Is Army Maintenance Supposed to be So Crushingly Expensive?
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I'm fine with expensive.
But let's also be real. If it's so expensive that every time you have a war your game is ruined, few people are going to enjoy spending their time on this game. At least I won't. I'm not going to waste hours building up my country to let every little war wreck the game. Wars are going to happen, a lot -- you're going to get attacked by great powers. If there's no way to build up your country to deal with it, it's just a bad game.
War should be fun. If you can't even run at half maintenance and still have your nation fall apart, that's not fun. It's just frustrating. I don't spend my free time to be needlessly frustrated.
It doesn't matter that real wars are often expensive and ruin nations for a generation. Real wars are also not supposed to be entertaining, but they are in an economic and war game. Nor do they happen constantly by an AI looking to exploit every advantage without care to the cost of its popultion.
I really want to like this game. But my take on it is there's a million little design decisions that in the aggregate make it more annoying than fun. You have so little control over critical issues like your population -- pops devolve and immigrate and you have no idea why. The tooltips don't make sense and are often just wrong. The military is balanced with costs are way out of wack for what's reasonable. These decisions are baffling -- not because it makes the game too "hard" but just too unrewarding for effort put in. It really feels like it was tested by a bunch of die hards who already understood the hidden factors and who only play Prussia and Great Britain.
I'll stick with it a little further kicking the tires. I like overly complex games. I don't mind learning how they work -- I even like it. That's why I've bought and played the hell out of almost every Paradox game going back to EU2. But who wants to fiddle with a million unmarked levers that may or may not do what they're labeled to do, balanced around a standard that often doesn't take into account what's enjoyable and rewarding gameplay and what's not. I have enough static in my life. I don't need to fight with a game to make it do what I want it to do too.
That's my disappointed two cents.
But let's also be real. If it's so expensive that every time you have a war your game is ruined, few people are going to enjoy spending their time on this game. At least I won't. I'm not going to waste hours building up my country to let every little war wreck the game. Wars are going to happen, a lot -- you're going to get attacked by great powers. If there's no way to build up your country to deal with it, it's just a bad game.
War should be fun. If you can't even run at half maintenance and still have your nation fall apart, that's not fun. It's just frustrating. I don't spend my free time to be needlessly frustrated.
It doesn't matter that real wars are often expensive and ruin nations for a generation. Real wars are also not supposed to be entertaining, but they are in an economic and war game. Nor do they happen constantly by an AI looking to exploit every advantage without care to the cost of its popultion.
I really want to like this game. But my take on it is there's a million little design decisions that in the aggregate make it more annoying than fun. You have so little control over critical issues like your population -- pops devolve and immigrate and you have no idea why. The tooltips don't make sense and are often just wrong. The military is balanced with costs are way out of wack for what's reasonable. These decisions are baffling -- not because it makes the game too "hard" but just too unrewarding for effort put in. It really feels like it was tested by a bunch of die hards who already understood the hidden factors and who only play Prussia and Great Britain.
I'll stick with it a little further kicking the tires. I like overly complex games. I don't mind learning how they work -- I even like it. That's why I've bought and played the hell out of almost every Paradox game going back to EU2. But who wants to fiddle with a million unmarked levers that may or may not do what they're labeled to do, balanced around a standard that often doesn't take into account what's enjoyable and rewarding gameplay and what's not. I have enough static in my life. I don't need to fight with a game to make it do what I want it to do too.
That's my disappointed two cents.
Tax your pops
raise tariffs
manually cut clippers, steamers, artillery, canned food purchase
raise tariffs
manually cut clippers, steamers, artillery, canned food purchase
i dunno, by the time i had sphered all the chinese substates as japan and had all my factory slots filled i was about to fight 10 year ways all sliders maxed out making 2000-3000 daily. and that was with a 61 start
New game is way better than Vic 2. Need money to win wars. So stop your whining! I don't want paradox to revert.
Meh, sure, I've felt the price increases. They sting a bit but I never felt that they were crippling. Now you actually have a reason to research those tax eff techs
Heh, if you have good tax efficiency AND produce you own steamers for navy maintenance, wont you get much of the money you spend back anyway?
Heh, if you have good tax efficiency AND produce you own steamers for navy maintenance, wont you get much of the money you spend back anyway?
IRL wars are incredibly expensive. It's virtually impossible to be in a serious war and run a budget surplus.
See how industrialisation, growing wealth and minor wars led to a significant reduction in government debt, then see what happens when the war breaks out.
170% of GDP is hard to put into Vicky 2 terms because the devs refuse to give us a GDP variable but you can make an estimate.
See how industrialisation, growing wealth and minor wars led to a significant reduction in government debt, then see what happens when the war breaks out.
170% of GDP is hard to put into Vicky 2 terms because the devs refuse to give us a GDP variable but you can make an estimate.
exactly. pretty much every country that has ever been at war have ran up massive debts.
sounds fairly historical and realistic to me.
Three quick reactions:
1. I admitted, some of it was my problem. I'm new to the game and I could have managed my economy better. Namely, I should have invested in more of the tax efficiency techs. It would have made a difference in what I could afford. My complaint is that this is something only a very experienced player would know, which means the game should do a much better job explaining how these factors interact and should perhaps be more forgiving to be rewarding to play.
2. A lot of folks are missing the point. The question isn't whether armies should be expensive. There aren't only two settings, expensive and cheap. The alternative isn't making it so you can run a massive military for years of war with no impact on your economy. The question is, although they ought to be expensive, should they be THIS expensive.
I think there's a lot of people here arguing against a straw argument no one made.
Look, there's a reason army expenses go up when you declare war. A good rule of thumb for a good design would be a nation could afford to field a reasonable sized army at maximum national stockpile while at peace. When war is declared, this cost would jump two or three times and it would hurt -- probably a lot -- eventually causing debt unless you cheap out on maintenance or shift your economy.
The balance is currently way beyond that. A nation can now afford to field a reasonable sized military at something like 20% maintenance while at peace. War makes that cost absurd.
3. Arguments about what happened historically aren't helpful. The standard isn't the cost of once in a generation events like WWI and WWII. It's all the little wars you forgot about that happen every few years in the game. Even with WWI, this is a game and thus should be rewarding and fun. There are a lot of things in real life that I don't want to see accurately modeled in game because of lot of life can be random and unpredictable and not fun, and that's not how I want to spend my leisure time. No one goes to movies where a guy fills out papers for two hours, but that's a lot of real life.
1. I admitted, some of it was my problem. I'm new to the game and I could have managed my economy better. Namely, I should have invested in more of the tax efficiency techs. It would have made a difference in what I could afford. My complaint is that this is something only a very experienced player would know, which means the game should do a much better job explaining how these factors interact and should perhaps be more forgiving to be rewarding to play.
2. A lot of folks are missing the point. The question isn't whether armies should be expensive. There aren't only two settings, expensive and cheap. The alternative isn't making it so you can run a massive military for years of war with no impact on your economy. The question is, although they ought to be expensive, should they be THIS expensive.
I think there's a lot of people here arguing against a straw argument no one made.
Look, there's a reason army expenses go up when you declare war. A good rule of thumb for a good design would be a nation could afford to field a reasonable sized army at maximum national stockpile while at peace. When war is declared, this cost would jump two or three times and it would hurt -- probably a lot -- eventually causing debt unless you cheap out on maintenance or shift your economy.
The balance is currently way beyond that. A nation can now afford to field a reasonable sized military at something like 20% maintenance while at peace. War makes that cost absurd.
3. Arguments about what happened historically aren't helpful. The standard isn't the cost of once in a generation events like WWI and WWII. It's all the little wars you forgot about that happen every few years in the game. Even with WWI, this is a game and thus should be rewarding and fun. There are a lot of things in real life that I don't want to see accurately modeled in game because of lot of life can be random and unpredictable and not fun, and that's not how I want to spend my leisure time. No one goes to movies where a guy fills out papers for two hours, but that's a lot of real life.
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I'm playing a game as Austria at the moment in about 1870, and just faced down a mobilised France looking to take a bite out of the Rhineland with help from my Prussian and Russian Allies. I went over 200k in debt in sending my army of about 270k to the Rhine and Pronvencal Fronts, and the necessity that that debt placed on me winning the war made it much more exciting.
Also, a lesson to learn from this - if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don't play with the big boys when you're just a secondary power, or you'll get stomped both military and fiscally.
The costs of militaries are perfectly reasonable, and the lack of control over great historical trends is part of the whole point of the game - what's the point of being an autocrat if your POPs aren't desperate for democracy?
Well, I'm loving the new expansion, so I guess I'm the guy who wants to "fiddle with a million unmarked levers that may or may not do what they're labeled to do, balanced around a standard that often doesn't take into account what's enjoyable and rewarding gameplay and what's not". This sounds to me a lot like "Stop Liking What I Don't Like."
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Then sorry Paradox´s games aren´t for you. Wanna be able to do world conquest with any country, go play Risk. If the game was easy as you wanted it to be everyone would be GP even with crap contries like Nejd in 1870 and therefore after 2 games, replayability would be ZERO.
Well, you seem to have learned the lesson pretty quickly desipte being new to the game, so it doesn't require that much experience at all - perhaps 1 or 2 games.
I can afford a reasonable sized army while at peace, at maximum stockpile; I never reduce it below 100%, as I want to feed my arms industry. If I want a world-class Navy (20 or more dreadnaughts), then I need to spend a fortune, but armies (as long as you don't spam guards, they're supposed to be elite and rare) aren't that overpriced.
You had half-guards. Each guard unit costs about 3 times as much as a regular infantry unit, so in your case that would have probably doubled the size of your army. A 150,000 man army sounds about right for Sweden's budget. Combine that with you missing the TE techs and inventions, AND switching to a government which can charge full taxes rather than half taxes, and suddenly we're looking at 75-100 infantry units on the same budget.
It is rewarding and fun, once you've learned to play. You made a couple of basic errors and ended up trying to afford a decent navy AND an elite army, on 11.5% effective tax, followed by destroying your industrial base with high tariffs. That's called playing poorly rather than a broken game; it's like saying Chess is broken when you've played the whole game by trying to use your king offensively. You are standing in a position where you have the lowest possible government income and the most expensive possible forces, and then complaining that the military is too expensive for your budget.
Learn from the experience, have another go. If you want to afford a big military, then a government-on-a-shoestring L-F party with 17th century taxation law is not a good way to go.
I think it's way more fun now. I'm still hoping to see Austria break up one day in one of my games, maybe this is a step in the right direction.
And I hate to see Russia take half of Ottoman territory every game. I'd like to see some nations break apart from Turkey for once and see Russia having difficulties taking that much from Turkey despite their military dominance.
The Russian-Japanese war of 1404/5 (is that correct) put a huge burden on both countries. In Russia it fueled the revolutions of 1405 and 1417 and Japan saw serious protests because of the unfavourable peace terms.
And I hate to see Russia take half of Ottoman territory every game. I'd like to see some nations break apart from Turkey for once and see Russia having difficulties taking that much from Turkey despite their military dominance.
The Russian-Japanese war of 1404/5 (is that correct) put a huge burden on both countries. In Russia it fueled the revolutions of 1405 and 1417 and Japan saw serious protests because of the unfavourable peace terms.
Steamer Convoys haven't been fixed, so if your ships need them, suddenly, you're out of money.
I found it rather easy to maintain a large army as Prussia/Germany/GrossDeutschland, but I bled the lower classes dry (40% effective tax rate), and had a 25% tariff.
I found it rather easy to maintain a large army as Prussia/Germany/GrossDeutschland, but I bled the lower classes dry (40% effective tax rate), and had a 25% tariff.
You're off by a few centuries...
I think the basic military spending (not the stockpile slider part of it) should maybe not increase quite so dramatically during war (say, +90% instead of +100%). In return, you could make them consume slightly more supplies. So it'd be a wee bit cheaper at war, and a wee bit more expensive out of it (assuming you don't dial the slider all the way to zero). I don't think any major change is called for though.
I did a little test..saved my Sweden game and ran as Prussia for a few days and checked back..most of my navy and more than half of my army had been disbanded by AI. I didn't have a particularly large army, one 30k stack and one 21k stack comprised of 4 inf, 4 art, 2 cav..and the smaller being a similar make up. How am I supposed to be able to rule the world with this?
This sort of response really hacks me off. It's insulting and pathetic.
Look friend, I've probably played more Paradox games going back longer in time than you. I'm good at most of them. I'm not looking to play Risk (although Risk can be pretty fun with the right crowd). If you want to attack my argument, go ahead. If you want to toss around stupid personal insults and attack straw men, find a new forum to post on.