Manpower Exploit

[unmerged(1207)]

In my first post “Manpower Calculations Revealed”, I reveal much of the inner workings of manpower, leadership, defense spending, soldiers POPs and Officer POPs. I said I would continue by giving my observations and criticisms on the subject. However, before doing that, I want to give everyone some practical advice on the most efficient way to raise manpower. I’ll call this the “Manpower Exploit”.

In my first post I stated that “adding soldiers gives an immediate increase in manpower”. This is a “free” increase that is done by converting Farmer or Laborer POPs to Soldiers. This conversion is maximized when you set your Defense spending to 100% (80% for Anti-Military, less efficient for you peaceniks). Here’s the procedure I suggest:

1. Pause the game.
2. Move the Defense Spending slider to 100% (80% for Anti-Military) and exit the budget window.
3. Restart the game, advance two days and pause again. This resets the “Maximum Manpower” limit to the highest value possible. This helps to get more Manpower from a POP conversion especially when you have negative Manpower.
4. Determine the amount of manpower you need for reinforcements and to build troops.
5. Determine the size of POP to convert. For every 1000 population (1177 for Anti-Military) you get 1 Manpower. Take into account your current manpower. If it’s negative you’ll need to convert more.
6. Find an appropriate size POP to convert. Try not to over do it. Every soldier increases Defense Spending costs. Also you will probably lose any surplus Manpower when you decrease the Defense Spending slider.
7. Convert the POP to a Soldier. Spend all you manpower. If you have any left over consider spending it by demobilizing a small Soldier POP into a Farmer or Laborer POP.
8. Reset the Defense Spending slider to where you want it and exit the budget window.
9. Continue the game.

Unless you a large country you’ll only have a limited number of POPs to convert. Thus, you can only do this a limited number of times. Thus it would be best to bunch up your Manpower needs and convert a few large POPs instead of many small POPs.

You may ask it this is cheating. I would say no because the Manpower calculation algorithms are messed up (more on this later) and this is a fair way to compensate.

George

 

[Derek Pullem]

This is ok so long as you don't expect many casualties. By overbuilding like this you essentially have a paper tiger army. Looks good for the first few battles but can't be reinforced effectively. Ths tactic is good for blitzkrieg wars to annex minors but will not be much (if any) advantage against a major with deeper manpower reserves than you.

 

[Barkdreg]

want to know a real manpower exploit?
Build all troops in the same province, nopw demobilize all soldiers in that province. Hey presto, no longer will combat losses reduce your population.

 

[Derek Pullem]

I don't think you can do this - have you tried? I'm stopped from demobilising some Soldier POPs presumably becuase they are linked to units in the field.

 

[Barkdreg]

I don't think you can do this - have you tried? I'm stopped from demobilising some Soldier POPs presumably becuase they are linked to units in the field.

did it a few days ago, currenntly don't have time to test it

 

[unmerged(16133)]

i havn't been i know i have troops from new york and watertown but i have no soldier pops there.
But i think they disapeard for other reasons, besides demobilizing the pops

 

[Barkdreg]

did a quick check, the exploit I discribed works

Mellow: you probably lost them to combat cassualties

 

[unmerged(1207)]

I just ran a quick test on converting POPs into officers. It looks like it works exactly the same soldiers and manpower. This means that you get an immediate boost in leadership when you do a conversion. Thus you can use this "exploit" for leadership. However, the are two big differences: it costs resources to convert and it's a one-way conversion. You can't convert those officers POPs back into something else if you overdo it.

George

 

[unmerged(15665)]

Another manpower exploit- In peace time set defense spending and army spending to zero. you should have a bunch of 1900 man armies. Now, when someone DOWs you, pause, set defense spending and army maintenance to maximum. Mobilize, unpause and advance a couple days. Pause. You should now have several hundred men in your manpower pool that you can quickly reinforce your thrifty standing army with.

 

[Derek Pullem]

The AI does this too when it has too - why is this an exploit?

 

[unmerged(3474)]

I think its an exploit that a nation like the Netherlands can use all of their Dutch culture manpower to build units, and use their massive colonial Javan culture manpower to reinforce those Dutch units. Is it possible to have manpower pools by Culture? E.g., a Dutch MP pool for building and reinforcing Dutch culture units and a Javan MP pool for building and reinforcing colonial Javan culture units.

 

[Barkdreg]

I think its an exploit that a nation like the Netherlands can use all of their Dutch culture manpower to build units, and use their massive colonial Javan culture manpower to reinforce those Dutch units. Is it possible to have manpower pools by Culture? E.g., a Dutch MP pool for building and reinforcing Dutch culture units and a Javan MP pool for building and reinforcing colonial Javan culture units.

I think might be a little too much coding for a patch, but I'd sure like to see it happen

 

[unmerged(24157)]

What you can do is crank your domestic Manpower way up for a while, build a bunch of divisions, then reduce army funding and free your domestic soldier POPs. Then, when war comes, convert a bunch of people in your colonies to soldiers and use them to bring the divisions to full strength.

You can't make new Regulars, but you can use subject people to as Replacements.

This is why Melanesia is such a valuable colony - New Hebrides has some really big pops of Farmers.

 

[daedalus]

What about this one:

1.- Make sure you can build at least 1 division of regulars (your own culture)
2.- Convert a bunch of your native POPs to soldiers to have a decent MP pool
3. Create forty divisions of regulars using the 1 available.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Hey, that actually works. I really thought the game wouldn't allow it. But I just checked, and with only one irish soldier pop available I could raise 24 irish divisions. (the limit was small arms, I think) Do those divisions above the limit have an assigned soldier pop? In other words, do you lose population if the divisions take casualties?

 

[OriginalRafiki]

What about this one:

1.- Make sure you can build at least 1 division of regulars (your own culture)
2.- Convert a bunch of your native POPs to soldiers to have a decent MP pool
3. Create forty divisions of regulars using the 1 available.

Hehe, I've noticed this too; I've applied myself a houserule that I never create more soldiers from a culture than there are romm for according to the manpower tool-tip.

It's beacuse the game stops you when you're at or above the cultural limit when creating a given batch of troops. As long as you are below the limit, you can create as many as you like, even if this will bring your total for that culture waaay above your limit.

Rafiki

 

[unmerged(23356)]

I think its an exploit that a nation like the Netherlands can use all of their Dutch culture manpower to build units, and use their massive colonial Javan culture manpower to reinforce those Dutch units.

Yes, this really sucks and has to be improved. It's even worse with England... Ever played the 1914 Scenario? Best way to see it is 1914... in your colonies you have thousands and thousands of MP, waiting to get converted, which makes it completely impossible to run out of Manpower.

Oh, btw: Can anyone explain to me how exactly soldier pop<->MP works?
What I mean is:
Let's say I converted 50.000 soldiers and got 50 MP. Now I build 5 divisision, back at 0 MP.
Now I lower my defense spending by 50%, and I only have 25.000 men left and not got any MP back.
Are the 25 MP, the 25.000 soldiers from my population now in Nirvana, gone to the USA or what exactly happened?

 

[unmerged(15665)]

The AI does this too when it has too - why is this an exploit?

Derek- It's an exploit because you don't have to put any money into defense spending at all except for the couple days you want the free manpower. You also don't have to pay any army maintenance when not at war, and yet, still not be overly vulnerable from a surprise DOW. The AI seems to calculate army size as a determining factor on whether or not to attack, moreso than army strength. So you can basically teleport 11000 men to each of your border garrisons, and the AI will pause when all it previously saw were 1900 men garrisons. This pause allows your men to come up to full morale. Neither side, human or AI should be able to do it. It cheapens the defense spending and maintenance sliders.