Pops no longer support soldiers

[Clowncar]

Hi all,
I apologize for my 4th thread in half as many weeks, but, here goes.
In almost all of my games, if I'm in a war, no matter what, after combat I get the little red skull because my pops can no longer support that brigade. Why is this? I hardly ever research psychology, is that why? Is it attrition? For example as NGF I crushed Austria in a fight 45 to 23 units. Then after the fight more than 3 of the brigades were no longer supported.

 

[SknerusMck]

You have population in province and a small percent of it are soldiers. When you create brigade, you create it of this small percent. You have a 4,000 soldiers in, let's say, Warsaw, and you create one brigade. It's 3000 active and 1000 will be able to reinforce it. If you send this brigade to war, and it will suffer heavy loses so there will be no one to support it [the brigade will have 2000 soldiers and 0 free in province] the "red skull alert" will pop out. I think it works that way . They aren't very useful, because they won't get reinforcements.

So it is just because your soldiers population is not endless, usually it is a few percent. It takes time for it to recover, and you must be careful, or you will overuse your soldiers. If you go to war, you can mobilize poor strata as infantry, you can merge them with proffesional artillery and calvalry to save your regular soldiers. As Germany, you can just disband "red skulls" and build fresh, they have really many people.

I usually create infantry - if I am able too - out of population that have for example 6000 soldiers, so there will be more people to support it. If i have a population of 4000 in province, i get an engineer or artillery, they don't suffer so heavy loses as infantry.

 

[Clowncar]

You have population in province and a small percent of it are soldiers. When you create brigade, you create it of this small percent. You have a 4,000 soldiers in, let's say, Warsaw, and you create one brigade. It's 3000 active and 1000 will be able to reinforce it. If you send this brigade to war, and it will suffer heavy loses so there will be no one to support it [the brigade will have 2000 soldiers and 0 free in province] the "red skull alert" will pop out. I think it works that way . They aren't very useful, because they won't get reinforcements.

So it is just because your soldiers population is not endless, usually it is a few percent. It takes time for it to recover, and you must be careful, or you will overuse your soldiers. If you go to war, you can mobilize poor strata as infantry, you can merge them with proffesional artillery and calvalry to save your regular soldiers. As Germany, you can just disband "red skulls" and build fresh, they have really many people.

I usually create infantry - if I am able too - out of population that have for example 6000 soldiers, so there will be more people to support it. If i have a population of 4000 in province, i get an engineer or artillery, they don't suffer so heavy loses as infantry.

Thanks for the reply but I'm still confused as to how to prevent this

 

[PanH]

Thanks for the reply but I'm still confused as to how to prevent this

You can't really prevent a soldier pop to diminish when hurt in battle.
But you can consider this : your infantry will probably suffer the most damage (compared to your artillery or cavalry), so out of the provinces with extra pop (like 2k for 1 brigade, or 4k for 2 brigades), create infantry, and those who are a bit short, create brigades which suffer less casualties.
Spread your brigades from more different soldiers PoPs. Increase military slider to have more soldiers (if you need it, not recommended).

 

[Clowncar]

You can't really prevent a soldier pop to diminish when hurt in battle.
But you can consider this : your infantry will probably suffer the most damage (compared to your artillery or cavalry), so out of the provinces with extra pop (like 2k for 1 brigade, or 4k for 2 brigades), create infantry, and those who are a bit short, create brigades which suffer less casualties.
Spread your brigades from more different soldiers PoPs. Increase military slider to have more soldiers (if you need it, not recommended).

So am I doing it wrong? I always have max defense spending, and my standard build is 5inf 5 gaurd 2 engineer and 3 artillery. Is this causing an issue?

 

[DrZoidberg]

One strategy is to focus on making soldiers with NF in 1-2 of your largest states and only make soldierbrigades from those states. Then those brigades are not likely to be undermanned.

 

[SknerusMck]

You have 10 infantry and 3 artillery, it can cause an issue .
I don't know what year is it, but:
1) Remember that attrition can eat massive amount of soldiers. So don't create army that will exceed supply limit.
2) You have very low number of artillery compared to infantry, if you have 10 infantry you should have 8 artillery at least.

Wiki of Vici is full of things that can help you, for example:
Land Combat

There are a lot of useful threads on forum too.

 

[Clowncar]

You have 10 infantry and 3 artillery, it can cause an issue .
I don't know what year is it, but:
1) Remember that attrition can eat massive amount of soldiers. So don't create army that will exceed supply limit.
2) You have very low number of artillery compared to infantry, if you have 10 infantry you should have 8 artillery at least.

Wiki of Vici is full of things that can help you, for example:
Land Combat

There are a lot of useful threads on forum too.

Its 1892. I have electricity researched. Is the army composition too small?

 

[SknerusMck]

I thought that it was too big, but it is ok. But point 2) is still valid, and armies with bigger artillery will masacre your infantry - you will have bigger loses.