Lol that's nothing. After warring with the US, I'd always find that 60-90% of the pops in California and the Midwest were soldiers. Thats alot of soldiers.
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Lol that's nothing. After warring with the US, I'd always find that 60-90% of the pops in California and the Midwest were soldiers. Thats alot of soldiers.
I wouldn't be so happy about it.
In Vicky 1, AI had reasons to convert its POPs to soldiers - it simply needed it to have any chance when fighting wars against the human player. Otherwise, it would quicky run out of manpower and lose or wouldn't be able to field decent size army in the first place.
To be fair, I wouldn't mind AI cheating in this respect (as for it having higher manpower in general or lower manpower reqirements for military then human player), if it turns out that AI combat ability gets crippled by the POP automation. Most of the time AI needs much more units to achieve the same goals as player, so its only fair to have it somehow refunded.
Hmmm... OT again, got to wait for combat (or AI) related diary, I guess.
In Vicky 1, AI had reasons to convert its POPs to soldiers - it simply needed it to have any chance when fighting wars against the human player. Otherwise, it would quicky run out of manpower and lose or wouldn't be able to field decent size army in the first place.
To be fair, I wouldn't mind AI cheating in this respect (as for it having higher manpower in general or lower manpower reqirements for military then human player), if it turns out that AI combat ability gets crippled by the POP automation. Most of the time AI needs much more units to achieve the same goals as player, so its only fair to have it somehow refunded.
Hmmm... OT again, got to wait for combat (or AI) related diary, I guess.
The problem seems to be that after you conquer an area, the vast majority of it's pop's have been turned into soldiers, think 60% and up.
Causing the "Silver Legion" fascist party to win every election... now that was kinda funny :rofl: I have a screenshot somewhere. hmmm
Sure, but it's not a bug - it's reasonable AI decision, related to it needing vast armies and optimizing the population setup.
It's one of those cases when:
1st good mechanics + 2nd good mechanics = 3rd absolutely awful end result.
People here tend to focus on optimizing such single, pulled out of the context mechanics, forgetting about how they are going to work when combined and affecting each other in the game.
Sure, but it's not a bug - it's reasonable AI decision, related to it needing vast armies and optimizing the population setup.
It's one of those cases when:
1st good mechanics + 2nd good mechanics = 3rd absolutely awful end result.
People here tend to focus on optimizing such single, pulled out of the context mechanics, forgetting about how they are going to work when combined and affecting each other in the game.
Is it really reasonable for an AI country to convert 60%+ of it's population to soldiers?
I'll say I really like the military 'salary' slider control, and the fact that governments will actually have to compete with private industry for manpower, but I admit I would like to see some sort of conscription, at least for non-democracies. (Or is this handled through mobilization?)
I think you have missed my point.
No, it's not reasonable for you. But AI doesn't plan things/"think" like human player. For AI, it's very reasonable for the reasons I've stated in previous posts.
Yes, but the problem was that it often did not convert them back. Furthermore who says that manpower increases slowly? Maybe if you put maximum funds into the military spending you can increase your forces rapidly. Also you still have the mobilisation pool, which is designed to be used when at war and does rally peasants and low class workers to the flag.
IMO this feature really contributes to the realism of the game, sure the AI might have difficulties, but remember the player needs to follow the same rules (of course indeed the AI cannot plan ahead to the extend of a human opponent). However still, small countries that neglect their military should be overrun easily by the Great Powers, no matter whether the nation is AI or not. Alliances and military tradition (keeping the budget high) should thus become even more important.
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Well, since AI constantly needed those extra army POPs, it was still reasonable for it.
Again, it's one of those "big picture" things - some AI actions might look stupid from certain angle... until we figure out that AI is making this decision using completly different premises then us as a base.
True, but do you want to have small AI countries fall over much more easily then very same countries controlled by human players though?
Difference in AI and human player effectiveness of using game mechanics is a fact and to be fair, I'm sort of proponent of usig cheats to balance it out. Not ham-fisted +20% for everything (which is good for extra difficulty of course), but minor touches here and there to make better impression that AI-controlled countries are capable of keeping up with humans. Of course if it can be achieved without a cheat its only better, but if AI scripts are unable to do that, minor cheat as a temporary solution is sufficient.
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Well, since AI constantly needed those extra army POPs, it was still reasonable for it.
Again, it's one of those "big picture" things - some AI actions might look stupid from certain angle... until we figure out that AI is making this decision using completly different premises then us as a base.
True, but do you want to have small AI countries fall over much more easily then very same countries controlled by human players though?
Difference in AI and human player effectiveness of using game mechanics is a fact and to be fair, I'm sort of proponent of usig cheats to balance it out. Not ham-fisted +20% for everything (which is good for extra difficulty of course), but minor touches here and there to make better impression that AI-controlled countries are capable of keeping up with humans. Of course if it can be achieved without a cheat its only better, but if AI scripts are unable to do that, minor cheat as a temporary solution is sufficient.
I think what you are missing here is that as long as there was nothing stopping the player doing exactly what the AI did, it made sense for the AI to do the same. If the player can 'exploit' the game mechanics to power over the AI, then the AI should do exactly the same to prevent it. If we level the playing field then the AI is under the same constraints as the player then the AI no longer needs to have to do it, because the player can't either. This is also makes life easier for the AI, since it doesn't have to have rules to determine when it should be doing it and when it should revert back.
I also feel this is more historical, larger populations did not automatically equal larger armies. If you look at World War I, Russia modilised 12 million men and Germany 11 Million. If we took direct population comparisons the Russian total would be much higher.
Of course, but I question the possibility of having player and AI constrained to the same limit.
Main problem here is human ability to comprehend game as a complex system and finding out the "hidden options" by combining various game mechanics to his advantage. AI lacks in this department as it have problems with looking on the game as a whole - so whenever some aspect of visible AI activity suffers from this "one thing at the time" issue, I'm fine with minor cheats for the good of the gameplay. At least till polishing of the game mechanics makes such cheats unnecessary.
Difference is policies, industry and administration capability. Even in Vicky 1 military size was limited not just by population, but also by industrial/economic might of the country (ability to field/pay upkeep of the big army), so I guess it won't be a problem to properly model it in Vicky 2 as well. Russian Empire might be more populous then Kaiserreich, but it won't make it able to field proportinally more powerful army.
Note that population would make "hard" limit of the army size though. Like, Germany was close to 90% of its hard limit, while Russian Empire, let's say, 60% (due to the policies and industial limitations issues).
Yep... and then spiral into an endless cycle of them trying to get their land back... There were times when I would actually get frustrated to the point of banging the keyboard and storming off because of the [literally] endless divisions being thrown at me. Once they've attacked your uber fortress and lost more than a million casualties to your 60,000 man garrison, it gets a little silly, not to mention that it was almost impossible to make any progress against them.
It's very unrealistic. In history the absolute maximum of mobilized soldiers was 10 % of the country's population, any higher nummer would lead to a crash of the hole nation.
It was always around 10 %. CSA had 5.000.000 white population from which served 500.000 as soldiers, same for germany in ww2 with ca. 80.000.000 from which served 8.000.000 at the peak in '44.
So, the question is, do we like a highly unrealistic game or not?
I think you miss the cause with result here.
Because, if having 60% of the POPs (not population but POPs, mind you) is the only thing that allows AI to stay competitive, we shouldn't focus on the result (60% of the POPs under arms), but on the cause (AI is extremely outmatched by human players in arms race, so it have to convert more POPs to soldiers).
I can equally ask "do we like a highly unrealistic game" where AI is unable to compete with human controlled countries because we expect it to keep military POPs number low?
I think you miss the cause with result here.
Because, if having 60% of the POPs (not population but POPs, mind you) is the only thing that allows AI to stay competitive, we shouldn't focus on the result (60% of the POPs under arms), but on the cause (AI is extremely outmatched by human players in arms race, so it have to convert more POPs to soldiers).
I can equally ask "do we like a highly unrealistic game" where AI is unable to compete with human controlled countries because we expect it to keep military POPs number low?
Erm. The reason is that it doesn't have manpower, not that it's unmatched. It doesn't have manpower because it has defence spending/upkeep at zero. Having 60% as soldiers furthermore doesn't allow more divisions, it only gives more manpower...I could also swear that the AI first converts the pops and then sets the defence spending at full, meaning that it starts with zero manpower and trusts on manpower increase to build the manpower.
Just check your games before and after you declare war...until very late in the game all AI nations have either negative or zero manpower. It's a broken system.
And again, it goes for rising manpower base because... it needs it to fight wars.
Otherwise, it would fight wars with dozens of divisions... each with 1000 soldiers strong and without any hope of reinforcing.
Yes, I know it's broken - AI should act like human player. Should, but what if it (apparently) can't? So shall we focus on secondary issues (60% military POPs are something that breaks our games!) or mayor ones (AI not being able to rise armies competitive to the human player ones breaks our games!)?
Otherwise, it would fight wars with dozens of divisions... each with 1000 soldiers strong and without any hope of reinforcing.
Yes, I know it's broken - AI should act like human player. Should, but what if it (apparently) can't? So shall we focus on secondary issues (60% military POPs are something that breaks our games!) or mayor ones (AI not being able to rise armies competitive to the human player ones breaks our games!)?
Another question though, since I don't have the interest to read through 9 pages:
Can the soldiers die? Or do we again have millions of invincible cyborgs who just lose their way in combat and return to manpower pool for re-assigning?
Also, if I pay my soldiers well and that means I get more soldiers, doesn't that mean an ever icnreasing army? Do I have to daily balance my soldiers wages to make sure I don't get any more and at the same time they don't move to other professions? In which case some kind of 'auto-maintain this level' would be really, really, really nice.
Can the soldiers die? Or do we again have millions of invincible cyborgs who just lose their way in combat and return to manpower pool for re-assigning?
Also, if I pay my soldiers well and that means I get more soldiers, doesn't that mean an ever icnreasing army? Do I have to daily balance my soldiers wages to make sure I don't get any more and at the same time they don't move to other professions? In which case some kind of 'auto-maintain this level' would be really, really, really nice.
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Actually Vicky 1 did not limit army size by industrial/economical might of the country.
You could exploit the game mechanism of bankruptcy and still maintain a huge army.
It would be nice with a mechanism that would simply disband/diminish army units if you couldn't pay upkeep for them or make them totally worthless.
Any country can build 500 artillery divisions and plunge into debt and bankruptcy, while holding the world captive.
There should be some direct military consequence of going bankrupt such as having all your armies disband or something.
One of the cases proving my point that human players can find "hidden strategies" that are not available for AI.
Because, you know, for AI economical/industrial might WAS actual limit of its army growth. Although this particual human strategy feels extremely "exploitish" - I agree that going for broke on purpose should never ever happen and effects for the country should be disastrous. I've got the feeling that they were not as severe in Vicky 1 to avoid AI falling into "bancrupcy spiral" and not being able to leave it. Clear case when AI should follow "different mechanics" (or to put it blunt, AI should cheat)...