Informational: What Should We Do With Our Pikemen?

At this time there are far too many pikemen guarding our cities. This issue needs to be dealt with soon. As this may seem like a Military issue, it is also a Budget issue and falls under Domestic jurisdiction. Of course, the Military Department would have to sign off on this as well.

We currently have 47 Pikemen, which would upgrade to Riflemen for 100g apiece(4700g total). Rather than incurring this entire cost, I would like to use them in the following manner.

8-10 upgraded to Riflemen (800-1000g total)
12-15 disbanded to help Rifleman production
5-7 disbanded to help improvement production
15-20 kept to defend Interior cities and Eastern Wall.

Facts

-Disbanding pikes in a city will yield 6-7 shields to whatever is under production there.

-The Budget Office has set aside money to upgrade the three remaining Spearmen and all of our Musketmen to Riflemen. There are also plans to bring our wayward Knights and Catapults to the present. These will take place over the next several turns.

-Keep in mind that the 15-20 remaining pikes could one day be upgraded or disbanded. This is a short-term solution so we don't do too much, too fast.

The choices are:

1. This plan looks fine as-is
2. Spend more for upgrades
3. Disband them all for shields
4. Keep them all as pikes
5. Other/Abstain

If you choose other, please specify why.

Choose the best answer here. Answers 2, 3 and 4 sound all-or-nothing but if your opinion falls close to that sentiment please vote accordingly. Likewise if my plan suits your interests, but is 2-3 units off.

This poll will run for 72 hours and is informational.

Related Discussion

I like the plan as-is, but I think the upgrades should take place first to present to the AI a picture of Military superiority. The disbanding will not look quite as depleting that way.

@Cyc - It would be a gradual roll-out across the board. The AI won't even catch on.

Don't disband any. Disbanding a pike is worth 7 shields. Riflemen cost 80 shields. Is a rifleman worth 11 and a half pikemen? Upgrading a pike costs 100g. Rushing a rifleman costs 320g. Looked at another way, we can upgrade pikes instead of build riflemen at a rate of 100g for 80 shields; a "rush" cost of 1.25 gold per shield! What a bargain!

Upgrade as many as possible right now. Continue upgrading as funds become available. In the meantime these pikes bolster our understrength defensive forces.

Question - Why upgrade spearmen and disband pikemen?

Question - Why upgrade spearmen and disband pikemen?

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Yes, that part needs to be amended somehow. Please, either disband the spears or use them to guard school crossings.

Originally posted by Shaitan
Don't disband any. Disbanding a pike is worth 7 shields. Riflemen cost 80 shields. Is a rifleman worth 11 and a half pikemen? Upgrading a pike costs 100g. Rushing a rifleman costs 320g. Looked at another way, we can upgrade pikes instead of build riflemen at a rate of 100g for 80 shields; a "rush" cost of 1.25 gold per shield! What a bargain!

Upgrade as many as possible right now. Continue upgrading as funds become available. In the meantime these pikes bolster our understrength defensive forces.

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OK....here's my math. We make about 240g per turn. The total cost to upgrade pikes is 4700g. That is just under 20 turns to bring all of our pikes to the present. My plan calls for disbanding 17-22 pikes total, while keeping or upgrading the rest. Most of them would be helping build units aleady in progress, preferably in low-shield cities.

In that sense, those pikes could be used to save us some of that 320g to rush riflemen in problem areas. 28g per pike to be exact.

Question - Why upgrade spearmen and disband pikemen?

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My basic theory here is that there are only 3 of them and only 20g more to rush(120g) than pikes. Besides, these units would have less to offer in sheild production. Seemed like upgrading was a better deal here.

A pike has more intrinsic value than the 7 shields (or 28g equivalent) that we get by disbanding them. We already need more bodies than we have in defensive positions. Use the pikes in the back ranks as we build more riflemen and upgrade the pikes as we need them for coastal and frontline duties.

Well, of course it will be gradual. We are also paying quite a bit per turn for obsolete units. Riflemen will still be built with regularity to quickly compensate for the "loss" of these units.

I posted this in another list, but it is more relevant here:

Can we have some assurance that the cash to be invested in upgrading our footmen will go to muskets first and to pikes and spears only in case of desperate need?

I would note that, at this point, the majority of our modern infantry is not only nowhere near the war zones, much of it is sitting in garrison in inland cities where there is no threat that could conceivably come near it.

We definitely need a modern infantry force, but the situation is dangerous, not critical -- no requirement that we bankrupt ourselves upgrading pikes and spears.

In any event, if we build these units, should we not also require our generals to make some use of them? The Persians have an ROP with the English, and we are still defending our eastern cities with muskets and pikes. The Babylonians are counterattacking, and there are only two rifleman (out of twenty in existance) within marching distance of the contested city!

Overall, no amount of riflemen will do us any good if our military leaders ignore their existance and fight our wars only with cavalry.

Originally posted by Donovan Zoi
Well, of course it will be gradual. We are also paying quite a bit per turn for obsolete units. Riflemen will still be built with regularity to quickly compensate for the "loss" of these units.

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We are paying 7gpt for all our units. We are not paying extra for obsolete units.

Disbanding pikes just doesn't add up to any advantage for us. The tiny shield benefit from it is more than outweighed by the value of having an extra defensive unit, even if it's only a pike. Heck, even a warrior occupies one of the opponent's attacks!

Save our pikemen!

Originally posted by Donovan Zoi

OK....here's my math. We make about 240g per turn. The total cost to upgrade pikes is 4700g. That is just under 20 turns to bring all of our pikes to the present. My plan calls for disbanding 17-22 pikes total, while keeping or upgrading the rest. Most of them would be helping build units aleady in progress, preferably in low-shield cities.

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You haven't shown us the other side of the equation yet. Where will the replacement riflemen come from? When will they be complete? Will they be rushed? How many riflemen do we need for defense?

We're recruiting a rifleman in Delhi and another is queued up there. Delhi produces one good shield per turn. The rifle is 77 turns from completion. It would cost 308g to rush it now. Walking a pikeman down there to disband for 8 shields means we'd have a rifleman in Delhi in 69 turns. (Just in time for mechanized infanty?) If we rush it we'd have to wait over 40 turns to do so or we'd pay more than 100g for the rush. And it would be a regular rifle since there is no barracks in Delhi.

For 100g we can get a riflemen into Delhi in 6 turns. (Vet pike from Lahore to Trader's Inn, upgrade, the 4 turns to Delhi.) This would also free up the 2 vet and 2 elite cavalry sitting in Delhi. This would also allow Delhi to work on a city improvement that could be rushed later.

Here'a another way of looking at this. Disbanding a total of 22 pikemen and getting them eventually replaced by 22 riflemen requires 1760 shields (22*72, I factored in the 8 shields we'll get from disbanding the pikes). Our total good shield production in all our cities is 348spt so the replacement cost is 5 full turns of production. In reality it would take around 20 turns to recruit the replacement rifles assumming we could find 7 cities with the production capabilities of The Burrow and have each queue up three riflemen. The trouble is most of our top producing cities are working on banks and markets and such.

Delhi, which was just conquered and has no economic worth, should not even be producing riflemen. It isn't a particularly good example for that reason. It should be working on culture and reduction of corruption.

Further, if our total economy is only 348 spt and 240 gpt, the 8 shields generated by a disbanding pikeman is not a trivial amount! That's a full decade of production by one of our larger metropolitan centers.

Please note that disbanding a pike yields 7 shields, not 8.

Please note that disbanding a pike yields 7 shields, not 8.

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Yeah, you guys! Stopping misinforming us newbies!

Originally posted by Feodor Ardent
Delhi, which was just conquered and has no economic worth, should not even be producing riflemen. It isn't a particularly good example for that reason. It should be working on culture and reduction of corruption.

Further, if our total economy is only 348 spt and 240 gpt, the 8 shields generated by a disbanding pikeman is not a trivial amount! That's a full decade of production by one of our larger metropolitan centers.

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Delhi is a great example because that (and cities like it) are the ones producing riflemen now and under this plan! There's no point in disbanding pikemen in cities that produce 7 or more shields per turn for we'd only be shaving one turn off what is being produced.

If the 8 (or 7) shields generated by disbanding a pikeman is not trivial then what is the 80 shields needed for the replacement rifleman?

Delhi is a great example because that (and cities like it) are the ones producing riflemen now and under this plan!

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I freely admit to not seeing the sense in that strategy. In other games, when I have a number of cities at 1 spt, I don't even figure them into my productive economy. The only thing they produce are a few taxes and useful infrastructure elements that can't be produced off-site: temples, libraries, aqueducts, and a few others, usually with a serious input from the federal treasury.

There's no point in disbanding pikemen in cities that produce 7 or more shields per turn for we'd only be shaving one turn off what is being produced.

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I consider that a pretty good bargin for a unit that is otherwise just sitting around occupying byte space. 7 shields available now is a lot more useful to the cause than an eventual easy kill for an enemy unit that may or may not some day get past our more serious military defences.

If the 8 (or 7) shields generated by disbanding a pikeman is not trivial then what is the 80 shields needed for the replacement rifleman?

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This statement assumes that a pikeman and a rifleman are equal in the grand strategy of modern warfare, which they obviously are not. That's like saying a galley is equivalent to the battleship that replaces it.

Originally posted by Feodor Ardent
I consider that a pretty good bargin for a unit that is otherwise just sitting around occupying byte space. 7 shields available now is a lot more useful to the cause than an eventual easy kill for an enemy unit that may or may not some day get past our more serious military defences. This statement assumes that a pikeman and a rifleman are equal in the grand strategy of modern warfare, which they obviously are not. That's like saying a galley is equivalent to the battleship that replaces it.

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The point is not to keep the pikemen as pets that we can use as cannon fodder when we get attacked. The point is to keep them and upgrade them to riflemen. Remember, when you're talking modern warfare we will have rails and even riflemen in our ineterior could be rushed to the front in an emergency.

Another point that escapes those calling for the disbandment of our pikemen (as opposed to upgrading them) is that we really do not have enough defensive units as it is. Every pike disbanded just means one more rifleman we have to make from scratch.

The point is not to keep the pikemen as pets that we can use as cannon fodder when we get attacked. The point is to keep them and upgrade them to riflemen. Remember, when you're talking modern warfare we will have rails and even riflemen in our ineterior could be rushed to the front in an emergency.

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Now we are getting down to what appears to be the key issue of the argument. Can we more efficiently create our modern infantry force with gold or shields? Can enough tax revenue (gold) be allocated in a reasonable period of time to create a new infantry army from the old material, or should we be allocating productive resources (shields) to the task?

My feeling is that Donavan's plan is winning approval since it balances the expenditure of scarce gold and scarce resources in a way that gives us a modern infantry force in the near future, rather than some more distant future.

I support it myself, but with the suggest that we allocate the seven-shield packets of federal pork derived from a disbanded pikeman not to the poorly producing new cities, but to the desperately striving older cities of our provinces, where the additional production-turns they present can be counted and appreciated by the governers. They produce their war production allotments with greater dispatch, then they are able to turn to their domestic queues. Everyone is happier that way.