Manpower Question

[unmerged(15623)]

Still, I agree that 25% would be a better number. I know that no one really wants a country to just melt, but at the same time, having a country with 2 million POPs take 1 million casualties for the price of 5% of the total population is a bit off.

It's more than what the Confederacy lost during the bloody civil war though. Both absolutely and in precentage. No idea if the total amount of casualities in historical Confederacy was anything close to 1 million total, however.

 

[A_Dane]

When you say military spending do you mean the slider near the bottom that controls soldier and officer pay, or the slider at the top that controls the national stockpile? If the national stockpile slider is reduced your armies won't be reinforced.

Also it seems like building units can shift supplies away from your men. I built maybe 4 inf and 1 cav at once in my game and suddenly my men were out of supply, wouldn't reinforce.

I pushed both don't think it would have mattered though, was getting hammered pretty good, just gonna try again another time

(although i'm sure as hell not starting my first real vic 2 game as a large nation).

 

[Benandorf]

It's more than what the Confederacy lost during the bloody civil war though. Both absolutely and in precentage. No idea if the total amount of casualities in historical Confederacy was anything close to 1 million total, however.

600,000 died in the Civil War, of around 3 million total under arms. Most were to various attrition related things like sickness and infection, but the confederacy ended with around 25% dead of their ~800,000 troops, and not all of those troops were wounded during the war.

And when 600,000 troops died in the United States during ACW, there weren't only 60,000 who disappeared.

It would also prevent a war of attrition in the late game. France or Germany are going to be able to lose 10x the number of soldier pops as casualties, which leads to a whole lot more casualties than should realistically be possible, even in a Great War. If Germany's 10% soldiers in the endgame, we're looking at 60 million casualties, even ignoring any immigration or people converting to soldier or basic growth.

It's too much. 25% would likely me the better choice, as that fits pretty well with casualty:death numbers from battle during this period. Any comment from a dev on why it is so low, likely something we've not thought of which balances it?

Edit: Another example, in the Mexican-American war I fought in the demo, I killed literally over 150,000 Mexican troops, and they just kept creating brigades. Attrition is entirely a non-factor with POP damage so low. Mexico kept reinforcing or creating more brigades, as did I, and it went on like that until I occupied enough to get them to give me what I wanted. I won the war, but we both took outrageous numbers in casualties without so much as slowing down. Had the ratio been higher, Mexico would have been spent, and thus not able to throw wave after wave of 15 or 20 brigade stacks at me.

 

[unmerged(15623)]

And when 600,000 troops died in the United States during ACW, there weren't only 60,000 who disappeared.

For Confederacy to get the historical number of people killed with the game engine, they need to lose 650000 men in the game.

In an imaginary scenario, lets give Confederacy 140 brigades, a rough historical average of their manpower, (420000) and divide those in to 7 20-brigade armies (60000 men). For conviniance's sake, lets assume all casualities come from pitched battles.

Each time a Confederate army engages enemy in major battle it loses an avarage of 10000 troops (do say if you disagree with me, but to me that loss ration seems to be even mild compared to my experience with the game). Assuming that each army engages the enemy twice per year, the yearly casualities are 140000 troops. For a war of four years, the casualities are 560000 or 86% of what is needed to get the historical figures.

Unless the effect of the first few hospital techs are very major, I'd rather assume that with historical forces, historical lenght and tech level, and historical intensity, the ACW in game would actually cause more people to die than it did in real life.

It's too much. 25% would likely me the better choice, as that fits pretty well with casualty:death numbers from battle during this period. Any comment from a dev on why it is so low, likely something we've not thought of which balances it?

Like I said before, 25% is actually the 1-to-1 ration. If the ration in the files is 25% and you recieve 10000 casualities in battle, then the population of your country is reduced by 10000. Only 2500 soldier POPs die. Or you can assume that 10000 die, but 7500 voulenteers sign up from amongst the young or unproductive. If the ration is at 10%, 4000 people die with those 10000 casualities.

 

[Benandorf]

For Confederacy to get the historical number of people killed with the game engine, they need to lose 650000 men in the game.

In an imaginary scenario, lets give Confederacy 140 brigades, a rough historical average of their manpower, (420000) and divide those in to 7 20-brigade armies (60000 men). For conviniance's sake, lets assume all casualities come from pitched battles.

Each time a Confederate army engages enemy in major battle it loses an avarage of 10000 troops (do say if you disagree with me, but to me that loss ration seems to be even mild compared to my experience with the game). Assuming that each army engages the enemy twice per year, the yearly casualities are 140000 troops. For a war of four years, the casualities are 560000 or 86% of what is needed to get the historical figures.

Unless the effect of the first few hospital techs are very major, I'd rather assume that with historical forces, historical lenght and tech level, and historical intensity, the ACW in game would actually cause more people to die than it did in real life.

The problem with your ACW example is that from what I've seen, an army will engage far more than twice a year. The casualties seem corr


Like I said before, 25% is actually the 1-to-1 ration. If the ration in the files is 25% and you recieve 10000 casualities in battle, then the population of your country is reduced by 10000. Only 2500 soldier POPs die. Or you can assume that 10000 die, but 7500 voulenteers sign up from amongst the young or unproductive. If the ration is at 10%, 4000 people die with those 10000 casualities.

Hm, yeah, the POP system screws up the numbers, but only because it assumes that 3 people die every time one of the adult men die in a country. Which is a bit FUBAR.

From a gameplay point of view, unless the basic number changes with difficulty level, and thus is higher at normal, you simply can't attrition anyone. The sheer number of units that even a few thousand soldier POPs can keep churning out and/or reinforcing makes it all but impossible. Just try to beat back Mexico in the demo.

And with your example, they need to get more than 650,000 men killed in battle, since it's 10%. They would need approximately 2 million casualties, so that they would have 200,000 soldiers who died. Remember, one soldier POP is actually one soldier, it just represents a soldier and his family. The game shouldn't really just remove the family because the soldier died, but that's how the tooltip works, because it just multiplies POP population by 4.

 

[unmerged(15623)]

And with your example, they need to get more than 650,000 men killed in battle, since it's 10%. They would need approximately 2 million casualties, so that they would have 200,000 soldiers who died. Remember, one soldier POP is actually one soldier, it just represents a soldier and his family. The game shouldn't really just remove the family because the soldier died, but that's how the tooltip works, because it just multiplies POP population by 4.

Mind you, I'm V1 era player, back from the time when the only population number reported was the total population (POPs x4). So I tend to look at that figure as more than just flavour number that it seems to be in V2.

So for me, 650000x0.1 = 65000x4 = 260000 = roughly historical number of military casualities. I still shudder at those V1 wars which caused tens of millions to die from combat. Incidentally, the V1 ration was 100% on higher difficulty levels (4 people dead for every dead soldier).

I have had no problems dealing with Mexico in the game. During my first intervention in the Texan war of independence, they sued for white peace while still in possession of parts of Texas. I hadn't taken anything from them. If you want to attrition them away, then far more important thing to do than just kill their men is to destroy their economic capacity. Put them under total blockade and press right away for the rich states in Central Mexico. Ignore the peripherial badlands of the north and California.

 

[Benandorf]

Mind you, I'm V1 era player, back from the time when the only population number reported was the total population (POPs x4). So I tend to look at that figure as more than just flavour number that it seems to be in V2.

So for me, 650000x0.1 = 65000x4 = 260000 = roughly historical number of military casualities. I still shudder at those V1 wars which caused tens of millions to die from combat. Incidentally, the V1 ration was 100% on higher difficulty levels (4 people dead for every dead soldier).

I have had no problems dealing with Mexico in the game. During my first intervention in the Texan war of independence, they sued for white peace while still in possession of parts of Texas. I hadn't taken anything from them. If you want to attrition them away, then far more important thing to do than just kill their men is to destroy their economic capacity. Put them under total blockade and press right away for the rich states in Central Mexico. Ignore the peripherial badlands of the north and California.

But remember, a POP doesn't represent 4 adult males, which would be the working or fighting unit in the family in the 19th century. It represents the adult male and 3 dependents, but they wife (or wives), children, and/or invalids. And even though those disappear from the population due to the flat conversion from POP to actual population, they really shouldn't be included, I wouldn't think. That's my understanding of population anyways.

I didn't have problems beating Mexico, but I beat them in spite of attrition instead of using my population to my advantage. In the long run, you're right, killing the economy will drop their military power, but in the short run, should a series of battles causing hundreds of thousands of casualties not basically destroy any ability a 1840s Mexico has to build troops?

100% like it was at top difficulties of V1 is too much, for the reasons that have been stated already such as desertion and nonfatal wounds, but 10% just feels too low from a gameplay perspective. Regardless of how many pops are killed, Mexico should not be able to have the economy or the manpower in the 1840s to field an army that is replenished like so many Soviet divisions in WW2. Neither should just about anyone, but Mexico had a very small professional soldier group when the real MAW came about, and most of the troops were mobilized farmers. Even if things developed differently and they had gained enough stability to create professional soldiers, Mexico doesn't have the population or the economy by that point to support hundreds of thousands of troops. Neither did the USA; they barely capped 70,000 with all the volunteers, and the regulars weren't more than about 20,000 men, without many reservists to call up.

So, yeah, the argument about historical casualties aside, it doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective. Had Mexico lost a 30,000 man army 3-4 times, they would have run out of willing and able soldiers. And most of these that I've found popping up are willing, since they are regulars and thus from soldier POPs.