Is Army Maintenance Supposed to be So Crushingly Expensive?

[Revshawn]

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?

The entire point is that you're supposed to only raise military maintenance to full when you are about to go into war. If you want to be a wuss and have enough money to do whatever you want, cheat. Otherwise if you can't balance the budget with a civilized country, then you need to find a new game.

 

[Derp]

If you absolutely must field large numbers of troops that you can't otherwise afford, use irregulars.

 

[luitzen]

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.

Oh lol, that should've read 1904/5, of course.

 

[daveylacy]

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.

1860 fully formed Germany with 2 austrian provinces, and that's exactly what i've done. I make 1.2k a day income with everything but soldiers set to 100% and with rich and middle class taxes set to 0%.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

They should indeed early game naval upkeep a bit. Clippers are crushingly expensive. :<

 

[Beagá]

Britain was the largest colonial and commercial power for a reason, they had the biggest naval industry. Make ships cheaper and you allow abominations like Russia and Austria in Africa way too easy to achieve.

Merchant navies in the next expansion, plz Paradox.

 

[Jazumir]

Isnt it all a matter of supply and demand, too? I mean, okay, i was shocked at the maintainance cost of my dozen ottoman dreadnoughts, but i figured, that was partly due to the limit quantity of fuel flying around the markets at that point... Guards? I couldnt make any if i wanted to, before i didnt build a luxury cloths factory on my own. I figured, i´d rather cancel their recruitment, because, if it´s so hard to get by the 15 LC to make them, how much will their maintainance be?

The armies in Victoria II (AHD) dont take money to supply them - they take goods. Make these goods cheap (by producing them) and your army will be cheap(er), money-wise. Stockpile the goods, when they are in low demand (so not during a world-war) to do some extra saving.

If the armies took less goods (but the same amount of pops), military industries would be less profitable, too. If you run some armaments factories (ammo, artillery etc.) a foreign war somewhere with at least one GP involved can really save your economy, as you may have noticed. I think that´s pretty cool.

 

[tului]

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.

No need to be like this about it. I think it is a good balance that a "new" player can't survive on normal right off the bat. It's one reason they have difficulty settings. And one of the perks of them easier ones is reduced supply consumption. Try a game on easy until you get a feel for what techs to research and when for each country. Also, keep your relations high with neighboring power houses. Above 40 at least. I try for 100+ with France, Russia, Britain and Prussia at all times.

 

[Wminus]

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.

And what about the AI? It keeps bankrupting itself, because it always keeps national stockpile at 100%

 

[Secret Master]

I have to admit, I like the new setup.

Those administrative efficiency techs are absolutely crucial now, as they help check the rising cost of the military. Also, since goods are generally more scarce, queuing up 50 dreadnoughts, even if you could afford them, doesn't insure that they will build anytime soon unless you are a major manufacturer of naval stuff.

But what I like best about the game is that paying for 36 dreadnoughts means that my POPs see a visible drop in their standard of living thanks to higher taxes. And when wars breakout, I have to crank up the tariffs AND the taxes to pay for everything. Even if I can technically afford the cash cost of the war, every major war I've fought so far in AHD has seriously screwed up the economy until the war ends and taxes and tariffs go back down.

In my Two Siciilies game last night, I may be the world's #1 military power in 1914, but that's only because my people make the personal sacrifices (in the form of reduced buying power) that make it possible. In regular Vic2, I could be the #1 military power in the world and all POPs are humming along buying luxury goods all day, every day. And bear in mind, I make all my own tanks, fuel (within the limits of domestic oil), steamers, and canned food.

 

[ShoGuL]

I actually ran into the problem that you can only repay.. not sure..a few 100k? pounds at a time.. I ended up with a 10 million pound loan as the Ottoman Empire after a war against Russia post 1900.. earning back the money was easy enough, repaying it took a lot of clicks =p

 

[Secret Master]

I actually ran into the problem that you can only repay.. not sure..a few 100k? pounds at a time.. I ended up with a 10 million pound loan as the Ottoman Empire after a war against Russia post 1900.. earning back the money was easy enough, repaying it took a lot of clicks =p

Yeah, that's the one part of the interface that I wished they had taken some time to improve. Oh well, with all the other improvements, I can't complain.

 

[kingsword]

The game seems to be rather boring due to this since AI avoids waging war like the plague now. When it rarely does, it's with little troops that's reminiscent of 13th century levy armies.

Victoria always had the least amount of wars in Paradox games, restricting it even further pretty much totally eliminates any kind of combat in the game since any positive outcome of the war doesn't benefit enough unless it's for unification effort. Cut to size? Repay debt? Why would anyone do that when it costs 10 times more to win the war first?

I survive but I don't really like it, only 4-5 countries can industrialize and field something resembling an army and navy. No idea how a WW1 can happen as it is.

 

[Secret Master]

The game seems to be rather boring due to this since AI avoids waging war like the plague now. When it rarely does, it's with little troops that's reminiscent of 13th century levy armies

:blink:

I guess results will vary per game. I had a knock-down, drag out fight with Austria last night in 1908 that involved each GP having 100 or so regular army brigades and 200-300 reserve brigades (well, except for me, but my population is half the other GPs). It wasn't exactly WWI, but that's only because 5 GPs were involved (UK, Austria, NGF, and Two Sicilies initially, then the USA joined on my side and did about nothing...). France and the UK were tied up in a separate war, and Russia wasn't a GP anymore, so they weren't relevant.

I even had a famous Vic2 uber-battle in Treviso with the AI overstacking about 600k Austria soldiers in a single battle while the NGF marched on Bohemia.

 

[patiofurniture]

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.

Wow some of these responses to Herr Valinn here have gotten a bit out of hand...We should all behave like gentlemen!

 

[yourworstnightm]

Bah, peace is expensive, you know when you're not trying to avoid taxing your capis to space and trying to not stall industrialization with too high tariffs. During war I just max taxes and tariffs and no problemo.

I formed Germany in 1847, and the AI loves to attack me. France has broke our truce twice to try to take back Elsass- Lothringen (always dragging the poor Austrians with them to receive a major beating). But I agree, armies are much more expensive now. I have a huge army because of the threat of being gangbanged by everyone, and it hurts like hell. So much canned food needed...

 

[BulMaster]

I def like the new war costs. Makes perfect sense that war should be a heavy tax on your economy. Even in history wars generally made the national debt sky-rocket.

 

[Nirmara]

The cut down to size cb is just great against others gp to finance your previous and next wars. The extra income over 5 years can easily pay for most war you will have to fight.