Mothball an Army

[HelmuthM]

It would be realistic, fun and not unbalanced.

You would sometimes want to mothball an army to make it function as if it had 0% land maintenance and keep other armies at 100% maintenance.

For example, you might only need properly maintained armies in the colonies to protect them from rebellions or natives.

 

[hirahammad]

Realism based, wouldn't this be more like temporarily disbanding the army, which is disbanding the army? In real life, how would you reduce army maintenance? For ships, you just keep a few guys to keep it clean, instead of the whole crew, but for an army, wouldn't you still have to pay them, which would be a major expense? If you stopped paying, soldiers would stop working. While I would like this feature, I just don't see it justified through history.

I don't know for sure, so if you have any precedent, or if gameplay will trump realism here then, feel free.

 

[HelmuthM]

Realism based, wouldn't this be more like temporarily disbanding the army, which is disbanding the army? In real life, how would you reduce army maintenance? For ships, you just keep a few guys to keep it clean, instead of the whole crew, but for an army, wouldn't you still have to pay them, which would be a major expense? If you stopped paying, soldiers would stop working. While I would like this feature, I just don't see it justified through history.

I don't know for sure, so if you have any precedent, or if gameplay will trump realism here then, feel free.

Eh. There are already both land and naval maintenance sliders in the game. You have the capacity to decide to maintain your whole army anywhere from 50 to 100 percent. In the case of the navy, there's the option to maintain a fraction of the fleet at 50 percent ("mothballing") but the rest of the fleet 100 percent.

Whatever this represents in real life, it's obviously logical that the same options should exist for the army as for the navy.

 

[giovdb]

Excellent suggestion. Would be great to be able to keep one stack for rebels, rest maintenance to zero. The armies are still paid, that's why there's still a minimal cost, they are just not supplied fully, so it is realistic

 

[Okcydent]

It would be realistic, fun and not unbalanced.

You would sometimes want to mothball an army to make it function as if it had 0% land maintenance and keep other armies at 100% maintenance.

For example, you might only need properly maintained armies in the colonies to protect them from rebellions or natives.

Perhaps the opposite, select Armies that should be fully operational (don't affected by slider). In the situation with colonial army it would be handy to just click one time on one army rather than mothballing everything else.

 

[cub298]

@DDRJake

I just love this idea...it has been said before and it still hasn't been really looked over.

 

[DDRJake]

This has been suggested many times and turned down many times too. We're not going to see mothballed armies any time soon.

 

[Grand Historian]

This has been suggested many times and turned down many times too. We're not going to see mothballed armies any time soon.

Can I ask why, please?

 

[Maq]

Can I ask why, please?

I know nothing about developers' reasoning on this issue, but if you asked me, I suspect AI would perform poorly in using this feature. So it would result in stronger human and weaker AI, and this is not what we want.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

I know nothing about developers' reasoning on this issue, but if you asked me, I suspect AI would perform poorly in using this feature. So it would result in stronger human and weaker AI, and this is not what we want.

Then it could be disabled for bots, just like loan offering.

 

[Maq]

Then it could be disabled for bots, just like loan offering.

Main benefit of mothballing is saving ducats. AI would get disadvantage either if banned or unable to make profit from this feature.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

Main benefit of mothballing is saving ducats. AI would get disadvantage either if banned or unable to make profit from this feature.

AI gets enough advantages as of now anyways.

 

[Gratak]

Main benefit of mothballing is saving ducats. AI would get disadvantage either if banned or unable to make profit from this feature.

Does AI ever mothball ships?

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

Does AI ever mothball ships?

No. They lower overall maintenance, thus reducing their trade power as well. Gosh, sometimes AI seems to dumb to exist.

 

[KubiG37]

Idea in game terms is pretty good, but that is way overboard for me, only thing that could be "mothballed historically" were cannons, old iron cannons being stored for years in some dusty warehouse in times of peace, to be simply cleaned and taken out if the need arised.

But it wouldn't work very well in EUIV anyway, as 1 cannon still has a needed crew of 1000 gunners/loaders/commanders/cleaners/bodyguards/ammunition managers/ration managers/ ... And as others said, more work needed for our (at times) dumb AI...

 

[Gratak]

Idea in game terms is pretty good, but that is way overboard for me, only thing that could be "mothballed historically" were cannons, old iron cannons being stored for years in some dusty warehouse in times of peace, to be simply cleaned and taken out if the need arised.

But it wouldn't work very well in EUIV anyway, as 1 cannon still has a needed crew of 1000 gunners/loaders/commanders/cleaners/bodyguards/ammunition managers/ration managers/ ... And as others said, more work needed for our (at times) dumb AI...

You are right, the word "mothball" makes no sense here. But it is just used as the analogy to ships.

With navies you can reduce total maintenance or reduce the maintenance of certain fleets ("mothball").
With armies you can only reduce total maintenance.

So why not allow reduction of maintenance for certain armies. Or the other way round. Why not allow full maintenance for certain armies while being on low maintenance otherwise.

 

[Sunspawn]

Main benefit of mothballing is saving ducats. AI would get disadvantage either if banned or unable to make profit from this feature.

By that reasoning, humans should get free border forts.

 

[Maq]

By that reasoning, humans should get free border forts.

That's just another feature which seemed plausible in the beginning, and AI turned out unable to handle it. So the fault is identical, and my judgement key as well: We should avoid features which the AI cannot handle. More features often do not mean more sophistication.

 

[KubiG37]

You are right, the word "mothball" makes no sense here. But it is just used as the analogy to ships.

So why not allow reduction of maintenance for certain armies. Or the other way round. Why not allow full maintenance for certain armies while being on low maintenance otherwise.

Yes, and add a random flavour Event:
Revolt!
Your 3rd Army of London has transformed into rebel stack after they got word from French Spy that the 2nd Army of London has higher salaries than they have.

Possible options:
1) Eradicate the heretic rebels and Declare war on France!
2) Accept their demands and raise your Land Maintenance modifier to Max for the next 5 years. Lose 10 prestige.

 

[Ronano]

I still think it should be a very good option - in real terms - it would probably mean sending said regiment home and paying bare minimum wages, rather than paying the usual rations, ammunition, equipment, etc, etc.
It's kind of annoying that it isn't a feature, in my opinion.
I dislike the 'all or nothing' approach the sliders sort of have - I like the option to mothball certain ships/forts.