Why army professionalism is upside down?

[Pyramid_Head]

It grows in peace times and reduces during wars.
Any combat reduces your army drill and it could only during peace time drills.
Any war losses reduce drill and due to pandemic mercspam and that amost every major conflict now involves billions of mercs army professionalism goes down.
So the more wars you wage, the less professional is your army.
Shouldn't battles at least somehow contribut to AP?

 

[Robert de Bruce]

Given that there is army tradition to represent what you mention, not necessarily. Army professionalism is for me more if you have soldiers, who are soldiers because it's their job for a lifetime. And they stay in one unit, not like mercs. It's somehow logic that this kind of professionalism decreases in war times, since the lifetime soldiers are killed and recruits have to fill the ranks.

 

[Blust]

I disagree. What you are refering to is already in the game as tradition. Drilling is more like training soldiers for months. The first battle is fought by soldiers who are ready for this for years, and then, as they die, new recruits came in, and so the drilling is gone.

 

[Pyramid_Head]

Then why drilling provides constant fire stage bonus?

 

[Manfred Cornburg]

Are you asking why drilling makes the soldiers better?

 

[Arizal]

I wonder if "mercenaries" shouldn't be renamed "conscripts", by opposition to the standing armies. The mechanics could then be adjusted to reflect the birth of professionnal warfare.

Or am I trying too hard to make sense of the game mechancis?

 

[Rabid]

I wonder if "mercenaries" shouldn't be renamed "conscripts", by opposition to the standing armies. The mechanics could then be adjusted to reflect the birth of professionnal warfare.

Or am I trying too hard to make sense of the game mechancis?

I think that this isn't a bad idea, but you'd have to reflavour / rework a lot of other stuff to fit in with it.

 

[Drukaris]

I wonder if "mercenaries" shouldn't be renamed "conscripts", by opposition to the standing armies. The mechanics could then be adjusted to reflect the birth of professionnal warfare.

Or am I trying too hard to make sense of the game mechancis?

i'd say conscripts are represented by manpower
replacing fallen professional soldiers with conscripts makes your army less efficient, reflected by reduced professionalism

a mercenary on the other hand can be anyone from anywhere that is willing to carry a weapon in exchange for money

considering the amount of additional mirco management needed to represent something more accurate i think the current system is pretty good

 

[makaramus]

Then why drilling provides constant fire stage bonus?

because now they know what to do in a combat warfire
army tradition makes your country know what to do in combat while drilling makes your soldier what to do in warfire!
as your army dying they will be replaced by people who were in farms and because of that they will reduce overall drill of 1k stack.

my strategy is: use only men you need. overkill is just a thing you dont need since there is combat width in game. when you lost a man in 1 stack send them back to capital and redrill them while your fresh drilled backup stack fighting in front.

 

[Facepalm]

I think the main problem with such a system is that the AI will suffer. The player will snowball from its victories, whereas the Ai won't benefit at all, resulting in a much easier game.

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

A lot of these things have to be abstracted. To me drill represents the cohesiveness of a fighting unit. The more they train together, the better they fight together. As new men replace the losses, that cohesiveness will no longer be there. While they are ready, during times of peace your men aren't just standing in place for years at a time like the map shows. They are living their lives. Drilling pulls them from civilian life and puts them in a barracks training almost daily.

 

[Reman]

Military bonuses are starting to climb all over each other. Some of the older, more abstracted concepts like discipline and army tradition seem a bit out of place nowadays.

For example, what does an army look like if it has high discipline but low professionalism? What about high professionalism with low discipline? What would an army look like if it had high army tradition, high professionalism, high morale, and low discipline?

Why do mercenaries gain the benefits from high professionalism?

Why are mercenaries considered unprofessional when they are literally professional soldiers?

 

[True_Heir_of_Rome]

All good questions.

Why are mercenaries considered unprofessional when they are literally professional soldiers?

Professionalism might have more to do with the infrastructure of the military than the actual conduct of the soldiers. Drill represents the men, professionalism represents the effects of maintaining a strong standing army on the country.

If I'm in any way correct that raises the question of why mercenaries can't drill, or why they don't come automatically drilled like they historically would have been.

IMO Mercenaries should be superior units for the first half of the game, slowly fall off, but always have inferior moral and never receive the benefits of a nations ideas.

 

[Robert de Bruce]

Professionalism at 100% is something referring to the military recruitment in the second half of the 19th century, best example Prussia. There was a compulsory military service, making all able men into reserve troops that could be mobilized in case of war, which was an innovative concept at that time. The boni for both 60% (disbanded units back to manpower) and 80% (halved general cost) professionalism represent that for me. The 20% modifier refers to a central planned logistic system, which should be part of a more complex military service with some kind of a general staff. The 100% bonus I see more fulfilled by the 19th century nationalism, starting with French revolutionary troops. (40% bonus is some game mechanic thing for me).
I guess the Devs had something like that in mind when creating the "EARLY modern warfare" achievement. 100% professionalism isn't something that was common in most of EUIV time frame, but there's no reason to don't make something like it available in the game if a country takes the needed choices.
(I obviously know the achievement is not directly linked to professionalism, but drill, but I don't think this neagtes my conclusion.)