Q: Population effects of combat losses

[Emre Yigit]

I don't have the game yet (though I've changed the avatar; I think it will soon be bye-bye EU2mania and hello to a whole new psychosis ) and I have a few questions.

As I see it:

1. For better or worse, armies are currently HUGE.

2. Combat losses can also be HUGE (see the Prussian AAR, where Russia has apparently taken a loss of over a million men.)


So, then:

1. Does, in the above example, Russia's population decline by 1 million or a multiple thereof?

2. If so, are the declines in own-country population or spread around the empire, including colonies?

3. How do combat losses affect the mood in the country?

 

[unmerged(13259)]

The way I understand it, the army are POPs themselves, just army POPs so if you lose 1 million men in the army, you lose those army POPs...

POPs can be converted back and forth from army to workers etc...so if you lose 1 million army POPs you also lose the ability to transfer those men to workers.

So its already taken into account.

 

[Dark_Teuton]

The soldiers POPs give manpower, and manpower can be used on troops (Deployed troops lower your max manpower). If your not at your nations maximum manpower, the manpower "regenerates", like in EU2, where your maximum manpower also dictated the growth of it (The manpower cap is decided by amount of soldiers POPs). Soldier POPs dont die, so you can lose as many as you like, but without enough soldiers POPs there is no way you can replace losses as huge as a million men in a few months, even with a ton of soldier POPs that will be hard as you cant "regenerate" your manpower fast enough.

 

[unmerged(13259)]

Hmmm I guess I don't understand why they did it that way then...seems like the first poster's concerns are warranted. Losing 1 million men in the army only affects your combat potential not your economic potential....which is just wrong.

Instead they should have made it so army pops take people away from other pops, and losses within the army pops have to be made up by training more army pops as replacements from the existing laborer pops, thus reducing the number of laborer pops for your economy.

I dont have the game yet....this is speculation.

 

[Derek Pullem]

It does work like that - a bit - but as manpower regenerates the only time you are really forced to convert soldier pops is to build the army in the first place. Or build a bigger one.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Perhaps it should be changed so that taking losses in the field makes you loose people in your soldier POPS?

That way, if you take large losses in the field and wish to have the manpower to replace them, you'll need to start converting your other POPs to soldiers to cover the losses, which seems a reasonable consequence to me.

Rafiki

 

[Derek Pullem]

Would not disagree with that.

 

[Alexander Seil]

I wonder what that could imply, hehe .

 

[Derek Pullem]

It means I've already made the same point in beta

Aaaah don't hit me with that NDA...........

 

[veji2]

Indeed, If France suffered heavily from the napoleonic wars and even more from the WWI, it was due to population loss. I remenber suggesting that in EUII, each 1000 soldier being recruited would lower the city pop by 100. That would have forced countries to take care of their population and disengage of painful wars rather than wrecking havoc all around the country, eventually winning by exploiting the AI's Weaknesses.

Maybe POP loss should only begin after a certain amount of loss, but it should defenitly be implemented...

 

[Orm]

Originally posted by Giffen
Hmmm I guess I don't understand why they did it that way then...seems like the first poster's concerns are warranted. Losing 1 million men in the army only affects your combat potential not your economic potential....which is just wrong.

Instead they should have made it so army pops take people away from other pops, and losses within the army pops have to be made up by training more army pops as replacements from the existing laborer pops, thus reducing the number of laborer pops for your economy.

I dont have the game yet....this is speculation.

To build a standing army you have to have soldier POPs available, so if you lose those you don't lose workers, that's true, but you do lose soldiers that you have to replace. And if your army consists of many mobilized divisions, those mobilized soldiers are taken randomly from your worker POPs. I really don't see a problem with this.

Edit: I wrote this and then 5 minutes later I had thought more about it and realized I was wrong. The soldier POPs themselves are not affected by combat losses... only the manpower once you replace the losses.

 

[unmerged(14035)]

Well, the way I have understood things so far is this:

1) To build a new military unit requires manpower

2) To replace losses in an existing military unit requires manpower

3) To get manpower you need to have soldier POPs

4) Getting that manpower does not in any way effect the soldier POPs

So basically, you can convert a lot of your other POPs into soldiers, get lots of manpower, make bucketloads of units, wage a long and bloody war, and when it is all over you can convert the soldier POPs back into something more usefull.

In effect, the drawback is that a huge army and/or large losses only means that your nation will require many soldier POPs for a certain amount of time. It will only effect your economy for a short span of time. Your soldier POPs never receive any kind of loss.

 

[unmerged(19173)]

I am not clear why the conscription was not used? It is so simple and very historical. You set the service for 1 years and set an army of 50,000 then you train soldier POP of 50K per year. After 40 the men get out of the reserve. There is a natural limit of young men available of draft age which is e.g. 1/120th of the whole population (based on 60 years life and ½ men).

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Originally posted by MadViking
So basically, you can convert a lot of your other POPs into soldiers, get lots of manpower, make bucketloads of units, wage a long and bloody war, and when it is all over you can convert the soldier POPs back into something more usefull.

In effect, the drawback is that a huge army and/or large losses only means that your nation will require many soldier POPs for a certain amount of time. It will only effect your economy for a short span of time. Your soldier POPs never receive any kind of loss.

Yup, this pretty much sums up how things are currently.

Rafiki

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Originally posted by todorp
I am not clear why the conscription was not used? It is so simple and very historical. You set the service for 1 years and set an army of 50,000 then you train soldier POP of 50K per year. After 40 the men get out of the reserve. There is a natural limit of young men available of draft age which is e.g. 1/120th of the whole population (based on 60 years life and ½ men).

You do have mechanisms for conscription in the game already. You allocate canned food and small arms to a mobilization reserve, which can be called upon as need be. That reserve is taken from the general population rather than just from the soldier pops (from what I've seen/heard so far)

Rafiki

 

[unmerged(19173)]

Originally posted by rafiki
You do have mechanisms for conscription in the game already. You allocate canned food and small arms to a mobilization reserve, which can be called upon as need be. That reserve is taken from the general population rather than just from the soldier pops (from what I've seen/heard so far)

Rafiki

That is not the same. The process is different and doesnt fit the historical facts.

conscripts + officers + sergeants = standing army

 

[Derek Pullem]

Well not all countries went that way (e.g. UK) and by 1915 the pre war NCOs and junior officers were pretty much chewed up for all nations.

Setting conscription terms was a big deal in the run up to WW1 (France and Germany agonised over the length of conscription / army size) and would be nice if it were included. I suspect its a big deal to add now but I can suggest it.

 

[unmerged(12885)]

whats the point of manpower at this point? Seems like it was just a holdout from earlier games nobody thought about ditching.

What should happen is: recruit a unit, subtract that number from soldier pops in selected province. Reinforce does the same.

You only get those back if you disband the unit.

Combat losses are then natural, since the population gain from disbanding the unit depends on the strength of the unit.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

If you remove soldiers from the head-count in soldier POPS, those soldier POPs will no longer need the assorted good they (as the other POPs) require.

Other than that, I like the idea of recruiting directly from a province's soldier POP(s). Need to think about how to handle re-inforcements, tho' seems a bit rigid if they have to come from the same province (allthough this might be more accurate?), while it will add to the micro-management if you have to select province each time you recruit.

Re-inforcing from other provinces opens a different can of worms. Can you e.g. have units with mixes of home-province and/or culture/religion?

Rafiki

 

[TheDarkside]

Man I'm surprised it works this way. I thought with the amount of detal in this game there was surely a way to simulate reductions in labor force the more combat loss you take. I guess that's another reason why there are people seeing thousands of divisions marching around europe... I really thought recruiting troops came directly from soldier POPs, not from some imaginary number regenerated by amount of soldier POPs