Regular and Irregular Armies

[Mad King James]

I think armies should be made up of two types of troops, irregulars and regulars.

Irregulars are mobilized from provinces a la CK and their size is based on that province's terrain and income, while their composition is based on your DP settings and the province's terrain type.

Irregular infantry is the worst infantry (militia basically) but irregular cavalry should have better shock value than regular cavalry, because these are heavily armored aristocrats. Irregulars get only half the benefits of technology, though early game when few technologies are out there they are just as good as your regular troops, and are armed with a random assortment of weapon techs.

Once you get the requisite technology (see my posts on technology), you should be able to build regular infantry and cavalry right out of your manpower pool, who are armed with your best weapons, though the cavalry is lighter than irregular cavalry, they are armed with guns while irregular cavalry is not, and you can garrison them in barracks to mobilize in wartime, allowing you to have increasingly large armies not dependent on nobles and levies.

Irregulars should have other drawbacks as well, as they should have 30% attrition at harvest time, while regular troops do not. Regular army forces should be quite expensive however, and after the wars are over a smart ruler would scale back his regular army significantly, if he didn't get rid of it altogether.

 

[Shadow Knight]

Cool idea, anyway to extend this to navies? Weren't the earliest navies just nations/city states merchant ships armed for war?

 

[Mad King James]

That's a good idea, if you're at war an irregular navy should appear based on how many merchants and privateers you support. They shouldn't be very good though, and a regular navy galleon should be able to take on an entire fleet of them and win.

 

[Duuk]

With CK (and Two Thrones ) having "divided" armies, I'd like to see several new "classes" of army, each being allowed by certain levels of techs.

That would also be wonderful so that "native" armies would have their own group, and it would even be possible to "raise" a native army, should my colonial policies be worthy (France/7 Years War, Anyone?)

 

[unmerged(15764)]

I think armies should be made up of two types of troops, irregulars and regulars.

Irregulars are mobilized from provinces a la CK and their size is based on that province's terrain and income, while their composition is based on your DP settings and the province's terrain type.

Irregular infantry is the worst infantry (militia basically) but irregular cavalry should have better shock value than regular cavalry, because these are heavily armored aristocrats. Irregulars get only half the benefits of technology, though early game when few technologies are out there they are just as good as your regular troops, and are armed with a random assortment of weapon techs.

Once you get the requisite technology (see my posts on technology), you should be able to build regular infantry and cavalry right out of your manpower pool, who are armed with your best weapons, though the cavalry is lighter than irregular cavalry, they are armed with guns while irregular cavalry is not, and you can garrison them in barracks to mobilize in wartime, allowing you to have increasingly large armies not dependent on nobles and levies.

Irregulars should have other drawbacks as well, as they should have 30% attrition at harvest time, while regular troops do not. Regular army forces should be quite expensive however, and after the wars are over a smart ruler would scale back his regular army significantly, if he didn't get rid of it altogether.

definately something to be discussed further but i dislike the idea of having to click mobilize in all my provinces a'la ck.

Something along the lines of an irregular manpower pool with quick buildable troops , over time you could perhaps encourage some of these veterans to gain better stats.

Say i have an army of 7500 irregs, i fight a successful campaign putting down the evil danish ;P. As i fight more battles i lose 50% but alot of my soldiers excel a small percentage now land in my trained manpower pool? or i can choose to outfit these with more expensive equipment in the army unit?

 

[unmerged(15764)]

That's a good idea, if you're at war an irregular navy should appear based on how many merchants and privateers you support. They shouldn't be very good though, and a regular navy galleon should be able to take on an entire fleet of them and win.

Is it not so that in the earlier days of naval war merchant ships were sometimes outfitted with more guns,armour and soldiers and used in battles? i think it's is a good idea as well definately.

 

[Mad King James]

How did you miss the grand mobilization button in CK?

 

[unmerged(15764)]

hahah dammit i forgot about that sorry but i still got alot of different armies each having a leader i did not assign wouldnt pooling them be a more intuative system?

 

[Mad King James]

This isn't the 20th century we're talking about, and countries that relied on irregular forces usually had big problems mobilizing all their forces in time. The biggest attraction about regular armies is they were always ready to go and fight, and you didn't have to gather small battallions from across the entire country into a coherent army.

 

[unmerged(15764)]

But this is all represented by time it takes to raise your irregular army, I am thinking of making the whole system more quick and easy why make something you would do anyway - amass your irregulars in a larger army or two, take more mouseclicks use more system resources?

I just decide i want to raise an irregular army in this place along goes the horsemen to the farms time goes then i have more or less the 10,000 i order ready to fight?

 

[George LeS]

That's a good idea, if you're at war an irregular navy should appear based on how many merchants and privateers you support. They shouldn't be very good though, and a regular navy galleon should be able to take on an entire fleet of them and win.

Not too bad, though. Most of the ships mobilized against the Armada were privately owned, IIRC. (My library is in chaos right now, alas).

Another thing, working in the opposite direction, is that manning fleets should cost. Not just paying & feeding the sailors, but the cost of taking them from trade & fisheries. This could be handled quite abstractly; just have 2 limits instead of one -- a lower one which is suitable for peacetime, another for war. The lower one, if exceeded, that is, when you mobilize, would entail not so much higher payments from the treasury, but lower trade efficiency, & perhaps higher RR (food prices rising).

 

[Tamerlan]

I think armies should be made up of two types of troops, irregulars and regulars.

Agreed at 150% on that.

On the rest, I would say that irregulars (mercenaries ) should be frequent, not that expensive to hire, but should loot all provinces (including yours and your allied). They should be paid normally. If they don't loot a new province during a month, there should be a random chance that they disapear OR they transform into rebels.

And it would be cool to be able to buy rebels in your or your ennemy territory and transform them into mercenaries.

 

[Mad King James]

Ok say we've got China, who can raise a half million man irregular army, and Navarra, who can raise maybe 5000 men if it was a good year. China and Navarra can raise 5000 men in the same amount of time because Beijing and Navarra provinces can probably raise the same number of troops. The Chinese can probably raise 20,000 in only a month or two, but it would probably take all year to mobilize that half a million men.

If we make mobilizing irregulars take half a year, then Navarra makes no sense, if they are immediately accessible then China doesn't.

The only way to do this with the pool system would be to drain provinces individually of forces which take x months to accumulate into the army, in which case why not just have CK style armies?

 

[Captain Frakas]

I really support this idea.

(but i prefers tree types :

Feudals
Dogs of war
Regulars)

 

[unmerged(15764)]

Ok say we've got China, who can raise a half million man irregular army, and Navarra, who can raise maybe 5000 men if it was a good year. China and Navarra can raise 5000 men in the same amount of time because Beijing and Navarra provinces can probably raise the same number of troops. The Chinese can probably raise 20,000 in only a month or two, but it would probably take all year to mobilize that half a million men.

If we make mobilizing irregulars take half a year, then Navarra makes no sense, if they are immediately accessible then China doesn't.

The only way to do this with the pool system would be to drain provinces individually of forces which take x months to accumulate into the army, in which case why not just have CK style armies?

The amount of time taken to mobilize the troops would be exponential less troops less time

 

[Mad King James]

Think about it: I want to build half a million men, I can raise chunks of 5000 immediately, but 6 months for all of them. Oh I know! I'll just build 100 5000 man armies and merge them :wacko:

Also, they are irregulars because you don't pick what you get. You get a motley assortment of whatever weapons happen to exist in the provinces they come from, which in colonial irregulars will be pretty slim pickings.

 

[unmerged(15764)]

but then you would still have to move them together and that would take 6 months you wouldnt be able to build them in the same province?so really it doesnt matter how you do it.. it would be the same thing

 

[Mad King James]

While your idea is less messy, it still fails to address the issue of: how can we have immediately mobilizable irregulars that still take a long time to amass?

The CK army is the obvious choice.

 

[unmerged(15764)]

While your idea is less messy, it still fails to address the issue of: how can we have immediately mobilizable irregulars that still take a long time to amass?

The CK army is the obvious choice.

true but is it more realistic? i raise milita in london and over a day i get 10000 battle ready troops?

 

[Mad King James]

MERCENARIES:

I think there should be a mercenary pool in every region which has its own benefits and drawbacks, costs, equipment, quality, etc, which you can access and then pick and choose which mercenary outfit to hire.

Mercenaries should be in the middle in terms of quality and upkeep costs between regular army and irregular army, and until you can build regular army should be your best option for quality military forces.

If you don't pay them enough however, they should still fight for you but reappear in the mercenary pool, and if your enemy hires them they should switch sides.

For instance there should be mercenary companies out there that are just as good as regular army, and some like the Landsknechts should actually be better than all but the best regular army soldiers. Generic mercs should be middling between irregular and regular though.