Concerning (overseas) manpower

[Chimerae]

So I've been playing this game about two years now, and during that time I often visited this forum. A topic I see now and then is the interesting concept of troop teleportation from homeland into deep enemy territory, or even overseas. Now as we know, something like supply lines will never be a thing in EU(IV?), but I thought this might work:

Instead of a total manpower pool like the game has now, every region of provinces has a combined manpower pool. If an army is in, or close to a region which has free manpower, that army will resupply; thus draining the region's manpower. Autonomy will influence how fast that goes.

This should fix the mass invasions into east Asia without having a power base there. You would actually have to plan how you would conquer that land, because you armies will not resupply. Also, attrition should start ticking up as soon as you are not resupplying your armies, similarly to naval attrion.

 

[marineFC]

Sounds good to me.

 

[Fumle]

Sounds like a good and easy implementation. Of course, getting the AI to handle it correctly, might be a larger problem.

/Fumle

 

[Chieron]

Russia will still resupply from thousands of miles away, though..
Maybe make it distance-based instead?
Say, you resupply fully from provinces in the range of 200, half in the range of 200-500 and nothing above that? However, that way, distant regions will not contribute anything whatsoever..
Would need a more complicated code (and the available MP value being listed in the province screen + mapmode to show supply area)

 

[BioZvin]

I like the ideer, but i would also suggest a role for transports to resupply automatically. So you don't have to build new troops constantly, also been wondering how they find merc in china trained to European Tech levels

 

[Chimerae]

Russia will still resupply from thousands of miles away, though..
Maybe make it distance-based instead?
Say, you resupply fully from provinces in the range of 200, half in the range of 200-500 and nothing above that? However, that way, distant regions will not contribute anything whatsoever..
Would need a more complicated code (and the available MP value being listed in the province screen + mapmode to show supply area)

I thought more of it as regions (like the duchies in CK; thus a group of provinces). So for example you have the Czech region. If your army stands inside this region, your army will resupply off of all Czech land. It will also resupply from bordering regions, but slower.

I like the ideer, but i would also suggest a role for transports to resupply automatically. So you don't have to build new troops constantly, also been wondering how they find merc in china trained to European Tech levels

Well, as soon as you have conquered new land, and the autonomy starts ticking down, you should also start resupplying from the new conquered region. If it happens to be an overseas region, it will take a lot longer and yes, you might have to transport new troops over there. As for the merc in Chinese region, right as it is now, you can also train highlanders in America, so that isn't really a difference

 

[Dnote]

Maybe just adjust supply rate based on distance from capital, with an additional modifier based on distance from nearest cored territory?

 

[Chieron]

I thought more of it as regions (like the duchies in CK; thus a group of provinces). So for example you have the Czech region. If your army stands inside this region, your army will resupply off of all Czech land. It will also resupply from bordering regions, but slower.

Regions could be a good compromise, but the current ones are rather unequal. They'd at least need to assign 'supply regions', which could follow natural borders more closely, and be of comparable sizes.

 

[Loha4]

I can see this just being amazingly irritating to deal with in practice. The distance modifier would work better and not make half your country completely useless at any one time unless you fancy dragging your army around to soak in its manjuice for year.

 

[Chimerae]

Regions could be a good compromise, but the current ones are rather unequal. They'd at least need to assign 'supply regions', which could follow natural borders more closely, and be of comparable sizes.

That was indeed what I meant.

I can see this just being amazingly irritating to deal with in practice. The distance modifier would work better and not make half your country completely useless at any one time unless you fancy dragging your army around to soak in its manjuice for year.

That is why you don't have your entire army on a single province

 

[Loha4]

That would apply if your country was 2 provinces in seperate supply regions. But what I said was refering more to any moderately large country fighting a war against any country that doesn't surround it from multiple sides. If you run out of local manpower and need the other half/more of your manpower what choice do you have other than taking your armys back from the front line to the other supply zone then sending them back to take siege attrition again and so on. It sounds awkward, and the supply transports of march of the eagles weren't exactly fun either.

 

[Choatic Neutral]

I like the idea of the capital being the determiner of Manpower Range. It adds more depth to the nebulous concept of 'capitol', and helps get rid of silliness like having Panama as the capitol of a North/South continental superpower, it could also help make Rome (and Tunis) strategic locations due to their central Mediterranean location.

 

[pikaemperor]

Or make troops never reinforce, if you want to replenish the army recruit more regiments and merge the ones you have. Now imagine the micro hell that would be, the current system while unrealistic it's not a headache and it's easier for the ai to understand so it's fine.

 

[Shadowstrike]

I really like the "calculate manpower pool using full manpower for provinces within a certain distance, and partial manpower for provinces further away" idea, but i imagine that will be computationally intense. Doing it by region might be a good substitute for this. Although I'd really also like to see a "no reinforce deep in enemy territory" rule (i.e. unless you can trace a path of controlled provinces back to some province you own).

 

[TingJonKi]

absolutely beautiful idea if the supply system was reworked

the region can drag manpower from other regions based on distance but it would be less effective on the amount of reinforcing troops but overseas conquest is hard right now anyway because the AI can amass huge armies in small areas which can stackwipe the invading army

 

[Dnote]

It depends how historical you want it to be, it was uncommon for there to be training facilities in every region during the time period, this is when the world was moving towards standing armies and a more centralised system, compared to the vassal/levies of old. Recruitment posts and trained soldiers are two very different things, so I still think distance from capitol should be a major factor in resupply rate, how that is worked in I've given my opinion, but I'm sure others can give it more thought.

But keep in mind how atrocious the AI can be in the game as it is, if reinforcement/supply was made significantly more complicated, I'm pretty sure the AI would fall over horribly with it. They find forts and zones of control hard enough as it is.