[Cainehill]

Hmm. Is it possible to mod upkeep down to 0 for national troops? Then, the only real difference between national and summoned troops would be that some summons don't eat food.

(And also, that one has to invest in forts for troops, vice mages for summonses. Given that a fort can only recruit in one spot, where a mage can move to summon elsewhere, a slight advantage to mages over forts. A bigger imbalance, imo, is that mages summoning can be concentrated in the safety of a fort, in a single province. Think : To go to an extreme, Clash of the Titans has what - 40 provinces? That means at most 40 forts to recruit, limitted by resources and gold. But with a single province, 50 or more mages can summon. Big advantage mages, _especially_ as resources doesn't carry over turn to turn.)

Here's a thought : something like 1/2 all resources from a fort only carry over to successive turns. IE : If someone has 1 province with a fort, but isn't buying troops, 1/2 the resources piles up from turn to turn, only for that fort.

This balances things a little bit with the mages, and also has an OOC justification : the troops are hired with gold, but the smiths can be forging weapons and armor for months or years before the troops are recruited.

Another thing that might help balance things : allow a fort to recruit troops the first turn after it's besieged. Gameplay-wise, this helps balance things against instant-army attacks ( Tree Lord popping in with 200 troops ) and is also justifiable in roleplaying / thematic terms : when a walled city is besieged by invaders (especially those of a different religion, ie all besiegements in Dom2), a certain amount of the locals inside are going to volunteer to serve their city/nation/god.

Again - this merely helps to balance another of the huge, major, issues favoring summons over national troops. Right now, if your province is invaded, 0 troops can be recruited, no matter how many commanders you have there. But if you had 20 researchers, that's 20 summoning spells that might be cast. Huge advantage, mages. ( Mind you : I happen to think that summons should be better than your average national troops. But right now, 0 upkeep, ability to gain while besieged, etc, give summonings too many overwhelming non-combat advantages.)

I've taken advantage of this a number of times : playing nations like Man, Pangaea, Arco, you wind up with boatloads of researchers with nature magic. With a mere conjuration 1, construction 2, every bard / dryad can be shifted to summoning very cost efficient quantities of vine men every turn. With enough nature income, I've held for ages. There is nothing comparable for national troops. If cities (forts) could recruit while besieged, I think it would be more balanced.

There'd still be starvation for troops inside the city; there'd still be a limit on how many troops could be marshalled, compared to the invader recruiting everywhere. But it would give a little balance, a little more of a chance to the defenders, in a situation where, well, all the women (or men) capable of wielding a weapon would be joining the military to protect their men and children from looting, rape, pillage, plunder, etc.