Title says it. I am playing as Germany and want some more manpower.
Saving manpower is good too. I have too much IC.
Saving manpower is good too. I have too much IC.
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Germany can run itself out of manpower if it builds too many Infantry divisions, or if it engages in too many head-on attrition battles in either France or the Soviet Union. As GER, you need to utilize "force multipliers" such as air power, artillery, and mechanized or motorized formations to encircle and destroy, rather than grinding down both sides in repeated frontal assaults.
Garrison forces can also eat up quite a bit of manpower, particularly if using divisions of several MIL, which may be cheap in terms of IC, and light on Leadership, but chew up just about as much Manpower as regular INF. Minimal stationary garrisons only where essential, and a strong mobile response group, may be a better alternative. I put GAR+MP where I consider it essential to hold a province, and use a backup force of CAV or MOT along with a TAC to cover a wide area. The TAC can completely disorganize a Partisan unit, so a single CAV or MOT brigade can simply stroll up and disperse it.
One way to stretch your existing manpower is to reduce the number of INF brigades in each division, and substitute ART, which is considerably more IC-intensive, but uses less Manpower (2xINF+2xART instead of 3xINF+ART). You can also swap out a MOT brigade and replace it with AC, which is a slight reduction in firepower, but a significantly larger drop in Manpower usage.
Other than keeping the Agriculture tech up to date, researching the two techs above it to reduce attrition and marginally increase the number of casualties returned to duty, and using the highest possible recruitment laws, there's not much else you can do to actually increase Manpower any faster. I assume that you went through the "normal" diplomatic decisions, two of which give several hundred "free" Manpower. Taking Austria and/or Czechoslovakia by force doesn't give you "cores", so you don't get as much monthly Manpower gain from them, in addition to missing out on the benefits of the decisions (+500 Manpower in the one case).
Garrison forces can also eat up quite a bit of manpower, particularly if using divisions of several MIL, which may be cheap in terms of IC, and light on Leadership, but chew up just about as much Manpower as regular INF. Minimal stationary garrisons only where essential, and a strong mobile response group, may be a better alternative. I put GAR+MP where I consider it essential to hold a province, and use a backup force of CAV or MOT along with a TAC to cover a wide area. The TAC can completely disorganize a Partisan unit, so a single CAV or MOT brigade can simply stroll up and disperse it.
One way to stretch your existing manpower is to reduce the number of INF brigades in each division, and substitute ART, which is considerably more IC-intensive, but uses less Manpower (2xINF+2xART instead of 3xINF+ART). You can also swap out a MOT brigade and replace it with AC, which is a slight reduction in firepower, but a significantly larger drop in Manpower usage.
Other than keeping the Agriculture tech up to date, researching the two techs above it to reduce attrition and marginally increase the number of casualties returned to duty, and using the highest possible recruitment laws, there's not much else you can do to actually increase Manpower any faster. I assume that you went through the "normal" diplomatic decisions, two of which give several hundred "free" Manpower. Taking Austria and/or Czechoslovakia by force doesn't give you "cores", so you don't get as much monthly Manpower gain from them, in addition to missing out on the benefits of the decisions (+500 Manpower in the one case).
Motorized Infantry.
Bear in mind (regarding the AC => MOT swap) that Motorized occupies frontage, but AC does not. Your Division MUST include some units that occupy frontage, or they will not take part in the battle... eg: a "Division" composed of ACx4 will never move off the back row, and therefore will not fight.
Good point. Since there are so many good reasons to use Collaboration Government in occupied regions, I sometimes forget that there are other choices.
As correctly pointed out, in a case where you have something like ARM+2xMOT+SPART, dropping one MOT down to AC can save some Manpower with little firepower reduction (the increased Combined Arms bonus will mostly offset the lower firepower), and the ARM and remaining MOT both occupy frontage, so that's not an issue. If you're using something like MOT+SPART+TD+ENG, then you can't remove the MOT because it's the only brigade that has frontage; the rest are purely support brigades.
If you are garrisoning annexed provinces, adding some Military Police (MPOL) can help you keep the number of revolts down slightly. They also don't cost as much MP as Garrison, but they are pretty worthless in a fight.
Upgrading units is another way to spend IC without using MP, Motorised Infantry to Mechanised Infantry, Militia to INF, I think you might even be able to upgrade from INF to Mechanised.
Do be careful that you don't create a supply crisis by upgrading all your INF to Mechanised and run out of Fuel though.
Other than that, air power is a good way to spend IC with minimal impact on your MP.
Upgrading units is another way to spend IC without using MP, Motorised Infantry to Mechanised Infantry, Militia to INF, I think you might even be able to upgrade from INF to Mechanised.
Do be careful that you don't create a supply crisis by upgrading all your INF to Mechanised and run out of Fuel though.
Other than that, air power is a good way to spend IC with minimal impact on your MP.
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Running out of fuel isn't the only danger. Mech uses far more transport capacity (for the supplies + fuel) than Infantry, so too much upgrading will risk over-running the transport capacity of your infrastructure, leaving most of your army going constantly in-and-out of supply. This is especially true if you've already over-built supply- and fuel-hungry units such as Armor.
The info in comments above pretty much cover manpower (mp) gain.
The thing to keep in mind is that mp is one of the budgets you must keep in mind during the game.
The thing to keep in mind is that mp is one of the budgets you must keep in mind during the game.
In my experience Germany actually has enough MP to build huge armies over the years.
Where it can easily go wrong though is with reinforcements costing a lot of manpower depending on how effective you are at winning your wars.
For example taking France through the maginot line, taking Belgium just through the ardennes, attacking Copenhagen by land/amfib assault, grinding your way through Yugoslavia etcetera.
Germany CAN win battles like that but it shouldn't even be fighting it. Those losses add up and Barbarossa will cost you a lot of reinforcements too.
Where it can easily go wrong though is with reinforcements costing a lot of manpower depending on how effective you are at winning your wars.
For example taking France through the maginot line, taking Belgium just through the ardennes, attacking Copenhagen by land/amfib assault, grinding your way through Yugoslavia etcetera.
Germany CAN win battles like that but it shouldn't even be fighting it. Those losses add up and Barbarossa will cost you a lot of reinforcements too.
I may have half a million Tiger IIs in 1940...........
But as my manpower rose, I decided to 'whip' my occupied territories, and so far I have 450 IC on production alone.
Somehow, MP is rising. My resource situation is OK too.
As far as I can recall, during the last time that I played GER, while I was deeply embedded in the SU, building occasional GAR+MP units to pacify the rear areas, and dedicating most of my IC to air and naval units, my Manpower was actually increasing from month to month. I believe I had around 4 maxed armies and part of a 5th, with 3 of them and an extra Corps or two in the East, each with 4 Infantry Corps and one Armored Corps. There was also at least an Army's worth of GAR+MP covering capitals and major VP locations, and at least 2 Corps of 2xGAR+AA holding major ports, mostly in France and the low countries. My available Manpower never dropped below 1000. As long as you're not spamming hordes of infantry and not losing hundreds of thousands of men in repeated head-on confrontations to "push back" the Red Hordes, manpower doesn't need to be an issue.
Take the paths of least resistance, encircle the enemy, cut the pockets into smaller bites, and destroy them piecemeal with concentrated force. You get less experience from it, but FAR less casualties.
Take the paths of least resistance, encircle the enemy, cut the pockets into smaller bites, and destroy them piecemeal with concentrated force. You get less experience from it, but FAR less casualties.
may i advice something in the future to you? instead of GAR MP use MIL MP. its 0.04 more supplies but even fewer manpower is requireq and they can move around qite quickly. and AI from latest patch actually tries to land next to port instead of right on top of it. so putting even a brigade to port side provinces could be good. and instead of IC invested in AA, build interceptors.
False economy, in my opinion. You need 3xMIL to withstand what 2xGAR can, plus the GAR have Suppression value, where MIL has none. The Manpower difference between MIL and GAR is trivial, and the Leadership cost, while GAR uses triple that of MIL, is still 1/3 that of INF. Add one MP to balance out the difference in Suppression and you're over that. In essence, GAR+MP will do almost (not quite) as much as 2xMIL+2xMP in terms of both defense and suppression, which is a significant savings in Manpower, Leadership, Supply, and total cost.
I've put a single 2xGAR+AA division in a port and held out almost indefinitely against repeated AI landing attempts, with repeated air strikes against it. Obviously, a human opponent won't do repeated half-hearted attacks like that, but it's usually more than adequate against the AI. MIL won't hold unless you use 3xMIL, or two divisions. On the other hand, you'll still need one "chase" division of MIL, INF, or CAV along with those static GAR, to run down any partisan spawns. As with so many other aspects in this game, YMMV.
as china i used MIL MP against japan partisans, and it worked great. since its 3 times faster and uprisings spawn with 0 or so org, militia can own these. and they have bonuses in defence. look at terrain stuffs. GAR is good if you really need to hold something because they are as strong in defence as infantry. but for policing MIL is better. faster patching up of supply lines.
China is a very different experience than Europe. If I play China or a relatively undeveloped country with far more manpower than Leadership or IC, MIL can be very useful. As an industrialized European major or minor country, MIL is of dubious value. You can still beat the weak AI in the game with an all-MIL army, but there are far more optimal solutions.
never said use MIL as frontal unit. even as china i use solely INF. and unified china is motherfucking dragon 30 leadership 80 manpower and about 200 IC.
The distinction should be made between the following:
1. Units to hold important provinces against possible attack
2. Units to suppress revolt risk and keep supply chains running
3. Units to put down uprisings
Your preference of minimising supply consumption or manpower usage will determine precisely what you use for each.
In OP's Germany situation, Garrison divisions would be most suitable for the first, especially if it allowed Infantry divisions to be pulled from Garrison duty to the eastern front. If you use 10 Garrision divisions instead of 10 Infantry divisions you save 20 manpower.
Military Police provide the most suppression per unit manpower spent so they should be used for the second role. IIRC, isolated support brigades can easily shatter if they are attacked by front line units, therefore I always attach a single Militia or Garrison Brigade to any Military Police force in case a partisan unit spawns next to them.
For the third role, there is some merit to using Milita as they have very low Manpower usage, but as they only move at 3km/h I'd personally use Motorised brigades instead, as you can cover a lot more ground.
In a slightly more direct response to the original question, there is also a tech which increases Casualty Trickleback, I don't know precisely how it works but I suspect that either when your units take strength damage, it either puts some of that lost strength back into manpower or it lowers the amount of manpower required to reinforce your damaged units.
1. Units to hold important provinces against possible attack
2. Units to suppress revolt risk and keep supply chains running
3. Units to put down uprisings
Your preference of minimising supply consumption or manpower usage will determine precisely what you use for each.
In OP's Germany situation, Garrison divisions would be most suitable for the first, especially if it allowed Infantry divisions to be pulled from Garrison duty to the eastern front. If you use 10 Garrision divisions instead of 10 Infantry divisions you save 20 manpower.
Military Police provide the most suppression per unit manpower spent so they should be used for the second role. IIRC, isolated support brigades can easily shatter if they are attacked by front line units, therefore I always attach a single Militia or Garrison Brigade to any Military Police force in case a partisan unit spawns next to them.
For the third role, there is some merit to using Milita as they have very low Manpower usage, but as they only move at 3km/h I'd personally use Motorised brigades instead, as you can cover a lot more ground.
In a slightly more direct response to the original question, there is also a tech which increases Casualty Trickleback, I don't know precisely how it works but I suspect that either when your units take strength damage, it either puts some of that lost strength back into manpower or it lowers the amount of manpower required to reinforce your damaged units.