By the way, the source for my numbers is from: History of the Greeks, Modern Hellenism 1827-1864, Chapter 5, Politics and Economy (1835 - 1843), page 170 by Professor Giorgos Anstasiadis.
Good enough for me.
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Here are some new rules I'm going to add to the front page. Please review them and tell me what you all think:
Special Rules for Vassals
Some countries in this NES are “vassals,” or in other words, states that are legally beholden to other states, called suzerains. The controlling state usually has a great deal of de facto control over the vassal, but, at least nominally, the vassal manages its own affairs.
If you are playing as a vassal state, you must keep in mind that your suzerain has more influence over you than another state might. They will have access to a number of levers that give them some control of your government, so it is worth toeing the line lest you incur their wrath. You will also automatically give a portion of your income each year to your suzerain. Nevertheless, it’s not all bad being a vassal. You’re not responsible for handling international affairs, meaning if any country picks a fight with you, they also pick a fight with your suzerain.
If you are playing as a suzerain, keep in mind that you’re responsible for your vassals. If they do something stupid, that’s something that you have to take care of. Not only that, but if things start getting really bad in a vassal state – you know, stability-wise – you’ll probably have to move on in there and clean things up. On the other hand, having a vassal is usually better than directly ruling an unruly populace – and you still get a large fraction of the tax income that that vassal earns. It’s a toss-up. A vassal that gets into an extraordinarily bad condition is usually weak enough to justify a direct annexation, but be careful that you aren’t stepping on anyone else’s toes!
Land Warfare Rules of Thumb
Here’s just a few things to keep in mind for perpetrating your wars on the land:
Attrition’s a jerk. In fair weather situations, it’s not as bad, but in hostile or extreme territories attrition whittles your force down something fierce. A good rule of thumb is 0.1% of your army lost to disease and attrition per day in hostile territory; twice that in hostile, nasty territory.
If things can go wrong, they will. No plan is perfect.
Attacking is hard. Sometimes it’s better to siege a fortified position than to attempt to assault it. It’s even better to defend if you can help it.
Training is determinant in how good your soldiers are at doing the soldier things, like march and load guns. It’s important, but sometimes doing is the best learning.
Leadership is very important: it trickles into everything. Good leaders keep the morale of their men high, know how to push them without exhausting them, and are creative and insightful tacticians. Bad leaders do none of these things.
Experienced armies know war. They are more resilient to exhaustion and morale loss and they can feel the course of battle in their blood. Experience, unfortunately, cannot be taught, so as an experienced army loses its parts and replaces them with fresh troops, it also loses some of its experience.
An army needs stuff to do stuff. It gets that stuff by means of lines of supply. The further away from your territory you deploy your soldiers, the more stressed your logistical situation becomes.
Finally, the most important rule of warfare: numbers matter. A lot. More mans and guns equals more winning
Naval Warfare Rules of Thumb
Naval bases are important. Your navy can’t sail all around the world without needing a safe haven to dock and restock between missions. If you want your navy to do things, make sure there are friendly harbors nearby.
Naval quality determines the kind and maintenance level of guns and ships you have. High naval quality means good boats with good stuff on the boats and good guns; low naval quality is pretty much the opposite.
Experienced sailors can tap into the high skill cap demanded of sailors in the 19th century. Highly experienced sailors are therefore much more effective than inexperienced ones.
Don’t be deceived by the fact that boats can’t paint your color on the map: sailing is the fastest way to get around, and the principle way that goods are moved. Find a way to work that to your advantage.
The Cost of Actions
Here’s a short list of some common actions, and the average cost these actions would probably incur. Keep in mind that this list indicates the "base" cost, and in fact the actual cost may be quite a bit lower depending on circumstances.
Minor administrative action (such as banning and seizing all tobacco, commissioning an investigative report, establishing some lookout towers sparsely across the frontier): 2% of your GDP
Moderate administrative action (such as subsidizing a business’ overhead for one year, employing many new government employees or soldiers, installing several small outposts throughout a territory): 6% of your GDP
Major administrative action (such as opening a new colony, annexing a large territory, facilitating a large demographic shift of any kind): 10% of your GDP
Minor construction project (such as a dock or a harbor base, or a large fortress): 500,000 Supply
Major construction project (such as a manufacturing center, or a railroad): 1,000,000 Supply
As the NES goes on, this list will be made more comprehensive.
This "base" cost will tell you what kind of minimum cost is necessary for efficacy. Now, these are not hard-and-fast expenses, but let's say you wanted to commission a report on corruption in your government. OK, so that's a minor administrative action. To make sure the report works, you need to allocate funds. So if your country's GDP is 50 million pounds, this action would require about ~2% of that, or 1 million pounds. So you can allocate just 500 thousand pounds, but then your report probably won't work so well. Meeting spending thresholds is important, but so is the quality of your orders. You can't make a program more effective just by throwing money at it!
These costs are guidelines. If you want to know costs in very specific terms for very specific projects, feel free to send me a PM - think of it as hiring consultants to help out (and no, it won't cost you anything).
Please note only some countries have the capability to start building railroads, and very primitive ones at that (the quality of railroad goes up with your Industry development score). Those countries with railroads already, or the capacity to build railroads, are:
Countries that can propagate railroads:
- United Kingdom
- France
- USA
- Belgium