How does manpower work?

[unmerged(134053)]

Hello all, I have started a 1936 campaign as Canada in order to get used to playing the game. The current year in my campaign is 1944. I have researched all but one of the manpower growth techs and yet my manpower is only growing at a rate of 0.23 per day -- this figure has not increased since I started researching agriculture at the beginning of the campaign.

I do not have enough manpower to reinforce my infantry and naval divisions at the same time as producing new units. As such I have got a bit of IC that is going to waste (I have got masses of supplies and other goodies from selling technology to my allies, so don't need to provide much money or supplies).

As Germany currently rules the world with 800 IC (do not ask me how they got this uber, all I know is the United Kingdom is unable to make a dent in them and I have just evacuated India since the 250 IC Japan is sweeping through it), I desperately need tips or hints on how to increase my manpower.

I am hoping to penetrate a weakness in the Axis defence of Norway with a view to smashing Germany's allies. There is no way my 90 IC Canada can take on the entire Axis, it is just ridiculous! Is there a screenshot button so I can show you the damage?

 

[unmerged(42723)]

You can't attach pics directly, upload them to some image hoster and then link to this in your post.

As for MP, you can't expect to receive the same as any big and densely populated country, like in reality Canada has simply less people than Germany or Russia for example. Even a major like UK has not really that much. And like in reality Canada will get in trouble against the axis alone (though a major prob in the game is that your allies aren't as helpful as they should be)

In your situation you should primarily build hard land units, since these will take less casualties and Armor costs less MP than Inf anyway. Plus build a strong air force to assist them.

To maximize MP check your ministers - many give MP bonuses (you should do it from the beginnng with any MP weak nation if possible). Also check slider settings (Max out hawk if it isn't already).

 

[unmerged(62860)]

Only way to increase manpower is:

-Ministers
-Agroculture techs
-Take provinces that has a dircet landconnection with your capitol (this is not required if at peace)

-And the little gamey way of buying units instead of producing them yourself (reinforcing a unit from 1% to 100% cost less manpower then to produce a new one).

 

[unmerged(42723)]

For the next campaign: esp. if you're an MP-weak nation you could also try to take military control over smaller allied nations, like Australia, NZL, South Africa, Free France. You need to take MC though shortly before the war starts, otherwise they'll give most of their forces to the UK as expeditionary forces. If you MC those nations the UK will be weakened without those divisions, but they're much more valuable in human hands than under AI control anyway. But it's also a lot more micromanagement of course.

 

[richie]

-And the little gamey way of buying units instead of producing them yourself (reinforcing a unit from 1% to 100% cost less manpower then to produce a new one).

To be exact: full reinforcement costs 80% MP.
You can be even more gamey and buy units with (useless) brigades attached - dissolving the brigade gives you additional 2MP. This way buying brigaded infantry you get 4MP for free.

 

[tonguz]

GAMEY : Just buy old/new ships of your allies and disband. You will get MP from this. I do it when I play CAN always.

Remember you can have 100 divisions but if you get MP loss from battles you can not replace it.

And F12/manpower cheat is always there for you...

 

[unmerged(42723)]

Do you get the full MP for disbanding a purchased unit you didn't reinforce? Then one could just buy land-divs, set IC for reinforcement to zero and disband them to get full MP in return. Totally gamey of course

 

[tonguz]

To be exact: full reinforcement costs 80% MP.
You can be even more gamey and buy units with (useless) brigades attached - dissolving the brigade gives you additional 2MP. This way buying brigaded infantry you get 4MP for free.

However, while you wait brigaded division arrives for 30 days you have to replenish MP of the division with IC.
You should carefuly make micromanagement not to pay for it. Units in deployment pool are counted as reinforcement and you pay IC for them.

 

[unmerged(134053)]

Wow, thanks for all the replies everyone!!

I have already sorted my Cabinet but I didn't know about the Hawk lobby thing -- thanks, I will make sure to amend that. My daily manpower has been at 0.23 for at least the last 3 agriculture upgrades, and my ministers supposedly increase manpower by 25%.

I considered using the "manpower" cheat and making up for it by giving resources away for free to neutral countries or something like that. So far I have resisted cos I understand that as a smaller nation, Canada are not going to be able to influence world events through military strength. The problem is I am frustrated with sitting around waiting for my manpower to build up, I want to get out there and defeat the enemies of freedom! The world needs Canada.

I actually have started building armoured units as I have massive stockpiles of oil and metal. Only problem is you can't do too much in one go with 90 IC. I have started building L-Arm and H-arm brigades for my infantry.

My allies are playing like prats, they have made no headway at all against the evil Axis and the United Kingdom is falling back throughout India - I had to get out of there and leave them to their doom as I was losing men to uber-stacks of Japanese forces.

How do I take in-game screenshots? I've got plenty of cool things to take pics of, I could do an AAR (if I don't get wiped out by the uber-powerful Axis first!).

"You're a bunch of lunatics, led by a madman who looks like Charlie Chaplin."
- Captain Mainwaring to a captured SS officer, "Dad's Army"

 

[KevinG]

.23 is 1/4 of the UKs manpower (excluding india of course), so I don't see what the problem is here. You can easily defeat Germany with Canada alone when they are stuck in Russia anyway. Just build a DD fleet to kill the Italian navy and annex Italy. From there you can kill Germany because they'll only have maybe 50-60 divisions in the west total which you can kill piecemeal. The trick to playing Canada is to NOT MAKE ANY VANILLA INFANTRY. Don't bother adding brigades to your infantry, just disband them and make all mot/tanks with a few marines.

 

[lambrf]

.23 is 1/4 of the UKs manpower (excluding india of course), so I don't see what the problem is here. You can easily defeat Germany with Canada alone when they are stuck in Russia anyway. Just build a DD fleet to kill the Italian navy and annex Italy. From there you can kill Germany because they'll only have maybe 50-60 divisions in the west total which you can kill piecemeal. The trick to playing Canada is to NOT MAKE ANY VANILLA INFANTRY. Don't bother adding brigades to your infantry, just disband them and make all mot/tanks with a few marines.

I think his problem is that the agriculture tech upgrades did not change that value, while they should have increased it by 25%.

Edit: screenshot is F11

 

[unmerged(134053)]

Hi all,

As Lambrf says, the agriculture upgrades do not appear to have made a difference -- however I have looked into it and found that I am nearly all the way to Dove Lobby so this has probably had a significant impact on my manpower growth. Changing it one point towards Hawk Lobby has increased manpower from 0.23% to 0.25%.

I didn't know that I could affect manpower by changing these sliders so I have lost 10 game-years of tweaking, bugger it!!

I am not winning many battles even though my game is on the easiest difficulty. I was getting spanked by Japanese forces attacking through India. My air force (such as it is) was being shot out of the sky by the Germans.

I made a small amount of headway fighting Italy but could not keep it up due to severe problems with my automatic convoys -- no matter what I do it just does not assign enough ships so my occupied territories in Sicily are constantly out of supply.

My fleet, while powerful by most nations' standards, is still no match for the big players.

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong as I thought I had learned my lessons in my Japan campaign.

EDIT: Screenies! Thanks Lambrf!

Japanese sphere of influence

Tech teams at work

Might as well not bother having factories

Axis influence (red) versus Allied influence (green)

Note - These screenies were taken while I was trying to reorganise my navy and industry following my evacuation of India -- I don't overstack and I certainly don't leave 39 IC unattended!

 

[TAMBOURINESNAKE]

I actually have started building armoured units as I have massive stockpiles of oil and metal. Only problem is you can't do too much in one go with 90 IC. I have started building L-Arm and H-arm brigades for my infantry.

Metal doesn't figure into the building of armored units at all, only IC and manpower. Metal is just used daily to make IC. 2 energy, 1 metal, and 0.5 rares are used each day to keep one factory (one IC) running. :>