Upkeed and Desertion

[SciencePro]

When your upkeep rises above your income how does the game decide which units desert?

Do they lose morale in the turns before they desert or do they remain at full strength up until they leave?

[chrispedersen]

farthest away from capitol.

[vfb]

Thanks Chris, I didn't know that.

Also, sacred units and commanders never desert. Even regular units seem to take a long time to desert, from what I've seen.

[SciencePro]

Hmmm that's interesting. Does anyone know if units suffer morale penalties when they aren't being paid properly? I could test it out myself but i'm lazy.

Also, since commanders never desert is there any ill effects to having a bunch of expensive mages and zero gross income?

[chrispedersen]

I've never seen them depart with less than 2 turns of not being paid. so you are safe if you don't pay them every other turn.

There are no morale penalties or problems that I have seen other than not being able to build temples when they are destroyed etc.

But yes, its one of the perverse strengths of Niefle, for example you can get by just fine without troops...

[BigDaddy]

I could swear in the manual it says the units with the lowest morale are checked first. This seems to mean that they need to fail a morale check. Which makes sense, because there always seems to be a desertion if I have militia, but if I have just commanders, there is almost never a desertion, althoug I have had one.

[Squirrelloid]

You've actually seen a commander desert? :0

[Sombre]

By the way, just out of interest, does the community at large consider the the 'storage' of money by filling a queue with expensive troops that you can't pay resources for (like in a 0 resource province) an exploit? When you cancel the order you get the money back. I could see this being abused, potentially, with negative upkeep situations and to avoid losing money from events.

[BigDaddy]

I had a black sorceress desert. OF COURSE, I had no units at all. It may be that you pay the commanders first, or something.

[BigDaddy]

By the way, just out of interest, does the community at large consider the the 'storage' of money by filling a queue with expensive troops that you can't pay resources for (like in a 0 resource province) an exploit? When you cancel the order you get the money back. I could see this being abused, potentially, with negative upkeep situations and to avoid losing money from events.

I didn't find clamming to be an exploit, so, no, I don't. However, I could see this being used once a nation has converted to a lot of summoned units. If you get important units morale over 22, it will essentially never leave. It still seems risky, though, as most nations can't do without their mages, and I've had one leave.

[Sombre]

... what? What does it have to do with clamming or morale 22 units?

[Sombre]

I had a black sorceress desert. OF COURSE, I had no units at all. It may be that you pay the commanders first, or something.

Are you positive? Did this happen recently? It would be interesting if this was indeed true.

[BigDaddy]

Maybe I should test it again, because everyone seems positive it shouldn't happen. I could swear it was a desertion, but I suppose it could have been old age that I missed.

[BigDaddy]

I am unable to recreate the loss after 40 turns without money. Must have missed something...

[slMagnvox]

By the way, just out of interest, does the community at large consider the the 'storage' of money by filling a queue with expensive troops that you can't pay resources for (like in a 0 resource province) an exploit? When you cancel the order you get the money back. I could see this being abused, potentially, with negative upkeep situations and to avoid losing money from events.

Wow, thats an interesting mechanic Sombre. Never really understood the design principle behind paying for units when resources go negative, or even why recruitment is an option in 0 resource provinces.

If I were getting pounded by someone spamming Blight (Target province suffers +15 unrest, 5% poploss, and owner loses 80 gold) and I "banked" all my gold in troop recruitment in a 0 resource province .. According to turn resolution, rituals would go off first and any Blights would subtract their gold from an empty treasury. Then would come income and upkeep and I would have essentially lost no gold from the Blights? Random gold loss events would take place before income phase also, so banking would protect you from all gold loss rituals or events. Am I interpreting that right? Is treasury allowed to go negative in the ritual and random event phase?

Am sure I have spent all my gold and still have gotten penalized for gold loss events, so maybe not as big an exploit

[Sombre]

Well even if it yoinked your income away, think about a situation where you know you're going to have negative upkeep.

You can stash away money using this trick. There are a variety of applications.

Another nice trick with negative income is this - set all your provinces to 200 tax for a turn to get money to hire more commanders. Hire the commanders and set the provinces to 0 tax rate. Next turn, set them to 200 and repeat.

Various problems caused by dom3 not tracking debt but always reducing you to 0.

[BigDaddy]

Just another way for you pretender to be an enourmous prick to their people.

[SciencePro]

Just another way for you pretender to be an enourmous prick to their people.

hehe seriously. You'd think that the average dude might try another religion after I stole his two virgin daughters for sacrifice, turned three of his dead uncles into zombies, conscripted him to go into battle with just a sling and no armor, then "forgot" to pay him.

[BigDaddy]

Just another way for you pretender to be an enourmous prick to their people.

hehe seriously. You'd think that the average dude might try another religion after I stole his two virgin daughters for sacrifice, turned three of his dead uncles into zombies, conscripted him to go into battle with just a sling and no armor, then "forgot" to pay him.

Yes, but you can tell he's a God because he:
A)Has a massive bless effect(but also causes all the people to be lazy)
B)Makes the people work really hard (but is actually a big wimp)
C)Can take an army by himself (while crapifying everything else and/or after absorbing the economic and magical output of the whole nation for several seasons)

[SciencePro]

Yes, but you can tell he's a God because he:
A)Has a massive bless effect(but also causes all the people to be lazy)
B)Makes the people work really hard (but is actually a big wimp)
C)Can take an army by himself (while crapifying everything else and/or after absorbing the economic and magical output of the whole nation for several seasons)

hehe those are some good points. I read on wikipedia that Kristoffer Osterman of Illwinter teaches religion and social science in Sweeden. Those have got to be some interesting classes...