Some thoughts on Miltech

[Martenzo]

So playing for a while, as well as seeing IRL events unfold in Ukraine, it seems increasingly dubious that miltech level can't decline except by event. Seems to me that a country being able to indefinitely reinforce their armies back to full strength at zero cost as long as they're not completely destroyed is a bit of a stretch. As is the idea that corruption and internal strife do not inherently cause decline in military ability.

So the ideas: High Inequality (say, >5.0) should passively decline national miltech level. Not by much, but enough that a couple of years of corruption without any IP investment into military can inflict a loss of 0.1.
And reinforcing armies back to full strength should, likewise, cause an amount of miltech decline as the nation needs to tap into older stockpiles of equipment to replace losses. Having to invest 1 IP into Military for every 10% of Army Strength lost to maintain current capabilities without having to turn to older equipment stockpiles sounds about right to me. Not punishing, but not something that can simply be ignored in protracted wars. Perhaps most importantly, it would simulate that a nation without armies is capable of successfully waging a defensive war, instead of victory simply being inevitable vs countries with no armies.

[tstein]

My humble opinion. The reinforcement should CONSUME the investment in either military or army (and therefore not advance these items)