Thats all I have to say since there isnt much to elaborate. Game adds more abritary manpower vampires and doesnt give us anything fun to compensate for them other then afk waiting.
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It still isnt fun to play with the reduced manpower pool
- Thread starter I like wars and maps
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Ive found that manpower is still perfectly manageable after the nerfs, the only issue is when i do several wars in a row and have instability with rebels. But IMO thats how it is supposed to work, any nation in a permanent war economy would run out of manpower.
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Permanent wars, multiple wars ey?
2 battles is usualy enough to bring manpower to zero.
A normal 15 month siege costs 2-3000 manpower, maybe more if you are really unlucky and get more than the normal 2 disease outbreaks.
Thats a quarter of the early game pool.
You need to drill for 5 years to get one years worth of manpower.
Really good value.
I MIGHT use a merc company or 2 very early as siege fodder.
But after that i refuse to use this desaster of a rework.
I just console cheat myself manpower, that feels better.
And Vassals? Their performance gets worse every patch.
Not to mention that we are now at the point of the AI baiting the player into staying in fights
because it looks like they want to reinforce but cancel at the last second.
The game was much more fun back when the AI was dumb and just bulldozed its troops around.
Nowadays i look at my allies troops movement and i have no idea what they are trying to do.
With manpower being an ever sparser ressource fighting battles becomes less and less worth it.
Every under "show superiority" they are a terrible manpower to WS conversion.
If you play in Europe there is one way to get enough manpower.
Become Emperor. Suddenly you have more than triple the amount. Thats about were it should be natively for everyone.
I have no idea what or how people are playing to have enough manpower
when a single stack of rebels takes 3k soldiers (2-3 years for most nations early on).
Its 1490, im Emperor as Bohemia. My slacken gives 8k. Thats pathetic.
2 battles is usualy enough to bring manpower to zero.
A normal 15 month siege costs 2-3000 manpower, maybe more if you are really unlucky and get more than the normal 2 disease outbreaks.
Thats a quarter of the early game pool.
You need to drill for 5 years to get one years worth of manpower.
Really good value.
I MIGHT use a merc company or 2 very early as siege fodder.
But after that i refuse to use this desaster of a rework.
I just console cheat myself manpower, that feels better.
And Vassals? Their performance gets worse every patch.
Not to mention that we are now at the point of the AI baiting the player into staying in fights
because it looks like they want to reinforce but cancel at the last second.
The game was much more fun back when the AI was dumb and just bulldozed its troops around.
Nowadays i look at my allies troops movement and i have no idea what they are trying to do.
With manpower being an ever sparser ressource fighting battles becomes less and less worth it.
Every under "show superiority" they are a terrible manpower to WS conversion.
If you play in Europe there is one way to get enough manpower.
Become Emperor. Suddenly you have more than triple the amount. Thats about were it should be natively for everyone.
I have no idea what or how people are playing to have enough manpower
when a single stack of rebels takes 3k soldiers (2-3 years for most nations early on).
Its 1490, im Emperor as Bohemia. My slacken gives 8k. Thats pathetic.
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Personally I've had more manpower in this patch than ever, however I'd largely attribute that to my increased willingness to go deep into debt to win wars using many mercs in the early game, then using those larger loans after winning the war to pay off the previous loans for decreased inflation gain, until your income eventually dwarfs your debt and can be paid off easily. I very often end up sitting at or near max manpower, which I use to instantly upgrade monuments.
Something I've noticed about EU4 is that as long as you throw enough money at the game you can win any war, and by winning wars you will have enough income (and loan size+amount) and army tradition, as well as all the available army modifiers (expansionist zealotry, morale/discipline advisor, golden era, prestige, power projection, DotF) to outcompete any AI without ever getting a mil group. In my recent games on this patch I have not yet gotten a single military group out of lack of necessity and much greater value in other groups. I've always used a mil group as first or second group in previous patches (Quantity or Defensive) but its quite a waste of an idea group compared to how amazing diplo and admin are.
Something I've noticed about EU4 is that as long as you throw enough money at the game you can win any war, and by winning wars you will have enough income (and loan size+amount) and army tradition, as well as all the available army modifiers (expansionist zealotry, morale/discipline advisor, golden era, prestige, power projection, DotF) to outcompete any AI without ever getting a mil group. In my recent games on this patch I have not yet gotten a single military group out of lack of necessity and much greater value in other groups. I've always used a mil group as first or second group in previous patches (Quantity or Defensive) but its quite a waste of an idea group compared to how amazing diplo and admin are.
In my ongoing but basically completed game of Odoyev-->Russia, I have gone Diplo-Admin-Religious-Influence(I regret taking religious in retrospect, as I found it almost completely useless besides the CB which I didn't really need as my diplomats werent doing anything important, and it was very easy to maintain close to 100% RU. Influence 3rd should have been my choice into Esp 4th), and plan to take Exploration to get the world discoverer achievement while waiting for adm tech 21 to get the mass production achievement as I had just finished obtaining the types of provinces needed to have every manufactory at 1570, just after thrashing a 1700 dev ottomans for a tea province on the caspian.
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Early game won't have many forts and you can use allies the most then. Later on you have cannons and spy networks aplenty
One general saves a year
No wonder you suffer when you dont use whats offered
Almost like this was an era where battles become worth less resulting in siege campaigns whos costs forged new states
3k? How big are the rebel stacks you face, only nobles or pretenders should have that much cav
Go quantity then
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The merc companies are awful to use. Heavy micro for little payoff, if the attach even works.
Weird compositions. Cant carpet. No thank you.
What you mean Cav? What you mean how big?
A normal 8k rebel stack fought with 10k troops = 3 years of manpower gone.
You only make 100-150 a month at the start.
Please explain this sentence to me.
A level 3 fort gets sieged with 10 Infantry.
The siege takes 15 months and gets one disease outbreak.
Thats 2k manpower gone guaranted. Probably more if you sit there and fail mutiple 42% in a row.
Two allies = 2 more forts. And atleast one fight before each.
Thats 10k manpower gone for single small war.
We must be playing different games.
My Diplomats are busy enough as is, they dont have time to make spynetworks just to get siege ability.
Not to mention that every nation on earth has Spy ideas, counter espionages you or both.
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Extra generals especially siege pips can be useful. You have rest of army to use carpet with whilst you have merc stacks sit on jungle forts
Because cavalry does the most damage early game? Who are you playing as to only have 10k for rebels?
Two more allies is two capital forts but lv3 not guaranteed
What are your diplomats doing thats keeping them busy? Are you maxing out relations with allies when already got allaince and marriage? Spy network from first month of war is great way to help bring siege times down
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I agree that battles should give much more warscore, especially from a historical perspective, maybe its not being done due to blaance issues of finishing wars being much easier. Also vassals are at their smartest they have ever been, the AI is overall been greatly improved this patch, which yes makes wars easier. You say the games was much fun when you could just run over the ai, i totally disagree, the AI should perfectly be able to stop you if your not microing well enough. For games to feel rewarding they need an adequate difficulty. You probably should balance your armies with a healthy dose of mercs yeah, the UI is worse than old times, but Mercs are really cheap early game, the free company is a ctually cheaper per solider you get. War really is supposed to be draining on your manpower, running constant war is not supposed to be easy.
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Not having manpower issues in this patch here. Manage your armies better to not take attrition during sieges by using free company mercs for that aspect of war and get more vassals would be my first two suggestions.
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Also split up stacks, don't take battles unless needed and/or you can overkill... these days I only have to be careful with manpower in attrition heavy regions. Increased Levies is good again!
Depends who you play as. In places with high attrition, it's definitely a pain. However in most other places it doesn't bother me because I go with Admin and Diplo ideas, as my first two idea groups. This means extra Mil points are going into my provinces early. I then prioritize building Barracks. That's usually enough unless I pick a war I shouldn't have, which doesn't happen often.
Dithmarshen for example? But really any OPM start works.
But whats the point of that question.
If you have 8k Rebels you attack with a 8/4 or 10/4.
Im not quite sure why you want to explain the basics to me.
A siegepip is not in any way guaranted and every general you hire is half a year more to tech 4,6 or 7.
I can of course restart until the 15 AT i start with get me a 0421 General.
And talking about carpet sieging while we are discussing nations that need to go over forcelimit to siege down a level 3 is funny.
Thats the point. Its not.
It still pisses of to somewhere if you bring a bigger army, uses universal milaccess to take the sceenic tour around
and come from the FoW somewhere 6 month later.
Its funny how nowadays you get spammed with "Naval landing!" every time a boat comes even close
but you still need to scan the entire map twice a month to avoid getting blindsided.
The AI also does completely dumb attacks just to annoy you.
My 8/0/8 is sitting on the Fort with 20k right next to it. The AI swoops from the FoW with 18k and loses because i reinforce. ???
We are more than ever at the point were just putting your entire army on the fort and eating attrition is better simply because that
takes less manpower than a single battle. Troop quality who cares. Get siege ability and baserace lol.
The way the AI plays looks more like it was designd to waste your manpower than to be an actual challenge.
Integrating Vassals, making claims with the next target before i finish Religious so i can go to war again without having to wait.
Improving relations to avoid coalition. If there is really nothing else to do you improve with the Pope for more PI ticking.
Most of the time you only have 3 Diplomats. Not very hard to find stuff for them to do.
Once you start getting into the 6+ Diplomats you have the luxury to make random spynetworks that might end up being used.
How is it fun to have the best way to win wars be to avoid battles entirely?
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Hire a discipline advisor and take less losses. 2 battles really shouldn't eliminate your manpower, unless you are fighting another nation which has a tech advantage over you.
No it doesn't.
If you're overstacking large armies on forts I could see how you could lose 3000 manpower over 15 months, but that's poor army design. Make smaller stacks that are not excessively larger than the fort requires to get the siege timer going.
Get the free company and park them on the fort you are sieging. Top up with your own troops if it is a capital fort.
There are much easier ways to get manpower than drilling. Hire the manpower advisor. Set the capital area to give the manpower state bonus, it will hardly cost ducats for a large boost to manpower generation.
If you are only doing this occasionally, you're not making a good choice. Free company should almost always be utilised in the early game to save manpower during sieges.
I guess you could learn to play better, but if console cheating feels good for you, just do it and complain less about your inability to manage manpower better.
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people doesn't understand this because most guides tells you to delete cavalry at the start. They use infantry because it's cheaper and later they are out of manpower.
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Play bigger tags before learning mechanics i guess
Overwhelming force is best when available
A siegepip isnt guaranteed, but its one to look out for, some choose rapid elections to get free generals more often. 50 mana is half a year, thats what makes it a trade off rather than an automatic decision
Have you not tried the strat of carpet sieging whilst a 1k stack sits on the fort? Its classic hre move
You sit 8k inf on forts for no reason? No wonder you're running out of manpower
Are you limiting yourself to just peer vs peer few allainces enemies?
How often are you integrating vassals for a diplomat to always being used and yet are using console to add manpower? You might need to slow down your conquests for now if your diplomats are never free
Some speed runners will savescum whenever possible, its fun to them
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What exactly are you carpeting in the HRE, the one place where nearly every province is a capital fort or better?
Going over forcelimit to attack rebels isnt.
And there is something called flanking range.
Its one thing if i wanted to stackwipe but whats the point of attacking Rebels with more troops than can fight?
If you sit pure cannons on it you have to scan the map even more because youd need to react the the AI
coming out of the FoW so early to avoid having your cannons get attacked naked.
What does that mean? I attack whatever is most convenient while trying to rely on AI allies as little as possible
because i dont want to have to maneuver two sets of AI in wars.
The "new and improved AI" makes you allies do the dumbest shit in wars;
even less comprehensible than it was years ago.
I play this game to go to war. Sitting on my hands at peace for more than a few months is a waste of time.
Claim, war, Claim, war. The only reason to be at peace is to start integrations.
The manpower i give myself is what i think i should have if we still had the old mercs.
This is one more reason we need game rules. I want to play the new content but the new mercs
singlehandedly ruin the game.
Go to the Empire thread and search for my posts.
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2 of those you mentioned arent fun to use and drilling is just afk waiting with such little reward that for majority of the game people play at its better to use the money to buy advisors to do the one thing you can do easily wich is general spam. Only 1 viable option wich doesnt actively harm enjoyment of the game by adding micro tedium or making you rely on the AI to do what you tell it to. I will concede on mercs once Paradox allows us to design our own merc companies without a abritrary limit on how many custom ones we can have.
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The local merc companies (free company, grand company & independent army) should not cost professionalism, as they are soldiers from your own country led by your own leaders. And mercenary professionalism cost should be proportional to the amount of force limit they occupy when the are recruited.
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