World Populations are REALLY off

[KorosQA]

I was playing the game and was curious about the world populations. They seemed really off. As an example, Mexico is the 11th most populated country in the world, yet the game only assigns 1 population counter to the entire country. (CORE v.7 but regular HOI is almost as bad) Population is specifically there to represent the force pool that the government has to draw from to build or reinforce units.

For what its worth, here is the current population as it’s reported by the University of Berkley. I really think that one country should be used as a control, and all other countries adjusted accordingly.

1) China 1,250,463,856
2) India 997,892,285
3) United States 273,131,194
4) Indonesia 221,110,775
5) Brazil 171,155,221
6) Russian Federation 146,515,771
7) Pakistan 138,496,052
8) Bangladesh 127,146,060
9) Japan 126,314,453
10) Nigeria 120,051,679
11) Mexico 98,806,793
12) Germany 82,561,399
13) Philippines 79,483,021
14) Viet Nam 77,600,713
15) Egypt 67,178,624
16) Iran 65,045,410
17) Turkey 64,819,580
18) Ethiopia 62,361,042
19) Thailand 60,652,737
20) United Kingdom 59,355,419
21) France 59,100,912
22) Italy 57,577,963
23) Republic of the Congo 50,481,305
24) Ukraine 49,565,699
25) Myanmar 48,081,302
26) Republic of Korea 46,884,800
27) South Africa 43,169,542
28) Spain 39,953,459
29) Colombia 39,016,113
30) Poland 38,657,804
31) Argentina 36,525,173
32) Sudan 34,085,246
33) United Rep. of Tanzania 31,270,820
34) Canada 30,957,019
35) Algeria 30,646,447
36) Kenya 29,841,986
37) Morocco 29,596,788
38) Peru 26,534,898
39) Afghanistan 24,960,734
40) Uzbekistan 24,363,320
41) Nepal 24,127,391
42) Venezuela 23,162,188
43) Uganda 22,684,419
44) Romania 22,459,190
45) Iraq 22,031,349
46) Taiwan 22,009,588
47) People's Rep. of Korea 21,386,109
48) Malaysia 21,354,459
49) Saudi Arabia 21,311,439
50) Ghana 19,162,016
51) Sri Lanka 19,064,642
52) Australia 18,968,247
53) Mozambique 18,810,689
54) Yemen 16,904,520
55) Kazakstan 16,748,745
56) Syrian Arab Republic 15,888,917
57) Netherlands 15,800,144
58) Cote d'Ivoire 15,597,241
59) Madagascar 15,045,015
60) Cameroon 15,042,674
61) Chile 14,974,187
62) Ecuador 12,655,787
63) Guatemala 12,310,953
64) Cambodia 11,936,938
65) Burkina Faso 11,625,671
66) Zimbabwe 11,304,561
67) Cuba 11,097,849
68) Greece 10,578,659
69) Serbia and Montenegro 10,394,026
70) Belarus 10,382,370
71) Mali 10,375,351
72) Czech Republic 10,281,012
73) Belgium 10,222,784
74) Malawi 10,216,489
75) Hungary 10,174,304
76) Portugal 10,030,143
77) Angola 9,927,423
78) Niger 9,802,401
79) Senegal 9,697,240
80) Tunisia 9,478,606
81) Zambia 9,397,681
82) Sweden 8,870,660
83) Dominican Republic 8,304,639
84) Chad 8,143,948
85) Austria 8,111,238
86) Bolivia 8,001,930
87) Bulgaria 7,889,000
88) Azerbaijan 7,729,131
89) Guinea 7,369,800
90) Switzerland 7,242,118
91) Rwanda 7,152,966
92) Somalia 7,043,751
93) Haiti 6,774,081
94) Tajikistan 6,308,673
95) Benin 6,203,859
96) Honduras 6,091,999
97) El Salvador 6,008,356
98) Burundi 5,856,010
99) Israel 5,742,719
100) Paraguay 5,439,657
101) Slovakia 5,400,749
102) Laos 5,361,704
103) Denmark 5,319,545
104) Finland 5,158,392
105) Sierra Leone 5,076,095
106) Georgia 5,055,241
107) Libya 4,993,414
108) Togo 4,882,257
109) Jordan 4,842,831
110) Papua New Guinea 4,806,270
111) Nicaragua 4,706,032
112) Kyrgyzstan 4,625,762
113) Republic of Moldova 4,460,838
114) Norway 4,458,312
115) Turkmenistan 4,433,925
116) Croatia 4,254,361
117) Singapore 4,008,204
118) Eritrea 3,979,339
119) Puerto Rico 3,889,507
120) New Zealand 3,774,096
121) Ireland 3,753,530
122) Bosnia and Herzegovina 3,689,908
123) Costa Rica 3,647,319
124) Lithuania 3,631,298
125) Lebanon 3,528,559
126) Central African Republic 3,450,284
127) Albania 3,442,656
128) Armenia 3,354,286
129) Uruguay 3,308,695
130) Liberia 2,985,333
131) Panama 2,770,081
132) Congo 2,768,018
133) Jamaica 2,639,493
134) Mauritania 2,590,516
135) Mongolia 2,578,632
136) Oman 2,447,279
137) Latvia 2,425,511
138) United Arab Emirates 2,330,923
139) Lesotho 2,106,810
140) Yugoslav (Macedonia) 2,032,459
141) Bhutan 1,961,642
142) Slovenia 1,924,499
143) Kuwait 1,905,246
144) Namibia 1,742,226
145) Botswana 1,562,534
146) Estonia 1,439,980
147) Gambia 1,323,631
148) Guinea-Bissau 1,255,221
149) Gabon 1,195,232
150) Trinidad and Tobago 1,181,202
151) Gaza Strip 1,087,872
152) Swaziland 1,060,719
153) Fiji 820,823
154) Cyprus 753,692
155) Qatar 719,306
156) Reunion 717,723
157) Guyana 698,546
158) Bahrain 622,634
159) Comoros 561,063
160) Equatorial Guinea 462,606
161) Solomon Islands 452,067
162) Djibouti 444,988
163) Macau 437,417
164) Luxembourg 431,904
165) Suriname 428,409
166) Guadeloupe 421,729
167) Martinique 410,487
168) Cape Verde 397,270
169) Malta 388,756
170) Brunei Darussalam 328,979
171) Maldives 292,307
172) Bahamas 291,913
173) Iceland 274,777
174) Barbados 272,794
175) French Polynesia 244,679
176) Belize 242,438
177) Western Sahara 239,333
178) Netherlands Antilles 207,987
179) New Caledonia 198,714
180) Vanuatu 186,282
181) Samoa 179,843
182) French Guiana 167,459
183) Sao Tome and Principe 154,929
184) Saint Lucia 154,381
185) Guam 151,968
186) Micronesia 131,500
187) US Virgin Islands 119,827
188) St Vincent & Grenadines 114,900
189) Tonga 100,475
190) East Timor 100,000
191) Kiribati 89,843
192) Grenada 89,470
193) Seychelles 78,919
194) Isle of Man 72,740
195) Dominica 72,244
196) N. Mariana Islands 69,398
197) Aruba 69,083
198) Andorra 65,997
199) Antigua and Barbuda 65,929
200) Marshall Islands 65,539
201) American Samoa 63,781
202) Bermuda 62,516
203) Greenland 56,245
204) Faeroe Islands 44,913
205) Saint Kitts and Nevis 38,929
206) Cayman Islands 33,982
207) Liechtenstein 31,874
208) Monaco 31,540
209) Gibraltar 27,501
210) San Marino 26,534
211) Cook Islands 20,200
212) Channel Islands 20,000
213) British Virgin Islands 19,156
214) Palau 18,434
215) Turks and Caicos Islands 16,881
216) Wallis & Futuna Islands 15,129
217) Nauru 11,602
218) Anguilla 11,451
219) Tuvalu 10,686
220) St Pierre and Miquelon 6,861
221) Montserrat 4,944
222) Antarctica 3,786
223) Falkland Islands 2,758
224) Niue 2,103
225) Tokelau 1,471
226) Pitcairn Islands 49

[Copper Nicus]

Originally Posted by KorosQA

I was playing the game and was curious about the world populations. They seemed really off. As an example, Mexico is the 11th most populated country in the world, yet the game only assigns 1 population counter to the entire country. (CORE v.7 but regular HOI is almost as bad) Population is specifically there to represent the force pool that the government has to draw from to build or reinforce units. (...)

Please, read the answer in CORE: Bugs thread...

[Dayvit781]

I understand your point too but a few things:

1) World population today is not as representative as in the 1940's. For example, today 8 of the 10 most populated cities are in developing countries. Back then 8 of the 10 most populated cities were in developed countries.

2) More importantly, manpower represents more than just population. It represents the governments ability to recruit people. That's why there are many events in CORE that add manpower, it's not just that people appeared, but it is that certain events make more people more willing to join.

(Regarding what the previous post says, that thread talks about how democratic countries start with alot less manpower, but there are events closer to the war that raise it back up to normal) Democratic countries can't just go around doubling the military budget for no reason....

I'm sure there're some other things too, but that's all I can think of right now.

[Math Guy]

Here are some other factors:

-- The militarily relevant population is not everyone, but males born before 1923 and still fit for active service. In France, for example, dead and severely wounded from WW I reduced that number by at least a million, if not more. Countries with a very high birth rate would have disproportionate numbers of under-18 males. Some poorer countries were biased toward emigration by males in search of work abroad, and so had a disproportionately female population for that reason.

-- There were frequently specific minorities in a population that were not politically acceptable to the armed forces, or were severely under-represented due to their own lack of enthusiasm, or both: blacks and Japanese-Americans in the US army, Jews in Germany, or Volga Germans, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians (to name just some) in the USSR. As a less well-known example, French-Canadians had a negative view of Canada's Imperial commitments that was quite distinct from their English-speaking counterparts, and this led to conscription crises in both World Wars.

-- The impossibility of releasing large numbers of able-bodied males from a rural, agrarian economy. Although the major powers managed to keep farm production up, and even increase it, by substituting female labor, they had access to fertilizers, tractors, and other labor-saving technology. A country like Afghanistan could not field as large an army in proportion to its total numbers, because its food production system was still essentially medieval. This is an issue that goes back to the Roman Empire, and even before. Efficient agriculture = greater potential for aggression.

-- Lack of strong and efficient central government. I seem to recall that Nationalist China drafted something like 14 million soldiers between 1937 and 1949, but the draft system was catastrophically bad. The standard method used by the regional warlords when given a draft quota was to strip a village of its entire draft-age male population, then march them across country to a training depot, without providing food. The men were frequently forced to strip naked each night and hand over their clothes, to prevent desertion. As a result, hundreds of thousands of draftees starved or died of exposure and exhaustion before they ever made it into the national army. Many more ran off -- at times 30 % or more. Sources say a significant portion of that 14 million figure represents the same men being drafted, deserting, and being drafted again, so what the real manpower effort of China was, remains somewhat unknown.

That being said, HOI is occasionally a little strange in its assessments. Nationalist China (population in 1923 = over 400 million) has less monthly manpower potential than Canada (population in 1923 = 11 million). Canada eventually inducted more than 1 million into the armed forces, a tremendous mobilization. As we just saw, on a per-capita basis, China never came close to doing that well, but it still outdid Canada by a long stretch.

[Perkele]

Originally Posted by Math Guy

That being said, HOI is occasionally a little strange in its assessments. Nationalist China (population in 1923 = over 400 million) has less monthly manpower potential than Canada (population in 1923 = 11 million). Canada eventually inducted more than 1 million into the armed forces, a tremendous mobilization. As we just saw, on a per-capita basis, China never came close to doing that well, but it still outdid Canada by a long stretch.

And if I remeber correctly Finland, with a population of 3-4 million managed to mobilize nearly 500 000 men into it's army.

[Mithel]

Switzerland is another example where an extremely high percentage of the population was armed and trained as a marksman.

Certainly I think all the mods can improve on Paradox's base figures but you may need to give us a bit of time.

- Mithel

[Reichsmarshall]

226) Pitcairn Islands 49

[bluemulva]

Originally Posted by Perkele

And if I remeber correctly Finland, with a population of 3-4 million managed to mobilize nearly 500 000 men into it's army.

winter, so no farming

[Ghost_dk]

Originally Posted by Perkele

And if I remeber correctly Finland, with a population of 3-4 million managed to mobilize nearly 500 000 men into it's army.

They prepared for such an occasion as the winter war from day one after recieving independence, Women joined the industry to relieve weapon able men and also al lot of foreign worker were organized to do the same.

and then of course there were foreign volunteers, about 12-15 if i remember correct.

Ghost_dk

[J.J.E.]

I'm surprised that almost 4000 people live in Antarctica...are there really so many scientists there?

[Perkele]

Originally Posted by Ghost_dk

They prepared for such an occasion as the winter war from day one after recieving independence, Women joined the industry to relieve weapon able men and also al lot of foreign worker were organized to do the same.

and then of course there were foreign volunteers, about 12-15 if i remember correct.

Ghost_dk

During winter war the army had about 300 000 men, it was in continuation war that the army grew so big.

[KorosQA]

Well, i've been looking at both the regular HoI scenarios and the current version of CORE. It's obvious to me that the CORE is starting to migrate towards forcing people down the road of only playing major nations. I'm going to stick with the .64 version because of the manpower irregularities in .7x. I just wish that Paradox would work with the CORE guys for thier events. (Very nice).

[elbasto]

Originally Posted by J.J.E.

I'm surprised that almost 4000 people live in Antarctica...are there really so many scientists there?

and military and other logitically necesary personel (i.e. cookers, mecanics, pilots, and (of course) some "wifes" hehe).

Keeping a man fed and warm in that enviroment is... expensive

[Copper Nicus]

Originally Posted by KorosQA

Well, i've been looking at both the regular HoI scenarios and the current version of CORE. It's obvious to me that the CORE is starting to migrate towards forcing people down the road of only playing major nations. I'm going to stick with the .64 version because of the manpower irregularities in .7x. I just wish that Paradox would work with the CORE guys for thier events. (Very nice).

Why do you think so?
USA/UK/France got mobilization events as well. What's more, if you want to play old good "Brazil - World Conqueror" game, just DOW any non-democratic S.American nation - your manpower will be back in few days (mobilization starts, when nation is at war, no matter with whom).

In fact, minors got much better situation now - they can develop techs much easier (cheaper 'golden techs'). They got also usually much better starting techs.

[Lothos]

Although CORE 0.71 is very nice and has some real cool stuff but the sheer magnitude of the events makes the game to slow once you get to total global war around 1943 and beyond. Tried running several games on my wifes PC she has a 1200mhz AMD Athlon with 512 megs memory and a 64 meg video card. It gets REAL slow from the sheer magnitude. Granted I love the in-depth they put into the events but enough is enough until people start buing 3ghz machines as the standard hehe suggest you guys slow down on event making.

[Henry v. Keiper]

Didn't China reach one billion after World War II when their health system got better? In any case, I don't know if modern day populations are the best way to judge HoI's populations.

[Copper Nicus]

Originally Posted by Lothos

Although CORE 0.71 is very nice and has some real cool stuff but the sheer magnitude of the events makes the game to slow once you get to total global war around 1943 and beyond. Tried running several games on my wifes PC she has a 1200mhz AMD Athlon with 512 megs memory and a 64 meg video card. It gets REAL slow from the sheer magnitude. Granted I love the in-depth they put into the events but enough is enough until people start buing 3ghz machines as the standard hehe suggest you guys slow down on event making.

I play on similar system and have to say that main problem with high number of events occurs during the loading game/scenario, not in game itself. Most events code is already optimized (higher offset, better start/end dates, moving all the text to text.csv file from events files).

Also notice, that game slows down visibly around 1940 - but it's connected with number of units and AI calculations (more front/invasion AI use, battle calculations). What's more, around 1941 most of the events already went off or expired, yet game slows down even more. Not sure if anyone tested how number of units and wars affects game performance, but unquestionably this is the main factor behind game slowing down.

BTW, IMO we have added most of the important events already, so there probably won't be serious rise of event numbers in the future. Of course, some events will be added for sure (players still suggest adding new ones), but I don't expect anything like 300+ events in one go.

We got some fresh ideas what will be added in new releases of CORE (and no, I don't mean new techs/pictures)...

[O'Donnel Aboo!]

Lothos:
I play this game on a dinosaur of dinosars: a 400mhz Pentium II. The only time CORE seems slower than Vanilla is during the load-up as Copper said. In fact, I notice no major slowing down even during massive troop movements.
I like to use that slower load-up time to use the bathroom and fix myself the food that will have to sustain me for the enxt several hours of my life.

Funny you didn't mention this, Lothos, but the information on your site regarding the 1936 world populations is really pretty fantastic. I'm sure one nation could be used as a control and the rest of the national manpower stats could be extrapolated rather easily.

[Mithel]

I agree, the performance issues appear to be related to the number of divisions and number of battles more than events. All in all checking events is probably a lot less CPU intensive than all those battle calculations. I don't favor huge numbers of events but I don't think they are the biggest performance concern.

- Mithel

[Lothos]

I am not sure what causes the slow down but if you run CORE 0.64 at top speed and then run CORE 0.71 there is a huge difference. If you play the game at normal speed or slower you would not notice it is my guess.

Yea it took me several days to get all that population information off this one website (forgot the name). It had population information dating back to like 1850 for each country.