Well - i am not an expert.
i read some books on hisory of polish swedis wars and history of polish army
mostly by a polish academic - Pawel Wimmer
http://lubimyczytac.pl/ksiazka/294237/h ... -roku-1864my basic knowledge is:
1) polish army was highly efective miliatry force in most of the XVII century. After the crisis during the cossack and swedish wars (1648-1660) it went through the series of reforms whitch enable army to get big victories in wars against Russia and Turkey.
Reforms conducted mostly by Jan III sobieski included reforms of infratry that combine wester european and swedish experience. Infratry was organised in to small regiments acting as battalion and equpied with quality muskets. Number of pikeman was redused and intrantry was used mostly with its firepower combing force with higly effective cavalery and mobile artilery.
Army size was flutuent - between around 25 000 and 55 000.
with average of 40 000 -( around 20 000 infrantry, around 10 000 dragons and around 10 000 quality schock cavalery ) army inluded number of cossack units
2) in late XVII century general political criss of the country ( uneefctive parliament, lack of strong administration) had enourmous effcets on the army - it was unpaid - with low morale
lack of finacial resources made reformf of the army lacking. Even though flint rifles with bayonet startet to be brought to units aroun 1695 by 1700 they reached only guards units.
Procces of upgrading infrantry to the modern standarts was finished around 1706/1708.
What helped the proces was fact that saxon army was recruting soliders in poland. there was a number of poles and lithuanins who served in saxon army, saxon military drill was brought to the polish infrantry. Uniforms ware changed and by 1706/1708 polish -lithuanian infrantry was was having flint rifles with bayonets and wearing black tricorns on their head.
Cavalery was still having quality military doctrine but was demorlized.
My point is that Comonwelath force at the bigging of 1700 should be around
40 000 big - half of that infrantry.
Only certain units should be moder infrantry - fusiliers and guards and some regulura infrantry.
The rest should represent quality of the russian strielty units
Duirng the course of war infrantry should grayuale upgrade tthe modern quality.
Number of dragons could be expanded.
Country should be able to buy artilery and enginiers.
and military reforms shouls be allowed ( as they are in the game) to expand army to the bigger size
during the course of war Comwelth was ably to moblile big army ( betwen 55000 and 10 0000)
it happned relitivly easy as it was eassy to recruit numbe of szlachta cavalery units ( cavalery militia)
as for the balnace of the game:
1) Sweden was actualy much stronger and could won the war until like 1705/1707)
Even though charles XII was great tactician he was not great strategist
Some of his generalas were realy incapable.
So one thing to do is to
A) limit capabilites of some swedish generals and increase capabilites of certain saxon , russian and polish comanders
B) increase size of the russian army ( at least by 80 percent) and give it number of quality units from begging ( elite new style units existed right from the start)
C)make it hard for sweden to control conqured territory - Charles XII was unable to mass huge army as he had to spread his foirces aroung the country side to control it - it was especialy true in poland where evry time swedish army went away militian units were poping ( so number of militia regimnts could pop up behing swedis line if the cities were not having swedis regular force)
D) perhaps it shoul be really hard for sweden to conduct 1700 invasion of denmark)
anyway that are jus some small sugetion -
game is great, i am really impresed and i pay respect to you and i will do my best to persuede othe people to try it
respect, respect, respect
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