is winter really boring?

[unmerged(6448)]

I have been reading this forum and becoming really fired up. This game looks like it will kick ass. EU and EU2 are really the only two games I have played (besides a nascar game). CK will make another, and it may be even better than EU2 (my favorite game of all time).

I have a question though. It seems to me armies disband in the winter. If this is so, what can you do in winter time? It seems to me upgrades and politics can be done in the summer as well, so it is very possible I would just put the game on super fast for the winter months and do everything in the summer. Ideas?

 

[Havard]

In winter you arrange weddings, sceme intrigues and raise taxes for next spring campaign

We don't know this though... if armies are disbanded.

 

[unmerged(1057)]

All armies should be disbanded off-season.
I don´t know if this have been brought up before but bloody battles was very uncommon among the catholic sovereigns anyway.
At times the battles was more of a "showoff", a kind of joust.
Don´t remember but I think it was the Battle of Bremule were chroniclers say that only 3 knights were killed.

 

[Demetrios]

Yeah, when they say "Only 3 knights were killed", they ignore the masses of unarmored (or barely armored) peasant levies which were slaughtered on the field. The chroniclers didn't care about them, only about the heavily armored knights who died only rarely, usually through some accident. It was much more profitable to capture and ransom a knight than to kill him - the same couldn't be said of the unfortunate peasants...

 

[unmerged(1057)]

Yes, my point was that any large standing army simply didn´t exist in the CK time period (in western europe that is) so I agree with Havard about winter activities

 

[unmerged(8642)]

Well obviously you can continue to crusade during the winter months, well at least in the holy land.

 

[unmerged(485)]

Once past your 40 (or 60) days of feudal service it will cost a pretty penny to keep your army in the field. And contracts were usually not any longer than that for many who were hired. You'd have to be rich to have an army year round.

 

[Hamilcar]

Winter is like night - you rest.

 

[unmerged(6448)]

In EU I often fought year round. I was troubled by this as many times that wasn't historical. But even a Nordic country I would be manning my armies in a war just in case I had to throw them into action. So there really wasn't a break from tactical planning/preparation in EU.

Obviously in winter you can do politics/marriage etc. But in EU you could do all those things in times of peace as well. It just happened that unless you were exploring very often their was little to be actively managed in peacetime. The speed of the game would be set very high. I suspect CK will be the same in this regard. My point was that during war winter time will become similar to ordinary peacetime.

On the balance though I love the idea of having to disband armies during winter. The reason is it (for the first time in EU really) provides a mechanism to fight total wars from occuring.Think about it: every summer you attack the enemy. You take what you can and rest during winter. The next summer you have to start again from where you left off. Now not only does the enemy have time to reorganize, but there is a chance the game engine can make it in your advantage to quit the war. If they make the provinces you occupy cost a ton of money each year, you may not want to fight that 20 year war to take half of another's land. In fact it may cripple you to try. So wars may become all about border scirmishes, which would certainly be much more historically accurate than EU in that regard. Take what you can before penalties make it too costly to hang on to.

 

[Styrbiorn]

In the EU time frame wars were fought winter time too, at least in the last part of the game, but in CK this was not the case. Therefore I do hope that you can't carry on a campaign winter time, at least not in the North (where winters were spent trying to remain alive until spring).

 

[unmerged(28)]

Originally posted by Wasa
All armies should be disbanded off-season.

They are...If not...you have bought it a supply train for the winter... Supply Trains are....Luxuries...by the way.....

/Greven

 

[unmerged(1057)]

..and we did Styrbiörn...didn´t we?..

On a more serious note, the armies would seldom be assembled more than 40-50 days in the Medievals..It would be nice if somone "collected" all major battles in the timespan and made a graph over which days and months they were fought..

 

[Styrbiorn]

Yes, obviously and fortunately

Hmm, if armies only can be used for 40-50 days it will be quite... hectic. But I won't complain as I don't know how the game works yet.

 

[unmerged(8642)]

supply trains huh? Cool stuff. Hope you can attack those too. I realize that this isnt a tacktical game but it would be cool if you brought in a supply train to fight during the winter and there was a message telling you that your supplies had been raided and the army had deserted even though you spent all that money

 

[unmerged(485)]

Originally posted by Greven


They are...If not...you have bought it a supply train for the winter... Supply Trains are....Luxuries...by the way.....

/Greven

Excellent.

Sounds like RTK where you had to take some amount of supplies from your province to give to your army on campaign in another province.

 

[unmerged(9167)]

Yeah, and that would make it more resalistic, to raid the supply car and use it to fight against enemy, you may even stand longer than normal becuz u will have all that food and money while ur enemy lose that car. That is how most of the wars had been frought during that time period, living oiff the land and raid the enmy.