The how to redesign levies thread

[Zylathas]

After an economic thread that had quite a few replies. How do we think about redesign levies?

A common point is made to go back to a CK II kind of model where levies are made up of various units and retinues give you room to specialise them. Which is certainly an option.

Another thing I was thinking of is when levies become the resource that is needed to create man of arms. Levies thus become more of a manpower kind of commodity which can be used in combat but can also be used to replenish your man of arms. Your man of arms would thus not be capped by max retinues, like before, but by your max levies(cap) and if you can afford them or not. It would certainly help in balance and make levies much more useful in the long run. To further balance it perhaps the strength of levies could be increased compared to MAA, or the strength of MAA reduced compared to levies. Currently the cap is quite big.

A last change that could be added is buildings that increase the power of your levies, similar to buildings that increase the power of your MAA.

 

[Slime99]

I think there should still be a MAA cap separate to levies, but levies should limit MAA too.

 

[hdhp]

i agree with the fact that levee's should limit the size of MAA, but i do think that MAA should remain capped separately.
for admin this could result in a case where title MAA would be 'filled' first, and with priority to their 'local' MAA, so the Theme A levee's would fill the Theme A MAA, and excess could be used for the private MAA for the governor,

 

[Emperor 1997]

I think there should still be a MAA cap separate to levies, but levies should limit MAA too.

No, MaA should limited by Levies only, works very good in Imperator: Rome, so could work in CK3 too.
Imperator: Rome's Army System is superior over CK3's Army System.

Also, gives the AI more Chances to recruit an Siege MaA, which they don't always do.

 

[hdhp]

No, MaA should limited by Levies only, works very good in Imperator: Rome, so could work in CK3 too.
Imperator: Rome's Army System is superior over CK3's Army System.

Also, gives the AI more Chances to recruit an Siege MaA, which they don't always do.

the problem is the I:R levies are not as weak, compared to leigons, as CK3 levies are when compared to MAA, so un-capping them would basicly break the game - balance wise

 

[Truenorth14]

I personally have had this system in mind for a bit:

1. Levies need training, whenever levies are freshly replenished or expanded they start off as untrained, similar to current levies. Then naturally, over time they get training and specialize based on culture, buildings and importantly stationed MaA.
2. MaA replenishment relies on taking the trained levies of the appropriate type, essentially trickling levies up to be important for your MaA. I think if they cant get a levy of the appropriate type from either yourself or a vassal's contributions (whole other can of worms then they get a massive debuff 95-99 percent or so. I think cultural MaA should also rely on using their culture's levies too.

 

[ray243]

After an economic thread that had quite a few replies. How do we think about redesign levies?

A common point is made to go back to a CK II kind of model where levies are made up of various units and retinues give you room to specialise them. Which is certainly an option.

Another thing I was thinking of is when levies become the resource that is needed to create man of arms. Levies thus become more of a manpower kind of commodity which can be used in combat but can also be used to replenish your man of arms. Your man of arms would thus not be capped by max retinues, like before, but by your max levies(cap) and if you can afford them or not. It would certainly help in balance and make levies much more useful in the long run. To further balance it perhaps the strength of levies could be increased compared to MAA, or the strength of MAA reduced compared to levies. Currently the cap is quite big.

A last change that could be added is buildings that increase the power of your levies, similar to buildings that increase the power of your MAA.

Levies should work as a form of raising troops for mostly local wars. If you're being invaded? Yes calling up local levies make sense.

Raising levies for a war of expansion or just a war far away from your lands? Really hard to get your feudal lords to go along as the men might resist going somewhere far, unless it's a crusade or you belong to a more raid / travellers culture like Vikings or nomads.

 

[MarkFranz]

the problem is the I:R levies are not as weak, compared to leigons, as CK3 levies are when compared to MAA, so un-capping them would basicly break the game - balance wise

And how it's now not broken with MAA being easily buffable to the point levies become worthless beside meat for sieging down provinces.

 

[frostbiyt]

One of the (many) issues with the armies in CK3 is that there's a mismatch between how the game presents levies vs how they're actually balanced. The first number the game shows you for your total army strength, for AI strength, and for individual armies on the map, is total manpower, including levies, MaA, and knights. The AI clearly doesn't prioritize MaA or knights like the player does. To me, this communicates that the developers' intent is for levies to matter, but that is not reflected in the actual mechanics of battles, where MaA dominate. So I think the first thing the devs need to do is pick a lane and make the communication, the AI, and the mechanics line up with one another.

I think they should stick with levies mattering, nerf MaA and knight bonus stacking, and teach the AI to actually utilize game mechanics effectively.

 

[naq29]

My idea: levies become a cap rather than actually soldiers. Your MAAs use this cap and have to stay under its limit. If your have less MAAs than the cap then the rest of the cap number will become a "levy" MAA regiment. This regiment will automatically reinforce like other MAAs. It will not cost anything but be very weak. If you have more MAAs than the cap then the number of soldiers in your MAAs will be reduce to the cap limit.

 

[Citizen Caen]

I generally like the idea about levies being a pool that you can upgrade into man-at-arms. But I think there should be some kind of trade-off/ soft cap just so we don’t end up with 100,000 man-at arms. Looking at imperator’s military laws might be a good example.

I would suggest that your military law would determine the size of your levies, and what percentage of available levies could be upgraded to man-at-arms. At game start the default law gives a small bonus to levy generation but only a small percentage of those levies can become man at arms. New laws are unlocked via technology with the effect of introducing malices that reduce the total number of levies, but increasing the ratio that can be upgraded to man at arms.

The goal with this idea is- balanced correctly army sizes would remain relatively constant as the game progresses, as you would be building levy increasing buildings in the interim before changing laws that debuff levy numbers, all the while progressing towards army professionalization with more and more of your army becoming man at arms

Here is an illustration of what im suggesting for clarity (balance is for show adjust as needed):
Early medieval military law - +10% levy bonus, 20% ratio for available man-at arms
So a domain that generates 10,000 levies can raise 11,000 of which 2,200 are man-at arms.

Late medieval law - -40% levy malus
70% ratio for available man-at arms
So a domain that generates 20,000 levies can raise only 12,000 of which 8,400 are man at arms.

 

[vyshan]

To me we would need define what are Levies and what makes them different from Men at Arms. What makes them different. or more correctly what should there difference be if any?

 

[Slime99]

To me we would need define what are Levies and what makes them different from Men at Arms. What makes them different. or more correctly what should there difference be if any?

They're supposed to be a tax paid in kind by the people to the ruler. They are raised for times of war, unlike professional armies who are constantly maintained. I think the cost of MAA is one aspect that could be touched upon, especially the unraised cost.