German Lack of Manpower

[unmerged(79903)]

I'm currently playing Germany in the 1936 campaign and have taken the UK, Annexed France and all of europe except for Italy, Spain, and Scandanvia. I've smashed through the soviets, encircling them a couple times. The problem is i've had to progress very slowly because i'm out of manpower.

Any tips for a better battle plan in the future to avoid this problem?

Next time should I build more mot, mech, and armour, and fewer infantry? This will save a little.

Or is there any way to boost your monthly manpower allotment?

Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[gzav]

Make sure to appoint a "Man of the People" as minister as soon as he becomes available. (New ministers come in every Jan 1st, so you should check them out every year). And building tanks is always good for the Germans since they don't cost much MP. But, you need to plan in advance because it can take a lot of time to build up such an army.

 

[JoeGiavani]

I'd disagree with gzav and advise you to build as many mech infantry as you can, as not only are they more efficient in terms of man power than infantry, they also don't cost too much IC, just make sure you have the vehicle mass production researched before producing them. I'd aim to have at least 4 armys of 12 mechanized infantry for Barbarossa.
On a more tactical scale, I'd advise that you use blitzkrieg tactics, and strike through weak points in the enemies lines with overwhelming force, as this will vastly reduce your manpower losses. I found that I only used my non-mech infantry offensively in offensive operations in the Baltic states, as I outnumbered the Soviets 2-1, so losses are very small.
Hope I helped : )

edit:if you're playing CORE, ignore everything I just said. Build as much light armour as you can, making sure to choose techs so that it is speed 14. Breakthrough and encircle with that. Make sure you have air support though, since your armour will get annihilated on its own, I seem to recall in '39 my panzers had a defense of around 4

 

[unmerged(79903)]

Ok cool thanks guys for the advice...
FYI i'm playing vanilla 1.05b.

I have a quick follow up question then Joe. Do you brigade all the mech as artillery? It seems that artillery is the best way to get the most bang for your buck? Some people seem to advise just tons of unbrigaded soldiers.

 

[JoeGiavani]

Only do tonnes of brigaded infantry if you're USSR, they're the only ones who can afford it.
Regarding brigades, it makes terrible economic sense to build them, they cost LOADS more than they should, and add extra time to the build. You're best off just spamming mechanized infantry. Even just the one army of 12 mech inf can take on about 50 Russian infantry, and win.

 

[Dr Rare]

FYI i'm playing vanilla 1.05b.

For your next game you should add the 1.06c upgrade patch to be current and add the fixitpack ,much info about extra addons for hoi1 are in this thread..http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=266975
Paradox Interactive Forums - The Complete Guide to Patching Beyond ver 1.06c
(unless of course you are playing 1.05b as a preference?)

 

[unmerged(79903)]

Would upgrade... but i'm on a mac... i actually have all the text and other necessary files to upgrade but the updated game start up file is a .exe ... so...

 

[Dr Rare]

Would upgrade... but i'm on a mac... i actually have all the text and other necessary files to upgrade but the updated game start up file is a .exe ... so...

I thought there must be a reason,sorry i dont know about Mac's but maybe someone else will know?
At least you can still add all the extra sprites and picpacks available.
Dr

 

[lordsid]

Only do tonnes of brigaded infantry if you're USSR, they're the only ones who can afford it.
Regarding brigades, it makes terrible economic sense to build them, they cost LOADS more than they should, and add extra time to the build. You're best off just spamming mechanized infantry. Even just the one army of 12 mech inf can take on about 50 Russian infantry, and win.

I'd say that engineer brigs are useful.In my current game I built alot of mot. inf. with eng.brgs.(as usual) I didn't build many tanks,only 1 (iirc) for a tot. of 6.(again with eng.brig.) I used the ics to build mech (unbrigaded) as I wanted to see if I was wrong about them.I usually also put eng.brgs on about 20-24 inf.

I just had a big battle with 22 Ger. arm.,mech & mot.inf vs 87+ USSR divs.(inf/arm) The ai kept putting more USSR divs into the fray.(I "killed" 40-50 of them) I had to retreat most of my mech though,because they were about to expire.This was despite them having leaders with at least skill 4 & the proper trait.

Iirc,it's faster/cheaper to build mot.inf. with the eng.brg than an unbrigaded mech.Mech is +2 attack factor & is 2 mph faster but it looks like the higher def.factor makes mot.inf. more effective.It also appears that you can use mot.inf. with any leader without penalty.I've used them with offensive & eng. traits & they seem to work fine.(just the same as normal inf.)

 

[JoeGiavani]

Mech infantry actually have a higher defense, since they're hard targets, so an enemy's hard attack will be compared to their defense, wheras mot are soft targets.
Since soft attack is usually about 3 times hard attack, motorized infantry would have to have about 3 times as much defense as mechanized infantry in order to be effective.

 

[unmerged(79903)]

Mech infantry actually have a higher defense, since they're hard targets, so an enemy's hard attack will be compared to their defense, wheras mot are soft targets.
Since soft attack is usually about 3 times hard attack, motorized infantry would have to have about 3 times as much defense as mechanized infantry in order to be effective.

Good to know. I had never thought of it that way at all... and the mech's lower defense was always bugging me. Now that i know its hard i will take mech over mot any day. Thanks for the info Joe.

 

[unmerged(79903)]

I thought there must be a reason,sorry i dont know about Mac's but maybe someone else will know?
At least you can still add all the extra sprites and picpacks available.
Dr

Sprites? Picpacks? please explain as i'm fairly new to the forums and don't know what these necessarily are/ do. Thanks

 

[Dr Rare]

Sprites? Picpacks? please explain as i'm fairly new to the forums and don't know what these necessarily are/ do. Thanks

Sprites are the little soldiers,planes,tanks and ships that are in the game ,many user made addon versions have been made to add to your games,the picpack is a pack full of leader(officer) pictures to add to your game and fill in many blank spaces.I think much info is available in this thread i am unsure about the Mac thing but i think the pics and sprites should work in mac games? http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=266975
Paradox Interactive Forums - The Complete Guide to Patching Beyond ver 1.06c

http://www.stonyroad.de/forum/showthread.php?t=7171
The Return Of The Lost Sprites of Hoi1! - The Stony Road Forum

My signature also contains some links to some of my sprite work.

Dr