How long should reinforcing your entire army from nothing take?

[Slime99]

Looking at the defines I came across the regiment reinforcement speeds for levies and MAA. Interestingly levies reinforce 3% and MAA reinforce 10% of their strength, which is opposite to what the Wiki says.

Unlike Men-At-Arms, Levies don't tend to increase much in stats with Eras and are fairly static. They do, however, become available in increasingly large numbers and reinforce significantly faster.

Army - CK3 Wiki

ck3.paradoxwikis.com

NArmy = {
    MOVEMENT_SPEED_RETREAT = 4.5                    # Movement speed while retreating
    MOVEMENT_SPEED = 3                                # Normal movement speed
    MOVEMENT_SPEED_BONUS_FRIENDLY_AREA = 0.2        # In friendly areas you get a 20% speed bonus
    REGIMENT_MONTHLY_REINFORCE_SPEED = 0.03            # Monthly reinforcement percentage of unraised chunks [0-1]
    REGIMENT_MONTHLY_MAA_REINFORCE_SPEED = 0.1        # Monthly reinforcement percentage of unraised MAA chunks [0-1]

Now looking at the math, it takes 34 months rounding up to reinforce all of your levies and only 10 months to reinforce all of your MAA. Do you feel as though this is an appropriate rate at which the two reinforce by? At the very least it seems that the numbers should be switched up if anything, or at least MAA should be significantly slower. I think that alone would make levies way better as a resource.

 

[Slime99]

For comparison, in EU4 it takes 10 years at base to recover all of you manpower, although this can be reduced by modifiers. However, the Organize Army marshal task also increases the levy reinforcement rate in CK3, doing so at 2% per martial skill of the marshal.

Manpower - Europa Universalis 4 Wiki

eu4.paradoxwikis.com

Council - CK3 Wiki

ck3.paradoxwikis.com

 

[Jia Xu]

They tried slow recovery in CK2 and it was a total disaster. What would happen is that an AI would lose a war, be left with no army, and then every other AI in the region would pounce on them. One loss would become a death spiral from which that AI would never, ever recover from.

New levies constantly sprouting out of the ground, like carrots, isn't realistic but it is very necessary for the video game to function as intended.

 

[Slime99]

They tried slow recovery in CK2 and it was a total disaster. What would happen is that an AI would lose a war, be left with no army, and then every other AI in the region would pounce on them. One loss would become a death spiral from which that AI would never, ever recover from.

New levies constantly sprouting out of the ground, like carrots, isn't realistic but it is very necessary for the video game to function as intended.

But should the same be said for MAA, which are far more powerful in player hands?

 

[Jia Xu]

But should the same be said for MAA, which are far more powerful in player hands?

Any penalty you impose on the player will be felt 10x harder by the AI. The player can change strategies on the fly and mitigate losses. The AI is really bad at this. I beat France really badly, one time, I completely stack wipe them, and now for 10 years, everyone picks them apart. Now when my truce ends, they can't even fight back. As long as we all keep fighting them on truce CD, it will be like a flock of vultures picking apart a dead gazelle.

This causes way more problems then it solves.

 

[Slime99]

Any penalty you impose on the player will be felt 10x harder by the AI. The player can change strategies on the fly and mitigate losses. The AI is really bad at this. I beat France really badly, one time, I completely stack wipe them, and now for 10 years, everyone picks them apart. Now when my truce ends, they can't even fight back. As long as we all keep fighting them on truce CD, it will be like a flock of vultures picking apart a dead gazelle.

This causes way more problems then it solves.

On the contrary what if you increased the MAA reinforcement speed further? This would technically allow the AI to bounce back faster, but it also means the player will also bounce back even faster with their boosted MAA. The player benefits from having their MAA filled way more than the AI does, so in the AI player dynamic the more MAA matter the more the player wins at least in my eyes.

 

[Benismann]

Any penalty you impose on the player will be felt 10x harder by the AI. The player can change strategies on the fly and mitigate losses. The AI is really bad at this. I beat France really badly, one time, I completely stack wipe them, and now for 10 years, everyone picks them apart. Now when my truce ends, they can't even fight back. As long as we all keep fighting them on truce CD, it will be like a flock of vultures picking apart a dead gazelle.

This causes way more problems then it solves.

Idk man it works in eu4...

 

[Emperor 1997]

They tried slow recovery in CK2 and it was a total disaster. What would happen is that an AI would lose a war, be left with no army, and then every other AI in the region would pounce on them. One loss would become a death spiral from which that AI would never, ever recover from.

New levies constantly sprouting out of the ground, like carrots, isn't realistic but it is very necessary for the video game to function as intended.

EUIV, Imperator: Rome and Project Caesar disagree with this.

Idk man it works in eu4...

Absolutly, Levy and Men-at-Arms re-filling should be very slow, because you know, Humans need a lot of Time to become an Adult, they don't fall from the Sky.

The best would, if the Devs would remove the arbitrary Limit on Men-at-Arms and simply connect them to your Levies, like Imperator: Rome.

 

[Benismann]

Also,

Absolutly, Levy and Men-at-Arms re-filling should be very slow, because you know, Humans need a lot of Time to become an Adult, they don't fall from the Sky.

I reduced levy reinforcement rate by 33% and tuned down lots of modifiers related to it (overseer tree has +100% levy reinforcement rate... it's just sad) and i must say, yes, AI does get stuck being decced by everyone around them sometimes, but it's not "broken"... Granted i didnt touch MAA reinforcement rate because i made them smaller and reducing it would mean that 1 size regiment of elephants wont reinforce (it rounds down im pretty sure), which is not good.

 

[AchedTeacher]

They tried slow recovery in CK2 and it was a total disaster. What would happen is that an AI would lose a war, be left with no army, and then every other AI in the region would pounce on them. One loss would become a death spiral from which that AI would never, ever recover from.

New levies constantly sprouting out of the ground, like carrots, isn't realistic but it is very necessary for the video game to function as intended.

Couldn't they just fix this by making battles less deadly and the AI more wary of seeking potentially lethal engagements? Stackwipes were relatively rare in this time of history.

 

[Emperor 1997]

Couldn't they just fix this by making battles less deadly and the AI more wary of seeking potentially lethal engagements? Stackwipes were relatively rare in this time of history.

Yes, currently every single Zealot Ruler of a Faith, will join any Holy Wars as Defenders, even they can not win against the Attacker.
The AI should be a little bit more smarter, when it comes to joining an War and should value the Lifes of their Soldiers, there should be even an negative Event, when an Ruler does not care about the Life of their Soldiers.

 

[Pups' Socks]

They tried slow recovery in CK2 and it was a total disaster. What would happen is that an AI would lose a war, be left with no army, and then every other AI in the region would pounce on them. One loss would become a death spiral from which that AI would never, ever recover from.

New levies constantly sprouting out of the ground, like carrots, isn't realistic but it is very necessary for the video game to function as intended.

Levies shouldn't even be this prominent, I can't think of anyone consistently taking poorly equipped and ill trained peasants off from fields to fight in campaigns that last for years on end if not decades.

 

[Slime99]

Apparently retinues reinforced with a base 2.5% each month in CK2, and you could halve that to 1.2%. Reinforcement was also very expensive. The base reinforcement rate of MAA is 4 times faster than the reinforcement rate of retinues at maximum.

Retinues - Crusader Kings II Wiki

ck2.paradoxwikis.com

 

[DiabloDeVille]

They tried slow recovery in CK2 and it was a total disaster. What would happen is that an AI would lose a war, be left with no army, and then every other AI in the region would pounce on them. One loss would become a death spiral from which that AI would never, ever recover from.

New levies constantly sprouting out of the ground, like carrots, isn't realistic but it is very necessary for the video game to function as intended.

Did we play the same game? In ck2 they rapidly recover, whereas mods like hip make it thankfully alot slower. Losing your army should be a set back, and with limited cbs, the ai can only take so much land off you. Now with the adventurer system letting you survive unlanded, theres no reason not to have people more easily experience fortune and great loss.

 

[Jia Xu]

Did we play the same game? In ck2 they rapidly recover, whereas mods like hip make it thankfully alot slower. Losing your army should be a set back, and with limited cbs, the ai can only take so much land off you. Now with the adventurer system letting you survive unlanded, theres no reason not to have people more easily experience fortune and great loss.

Yes, after trying slow recovery and realising it was a disaster, they changed it to fast recovery in a following patch.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

Yes, after trying slow recovery and realising it was a disaster, they changed it to fast recovery in a following patch.

Ah, I took "they tried" to mean ck2 in general rather than in specific patches

 

[peteoj]

Sorry but the game desperately needs some sort of manpower system, I've played games where I purposely throw myself at larger armies and get slaughtered time and time again only for my armies to respawn a year later. Same with ai, it just makes wars feel like they lack any sort of consequences or weight to them. At least with manpower you know your troops will be finite for a while and you won't be able to magically recover whole armies in a year. Maybe manpower could be tied to development with the recovery of manpower and recovering armies reducing your dev for a while considering you're probably taking many men from the farms and fields of your lands and enlisting them to your armies.

 

[klopkr]

I think the reason this game has such fast reinforcments and and stack wipes and losing armies is so unimportant is because every war is all in vs all in.

In games like EU4, Stellaris, Imperator, Vicky2, you can't easily marshal all of your nations man power at once. There's several limiters to it. In CK3 the only real limiter is money and since you can go into debt even that doesn't matter so much as long as you have positive income with your MAA disbanded.

I think the levy system has to be rethought from the ground up, to tie manpower and troops to locations of origin, with economic impacts for raising them and losing them, and build around only raising the minimum number you need to win any war (even if that is all of them).

I look at Imperators levy system mostly for inspiration. In Imperator levies are pops and if you lose them you lose pops. They also cost a lot to raise and have real economic outcomes for being raised. Finally once you disband them it's a while to raise them again. All this together means you're often picking and choosing how many levies are the right amount to use in any war. Many times it's all of them. But sometimes you need to flexibility of keeping some in reserves or unraised on the far side of your empire to respond to threats. You also have to be choicy about your wars and when to use disband them because they have such significant economical impacts.

In a lot of ways you're given the task to defend yourself or conquer in the game while balancing it against huge economic and vulnerability trade offs.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

I think the reason this game has such fast reinforcments and and stack wipes and losing armies is so unimportant is because every war is all in vs all in.

In games like EU4, Stellaris, Imperator, Vicky2, you can't easily marshal all of your nations man power at once. There's several limiters to it. In CK3 the only real limiter is money and since you can go into debt even that doesn't matter so much as long as you have positive income with your MAA disbanded.

I think the levy system has to be rethought from the ground up, to tie manpower and troops to locations of origin, with economic impacts for raising them and losing them, and build around only raising the minimum number you need to win any war (even if that is all of them).

I look at Imperators levy system mostly for inspiration. In Imperator levies are pops and if you lose them you lose pops. They also cost a lot to raise and have real economic outcomes for being raised. Finally once you disband them it's a while to raise them again. All this together means you're often picking and choosing how many levies are the right amount to use in any war. Many times it's all of them. But sometimes you need to flexibility of keeping some in reserves or unraised on the far side of your empire to respond to threats. You also have to be choicy about your wars and when to use disband them because they have such significant economical impacts.

In a lot of ways you're given the task to defend yourself or conquer in the game while balancing it against huge economic and vulnerability trade offs.

Eu4 is more "every war is all in" whenever you pick a cb that lets you or the enemy take provinces I'd argue, whilst for catholics, you're less exposed to being conquered, but still at threat of factions

 

[Benismann]

Sorry but the game desperately needs some sort of manpower system, I've played games where I purposely throw myself at larger armies and get slaughtered time and time again only for my armies to respawn a year later. Same with ai, it just makes wars feel like they lack any sort of consequences or weight to them. At least with manpower you know your troops will be finite for a while and you won't be able to magically recover whole armies in a year. Maybe manpower could be tied to development with the recovery of manpower and recovering armies reducing your dev for a while considering you're probably taking many men from the farms and fields of your lands and enlisting them to your armies.

Just like the absence of any sort of badboy/AE system, that is present in all other paradox games, this is baffling. Manpower, in one form or another, ALSO exists in every other series - eu4 and hoi4 have literally manpower, vic2 had soldier pops, so basically just manpower 2. Why no manpower in ck3?...