Great apps, guys, keep em coming!
Though I would like to emphasize that
everybody should give serious thought to their second choices. Liang and Areia can only go to one person each after all...
Omega, I'm happy to see that you're interested, but I'd really rather you play as an actual country instead of a rebellion. It'd be nice to fill up most of the corners of the map.
Armies numbers aside, I was also considering economics. The Chinese states stomp on Yamato greatly in this.
Similar reason as for the armies; the Emperor can't just collect cash monies from, say,
anyone. It also means that he doesn't have to pay as much in upkeep. Feudatories also tend to act on their own initiative in building stuff, expanding borders, and so forth.
Abaddon said:
Do we have a concrete X units cost X upkeep?
No. Certain other factors, such as military quality, the comparative value of silver in different parts of the world, the type of units that you're raising, and the type of government under which you operate all impact military upkeep. And remember, that upkeep isn't just paying for your armies too. Bureaucrats, retainers, harems, palace janitors, they all need pay.
Abaddon said:
What costs to raise troops? Does it equal a turns upkeep?
It's in the rules.
1,000 infantry = 150 talents
1,000 cavalry = 300 talents
10 ships = 200 talents
Again, these are professional units, not levies. Levies you can raise by saying "yo I want my feudatories to gimme sum troops" or something along those lines and boom you get the levies. Levies also tend to cost less in terms of upkeep than professional soldiers. A
lot less.
Now, you may notice that this means that you can't raise a whole lot of professional troops per turn as, well, virtually any polity on the map. Well, you actually
can; you just need to implement other fiscal policies to increase revenue. Impose new taxes or trade duties, exploit new mines (assuming you
have new mines to exploit), conquer new territories - all sorts of revenue-increasing options are available to you. And you have to employ those if you want to increase your body of professional troops.
Implementing the "treasury" rule means that in an emergency, you
can raise more professional troops than normal. You'll just get gut-punched over them in the medium term, in terms of upkeep. So even then, you'll have to find a way to increase revenue or risk financial exhaustion.
You could also theoretically disband troops to increase your revenue flow. This causes other problems, though. In order to avoid the problem of "people constantly disbanding old troops and raising new ones", the impact of disbanding troops on upkeep has been staggered a bit. So if you disband troops in Turn 3 (611-615) your upkeep won't go down until the 615 update. It'll also have a baneful effect on your Quality.
Did that explain things to your satisfaction?
Also, quick question. I fail to see how Corsica/Sardinia are mostly unsettled, as they were fully settled by mid-Punic War times. Even if they were devastated by raids, I don't really understand how they could have utterly collapsed into barbarism.
Not 'barbarism', but a lack of organized polities. The Seleukids had settled them, but only to the extent of founding some settlements along the coast. Those settlements are still there, they just don't pledge allegiance to anybody in particular, and fight among themselves constantly. The interior was never seriously occupied, and the Nuragic peoples - well, whatever has become of the Nuragic peoples - are still there, by and large. In short, it's eminently possible to expand into those territories.
You're the one who approved my cunning plan in the original DaNES! The cunning plan that involved spending 80% of government extra income on TRACTORS.
