Retinue point system is broken

[The_Blind_One]

Hey folks,

The cost to maintain a unit determines the cost of the retinue. (found in defines.lua)

Light infantry only costs 1 maintenance and thus only costs 1 retinue point. (you can hire a retinue of 500 light infantry for 500 retinue points)
Heavy infantry costs 2 maintenance and thus costs 2 retinue points. (you can hire a retinue of 500 heavy infantry for 1000 retinue points)
Knights cost 4 maintenance and thus costs you 4 retinue points. (you can hire 500 knights for 2000 retinue points)

But here's the kicker...

assuming you have level 5 retinue recruitment (50% of levy) at end game...

1000 infantry levy yields you 500 real light infantry and 500 retinue points
1000 knights levy yields you 500 real knights and 500 retinue points

like really...500 knights only yields 500 retinue points? you can only get 125 knights back for that...

spamming cheap light infantry at end game is apperantly better because you can convert even peasants into knights on a 4 to 1 ratio...however turning knights into knights seems to be counterproductive on the same magnitude.

I stumbled upon this problem when trying to balance the cost of armies and noticing that increasing their maintenance cost; increased their retinue point cost of said unit by the same. However the cost of a unit does not effect the retinue points given when it is taken away by the retinue system. Thus making it impossible to raise the cost of maintaining armies without increasing the retinue point cost (not the hiring or reinforcing cost).

I'll show with an example

Lets say I changed the maintenance of light infantry to 2. Their retinue point cost will also raise to 2 per soldier.

With the same 50% retinue max setup.

1000 light infantry would yield me 500 light infantry and 500 retinue points. However, I can only buy 250 light infantry because each infantry costs 2 retinue points now, but only gives 1 if it is taken away by the system.

Hope this makes it a bit more clear for people what I am trying to convey.

P.S

Plz paradox give us the ability to control retinue point cost!!!

oh and add the ability to add triggers to the retinue subunits. I want to make religion specific only retinue sub units. Muslim Ghazis RAWR!!!!

 

[ziamatt]

So if I'm reading this right, your problem is essentially that all retinue points are equal? The points generated by 1000 knights is the same as the points generated by 1000 light infantry, so you might as well focus on building up light infantry levies because they can be built up cheaper and quicker; this allows you to build up retinue points cheaper and faster than focusing on building up levies of other units. Since the points are equal and generated by the same calculation the cheap, fast retinue points are just as good for recruiting knights as points generated by any other levies that are more expensive and harder to produce.

 

[The_Blind_One]

So if I'm reading this right, your problem is essentially that all retinue points are equal? The points generated by 1000 knights is the same as the points generated by 1000 light infantry, so you might as well focus on building up light infantry levies because they can be built up cheaper and quicker; this allows you to build up retinue points cheaper and faster than focusing on building up levies of other units. Since the points are equal and generated by the same calculation the cheap, fast retinue points are just as good for recruiting knights as points generated by any other levies that are more expensive and harder to produce.

Exactly

To be more precise, your retinue is based on max total realm power multiplied by the recruitment efficiency of your realm. So it doesn't matter wether you have a 1000 infantry or 1000 knights as your realm power, they all provide the same amount of retinue points.

But more annoyingly, it makes it impossible to increase the maintenance cost of troops without raising their retinue point cost, and thus breaking the system even more by making any soldier worth even less when it is recruited into the retinue...

If I doubled the maintenance cost, it literaly means you only get half as much possible soldiers to spend on retinue (because they all cost 2x more retinue points) despite the realm manpower not decreasing at all.