Maintenance for large army fighting small enemy

[cetvrtak]

I can't find the Quick questions/answers thread.

How do you deal with the maintenance situation when you use only small portion of your army to fight a war against a small country?

My Castillan army is now 51 regiments in size, yet Moroccan is only 4. Most of my army will be unused, yet I have to keep the maintenance high for those regiments that will engage the enemy. It seems like this is a huge waste of ducats.

 

[netherlink]

So? That's exactly why many people are requesting to have a maintenance slider per army.
Well, with the new Drill feature, there is your answer Let the majority of your army increase your professionalism, while your 12k stack is sieging morocco

 

[cetvrtak]

So? That's exactly why many people are requesting to have a maintenance slider per army.
Well, with the new Drill feature, there is your answer Let the majority of your army increase your professionalism, while your 12k stack is sieging morocco

Drilling was one option that I could think of. The other was to find a battlefield for the rest of the army.

However, none of those options actually reduces maintenance costs, since both drilling and fighting requires full or high maintenance.

 

[Dominion]

So? That's exactly why many people are requesting to have a maintenance slider per army.

That screams "exploit me, exploit me". I start theorycrafting right after reading your sentence.

Drilling is supposed to fix the issue anyways.

@cetvrtak
Just drill them.

 

[cuendillar]

Depends on DLCs.

Cossacks would let you Threaten War, if they yield you get your claimed province+truce and they likely would being that much weaker. No need to pay for your forces in the frist place then.
Cradle of Civilization gives drilling, meaning the rest at least have something to do instead of just costing money.

Otherwise, you could always declare such a war when you're expecting or having rebellions, assuming you can deal with them both. Also, there's no need to pay armies that are just siegeing, unless you actually need them to reinforce to maintain numbers.

Maybe paying them all 10%ish, take at least 41 regiments to him and insta-wipe him with the 10-to-1 rule. Then cut maintenance to zero while carpet siegeing so he won't build anything more. Doable?

 

[Xetfield]

It's not possible to drill armies during as far as I remember. Try to rent them as Condottieri

 

[Dominion]

It's not possible to drill armies during as far as I remember. Try to rent them as Condottieri

It's possible. Drilling gets cancelled by default as soon as you declare. Just drill them again.

Maybe they even hid a checkbox in your general tab to disable them interrupting their drill, didn't bother to check.

 

[Cookiepie]

Also worth noting that you simply can lower the maintenance after wiping their army, unless yer expecting rebels there's no real reason to keep your army at max maintenance just because it's sieging.

 

[Palatinus Germanicus]

You can drill any time... including during war. They just have to be in your (owned) territory.

^And he probably can't lower it like he wants to, because the enemy armies are hiding & rebuilding on the other side of the fort(s), just like they always are.

 

[Dominion]

Also worth noting that you simply can lower the maintenance after wiping their army, unless yer expecting rebels there's no real reason to keep your army at max maintenance just because it's sieging.

Armies reinforce for free if attrition is lower than your reinforcement rate.

You lose cash to save cash. Case-by-case decision, not a nobrainer.

 

[Cookiepie]

Armies reinforce for free if attrition is lower than your reinforcement rate.

You lose cash to save cash. Case-by-case decision, not a nobrainer.

Small portion of yer army sieging (and a few units less to sustain as a few die off). Not always a no-brainer, but in OPs example it would be if he doesn't plan to drill.

 

[Dominion]

Small portion of yer army sieging (and a few units less to sustain as a few die off). Not always a no-brainer, but in OPs example it would be if he doesn't plan to drill.

Yea, except not drilling is a mistake in his situation.

That's like saying it's appropriate to pee on someone when they get stung by a jellyfish. Doesn't mean you can just walk around peeing on people.
Try not getting stung instead.

 

[Brynjar]

If anything there is too few downsides of reducing army maintenance as it is, as the morale is regained far too quickly.

As for the op's situation I would just pay up, and not even think twice about it, but then I never cared much about micromanagement.

 

[Cookiepie]

Yea, except not drilling is a mistake in his situation.

That's like saying it's appropriate to pee on someone when they get stung by a jellyfish. Doesn't mean you can just walk around peeing on people.
Try not getting stung instead.

I dont necessarily agree. Plenty of scenarios where drilling isn't worth its cost.

 

[Dutch Patriot]

How about a mothball button for Armies?

 

[Parapluman]

That's like saying it's appropriate to pee on someone when they get stung by a jellyfish. Doesn't mean you can just walk around peeing on people.
Try not getting stung instead.

This is an urban myth popularized by a Friends episode.
Don't go peeing on anyone even if they are stung by a jellyfish.

More on topic:
Mothballing armies has been suggested many many times, so I'm sure paradox is aware that a lot of players would like to see this.
There might be a balancing or AI reason that has so far prevented it from being implemented.

 

[cliffo]

If they've got 4,000 troops then stackwipe them and put armies back to zero funding whilst you siege down their provinces?

 

[Coffer]

How about a mothball button for Armies?

This is pretty much the way to go. If there's a drill button, there should be a mothball button. Tedium would be the only problem here, as it's one of those things that should specifically be exploited.

 

[cuendillar]

Mothballing navies is easy to imagine, put the ships somewhere safe and give the sailors shore leave. What would mothballing armies possibly represent? Sending the soldiers off like the sailors would be more alike to disbanding the armies, as the infantry would surely take most of its kit (gun, sword, armour) with it and they make up the vast majority of in-game forces.

Ships could easily be maintained with a minimum work force while the actual sailors are doing whatever they're doing off duty, but a mothballed army would probably just slip away or revolt. Paying some units and not others is a recipe for disloyalty.

 

[Coffer]

Mothballing navies is easy to imagine, put the ships somewhere safe and give the sailors shore leave. What would mothballing armies possibly represent?

Not a single real nation could ever afford supporting all of their forces at once in this time period, yet this is extremely easy in the game.