But before I get started, I have to quickly say that CoG:EE is an incredible game. Definitely a 8/10 as is, and surely a 9/10 after first patch. A must have for Napoleonic strategy lovers. In my opinion, it is an improvement on even the great Empire in Arms board game. :)
Now back to the question of mobilization limits...
The historical numbers of units in the field which were used by the CoG:EE designers to calculate "mobilization limits" were each the products of each nation's historically used economic/political/military system. Isn't it possible (or even likely) that with the economic, political, and situational flexibility of CoG:EE that players will develop other types of economies/trade patterns and find themselves on different economic/development/doctrinal trajectories than their power did in the actual wars of 1792-1815?
Let's assume for a second that actual history had played out differently...What would have happened if Austria would have never reformed its feudal system, had ignored the happiness of its people, been crushed in war after war of the 1790s, and gone into massive debt? Wouldn't their economy (and hence mobilization limits) been different by 1805? Isn't it possible that they could have fielded significantly fewer armies when it came time to do so? Wouldn't it be unfair to burden today's wargamer with a mob. limit based on these historically bad choices, just because they were "historical"? It seems this is what the CoG:EE mob. limit does.
What if between 1792 and 1804 Russia would have worked to advance their economy as rabidly as Peter the Great had? Couldn't their 1805 Mob. limit have been significantly different?
History is a game which has been played once. There are so many millions of variables at play that we don't know exactly which choices the rulers of these nations made to get them exactly where they were (heck, we still can't truly agree on if US government intervention caused the great depression or cured it!). And we should let players make choices which could result in significantly different numbers of troops at any time. Why punish a player who saves like a miser for 10 years, then spends it all at once to import food, field armies, pay upkeep and more when the time comes? Why prevent players from going into massive debt and ruining their economies from the inside out in order to field larger armies for the short period of time such a strategy might work? Why not allow players to more easily encounter the situation where they have made poor choices and because of this, they can field only a portion of what their historical counterparts did when real Kings and Emperors "played the game ONCE."
The mobilization limits used in the game are drawn from one game played once (real history). This is hardly a statistically significant sample and one can never and will never know the "average" normal army size for a "napoleonic" era nation like Sweden, or France, or Russia.
In my opinion, having a "mobilization limit" is like having a law on the books in the country which says, "we can never have more than X troops on the payroll." Who would have heeded this IF they could have AFFORDED the alternative? Why is "mobilization limit" introduced when there is a whole range of numbers and model for draftable population, etc (which I am guessing is based somewhat on the actual population, which can grow or shrink, depending on how a player runs his country)?
If, prior to the introduction of mobilization limits, nations have SEEMINGLY too many units in play, then the real problem is/was probably one or more of the following:
1) The units are too cheap
2) The units are giving the player more benefits than they did historically
3) It is too easy to raise the units
Artificial mobilization limits, because they are artificial, cause other artificial un-historical solutions. This mob. limit cap means that as nations grow their armies that once they near their caps they should shift to a strategy to INCREASE the quality of their troops/divisions/army's morale in order to cram the maximum fire power into the number of units allowed. However, when nations stretch their military and economic effort to the maximum in times of total war, one would probably hardly expect quality to go UP.
Take Sweden for instance. Because of the small army "mob. limit" for Sweden (10 in 1803), a Swedish player with money and time on his hands should cram as much fire power into his tiny army as possible by maximizing morale in every way possible. He can't even make a broad ranging quality vs. quantity calculation. The Swedish player should maximize training, increase the minimum draft age and decrease the maximum draft age of his pool. He should also concentrate on building barracks and use every other trick to max out morale.
However, according to most sources, the Russian Army was better trained and more prepared for the war against Sweden in 1808-1809. Yet when I play solo scenarios, my high morale Swedish armies are INVARIABLY better than the Russians (who seem to have a morale around 3.5 because they are not restricted in their development options yet in most cases) when it comes to war. If the Russian morale of 3.5 is accurate historically, then Swedish "historical" morale should be around 2.7-3.0? That is a far cry from my CoG:EE morale of 5.0, 5.9, etc.
If you are going to impose artificial mobilization caps for "historical" purposes, why not impose morale caps for "historical" purposes too? Why is un-historical army size offensive, but un-historical morale not offensive?
Other artificial occurrences which happen merely because players have mobilization limits are 1) Suddenly, when fielding the largest army of all time in a burgeoning economy, the player finds himself with a rapidly rising bank account!, 2) Suddenly when fielding the largest army of all time in a burgeoning economy, additional funds can be found for a massive "cultural upgrade" effort. Neither of these would occur if mob. limits were eliminated and costs of production/maintenance of units merely increased.
In the end, in game design theory, I am a "free market" player. If there is "too much" of something in play (for instance, AI artillery as mentioned in another thread), the designer just hasn't made it expensive enough/rare enough/difficult to come by. Mob. limits are like apartment rent caps. They merely force problems to go other places (for instance, long waiting lists for apartments!).
In 1805, Sweden had a population of roughly 2,400,000 according to one Swedish University source I just found here in the Internet. The non-Finnish portion of the Swedish army was roughly 35,000 in size at the time (including those to be raised only in wartime)*. Meaning 1.45% of Swedes were at arms. In 1939, Germany had a population of roughly 69,000,000. In operation Barbarossa, 3,500,000 German troops directly participated. Assuming a mere 700,000 German troops were involved in other duties throughout Europe/Germany/Oceans at the time, this gives a number of about 4,200,000 men involved in Germany's armed services at a time when they were still drafting men of "reasonable" ages (18-45?). This indicates that 5.7% of Germany's population was at arms in 1941, before Germany even realized it was in a total war (perhaps hitting them over the head in 1943). This calculation is made merely to show that many, many more men are available to be thrown into battle when needed in 1805 Sweden. Just how many more is debatable for many reasons. However, ultimately, the costs on the economy are what limited their use in such a manner. Could Napoleonic Sweden field 5-6 percent of its healthiest men without starving large portions of its population? Probably not. But if they borrowed lots of money and concentrated on importing food stuffs to feed their people and luxuries to keep them happy for a short conflict, historically the King of Sweden could certainly have fielded more troops (if he wasn't using this strategy already).
Certainly one factor which made fielding larger percentages of Germany's population possible in WW2, was the advancement of agriculture in the 130 years between the conflicts, which allowed fewer people to feed many more. Indeed, all of the advance of civilization is based on increased agricultural productivity of each individual farmer, which frees others up to do things other than spend their days working their fingers to the bone just to get by, allowing for things like textiles, and luxuries, and bureaucrats, and technological advancements...and of course massive standing armies.
IMHO, please take off "mobilization limits" and make these units and the costs of fielding them impose a greater burden on their economies. Let players make choices with their economies which CAN result in large changes in the number of troops they can field. Why limit them with the effects of the historical choices of their historical counterparts? Mobilization limits are a weak design tool which should be used when dealing with board games which do not have the rich economics and population dynamics which CoG:EE has already given us. However, with the computer, we have moved into a new age. Although it seems mobilization limits can change in a current CoG:EE game, players should be given more freedom to field more troops than their historical counter parts AND be given more freedom to screw up and field fewer--even under maximum efforts.
Barring other major redesign work, simply increasing the build/upkeep costs and removing the mobilization limit caps would move CoG:EE closer to a system which is more realistic in terms of the dilemmas mentioned above. Or, give players an option to play with one system or the other (I have absolutely no problem with that). Players can be given a series of options accessible on the start up screen, not just "advanced/simple economy"
*Swedish army numbers from: < Message edited by barbarossa2 -- 3/25/2009 6:55:12 PM >
http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/organization/Sweden/Army/Organization/c_swedisharmy2.html
