Question about manpower
- Thread starter Adonnus
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I think it would be cool to add some kind of research or national focus that allows collaborators.
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Well if all 800k Hungarian troops are all dead, there is nothing stopping all the conquered countries to just declare independence
Much more realistic and makes large conquests by minors much harder, and rewarding.
As for the numbers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht_foreign_volunteers_and_conscripts):
Around 1 million foreign volunteers and conscripts served in the Wehrmacht, out of around 120 millions in occupied countries (not counting USSR except Baltics as they are mentioned separately and are also a special case, but this number includes all volunteers including countries which were not occupied by Germany) compared to total of 18 million Germans serving in German army out of around 80 million total German population in 1939 (http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html). So 0,8% compared to 22,5% out of total population, which is 3,6%. So 2% may be a bit on a low side, but roughly right given the amount of guesswork and quality of sources (quick google search).
It's 2% of the potential manpower not 2% of the entire population. Also why is it more rewarding if you get less from it? If anything it makes conquering other nations for more manpower pointless since you'll hardly get any.
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That focus could be called fifth column. But I think it should be related to your occupation policy for each country rather than a national focus that would apply across the board.
Conquest has never really been an effective means for extending manpower since wars between polities became wars between nations.
Sure, a thousand years ago the peasants didn't care if their leaders spoke German or French - and it didn't matter if they did care - but after Napoleon, that age was gone and done.
Until a people can be effectively assimilated, which is completely impossible during the game's short timespan, they're not going to eagerly jump into armed service... and most militaries wouldn't want them, considering they have every reason to be spies and saboteurs.
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Yes, 2% compared to whan you can get from your "core" territories. IRL Germany managed 3,6% from my calculations of rough numbers from easy sources, so roughly about right. Out of total population, that numer is 0,8% and that includes volunteers from other countries.
It`s more rewarding when you manage to do well as a small nation when conditions are less favourable, that was my point. Where is that sense of achievement if it is too easy?
I wouldn't say it would be too easy getting maybe 10% of the occupied potential manpower instead of 2%. That is still a pretty small amount unless you're conquering a nation like India (and maybe this number can be reduced much more for nations outside Europe and North America).
Not forgetting the vast amounts of "Osttruppen" who served with the Axis in the east, including over a million "Hiwis" who were logistics and rear line troops sometimes forced into combat (which freed up many more Germans for front line service). And also not forgetting the ROA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Liberation_Army
Which was IIRC originally supposed to be much larger though Hitler never liked this idea due to racial reasons. Had the Nazis been a lot less racist I suspect you would have seen much larger mutli-ethnic armies in the Axis out of pure military practicalities.
Nationalism isn't overwhelming and wasn't then and some people simply didn't care that much about what country they were born in, to say that they'd rather die or surrender than fight for a foreign army ignores a wide variety of reasons, including escaping imprisonment, ideological beliefs, local nationalism and hatred for a regime. The Ukrainians certainly were ready to revolt against the Soviets if only they had a sponsor.
Another example of an "occupied" army would be the Polish First Army which served with the USSR forces. All clearly small armies but obviously the potential to create a large anticommunist force out of Ukrainian and Russian troops was there. It simply wasn't utilised.
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The real influence of this depends a lot on the age structure of the population. You might very well argue, that while people get old enough to serve during the game, some get too old and retire. And while the definition of "too old" certainly depends on your conscription laws, the balance of people dropping out and getting in the the appropriate age corridor is not easily accessible. I guess for this purpose, we assume that soldiers don't retire in WW2, which seems legit. But you could also assume that these two effects egalize each other, without doing too much harm.
edit: @Adonnus : I guess this will be subject to balancing. Whether it is 10% or 2% is more or less arbitrary. Important is, that there is a factor involved that diminishes manpower gain from annexed countries (sadly, there are no culture groups, would be appropriate) by a considerable percentage. Related to this culture thing: I guess the Anschluss does not suffer this? Is it modeled as inheritance or as annexiation? In the former case, the malus would not aplly, and it should not.
I think the malus is about the region being a core or not. If the Anschluss gives Germany Austria as a core, they get all the manpower.
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Seems plausible. And I guess in yesterday's WWW, Daniel said they changed the Anschluss because of the hungry aggression to give cores instead of just firing an annexiation event. So germany could get those cores back from someone else.
Even though the game covers only span of about 10 years I would still prefer some kind of deterioration in the malus. I don´t mean that it would be gone in 5-10 years, but that it would affect how long the country has been annexed so after 5 years of being part of the conquerors nation the malus could be something like 92% instead of staying in 98% the whole game that wouldn´t mean that the people would be eager to get to the army of the conqueror but would be more like people getting used to the new situation.
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I'm not saying the 2% should be 0%. Also, those armies would not have marched to German drums, they'd have marched for their own independence in support of Germany. They would have been puppet states, not German citizens with a German national identiy serving directly in the German army.
Uh... +50 million casualties in this time period might indicate otherwise... And even worse when we consider that this war was really just the aftershock of WW1...
Yes, the Ukrainians would have fought a nationalist war against Stalin and in so doing would have been natural allies to Germany. Allies, not citizens serving in the national army.
There's a huge difference between liberating an ally and annexing swaths of land. There was no german army to be had, but certainly an army friendly to the Germans.
I totally agree that German racial policies totally bungled would could have been a massive boon to the German war effort... but that's not what the Manpower pool represents in game. Not remotely.
But then again, look at a country like Japan. They generally conquered large areas of China in 1939 that resulted in a stalemate. The occupied population, as far of my knowledge, did not got conscripted to the rest of the Japanese campaigns in a significant matter. But then again, the Germans, did have some success in conscripting from foreign nations occupied of approx. 600000 people.
Nobody's saying the manpower pool has a certain national identity or citizenship, it's simply those who are in the army at the time. As for the puppet state you have to ask the question: assuming the area was temporarily under a somewhat lenient Axis occupation and not a puppet state, would there be troops willing to serve in those roles anyway, fighting for an (assumed) cause of self liberation? Surely, given the historical evidence, the answer must be yes.
Many deaths in war =/= overwhelming nationalism. You're making a huge amount of assumptions about the mindset and motivations of the people involved that can't possibly be singled down to one thing. Sure, it was pretty damn strong. There are however opportunists in every war who will fight for money, or people who will fight for adventure, or people who hate communism and will fight it even if it's at the behest of a German army which invaded years prior. There are people who spit on collaboration, and people who like the idea. That's human nature. You can't boil it down and say they're all super nationalistic and therefore none would fight for an invading power, it's silly. If Hoi4 wants to take that logic then that's fine but it doesn't reflect reality.
I did mention the Hiwis serving in the Wehrmacht. They weren't citizens, far from it, but they still served nonetheless directly for Germany. In addition there were a number of foreign SS formations... so nobody's really saying that you need to have an allied ethnic army possessing their own formal state.
While I'm at it - and not purely representative of my point in this particular block of text - I should probably mention the collaborationist government Japan set up in parts of Eastern China which also made a large contribution to their war there (ie. hundreds of thousands of troops). I'm not sure if that already has a puppet state representation in game though.
This is why I like the Hoi3 system better since collaboration government's aren't really "annexed territory", nor is a military administration. If you mean territory annexed after a peace deal then that's a different question though. I don't understand why you believe troops represented in Germany's manpower pool - the manpower of which should be taken from occupied lands in small quantities - must be representative of purely ethnic Germans, rather than people who *happen* to be serving in the Wehrmacht for various reasons.
The manpower pool represents potentially recruitable troops. I am arguing that there was a potential in real life that wasn't utilised by the Axis. Therefore they are directly correlated to one another if you are indeed drawing on real life for inspiration as to the game's manpower.
If you're asking if you should be able to carve puppets out of states that you're at war with, or set up some sort of provisional government that doesn't have international recognition but fields armies then sure, that's an awesome DLC feature. Not sure how historic it is but had the German n
...Whoa. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume you missed what I was saying. It wasn't "damn strong" it was the preeminent cause of almost all clashes. Nevermind WW1, just speaking of WW2 alone we had a hyper nationalist party, headed by the ultimate example of an extreme nationalist who aimed to bolster not his personal wealth or achieve personal glory but to expand the power of his nation, establish national glory and empower his nation for a thousand years. This, allied with a hyper nationalist who wanted to rebirth his nation into the nation he felt they had lost in the past. Across the world, we had Japan, who's primary motivating force was resource acquisition to create a great Japanese nation and throw off European colonialism so that the Japanese nation would have room to grow. This isn't adventurism or idealogy, this is straight up nationalism gone wild. Idealogy justified insane nationalism and defined at least in part who was friend and who was foe, but you can't argue that nationalism wasn't at the core of both world wars.
Now, I will be fair and point out that Stalin wasn't necessarily "nationalist" so much as he was paranoid and power hungry. While Hitler sought to bolster his personal sense of inadequacy by pumping up the "nation" with which he identified, Stalin was more of a amass personal power because kill all enemies was his before-tea daily objective.
WW2 was not a bunch of medieval warlords looking for personal aggrandizement. You had powerful dictators throwing nations into an absolute total war for national supremacy.
Reread what I and others said about percentages. Further, it's not "super nationalistic" to have a national identity and want sovereignty. It's by definition nationalistic, but not some extreme stretch thereof. But the Ukrainians had no interest in becoming part of some other dictators empire. They wanted to be free of Stalin. That doesn't make them loyal German soldiers identical in every way to a hitler youth turned 18.
Go back and reread what I and others said about percentages. I'm not going to entertain this line of argumentation because either you missed what I said or you're attacking a strawman.
Unless, of course, you can refute the numbers presented earlier.
Oh, I agree, a provisional government - ie, one that functions like a puppet but either dissolves into it's "liberator" or is given full independence when it's former ruling state is defeated - would be a marvelous system. I hope it's in a DLC or so. Having them march in toe with the German advance would provide some really interesting alt history (especially since all of the dark stuff is not a part of HOI it's even more fitting).
But putting swathes of recently conquered populations directly in the manpower pool in anything approaching meaningful percentages is clownishly ahistorical nonsense.
This is already in game. If you use gentle treatment you get a trickle of manpower. If you go brutal, you get less.
Please not again the discussion about auxiliary troops in the Wehrmacht. It goes nowhere, simply because each side uses their own statistics and definitions. BTT: Do any of you disagree that there should be a malus on recruitable people in annexed countries?
Um...yes?
You're technically correct in everything you said but it misses my point 100% at the same time. I'm not saying, nor did I ever say nationalism was not the primary cause of the Second World War. It probably was. That can't by any logical stretch be equated to every single person in occupied territories refusing to join the invading army for nationalistic reasons, which was basically your first point. I don't think you understand that your argument here doesn't add up. These two things don't affect one another. You can take any war started for any reason by any government with any driving ideology which most people would agree with and still find people willing or motivated to do other things rather than exclusively obey that driving ideology completely. Nothing you've said in this chunk actually contradicts my argument, you're just assuming that everything I said must be wrong since nationalism was a stronger force for those people. Which makes no sense.
You said: "Allies, not citizens serving in the national army." Implying that Germany's manpower pool cannot be made of non citizens. Then I refuted you based on direct historical evidence that this had happened on a large scale (and if you want a source: Beevor, Antony (1999). Stalingrad. London: Penguin. pp. 161, 184., this example being that Hiwis constituted 1/4 of 6th army's frontline strength.)
But I apparently that's a strawman now, and I missed what you said by replying to what you said directly, instead of whatever you didn't say but actually meant. Riiiight.
You may also be forgetting that your average Ukrainian citizen doesn't know the intentions of the Nazi planners and doesn't have the benefit of historical hindsight, along with the fact that they would have fought, and were initially very willing to, fight loyally against the USSR if not necessarily for Germany (implied that Ukraine would receive some sort of freedom or autonomy free from Soviet influence) and of course this illusion only vanished when it became obvious that Germany did indeed want to add Ukraine to its Empire. Even in that case... there are proven historical examples of these units fighting on the Eastern Front decently enough. They weren't motivated by loyalty to Germany, nobody's saying that. They were motivated by other things.
Not withstanding the fact that the first line of yours that I was replying to with this had nothing to do with percentages, let's look at the percentages again anyway.
"As for the numbers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht_foreign_volunteers_and_conscripts):
Around 1 million foreign volunteers and conscripts served in the Wehrmacht, out of around 120 millions in occupied countries (not counting USSR except Baltics as they are mentioned separately and are also a special case, but this number includes all volunteers including countries which were not occupied by Germany) compared to total of 18 million Germans serving in German army out of around 80 million total German population in 1939 (http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html). So 0,8% compared to 22,5% out of total population, which is 3,6%. So 2% may be a bit on a low side, but roughly right given the amount of guesswork and quality of sources (quick google search)."
Firstly the source doesn't indicate whether foreign troops were actually included in the 18 million total or not. Secondly - we have to remember that if 2% is the highest achievable in game unless you go the mass assault doctrine (which Germany doesn't) then that's still lower than the 3.6% here (which includes, many millions in Poland and Yugoslavia who were treated very harshly and so wouldn't have been willing to provide many troops). So the actual achievable amount in real life might have been double the current in game limit. Not quite 10% but certainly not nothing either.
Because it was a clear historical possibility given the actual facts of USSR nationals who chose or were pressed into Wehrmacht service? It's clownish because it was 100% possible? Last I checked 5% of OKH forces - on the Eastern front - were from that same Wiki source that were cited in the above "percentages" post were:
Non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the Ostlegionen (literally "Eastern Legions"). These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring(1876−1953)[4] and represented about five percent of the forces under the OKH.
That's only non Russians, and a slight increase in that % is probable if you consider that the ROA was barely formed by this time. Add in the fact that the Germans treated the civilian populations very harshly (and so this is only a fraction of what an organised effort would have looked like if the brutality was absent) and suddenly our 5% or higher doesn't seem so silly after all, though according to you it's "clownishly ahistorical nonsense." Mmmmm.
We're not arguing about whether it should be in the game. We're arguing about the numbers of troops you should be able to theoretically recruit from occupied territories.
Nope. The issue is over the scale of said malus, and I prefer Hoi3's system.
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Scale is subject to balancing, and not accessible by reason other than "this works for the game".
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Which justifies my statement that +50 million casualties would disagree with your statement about nationalism. If nationalism was the primary cause of WW2 and that many died as a result... well I'll let you figure out the rest.
Completely wrong, strawman. I can't discuss with you if you are so dead set on using strawmen. I don't know who you're arguing with, but I'm over here. Please stop punching straw.
Wrong again. Take a breath and reread the actual content of what I said, this time without assuming from the getgo that you got it right the first time.
I did say that, and for the vast majority of cases that's true.
You're calculating manpower wrong. Stop using snapshots, that's not how manpower works in HOI4. If you really want to get the number, for Ukranians it would be Total Ukranian Hiwis divided by total able to serve Ukranian population. So what if 10% or 80% of the German army at any one point was Hiwi (I'm being liberal with numbers here because they are irrelevant), it didn't mean that 10% or 80% of Ukranians signed up, it means that by the time 8 Hiwi's had joined only 2 Germans were still breathing.
No, it's a strawman because I refuted this entire line of reasoning in one sentence, which you didn't read, which makes me wonder what you did pay attention to. I don't generally entertain strawman arguments, nor wear gloves when people come out swinging at one.
We've been over this. Yes, Germany had many potential allies in the Ukraine. That's different than troops eager to go invade the USA.
What, you think Germany's manpower pool can only be used against the USSR?
4% is double 2%, not 10%. And there you go with the strawman again.
Hint: every time you say "none" or any variant thereof, you are wasting your time attacking straw.
How wrong I have been. Yes, Ukranian soldiers would gladly, and in masse, invade the USA in a similar death struggle to the one in the east, join up in a theoretical operation Sealion against the Brits, and generally fight in any front other than against the USSR. Not as allies sending a detached force in support, no, as straight up German soldiers identical in every way to a hitler youth turned old enough to serve.
Wait, that's ludicrous. You do realize that the German manpower pool is not just for war against the former oppressors of the Ukranians, right?
I'm open to a satelite/puppet, as I said multiple times. But an exhausted German army invading the last fringes of the USA composed of 99% Ukranians/ex-Soviets/Polish/Danes/French serving... sound realistic to you?
That's the monster you create when you put them in manpower and not in a puppet fighting in the German-Soviet War. Also, why the heck would the Danes serve the Germans in masse? Or... have you forgotten that the rules apply to all conquered areas not just Ukraine?