Hearts of Iron IV - Dev Diary 13 - Conscription & Training

[1alexey]

Duh, of course they did. They demobilized right before Mussolini turned around and said he wanted to invade Greece. The insanity of his plan rested on the problem of manpower for the upcoming harvest; the soldiers were demobilized specifically to ensure crops could be harvested.

Well, SU did demobilize millions of people in 1942.
Sounds crazy? Well, not really. In 1941 they had to draft anyone, thus naturally a lot of skilled workers were drafted. In 1942 they were demobilised to return to their factories, while fresh recruits took their place.

 

[Denkt]

Did not Soviet mobilize just to win time to move the factories.
That move pretty much ended any chance for german victory coupled with many fault of the germany war doctrine began to show.

 

[1alexey]

Did not Soviet mobilize just to win time to move the factories.
That move pretty much ended any chance for german victory coupled with many fault of the germany war doctrine began to show.

Soviets mobilized manpower that was available near fronline, yes, including to win time. After the situation stabilized, more selective approach was put in motion, as shortage of skilled labor was more serious than manpower.

 

[Secret Master]

Then you have several examples in which you may have different conscription laws for both: limited conflicts and WWII. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Demobilizing during the big war doesn't mean that you weren't obligated to serve until the government said otherwise, though. It just means the government decided to terminate your employment before the war was over.

For example:

"Cardus, you have been drafted to serve your country. You will do so until the current crisis is over, and we will be the ones who determine when that is. Even though you originally signed a four year contract to serve in the army two years ago, you are now obligated to serve until we say otherwise."

"Hey, Cardus, I know yesterday we said you were obligated to serve until we said otherwise. Okay, today we're letting you go now. Go harvest some crops or build some factory stuff. Turns out we determined that we only needed you for a day. Have fun!"

Mandatory extensions to enlistment were part and parcel of conscription in the war even when troops were later demobilized. You shouldn't have manpower "rotating out" or "aging out" in significant numbers during the war unless the government decides it needs that manpower elsewhere. In which case, you were still obligated to serve until you were no longer needed; it just turns out you weren't needed for the whole conflict.

Having the political capital to demand Service By Requirement is kind of a big deal.

 

[Dinglehoff]

Disagree. You know the big one is coming so you authorize conscription of all able bodied men aged 16-65, or whatever. There comes a time when they are too old to be on the map fighting the war. The game will need to track and distribute conscription across age groups or the AI and user will need to target specific demographics for conscription. For growing populations, it isn't a problem. For manpower that is built out and deployed already, and for which there are insufficient replacements; it becomes important.

Having the political capital to demand Service By Requirement is kind of a big deal.

There needs to be an ongoing political cost to the war and conscription and mobilization levels would be major factors in that.

 

[Cardus]

Disagree. You know the big one is coming so you authorize conscription of all able bodied men aged 16-65, or whatever. There comes a time when they are too old to be on the map fighting the war. The game will need to track and distribute conscription across age groups or the AI and user will need to target specific demographics for conscription. For growing populations, it isn't a problem. For manpower that is built out and deployed already, and for which there are insufficient replacements; it becomes important.

There needs to be an ongoing political cost to the war and conscription and mobilization levels would be major factors in that.

+1

As I said Darkest Hour 5 years ago came with such a model:
1) the exact population by country
2) different conscription laws
3) the exact calculation of the balance between freshmen enlisted and soldiers released from service (which implies knowing the population pyramid)

To each law was attached a penalty but, in truth, it that was not able to distinguish if the economy was running at full potential or not (in the second case the economy is not affected at all).

I see that with a new engine and after 5 years we are still dealing with the same issues.

 

[Avindian]

+1

As I said Darkest Hour 5 years ago came with such a model:
1) the exact population by country
2) different conscription laws
3) the exact calculation of the balance between freshmen enlisted and soldiers released from service (which implies knowing the population pyramid)

To each law was attached a penalty but, in truth, it that was not able to distinguish if the economy was running at full potential or not (in the second case the economy is not affected at all).

I see that with a new engine and after 5 years we are still dealing with the same issues.

Darkest Hour was published by Paradox, but not designed by them. We can't necessarily assume that a) the information within the DH engine is applicable to the newer engine and b) that even if it were, that the DH team would permit Paradox to use all of the information that the DH team researched.

 

[misterbean]

As a game, any HOI is complicated enough, without us needing a spreadsheet to know how many people we are conscripting.

 

[Cardus]

Darkest Hour was published by Paradox, but not designed by them. We can't necessarily assume that a) the information within the DH engine is applicable to the newer engine and b) that even if it were, that the DH team would permit Paradox to use all of the information that the DH team researched.

Who said that Paradox has those information because the game was published by Paradox? Apart from the fact that the information is publicly available (but for convenience I'm sure that DH team, if asked, will hand over all data) I find a bit paradoxical discussing issues solved and modelled 5 years ago.

You are right regarding the engine but I hope that the engine of HOI4 is way better than the engine of HOI2

As a game, any HOI is complicated enough, without us needing a spreadsheet to know how many people we are conscripting.

Did you require a spreadsheet for playing DH?

 

[Secret Master]

For growing populations, it isn't a problem. For manpower that is built out and deployed already, and for which there are insufficient replacements; it becomes important.

Leaving aside certain issues we aren't going to discuss on this forum, weren't all relevant populations during the game's time frame increasing in size, at least until the shooting started? I'm a bit hazy, but even France still had an increasing population, even if it was slower, right?

Would the number of people aging out past the 65 year old mark even be significant in this context or worth modelling if the population is increasing for all combatants before we account for casualties?

There needs to be an ongoing political cost to the war and conscription and mobilization levels would be major factors in that.

I don't disagree. How to model it is an open question, but I won't sit here and argue that you just need political capital on the day conscription is introduced and never again. I can think of more than one case in the war where governments faced resistance to their policies long after those policies were instituted.

+1

As I said Darkest Hour 5 years ago came with such a model:
1) the exact population by country
2) different conscription laws
3) the exact calculation of the balance between freshmen enlisted and soldiers released from service (which implies knowing the population pyramid)

To each law was attached a penalty but, in truth, it that was not able to distinguish if the economy was running at full potential or not (in the second case the economy is not affected at all).

I see that with a new engine and after 5 years we are still dealing with the same issues.

I feel we are talking at cross purposes unintentionally. According to podcat, there is some kind of population model:

Manpower will see some big changes in HOI4. Rather than controlling only how much it ticks up per month your conscription laws now control what percentage of the population you can recruit from the full population count. Conscription laws also come with trade-offs in that recruiting more will impact efficiency of your industry and as you dig deeper and starts scraping the barrel of recruits their quality will drop requiring more training time to reach the same level of proficiency. The idea is to make it less clear cut than in hoi3 where more men was always best at all times.

So, my assumption is that some kind of demographics are already modeled in the game. If you have some kind of base population count, we should be avoiding the pitfalls of the HOI3 system.

 

[Centurion1973]

1. Leaving aside certain issues we aren't going to discuss on this forum, weren't all relevant populations during the game's time frame increasing in size, at least until the shooting started? I'm a bit hazy, but even France still had an increasing population, even if it was slower, right?

2. Would the number of people aging out past the 65 year old mark even be significant in this context or worth modelling if the population is increasing for all combatants before we account for casualties?

.....

1. correct

2. number of those leaving manpower pool, because they are over 65, would be insignificant because at that time average life expectancy was lower (A male born in the United States in 1900 had, on average, a life expectancy of just 46.3 years) + growing population would more than compensate.

http://demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html

 

[ASPGolan]

I liked the manpower better than population and percentages mainly because it avoids controversy. Paradox can model a system which we don't have to debate endlessly that it doesn't match some census or the other. With manpower you can model both the workforce and the recruited / recruitable people.

So yes there's no real reason to model in the game the people over a certain age or children, just a pool of able men and women that is the main system behind the workforce and army recruiting.

 

[Poh]

1. correct

2. number of those leaving manpower pool, because they are over 65, would be insignificant because at that time average life expectancy was lower (A male born in the United States in 1900 had, on average, a life expectancy of just 46.3 years) + growing population would more than compensate.

http://demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html

what you need to take into account is that one of the very large contributors to life expectancy is infant motality rate. For the US the number is 6-9 women during birth and 100 infants (before age 1) pr. 1000 newborns in 1900. in 1950 its around 35 infants and now around 5. And since infant mortality rate isnt going to impact the number of people retiring, because they die before they can even get into the armed service, its going to introduce a rather large uncertainty into your argument.

EDIT: i do not dispute that the number of people retiring is insignificat for game terms. Im merely stating that theres a large uncertainty in using life expectancy as you do

 

[Dinglehoff]

Leaving aside certain issues we aren't going to discuss on this forum, weren't all relevant populations during the game's time frame increasing in size, at least until the shooting started? I'm a bit hazy, but even France still had an increasing population, even if it was slower, right?

I'm not even hinting at certain issues. I'm sure the populations were growing in France, however France is defeated and occupied in 1940. Not only should the manpower pool that France has accumulated to that point all but vanish with the occupation of the main french population, French units deployed to Indochina or central Africa should not have new recruits arriving from France, or from the French manpower accumulated but unused before the occupation.

Would the number of people aging out past the 65 year old mark even be significant in this context or worth modelling if the population is increasing for all combatants before we account for casualties?

It becomes important if the conscription options allow for recruitment of people who won't be in fighting shape for the duration of the game time(Which I am all but certain will be extended by Paradox) and the sources of manpower are cut off.

If we recruit someone's grandfather at 64 in 1938, how many more years does he have in service and why is he going to be counted as just as effective as a younger man? Without aging out or some kind of performance penalty (not the training time penalty), that's what is being modelled.

 

[Cardus]

So, my assumption is that some kind of demographics are already modeled in the game.

Which modelling is in game? I didn't see anything about that. Could you please retrieve it for me?

I'm not even hinting at certain issues. I'm sure the populations were growing in France, however France is defeated and occupied in 1940. Not only should the manpower pool that France has accumulated to that point all but vanish with the occupation of the main french population, French units deployed to Indochina or central Africa should not have new recruits arriving from France, or from the French manpower accumulated but unused before the occupation.


It becomes important if the conscription options allow for recruitment of people who won't be in fighting shape for the duration of the game time(Which I am all but certain will be extended by Paradox) and the sources of manpower are cut off.

If we recruit someone's grandfather at 64 in 1938, how many more years does he have in service and why is he going to be counted as just as effective as a younger man? Without aging out or some kind of performance penalty (not the training time penalty), that's what is being modelled.

+1

NB

I have missed to say that DH also factored in population growth so:

As I said Darkest Hour 5 years ago came with such a model:
1) the exact population by country
2) different conscription laws
3) the exact calculation of the balance between freshmen enlisted and soldiers released from service (which implies knowing the population pyramid)
4) the population growth

 

[FlorisDeVijfde]

Training. Now that's a nice new dimension to add.

 

[scroggin]

Congratulations to the development team on the training and manpower system.............. I love it.

Im starting to think that HOI4 will be every bit as complex to play as HOI3, but it will just have more interesting complexities.

 

[Joakim2007]

Hello

Im just wondering if Podcat's Roughnecks will have any toys and if it is an all male unit, of if they have some women too ?

 

[hewhoispale]

Which modelling is in game? I didn't see anything about that. Could you please retrieve it for me?


+1

NB

I have missed to say that DH also factored in population growth so:

As I said Darkest Hour 5 years ago came with such a model:
1) the exact population by country
2) different conscription laws
3) the exact calculation of the balance between freshmen enlisted and soldiers released from service (which implies knowing the population pyramid)
4) the population growth

What would be gained by such a model that wouldn't be reasonably modeled by having a manpower growth value that gets modified by conscription laws and/or technology? All this modeling sounds like a fairly extensive amount of work, research, and possibly non-trivial amounts of processing power, for dubious gains to the accuracy of an abstracted nation level concept like 'manpower'.

 

[varsovie]

What would be gained by such a model that wouldn't be reasonably modeled by having a manpower growth value that gets modified by conscription laws and/or technology? All this modeling sounds like a fairly extensive amount of work, research, and possibly non-trivial amounts of processing power, for dubious gains to the accuracy of an abstracted nation level concept like 'manpower'.

Because manpower isn't a pool of people that grows/changes with external factor, it's a subset of population with availability depending of different external factors.