your economy with hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt. It's really not right if the AI doesn't care and is happy to regularly crash its economy into bankruptcy for even minor wars, forcing the player to do the same to keep up.


As a side note, does it not sometimes seem like the game is balanced around the idea that everybody plays Prussia and creates a monster Germany? So balance problems aren't detected because Germany can power through it.

 

[1alexey]

I'm fine with high maintenance. But this really seems way too much. Running a reasonable size army at full national stockpile for a year or two shouldn't crash your economy with hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt.

except that is what happened historically.

In my latest game AI Prussia attacked France in 1937(!) and got Alzac-lotaringen by 1839.
Formed NGF in 43, and Germany in 1855.

What is the AI doing wrong?>

 

[s1234567890m]

I'm fine with high maintenance. But this really seems way too much. Running a reasonable size army at full national stockpile for a year or two shouldn't crash your economy with hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt. It's really not right if the AI doesn't care and is happy to regularly crash its economy into bankruptcy for even minor wars, forcing the player to do the same to keep up.

The AI might not be saving enough cash to supply it through the war

 

[Lord Strange]

It's the Naval maintenance which caught me out. Need to build more steamer shipyards to bring the price down quick!

 

[Turboflex]

Navies are very very expensive. I played Sweden to 1870 also, I could afford 25 brigades but once I built 8 monitors and 2 ironclads it added like 500 gold per day cost.

 

[Naselus]

Yeah, the navy is extremely pricey. Better that than 5000 Dreadnoughts, tho. The fact is, you now actually need to use the budget screen constantly, to try and balance your income and outgoings. It's much preferable to the old situation, where you just set all sliders to 100% and never looked again.

 

[Turboflex]

Maybe a bit at the beginning but after 1860 my education/bureaucracy expenses were fractional to military (especially navy) and it wouldn't have dented my daily wartime expenses even if I set them to zero.

saved up 200k and launched a big war in 1871 or so, me and Prussia vs Austria and France, things were going well, a few battles vs France, blockaded their ports and they white peaced quickly, then we could've beaten Austria, but by daily losses crept from 200 gold/day to 700 gold/day over a few months and I couldn't go on. Doesn't seem right, I didn't even mobilize, I only had 3 guard brigaes, maybe 10 artillery, 1 dragon & cavalry, so it wasn't forcing a supersized military... It's really the navy tho that killed me, those 10 ships cost like 3x as much as my 25 brigaes.