Originally posted by Derek Pullem
I'm still struggling with TPC's argument here. Is it that imperial powers needed to make war to be imperialists therefore war is good for the nation and WE should not break the nation up?
i think the reason you're having trouble w/ my argument is b/c there are actually a number of them being made in this thread. the first argument is as follows:
w.e. is based on a misapprehension of how states acted in the time period covered. i'm arguing that states were for the most part extortion machines. states that didn't base their revenues on enhancing trade based their revenues for the most part by prosecuting successful wars. in many cases, winning a war was akin to "making a killing" on the stock market.
for example, the ottoman empire actually didn't tax their provinces very much in the first half of the 16th century. the oman dynasty financed their empire by conquest. w/ every successful war, tons of loot was transferred back to the capital & also to the provinces in terms of the share different lords took back w/ them. then the omans would divy out parcels of the land conquered to deserving subjects w/ the proviso that they got their share of revenues. thus their total capital grew. wars could go on indefinitely w/o causing unrest as long as they were successful.
the problem was that if you were unsuccessful in a war -- didn't plunder any provinces or had no success -- you would have to raise taxes even if you went to peace b/c you would not have recouped the initial investment in the war. you would need the difference b/c you would need to raise additional troops, build fortifications, pay any standing army, dole out benefices, etc. additional taxes would cause unrest b/c the way they were extracted was fundamentally coercive. this wld cause an "extraction-coercion" cycle b/c unrest would mean you'd have to raise more troops for the policing actions which means you wld have to tax even more which wld cause even more unrest. the fact is that one of the few ways to escape this cycle was
to go to war so that you cld bring back a killing.
this was also the financial reason that failed wars wld cause revolts. thus, you are right, petered out wars wld cause unrest, but that is b/c the financial return never accrued & thus taxes had to be raised, not b/c of w.e.:
Originally posted by Derek Pullem
Many wars "petered out" in this time frame because the nations lacked the will or resources to prosecute the war to an end. The crude WE model in EU2 does place a time limit on how long you should fight a war before you risk damaging your country's long term health and stability. So I'd say WE gets the feel right if not the precise details.
indeed, as i stated before, one of the major causes of revolts in the ottoman empire was the refusal of the sultan to go to war. war was the entrepreneurial opportunity that guaranteed the janissaries their upward mobility. w/o it, they wld simply languish. there are many examples of revolts b/c of no war.
the reason that dinsdale thinks i've used bad examples is b/c i was pointing out to you that historically leaders did
not get out of wars quickly. the examples i used there were not to show that not only did leaders stay in wars as long as they thought that they cld profitably do so, but that they wld often stay in wars
long after any advantage cld accrue. one reason they did was b/c w/ a win they cld at least recoup some of the costs, if they stopped, they were just left w/ a huge hole in their finances. by wwi, of course, war was no longer financially renumerative & public opinion had become a very potent force, but old habits of thought die hard. the fact of the matter by wwi was that war had become
so capital intensive & so destructive that looting was no longer a way to recoup costs & added to that problem was that w/ conscription you don't just have taxes upsetting the general populace but the fact that their relatives are dying on the front in large numbers. moreover, one of the historical methods of recouping costs -- enslaving conquered populations -- was no longer available by then.
Originally posted by Derek Pullem
You cannot diferentiate between trade wars, religous wars, national revolts or wars of aquisition with the current model. We all agree that 500 men under Cortez shouldn't cause the same war exhaustion as 50,000 under El Capitane but it does right now. However, short of introducing a very complex mesh of "different" wars - which won't happen - I think WE is good right now to give a feel for the dynamics of the wars of the time.
i respectfully disagree. i believe a few rather small tweaks wld greatly enhance the historicity & challenge the game presents.
1) make looting pay. when your army enters a province you have a choice of regular looting and let's call it a "plunder & pillage" button. if you press the plunder & pillage button you get 1 full year's income from that province in one fell swoop. if you have actually taken the town, you can press "plunder & pillage" & get a
projected full five years of income from that province. this wld increase revolt risk in the province. if the province belongs to a foreign religious category, like a muslim country plundering a christian or hindu one, you also have a large drop in population to represent the carrying away of slaves. this simple device wld easily differentiate b/tw wars of liberation & wars of conquest. it wld also encourage players to confront enemy armies right as they entered your territory b/c it wld be too painful & expensive to let them peter out through attrition until you can take them.
2) as filou suggested, raising war taxes wld give you one point of w.e. revolt risk for the
entire duration of the war. i'd add that war taxes were especially resented in colonies that were far away from the actual focus & that for colonial territories raising war taxes shld raise w.e. revolt risk by three points for the entire duration of the war.
3) losing a war wld cause unrest. it wld mean that the divine sanction that the monarch has is in doubt & since you wld probably have to raise taxes. this often was the source of problems as the loss wld represent an opportunity for factions to claim the throne. i wld say that losing a war should at least raise revolt risk by two. a long war that was actually fought but ends at status quo shld also raise revolt risk. i'd argue for at least a raise of one in rr.
4) adoption of a new inflation/treasury model like the one proposed by onslaught
here. inflation shld model an increase in the money supply & you should be able to simply accrue money from tax receipts w/o raising inflation b/c, after all, that money was not being spent. it is the spending of money that raises inflation.
5) a differentiation b/tw standing army troops & troops raised by feudal lords. standing armies shld be much more expensive & have better morale. armies raised by feudal lords shld cost next to nothing although some of the provisioning was paid for by the monarch & thus their maintenance costs shld be included. armies raised by lords shld only be available for building in mar. & automatically return home in sep. armies raised in conscription centers shld always be considered "standing armies". once you have conscription centers, a loss of a war shld cause great unrest like +6 rr.
i certainly don't know, but i don't think these should be so hard to implement & i think they wld greatly enhance game play. as others have pointed out, very little of the time spent "at war" was actually spent fighting in this time period, people went home inb/tw summers to harvest their crops. phony wars shldn't cause any problems w/ revolt risk. revolts were usually rare in this time period, but if you don't have large standing armies then the historical result plays out -- there is a rebellion, you raise an army to put it down.
anyways, i'm just throwing these ideas out. they obviously will need some tweaking, but i really do think they wld add to the game play.