Units, army building, and the like

[HannibalBarca]

Yes, yes, I know the game was just announced today. But I was just hoping to get an idea of how raising armies will work in CK2. Will it be like in the first game, wherein hosts are mobilized on a per-county basis at great cost? Or will it be like EU3 and other later games wherein every country has a standing army made up of a stack of "X's # Regiment"? While I would agree that a standing army mechanic would probably be a welcome addition, I would also hope that the vast majority of one's troop strength would come from calling the hosts of various lords and their hosts to arms, with standing armies being limited to a (small) percentage of total mobilizable strength, as well as being massively expensive.

Just my two cents. Any early word on just how army-building will work in this game?

 

[Kaleidoscope]

The concept of a standing army didn't really exist in the period of the First Crusade. Apart from the nobles own household knights and men at arms, the vast majority of forces would either be paid mercenaries, or men pulled from the fields.
Having a recruitment system similar to EU3 would be a significant step backwards in terms of historical accuracy. Raising troops should be both temporary and ruiniously expensive. I like the CK system, but it could probably be balanced a little better.

 

[Woody Man]

I'd far far far far prefer a more sophisticated version of the CK mechanic. Shoving in standing armies from EU3 really would not fit the period at all.

 

[faboj]

i think we can immagine a mixed sistem of Vic,EU and CK1 wich create troops and not show them on map but put in a "bag" (as in vic) ready to mobilize for lot of money, with the generala and admiral system of EU

 

[Waffen9999]

Well yeah you should have your standing core of retainers, obviously the more powerful you are the larger it can be, because you have more money to pay for them. The system in CK was pretty realistic in that they were levies you called up. The problem, was that the quality of some of the troops was probably a bit much.

Though personally I thought they cost of raising troops in CK was astronomical. A lowly count making less than 1 ducat or gold a month would take like 200 years to repay just like 3 months of your troops in the field.

 

[Kaleidoscope]

Though personally I thought they cost of raising troops in CK was astronomical. A lowly count making less than 1 ducat or gold a month would take like 200 years to repay just like 3 months of your troops in the field.

The difference between real life and CK is that real nobles had all kinds of ways of making large sums of cash in a hurry. For example they could take out loans from banking families, take a one-off tax of their subjects income, or even petition the local Bishop (or the Pope) for a church tax, if it was paying for any kind of Holy war.
CK doesn't allow us to rely on these forms of income (some of them are represented by events, but they're unreliable). I hope CK2 lets us grab money in these ways, for various other drawbacks - lowered peasant and merchant loyalty after a tax, for example.

 

[tretii_sleva]

Let's wait and see, I am sure Paradox will come out with something interesting.

 

[Spurius]

The ruler should have more influence over how armies are recruited. The methods could be:

Professional standing army - this gives high quality troops but is very expensive and the ruler will need to ensure the loyalty of its generals. The only historical examples that I can think of are some parts of the Byzantine army and the knightly orders.

Mercenary army - this gives skilled troops immediately and regardless of military tradition but they should be very expensive, their loyalty should be a constant threat to any ruler and there should be a risk of them pillaging your lands when disbanded.

Semi-professional army - this would have men hired for the duration of a campaign, like the English army in the Hundred Years War or the Swiss army. They should have most of the ability of a standing army, perhaps depending on recent experience/military tradition but cost signifcantly less.

Feudal levies - these would be cheap, but lack unity. Their level of equipment should depend on the province's wealth. The core of knights would be brave and capable but the rest would be of much poorer quality.

I would see miliary tradition as being generated mainly through battle and decaying over time, like in EU3. However, it would not make sense to use it to buy generals, as your armies will be led by characters from your court. Perhaps casualties and new military technologies should cause a loss of tradition, to reflect loss of experienced men and previous experience being less useful.

 

[unmerged(52731)]

The best part of CK1 was the military system - changing it would be a bad idea imo. Perhaps it should be improved somewhat, but the levying of soldiers and the expense associated with it is one of the best parts of the game. Its limiting and yet makes life so much easier.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

The best part of CK1 was the military system - changing it would be a bad idea imo. Perhaps it should be improved somewhat, but the levying of soldiers and the expense associated with it is one of the best parts of the game. Its limiting and yet makes life so much easier.

Well what could be changed is that you don't always have to call up the entire regiment, like you have to do now.

So if I want to squash some 1,000 rebels in a neighbouring province I don't need to call up all the 15,000 men in my province. 5,000 would be more then enough.

 

[King of Men]

If the system is anything like the current one, please make the overlord pay when the vassal is mobilised! At least after the first X months are up, representing the historical forty days' service of most feudal armies. Also, please have an immobile (or limited-mobility) province militia in addition to the main levies, useful only for defense. Projecting power should be hard.

 

[Drakken]

What I want to see is that all male adult courtiers are part of the host as well, as they'd all be fighting personally, with the chance of being killed, wounded, captured and held at ransom, but also to show bravery, defeating an enemy of equal or superior rank, and so on.

 

[Mammut]

The difference between real life and CK is that real nobles had all kinds of ways of making large sums of cash in a hurry. For example they could take out loans from banking families, take a one-off tax of their subjects income, or even petition the local Bishop (or the Pope) for a church tax, if it was paying for any kind of Holy war.
CK doesn't allow us to rely on these forms of income (some of them are represented by events, but they're unreliable). I hope CK2 lets us grab money in these ways, for various other drawbacks - lowered peasant and merchant loyalty after a tax, for example.

In real life armies lived of the land no matter if it was friendly or not, although hostile land was pillaged harder. I havn't played CK1 for some time now but I cant remember if that exist in CK1, it exist in EU3 I think.

 

[ZhugeKongming]

Mercenaries should be a much larger component of armies than they were in CK (where they basically didn't exist). Just about every campaigning army included a large mercenary contingent; sometimes they even made up the majority.

 

[tretii_sleva]

Well, if we follow exact history - we won't have large armies in the game at all.
Forces at that period consisted from rather small detachments of kings/baron/dukes guards (several hundred individuals at best) and slightly more numbered not so well armed/trained peasant forcibly recruited to act as screen troops.

 

[BonSequitur]

I'd favour a mixed Victoria 2/EU3 system, where each province has a 'mobilization pool' of levies (A regiment that the province can inherently raise), and a mercenary pool (Which varies). In addition to that, each lord in the game can hire retinues; those are usually very expensive to maintain (Knightly orders would find them cheaper, as would large kingdoms and empires) and don't compose a 'standing army' per se, but would mobilize at the lord's demesne along with the levies. So, to go to war, you would mobilize your troops - either province by province or by calling for a general mobilization - and it would be some time before you are ready. Mobilization isn't ridiculously expensive, but it does cripple your economy until you demobilise (Since the peasants have been taken from the field). With technology and laws, you could foster freemen and yeomanry in your fiefs, which would mobilise as a more professional army and with less economic consequences - this would model, for example, English longbows and Swiss troops.