Military

The military is the power of a province that guarantees its sovereignty. It provides both defense to protect self land and offense to attack the enemies.

Link to guide here

The leader of a province should always be managing the draft rate and wage of his army depending on the situation.

 Draft Target: 
 A good percentage to consider ready to war is between 65% and 70% (remember it also count thieves)

Draft rate: 
It normally will be define by your Draft Target. If your Draft Target is much far from your goal you should increase the draft rate. Suggestion: above 65% on reservist, 60% - 65% normal, 55%-60% aggressive, below 55% on emergency. But there are another things that can influence the draft rate: 1 - if you want to produce more soldiers to send to someone, or because the kingdom is in need of soldiers, or because you want to fix your trade balance sending soldiers (good if you have great amount of armouries). 2 – If you are in lack of resources should reduce the draft rate to not have pay problems. 3 – In some ages there are races (normally orcs) that have the bonus of train soldiers free of charge or lower cost. In these cases these provinces should train soldiers to all provinces, keeping it on aggressive or emergency and sending soldiers to who need it.

Remember patriotism increase in 30% the amount of soldier trained, and it is normally good keep it active.

Wage:

The Wage interferes on military efficiency, and increase both defense and offense at cost of some gold. I think a good amount to keep the wage is 150%, that will give you something like 4-5% bonus on ME. But if you are in lack of resource you should decrease it, and can possible increase if there is no problem with gold.

Remember inspire army decrease the wages in 15%, and we don´t pay wage for soldiers and thieves.

Ratio of troops:
Now the great question:

How much defensive specialist, offensive specialists and elites should we train?

Defensive Specialists: they are normally the defensive power for a province (there are cases that elites can be used as defense too)

Offensive Specialist: Normally it is not a good option. They have a good ratio of offensive points/gold comparing with elites, but occupying the same space of elite, you can obviously see that you will have more offense if you have elites instead of offensive specialists. There are exceptions when some race has these specialists with bonus point, and also they can be used maybe in the first war of the age, when resources are scarce. Also undeads should use them, since train elites is very expensive and their specialists can be converted to elites while attacking.

Elites: Are the strongest troop of each race, normally focused on attack but also expensive. Some elites can also be used on defense, while other ones are completely focused on attack.

Soldiers: We should not forget that soldiers can be used too, specially on provinces that have strongest soldiers or can use the agression spells that gives to soldier one more offensive point.

So, back to the question, how much of each?

It is defined by how is the elites and specialists of each race, how the Kingdom is playing, and what is your function inside the KD. Since it changes every age it is a little difficult to give a direct answer, but we can put here some guidelines.

First of all is very important have the conscious that all provinces running a similar role inside the KD should also run similar ratios of defense/offense. There is no why some provinces defend themselves more than other ones. It is a coward and selfish attitude that don´t help the KD as a team.

Having this in mind let´s categorize some possibilities of ratios:

Completely defensive: Provinces that only run defensive specialists not keeping offensive power. It is normally not a good option because you lost any chance of attack or ambush.

Extremely defensive: 3 defensive specialists to 1 offensive troop. Normally it is the best option to provinces that want to be very defensive. The elites will also help on defense and also will enable ambushes and attack small defenses helping the KD on war.

Very defensive: 2 defensive specialists to 1 offensive troop. A less defensive option, but still very defensive.

Defensive: 3 defensive specialists to 2 offensive troops. A possible option to hybrids more focused on defend themselves.

Balanced: 1 defense to 1 offensive troop. Normally a good option to hybrids like Elves and Halflings.

Offensive: 3 offensive troops to 2 defensive specialists. Normally good for pure attackers or hybrids focused on attack like Undeads, Avians, Dwarves and maybe humans.

Very offensive: 2 offensive troops to 1 defensive specialist. A very offensive option that normally only works for very offensive combos of races/personalities like Orc/Warrior.

Extremely offensive: 3 offensive troops to 1 defensive specialist. It hardly work, a province with so low defense will be destroyed very quickly and will not be able to enjoy his great offense. But is some cases, like when you are very small comparing to the KD, can be an option.

You can see I think a good option is provinces that have its strength based on attack play more offensively, while provinces that play thievery or magic role run a little more defensive. I can divide all provinces in four groups arranged from the most defensive to the most offensive:

0 - T/Ms – Normally faeries, the only race that have an elite focused on defense and possible the only race that don´t worth have offensive power, but still can use it in some configurations.

1 - Hybrids with weak attack – Normally Elves Mystics and Halfling Rogues.

2 - Pure attackers or hybrids with strong offense - Undeads, Avians, Dwarves and Humans.

3 - The war machine – Orc Warrior, the most offensive option possible.

Each one of this category (excluding the faeries that are particular) should run one degree more offensive than the previous category. So, for example, if we choose to the 1 (hybrids with weak attack) run balanced, the category 2 should run Offensive, while the category 3 very offensive. (Actually I think this setup the best option from most of ages).

No matter what the Kingdom chooses, the most important is the entire Kingdom move as a team, following the plan like Spartan soldiers, fighting side by side.