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How to maintain a large-ish army?

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Victoria 2 17560 After Action Reports (AAR)
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RAID186

Colonel
Dec 17, 2018
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I'm currently playing France, using HFM and I never seem to be able to maintain a large army, I easily have the money for it, just not the solider pops. Constantly a third of my divisions have the red icon meaning they can't reinforce, my divisions are completely wiped out in battle, needing replaced completely from scratch, and there's no way to keep up the wars that events are giving me.

I know you can promote soldier pops, but I don't want to neglect my research either. Are there any other ways to encourage soldier pop growth specifically?
 
The AI have larger numbers obviously but they do mobilize, whereas I don't unless absolutely necessary, I'd prefer a professional standing army- currently it's 1860 and I only have 3 stacks of 45,000 men.

I wouldn't consider it small, but most of my experience has been as Russia, which can field huge, albeit weaker, armies.
 
Raise army spending so soldier pops are paid better. Use national foci in high population provinces to create soldiers.

Not sure here but from my feeling raising the % of the land army stockpile in the budget screen speeds up the the refill rate of depleted units considerably from my experience.
 
EwaldvonKleist said:
Raise army spending so soldier pops are paid better. Use national foci in high population provinces to create soldiers.

Not sure here but from my feeling raising the % of the land army stockpile in the budget screen speeds up the the refill rate of depleted units considerably from my experience.
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I've kept Army spending around 75% as I've been able to afford it, but never went higher because from memory (which may be poor) I recall reading something about putting too much into that slider generated too many officers, rather than soldiers.

The slider for equipment spending etc was always maxed out too.
 
There's an outside chance that you're overpaying your army. Check the soldier pops in the budget screen, and see if there's a high proportion of soldiers getting Luxury goods. Those MIGHT be promoting to other professions, rather than remaining in the army. Ideally, you want to set your pay rate to put as many as possible in the upper income levels just below "Luxury", and as few as possible in the bottom rungs OR in the top rung.

Also, if your other low and middle income pops are poor, more of them are likely to demote to soldiers. In contrast, being too rich makes a military career look unappealing, and soldiers will promote out of it.
 
I tend to use NF to get anywhere between 3 and 4% soldier pop in each state. This is achieved relatively quickly, so no worry that your NF is being wasted for many years. Also, keep your military spending on 71% rather than 75%. You get a boost for being over 70%..I don't think there's any additional boost to promotion from having it at 75%. The tooltip has had me convinced for years.
 
Kovax said:
There's an outside chance that you're overpaying your army. Check the soldier pops in the budget screen, and see if there's a high proportion of soldiers getting Luxury goods. Those MIGHT be promoting to other professions, rather than remaining in the army. Ideally, you want to set your pay rate to put as many as possible in the upper income levels just below "Luxury", and as few as possible in the bottom rungs OR in the top rung.

Also, if your other low and middle income pops are poor, more of them are likely to demote to soldiers. In contrast, being too rich makes a military career look unappealing, and soldiers will promote out of it.
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Interesting, l always set military budget to 100%, and even at zero tax and tariff, my soldier pop won't even fulfill 50% of everyday needs.
 
Check the supplies for your units. If there is ANY red at all, then you need to get a 2000 unit stockpile of the missing item(s) IMMEDIATELY.

Next step, get and maintain a 2000 unit stockpile of everything else your army needs.

I use NNM, which keeps the economy and pops close to vanilla, and that's the best I can do for my French army. I also have issues with units from minority pops assimilating into my main culture. So it goes...
 
Kypton said:
Interesting, l always set military budget to 100%, and even at zero tax and tariff, my soldier pop won't even fulfill 50% of everyday needs.
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I also always set it to 100% I would be interested if anyone has any evidence that lower would be actually more efficient
 
I love victoria 2, I truly do. Out of all paradox games however, vicky 2 is the absolute worst for military micromanagement. In EU4 and CK2, it wasnt so bad as you were dealing with smaller numbers and could form doomstacks. In HOI3, it wasnt so bad since you had the OOB and could even assign AI control to entire theaters.

But Victoria 2? It doesnt have any of that, and managing over 600 regiments on a massive front is truly, a micromanagement nightmare.

How do you guys get around this? Would you like it to be 'fixed' in Vic 3 with some sort of OOB, or even the battle plan system from the upcoming HOI4?

Edit: And I almost forgot: this is just land combat. You've also got to worry about naval combat, your factories, your economy, your diplomacy and sphere of influence, your regiment and ship building, your province upgrades, your political situation...... As much as I love vic 2, it's micromanagement is ridiculous.
 
All of that is why any major wars end up being played out at Speed 1, with frequent pauses while I check my spherelings for unwanted outside influences, maintain my factories, keep tabs on any rebel movements or political changes, and manage both army and navy. Tedium level: extreme. Thing is, when it all works out, it's glorious, but the game does put you through a lot of unnecessary BS to get there.
 
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Show me the nation that had near-perfect control of its military during the majority of this historical period, and I'll show you... er, uh, Prussia. :)

As for the others, though, I find the demands on attention to be appropriate for the time period. If you didn't stay on top of things, they could very well get out of hand, what with desertions, population decreases, and the like. It's the perfect game for shouting "Damned incompetents!" in a posh and/or foreign accent, as you deal with the mess some minor bureaucrat made here and there.
 
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You don’t need major forces as European power aside from Russia. Simply have a few full stacks and have the rest be reserves of 1 cav 5 arty where you can attach mobilized troops for infantry
 
You also get more soldier promotion if you hire more soldiers.
 
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