Unit Upkeep

[Itherael]

I have been playing for quite a while and still get confused about unit upkeep as such I have some questions

1) What unit types require upkeep and how much do the different types cost to maintain per turn? (for example: Melee units cost 1 gold per turn, Religious units cost 2 gold per turn)

1.5) Is the above nonsense does upkeep function nothing like this?

2) Are Arquebus considered archer type units? (I read somewhere this would make them upkeep free - is this true?)

3) Do none living units i.e Catapults and Cannon cost upkeep?

4) Is upkeep reduced for units in a city?

5) Finally, are the above answers the same for Wildmana?

Many thanks!

 

[Lone Wolf]

Upkeep is the same for every unit., pretty much.

For a unit outside your territory, upkeep is uncreased.

2) Are Arquebus considered archer type units? (I read somewhere this would make them upkeep free - is this true?)

Yes. No.

3) Do none living units i.e Catapults and Cannon cost upkeep?

They do cost upkeep.

 

[Lone Wolf]

double post

 

[ADHansa]

There is a number of any type units you can have free of upkeep, that number increases as you get more/bigger cities. Above that 1 gold/unit.
Same principle for unit upside of your borders.

 

[Emptiness]

The Expenses column of the Financial Advisor (<F2>) shows how much you are paying for Unit Cost (all units) and Unit Supply (surcharge for units outside your territory). If you hold the pointer over either of these a popup will appear with details.

Unit Cost is one per unit above your free unit limit. I believe that your free unit limit is determined by map size, although I could be wrong or there could be other factors involved in its determination (ADHansa mentioned number of cities and city size; I don't know whether those are factors but they could be). The civics Military State and Crusade directly increase this free unit limit by an amount determined by map size. There is also a concept called Military Unit cost, but this is always 0 in FfH2. (Pacifism used to impose this extra cost to support military units, but that was removed in favor of the -20% unit production penalty.)

Unit Supply is 1/2 per unit above your free unit limit which is outside your territory (rounded down). This is a different limit than for Unit Cost, but I believe it is also based on map size. Don't be fooled by the popup description, which states that this cost is imposed on units in enemy territory. It applies to all units outside your territory, including in unclaimed or friendly territory.

There is also a Handicap cost, which I assume adds to Unit Cost a % amount, based on difficulty level (higher levels mean a greater increase in cost). I don't know the exact % increase for the various difficulty levels, and I'm not sure whether this also adds to the cost of Unit Supply.

Finally, you have Inflation. This increases your expenses by a % that gradually increases as turns pass. For example, if your Inflation rate is 50% then you will end up paying 1.5 for Unit Cost instead of just 1 . Early in the game it has no effect, but in the later stages of play it can become quite substantial. The effects of Inflation are usually overcome by territory expansion or vertical growth (population growth, cottage maturity, increased number and output of trade routes, et c.) but a stagnant empire will not be able to keep pace with the rate of Inflation increase and will suffer.

 

[Doug Piranha]

There is also a Handicap cost, which I assume adds to Unit Cost a % amount, based on difficulty level (higher levels mean a greater increase in cost). I don't know the exact % increase for the various difficulty levels, and I'm not sure whether this also adds to the cost of Unit Supply.

I'm pretty sure difficulty just changes the number of free units. There are separate numbers for free total units, and free supported units (units outside borders), and these numbers vary with difficulty level (higher difficulty = smaller number of free units).

 

[Itherael]

Thankyou for your input everyone, its cleared up a lot for me.

On a semi related note does anyone know if Cannon can fortify? (I'm in the office at the moment so cannot check)

The reason I ask is I have been testing out different units is a city support role (i.e. one per city designed to help out the defending stack in some way).

Now my first and obvious choices have been priests and mages but as I'm currently playing a "war machine" research route Religious and Arcane techs are not high on my list - I'm looking for more of a engineering and metal working style.

 

[Emptiness]

Siege engines cannot fortify, and do not receive defensive bonuses.

 

[readercolin]

They can't fortify, and unless you're just fending off a raiding stack, a single cannon won't do you much good (in FFH - in orbis and FF where they have ranged attacks, the cannon can have a larger impact due to not having to leave the city to attack, and no chance of dying). If you are developing a response stack to station in your border towns and you can devote a few cannons, as well as a clean up crew (to mop up after the cannon attacks), then cannons would be useful, but in more of the counterattacking sense, not the defending sense. If you can have arquebus's though, they are the best city defenders you can get.

-Colin