Garrisoning settlements in the SSHIP - ideas

[Jurand of Cracow]

THIS ^^
That's exactly the issue with free upkeep. Nothing can guarantee that the AI will use the free upkeep for good units.

The only issue I'd pointed out was " Lifthrasir has ruled it out"
I think that the free upkeep mechanism is not for the AI. Of course it will not use it for good units, it may just happen by chance, but the AI is unaware of this mechanics and it's not designed for it. But this is not the point of having this mechanics in game (and I'm in favour of having it in the game). The point is to provide the player with an incentive to keep 1-2 good units in every settlement - what I find both historical and good for the gameplay (there're reserves but the playes doesn't have that bad feeling of losing money by keeping good units idle).
For the AI there're other mechanisms to compensate. This is mainly the garrison-spawn, as I argue. Also a larger king's purse plays this role or other financial bonuses.

[Lifthrasir]

Let me clarify my position: I'm strongly opposed to the free-upkeep because it is unrealistic, inaccurate and gives a huge advantage to the human player against the (dumb) AI. If anyone can convince me that there's a benefit, I'll change my mind. So far, the only argument is about the human player feeling more confortable with it. Not good enough for me

About the garrison script, it has to be done realistically:
- no mounted unit
- no superior or elite units
- no artillery
- average quality units (missile units included) in a very limited amount
- a few militias and other low quality units

[j.a.luna]

Yes Lifth, same opinion, garrison script and if ''is implemented'' free upkeep for AI,not for human player...
About garrison script i commented some time ago with tmodelsky about units...an european example:
LEVEL SETTLEMENT/ QUANTITY AND UNITS
-village/ 1 spear militia
-town and wooden castle/ 1 spear militia, 1 crossbow or archer militia
-Largue town,minor city and castle/ 2 spear militia, missile militia
-City/ 1 spearmen sergeant, 2 spear militia with one chebron and 1 missile militia
Largue city and fortress/ 2 average units , 2 sword/spear militias with experience , 2 medium missile units or 2 low quality units with experience
-huge city,metropolis and citadels/ 3 average units, 2 low quality sword/spear units with experience and 3 average missile units or low quality units with experience( 3 archers or crossbowmen or 3 urban crossbow militia with experience)
This is a little summary and very fast write now, but in general is the idea, is upgrade quantity and quality of units in function of level of settlements, in this case only with militias and average units( in general with sergeants, militias and urban militias), the question is HOW and WHEN this garrison script is aproppiated for do it, one time each 10 turns? For not accumulate the IA a lot of units in their settlements...all this must be tested carefully for not overpower the IA and sship mod continue being a realistic mod

[Jurand of Cracow]

Yes Lifth, same opinion, garrison script and if ''is implemented'' free upkeep for AI,not for human player...

I'm strongly opposed to the free-upkeep because it is unrealistic, inaccurate and gives a huge advantage to the human player against the (dumb) AI. If anyone can convince me that there's a benefit, I'll change my mind. So far, the only argument is about the human player feeling more confortable with it. Not good enough for me

The "free_upkeep" is not for the AI at all. The aim is to give incentive to the player to behave historically: keeping minimal number (1-2 units) of good quality troops in every settlement. I strongly believe it was the case, especially in the castles. The AI should have other mechanism both to ensure that minimal number of troops (spawned garrisons) and to compensate it finacially. I don't see any "huge" advantage of the player: it may be a few hundred of florings for small factions, and more 1 thousand for the bigger ones. In terms of the overall budget this is a negligible amount because otherwise the player will simply keep nothing or just crap militia instead.
But I don't have any further argument, so I'm just giving up that discussion assuming we're not going to have any free upkeep in the SSHIP.

On the spawned garrisons - I've voiced my opinion here, I've got nothing to add. I hope to have been clear: the script is for the AI, the goal is both to ensure historicity (no cities were left behind without a proper garrison, it was simply too dangrous) and to compensate for the stupidity of the AI (which does such things). It adds to the gameplay in the way that the player doesn't have any "free lunch" taking an empty settlement.

Anyway, I can live without both aspects of the game. The current situation is just ok, especially if we implement "is_peasant" in the right way and we retain high unrest values forcing the player to keep garrisons in the settlements even without free upkeep.

[MWY]

There's no way you just kept 120 knights sword-ready at every castle or town. Men and knights were called to arms when they were needed, otherwise they were equipped with other duties. There were no standing armies.
And if you got a large empire with 2-3 free units each, it's easily 5000+ in SSHIP per turn which you save.

[Jurand of Cracow]

There's no way you just kept 120 knights sword-ready at every castle or town. Men and knights were called to arms when they were needed, otherwise they were equipped with other duties. There were no standing armies.
And if you got a large empire with 2-3 free units each, it's easily 5000+ in SSHIP per turn which you save.

I disagree for 2 reasons:
1) the settlements in the SSHIP are just capitals of big regions. Apart from them there were dozens of castles and towns. It's enough for each of them to house 2 sword-ready guys to make it 100 for the whole region. At least in the medieval Poland, in any region (as they're defined in the SSHIP) the kings would keep 100 sword-ready guys at any moment - without any standing army. Plus there'd be militias for everyday duties.
2) it should be 1 free_upkeep for a minor city and 2 for a large city - I cannot see any savings of 5000+ florins, apart from HRE and ERE, or late game big factions in the Alavaria style. Apart from this, in the large empires you cannot count them as "saving money" - the alternative will be there're simply no troops or just militia units. Actually it's how the player now outplays the AI: by not keeping any garrisons in the safe cities (ie. inside of the empire).

Besides, the sentence "Men and knights were called to arms when they were needed, otherwise they were equipped with other duties." is a perfect argument for having spawn garrisons.

[Lifthrasir]

Nope. I disagree with you JoC.

I gave figures on how settlements were garrisonned in France during the 14th-15th centuries. As pointed by MWY, there was no real professional armies before the 2nd half of the 14th century earliest (except for some very specific cases). Now, if you can give me some figures/sources denying that fact, feel free to share.

About free-upkeep, that's exactly what I said above. Your point is just for the comfort of the human player. That's not realistic. Any army had a cost: food, equipment, logistic, etc... I also gave figures on these points in the General Discussion thread by the past.

If the spawning units are implemented, that should be only to represent the fact that the local population is defending his home, not the "Royal Ost" (which was limited in time - 40 days in France f.e.). No point to have an elite unit spawning from nowhere in a settlement. Again, that's not realistic.

Finally, remember that we try to keep the script in SSHIP as light as possible in order to keep the AI turn duration as low as possible. Such scripts aren't that big but might affect that in the long term.

[Jurand of Cracow]

To be frank, I'm quite happy with the current state of affairs in the SSHIP on the things we're discussing. Apart from two gameplay glitches (1. player doesn't have an incentive to keep better quality unit as a garrison, 2. occassionaly player may take an AI settlement without any effort if there's no garrison inside), the rest works very well.

On the points of discussion: you and MWY have never answered the question of what do we understand by "population of a settlement". Is a settlement (castle/city) representation of all castles/cities in the province, or we assume (and think it's historical) that there's only one settlement in the whole province. This is quite important in many instances, for instance:
- urbanisation structure: there're provinces with many towns and cities where the dominant one is not so big in comparison to the other (northern Italy, les Pays Bas?), and provinces with one dominant city (say Tbilisi?) with no others. This is important if we compare then the economic situation of provinces (Brabant vs. Kartli).
- which units might be spawned as garrisons. If we say "it's just one city" - then you're right, it's just a local city population defending their homes. If we say "representation of cities and villages of the region" then "Royal Ost" system (in Poland it would be "defensio terrae" when all: landowners, free peasants and townsfolk were required to arm themselves and to defend their province) may play a role. Given that the spawn would be only for he AI one would say again: it's not realistic (why not for a player?). Anyway it should not include any profession units, only feudal and militia - I think we are on the same page on this (well, depending on what you think about possibility of having feudal infantry).

The issue of what we mean by "population of a region" is dealt with in Empire/Napoleon TW: population is considered to be on provice basis (so there're milions of people in the province), while it doesn't tell anything of the population of the capital of the region. Alas, the ETW is such a disaster on the other parts of the game that it's unplayable even with mods.

The current system of unrest in SSHIP actually forces the player to keep units permanently in the settlements. If you conquer a city, especially a far-away one, there's unrest and you have to keep units of militia for a long time (or maybe for the whole game). This is de facto a standing army - but it's being paid openly, so it's ok I think.

Anyway, I think there're much more important issues to be busy with, these are just thoughts for fun.

[Lifthrasir]

To be honest and from my opinion, the population in the settlement in game reflects the population in that settlement in reality. It wouldn't make sense to have the whole province represented in one area. Try to imagine a city in Netherlands in game considering that the rate was something like 42 people/km2 during the Middle Ages
However, on the economic and military sides, I think you can consider that the settlement represent the whole province. Not very logical but I guess that's the best the engine can offer.

Regarding garrison, I'm not convinced by the use of feudal units.

[Alavaria]

If so, it's great that simply putting a lot of boots on a specific patch of ground makes everyone else give up, so the extent you can start drafting them to suppress their brothers for eternity (also no one assimilates ever in Paris etc)

[Lifthrasir]

I don't get your point

[Jurand of Cracow]

About the garrison script, it has to be done realistically:
- no mounted unit
- no superior or elite units
- no artillery
- average quality units (missile units included) in a very limited amount
- a few militias and other low quality units

I'm reading this book: http://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-62...11_0274_0000_3
To make it sure, Lifth, in the context ouf our discussions we define "militia" as something different, right?
As it the context of the north Italian cities "militia" in SSHIP is equivalent of the feudal troops

[Lifthrasir]

For that specific case or area, I think that it's correct. To be more precise, in opposition to these Italian militias, I'd bring the Flemish one. Not these imployed as mercenary troops (who were more "professional" or "feudal" somehow) but the one created during the cities revolts (end of the 13th century, beginning of the 14th century). Basically, they were comoners who had received a very basic training, a little experience in fight and a very basic equipment. But they were able to beat the Fench heavy cavalry in Tournai (Battle of the Golden Spurs - 1302)

On top of my list you quoted, I think that it (units used in spawning garrison) has to be done faction by faction. Western European factions were different to Eastern one or Muslim one. But the "quality limit" should remain quite similar for any of them.

[Alavaria]

Well they were lucky to not be in SSHIP since if they were, those knights would probably best them in swordfight range no matter what (alternatively their crossbows and gotendags were armor piercing and their leaders were abusing bad cavalry AI, or stakes).

Is the idea to have units like "spear milita" be the actual milita keeping order or something? (It's funny to use units like mercenary crossbowmen for public order due to their good cost per soldier - since mercs have a "bonus" in that aspect, but seems odd that your long-run occupation forces are PMCs)

[Jurand of Cracow]

Is the idea to have units like "spear milita" be the actual milita keeping order or something?

It's actually my way of thinking and my question: what the SS and SSHIP creators had in mind with this name? It's "milita", not "levies", so it's function should be to keep an order (and defend at times), not to be the main battle troops, I think. But due to availability it's now in the SSHIP not the case: I always run armies consisting mainly of Spear Militia...

(It's funny to use units like mercenary crossbowmen for public order due to their good cost per soldier - since mercs have a "bonus" in that aspect, but seems odd that your long-run occupation forces are PMCs)

This is fixed by MWY in the next SSHIP version: merc won't be cost-effective as occupation forces. For the moment one may use tmodelsk submod to correct the merc prices in this direction (I do).

Well they were lucky to not be in SSHIP since if they were, those knights would probably best them in swordfight range no matter what (alternatively their crossbows and gotendags were armor piercing and their leaders were abusing bad cavalry AI, or stakes).

I actually didn't get it. Who do you mean and why?

[Alavaria]

It's actually my way of thinking and my question: what the SS and SSHIP creators had in mind with this name? It's "milita", not "levies", so it's function should be to keep an order (and defend at times), not to be the main battle troops, I think. But due to availability it's now in the SSHIP not the case: I always run armies consisting mainly of Spear Militia...

Because the vanilla units were called Spear Militia I guess? Ditto for other non-cool units like Peasant Archers, Pike Militia, "Spearmen" and "General's Bodyguard".

But yeah, I do think they are more likely to be Spear Levy/Levy Spearmen. As opposed to the Sergeant Spearmen who are more of the professional class, which shows. Though I think SSHIP allows your levies (Spear Militia) to end up with pretty sweet heavy mail armor (you can upgrade them from 0 to 6 armor).


It might be amusing to play at being old school Romans with upgraded Acritae units (wearing metal armor and using javelin/sword) but they will get owned by cavalry. Everyone does though.

I actually didn't get it. Who do you mean and why?

Basically, they were comoners who had received a very basic training, a little experience in fight and a very basic equipment. But they were able to beat the Fench heavy cavalry in Tournai (Battle of the Golden Spurs - 1302)

These guys. They'd do even worse fighting standard SS knights than SSHIP knights***. It does depend though, I think SS or SSHIP pikemen might also be very powerful against horse because they forgot to bring any sidearm and "get to" brawl with their pikes.


***And they might as well commit suicide rather than fight SS Byzantine cataphracts/bodyguard units.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Because the vanilla units were called Spear Militia I guess? Ditto for other non-cool units like Peasant Archers, Pike Militia, "Spearmen" and "General's Bodyguard".

But yeah, I do think they are more likely to be Spear Levy/Levy Spearmen. As opposed to the Sergeant Spearmen who are more of the professional class, which shows.

Lifth, MWY - what do you think?
I actually may live with Spear Militia, suppressing the association with "Militia", hm.

[MWY]

Well, I do think there is a naming issue, which I tried to solve - using the structures we talked about in the team-thread.

[Lifthrasir]

I'm sorry to insist but I'm still convinced that we're putting the cart before the horse. All this work would be useless as long we haven't reworked the EDU once for all. Some units aren't accurate, some others are double, etc...
For now, we're making changes on features without considering the changes in the EDU. When we implement these changes, that work will have to be done again somehow. That's just a waste of time.

To answer to your question, I see 4 main levels for infantry:
- levies: basically any comoners taken for military duties. No skills/training, low quality and very basic equipment (spear, axe, tools, wooden shield), low moral and that shouldn't be used for campaign in foreign territory (to be used in settlement defence).
- militia (local): comoners who have received a very basic training and have an basic equipment. Basically, these guys can be considered as army reservists. Same as above but at a higher level. Can be used for all purposes but better for settlement defence and public order.
- Semi-professional or professional units. I guess there's no need to develop here
- Superior and elite units.

Beside that, there are the mercenaries that should be used mostly for battlefield and not for garrisoning, at least for a long or extended period.

Note 1: this is just basically a backbone. It has to be adapted to factions and cultures.

Note 2: cavalry shouldn't be considered under the semi-professional/professional level.