Warfare: Historical accuracy

[sandro chronicler]

So, when the game only started there was number of threads about the fact that war sistem in game don't correctly reflect medieval feudal warfare (or any other, for that matter), and was overtly simplified. Of course, by this point it's highly unlikely that any major changes would be made. Anyway, i randomly decided to summarise this issues, may be somebody will be interested:

1. Army size

Currently armies in the game are way bigger than modern science consider realistic. It important to remember that medieval chronists (who often had no way to know exact numbers) often exaggerated size of engaged forces for sake of more epic narrative (not only on enemy side). Meanwhile if one use more reliable sources (like accounting books or notes of participants themselves when available) "thousands" of troops suddenly turn into hundreds . Which make sense if taking into account population grows.
Problem here is that when history as science in modern sense started to form, armies just reached sizes equivalent to one described in chronicles, so for a long time this numbers was repeated without critical analysis. Even today, when it universally accepted that medieval armies was comparatively tiny, exaggerated numbers from older works often repeated. Besides, there are disagreements between historians about how much exactly smaller medieval armies was. For example, for french army at Agincourt, estimated numbers varies from 4,2 to 25 thousands.
As notable example we have Battle of Iconium. What interesting is that provided here modern estimates are larger than numbers from chronicles that are closest (chronologically and geographically) to described army . And even 10000 seems exaggerated given demography of the region (even counting noncombatants).

2. Man-at-arms

In game MaA used as sinonim of retinues from CK2, and it also should be noted that this term often erroneously used nowaday for medieval infantry, particularly commoner infantry. In real middle ages Man-at-arms was a term for heavy cavalry. Knights, un-knighted nobles and sergeants-at-arms - professional warriors of common origin, members of noble retinues.

3. Levies

Currently army composition in game are heavily influenced by 19th century misconception that are, unfortunately, still linger despite being rejected by historians for over a century.It is persistent old belief that back bone of medieval armies was peasant levies, often serfs, gathered by their feudal lords. Interestingly, when this stereotype was formed army of russian empire operated exactly like this (i heard that in Austria too, but i not sure about that). "The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription" (q).
Meanwhile In reality, only free men could be called to arms, in practise only thus who could afford at least some equipment was called, Only kings and dukes (not always even) had right to call levies, and not trough local lords but by appointed representatives. In reality levies was called only rarely, in limited quantities and almost always for local defense (use of mass commoner armies (longbowmen) by english during late middle ages was considered revolutionary at the time). And even then they wasn't all that useful...
Of course, local militia would support counts and barons in defence of their land, but legally it's not the same. And, various rebels could be represented by peasant forces too. Then, beside feudal armies, imperial forces, like in China, indead used mass conscription of peasants as basis of their military. Likewise, many tribal cultures used similar organisation (although, other tribes had sistem of warchiefs and retinues, more similar to feudal organisation). There one possible option for introducing different military structures.

P.s. of course, in some wealthy regions militia was much better equipped, and such forces are correctly represented in game as MaA regiments, namely Goedendag Militia.

4. Feudalism

Whole point of feudal organisation is to maintain elite fighting force. Basically, feudal society are network of obligations for military support. Vassals are given land (source of income) in exchange of military service. When called to arms vassals should gather their own vassals and retinues and form army. Basically feudal army more resemble semi professional militia.
Meanwhile in game there often ridiculous situation when noble lords serve as knights personally, but besides themselves (and maybe abstract squad of bodyguards) and portion of his peasants (which may not be even legal, as explained above), while all of their own knights and MaA stay behind, instead of protecting their lords . Historically they should instead join their sovereigns as allies.
Current sistem resemble less feudal and more imperial structure, when appointed viceroys would send levied peasants...

Well, that all for today, although, there also question of army compositions and especially role of cavalry, but maybe next time.

p.s.:

5. cavalry

So, many people here already know that, while early medieval european warfare was dominated by infantry, since Carolingian times cavalry became supreme force on the battlefield. (in Eastern Europe Alans and Bolgarse started to rely on heavy cavalry even earlier). Not everybody realising how much dominant cavalry was (myth about peasant levies undoubtedly was a factor). Arguably carolingian army (real feudal army, not counting garnisons and militya) was entirely made from cavalry (numbers are debatable, remember...). Things stayed that way for most of High Middle Ages (_, _, _ - note how unexpected militia resistance was in last example). In fact, in one case chronicler describe use of foot (dismounted?) sergeants in battle as some sort of groundbreaking innovation
Here important to remember that knights and sergeants WILL fight on foot* if required, like during sieges (on both sides) or in uneven terrain. In other words "Armored Footmen" often wasn't footmen at all.
Interestingly, there also number of examples when infantry was mentioned by chronists as part of knightly army yet did nothing in battle itself, or when commanders attempted to use cavalry only and use infantry only as last resort. In some cases there clarification that foot forces present were just armed servants, guarding camp/baggage train. And presumably other support forces (archers/crossbowmen also usually counted among foot troops, separation of melee infantry is modern videogame concept).After all, medieval warfare was characterised by sieges, and while knights would assault walls, they definitely wouldn't dig trenches or cobble ladders

Another interesting thing, scottish schiltron are quite famous example of infantry successfully resisting cavalry, and it often depicted as scottish commoner militia fighting snobbish english aristocrats, utilising underdog narrative (i heard that many in Scotland dont like such depictions, since in reality Scotland was affluent and highly developed feudal kingdom too). Truth is, often schiltrons was formed from dismounted knights (note composition of scottish army) - they had inferior horses, often slightly lighter equipment and less experience in mounted combat, so they improvised.

*here we have interesting trend in french doctrine. At Crécy they used series of classic cavalry charges, which was defeated in large part thank to superior position of english. Modern tests show that longbows aren't nearly as effective against good armor as many believe, but presumably was perfectly effective against unarmored horses. And daggers and short swords of archers was proved quite effective against knights that has just fallen from horses... At Poitiers, where english again had superior position, they at first attacked mounted, then continued their futile attacks on foot. At Agincourt almost all of their cavalry dismounted and charged on foot (uphill, on muddy terrain...), with even more disastrous results. Then, at Verneuil, they (and their scottish allies) dismounted again, while hired milanese knights attacked mounted, but this time with armored horses. They charged through english line like bunch of bowling balls, then started to rob their camp, assuming that battle already won. Had french followed their attack with old fashioned charge this would be the case, but instead english had time to regroup, and defeat them.
Notably, after that french returned to older doctrine, and used it more or less successfully until the end of 16th century...

So, what can be done to improve the sistem:
1) give option, by law or some other similar sistem (government reforms?), for different military structures -

a) current one more or les represent systems of China and some other asian countries, early byzantine empire, and some tribal cultures;
b) sistem of standing armies, based around large MaA regiments, funded by scutage, like ones that became common in LMA;
c) Feudal system, levies relegated for emergencies, vassals provide certain % of their MaA and knights (specified by contracts), and possibly modified by opinions and other circumstances (best friend could just join war with all his forces).

2) Heavy cavalry cost should be adjusted, OR feudal system should give some minor discount (whole point of vassal distribution was to circumvent inefficiency of this era underdeveloped logistics and industry, thus allowing to maintain elite force)

3) Bonuses for prowess and MaA regiment size should be scaled down at least slightly, especially high tier ones. This will stop problem of "super"-knights - typical knights wouldn't be so ridiculously stronger than other forces (i.e. elite MaA instead of levies)

 

[Flockingbird]

If you would be so kind as to grant me your indulgence for a moment—

Not being an historian, not even an amateur one, one thing only leapt out at me:

estimated numbers varies from 4,2

Scholars stumble upon the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything!

Meanwhile, Sandro, thanks for all the fish!

inevitable edit: typos

 

[Comrade_Boris]

3. Levies

Currently army composition in game are heavily influenced by 19th century misconception that are, unfortunately, still linger despite being rejected by historians for over a century.It is persistent old belief that back bone of medieval armies was peasant levies, often serfs, gathered by their feudal lords. Interestingly, when this stereotype was formed army of russian empire operated exactly like this (i heard that in Austria too, but i not sure about that). "The persistent old belief that peasants and small farmers gathered to form a national army or fyrd is a strange delusion dreamt up by antiquarians in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries to justify universal military conscription" (q).
Meanwhile In reality, only free men could be called to arms, in practise only thus who could afford at least some equipment was called, Only kings and dukes (not always even) had right to call levies, and not trough local lords but by appointed representatives. In reality levies was called only rarely, in limited quantities and almost always for local defense (use of mass commoner armies (longbowmen) by english during late middle ages was considered revolutionary at the time). And even then they wasn't all that useful...
Of course, local militia would support counts and barons in defence of their land, but legally it's not the same. And, various rebels could be represented by peasant forces too. Then, beside feudal armies, imperial forces, like in China, indead used mass conscription of peasants as basis of their military. Likewise, many tribal cultures used similar organisation (although, other tribes had sistem of warchiefs and retinues, more similar to feudal organisation). There one possible option for introducing different military structures.

P.s. of course, in some wealthy regions militia was much better equipped, and such forces are correctly represented in game as MaA regiments, namely Goedendag Militia.

This point get brought up a lot, and I'd like to point out that the flavor text for Levies addresses that these are not just farmers with no military training. (If you ask me further, the main difference between Levies and MAA per CK3 flavor text is that MAA fight in formation/a cohesive unit rather than assembled from people who might otherwise be doing something aside from war, or perhaps Levies are part time warriors, but still warriors where MAA are full time, nothing but warriors). For further reference, contrast the Levy flavor text with MAA flavor text which mostly emphasize their training and veterancy.

Here's the quoted flavor text for reference:

Levies consist of peasant militias, ruffians, local sellswords and destitute nobles equipped with motley tools and improvised weapons - their sheer numbers make up the bulk of most armies.

Admittedly, the "motley tools and improvised weapons" is slightly in tension with the groups they describe as making up levies as well as their own picture of levies showing both a levy with a glaive-like pole arm and one behind him with a sword and shield. A lot of military buildings like barracks and militia camps also add flavor to how CK3 sees levies. They mention both housing them and providing/repairing weapons. I think reading these its hard to view levies on the same levels as serfs, nor are they the bulk of the farming labor or anything close to every able bodied man. They appear to just be people gathered that are otherwise "trouble makers" or local fighting forces.

That said, if CK3 really wants to get this point across, MAA base stats should only be moderately better than levies instead of 2x ++ times they are now. MAA can then instead be mostly valuable from stat stacking, terrain bonuses and higher toughness (which is a very important stat).

 

[HistoryDude]

There's still a couple of warfare threads. Some people want a warfare DLC outright now.

Anyway, your post sounds fine for the most part. On the other hand, chroniclers did often exaggerate, but, as you say, the amount is disputed - and Paradox would need to make a judgement there.

 

[Tuo]

One matter in regards to the army sizes is that large empires can raise their entire army and move it to a conflict on one side of the realm, or even to a far distanced realm overseas, with little consequence unless those armies take very significant losses. Sure, there are still garrisons in the castle holdings - but that just inflates the numbers further. But should the Byzantine Empire commit its entire army to southern Italy, that should be an invitation to trouble in Anatolia. This is not so in the game, so huge realms can field immense armies with little trouble.

 

[theauthor]

I'm kinda mixed. On one hand i want levy to be buffed because they are useless once man at arms are optimized which are relatively quick and easy to do.

One the other hand i like the feeling of killing my enemy with just my man at arms. And buffing levy benefit the ai more because they are bad at optimization but doesn't worry about wasting money as much as the players.

 

[GiantSpaceHamster]

The levy system is much too generic as it stands and doesn't make sense a lot of the time. I'm not an expert in Byzantine history but it's my understanding that they didn't use levies as such, (except maybe in times of extreme desperation), the entire force would be in game terms man at arms. Even outside of Byzantium, reading about the army composition at Agincourt, it sounds like both sides fielded mostly what you'd call MAA - longbowmen and infantry on English side, heavy cavalry and crossbows on French side. Also, you have a strange situation where if you're playing one of the steppe cultures you can recruit horse archer MAA, but the bulk of your forces will still be levies made up of random peasants. Except for the fact that 'random peasants', in this case nomadic steppe tribesmen, owned at least one horse and a bow, thus making them horse archers.

I don't have any concrete ideas of how the system could be made better now, except that there should be more regional variety of men at arms and raising men at arms-only armies should be possible and desirable. At least there should be some economic penalty to raising a lot of levies - after all, you're taking people from their normal work in the fields and maybe as craftsmen and instead sending them off to war, potentially to be killed. Maybe a popular opinion penalty in the whole of your realm.

 

[vilkas622]

While I have hopes we get a more interesting levy system in CK3 and thus a more interesting military, I think the constraints of the design, specifically lack of pops and tick time, means there are hard limits on what level of realism can be achieved.

For example without pops, resources or any tax system, how do you balance the historic strife between raising levies, which may include a number of personel who are needed to participate in harvesting and pulling in sufficient harvests to pay as tax for your lord as well as feed the local peasants? How do you give the player the ability to even try to manage this when ticks occur weekly rather than daily?

4. Feudalism

Whole point of feudal organisation is to maintain elite fighting force. Basically, feudal society are network of obligations for military support. Vassals are given land (source of income) in exchange of military service. When called to arms vassals should gather their own vassals and retinues and form army. Basically feudal army more resemble semi professional militia.
Meanwhile in game there often ridiculous situation when noble lords serve as knights personally, but besides themselves (and maybe abstract squad of bodyguards) and portion of his peasants (which may not be even legal, as explained above), while all of their own knights and MaA stay behind, instead of protecting their lords . Historically they should instead join their sovereigns as allies.
Current sistem resemble less feudal and more imperial structure, when appointed viceroys would send levied peasants...

I think the level of accuracy within a feudal system cannot be achieved with the current design, that of a player dynastic focus. To try to semi-accurately simulate the obligations and concerns of the typical estate lord at the time, would require detailed mechanics and new game systems that both do not exist in todays game (goods, and taxes on them, armament capabilities of a ruler, etc.) or systems which are playing against the dynastic focus of the title (pops, complex economic levels).

Personally, my hope for military improvements are more minor. Less MaA and knight power-creep, harsher supply-related unit loses, lower chances of capturing leaders as prisoners (which auto-win wars), bi-directional peace deals, and continual improvements to the AI's army. I'd love some ability to customize army deployments, not quite CK2 3 columns approach, but something more interesting than "raise everything in a single blob and find the other blob and watch the combat dice role".

 

[greywulfos]

When it comes to CK3 warfare, I would say that the current unit statistics and battle calculations are fine enough. However, while statistics and calculations are fine, the system of organizing armies in CK3 needs a real overhaul. Currently, I'd say it has a few main problems:

1. You get too many levies, and they suck
The amount of MaA you have scales very little with the size of your realm, but the amount of levies you have does. This has one really annoying side effect: a lot of small realms attacking at once will thus have way more Men at Arms than a single large one, giving any large-scale vassal rebellions way more of an advantage over their liege than they realistically should.

2. Mercenaries are way less important than they should be
Medieval warfare in Europe made use of mercenaries an enormous amount - their role only really started declining with the emergence of standardized, standing armies. However, because mercenaries are prohibitively expensive to use and require large up-front sums, you never actually use them in game - which really bothers me.

3. Special Units are really poorly integrated into the game
They seriously are. You have no say over the content of a special unit, and the fact that they can't reinforce is just really weird - it gives you the vibe of an immortal ghost army of the same 400 men who'll survive forever.

If I had to propose an actual solution...

I think in general, militaries should be reorganized into "divisions" - so, essentially, a grouping of a specific size that has a given number of Men-at-Arms regiments, with the remainder being filled by levies.

When you enter wars as a feudal European lord, you'll need to grab extra divisions from your vassals, and when you enter wars as a Muslim, you'll probably grab divisions formed primarily of purchased Mamluks/Ghilman. These divisions can have actual characters commanding them, which provides some personality to your military, and allows for influential military generals given command of a large number of men to rebel against you.

It solves point 1 by allowing your vassals to fill the divisions they provide with MaA, and actually allows for the problem of different feudal lords having varying military contributions in Euro realms. It doesn't necessarily fix point 2, but it allows the incorporation of mercenaries into your armies by allowing mercenaries to be recruited under a division. It solves point 3 by allowing special units to simply serve as another division you recruit with unique properties.

 

[CollectorOfBolts]

One matter in regards to the army sizes is that large empires can raise their entire army and move it to a conflict on one side of the realm, or even to a far distanced realm overseas, with little consequence unless those armies take very significant losses. Sure, there are still garrisons in the castle holdings - but that just inflates the numbers further. But should the Byzantine Empire commit its entire army to southern Italy, that should be an invitation to trouble in Anatolia. This is not so in the game, so huge realms can field immense armies with little trouble.

I feel like the rally point system was meant to emulate having armies dedicated to different parts of the realm and thus cover that aspect of historical militaries. In my experience however, it has failed to do that and tends to just be an annoying extra set of clicks to move my one rally point before raising troops. It's just not practical to have rally points everywhere and still have to move them every time war breaks out (to be closer to the front). And given that levies are bad at fighting against MaA units and siege units are part of the MaA system, your MaA units always need to travel across the nation for every war anyways.

Perhaps they could make the AI better at taking advantage of distracted enemies (ERE vs Hungary => Caliphate attacks in east). But that would not work with the current MaA system simply because the ERE's levies in the east would not be able to beat the Caliphate's MaA units without a massive numbers advantage (and even in that case, victories would be largely pyrrhic as the Caliphate's MaA would reinforce faster than the ERE's levies) and that would just feel bad/frustrating from a gameplay perspective.

I don't have any solutions to the above. My main gripes with the war system are more abstract: the micro-heaviness of moving troops around (especially in really large wars without much supply in the area) and disproportionate land grabs due to de jure territory shenanigans (HRE has to declare 3 separate holy wars against a 3-province count in Africa simply because their 3 counties are in different de jure duchies, for instance, with the only alternative being to fabricate 3 separate claims and get the (late-mid-game) culture tech that lets you press all claims at once).

 

[Renarin]

Meanwhile In reality, only free men could be called to arms, in practise only thus who could afford at least some equipment was called, Only kings and dukes (not always even) had right to call levies, and not trough local lords but by appointed representatives. In reality levies was called only rarely, in limited quantities and almost always for local defense (use of mass commoner armies (longbowmen) by english during late middle ages was considered revolutionary at the time).

Just a little nit-pick about this before I get to my own thoughts on armies in CK (it'll be a useful little example for my own points, it's not just for pedantry). Your summary of how levies were used is a little bit generalized. A "general levy" for defensive purposes was often fairly limited in its scope (and already somewhat modeled by garrisons) but the extent of other levied forces and who could call them varied quite a bit from location to location. England for a good chunk of the period fielded commoner levies, as a result of William the conqueror inheriting and repurposing the bureaucracy of Alfred the Great (who was also the ruler to centralize the Fyrd under specifically the king). Other kinds of levied forces often made up a smaller proportion of the army, but weren't as centralized in one person, and the pre-Alfred Fyrd was both levy heavy and decentralized (not to mention things like city/communal militias, which could often be called up as a part of army service over a fairly wide area despite being "lowborn").

I think that the problem with army composition and war in the game is largely a product of a design issue I I talked about here: the TLDR of it is that CK is very much driven by social forces, a kingdom is a network of agents whose relationships are not contained to within its borders, religion and culture play a big role, etc. and that is what a lot of the game is built around. However, war and economy are almost exclusively "stuff-based" in terms of what moving pieces are interacting with each other, with characters there to provide an icing-layer of buffs onto the mechanical cake, thereby segregating these mechanics into their own minigame within the game (with consequent knock-on effects for future development), and that the Lance update begins the work of desegregating these game halves (mostly on the economic side, by making buildings into capital used by the characters in activities and integrating characters more into the map).

These problems are pretty fundamental in a way that they could only be fixed through major reworks or additions to the systems of the game, something that I would have thought less likely before Lance. I personally have two non-exclusive crackpot ideas for fixing it, which should of course be taken with a grain of salt as all backseat game design should.

1. People without pop systems. Take various institutions that existed during the period like monastic orders, guilds, minor nobility, communes, ministeriales, canons, sheriffs, local clans, prevalence of serfdom etc. and represent them in game as effectively personality traits for counties/duchies, maybe tiered like some traits are now. These could then impact the kinds of things that would boost/lower control and popular opinion, as well as taking on an economic role generating value or synergizing with buildings and/or armies to do what a pop system would do, but while being more in the scope of the game. Extend a similar treatment to armies, making there be personality-esque laws that impact recruitment, army composition, etc. as well as how (global, long term) morale is managed. As mentioned above with levies, armies even with similar equipment could be raised in very different ways, with different relations to their sovereign/commander, in ways that had practical importance. And while commoner levies is maybe one of the least exciting examples of this (though practical imo) modelling things like the Byzantine professional army and their impact on succession, the reliance on pilgrims and holy orders in the Outremer kingdoms, slave soldiers in different Muslim empires, nomad armies, etc. are also things that could be implemented better with a system like this, which also serve to showcase how the army can be tied to broader politics and realm management. Kinda an evolution of some stuff I said in this post.

2. Replace the current system of stack micro for war with something akin to the traveling system (though it would have to be different in some ways, for a number of reasons, like putting other people in charge of your army). There are a lot of advantages to classic stack micro, but a lot of them aren't really valid for the period CK is in. Siege warfare means you can't have any sudden breakthroughs to exploit or shore up, temporarily raised armies means army building doesn't happen to any on-map stack of units, there are no military-industrial centers to serve as military infrastructure, etc. The only thing it adds is gank avoidance as something you have to pay attention to. With a campaign planning system where you set up a series of actions you can model the process of going to war and the process of leading an army with a lot more granularity without as much micro. More detail to sieges, non-siege non-battle military operations of various kinds, and critically the process of actually mustering the army; both on the political level of negotiating with vassals and allies, utilizing different mechanics around government type or contracts etc. as well as the process of actually gathering the soldiery, as well as giving some Intents to those kinds of actors in a way that's less disruptive than, say, having ai controlled stacks try to fulfill personal goals in wartime.

 

[jcbuilder]

instead of worrying about army size, I'm more interested in, how to make a game that you can't be at war for 700 years strait and have basically no down side. There are so many places they could add more realism that would also increase the fun and depth of the game. Army size is just a simple tool.

For instance, a much deeper supply line system, desertion, unpopularity for wars lasting years would be where i would start. Right now you can just stomp around for 50 years taking up teritory and getting more powerful, with zero worry about anything really, just pick targets that are weaker and keep going. There should be lots more inner turmoil.

 

[theauthor]

3. Special Units are really poorly integrated into the game
They seriously are. You have no say over the content of a special unit, and the fact that they can't reinforce is just really weird - it gives you the vibe of an immortal ghost army of the same 400 men who'll survive forever.

They definitely could be used more instead of just Norman invasion or Norse adventurer.

There are lots of conqueror ruling on wrong culture in both starts and due to their starts off weaker than they should. The greates example being De Hauteville, in history one of the greatest threat to Komnenos equal that of Turks but in game the strongest player in Sicily but are no match to Byzantine if they decide to turn their gaze to Sicily which thankfully i never encounter.

 

[greywulfos]

I feel like the rally point system was meant to emulate having armies dedicated to different parts of the realm and thus cover that aspect of historical militaries. In my experience however, it has failed to do that and tends to just be an annoying extra set of clicks to move my one rally point before raising troops. It's just not practical to have rally points everywhere and still have to move them every time war breaks out (to be closer to the front). And given that levies are bad at fighting against MaA units and siege units are part of the MaA system, your MaA units always need to travel across the nation for every war anyways.

Perhaps they could make the AI better at taking advantage of distracted enemies (ERE vs Hungary => Caliphate attacks in east). But that would not work with the current MaA system simply because the ERE's levies in the east would not be able to beat the Caliphate's MaA units without a massive numbers advantage (and even in that case, victories would be largely pyrrhic as the Caliphate's MaA would reinforce faster than the ERE's levies) and that would just feel bad/frustrating from a gameplay perspective.

I don't have any solutions to the above. My main gripes with the war system are more abstract: the micro-heaviness of moving troops around (especially in really large wars without much supply in the area) and disproportionate land grabs due to de jure territory shenanigans (HRE has to declare 3 separate holy wars against a 3-province count in Africa simply because their 3 counties are in different de jure duchies, for instance, with the only alternative being to fabricate 3 separate claims and get the (late-mid-game) culture tech that lets you press all claims at once).

Yeah, the micro-heavy war system needs to go - I'm so tired of playing chase with the tiny armies of random counts that know they're too weak to fight me, and will thus retreat forever until I start sieging. Unfortunately, I think this issue can't really be solved. The engine changes that would be required to make warfare actually interesting and require coordination with vassals would be far more immense than even the inclusion of travel.

However, I'm relatively certain that the 3-duchy count problem could be solved, if the devs were just slightly less picky about letting you stack CBs, or provide a more flexible method of taking large amounts of territory. I don't really know why taking large amounts of territory at once is something they want to seal off until late game; not gonna lie.

 

[Serenity84]

I'm not an expert in Byzantine history but it's my understanding that they didn't use levies as such, (except maybe in times of extreme desperation), the entire force would be in game terms man at arms.

It varied over time. Ironically the early medieval theme system actually consisted more and more of peasant soldiers as time went on. Basically a reversal of the medieval stereotype. The soldiers weren't constantly "in uniform", but were settled in regions to defend them. Initially they were supplied by the government, but over the centuries an increasing amount of their upkeep was expected to come from themselves. That failed eventually and from the 11th century on the government relied on permanent, professional soldiers (which existed before too) supplemented by mercenaries and allies. In some ways this later army was also more similar to feudal armies as it depended greatly on aristocrats close to the royal family, some of whom had their own personal troops.

 

[GiantSpaceHamster]

So what I'm getting from this is that levied troops as opposed to professional soldiers varied greatly in medieval world. You had them used to different extent, some rulers relying on them heavily, others not using them at all, they would have varying quality of weapons and armor, variying degree of skill and discipline. You had defensive only levies, and semi-professional 'levies' that needed some level of regular upkeep. The dividing line between levied and professional troops often seemed very blurred.

What you have in game otoh is that everyone uses the same system where levies are zerg trash mobs, numerous and cheap but weak, MAA are sort of expensive but actually good and knights are demigods. Now we don't need to stray into regional flavour territory but maybe more laws that regulate levy composition, pay, strength etc would make the system more historical.

 

[Qutb87]

The best case for the game would have been for vassals to cede control of some or all of their MAAs to their liege when required instead of the glut of made up singular levies we have. This is quite literally what a levy on your vassals would be. I think the need for this historically non existent blob to exist has more to do with a desire to not bother with this aspect of game play. People could barely handle the CK2 levy mechanics. Sadly enough of the player base just wants their meme character map painting power fantasy.

The existing good base game mechanics (vassal contracts etc.) could provide an excellent abstraction of a myriad of military systems which were present across the map during the game periods. The Iqta option could lock in vassals to cede full control or have stipulations that they maintain a certain MAA standard as a rough example. Unfortunately I doubt we will get any real improvement on this since the current levy system they have is so hardwired into the core game design. They would basically be redoing the game I suspect......

That's before we get on to the fact that once they get large enough, MAA regiments themselves need to be political entities with a commander whose loyalty you need to keep.

 

[naq29]

Levies can be divided into regular (landed knights with their sergeants and squires who lived off their lands) and irregular (levied peasants, often well-equipped enough).
Professionals can be divided into retainers (household guards and knights who received payment from their lords) and mercenary (contracted soldiers serving for a campaign).
Mercenary can be divided into individual volunteers (whoever want to fight for some money) and professional mercenary companies (the most professional troops).

The military model ingame is the "pop culture" understanding of medieval armies, seems to be inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Bretonnian unit roster than real history.

 

[Ezumiyr]

This discussion doesn't seem to be about historical accuracy in a game, but simply about history. It leaves out the hard part, which is to abstract centuries of history from the Canarias to Bengal and Iceland to Somalia.

I think it's important to put emphasis on the cultural role of warfare in medieval societies. Currently, during wars, we actually do very little. It's just a chasing game of armies. That's what needs to be changed, more than anything. Yes we can discuss knights, numbers, levies and men at arms at length. But if war is just a dumb chasing game where you feel like you're cheating when you make a last minute alliance or mercenary hiring, it won't mean much.

We need a system that turns chasing games into proper gameplay. Probably by making battles and sieges "situations" that will occur depending on the martial skill (low martial skill and it may occur on unfavourable terrain, and vice versa), and have their own sets of events where you (and other characters in the activity) can influence the outcome of the battle. Deciding to make a sortie, lead a charge, poison the guard, attempt to demoralize defenders by throwing heads... All of that needs to be part of the storytelling, and not just abstracted by sheer numbers. It would add to player agency, and I'm sure it would also be an opportunity to improve the historicity of the game.

For starters, difference kinds of troops wouldn't be reduced just to modifiers. Having a proper cavalry would simply add different options on the battlefield. It also opens the way for military tactics that are hard to model as modifiers, such as mongolian mounted archers.

 

[cursorhiker]

Levies can be divided into regular (landed knights with their sergeants and squires who lived off their lands) and irregular (levied peasants, often well-equipped enough).
Professionals can be divided into retainers (household guards and knights who received payment from their lords) and mercenary (contracted soldiers serving for a campaign).
Mercenary can be divided into individual volunteers (whoever want to fight for some money) and professional mercenary companies (the most professional troops).

The military model ingame is the "pop culture" understanding of medieval armies, seems to be inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Bretonnian unit roster than real history.

I will bet you the actual inspiration is the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The wildly ahistoric army sizes, compositions, and most especially the medieval soldier as a conscripted farmer with a pitchfork are all straight out of there.

Back on topic - in my opinion the issue is the differentiation of levies and men at arms at all. "Levies" should vary greatly by cultural tradition, but by default be light infantry and archers - longbowmen, horse archers, pikemen, heavy infantry, and crossbowmen should all be unlocked by different things - tech, cultural tradition, etc. Military system should be split up into four:

Levies: based heavily off your development and laws, and more difficult to use in overseas or offensive campaigns, or for long periods of time. It's one thing to ask a farming village in Kent to arm and equip three men to fight off Vikings, quite another to ask them to sail to the Holy Land for years. Composition varies depending on laws - if you have a bunch of urban centers they can give you crossbowmen and pikemen, if you pass the right laws you can have a ton of longbowmen, etc.

Retinues: this is where you get your heavy cavalry, huscarls, etc. You should have your own personal retinue (representing both your own household and the minor landholders who have to provide you troops) and each vassal you have should be contracted to turn up with a certain percentage of their own retinues when you go to war. (They might or might not, depending on how much they like you and support the war). Basically zero limitations on how you can use them, but when raised they are quite expensive. Knights should become less army-slaughtering Space Marines and more sub-commanders who buff individual regiments (though the personal fighting capability should still be important.

Mercenaries: should be all professional troops, no levies, and generally be extremely specialized. Mercenary companies should have a location and take longer to show up the farther away they are (a very good reason to try to have local or vassalized mercenary companies).

Lastly, adventurers (a very broad catch-all term for non-full time mercenaries). These guys will fight for you in some cases, but expect a share of the gains at the end - remember how in CK2 when you did a prepared invasion you occasionally got legendary commanders and troops? Like that, but when you win they start demanding land...

 

[naq29]

I did post my suggestion here:

Idea for a new levy system

I see a lot of people dislike the current levy system because they are worse than Men at arms. Also, they are the same everywhere, killing regional diversity (Mongols use peasants with pitchforks instead of well trained horse archers)...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I see a lot of people dislike the current levy system because they are worse than Men at arms. Also, they are the same everywhere, killing regional diversity (Mongols use peasants with pitchforks instead of well trained horse archers).

Furthermore, the way both MAA and mercenary use gold to raise and maintain leads the game to money-focused meta, which is boring and makes levies more useless by comparison to just having more money.

So this is my idea: instead of having levies as actually units, just having them as a resource. MAA regiments will use them for maintaining and creation. Basically levies will function similar to gold for the military. Players can make a choice with stockpiling levy for MAA or gold for mercenary.

The problem with this is that all your troops will be raised from your domains. One solution is to enable players to station MAAs in their vassal domains too, and those vassals can add cultural bonus to those MAAs (for example Mongol vassals can boost horse archer MAAs).