I have a distinct feeling this is all getting way too complicated for the game.
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Same, but do you see yourself ever playing a game from 1444 to 1821 if you have to carefully consider where to recruit which units, and redo it after every stackwipe?
You can try play in EU1 - this is simpler game than EU4. But - do you really want to remove mechanism from EU4, because is most complicated than EU1?
I remember times, when people cries that "Victoria is too complicated; How i can understand folks desires?; Why lumber mill isn't profitable in Sahara?". But few months later "Ok, I know how work economy and demography; I know why people hate high taxes and want social protection".
How speak in Germany - "Bung macht den Meister".
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I don't know on a provincial level but maybe on a per-state level, since if the national pool is gone, then that flat 10000 bonus (that makes small nations viable) no longer makes sense so you need a geographic unit large enough that you can recruit more than one unit every few years. If we give states manpower pools, then the religion and culture of a unit could be a percentage chance weighted by the manpower of a given culture and religion in that state (thus, the only way to predict 100% what a unit would have would be to have an entire state be uniform culture and religion, then the only way to build a sizable army with 100% prediction would be to have a lot of states like that; any decently large empire will have to diversify their army). The only thing I wonder is that would result in divisions that could theoretically not line up with a combination even present (say...English Protestants and Welsh Catholics in one state could theoretically make English Catholics or Welsh Protestants, though this is easy to justify if you point out that "religion" just means "dominant religion")
I assume by loyalty you mean that when separatists or zealots rise up, your units of that culture/religion rise up with them? In this rework, would this include professional units? Conscripts of course should rise up, but professionals is another matter. And it could be good stepping stone if you eventually want to build towards a real civil war mechanics, where different factions in the army align themselves with different pretenders based on culture, religion, traits (more tolerant rulers would get more support from non-primary culture units), etc.
Edit: that being said, I don't know that that's enough to justify it as is. I think the idea has potential but if you are going to add this degree of complexity you have to have a purpose behind it, and I'm not sure that's enough on its own. But there will probably be potential to the idea beyond what I can think of. I hope other people can think of ideas to use it beyond this.
I assume by loyalty you mean that when separatists or zealots rise up, your units of that culture/religion rise up with them? In this rework, would this include professional units? Conscripts of course should rise up, but professionals is another matter. And it could be good stepping stone if you eventually want to build towards a real civil war mechanics, where different factions in the army align themselves with different pretenders based on culture, religion, traits (more tolerant rulers would get more support from non-primary culture units), etc.
Edit: that being said, I don't know that that's enough to justify it as is. I think the idea has potential but if you are going to add this degree of complexity you have to have a purpose behind it, and I'm not sure that's enough on its own. But there will probably be potential to the idea beyond what I can think of. I hope other people can think of ideas to use it beyond this.
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Do you ever see you yourself putting any thought into which units to recruit to begin with?
Especially given the fact we can save army templates now, this is a non-issue at best.
I’m not sure I understand. You want the army template function to be able to determine which units can best be build in which provinces?
If it could - I should say I'm not sold on the idea of regimental culture/religion myself. Just that it was brought up by Moscal and was curious about ideas on how to refine it.
That said, I apologize; I believe I misunderstood your post as being again the idea of expanding army composition rather than being against the idea of culture/religion for regiments.
IMO - only connection from province and random will be good. You'll never be sure if elite guards is loyal to you or to pretender etc. Parameters of loyalty and similar isn't necessary. Why? This parameter would be only one-time use - will the unit join the rebels or not. EU4 don't have possibility of bribery armies (eg. polish siege of Marienbug 1457 was a success, because the defenders were bribed) or something other. New parameters should be more universal.
In rebels menu we should get info, that eg. 3 units can join to rebels or desert.
In rebels menu we should get info, that eg. 3 units can join to rebels or desert.
Now, that is a very valid and sensible idea. Then e.g. mercenaries could be of foreign culture and become disloyal from time to time...
To be fair, "EU4 doesn't have this feature", on the EU4 suggestions forum, isn't a great argument. Almost everything here by definition is not actually in game. Whether or not you want it added is another question...but if that is what it would take to make it work, there's nothing stopping us from hypothesizing a bribery mechanic. Who knows, something that logically relates to corruption might even come out of it.
But some things can (a priori) be considered possible and some as impossible. Eg. many types of troops in EU4 is possible but rocket-nuclear-holocaust in EU4 is impossible,
For ships maybe not all 500, but all even divisors of whatever land unit size you go with? So assuming 1000 man land units, you could have 500 (1000/2; this could be light ships?), 250 (1000/4; galleys?), and maybe 200 (1000/5; lowest should definitely be heavies). Giving all ships equal ability to transport doesn't sit right with me though. It's not realistic and diminshes the power I think especially that light ships should have.
Otherwise, at the end of the day though it doesn't really matter what specific size your units are. What's important is the normalized damage-manpower/combat width ratio, or damage/manpower * manpower/combat width ratio (the last part is there only as a formality since all units right now are one combat width wide; yes this is technically manpower/manpower but it makes it easy to see that's exactly why manpower is irrelevant - it drops out as 1/1). So you can raise manpower per combat width as long as you, say, reduce damage per manpower accordingly; a 500 man unit that does 4 damage per man per combat width is equivalent to a 1000 man unit that does 2 damage per man per combat width, but it doesn't really affect game balance at all (cost doesn't come into it because cost per man is an independent variable).
I suppose I am a fan of nice, round numbers though...
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I've also become a bit disillusioned with the warfare system here. Mostly with large armies lacking a general, having manpower magically teleport across hostile territory, as with supplies (lacking baggage trains, etc.), and so on. Also the unit rigidity with 1000 people, and when people die you end with unfilled regiments fighting, instead of what would naturally be a merging of remaining troops into full regiments. I am not sure how to better do this, but perhaps being able to split regiments and wait for equipment and manpower to fill it up again, allowing for easy merging and splitting, with rather supplies and manpower determining instead of cash as basis (equipment should cost money however). Hopefully they will completely redo how military works.
Another question which occurs to me: how would your army distribute these different unit types? Right now, cavalry goes on the sides and artillery in back, which is very simple to follow. With six unit types you open up far more complex combinations, however. Does the player have agency over this, either in general or via doctrines? Do conscripts go on the flanks, center, inside or outside of the cavalry? Where do cuirassiers go versus cavalry? Are skirmishes between the professionals and the conscripts, outside the conscripts but inside the horsemen, or even shooting from the back row (as a primitive sniper, which especially later on in the game would not be inaccurate)? Or should there be three rows, with professionals and conscripts up front, skirmishers behind, and cannons rearmost?
The words "simplicity" and "complicated" are getting thrown around a lot in this thread. I don't think anything mentioned in this thread is particularly complicated, especially since Victoria 2 already did a lot of it.
Specifically, Victoria 2 already has the soldier-officer distinction, regiments with cultures, and different types of infantry and cavalry. Unsurprisingly, it's also one of Paradox's better titles.
It worked extremely well in Victoria 2 because you could have situations where a lack of officers hampered your ability to wage war, allowed for countries like China to be conscript focused while countries like Prussia could be professional, the ability for soldiers from unhappy provinces to revolt, and to customize armies in a way that was more meaningful than ratios between armies, cavalries, and artillery. It wasn't a perfect system, but even at technological parity, the distinctions between Germany and Russia were real, as were the distinctions between China and Russia. Individual Chinese regiments melted, but their ability to raise cheap conscripts made it a far different strategy than what you'd see European armies using.
Specifically, Victoria 2 already has the soldier-officer distinction, regiments with cultures, and different types of infantry and cavalry. Unsurprisingly, it's also one of Paradox's better titles.
It worked extremely well in Victoria 2 because you could have situations where a lack of officers hampered your ability to wage war, allowed for countries like China to be conscript focused while countries like Prussia could be professional, the ability for soldiers from unhappy provinces to revolt, and to customize armies in a way that was more meaningful than ratios between armies, cavalries, and artillery. It wasn't a perfect system, but even at technological parity, the distinctions between Germany and Russia were real, as were the distinctions between China and Russia. Individual Chinese regiments melted, but their ability to raise cheap conscripts made it a far different strategy than what you'd see European armies using.
I’m just going to point out that skirmishers usually functioned as a screen, in front of the main infantry.
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