Romania

mnplastic I hate to say it but all your AAR's except for the last one are either vanilla or SF. Try Poland in FTM now with volunteer army and not enough manpower to even mobilize your starting divisions. Oh, and actually from 1921 to 1939 Poland had 2 years compulsory military service, if anybody wonders if that's historically accurate. It stayed that way after the war, too, actually till the 1990's.

I agree but you have a prepare for the war decision which quickly gives you the best pre war policies With vanilla was a long way before you could get the right policies.

edit: the main missing point here is that in HOI3 fully manned division has the same efficiency as a half manned division. The battles are lost by way of losing ORG and not STR, with some few exceptions of course. So CSR has the same fighting power regardless of its mobilisation pool.

Ok a few issues. Of course the game is not designed to play minors, hence all the nerfing going on. Most nations can not even or barely mobilize, and most often players delete their entire armies and rebuild them as militia and still cannot approach anywhere near the historical numbers or better yet, what i look for is the ratios. If Germany had a 2-1 advantage militarily say over nation X then let them have a 2-1 advantage here, but they dont, theyll have a 50-1 advantage. So no i agree with most of the posters over the past few years that the minors are really not designed to be played and are purposely kept weak to achieve the end that Paradox wanted.

As far as Czechoslovakia whom had a much better repected military then Poland, they were more prepared, lived in a fortified mountain nation, and we are to believe the war would have lasted 2 weeks when Germany took a month to take out the Poles who live in flat terrain that was hopelessly defensible? I dont see it. And frankly Im not concerned what the British though, I have read on more the one occasion that the Germans felt taking the Czechs out would have been long and costly.

You know what else i like, is when nations in the middle east, have to tech in order to form Cavalry units. I mean its not like they havent used Cavalry for several thousands of years in the region, and of course theyre equipment is old and outdated and they are basically mounted infantry, but they need to tech in order to produce Cavalry. Thats not a nerf for minors?

How about nations who have to tech to build an airbase or naval base? Im pretty sure that by 1936 most of the civilized world was capable of building bases, maybe not high tech equipment, but im pretty sure by then they could build bases. Another example of minors taking it up the wazoo....

Of course the ultimate nations that cannot even mobilize, which is outright ridiculous. What nation kept numerous divisions that they knew they couldnt mobilize?

Nearly all the minors get their manpower nerfed and yet Paradox tosses 100's of manpower at Germany for no reason...300? for remilitarizing the rhineland (not really occupying it so much), 50k came over from Austria but hell lets toss them 500 or so, then lets not forget the Munich Treaty and First Vienna.

actual definition within the game;

Manpower represents males of military age ready and available to form drafts for your armies. These can be used either to raise new units or bring existing ones back up to strength.

No where does it say that there is any abstraction involved or are we led to infer that manpower is anything other then what Paradox says it is. So most minors in the game are clearly nerfed while some nations like Germany get buffed, creating an even bigger disadvantage to play as a minor so how are we to infer that this game offers fair and equitable treatment of minors.

I dont think too many games of minors doing well (without disbanding their forces and reforming as militia or similar) without some gamey tactics play out too often. You can play any nation in the game and do alright but usually its not even semi historical and there is some gameyness involved.

Would it be too much to ask simply to have the proper ratios? I mean no one expects the exact amount of units, it has to be playable, and it is a game. But if nation A has 10x the troops as nation B can we not at least try and get close to that.

As an end note most of your modders here who tend to be fairly knowledgable and have done research have altered many of the games Manpower issues. If it was correct you would think they would just keep them the same as in vanilla...

Yes but you missed my two important points: there is prepare for war decision and 4,500 men 3 brigade division as strong as 9,000 men 3 brigade division. So nerfing is for the purpose of not allowing to build more divisions when used to be.

For example Luxembourg in pre 3.06b used to build 4 divisions which Germans had to smoke out for several day while in fact Luxembourg had 1 regiment. So how it is nerfed? Most minors end up wiht much bigger armies than they used to have (to be precise, I am not sure which end up with smaller ones). So how it is nerfed? Just because they can not fully mobilise them makes no difference due to the same combat efficiency.

Show me not land locked nation with no naval base. I agree that some techs were missed out but is not like from 1936 until 1937 you can not research them. I agree that some minors are nerfed but I completely disagree that they are unplayable which I and most definetly you proved the opposite.

Playing minor you do not need any gameyness at all. Can I hold Poland for a month, Denmark for few hours, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Yougoslavia for several days, push Italians to Albania? Do I need ANY gamey tactics to do that? AI does that. So yes, it is semi-historical because you can do much better than IRL without any special gameyness.

BTW. CSR in the game suffers a quick defeat not becasue it has no MP but because CSR does not mobilise in the right time. Mobilisation not just fill divisions with men but most importantly increase ORG. So CSR starts the war with no ORG. This is why it loses quickly.

Luxemburg is a thing, because it's so small and starts with comparably huge MP reserves, while countries like Holland (~9million inhabitants) are unable to mobilize the what, 10 divisions?

Yes, but the poit is they don't have to mobilise them in full. The result will be the same because ORG and brigades is that matters not number of soldiers. Just imagine you give them much more MP and by 1940 they end up with 30 divisions which they then can not fully mobilise but they still have 30 fully efficient divisions. How it is historical?

Is it true that the str of a division doesn't affect its combat effectiveness? I coulda sworn it did in HOI2, or maybe that's AOD I'm thinking about.

Now if we analyse OPs point about Romanian army. I have tried to find out how many divisions Romania had. Probably 15-20, but prove me wrong. 1.3 mil equals 65,000 soldiers per divison. The question is, can Romania build 20 divisions by 1944? No problem. So where is problem? The problem is that it is hard to understand that probably 10,000 Romanians were fighting and the rest of 55,000 were cooking food, driving supplies, looking after injurried or waiting to replace losses.

The Allies had around 40 divisions in France but they had about 2 mil people by 21 August 1944. That is 50,000 per division. If you use then some simple calculation then 1 strengt unit equals 5 men at least for allies or country like Romania. In that case is Romania really undermanned? As 2.8 MP per month equals 2,800 STR units or 14,000 men. Is it bad? May be too much?

Selective knowlege is funny.

21oliver said:

As far as Czechoslovakia whom had a much better repected military then Poland, they were more prepared, and we are to believe the war would have lasted 2 weeks when Germany took a month to take out the Poles who live in flat terrain that was hopelessly defensible?

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Poles were squished by both USSR and Germany, Although, obviously the USSR impact is negligible. :rofl:

21oliver said:

lived in a fortified mountain nation

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http://www.zonu.com/fullsize-en/2009-12-22-11443/Europe-physical-map-2006.html
Czech landscape was not monutins by any means. Typical lack of knowlege of geography there.

21oliver said:

I have read on more the one occasion that the Germans felt taking the Czechs out would have been long and costly.

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I had read on more than one occasion that WW2 would be trech warfare again, that Germans would take years and millions of lives to take out France, that Italy should probably wait untill 1944 to enter the campain and deliver the final push to beat France,

I had read that Barbarossa would last for half-year, ex, ex.

I had also read that Germans thought of USSR army a bunch of pesants with bows, at least till they met T-34

Anyone can write whatever he wants.

Thing is, After the Anshluss, Czech were basically surrouned and would not last long. The ability of Germans to assault forts was well confirmed in 1940 campain, and Dutch forts were better than Czech ones, and the frontage was way shorter in Belgium.

As an end note most of your modders here who tend to be fairly knowledgable and have done research have altered many of the games Manpower issues. If it was correct you would think they would just keep them the same as in vanilla...

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I'm not entirely sure what your trying to say here, but what I can tell you is that the manpower distributions are somewhat 'arbitary' in my mind. It's not that minors are nerfed per se all the time, it's the fact that recruitment laws and national mobilisation in my opinion doesn't particularly well represent the historical mobilisation for war.

Writing without a source handy (so numbers might be slightly wrong). Britian in 1938 and 1939 (pre-war) only had an increase in milltary recruitment of about 30% then 45% on the years before. Overral, volenteerism came to about 60,000 IIRC. 60,000 men (assuming 1:1 ratio) is enough manpower for only 20 new divisions over an almost two year period. Factor in the years 1937 and 1936 at roughtly simmilar levels of low level volenterism, then we get an extra 30,000 souls. Therefore all pre-war MP gains in Manpower with historical mobilisation timescales, should only be enough for about 30 new divisions. I take this as an example because it was one that I roughtly can recall numbers for (although they may be somewhat off).

The big point is....it wasn't only Britian.

iWith the exception of Japan, Germany and to some degree the Soviet Union, most nations had very low manpower gains in the pre-war period, which then exploded in 1940 as the nations were forced into war, and then generally stayed steady, or declined in some nations, and others like the SU it expanded.

There is also the concept of women in industry that freed up a massive about of manpower in the UK, US and Soviet Union. Germany on the otherhand was very late to the game.

Then you have nation specific levels of war support. The Japanese could count on almost every single young man in its nation. In the US however Blacks were often prevented from serving or had to serve in special 'coloured units'. Other nations like the Soviet Union basically press ganged people into the armed forces at times, while in India Gandhis 'Quit India movement' sparked a massive resentment in the Indian population to actually take part in Britians war.

As such moddeling Manpower must be a function of many seperate issues, while in general the 'base population' should follow the historical populations of various regions;

1. Neutral Nations: Their populations generally didn't want to fight or mobilise ahead of actually being at war (Major MP nerf)
2. Strategic Doctrine: Nations that optted for national deterrance / general conscription had more manpower (Large MP buff)
3. Industrilisation: The Higher the Infra level and IC per MP province, the greater percentage of people can serve (at the best this is still a tiny fraction of total avalible manpower and this percentage should be in the 0-20% margin)
4. Recruitment Policies: Before war (large threat nations too) manpower gains are strongly linked to laws, in general the Vanilla laws give too big a pre-war bonus as one enters 'full mobilisation' and simmilar while not at war. While at war you should in general get a one time bonus to 'call in the reserves' while the 'trickle in' population by year should never exceed about 1.6% of total manpower avalible. This is because year on year cohorts entering the age to serve in the military are only a fraction of total population and even 1% is a gross overestimate.
5. Nationalism/Repression: The higher both of these are the more you can convince people to join up (again small numbers)
6. National Unity: This is a rather large gripe of mine, since the smaller nations of the war often had more per capita join up to defend their nations, and because they are smaller had more sense of group identity. Therefore minors should in general find it easier to keep high unity, and have a minor manpower boost. This could be easily done on number of provinces I believe.

These are in principle going to be the way I am changing my game to be more 'accurate' but I've yet to decide on speicifics as research needs to continue to be done.

Why are you guys so fixated on MP? Either you do not know or understand the game mechanics. As already said a division with 50% strength fits exactly the same as a division with 100% strength. Organization is much more important then strength when it comes to battles. So if the game gives country X 30 units at 50% and only 50 MP this does NOT mean it's nerfed. Especially if that coutnry only had 30 units historically. What is being done is preventing you from playing a gamey situation where you build another 30 units instead of bringing the orginal 30 units up to full strength. That is the gamey thing and one major reason why the choices made were made.

All this MP envy sounds more like penis envy to me.

I for one would have done like many games have done in the past, i would have left manpower an abstraction that pretty much didnt define it so much. Many games used "manpower units". The problem is when you essentially come out and say 1 manpower = 3,000 men, and Nation A had 30,000 men in real life (or 10 actual manpower units) and you give them say 3. That becomes a problem.

The issue of manpower isnt just in combat, so org doesnt solve everything, you need coverage as well if your going to attack, defend and hold. Quantity of units does come in to play as well as quality. So unless you want to play with single brigades running around.

My thing is this, i prefer accuracy. I much would have preferred Paradox get the numbers correct, then penalize/nerf the minors for quality. As I stated Colonel Trevor Dupuy's works equate 1 German soldier to 3-4 Soviets or 1.8-2.0 Western Allies. Also Divisional slice really isnt represented much. According to James F Dunnigan the US had divisional slices of something like 60k and 95k for approx 15k fighting divisions.

My prob with this talk about Czechoslovakia is that i see no way where anyone can think Germany beats them in 2 weeks while the Poles (much worse in every way pretty much) last a month. Poland was already on the run, btw the Soviets were neglible.

This especially applies to minor nations, those often in very much danger. Minors traditionally can field very large armies, quality not withstanding. Training and equipment doesnt even factor in. In WWI the Ottoman Empire had units on the Russian front without socks and shoes even.

The monthly manpower increase of many nations is off very much as well.

You can make arguments (and yes i have played minors and done well even, but again pretty gamey) that you can play minors and in some cases be successful, but it depends on your idea of success.

And while we are discussing the nerfs of minors lets talk about the US zone of influence. The US guarentee of the Western Hemisphere was in regards to European aggression, not aggression within. Its stupid that if you play Argentina and invade Paraguay, that the US comes to their aid. The monroe doctrine wasnt designed for that. In fact their were conflicts between South American nations and no the US didnt intervene. So they dont even want you to play these nations as well. Of course you can get gamey, join the Allies with the US in and you can conquer everyone in the West and they dont give a peep.

And back on the Manpower thing again, if you play a minor you simply do not have enough units to attack and yet defend. So manpower not org is important. If you play Turkey and want to invade Bulgaria, how do you leave troops on the Soviet border? now i know because of the game you really dont need too, but thats unrealistic, lets say you wanted to. You simply cant. Turkey was a nation of 14 mil, they could have easily mobilized 1mil men.

21oliver said:

The issue of manpower isnt just in combat, so org doesnt solve everything, you need coverage as well if your going to attack, defend and hold. Quantity of units does come in to play as well as quality. So unless you want to play with single brigades running around.

My thing is this, i prefer accuracy.

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Yet you don't show where the number of units is different. You only mention MP. And if you prefer accuracy then CZE should always accept Munich, Poland always loses in around 4-5 weeks etc. In other words not a game but a simulatior.

21oliver said:

My prob with this talk about Czechoslovakia is that i see no way where anyone can think Germany beats them in 2 weeks while the Poles (much worse in every way pretty much) last a month.

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You are comming from this debate in 2012. At the time the vast majority felt the Czech's were doomed. Two weeks or 4 doesn't matter much. There have been numerous studies that showed the fortifications on the southern portion were basically scattered MG posts and pillboxes. It would have delayed the Germans a day or two. I presented you a quote from an official document. I can cite numerous other sources that felt the same way. The Czech high command felt they could hold out for at most a month unless France took offensive action. So really is this some epeen contest that because the Poles lasted about a month and someone said 2 weeks for the Czech's?

EDIT: Oh and if you say that int he game teh Czech's are defeated in a week, well Poland lasts maybe a week to 10 days in teh game against a human opponent so no biggy there either.

21oliver said:

This especially applies to minor nations, those often in very much danger. Minors traditionally can field very large armies, quality not withstanding. Training and equipment doesnt even factor in. In WWI the Ottoman Empire had units on the Russian front without socks and shoes even.

The monthly manpower increase of many nations is off very much as well.

You can make arguments (and yes i have played minors and done well even, but again pretty gamey) that you can play minors and in some cases be successful, but it depends on your idea of success.

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this from the guy that wants accuracy. A large army means squat. And too often guys like you buy into that million man army when in reality it was a million men on paper only. Usually only half are fit for actual combat. Take Sadam's 4th largest army in the world as a recent example.

21oliver said:

And back on the Manpower thing again, if you play a minor you simply do not have enough units to attack and yet defend. So manpower not org is important. If you play Turkey and want to invade Bulgaria, how do you leave troops on the Soviet border? now i know because of the game you really dont need too, but thats unrealistic, lets say you wanted to. You simply cant. Turkey was a nation of 14 mil, they could have easily mobilized 1mil men.

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Uh wouldn't Bulgaria have the same nerfs as Turkey? So what is the problem.? Are you claiming you can't beat Bulgaria on a 2 or 3 front province width with Turkish forces? IIRC Turkey had about 20 infantry divisions and a couple of calvary and mountain brigades that were all poorly equipped, trained and led. So can Turkey add to their starting forces and end up with 40 militia brigades by September 1939? My guess is yes.

You want accuracy but then want to do things that could never of happened historically. Yes Turkey might DOW Bulgaria (before joining Axis) and could win. But Turkey wouldn't do much else. A defensive army is way different than one that has offensive capabilities.

First off my experiences are only based on what i have read and watched in interviews, i wasnt there so i dont declare things to be fact, so its not a matter of me or anyone else being right or wrong. From my experiences it all falls on the German side in regards to Czechoslovakia pretty much. And everything i have read or watched stated that they anticipated a long drawn out war with many casualties. This comes from the German High Command, now maybe they were wrong, but i simply trust their evaluations when i get involved in conversations like this.

Essentially to end the conversation on my part with minors it is not a matter of what you can do or what you cant do, and i am not for an actual representation of history, but i always am in favor of accuracy whenever possible. I would just prefer that the ratios be kept in tact. If Nation A had 2x the Industry as nation B, then let them have it so here. If nation C could reaise 2x the troops as nation D then let that exist here. I dont care if you can get by without it, or find ways around it, i simply prefer that the data be accurate and see no reason why it shouldnt be.

I guess in the end if you had to answer the following question;
1) Are most minors in HOI3 accurately portrayed within the game? A) Yes they are B) no they are too powerful or C) they are nerfed

I think youd find the majority of people answering C. Now you can banter back and forth with me if you like, and justify it by any means. But at least the perception of most gamers here if you read the many posts on this topic, and see that the modders have mostly buffed up the minors, agree its C.

The game has alot of issues that need work for anyone who is interested in historical accuracy (and not everyone is), this is but one. The whole game is essentially gamey in one way or another.

Over the past few years it seems a consensus that the Minors in HOI3 (for whatever reasons you may want to use or justify) have been seriously nerfed. Even most if not all the mods have addressed at least some issues with the minors. Now many things can be abstracted and usually are, especially when we cannot be 100% accurate. However things like population there is no need for abstraction as the data is readily available. The term manpower as defined by Paradox themselves is only the amount of men fit for duty, no abstractions attached, it is a set unit of data. In fact its a horrible system where your laws come in to play. The reality is your available manpower pool isnt effected at all by whether you have conscription or a volunteer army, it can be modified, but never reduced. The total is based on your total population, whether you can access all of them is an entire different argument. The info below was quickly thrown together with some fast research (so take it with a grain of salt) but it gives you an idea of the agenda Paradox had and where they wanted each game to go. There is not only innaccuracies and consistencies between Major and Minor, but within Minor and Minor as well, in some cases we have consistency.

Over the years one thing i noticed in research as that generally speaking unless if there is a specific reason why (France i believe at a low point between wars) most similiar nations have realtively similar birthrates or at least within the ballpark. Now we know that the game has done many things to make the game "playable", this isnt about that, rather about accuracy and looking at the numbers and seeing actually what was done and understanding why.

Ive selected various Majors and Minors for comparison. This is using Vanilla 3.06 and the population data is from several sources and is prewar, between 1936 (usually 1938 however) and 1939. If you search hard enough you can always find different numbers but generally there is a consensus that they are close between all sources, so take it for what its worth.

Lets look and see what they have done in HOI3;

The first line is the actual population, the next is what HOI3 gives them in monthly manpower growth, the third is what they should have based on using Germany as relevance. Most of the nations below are westernized nations essentially and would have likely had (again except for a rare instance in France) similar growths.

Germany 65 6.8 6.8
Soviet Union 194 14.7 20.2
Britain 48 3.5 5
France 42 5.1 4.4
Poland 35 1.6 3.6
Romania 20 1.1 2.1
Hungary 10 1.6 1.0
Turkey 14 0.7 1.5
Yugoslavia 15 1.1 1.6

Not only are the initial Manpower totals nerfed within the game we see a pattern, an agenda with the monthly manpower increases. It was intended to keep Britain and Poland weak, Buff Germany & Hungary and slow the growth of the Soviet Union. Nations without adequate manpower cannot produce units, cannot license items, cannot protect key locations, not to mention take on an offensive. Its absolutely ludicrous to have any nations that cannot mobilize and its ridiculous and gamey to expect players to either delete all their units and make militia or to use single brigades or half strength units all the time.

The problem again exists that Paradox chose essentially to make all units equal until techs apply, so that Manpower has become the deciding factor more then quality in combat. Because they chose to go that route the manpower issues are even more magnified.

You really have to remember that the game uses a standard "division". No one would ever say the German infantry division was the same size as a Russian one. And that is the crux of the problem. Many countries used different measuring sticks when it came to their OOB. Some included anyone with a uniform (militia calibre) while others did not. This generalization is what makes it gamey. After all didn't the French have better tanks and more of them, yet get easily defeated? The game, and really no game, could ever model this. There are some huge intangibles like how willing an individual soldier would fight and carry out his orders or take personal initiative which then influences the whole course of the battle.

I know you rely on German comments about Czech capabilities but these are not better than the Czech high command, gamlin in France or the Britsh. It is common knowledge that generals will OVERESTIMATE their opponent so they can get more assets. That way they can easily under promise and over deliver. And if they came out and actually said they were pushovers then the public might not feel threatened and not support it. There are many british agent reports that said privately the Germans were only fearful of what France would do. But they were also pretty sure France would sit tight and do nothing for at least a few weeks which meant they had enough time to defeat the Czech's and then transfer units to the French border.

And in the end are we talking about 3 weeks? 4 maybe even 2 months? I mean in your perfect scenario how long do you think the Czech army could have held out?

EDIT: This might hurt your sensibilities but not all soldiers are crreated equal. Some countries just suck at war and fighting and even if they have 10 million they can be defeated by a vastly smaller force, because they lay down their guns and run away.

I have to agree with you on your edit 100% which is another issue of mine which is why I quote Trevor Dupuy alot. I dont disagree with your points, surely all the OOBs where never consistent, and the US had the biggest divisional slices in the world, but Paradox has essentially chosen manpower has one of the primary factors in combat as opposed to quality of units. I think the whole organization thing is ridiculous. IMO there clearly isnt enough combat casualties nor attrition in the game. I simply take the same units and without any delay comquer nation after nation after nation, War doesnt and didnt work that way. Sure again i agree about the Czechs, i just didnt see them going down in 2 weeks, and i agree on the German High Command except i tend to value their opinions in some cases more then others. Historically the German Officer Corps was one of if not the best in the world.

In the end you may get the same results, again i just like accuracy. Hell double the size of the Turkish army if you want for example, then nerf their fighting abilities and id be happy. I prefer accuracy when you state something as fact, if you leave it as an abstraction i have nothing to argue. If they said Manpower was a combination of elements x,y,z we wouldnt even be having any of these conversations.

It is ridiculous that nations cannot mobilize their units though, i mean cmon lol

21oliver said:

Everything i have always read stated the German High Command was terrified of going into Czechoslovakia. A quality army well fortified in a mountain nation. They anticipated heavy terrible losses. No one assumes they would not have one, but it clearly wouldnt have been like Poland if it happened. At least that is the common theories of the time.

And most minors cant field any representative army, at least not without goint straight militia and even then often you cant even get a decent army going. Occasionally things may pan out, but often you end up recyclying the same units and have no units to defend any conquered lands.

The game clearly is not designed for you to play minors i simply wonder why the option is there.

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I agree everything I have ever read has also had the opion that German High command was terrified. I think it was in Speers book were he mentioned that tests were carried out after the take over and the Germans bombs were found to be insufficent to cause damage to the fortifications.

Also sure the Germans would winn eventually but realistically if the Czechs held them off for 2-3months some of the following would of happened:
1. Hitler loses crediblity and is assisnated/overthrown
2. Ally power interven either to 'conquor' germany. but in realiaty they only need to project enough power to force number 1. Rember at this stage they are not seeking unconditional surrender, but a stopping a major war.
3. Even Polland could of intervened. Rember they don't need to conquor Germany only force the removal of Hitler.

Thats essentially how i see it. In fact in Hilters own words he said the French should have stopped him at the Rhineland, it all would have been over then.