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RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2006 2:45 pm
by Joisey
ORIGINAL: Norden
Speaking of things, that could be smarter (my oppinion) in EiA, here another one:
France could with a quarterly manpower of, say, 50 produce 100.000 men a quarter, 400.000 a year, 4 mio over a decade. Even if he didnt fight and just sat there, this would be feasibly in the game. This is a far cry from reality. EiA was designed around the concept of war reocurring on a regular basis. This way, it worked, but it is highly unrealistic. No country could sustain armies of a million men without its economy suffering. There is no upper limit to the amount of troops youre economy can handle. You can fill all corps, all garrisons and all your depots with men - no problemo - in the game. This occurs because you hardly pay any uphold costs for your troops (only the corps and these can be 2000 men or 50.000, same price and the fleets and depots).
Realistically you should pay for the total manpower in your armies plus corps, fleets and depots. In the boardgame thats a lot of work (and the reason for the current solution, I guess), on the PC it wouldnt be, even 1/10 of money could be used.
Secondly, there should be a limit to the troops available without hurting your countries economy. Lets assume France has the mentioned manpower of 50 per quarter. One could assign an upper limit of 4 times (may be 5, Im not sure) the quarterly available manpower, in this case 200 manpower or 400.000 men for all branches. You could recruit more men, but this would start to hurt your economy. I do not know, how much, but I suggest something like for every 20% of your quarterly manpower (France : 10 manpower) youd lose 5% of your total available income to economic strain.
Actually, Im more interested in the principal of a upper limit to any army, than the precise numbers.
I think this would be a worthwhile optional rule, possibly as an Advanced Rules "package" for players who want more realism. To put it another way, those who desire a military "simulation" over a mere "game" with "gamey" rules loopholes.
This reminds me of the difference between playing the Japanese in World in Flames with, and then without, the optional rule that forces you to track oil production. Having to do it is much more realistic, and it makes it very, VERY tough to play the Japanese in that event.
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:36 am
by Norden_slith
Its way too quiet here. [:(]
Anybody?
comments?
plz, [:)]
Norden
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 2:57 pm
by Joisey
I've been waiting for Marshall to comment on this.
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:11 pm
by Marshall Ellis
Joisey:
I'm sorry. Comment on what?
Thank you
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 2:20 am
by Joisey
ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis
Joisey:
I'm sorry. Comment on what?
Thank you
An advanced option that would decrease your economic income by a certain % if you raise troops beyond a certain level per year. See post above.
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:16 am
by McGuire
ORIGINAL: Joisey
An advanced option that would decrease your economic income by a certain % if you raise troops beyond a certain level per year. See post above.
Optional rule - hmmm well, if he wants to...
Fron my point of view I'll never use it anyway! I always hated this in Warcraft III, And I'll for sure hate it in EiA. Why penalize someone who makes everything right?
Example:
Leader:
- accumulates troops
- keeps peace, if possible (good diplomacy)
- if war is inevitable, strikes hard with a minimum of losses on his side.... (good tactics)
The salary of soldiers ist, from my point of view, irrelevant. At least compared to all the other costs! So actually I don't see any reason for this kind of option!
But Marshall, do as you like!
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:05 pm
by Ursa MAior
I diagree. It is meant to show that if you over use your manpower pool you will have serious consqauences just lik eIRL
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 10:15 am
by Norden_slith
ORIGINAL: McGuire
ORIGINAL: Joisey
An advanced option that would decrease your economic income by a certain % if you raise troops beyond a certain level per year. See post above.
Optional rule - hmmm well, if he wants to...
Fron my point of view I'll never use it anyway! I always hated this in Warcraft III, And I'll for sure hate it in EiA. Why penalize someone who makes everything right?
Example:
Leader:
- accumulates troops
- keeps peace, if possible (good diplomacy)
- if war is inevitable, strikes hard with a minimum of losses on his side.... (good tactics)
The salary of soldiers ist, from my point of view, irrelevant. At least compared to all the other costs! So actually I don't see any reason for this kind of option!
But Marshall, do as you like!
It's not the salary. Every country has a certain amount of men: farmhands, unemployed, criminals, whatever who are not really missed in a countries conomy. At some point you have to recruit people in produktive work, specialists and so on. This will hurt your economy a great deal.
Norden
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:23 pm
by McGuire
ORIGINAL: Norden
It's not the salary. Every country has a certain amount of men: farmhands, unemployed, criminals, whatever who are not really missed in a countries conomy. At some point you have to recruit people in produktive work, specialists and so on. This will hurt your economy a great deal.
Norden
Well I disagree!
If you say something like "Too much militiia = reduced income" - I could live with that...
But all army-factors?? I don't think so...
All army-factors other than militia are have a job: soldier! So apart from salary there is NO impact on the economy.
In addition to this there is a money and manpower pool, which means (from my point of view) that there are so and so many people available for the army that are willing to do the job!
Again, no impact on the economy!
@Ursa MAior
If you use more manpower than your country has (is this possible??) - you're right. In this case you would actually draw pruductive people into your army...
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:07 pm
by Ursa MAior
No I meant what norden said. France was having economical problems from 1813 due to the high number of men (I mean males) drawn into military service, and not enough left to do the mundane tasks like working on th fields and in the factories (kinda nazi Germany after 43)
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:37 pm
by Joisey
Yes, it's a known historical phenomenon. Put too many men into uniform, and you don't have enough to work the farms and the mills and the like. Same goes for the sea---impress to many men as sailors on warships, you won't have enough to go around for your merchant fleet.
About the only time this was successfully avoided was by the U.S. and the USSR in WWII putting millions of women to work in heavy industry (Rosie the Riveter) which had never been done before.
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:55 am
by Norden_slith
Yes it has, in WW1 and in most (all?) countries.
Norden
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:56 am
by McGuire
ORIGINAL: Ursa MAior
No I meant what norden said. France was having economical problems from 1813 due to the high number of men (I mean males) drawn into military service, and not enough left to do the mundane tasks like working on th fields and in the factories (kinda nazi Germany after 43)
Right!
But from my point of view EiA is a diplomacy game - not a reality game! Or why does only Prussia have a manpower pool? Do all male humans in other counties die when they get old enough to be called to arms?
Well back to the point:
From my point of view, the manpower of each country is the number of people that are available for the army WITHOUT any impact on the economy.
If you start screwing around on this - well actually you'll have to implement some economy features, too!
Like spending money and manpower on economy. What about army improvement? Do the leaders get ANY payment at all?
No, from my point of view: LET'S DUMP REALISM!
Let us simply play our old fashioned FANTASY-game: EiA
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:32 am
by cdbeck
Not to be a devil's advocate, because the Levee en Masse had significant economic impact for post-Napoleonic France (one only needs look at the demographic decline in France in comparison to the post-1815 German increase that lead to a relatively quick Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian war), but the complete impact of the large scale draft is difficult to ascertain. Why? Well the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars both implemented total war strategies. Thus, the entire domestic economy was turned toward war production (at least in theory). As was mentioned above, manpower was freed up by the implementation of alternate workers (read women, children, old men) and production switched to non-export supplies for troops. Besides, the political situation before Napoleon was so chaotic, France's economy probably isn't a good indicator as to how much manpower Napoleon would/could use.
There is a reason that a cartoon contemporary with Napoleon depicted the great general as a giant ogre gobbling up French youth...
Son of Montfort
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:00 am
by Norden_slith
ORIGINAL: McGuire
ORIGINAL: Ursa MAior
No I meant what norden said. France was having economical problems from 1813 due to the high number of men (I mean males) drawn into military service, and not enough left to do the mundane tasks like working on th fields and in the factories (kinda nazi Germany after 43)
Right!
But from my point of view EiA is a diplomacy game - not a reality game! Or why does only Prussia have a manpower pool? Do all male humans in other counties die when they get old enough to be called to arms?
Well back to the point:
From my point of view, the manpower of each country is the number of people that are available for the army WITHOUT any impact on the economy.
If you start screwing around on this - well actually you'll have to implement some economy features, too!
Like spending money and manpower on economy. What about army improvement? Do the leaders get ANY payment at all?
No, from my point of view: LET'S DUMP REALISM!
Let us simply play our old fashioned FANTASY-game: EiA
There is an explanation for that.
The Prussians had after the harsh peaceconditions of 1807 by Napoleon a limit to their army. Therefore they invented the Krümpersystem", which was giving basic training to men and then sending them home. A worthless bonus in EiA as long as you can upgrade militias and have no limits to the number of troops you can have under arms.
Even today armies dont just grow with a certain rate each year. And these days economies can handle a lot more then around 1800 where only Britian was just beginning her industrialization, all other nations still had to learn.
All I suggest is a rule that allows for far greater realism at very little implementing cost (as far as I can see anyway).
best,
Norden
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:56 am
by Paper Tiger
Guys this game is based on the EiA boardgame, the boardgame works in many ways. Part of that is that Britain can win by stopping anyone else winning, part is the abstraction of the political in terms of surrender conditions and alliances, and part is the way in which troops are raised and supported.
It ain't broke don't fix it.
If you want a game which is modelled more directly try suggesting that Matrix tries to produce something based on the CoG engine with some of the elements from here and some from the new ACW version.
Me I will buy this, because (1) I know EiA was a good game on the table top, (2) I like the era, (3) It will take me back to my days as a student when I had energy enthusiasm and an overdraft [:D]
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:03 pm
by Joisey
By all means, I certainly want a faithful reproduction of the boardgame as much as the next Guy. What I said was to put these ideas into "advanced" OPTIONS, IF players want to experiment with them.
You know, just like the Axis & Allies computer game had a list of rule options that you could toggle on or off before starting your game.
RE: No Death by Calendar! Help!
Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:58 pm
by McGuire
ORIGINAL: Joisey
By all means, I certainly want a faithful reproduction of the boardgame as much as the next Guy. What I said was to put these ideas into "advanced" OPTIONS, IF players want to experiment with them.
You know, just like the Axis & Allies computer game had a list of rule options that you could toggle on or off before starting your game.
Well - as I said in my first post here: As an optional - if he want's to (Referring to Marshall).
But I think we can still discuss the - let's say - use of a rule like this.
And from my point of view:
I'd rather have the game a day earlier than an optional rule.