Developer Diary 4

War...war never changes...at least according to the team's countless hours playing Fallout. Sadly, 3.0 must depart from this honored tradition, because war has changed quite dramatically. For today's topic, we'll be showcasing how war has changed, from recruitment of armies, to their maintenance and much more. Let's get started.

Manpower
Manpower has always been something that is quite difficult to work with. You make their reinforcement too fast, and it becomes unrealistic and meaningless. Too slow, and you have to wait for ages before you can wage another war again, not to mention how it makes fast paced expansion practically impossible. And above all, it was quite detached from the actual reality of your provinces. It was somewhat difficult to even understand what it's supposed to represent.

In 3.0, manpower has been completely reworked to address that, under the superb framework designed by VineFynn. It starts by tying manpower to something more concrete...like actual population numbers.

With 3.0, all classes (except for slaves) track their own separate manpower pool. It represents the number of fighting age men within each class. It can decline, if men are raised from that pool, but it also regenerates as time goes on.

Provincial manpower is derived from how many men are drawn from their respective manpower pool. If the manpower tax rate is 10%, then 10% of each pool is raised to form the provincial manpower stat. The national total manpower becomes the sum of whatever provincial manpower the nation can access, forming the upper limit to how much manpower a state can have 'in reserve' so to speak. Actual manpower and its recovery as such represents the bureaucracy actually incorporating the people into the system and keeping them tracked, such that they can be raised when state wills it.

Some might ask, then, about what would happen when state actually uses its manpower to raise regiments. The answer is quite simple. When manpower is used, population is removed from your provinces accordingly. If you raise 1000 men, then those men have to come from somewhere. Disbanding now always returns 1000 men to the manpower pool, and also returns the population to the proper province. When you reinforce your armies, the men must come from somewhere as well. Ultimately, all the troops in your armies will come from families, homes, and jobs.

This connection between your population and your soldiers, is, as KJH put it, 'the eye of the dragon that completes the picture'. This cost means that manpower is not an trival resource and that losing troops in wars can have very real impact on your population. Losses in battle are not always deaths, but a decent number are crippled or killed, meaning that they will never return to fuel the economy. Waging a very costly war can send your provinces into a decade of economic depression. Reactivity is the result, war has costs, even successful offensive wars.



As we can see here, even china's vast reserves can be slowly depleted. Tianwan here is still in a massive war as they attempt to unify china under one banner. So far they are winning, but their manpower is edging closer and closer to empty.



In India, things are a bit more chaotic. Bahmani, here, is in the middle of a losing war, despite having manpower and money still. Worse still, their enemy still has manpower to burn, so attrition will likely not save them.



Further west, the Jalayirids have just finished several major wars, and as a result lack the manpower to repel their most recent enemy.

Maintenance
Historically, armies consumed a lot of resources. The logistical problems of keeping your army fed and equipped decided the outcome of wars more often then battles. And the resources consumed by vast wars both stimulated and destroyed the economy at various times in history. To represent that, armies and navies now consume various tradegoods produced by the economy.

The units that you recruit and maintain have a base rate of demand for each tradegood. Their demand is offloaded to the tradenode where your trade capital is located at, and the price for those goods in that tradenode determines the cost of maintenance and recruitment for your armies.

This opens up interesting interactions between the state and the underlying economy. You can build a fleet, which increases naval material demand and therefore leads to increase in size for your naval related industries. You can build an army, which leads to import of a military product like warhorses from the nomadic steppes. It can be seen as a flow of wealth that moves from the state to the economy, rather than being a simple loss of wealth that disappears into the void.

Simply raising an army now has a chain of effects throughout the game, creating an organic military-industrial complex based on supply and demand. Sending your troops to battle has a real consequence, with every battle risking the lives of thousands of fighting age men, the same men who are keystones of your economy. Victory and defeat will have a unique consequence, something to consider as you send your men to far off lands in M&T 3.0.

Sailors
Sailors are the neglected step-child of EU4. Even in vanilla they don't really work, and almost every mod ignores them. Sailors are a silly system, a bright thought, but poorly implemented. Rare is the person who believes that sailors were a good idea for eu4.

This means sailors no longer need to exist. Yet, at the same time, ships should be limited in ways more complex then forcelimit and simulating the difficulty of maintaining a strong navy would bring a lot to the mod. Those who have read our previous dev diaries would recall that provinces produce tradegoods through slots that contain industries. One of those industries produces a tradegood called naval product. This naval product will replace 'sailors' as such, and the resource represented by them is now a measure of your reserve of naval supplies and shipbuilding resources. It will be consumed by ships at sea, and required to produce ships in much the same way. The total 'pool' of 'sailors' now represents a strategic reserve maintained by your country. It also means that no major naval power can function without the ports and production to maintain it's ships.

Without it, you can't field your navy for naval operations, and cannot replace your losses. You need to build cities, build up infrastructure, and invest in industries if you want to have large squadron of light ships patrolling your shores. The hulking behemoths that are heavy ships will be even more costly, but thankfully not so active. If you lack the industries, then the naval race will be lost.



As you can see here, AI England is currently in the middle of massive naval deployments in it's war with AI France. It's losing the war, and possibly one of the reasons is that it is out of naval materials, meaning that soon the blockades and deployments will start to weaken. But they have deployed their armies fully across the channel safely, so perhaps the war may yet turn in their favor.

Looting
Looting is not a new feature to M&T, and the implementation has not changed drastically for v3.0. But, there certainly are changes. The first is where loot can be taken from. As some of you very attentive fellows may have noticed in our prior screenshots, a lot of things now have individual assets...and that means that you can take them. Industries and classes both have a wealth stat, and equally, both can be looted. There are a range of looting policies, as there were before. It is currently being considered whether these looting policies should have any immediate effects on the war. But what they will do, always, is change how much looting occurs.

The majority of loot is, as before, taken by your soldiers and reappears in your class wealth pools. But some of it is funneled directly into the state coffers, and unlike 2.51, it arrives instantly. This means loot from a war can be used directly to pay for the war, a must for many raiding groups. And, speaking of tribal raiders that like to burn the world down...more looting also increases the amount of 'burning' which occurs. This is wealth that is 'destroyed' when a province is looted. This means that violent looting polices, while they gain you more wealth, also damage the province much more. Twice the loot means 20% more 'burning'. A potent tool to damage your enemies and profit yourself, but one that is risky to use on land you might intend to take.

...Or on the land of the farmers that feed your industrial war machine...just an idle thought.



Back in china, the war and looting has caused widespread devastation. The longer the succession war continues, the more damage to china. In the end...what is winning?

Fortifications
The basic nature of fortifications has not changes drastically for v3, but it has changed in a few, meaningful ways. The first fairly important change is that 'local fortifications' are now their own entire building tree, called military infrastructure. It does serve the same purpose, as it once did, of providing you with 'weak forts' which can protect your provinces but require no national upkeep. But it does a bit more then that, now. It increases local supplies, and hinders your enemies movements. It may do something else...but that's outside the scope of war, so to speak, and thus must be discussed at a later time.

The second change, equally important, is that the fort levels from military infrastructure stack with those from state forts. No longer does one replace the other. As such state forts are no longer individually quite so potent fortifications, but instead are meant to act as the centerpiece of a wider set of provincial defenses.



State forts do, however, still block movement, a vital and unique role.

Nations can build military infrastructure and state forts both freely, as their technology and resources permit. This means you can choose to fortify what you think is important. Of course, local powers may also decent that they want more defense as well, but can only build infrastructure, not state forts.



A heavily defended province will, as always, be a significant problem for enemy armies, something which is even more important given the nature of looting, and the vulnerability of a complex economy. Also...the men who die on the walls of your forts will never work the fields of your enemy again...defensive warfare can do harm of it's own sort.

So in conclusion...
The improvements to these systems brings war home in ways that had not be possible prior to v3. Each human life has a value, and while that value may only be economic in this simulation, that is still a massive step forward. War is a destructive thing, and best waged with care. The wrong embargo might shut down a trade link, suddenly starving your nation of vital resources or limiting your exports. Careful strikes at key enemy provinces might damage their ports, and naval industry, for decades. Equally, you face the same threat, that your enemy may do lasting damage to you, even if you win the war. And, at the last, perhaps in taking the provinces you covet, you may destroy much of what you once valued in them.

Consequences must be weighed careful, for war is a deadly beast, one as apt to savage you as your enemy.







“War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost. ”