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.

 

[AirikrStrife]

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

That's not how the system currently is, and also in OP you mention that as a possibility but not the one you prefer

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.

So any nation that pick quanity ideas will get a huge bonus

 

[MatthewP]

Here’s my issue: basically the objection is that there is a tradeoff of getting the (very strong) force limit bonuses in that they make it tougher to maintain a high quality professional army. The premise is that this tradeoff needs to be fixed, but I think the tradeoff is a good thing both thematically and in terms of gameplay.

 

[Mindel]

That's not how the system currently is, and also in OP you mention that as a possibility but not the one you prefer


So any nation that pick quanity ideas will get a huge bonus

I left it open as a possibility, because it was not the point of the original post (which was to propose a different standard of measure) and because I hadn't thought through the consequences of either way. I did kind of suspect that having no caps might lead to exploits.

But now you've convinced me that it skews the field in favor of small nations. So I would definitely support having a cap. Large nations can take quantity, but it takes a fortune to maintain 2x a huge army, which means a fortune to drill. Small nations can double percentages on the cheap, and so it actually buffs them much more.

Anyways, are you saying that you have no further objections if we include a cap?

 

[AirikrStrife]

Here’s my issue: basically the objection is that there is a tradeoff of getting the (very strong) force limit bonuses in that they make it tougher to maintain a high quality professional army. The premise is that this tradeoff needs to be fixed, but I think the tradeoff is a good thing both thematically and in terms of gameplay.

I agree, that seems to be the design

my understanding of Op is that they want quality not to make it harder to gain professionalism but to balance it out, but in reality quantity will make it easier to et high professionalism, even if capped at 1 per yearly gain

 

[Mindel]

I agree, that seems to be the design

my understanding of Op is that they want quality not to make it harder to gain professionalism but to balance it out, but in reality quality will make it easier to et high professionalism, even if capped at 1 per yearly gain

You are really confusing everything by saying "quality" every time you mean quantity. Can you go fix it in your posts?

 

[Mindel]

but in reality quality will make it easier to et high professionalism, even if capped at 1 per yearly gain

I don't see how you still believe this idea.

 

[AirikrStrife]

I left it open as a possibility, because it was not the point of the original post (which was to propose a different standard of measure) and because I hadn't thought through the consequences of either way. I did kind of suspect that having no caps might lead to exploits.

But now you've convinced me that it skews the field in favor of small nations. So I would definitely support having a cap. Large nations can take quantity, but it takes a fortune to maintain 2x a huge army, which means a fortune to drill. Small nations can double percentages on the cheap, and so it actually buffs them much more.

Anyways, are you saying that you have no further objections if we include a cap?

Well I'm not the one you need convincing, but for me the problem is that even with a cap, quantity ideas will make it easier to gain professionalism,

 

[Mindel]

Well I'm not the one you need convincing, but for me the problem is that even with a cap, quantity ideas will make it easier to gain professionalism,

I see nothing to support this conclusion.

 

[AirikrStrife]

I don't see how you still believe this idea.

With quantity ideas it will always be easier to field an army larger than the base force limit

Even if it is caped at 1 professionalism per year Quanity gives the following:
50% force limit which means you will be able to go over development cap without duffering extra cost
reduced unit cost and maintainance will make troops cheaper to have, increased manpower will also help keeping a larger army constantly, the whole point of quanity is to enlarge your army over normal size

country A has a force limit of 6 and can afford 6 units and drill them maybe even 7 but now it's not needed
country B also has a force limit of 6 from development but picks quantity and gets a FL of 9, also chaper troops, it will be less of an effort maintaining 6 units drilling

 

[Mindel]

Here’s my issue: basically the objection is that there is a tradeoff of getting the (very strong) force limit bonuses in that they make it tougher to maintain a high quality professional army. The premise is that this tradeoff needs to be fixed, but I think the tradeoff is a good thing both thematically and in terms of gameplay.

I feel the real issue here is something deeper than the drilling mechanic being discussed.

The problem is that a tiny nation can drill for some decades and gain professionalism at a steady rate. Then if said nation becomes larger, it suddenly can field a large professional army. In contrast, a nation that started large might not be drilling as much because it costs more, and ends up with a less professional army than the small nation that grew up later. Professionalism shouldn't scale in this way.

I think this is where the (lack of) tradeoff issue really lives, and it doesn't (and shouldn't) have much to do with force limit bonuses at all. To fix this, we would need to do something about nations losing professionalism when they gain development (which I am not addressing in this thread).

 

[Mindel]

it will be less of an effort maintaining 6 units drilling

It is less effort drilling only because of land maintenance bonuses. As it should be. Not because of force limit bonuses, which do not discount the cost of drilling your 6 units.

 

[Mindel]

Here’s my issue: basically the objection is that there is a tradeoff of getting the (very strong) force limit bonuses in that they make it tougher to maintain a high quality professional army. The premise is that this tradeoff needs to be fixed, but I think the tradeoff is a good thing both thematically and in terms of gameplay.

A point I want to make is that a force limit bonus is not the same thing as a large army. The bonus is merely the logistical potential to field such an army, which may not even exist yet.

It makes no sense to me that a country with more logistical potential should have more difficulty professionalizing their 5k army than a country of comparable development and army size with high autonomy and no military bonuses. You would end up getting dragged down by non-existent troops.

 

[MatthewP]

I feel the real issue here is something deeper than the drilling mechanic being discussed.

The problem is that a tiny nation can drill for some decades and gain professionalism at a steady rate. Then if said nation becomes larger, it suddenly can field a large professional army. In contrast, a nation that started large might not be drilling as much because it costs more, and ends up with a less professional army than the small nation that grew up later. Professionalism shouldn't scale in this way.

I think this is where the (lack of) tradeoff issue really lives, and it doesn't (and shouldn't) have much to do with force limit bonuses at all. To fix this, we would need to do something about nations losing professionalism when they gain development (which I am not addressing in this thread).

Sure, I agree that’s unrealistic. But I don’t see it as a gameplay problem. There are so many advantages to being large in EU4. No one is deliberately staying small to grow their professionalism a little more cheaply except as a self-imposed fun/challenge thing.

A point I want to make is that a force limit bonus is not the same thing as a large army. The bonus is merely the logistical potential to field such an army, which may not even exist yet.

It makes no sense to me that a country with more logistical potential should have more difficulty professionalizing their 5k army than a country of comparable development and army size with high autonomy and no military bonuses. You would end up getting dragged down by non-existent troops.

Of course, it should be easier to professionalize the fewer troops you have compared to your pool, not the other way around. But that would be poor game design and easily exploitable. It’s basically the same issue you pointed out where you then build some more troops (say, 50x as many) and they stay equally professional.

edit: we can posit a completely new system where professionalism is tracked on a unit level or something and can be made more intuitive. But it’s not going to happen in EU4.

 

[AirikrStrife]

I feel the real issue here is something deeper than the drilling mechanic being discussed.

The problem is that a tiny nation can drill for some decades and gain professionalism at a steady growth. Then if said nation becomes larger, it suddenly can field a large professional army. In contrast, a nation that started large might not be drilling as much because it costs more, and ends up with a less professional army than the small nation that grew up later.

I think this is where the (lack of) tradeoff issue really lives, and it doesn't (and shouldn't) have much to do with force limit bonuses at all.

Now this makes some sense, but I have a hard time seeing this really becoming reality. I don't play MP, but that's where exploits and meta becomes competitive on another level. Probably in competitive multiplayer people would prevent this form becoming a thing
In SP I don't see it as an issue if small nations get high professionalism as they're anyway easy to beat if you are larger than them and have any military idea as long as your tech group isn't a much weaker one. And vice verse if you play small in the beginning you loose out on getting development, in general in SP army size beats quality unless you go for space marines.
Also professionalism's maybe most important use is for slack recuitment standard, even if you don't drill but just get professionalism from buying generals it's quite powerful thing.

I still think the idea have been running into obstacles where it doesn't necessarily sovle any problems.

Basing professionalism gain on unmodified force limit without a cap buffs larger nations
Adding the cap still buffs nations picking quantity, and unless the explicit goal is to make quantity a better idea I don't see the point.

I could see some merit to the idea of making professionalism less contingent on the force limit, but if it's done in ways that explicitly buffs quality ideas solely (and well kinda any economic idea, but that was already a thing).

I

 

[Mindel]

edit: we can posit a completely new system where professionalism is tracked on a unit level or something and can be made more intuitive. But it’s not going to happen in EU4.

I was actually going to make a remark to this effect. But in fact this already exists. It is called unit drill. All we would have to do is jettison "professionalism" as a national quantity.

Personally, I think the devs wouldn't want to go for that, and I would rather have it tied to some combination of mil tech, the right idea groups (i.e. quality, innovative), and innovativeness, rather than continual drilling. The point being that it would be better if professionalism growth were army-size independent.

 

[Mindel]

Sure, I agree that’s unrealistic. But I don’t see it as a gameplay problem. There are so many advantages to being large in EU4. No one is deliberately staying small to grow their professionalism a little more cheaply except as a self-imposed fun/challenge thing.

Well, it may not be a gameplay problem in the sense that large nations tend to squash small nations anyway, professionalism notwithstanding. So it doesn't much matter how the mechanic works.

But it is a gameplay problem in the sense it actually happens in practice, a lot. Not that people are deliberately staying small. But if you are a playing a OPM in the HRE or something similar, then you are usually spending a few initial decades planning and waiting for your opportunity, while drilling up your army. Meanwhile, Castile and Poland will be busy fighting and conquering stuff, so no time for drilling.

 

[AirikrStrife]

one way to modify it would be to have army drill gain also affect professionalism. Not sure how it be balanced right now as I odn't now all the drill gain modifiers (they quite rare though as they're part of dlc)

Basically if you have +25% drill gain, all troops drilling gains +25% more professionalism.
Looking at wiki though it be a bit unbalanced as it is now, the main access to this modifier would be the standard decision 40% drill gain for +15% maintainance)
some missions, sikh gurus and ambras castle. I think there are also events giving drill modifier sometimes, and also janissarys have +100 drill which would mean they give twice as much professionalism from drilling (so if you get your entire force limit of janissaries and drill them you'd get +2 professionalism per year)

It could work but would need a lot of trying out and tweaking and making drill gain more accessible (at least smaler bonuses)

Otherwise originally it was supposed to give professionalism from building certain military buildings, but it was scrapped before release for reasons I don't remember. That would rather have the effect of letting large countries gain more professionalism as they'd be able to build more buildings