Darkest Hour - Dev Diary #21 - Mobilization system

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Can we hear something about the requirements for decreasing mobilization? It is mentioned that, up to partial mobilization, there is a generic decision for moving up on the moblization ladder if MP is low, but is it possible to go the other way if one has a large enough surplus of manpower?
I'm pretty sure you cannot demobilize while you are at war.

What If I like to field a larger standing army of trained professionals, will there be decisions which give MP in exchange of money? Giving the player a minimal increase of manpower which reflects general population growth certainly makes sense, but there are ways and methods to make young men choose the military as employer.
I guess this is represented by level 2, Fully professional army. I'm sorry but I can't remember the effects of that level right now.
 
I guess this is represented by level 2, Fully professional army. I'm sorry but I can't remember the effects of that level right now.

Yeah I got that, but in case I already have a fully professional army but want to enlarge it. There is no need to start conscripting, instead I just want to hire more regulars :) Do I have to wait on natural MP increase or is it possible to spend money on it?
 
Well, what if you are not a war? Say that one wants to go from selective conscription to fully professional army in peace-time, for instance.
Unfortunately, no. It is possible to demobilize, but not to do what you ask. Unfortunately we haven't find a good way to model and generalize that behaviour. :(
I know, I know, it's a problem, but we're always working on improving the mobilization system, so if we find a way to do what you ask, be sure that we will implement it! :)

Yeah I got that, but in case I already have a fully professional army but want to enlarge it. There is no need to start conscripting, instead I just want to hire more regulars :) Do I have to wait on natural MP increase or is it possible to spend money on it?
If I'm not wrong since a Fully Professional Army is made up of volunteers, you'll just have to wait for the natural MP increase. On the other hand a fully professional army made of volunteers will have more experienced units (20 or 40, can't remember exactly), even if it will take more time to train them (increased production time, can't remember how much, sorry).
Oh, and there are a few generic decisions that might help you (War Propaganda and Allow Foreign Volunteers).
 
I was hoping for something that would more realistically simulate the actual formation of divisions, and I am not talking about the administrative structure, either.

The way HoI games have always been is the player chooses to build a division, there's a "production" period, and when the specified amount of time is up, the player then gets to place the division anywhere he so chooses in the confines of his national provinces (assuming he has greater than 40 IC).

I cannot think of too many more unrealistic ways to represent division formation and deployment.

Literally every nation I can think of has the concept of military bases, forts, depots, etc. where divisions are based from. IMO, players should be limited to placing divisions only in those provinces that have military bases (similar to placing ships and air wings in provinces that have ports or airfields). And typically, there is a separate system of training depots or camps where new recruits are trained before they are sent on to active duty and assigned to the command structure.

I have always thought that the HoI system was a bit oversimplified. IRL,the formation of a new division from scratch is a gradual and somewhat lengthy process. The brass may decide to create a new division, and it may come into "administrative existence" fairly quickly, but to flesh it out and bring it into some semblence of a functioning military unit capable of deploying into action can be quite a lengthy process (assuming the new division is not formed by cannibalizing existing divisions...then it would be much quicker - I am talking about new divisions comprised mostly of new recruits that is simulated in the game). It takes time to get all of the recruits to the training depot or camp locations, put them through their paces and training, assign them to thier various MOs for additional training, and then integrate them into the existing command structure. And there is a very finite capacity to this process. A nation cannot simply decide one day that it is going to create 20 new divisions and have them "roll out" ready to go anywhere within the borders of their nation in under 6 months...even under full mobilization. If they did, the quality and organization of those troops would be questionable at best.

You need enough DIs, equipment, space, supplies, housing, etc. to train up large numbers of men at once. That's why I advocate the need for building military bases that can double as training depots/camps, and bases of operations. You can build new ones and slowly bring them "on-line" in the years leading up to war, and all new divisions would be required to begin their "life" at one of the bases and must be deployed from there (which would make TC all that much more important).

IRL, it takes a considerable amount of time to produce large quantities of troops and deploy them into the war. Even with the speediest of preparations, it can easily take up to a year or more to considerably increase the effective size of a nation's military. Divisions starting out at full strength nearly anywhere on the map in less than 6 months is almost laughable, yet with current game mechanics it is possible to go from nearly zero to dozens of new divisions ready to fight in about 6 months - poised at the perfect locations to embark and go sailing off into service wherever they may be needed. BS! I spent 5 years active duty in the USMC during wartime and have a pretty good idea of what it takes...and it's nothing like it is in the game.

I really wish developers would take a closer look at how divisions are practically formed and fleshed out, then activated and deployed. The overly simplistic approach to queuing up 10 to 20 divisions at a time and then, presto! 5 to 6 months later having those full strength divisions available anywhere in your nation's borders and ready to go is absolute BS! At least if you want to have anything resembling a division that is capable of entering combat and being anything close to effective.

And attempting to balance out the obviously questionable mechanics of formation and deployment by requiring the new division to slowly build up organization is ridiculous. Plopping them at the edge of your national boundaries as soon as their queue time is up and marching them off to the front while building up organization is not how it works. If that's how deployment is simulated, it is far from reality. Or at least the reality I experienced from 1989 until 1994.
 
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Divisions starting out at full strength nearly anywhere on the map in less than 6 months is almost laughable

It's not laughable. It's wwii reality. When sh.. hit the fan divisions were formed in 3-4 months.
Also:
Because in DH we previously chose to extend build times for divisions to a realistic level

BS! I spent 5 years active duty in the USMC during wartime and have a pretty good idea of what it takes...and it's nothing like it is in the game.

Do you realise that where is a big distance between wwii-style total wars and today's conflicts?
 
@piratefish

This is a game and as such many levels of abstraction have to be used.
Some are there for easy handle by players, others - for better AI performance, third - for better game performance, forth - because something is too complex and time consuming for implementation and so on.

What matters at the end is how much fun most of the players could get from the game. Most will not miss a realistic unit training, but all will complain of a system that AI cannot properly use for example. ;)
 
If we get longer buildtimes and DH's mobilisation system, HOI2's system should be sufficient, given the level of its abstraction. Tying units to specific provinces (bases... whatever) strikes me as too much of a hassle for little to no benefit. In a game made on grand scale, like HOI2, it would have little gameplay value. If a division is not combat ready because of low STR and no ORG, then for game purposes the result is achieved - you can't throw them into battle expecting good results. Whether they would be held in "Force Pool", "Bases", "Provinces" or "Starships" is unimportant, because the result is the same - you can't use the unit in battle effectively.

Such system would be much better for ships, though, as it would make high lvl ports more important and limit the nation's shipbuilding capability realistically (it's too easy ATM). It could be beautifully abstracted by splitting the IC into Land/Naval/Aircraft IC, though ;)
 
Well, in DH buildtimes have been revised and generally increased, I'm quite sure we've mentioned that before.
If I recall correctly the normal development time of an infantry divisions has been raise to around 300 days (before applying modifiers such as political sliders and ministers). The Mobilization Slider has a big influence on this: a country with Fully Professional Army (level 1) will have increased production time (perhaps 50%?) but will get really experienced units (20 or 40 experience, can't remember). On the other hand, a desperate country that chooses Total Mobilization (level 10) will get lower production time but its units will be deployed without experience (to simulate the extreme measures of this decision, like Volkssturm).
 
300 days for infantry division ? It's quite long, I'm aware it's too long. Also I'm not sure if for some countries like UK it will work correctly+realistically+historically. I was thinking about "trained manpower pool" which would represent amount of recruits already trained and ready for fighting. I know, too complicated, but will then be some country specific events setting those things more accurately ?
 
So does this mean that in 41 Soviets actually can lose almost pre-war army and still generate new one before Germans steamroll Western Soviet Union?

That's actually what they did in reality, even though hundreds of divisions went into captivity in the first time, they just kept recruiting and recruiting and recruiting all the way, and it worked.
 
That's actually what they did in reality, even though hundreds of divisions went into captivity in the first time, they just kept recruiting and recruiting and recruiting all the way, and it worked.
They also transferred divisions from the Far East to Europe and followed "no one steps back" strategy, which gave them TIME to build divisions. They also needed time to transfer the factories to the Urals, which greatly helped them later in the war. And there was winter, too.
 
Great!

I hope most of the manpower you gain now comes from these drafts and are just like in reality a one-time thing. If you throw away your entire drafted population then though luck, you need to wait an entire generation (if even that is enough) before your population has recovered!

This should help immensely to represent the longer peace time eras we can play in the game.

I have a question however, how are long term population effected? Surley the population data from 1914 is not the same as 1936? And what if you as France don't lose so many soldiers on the field in WW1? Will this have an effect on how many soldiers you can draft for WW2?

My question is this, will losing 1000manpower to combat (1million men) mean that 1 mp is reduced permanently from the map?

Otherwise it will be possible to recover fully from WW1 in a few months and just be demobilizing -> mobilizing again to fight WW2 in 1920 with millions off fresh soldiers that shouldn't exist.