Things that make you go hmmm....

Your not reading me properly. Im not saying Germany didnt have that amount of manpower, or doesnt deserve that amount of manpower, im saying they shouldnt be getting it from those sources in that quantity. Id rather see them get it from the "Lets Fight"! events then to be given amounts that are way overboard in other places.

Im just sort of tired of hearing that things are the way they are because of play balance. Manpower in all its forms is about the easiest thing to determine out of all the aspects of WWII. I spent about 10 years designing WWII games and never had any problems locating manpower info, whether its population, mobilized, available monthly / yearly etc... and ok you can modify that based on your beliefs of the Govt and its policies. But you simply shouldnt give more manpower for events then a nation reasonably had to offer simply because you need or want it. Instead, make the Lets fight, not two weeks, but two months, and instead of 10% modifier make it 30 or 40 or whatever. But dont have Germany say, remilitarize the rhineland and get 250 manpower (not mobilized) when nations are struggling with have that when mobilized. And while im at it a manpower unit should be a manpower unit across the board for all nations. If Germany had say 10x the troops at the height of the war then say Greece, they shouldnt have 25% here simply because they prefer you play Germany over Greece. IF the Soviet Union is overpowered then dont give Germany unrealistic manpower numbers, nerf down the Soviet Union.

Attrition and Logistics in regards to manpower doesnt work either and needs a re-look. I can usually take the existing forces of most Balkan area nations and conquer the rest of the Balkans without much additional manpower, as if that could ever be possible. The Soviet Union at its height when fighting old men and children in Germany took weeks to go block by block, and yet in a few months you can conquer 5-6 nations and barely lose a man.

Yep it needs to be looked at.

I agree with you. The whole manpower system needs to be scrapped. BUT if you need to give a quick fix in a spot or two and toss loads of manpower to a nation, i would rather see it done as i said in the Lets Fight events rather then unrealistically. Germany can gain 500 manpower (while not mobilized) by simply performing the Anschluss of Austria. Now if you were playing Austria do you think you could ever get 500 manpower? and if so how long would it take and how many circumstances would have to fall in to place. I dont care how charismatic Hitler was or how harsh the Govt was, if there was X amount of men available for me, there is X amount of men available for you. You want to add a small modifier to that, fine, i can agree. But Austria starts with 50+ manpower how come Germany gets 500 for the same territory. Immediately. Not over time, not with certain laws enacted, circumstances etc... not through mobilization, but the same peace time numbers. Austria gets 50, Germany gets 500, thats way too much.

And the Rhineland wasnt re-occupied, it was re-militarized, so why a manpower bump there?

Again if you feel the need to give Germany manpower to make the game playable, then just do it. Hell raise their monthly increase if need be. As i stated earlier, what if in an effort to help GB they had lend lease be 50 aircraft carriers instead of destroyers you think that would be ok?

anyway scrap the system, stop putting quick little fixes because they cant figure out why it is the way it is.

I just have a problem when you have nations in the game who cant even mobilized due to lack of manpower (wrong.....) and then you simply hand Germany 1000k because you want to balance them with the SOviet Union. How about reducing the Soviet Union rather then making the game more unrealistic?

I have no problem with the numbers being realistic, or hell if you want to make them unrealistic, then do so across the board. Turkey usually needs to delete all their units and rebuild militia to get anything going...some of your Balkan nations cant even mobilize their troops but we are going to just hand kkkkkkk's of manpower around to Germany?

Has to be a better way. The more i hear about how realistic the game is the more sandbox i think it is. But manpower is one area that shouldnt be a problem.

Nation A had X amount of available manpower, thats available manpower, thats as in how healthy and of age they are. It makes no difference your ideology or Govt, that "X" is all ANYONE can get out of that nation. why should its owner get X but another nation get 10x ?

I will come back to ...the single easiest element in designing a WWII game should be manpower. Whether its a nations population, its available pool, its monthly growth or the size of its fighting units. That information is all pretty much readily available. Now feel free to tweak it up or down with elements like its current situation (at war, mobilized, change in govt whatever..). My major issue is if your going to use manpower to balance out the game (which i dont believe you need to do, you need to fix the problem), just dont do it in a way that screams of being unrealistic. Id simply prefer they give bigger manpower boosts or a larger monthly growth (attribute it to their govt style or whatever). There are way too many nations that the game tries to keep "down" by unrealistically limiting their manpower pool and growth and Germany they simply throw tons at. What they also need to do is boost the fighting values of some of the majors over that of other nations, and it has more to do with training then tech. I dont rem the exact numbers, and unfortunately i no longer have the book but Trevor Dupuy had an excellent book that broke down combat ratings. In the book his values were something like = 1 German soldier equalled 1.5 British or Americans and like3 Russians, something like that. It was based on a bunch of factors. In HOI3 for example when i want to license items, i never go to the faction leader, someone else always has the equipment that is just as good and willing to sell it far cheaper.

Again all nations have an available manpower pool (say 16 to 45 years old), and there are no factors that can modify that. What one nation can get another could too. Germany gets 500 manpower in the Anschluss of Austria while at peace and not mobilized (even including absorbing the military forces), Austria begins with a 50ish manpower pool, meaning if you played them they could never raise that kind of an army under any circumstances.

Make the game realistic and most importantly consistent please is all...

thats it in a nutshell. And as far as "easiest" my point is that the info is available, manpower issues are not the issues that a game company should be struggling with when making a pc game. And for funny people like Alex, there would be no need to remod the info...if it was done CORRECTLY the first time! And ill repeat again from a earlier post, all you guys who like to jump on the anti manpower issue bandwagons, pretty much all the mods that everyone loves has altered most of the manpower! so THEY (hint alex...) felt that there was some issues that needed correcting.

All joking aside, if you have to come up with something to balance something else, that means you messed up the prior, go back and fix it, dont worry about messing something else up in order to "balance" it.

The following info is from; "Germans" and "Austrians" in World War II: Military History and National Identity Peter Thaler Department of History University of Minnesota

Since Austrians were treated as ordinary German citizens, they were drafted according to the same standards as Germans from within the borders of 1937. Out of the approximately 18 million men that were inducted into the German military (including non-citizens), a proportionate share of 1.2 million were Austrians.

Thats 1/15th of the German Military.

When the anschluss happens in HOI3 Germany generally has between 500-1000 manpower, the Anschluss adds 500!

<ok this is where instead of saying whoa your right the numbers are way off, what were they thinking...you come up with excuses (alex?) about how difficult the game is to design blah blah blah>

lol alex when i say easy, all i mean is the info is readily available. Ill give you an idea, back pre and early pc days i spent about 10 years in game design mostly WW2. I could have gotten you any manpower / population stats you wanted from any obscure little nation in the world, i had the info...but i spent years and years trying to find the data and what each item cost to produce.

Manpower should never be an issue, out of all the complex issues that go into making a WW2 game, manpower is likely the easiest issue of all.

As far as HOI3 goes all im saying if you have to abstract/bump something up etc to balance the game, just dont do it in a way that is so obviously wrong. I mean they give you 10% manpower bumps for two weeks with the We want to fight events....well make it for 2-3 months not two weeks, make it for 20-30% or more, do something like that, dont just say well this land has 1 million people but if you take it over well give you 10 million soldiers.... i mean cmon! lol

And i really think its unfair to start some nations with manpower issues so bad they either 1) cant mobilize at full strength or 2) you have to delete all your units and reform as militia to have a decent size representative army. Nearly all nations are able to mobilize armies representative of their size, if you need to penalize their quality, but dont stop them from forming.

Manpower currently not only represent men who can serve, but also their quality and usefulness (as can be seen by comparing 3000 militia cost in mp to 3000 paratroopers, or the fact that there is hardly any in Africa). It is also interlinked with a myriad of other game mechanics and game balance...

Click to expand...

I dont disagree with this at all, but the original issue was how Germany could get 10x the manpower as Austria, out of Austrian citizens, while not mobilized, nor at war, immediately....There is no way to spin that other then its a bad thing.

I just showed you the actual numbers. IRL the Austrians made up about 1/15th of all soldiers in the Germany Military, ok so its a game its not perfect, you have to fudge a bit, fine i get that, a few % here and there...but how can they be 30-50% of my manpower in 1938, isnt that a bit much? from 1/15th to maybe half?

Ill go back to again, why not just start handing carriers and atom bombs in lend lease for "play balance"? instead of destroyers.

Enigma - I dont disagree with you but because Paradox has basically chosen to make all units equivalent, then modified by factors as opposed to making units of different nations representative on their own. They have chosen that route. Frankly each nation should have their own ratinigs (i know i know Alex, its a lot of work....but hell thats what they get paid for. Cant stand the heat they should run from the kitchen!), as opposed to 1 infantry brigade of mine is equal to 1 of yours. Just because we train or equip ourselves from similar year doesnt mean we are equal. Perhaps even bonuses in leadership to the Major powers, better militaries (in addition to the current bumps).

Im always amazed that people will cry and argue over the most minute technical non important issues (You know the penalty for crossing rivers is not accurate because blah blah blah), but things like Production, manpower, food, economics, training etc etc the actual meat that makes up the game, people can be like eh its ok...

I can take most if not all Balkan nations and conquer all the other balkan nations, without forming a new unit, nor using a HQ, and in the end i have my existing units intact. There isnt a problem there with manpower there? lol you guys know all the ins and outs of the game and its details far more then me, but i know ive taken Spain and Sweden and conquered half the world before, as well as South Africa and there isnt a manpower problem here?

Ok, its just me...