It could simulate the long-term destruction by wars, but I'm not sure about whether it would do it well, as the link between the manpower and the economy in the game is virtually non-existent. What you're trying to do is graft an economic relationship to a stat that isn't currently integrated into the economic system of the game. The other issue you've got is that development isn't just about population - so manpower dropping will mean less effective use of the economic capital available, but it doesn't mean that capital disappears. If, instead, you had manpower as a multiplier for the use of capital (buildings/development), then it'd come closer, although development (in the game, in modelling economic activity) represents an odd mix of buildings, infrastructure, natural resources, population and social structures (amongst other things).
I agree.
If you want more realismn, then wars in EU IV would be more devastating and riskful (permanent development decrease, much higher AE and coalitions, less army size, lot of attrition to oversea armies....), but all this
was simplified in order to kill not the fun of the game. And i think that
was a good choice in first place.
But now, the game (and the player) have reached a level, were more realismn would increase the joy of playing the game (and increse the difficulty of the game).
You can conquer the world with ottomans in 1700 in ironman, be great power with byzantium or ryukyu, colonize complete america and still hold them in your influece sphere and so on. The Common Sense DLC was advertized as "play tall and be successful". But its still much much more easier to conquer what you want, then to develop peacefully. In my opinion, there should be more penalty for being a warmonger, more realismn in warfare and the diplomatic results. In Vic 2 you have to decide, shall my man go to work or shall they go to conquer new land.
I see no relation in these tasks: improve the production of a province, negotiate peace treaties and invent shipyards, but in the current system it is all paid with the same magic currency.
Yeah I agree its an abstraction that population gets
consumed by developing a province, but it make more sense then improve production by diplomatic power that is generated by a random ruler.
So beyond the fact that manpower doesn't act in a way that supports how actual economies acted (by and large, given the other elements of the economic model in the game), using it that way is likely to further skew results (and require a lot of balancing in national/ normal idea groups and with manpower recovery rates and bonuses as well - Quantity would be a complete no-brainer for anyone playing anything under this kind of model, rather than just for map-painters or low-MP nations trying to survive).
If we really use manpower for development, the quantity idea have to be modified (max force limit down to 33%, man power generation down to 25%, and national ideas down from 25% to 15%)
And then integrate a 3 step system like administration efficency, that increase max forcelimit and manpower generation by 10% (3 times) by technology for all.
