State Firearm Regiments

[SonofWinter]

Does this increase the cost of all maintenance by +15% or by an extra +15% when the troops are drilling?

And if it is for all maintenance, does anyone actually take this decision, if they are fighting wars, pretty regularly?

 

[PDXJon]

I’ll take it if I’m making good money. It helps a little bit if there are lulls in fighting. Drill some before fighting again. I used to take it because I thought it increased the rate of gaining professionalism while drilling. The 15% cost is constant.

 

[Less2]

The penalty is active all the time. It's an awful trap decision.

 

[SonofWinter]

The penalty is active all the time. It's an awful trap decision.

Ok, so no one actually takes it, I have never taken it, why haven't they fixed it/patched it, or something?

 

[bokorthedust]

The extra drill gain on your armies is nice because you can replenish it faster between wars, and if you are big enough you can easily swallow the cost to make your troops fight better. I usually always take it. People just drill for the professionalism, but drilled regiments also receive up to +10% shock and fire damage, and -25% shock and fire damage taken, the scale dependent on their level of drill, and the average drill of the army (stack) can give up to +20% movement speed, which is hugely underrated. It's anything but a trap decision.

 

[Blust]

After 1600, you're making so much money that +15% land maintenance isn't much of an issue, especially when it can gives your armies bonus and free manpower

 

[SonofWinter]

After 1600, you're making so much money that +15% land maintenance isn't much of an issue, especially when it can gives your armies bonus and free manpower

There is another decision at 40% professionalism for an additional 10% I think, so it starts to be a very expensive proposition over time.

 

[Less2]

After 1600, you're making so much money that +15% land maintenance isn't much of an issue, especially when it can gives your armies bonus and free manpower

After 1600 you should be hiring so many troops that the AI doesn't fight you. The benefit of drilling is small and the benefit of a fractionally quicker drilling is infinitesimal.

 

[grisamentum]

Many people don't understand how valuable -% damage taken is. It's absolutely one of the strongest modifiers in the game, and there aren't many sources of it. Maxing your drill level means your troops are much, much stronger than undrilled troops because they will take fewer casualties in each phase, then do more damage in the next phase, etc.

 

[Less2]

Many people don't understand how valuable -% damage taken is. It's absolutely one of the strongest modifiers in the game, and there aren't many sources of it. Maxing your drill level means your troops are much, much stronger than undrilled troops because they will take fewer casualties in each phase, then do more damage in the next phase, etc.

No, it really isn't. It's one of the worst modifiers in the game since it doesn't affect morale, which means it does practically nothing to actually win battles rather than just provide a very small manpower savings. -20% damage taken might be worth like 5% discipline.

To use State firearms regiments to maximum effectiveness you'd have to fight a battle immediately after reaching 100% drill (otherwise a player without the modifier can just drill longer and catch up), at which point you only have 29% more drill (because the player without the modifier is at 71% drill) which = -2.9% damage received advantage over them which might equate to about +0.8% discipline if you're lucky. That's being as generous as I can to the modifier, in reality and under practical conditions its far, far worse.

 

[annulen]

Does this increase the cost of all maintenance by +15% or by an extra +15% when the troops are drilling?

And if it is for all maintenance, does anyone actually take this decision, if they are fighting wars, pretty regularly?

I took it when I was playing for Lübeck and had just a few wars until 1500. With low force limit and quite decent income from trade, I was drilling all time and before each war my soldiers were almost completely drilled. However, it's quite painful to revert this decision later as it imposes penalty to professionalism.

 

[Less2]

I took it when I was playing for Lübeck and had just a few wars until 1500. With low force limit and quite decent income from trade, I was drilling all time and before each war my soldiers were almost completely drilled. However, it's quite painful to revert this decision later as it imposes penalty to professionalism.

Rather than pay 15% more for your troops you can just go 7% over your forcelimit to pay the same amount for a better combat result.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

After 1600 you should be hiring so many troops that the AI doesn't fight you. The benefit of drilling is small and the benefit of a fractionally quicker drilling is infinitesimal.

That's one thing, but the bigger issue is that drilling implies paying for an army while not being at war. It also just implies not being at war for extended periods.

To get 100% drill, the default time is 10 years. That's 10 years of that army not fighting rebels, not moving, not suppressing rebels, and worst of all not operating to get you more territory, at full maintenance. It's hard to imagine many scenarios where this is possibly worthwhile, other than isolated native councils that are truce locked. If you're the type to roll up a random new world and pick something that will be colonized slower than Australia, by all means drill up until you reform into a horde. But for nearly every position in EU 4, you can almost certainly be doing something better with your nation's time, money, or both.

Drilling also is lost from attrition, and does nothing to help you siege...which is how most wars after very early game are won.

Professionalism is useful. If you want it, spam generals.

 

[Blust]

Professionalism gives up to +10% shock/fire dmg and +20% siege ability, which you can combine with drilling an army to give it an additional +10% shock/fire dmg, -25% shock/fire dmg received and +20% movement speed.

So yeah it's not as broken as +20% morale and +10% discipline, but it gives nice buff when you'd rather go quality than quantity. And paying a bit more of army maintenance for getting these bonii faster isn't a bad trade, specially when you get increased army drill and reduced drill loss. And like I said, +15% army maintenance when you're past cutting the corner for money is insignificant.

 

[annulen]

But "State Firearm Regiments" doesn't affect professionalism at all - it only improves drill gain.

 

[grisamentum]

To get 100% drill, the default time is 10 years. That's 10 years of that army not fighting rebels, not moving, not suppressing rebels, and worst of all not operating to get you more territory, at full maintenance.

This is overstating it quite a bit. You can certainly take a 1-3 month drilling break to go smush rebels, and still drill for other months while you're waiting for a specific reason.

Should you drill to 100% before every war? Of course not. But it's very silly to say there aren't significant downtime periods where your army doesn't anything better to do. The real question, as you rightly point out, is should you be paying for your army at all during this time? I would say when you are manpower blocked, especially early in the game where you don't necessarily have a few hundred mil to spare just for manpower, drilling is a good way to conserve your early game manpower through fewer battle casualties. Later in the game it's an important part of the first round alpha strike outcome.

Drilling also is lost from attrition, and does nothing to help you siege...which is how most wars after very early game are won.

Everyone knows that's what the Free Company is for

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Later in the game it's an important part of the first round alpha strike outcome.

This is incredibly dubious for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is that forts make a meaningful alpha strike impossible, and you are almost universally better served immediately sieging for 2nd half of the game (usually sooner). You can wipe 100s of regiments, but you still need to put down at least one fort to take land. However, you can also put down forts without fighting much/at all and take land while wiping 0 regiment.

Early game is when alpha strikes are more likely to be relevant, before the AI kneecaps itself building initial level 3 forts.

Paying that much cash for drilling is pretty rough regardless.

 

[grisamentum]

This is incredibly dubious for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is that forts make a meaningful alpha strike impossible, and you are almost universally better served immediately sieging for 2nd half of the game (usually sooner). You can wipe 100s of regiments, but you still need to put down at least one fort to take land. However, you can also put down forts without fighting much/at all and take land while wiping 0 regiment.

Well sure but by that line of reasoning, nothing matters except siege ability and manpower... which is true to an extent, yeah. But in order to siege you have to be able to win a battle on a fort, unless you've otherwise gamed the AI into not fighting you (which is definitely possible, yeah).

Rather than pay 15% more for your troops you can just go 7% over your forcelimit to pay the same amount for a better combat result.

This is a pretty silly way to look at it, though. An extra 7% over your FL is very likely 5 or fewer regiments, and very likely to be CW capped.

Moreover, it's not even accurate, because you have to pay more to reinforce the additional regiments, they drain your MP faster, you'd take more casualties from more attrition overall, etc.

Conversely, if you had higher regiment drill, you'd pay actually less because you'd have to reinforce after fewer casualties, you'd drain your own MP less, you inflict more enemies casualties for potentially shorter wars, etc.

 

[Less2]

This is a pretty silly way to look at it, though. An extra 7% over your FL is very likely 5 or fewer regiments, and very likely to be CW capped.

Moreover, it's not even accurate, because you have to pay more to reinforce the additional regiments, they drain your MP faster, you'd take more casualties from more attrition overall, etc.

Conversely, if you had higher regiment drill, you'd pay actually less because you'd have to reinforce after fewer casualties, you'd drain your own MP less, you inflict more enemies casualties for potentially shorter wars, etc.

None of those factors is anything more than an insignificant rounding error to the final conclusion: 7% more infantry will be infinitely more powerful than roughly 0.8% more discipline. Which lasts for 1 battle that you can fight every few years.

Also it tends to be the case that the AI just doesn't fight you when you have enough troops, ergo you go over forcelimit and save manpower/money.

Also I'm pretty sure that +maintenance penalties also apply to reinforcement costs.

 

[grisamentum]

None of those factors is anything more than an insignificant rounding error to the final conclusion: 7% more infantry will be infinitely more powerful than roughly 0.8% more discipline. Which lasts for 1 battle that you can fight every few years.

Not sure why you keep repeating such goofy misinformation. The impact of -% damage received is multiplied on after all other multipliers, including Discipline. So if there is a +25% casualties multiplier from enemy Discipline, and I have -25% damage received, I'm not taking 100% casualties, I'm taking 93.75% casualties. For example another -10% damage taken means you're down to 81.25% casualties.

The modifier is in a league of its own because it's a completely separate calculation that happens after everything else. You can't even compare it to Discipline in that way.

Also I'm pretty sure that +maintenance penalties also apply to reinforcement costs.

Yes, but the whole point is that if you have 7% more FL, you are reinforcing more units, which itself costs more than the passive increase from exceeding your FL, because it's simply more men to reinforce in. The base of reinforcement cost is how many men you are sending back in. You're reinforcing them for more battle and attrition casualties, because you are taking more damage from less drilled units. Going 7% over FL and then paying to reinforce more casualties across your entire army is vastly more expensive than +15% to maintenance overall.