State Firearm Regiments

[TheMeInTeam]

Well sure but by that line of reasoning, nothing matters except siege ability and manpower

If we take the qualifier "late game wars", then it's more or less true. Player will be operating at or near 100 prestige, have plenty of army tradition, and likely 100 professionalism (via general spam) regardless. There will not be many nations even willing to engage a few armies of that stuff near each other.

Earlier combat prowess is more interesting, but so is money.

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.

The relative power added by 7% quantity increase vs 0.8% discipline is very much finite . But I would take more bodies rather than drilling any day.

 

[grisamentum]

If we take the qualifier "late game wars", then it's more or less true. Player will be operating at or near 100 prestige, have plenty of army tradition, and likely 100 professionalism (via general spam) regardless. There will not be many nations even willing to engage a few armies of that stuff near each other.

Earlier combat prowess is more interesting, but so is money.

Yes but that's completely outside of the scope of the thread topic, which is State Firearm Regiments. It goes away in what, 1645?

 

[Less2]

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.

But you don't have -25% damage received. You have -2.8%, at the highest, and you only have that if you limit your armies to fighting one battle every 3-5 years or so. I can make almost any modifier look good if I multiply it by 10x and then strip away such awful limitations that drilling has.

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.

5% discipline reduces your damage taken by 5%, increases your damage inflicted by 5%, decreases your morale damage taken by 5%, and increases your morale damage inflicted by 5%. Yes I can completely compare it to discipline and its much, much worse than discipline. And even discipline is (IMO) wildly overrated in single player since all you need is morale and quantity to stop the AI from fighting you. -damage received is a joke modifier in comparison.

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.

The only time you are reinforcing more units is if you take more damage, which generally means you're fighting longer and winning a battle that you otherwise wouldn't have. In such an instance you're obviously better off with more troops because losing battles is cringe.

 

[iClipse]

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

How often are you actually at peace after 1600? Why pay 15% extra for something you can't use, even if you can afford it.

 

[grisamentum]

But you don't have -25% damage received. You have -2.8%, at the highest, and you only have that if you limit your armies to fighting one battle every 3-5 years or so. I can make almost any modifier look good if I multiply it by 10x and then strip away such awful limitations that drilling has.

Why do you think it's only -2.8%? At 100% drill you have -25% damage received. Are we saying that's additional amount of drill you're likely to from State Firearm Regiments?

5% discipline reduces your damage taken by 5%, increases your damage inflicted by 5%, decreases your morale damage taken by 5%, and increases your morale damage inflicted by 5%. Yes I can completely compare it to discipline and its much, much worse than discipline. And even discipline is (IMO) wildly overrated in single player since all you need is morale and quantity to stop the AI from fighting you. -damage received is a joke modifier in comparison.

Have you not played in 1.33? Morale is not what it used to be. Maybe in 1.34 the meta will be different but morale is not that impressive currently.

Also, you're not seeing the order of operations here. 5% discipline is only giving you +5% damage before -% damage received is calculated.

The only time you are reinforcing more units is if you take more damage, which generally means you're fighting longer and winning a battle that you otherwise wouldn't have. In such an instance you're obviously better off with more troops because losing battles is cringe.

Well first of all, attrition. So no, they're going to be taking casualties and you're going to be paying to reinforce them anyway. And the vast majority of battles are not going to be on the margin of that kind of battle where you needed a small number of additional units to win. You shouldn't be fighting those battles in the first place.

 

[Darsara]

How often are you actually at peace after 1600? Why pay 15% extra for something you can't use, even if you can afford it.

Quite a lot, but I've never felt like playing 'Take Over the World'; it's not 'optimal' I know, but it's how I do it. And most often when I am at war by that point, I'm strong enough I really don't need every army for every war, and have enough defense-depth that I can safely take an army or two far from the front & set them to drill until I either need them or the next war. I also don't play multi-player, so I don't need to worry about that, just the AI deciding to march to my remote colonies to attack them.

 

[Less2]

Why do you think it's only -2.8%? At 100% drill you have -25% damage received. Are we saying that's additional amount of drill you're likely to from State Firearm Regiments?

Yes

Have you not played in 1.33? Morale is not what it used to be. Maybe in 1.34 the meta will be different but morale is not that impressive currently.

Morale is still what wins battles. The current patch messes up the ability to stackwipe, not the effectiveness of morale. Also the devs have acknowledged that it is not working as intended.

Also, you're not seeing the order of operations here. 5% discipline is only giving you +5% damage before -% damage received is calculated.

Order of operations doesn't matter when both are multipliers. 5% discipline is a 5% damage increase.

Well first of all, attrition. So no, they're going to be taking casualties and you're going to be paying to reinforce them anyway. And the vast majority of battles are not going to be on the margin of that kind of battle where you needed a small number of additional units to win. You shouldn't be fighting those battles in the first place.

You don't pay ducats for attrition casualties when at max strength. Your second comment boils down to "assume I win all battles easily", which is kind of a joke. Regardless, having more troops is what lets you avoid fighting battles in the first place.

 

[annulen]

You don't pay ducats for attrition casualties when at max strength

Since 1.32 you do.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes but that's completely outside of the scope of the thread topic, which is State Firearm Regiments. It goes away in what, 1645?

Not completely, since we're comparing the utility of drilling vs not with ducat cost as a factor. A big increase in maintenance for a relatively small combat benefit (assuming otherwise equal drill time, which is already a big assumption to use drilling at all) seems like a consistently bad deal. Not just at optimal play, but long before play starts approaching optimal.

 

[Blust]

How often are you actually at peace after 1600? Why pay 15% extra for something you can't use, even if you can afford it.

You can drill armies even when at war. And I admit I'm not always waging war.

 

[PDXJon]

You can drill armies even when at war. And I admit I'm not always waging war.

I use a drilling stack as bait while at war. The AI will send their army at a drilling stack if it can be reached. You just need to pay attention and move it when they get close.

 

[grisamentum]

I use a drilling stack as bait while at war. The AI will send their army at a drilling stack if it can be reached. You just need to pay attention and move it when they get close.

This is actually a funny trick - the AI will attack your drilling stack with a small number of troops and lose because the combat doesn't actually work the way the AI is calculating it.

 

[grisamentum]

Order of operations doesn't matter when both are multipliers. 5% discipline is a 5% damage increase.

Yes, it does matter. This is your core misunderstanding. The casualty formula is:

Because % damage received is calculated separately at the end and will be a decimal value between 0 and 1, it will dampen all other factors. In the extreme example, if I had -100% damage received, I would take zero casualties, even if the enemy has 10000% discipline. It simply doesn't matter because it would get multiplied by zero.

In a more realistic example, if the enemy has +10% discipline and I have -10% damage received, the pips aren't going to be multiplied by 1, they'll be multiplied by .99. But adding 5% discipline doesn't put them at 1.049%, it puts them at 1.035% because it's 1 * 1.10 * .9.

 

[Less2]

Yes, it does matter. This is your core misunderstanding. The casualty formula is:

View attachment 874852
Because % damage received is calculated separately at the end and will be a decimal value between 0 and 1, it will dampen all other factors. In the extreme example, if I had -100% damage received, I would take zero casualties, even if the enemy has 10000% discipline. It simply doesn't matter because it would get multiplied by zero.

In a more realistic example, if the enemy has +10% discipline and I have -10% damage received, the pips aren't going to be multiplied by 1, they'll be multiplied by .99. But adding 5% discipline doesn't put them at 1.049%, it puts them at 1.035% because it's 1 * 1.10 * .9.

No, order of operations doesn't matter. This is how multiplication works.

You are seeing that 5% discipline doesn't technically reduce casualties by exactly 5%, nothing more.

The core problem is that -damage taken doesn't win you battles.

I use a drilling stack as bait while at war. The AI will send their army at a drilling stack if it can be reached. You just need to pay attention and move it when they get close.

I use mothballed forts instead. All it takes is one monthly tick for the fort to be mostly where you want it and even if the AI reaches there you have a full siege tick to attack them, and you don't reduce your army's potential strength while doing this. If you're lucky you can scare the AI army past your fort line so that when the monthly tick is up they are trapped behind the zone of control.

 

[grotaclas]

Yes, it does matter.

No, the order of operations doesn't matter. No matter where you put the damage received in the formula, you will have the same effect. In your 10% example, you calculate 1 * 1.10 * .9=0.99 and you would get the same result if it would be 1*0.9*1.10.

But it does matter that damaged received is a negative additive modifier which gets multiplied while for example combat ability is a positive additive modifier which gets multiplied(I'm not sure if positive/negative additive modifier is the right word here). This makes damage received more powerful* when stacked, while combat ability gets less powerful*.
Discipline also gets less powerful* when stacked, but it is a more difficult comparison, because it also increases tactics and the casualties get divided by the tactics. In your 10% example, the country with the 10% discipline does 0.99 damage like you calculated, but it only receives 1/1.1 =0.909 damage(if everything else is equal), because their tactics got increased by 10% due to the discipline. At around -62% damage received, the power of stacking overcomes the discipline(they only receive 1*1.62*(1-0.62)=0.6156 damage while the discipline army receives 1/1.62=0.6172 damage). But you can't normally get so many damaged received modifiers(especially not for both fire and shock) and you need even more to not lose, because you don't avoid the morale damage.

* powerful in the sense that their relative impact changes.

 

[PDXJon]

No, order of operations doesn't matter. This is how multiplication works.

You are seeing that 5% discipline doesn't technically reduce casualties by exactly 5%, nothing more.

The core problem is that -damage taken doesn't win you battles.


I use mothballed forts instead. All it takes is one monthly tick for the fort to be mostly where you want it and even if the AI reaches there you have a full siege tick to attack them, and you don't reduce your army's potential strength while doing this. If you're lucky you can scare the AI army past your fort line so that when the monthly tick is up they are trapped behind the zone of control.

The only issue with mothballed forts is location. Drilling stacks is more flexible. You can choose exactly where to draw your opponent‘s armies. I’m also an airhead and I’ll occasionally forget to stop drilling or un-mothballing a fort. I prefer not losing a fort. I’ve won battles with a stack drilling.

 

[Banedon Runestar]

I use army drill simply because it is one of the few ways that I can directly translate money into monarch points.

Yes, I could spam generals for professionalism. But they’re going to cost up to 50 military mana each. The other option is spending time and money drilling troops, and over time that works just as well.

Saves me some military mana for tech, ideas, development, suppressing rebels, or raising legitimacy.

 

[annulen]

I use army drill simply because it is one of the few ways that I can directly translate money into monarch points.

And this has little to do with State Firearm Regiments decision as it doesn't change amount of produced professionalism.

 

[Banedon Runestar]

And this has little to do with State Firearm Regiments decision as it doesn't change amount of produced professionalism.

If you’re going to be drilling anyway, why not get the most out of it?

The extra 15% cost can be diminished through various idea groups, decisions, mission rewards, and National Ideas sets.

At least, that’s my thought.

 

[Less2]

If you’re going to be drilling anyway, why not get the most out of it?

The extra 15% cost can be diminished through various idea groups, decisions, mission rewards, and National Ideas sets.

At least, that’s my thought.

You also are always paying for your troops all the time. Why make it cost more?

The 15% cost can never be diminished because all modifiers are additive. If +15% cost adds +1 ducat/month per 10k troops then it will be +1 ducat/month per 10k troops whether the base 10 ducats/month or 2 ducats/month. In fact, in relative terms the +15% cost penalty gets worse the more you stack other maintenance bonuses because if you have -85% maintenance cost then +15% maintenance takes you from 15% maintenance to 30% maintenance, a 100% increase.