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This week's debate : Free Subjects versus Serdom

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Free Subjects vs Serfdom

  • Free Subjects

    Votes: 103 62,8%

  • Serfdom

    Votes: 61 37,2%
  • Total voters
    164
Originally posted by Maur13

1 ducat???

I though the lowest cost of inf/cav are 3/9 ducats...:confused:

Well, compared to highest, they are still nice:D (something like 20/40 ducats)
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Could be 3/9 at very hard, I always speak about normal and there u can get 1/6/19 :D
 
Originally posted by BiB


Could be 3/9 at very hard, I always speak about normal and there u can get 1/6/19 :D
Click to expand...
Ahhh, could be so. I lastly played at something different from very hard about, eh, ten months ago?:D

Anyway, i find my artillery costs around about 40-60d. You know, offensive guy:cool:

Btw, i found that land/naval slider really makes a difference. I mean, when you're full naval(and plutocratic), your warships are really cheap, as do their maintenance costs. So, IMHO naval-land is quite balanced, the problem with that slider is that Earth is not archipelago planet;)
(oh, yes. And we need more merchant marine and such Imperialism games stuff)

The thing i wonder most what people will choose in quality poll... i suppose most will go for quality... stupid them:D
As much as i love high default leaders (btw, i suspect it's all against me. First, lowering values of default leaders. Next, lowering offensive benefits. Next, some guy comes up with new CRT i reall hate:p , cause it will make my way of fighting wars totally useless...)
Well, anyway. As i said, i suppose most people will choose quality. And while it is reasonable in SP, i would go to the quantity value where you still have 2 fire value.

Simple as it is, when you combine it with land, aristocracy, and serfs, the modified manpower value means you can just flood enemy with troops. I said flood? I mean FLOOD:D. IIRC, the difference is something like 2,5 times more. I suppose you know what 2,5 times more cheap troops means in war...
 
Originally posted by Maur13

Ahhh, could be so. I lastly played at something different from very hard about, eh, ten months ago?:D

Anyway, i find my artillery costs around about 40-60d. You know, offensive guy:cool:

Btw, i found that land/naval slider really makes a difference. I mean, when you're full naval(and plutocratic), your warships are really cheap, as do their maintenance costs. So, IMHO naval-land is quite balanced, the problem with that slider is that Earth is not archipelago planet;)
(oh, yes. And we need more merchant marine and such Imperialism games stuff)

The thing i wonder most what people will choose in quality poll... i suppose most will go for quality... stupid them:D
As much as i love high default leaders (btw, i suspect it's all against me. First, lowering values of default leaders. Next, lowering offensive benefits. Next, some guy comes up with new CRT i reall hate:p , cause it will make my way of fighting wars totally useless...)
Well, anyway. As i said, i suppose most people will choose quality. And while it is reasonable in SP, i would go to the quantity value where you still have 2 fire value.

Simple as it is, when you combine it with land, aristocracy, and serfs, the modified manpower value means you can just flood enemy with troops. I said flood? I mean FLOOD:D. IIRC, the difference is something like 2,5 times more. I suppose you know what 2,5 times more cheap troops means in war...
Click to expand...

Oi, save that for next debate (esp as ur stealing my lines :D)

Evidently I have to test the game mostly on normal settings :D

Yes, u can get very cheap warships, but as u said the world isn't an archipelago and armies count a lot more, hence them not being balanced. However I like to play as England at tilmes and set my dp settings in such a way that I get cheaper warships than cav :D
 
I never saw that low of cost for my armies. I think 3/14/40 is the lowest I have seen. Then again I have also had 16/36/70 costs too :D.
 
Cheap infantry is nice, but really for the vast majority of the game it's cavalry that wins your wars. So you can go towards Free Subjects, then balance that with max aristocracy. Sure, your infantry won't be cheap, but who really cares? Your cavalry should be able to take on wave after wave of peasants.
I recently fought about 60k Friesland infantry with 40k max quality, high offensive, high land, freeman cavalry. (I had a slight tech advantage). The Friesland ranks went like this...
60k...55k....45k...40k...35k...
Essentially wiped out their army in one battle, and took about 5,000 casualties to show for it.
So I don't really care for the cheap infantry benefit to serfdom. For me, the only upshot of it is the stability. Whether that's worth it depends on your country; as I've said, I've managed to run a sprawling French empire with free subjects, due to the shrinking number of non-calvinists in the country.
 
Doomcow, I guess I am an infantry sort of fellow. Cavalry is indeed nice, and yes, it does help win battles, BUT it can not assault fortresses. I do not like to wait for a leisurely seige, particularly in areas of high attrition. The cheapness of the infantry makes them easy to replace. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to understate the value of cavalry, but I do want to speak in defense of infantry. Perhaps later, as fortresses grow to inpenetrable levels, the infantry will lose some of its value to me, replaced perhaps by cavalry armies escorting artillery corps. In the end, my states tend to have high aristocracy AND high serfdom. Why not have the best of both worlds?
 
The lower trade and production efficeincy sucks though when you max those two out.
 
Free subjects.

Not that I don't appreciate the stab bonus you get from serfdom early in the game. But I stay narrowminded, so I can take the stab cost hit and handle the production and combat bonus (I'm often in the pro-"naval" minority, so it's a way to get the lost morale back). I fight relatively seldom, so the troop costs don't cripple me, and it's easier to plan wars/battles if equal-sized forces are usually going to win. I get frustrated when I need huge armies, half of which will die from attrition anyway, to fend off an invading enemy army. And losing the first three times first while you whittle them down to size hurts you in peace negotiations.

Besides, that "Abolish a tax" option on one event (-100D, -1 serfdom) comes up often enough you can slide down the scale without much effort over the first 100 years or so.
 
I generally siege, since I generally have no reason to hurry things up so much; besides, 50 cannons will generally finish off most fortresses within a year or so, until late in the game. Besides, even with high free subjects infantry rarely gets past 10 or 11, which I can easily manage. Once you win the battles, the war is over; you can just wait until the sieges complete. So it's much more important to have effective cavalry, so I'll easily trade off cheaper infantry to get better cavalry and more production money to buy cavalry.
 
I am hearing something here that confuses me. Surely by the time you are half way up the tech tree infantry is just as important as cavalry. To me it seems like cavalry are only the dominant factor in this game for the first 150 years or so. Then a lot of these arguments for free subjects go away as infantry can beat cavalry by themsleves. At the very least you need to start thinking about shifting away from free subjects at this point.
 
I believe it was the use of very effective formations which brought the value of the infantry up. Cavalry was reduced in its efficeincy mainly because of the rifle.
 
I actually meant in game terms. Other than a few specialized units infantry weren't equiped with rifles until the mid-19th century. In-game by the middle of the game (one of the bayonnet-type techs) infantry firepower is getting large enough to overcome the cavalry advantage in shock. This has been my experience anyway, but the 18th century I onlky build enough cavalry to deny opponents the cavalry bonus - infantry is much more cost effective.
 
I totally agree with that.
I tend to even stop recruiting cavalry after my bayonet guys appear. Though with the reminder of cavalry supremecy I might have to change that.
 
I've played up until 1620, and even then I found it much more effective to build cavalry if I had to deal with a large enemy army. If you're fighting on fields, the cavalry simply kill many, many, many more troops than infantry do. The example I gave with France vs. Friesland happened around 1615. I haven't played any GC beyond that, but of course at any point beyond 1620 you ought to be powerful enough that the whole issue becomes moot.
 
I believe, though I may be mistaken, that at some point the infantry combat tables exceed that of cavalry, growing more rapidly than cavalry. Cavalry will never vanish as useful devices though. They do have shock value and are quick. Later, as in history, massed infantry armies with lots of cannon would be the 'battle fighters' while small groups of cavalry would move forward to disrupt the rest of your foes lands.

In the end though, again, keep those aristrocrats ruling their surfs and you get the best of both worlds!
 
This slider actually depends on the terrain a little.

Mountainous countries, particularly in the persian area, are very different from other countries, such as Poland.

The reason is that Cavalry fight significantly worse when attacking an enemy on a mountain or across a river (or both.) Infantry fight worse too under such circumstances, but cavalry are dramatically reduced - almost a quarter of their effectiveness. Fortresses in mountain terrain are also harder to siege, but just about as easy to assault.

Playing as Persia, however, the choice became fairly easy: Let it float towards free subjects with events, but change the other sliders (land, offensive, quality) first. Eastern countries, like Persia, the Mughals, and China tend to have their high stability costs offset by the extreme wealth of their provinces. Because their production values are so high, often a slight increase (the 2% from the slider) can almost totally override the stability increase.

When you combine the effects of Shiite, Land, Quality, Offensive, and Free Subjects, you get infantry at a moderate price (affordable due to the richness of the empire) that can win almost any battle, particularly if defending a mountain, even against hordes of cav. The remaining armies can then assault enemy fortresses before reinforcements arrive, and gain the defensive hill bonus.

In short, the morale bonuses from all the sliders and shiite/reformed can get very large, especially at the beginning of the game (almost double morale!)
 
I think alot of people are missing the point with some of these sliders in that whats "best" is entirely dependant on what country you are playing...Russia (as common sense would indeed lead one to think) does well with high serfdom...keeps those stability problems down, and those waves of 50,000 infantry do fine on rampaging thru enemy territory assulting and such. On the other hand, playing the Dutch my slider started max free subjects and I just left it there...The production is a nice bonus, morale always helps some, and Stability isnt a big problem as I'm mainly colonizing not conquering and thus my provinces are mostly Dutch Reformed. Same goes for most of the other sliders--Narrow-minded is great if your Spain and need the extra colonists, missionaries, and stab, but if you are a small asian nation you'll need every advantage you can get to keep up in tech and the bonus for innovation is very significant. Aristocracy is great if you're Poland, but a Free-trade, Plutocratic, Reformed Dutch state can bring in amazing trade revenues, etc. etc.

BTW side point, but if anyones jaded with "too easy" majors but finds playing a minor with no events and leaders lacking in flavour, recycle that old game save you quit after 150 years into a very fun game as the Dutch. I was playing Denmark thinking it might be a fun game with lots of events, but after I got an explorer in 1520ish and established 4-5 colonies it was instantly looking way too easy...load the game as Spain, create the Dutch as vassals, save and reload as the Dutch...a good challenge trying to catch up starting with 3 provinces (in my game) against nations that are already 1200 points ahead of you, not to mention the fun/frustration of trying to compete with the monster you had created before. My former Denmark was ahead in all techs, richest country in the world, and was continuing to expand as the AI. Finally frustrated with their level 7 trade merchants frustrating my efforts, not to mention their runaway VP total, I manuvered into an alliance with Sweden, and had one of the funnest (albeit frustrating) wars ever in ALOT of playing EU. With 9000 manpower a year I had alot of trouble competeing with their limitless coffers and endless cavalry reinforcements, within the first 2 years my holdings in the carribean were burnt/seiged easily then they started moving in on my stuff in S America and S africa, wasn't looking good at all. Back on the continent, we had some early successes lead by Maurice of Nassau, but once he started pumping out huge armies of 40k-50k (his land and naval was 3-4 above anyone else's in the game which wasnt fun either), the tide turned climaxing in a large battle where Maurice fled a tad too late and my main army of 37k was defeated and utterly destroyed by the massed Danish cavalry
things weren't looking promising at all. The Swedes were contuinally thwarted by the danes clever defensive tactics, and the fact that for some stupid reason (grrr!) the swedes would build 80k armies with Gustav Horn but Adolfus II wandered around with 9k men and couldnt even conduct a proper siege. For once tho, navy proved crucial and with the super-admiral the Dutch get (forget name but hes like 5-6-4 or such very nice) in the vangard we swept the danes from the seas and were able to thus win the battles in the colonies, while hordes of Hessian mercenaries stalemated him on the continent, while I sent detachments by sea to follow around Gustav Adolf in support whereever he went :) We won finally, I took 2 provinces and gave 2 to Sweden in the peace process (its a bit tough being reformed in many ways I think I was the only nation active in the game with Reformed before Sweden in an odd move decided to go Reformed in an event thus providing part of the rationale for the alliance.) But... 1635...Denmark is still a good 900 pts ahead and very strong, worse yet Austria is huge also and 1200 pts ahead...Dutch are not a good warmongering nation being reformed and only dutch as culture, this looks like a game that might prove fun all the way til 1819!

More good major nation challenges to suggest:
Poland starting in the 1600's scenario: nation starts poor with no realistic possibilities to colonize (at least if you remain catholic which I of course do, I never change religion unrealistically just to get bonuses), and few areas offering easy expansion, and just when you get the economy and such in order and move on your neighbors the dreaded Librium Veto event, possibily one of the worst events in the game :D
Sweden 1700's: The joy of starting alone at war vs Russia Poland and Denmark :)
Really any major in a game that got boring, try reloading as a faltering major and see how easy the AI when it has your old position: sliders set all nice, techs all above yours, swimming in cash and manpower...The battle AI is alot better than in EU I, so if the AI is superior in all these categories you have to really scramble!
 
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