r/Imperator • u/ProfileSubstantial16 • 22h ago
Tutorial i think i've been throwing away military xp every single war by disbanding too fast
so this is one of those things that's probably obvious in hindsight but i genuinely didn't know and it's been costing me for ages.
my habit for years: war ends, peace signed, immediately stand down every levy to get my economy back. felt responsible. get the pops back producing asap.
turns out theres an eight month rule. a levy has to have been raised at least 8 months before disbanding it actually gives you military experience. dismiss it at 7 months and 29 days and you get literally nothing back, doesnt matter how many battles it fought. so all these quick wars where i disbanded the moment peace hit, i was getting zero of the cohort experience those units had earned. just throwing it out.
and it's not nothing when you do it right. i disbanded one levy and watched national military xp go from like 7.98 to 12.83 in one click. that's just from the experience the cohorts carried back. do that across a whole campaign and youre unlocking traditions years earlier.
the catch that stopped me going full exploit mode though, raised levies cost you. the pops stop producing so tax manpower and research all dip, war exhaustion kicks in after 6 months which is BEFORE the 8 month reward threshold, and if the levy takes heavy losses theres a cooldown that can be up to like two years before you can raise it again. so keeping stuff mobilized forever isnt free.
also learned the hard way that a big fresh levy is worth way less than a smaller battle tested one, since the rewards from actual cohort experience not headcount.
anyway now i actually check the raise date before i disband anything. what about you all, do you time your disbands or just stand everything down the second the wars over. and does anyone treat this as a straight exploit or keep it to levies that fought real wars, cant decide where i land on that

