Professionalism gain from drill should be based on developmental force limit, not actual force limit

[Mindel]

The problem

The amount of professionalism you gain from drilling each year scales with your force limit, maxing out at 1 if 100% of your force limit is drilling.

But this formula penalizes nations that have bonuses to force limit, from traditions, ideas, or whatnot. A nation with +20% force limit, say from offensive ideas, has to pay more to retain and drill that extra 20% to maintain the same growth of professionalism as a nation without offensive at all. This leads to the bizarre outcome that nations with the same development and fewer military ideas/traditions can grow professionalism more easily than nations with more force limit bonuses.

On the other hand, a nation with 50% local autonomy everywhere would only need to drill about half the number of troops to gain 1 professionalism yearly. Somehow that doesn't seem quite right.


The solution

To rectify this, I propose that

Professionalism gain should be based on the proportion of troops drilling relative to your developmental force limit.

That is, the force limit you would have based on your development (assuming 0% autonomy everywhere), before any ideas or traditions come into play.


The justification

Intuitively, this makes sense because

1) development represents how large your nation is (and thus how much expense it would take to professionalize),

2) autonomy represents how organized your nation is (so higher autonomy should not help you gain professionalism), and

3) force limit bonuses represent how much more efficient your army is (and so should not penalize professionalism gain).

So if you have an extra +50% force limit from quantity, you would not be obliged to drill that extra portion to maintain the same professionalism growth as a nation without that idea. On the other hand, nations with a huge amount of autonomy would find it difficult to grow much professionalism.

For nations that drill over 100% of their developmental force limit, the game could scale professionalism to grow faster than 1, or else cap it to 1. I would vote for the first.

 

[annulen]

I agree that it doesn't seem fair when you take idea which enlarges force limit and your drilling suddenly becomes less efficient. However, I think that if you start using this additional force limit, you have to pay for that, in other words it should be relative to dev force limit or your actual army size whichever is bigger. Justification: 1) it's harder to make large army professional than small one; 2) countries with small limits need to have a chance to stand against countries with large limits, easier gain of professionalism can at least partially compensate lack of numbers

 

[Mindel]

No sign of any feedback on this proposal yet. I hope the devs will consider it over the next few months, while EU4 is on the bugfixing and consolidation roadmap.

 

[AirikrStrife]

devs rarely respond to threads, but anyway while your proposal makes some sense, logically, it is likely to be broken if implemented. I don't have the math in my head, but basically it'd be too easy for large nations to gain high professionalism. You can easily get double your development force limit, meaning that you can have half your army (which will be relatively speaking) cheaper than having 100% force limit army and reach the same goal.
In my recent Mughal WC I could literally have had a million men drilling and fight wars at the same time,

As it is now, it's a bit of a trade off helping smaller nations
I agree there oculd be other ways of solving this, allowing large nations to get more professionalism, but it has to be done some other way

 

[Mindel]

devs rarely respond to threads, but anyway while your proposal makes some sense, logically, it is likely to be broken if implemented. I don't have the math in my head, but basically it'd be too easy for large nations to gain high professionalism. You can easily get double your development force limit, meaning that you can have half your army (which will be relatively speaking) cheaper than having 100% force limit army and reach the same goal.
In my recent Mughal WC I could literally have had a million men drilling and fight wars at the same time,

As it is now, it's a bit of a trade off helping smaller nations
I agree there oculd be other ways of solving this, allowing large nations to get more professionalism, but it has to be done some other way

Your reasoning makes no sense. Half your army with double force limit still costs the same as the full army of another nation with the same developmental force limit but no force limit bonuses. Force limit bonuses don't make you richer.

Also, if you are maintaining a million man army, then these issues are entirely irrelevant to your campaign anyway.

 

[annulen]

I think monetary cost has little to do with this. To make army professional, all your soldiers need to get drilled. Force limit is used instead of actual army size to avoid exploitation (disband most of armies - drill - get maximum professionalism - recruit professionals; if your are disbanding wneh having more than 60% of professionalism, you don't even lose manpower).

 

[Mindel]

I think monetary cost has little to do with this. To make army professional, all your soldiers need to get drilled. Force limit is used instead of actual army size to avoid exploitation (disband most of armies - drill - get maximum professionalism - recruit professionals; if your are disbanding wneh having more than 60% of professionalism, you don't even lose manpower).

No one was suggesting the use of army size to determine professionalism gain. The question is which force limit should be used.

 

[annulen]

My suggestion is to use unmodified force limit or army size, whichever is bigger.

 

[AirikrStrife]

When you have a small force limit around 5-40 units based only development, it's rather easy to maintain it, thus if you're not fighting to often keeping high drilling going, especially if you pick economic ideas.

You pick quality ideas and get +50% force limit, now lets just stick to that we have a coutnry with a force limit of 20 from dev constantly. An economicaly well rounded coutnry will have no problem fielding 20 units at that point, even 21-22 will probably work out, with the cost of going over force limit being the main reason no to at this point.

You get +50% force limit you can instantly have 30 units and will probably be able to have field about 25, especially with the reduced cost of units you get form quality ideas. You are now rather easily getting more than 100% professionalism (granted it depends on how often you fight wars)

if you get economic and quantity as your first 2 ideas, and pick the policy they have giving an additional 10% force limit. with a development force limit of 20 you have 32 in actual, which you will be able to maintain with both economic and quality ideas. Build some regimental camps (which are also discounted from eco ideas) you increase your force limit by a flat 2 based on autonomy (not sure of force limt percentage matters here). you can easily get a de facto force limit of 40, while having a development force limit of 20, and unless you're economy is tanking from big wars or other reason you be able to keep 35-40 regiments.


If we take it on a bigger scale and say you have a force limit form development at 100k soldiers. Then you have +90% force limit (quality, policy, advisor) and an additional 10 from buildings you will have a de facto force limit of 200k and you probably be able to field around 150k of those troops, again easily drilling professionalism at 1.5 times the dev force limit if that is your priority. Even in many wars it is often easy to manage with say half that army and keep half the army drilling. Unlike smaller nation which would rarely be able to spare many of their troops in the homeland to drill when in any significant war.

I agree that there could be a case for making it easier for big nations to get professionalism, but I think your proposed solution is very easily exploitable,

 

[Mindel]

When you have a small force limit around 5-40 units based only development, it's rather easy to maintain it, thus if you're not fighting to often keeping high drilling going, especially if you pick economic ideas.

You pick quality ideas and get +50% force limit, now lets just stick to that we have a coutnry with a force limit of 20 from dev constantly. An economicaly well rounded coutnry will have no problem fielding 20 units at that point, even 21-22 will probably work out, with the cost of going over force limit being the main reason no to at this point.

You get +50% force limit you can instantly have 30 units and will probably be able to have field about 25, especially with the reduced cost of units you get form quality ideas. You are now rather easily getting more than 100% professionalism (granted it depends on how often you fight wars)

if you get economic and quantity as your first 2 ideas, and pick the policy they have giving an additional 10% force limit. with a development force limit of 20 you have 32 in actual, which you will be able to maintain with both economic and quality ideas. Build some regimental camps (which are also discounted from eco ideas) you increase your force limit by a flat 2 based on autonomy (not sure of force limt percentage matters here). you can easily get a de facto force limit of 40, while having a development force limit of 20, and unless you're economy is tanking from big wars or other reason you be able to keep 35-40 regiments.


If we take it on a bigger scale and say you have a force limit form development at 100k soldiers. Then you have +90% force limit (quality, policy, advisor) and an additional 10 from buildings you will have a de facto force limit of 200k and you probably be able to field around 150k of those troops, again easily drilling professionalism at 1.5 times the dev force limit if that is your priority. Even in many wars it is often easy to manage with say half that army and keep half the army drilling. Unlike smaller nation which would rarely be able to spare many of their troops in the homeland to drill when in any significant war.

I agree that there could be a case for making it easier for big nations to get professionalism, but I think your proposed solution is very easily exploitable,

None of this changes the fact that if you have 100k developmental force limit, then you have to drill 100k worth of troops continually to get +1 professionalism per year. This has nothing to do with whether you decide to build your nation around getting a larger force limit beyond that. I don't see any exploit.

 

[Mindel]

My suggestion is to use unmodified force limit or army size, whichever is bigger.

This isn't very different from the original suggestion itself (which proposes unmodified force limit).

 

[annulen]

My version helps large nations which focus on quality instead of quantity but have to pick unneeded force limit bonus (in particular when filling Offensive ideas), but penalizes large countries which go over limit.

 

[Mindel]

My version helps large nations which focus on quality instead of quantity but have to pick unneeded force limit bonus (in particular when filling Offensive ideas), but penalizes large countries which go over limit.

I think it's a reasonable approach. But I think this level of detail is better left for the devs to decide if they actually decide to adopt using developmental force limit as the standard of measure.

 

[AirikrStrife]

None of this changes the fact that if you have 100k developmental force limit, then you have to drill 100k worth of troops continually to get +1 professionalism per year. This has nothing to do with whether you decide to build your nation around getting a larger force limit beyond that. I don't see any exploit.

Current system: benefits smaller nations, giving them a chance to compete with nation that can field bigger armies by virute of having better armies

Your proposal: benefits bigger nations, nations that can already field bigger armies will now also easier get a quality edge over smaller nation

 

[Mindel]

Current system: benefits smaller nations, giving them a chance to compete with nation that can field bigger armies by virute of having better armies

Your proposal: benefits bigger nations, nations that can already field bigger armies will now also easier get a quality edge over smaller nation

My proposal is actually that professionalism is grown according the the size of the nation. What this means is that it does not penalize nations for getting force limit bonuses in addition. This applies to all nations, small or large.

 

[AirikrStrife]

No it doesn't, it makes it easier for countries picking quanity and other force limit bonuses to get even more army professionalism.

 

[Mindel]

No it doesn't, it makes it easier for countries picking quanity and other force limit bonuses to get even more army professionalism.

No, this is false. Your bonuses have nothing to do with how many troops you have to drill to get professionalism. That was the point.

 

[AirikrStrife]

You have country A, they have 20 force limit from development, they need 20 troops to drill at 100% professionalism gain

You have country B, they have 20 force limit form development, but they also picked quantitive ideas so they have a force limit of 30. Country B will be able to have 25 units drilling and will drill at 120% professionalism gain.

Where am I worng?

 

[Mindel]

You have country A, they have 20 force limit from development, they need 20 troops to drill at 100% professionalism gain

You have country B, they have 20 force limit form development, but they also picked quantitive ideas so they have a force limit of 30. Country B will be able to have 25 units drilling and will drill at 120% professionalism gain.

Where am I worng?

The part where you assume they have 120% professionalism gain. I mentioned in the proposal that we could cap off yearly gain at 100%, even if you drill more than the required number of troops.

In fact, your example makes me think that my proposal actually potentially offers a huge unintended benefit to small nations, if we don't put a cap on growth. A small nation can get force limit bonuses and then grow professionalism at insane speeds without it costing much cash, because in the end even double force limit may not be many troops.

So yeah, we should definitely put in a growth cap. To make it fair for larger nations.

 

[Mindel]

You have country A, they have 20 force limit from development, they need 20 troops to drill at 100% professionalism gain

You have country B, they have 20 force limit form development, but they also picked quantitive ideas so they have a force limit of 30. Country B will be able to have 25 units drilling and will drill at 120% professionalism gain.

Where am I worng?

Also, your math. 25/20 is 125%