Apologies and Cantonment Question

Dear All - first of all apologies for a long absence from the Forum. I have been playing all the while! (just in a position not much affected by many of the topics raised and discussed). But now I do have a question. I recall using in a previous position the "cantonment system" for economically employing stood-down units, but can't find the rules anywhere (and have lost the link to the excellent Index previously provided in the forum). Can anyone help? (of course you can!)

Ha - instant and full responses, thanks all. Knew I could rely on you! Anyone erlse botherd by having too many recruits/ too large an army???

Don't fancy any African recuits for the Priesthood, then? (Would need converting from nature-worship first, of course,,,)

Thanks for the thinks! Actually I've just tried to invest them all in trade (nightsoilmen I have). Not many ("realistic") alternatives with more sophisticated trainings/employments (and next year will bring another swamping wave of the idle unemployed...)

Always open to ideas... But have to sorrily confess not recognising Bard and Bing (a firm of solicitors? a comedy double-act?)

Using AI to play pbms!? Now there's an idea. (Hoping Richard doesn't pick up on it. He gives me enough problems now.) I do have an excellent book on my subject-area, but that doesn't always help with fitting GoK-type procedures into (hoped-for) results. Especially there's the over-riding economic model of the game, particulary in the tough G10 version. Versus the real world I don't have near enough gold mines!

"Know thy enemy" then!

The Revenant wrote:Don't fancy any African recuits for the Priesthood, then?  (Would need converting from nature-worship first, of course,,,)

Think of "Priests" as being the "local version of holy men", the term isn't religion-specific. If in doubt, ask Richard what he thinks is the appropriate term for your position.

As China, I asked Richard and as a result I ended up with a mix of Buddhist, Confucian and "Ancestor worship" priests

Marshal Bombast wrote:Must admit Jason2 had understood the honour table in G10 really well. I need to read more what he was doing in the paper and try to replicate.  Seems Saxony and Prussia are doing well with that too!

Well, a lot of it was down to standing up to Johnny Foreigner when he tried to be rude to/insulted/patronised/ordered around Scotland...basically I was doing the Glory version of being in a pub late at night in Glasgow or Aberdeen when it all kicked off, I was grabbing a bottle, smashing it on the bar and going "laddie are ye lookng at me"

Strangely it worked

Jason2 wrote:

Marshal Bombast wrote:Must admit Jason2 had understood the honour table in G10 really well. I need to read more what he was doing in the paper and try to replicate.  Seems Saxony and Prussia are doing well with that too!

Well, a lot of it was down to standing up to Johnny Foreigner when he tried to be rude to/insulted/patronised/ordered around Scotland...basically I was doing the Glory version of being in a pub late at night in Glasgow or Aberdeen when it all kicked off, I was grabbing a bottle, smashing it on the bar and going "laddie are ye lookng at me"

Strangely it worked

Ref improvements to your "Honour Score" and also "Economic Healh" it probably should be noted that what works for one position may not work for all positions or even at all times for the same position.

Likewise the ever popular grabbing a bottle, smashing it on the bar and going "laddie are you looking at me" approach to dealing with Johnny Foreign types may work great. But is helps to not try it on the wrong Foreign types.

Marshal Bombast wrote:While the Tsar's in all of the games are likely open to correspondence from other nations you might find it better to disband the units and invest them in trade or retrain them as Priests, Physicians, Magistrates, Vets, Night Soilmen units, Road Patrols. I know I'm thinking European versions but I'm sure there'd be some equivalent to be of use.

In one position I did experiment with the cantonment system, and like Marshall implies, found the results to be very mixed.  In theory it is a great idea ... I inherited a lot of recruits tied up in inactive low quality units.  If I wanted to do anything with them then I had to make them active which would have cost a lot of money I didn't have.  And in any case the risk of being invaded was minimal and I had no intention of declaring war on anyone either.  I also had a large enough recruit pile to cover civilian uses to build up priests, doctors, vets, etc, at a reasonable rate over a number of game years.  Economy was fairly weak so I placed 75% of them into the cantonment system expecting a big boost in income and EH.  Result was barely noticeable.

I didn't want to disband them and free up the recruits for 2 main reasons:
1. I thought it would have reduced honour
2. If I was unlucky and someone did declare war on me (it does seem to happen rather frequently in positions I play), then because the economy was relatively weak I would struggle to be able to afford to raise them again and train them.

But with hindsight I could have disbanded some of them and 'invested' them directly in boosting trade, and if I did this I would have had much more control over investing in specific products.  I suspect that the nature of the cantonment system is that they would have been spending their 10 months of the year helping 'internal' trade, and so because the economy (the internal economy) was relatively weak anyway, the returns were low.  If I had invested them in foreign trade or merchant ships then perhaps it would have given me a greater return.

Ref the Cantonment system I suspect that like many things in Glori it works best for positions which used this system or systems like it historically.

Swedes for instance had a system where each 3/4 farm's were responsible for the provision and upkeep of a fully equiped soldier. In peacetime soldiers joined their regional regiments for a few weeks/month training and rest of the time lived/worked on one of the farm's.

While the bulk of the Ottoman Cavalry were still semi feadal in that they were not paid by the state but were granted right to collect tax imcome from some land and generally some land of their own for their and their horses upkeep in exchange for period of service every year - either on campaign, guarding frontiers or keeping law and order and spent rest of year on fief. Fief not really being the right word since it was in theory a tax farm/right to income rather than direct land ownership but by 1700 things had often blurred so many families both farmed the land and were the Saphi tax farmer.

And had changed from Soldiers supportted by a tax farm into land owners/farmers who provided part time military service or sometimes some other service in exchange for land and tax concessions.

Basically in game the Cantonment system is of most use to positions like Sweden and the Ottomans who start with huge armies which than can not afford but do not totally want to totally disband since they might have to raise them again.

In G9 Ottoman have worked on calling putting large numbers of troops into Cantonment which section trains. Then when that section and their horses fully trained they go back too their farms etc and fresh batch called up. Seems to work ok but question does arise in time of war will the Government have saved enough to call up whole army and if mass mobilization happened what would it do too economic health? I suspect no good.

One possible advantage with this system is that it makes it very hard for hostile agents to identify position and number of forces they are likely to be oposed by. Though in G9 can not think why anyone would want to attack the friendly and loveable Sultan and his equally loveable and loyal Pasha of Rumelia.