#AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE FACTIONS PROFESSIONAL#

By contrast, levies were cheap and easy to recruit, so there was no point keeping them around between wars and mercenaries were easy to recruit but very expensive to maintain, so were too costly in peacetime.ДЄs this highlights, mercenaries are quite common in Paradox and Total War games, where they are treated distinctly from regular troops.

#AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE FACTIONS PROFESSIONAL#

Charlemagne used the Total War seriesвЂ™ traditional systems for upkeep, recruitment cost, and recruitment time to encourage players to build a core of professional soldiers: professionals were slow to recruit but powerful and reasonably affordable to maintain, so it made sense to keep them as a standing force. ItвЂ™s better to ask for taxes to be paid in cash, and use the money to hire troops who are always on call.ДЄnother clever example can be found in the Age of Charlemagne DLC for Total War: Attila. Levies take time to muster, and vassal levies have another disadvantage - the player is only entitled to them for a certain number of days. The genius of CK2 is how it incentivises players to follow history and professionalise their army. With enough money, the last two can be turned into a de facto standing army, and thus a small but wealthy realm - say, one well-positioned on the Silk Road - can field a fighting force out of proportion to its size.

Realms field four different types of troops: levies, vassalsвЂ™ levies, mercenaries, and personal retinues. The most detailed portrayal can be found in Crusader Kings 2. Currently active are retinue troops and вЂњmercenariesвЂќ (as the game represents standing Byzantine units вЂ“ the Scholae and the Varangians). Alexios KomnenosвЂ™ Byzantine army in Crusader Kings II. That said, there have been games with an interesting treatment of this subject. Usually, troops hang around indefinitely after being recruited this system can be seen in games from Civilization to Europa Universalis and Total War. Yet while historical strategy games feature a colourful panoply of different troops, with distinct equipment and morale, they have typically skated over the question of how these soldiers were organised and paid. Many kinds of armies have marched through history: regulars, militias, mercenaries, tribal and aristocratic warriors, and more.

Age of charlemagne factions