Maintaining a healthy balance between a functioning state economy and strong standing army is a tricky task. On one hand, you need your soldiers trained and ready to defend your country, as well as being ready for your expansion plans. On the other hand, the maintenance costs of an army are huge and represent a substantial burden on the state coffers.
A good solution could be to send your units to the reserves. Let them leave the barracks and go back to their ordinary lives, this will relieve you of the duty to pay and feed them. As farmers, craftsmen or merchants they will be of more value to the state, supporting the economy through their work and trade.
Of course, every coin has two sides and leaving your soldiers inactive for a long period of time will take its toll on their battle readiness. Their armor and weapons will deteriorate and their training will be forgotten. The longer the time they spend on leave, the more their skills and experience deteriorate. Eventually the unit will be entirely disbanded, the armor and weapons sold with the men returning to their lives as ordinary citizens.
To keep the units serviceable, you can recall them from the reserves back to active duty, however they will need some additional training to get back in shape. This training takes place in the military barracks which can be built in cities, it takes several turns to complete.
The main advantage is that you don’t need to pay for the recruitment and training of brand new units, as the retraining of reserves is much cheaper and faster. However, it is important to keep in mind that calling the men back to active duty takes several turns. It is always wise to keep some units on standby in case your country is faced with an unexpected attack. A good commander always thinks two steps ahead!
Pavel, our game designer, considers this to be the most important new mechanic to be added to the game for the upcoming DLC. Let’s go over to him for some backstage insights.
The military reserves mechanic will considerably change gameplay as it modifies some of the existing rules:How does it all tie together? Players can execute two new actions “Return to reserves” and “Recall to active service” for units in cities. “Return to reserves” essentially orders the soldiers to keep all their gear and weapons and to settle down in that particular city. Technically, this increases number of Citizens (and hence increases the economic production) and cuts maintenance costs. The soldiers will stop being a burden to the state and become contributors. On the other hand, the unit is no longer operational even when the city is attacked. With every turn it is in reserves, its Experience decreases. When it hits a critical level of -100 Experience points, the unit is entirely disbanded, its gear and weapons sold (the player gets back some resources) and the unit is officially removed from the game. The player will however be notified in advance of any scheduled disbanding, so that he can recall the men back to active service if he wants to. This will mean that the unit is reactivated, it can defend the city, but it still takes several turns to make it fully operational again. The negative Experience will slowly increase over time. The retraining process can be accelerated if the city has a “Barracks” improvement. This feature has several interesting consequences:
- Recruitment of new units will take longer and be more costly. It will naturally reduce the overall number of units on the map, which in turn will make players more attached to their existing units, whilst reducing the micromanagement related to large numbers of units.
- Unit maintenance costs (i.e. soldiers’ pay) will increase, which again will work towards lowering the number of units on the map. It should also enhance the strategic decision making, with more importance attached to the use and positioning of fewer military units.
- The Unit Experience range will be extended to include negative numbers. Until now, Experience spanned from 0 – 100 points, where 0 was a default value for newly recruited units. As part of this new feature, the Experience scale will be extended to -100 which means your reserves could have lower Experience and fighting abilities than new units. It might sound strange at first, but imagine a unit which has just completed military training. Those are fresh soldiers in a good shape, but with zero battle experience. If they are left in the reserves with no training for two years, they would just become lazy and fat :). What would their experience be compared to their state before? Negative.
The best part is, that we are not just making an artificial new feature, but we are bringing the gameplay another bit closer to historical reality with the way the Greeks maintained their armies!
- Players will need to decide between an active army, available for defense or conquest, or economic growth. Having both will be very difficult and demanding on resources.
- Unexpected attacks will be more damaging, because units in reserves will need several turns to be called back to active service. This will force players to maintain good relationships with nearby factions, with whom they want to remain on peaceful terms.
- Units in reserves can be considered “national wealth“. They are basically stored resources which can be reused at any time (by selling these units).
- Reserves can be also considered a “hidden“ power. It takes some time to fully mobilize them, but it is faster and cheaper than recruiting new units.
- Importantly, when these units are returned to active service, they retain all of the improvements that they had at the time they were placed in reserve.
So, what do you think? Are you ready for the new challenge?