Shouldn't we have a limit on how many air manpower and naval manpower we can have?

[Nebula21399]

I mean EU4 has sailors, and depending on how many sailors you have, that's how big your navy can get.

Shouldn't HOI4 have the same mechanic?

You have 20.000 manpower.

4000 go into air and 2000 into naval, the rest goes into the army.

Do you think this is a good idea or not?

 

[seattle]

Bad idea. What's Hungary going to do with 10% sailors?

Generally it's a good idea to simulate pilots and naval personnel.
After all, the biggest blow of the lost Battle of Britain to the Luftwaffe was the drain on experienced pilots.

However, that is already simulated well in the XP loss over friendly, neutral and hostile terrain.

And why on earth would pilots and sailors be static proportions?

The Soviets sent people with a handful of flight hours into combat against the Luftwaffe. That is possible and simulated by the "green" XP level.

 

[Nebula21399]

Bad idea. What's Hungary going to do with 10% sailors?

Generally it's a good idea to simulate pilots and naval personnel.
After all, the biggest blow of the lost Battle of Britain to the Luftwaffe was the drain on experienced pilots.

However, that is already simulated well in the XP loss over friendly, neutral and hostile terrain.

And why on earth would pilots and sailors be static proportions?

The Soviets sent people with a handful of flight hours into combat against the Luftwaffe. That is possible and simulated by the "green" XP level.

Force conversion from army manpower to air manpower when it gets depleted?
Apply debuffs for some time because army manpower got converted in air manpower until it adjusts?

 

[seattle]

Force conversion from army manpower to air manpower when it gets depleted?
Apply debuffs for some time because army manpower got converted in air manpower until it adjusts?

PDS should be wary of adding complexity for complexity's sake.
Minelaying, minesweeping, scout planes, gazillion upgrades to the agency without a queue... those are already questionable additions that add micromanagement where it isn't needed.

Why add 3 pools of personnel that you need to manually balance. And why stop there? The HoI3 sliders for leadership, tech an so on seemed to make more sense or have more impact.

HoI4 overall does a good job of reducing the micro hell of its predecessors:
- Laws simulate shifts from labour force to soldier mobilization
- air/army/naval XP simulates pilot/soldier/sailor training (which includes your proposed "debuffs for some time")
...

 

[GSP Jr]

You already control what percentage of your draftees goes into each service by how many ships, squadrons, and divisions you equip and train.

That is enough management for my taste.

 

[grandad1982]

There could be training laws for the airforce. One end is the province of the 20 minuters (so super low experience and debuffs and maybe a bonus to the speed planes are produced) and at the other end advanced training (loads of xp etc and maybe slower production).

 

[Zauberelefant]

I think the tools we have right now are sufficient, albeit abstract. Training is doable, takes time, which prevents the replacement of lost veterans, it costs equipment, which requires more Factories to cover - or you can forget about Training and send green pilots/tank crews/submariners to their deaths in the thousands.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I. Recruits were trained depending on the needs of the military. If a country has no need for more men in one brach, manpower would be diverted to the other, that needs these men.

II. many specialists (radio operators, AA gunners, cooks etc.) would be doinf essentially the same job regardless of ther branch of service.

III. Some countries with large merchant fleets could get a Spirit providing a bonus to naval XP.

 

[Secret Master]

Now that we have wing XP and that wing XP is impacted by both losses and where those losses occur (over friendly or enemy territory), I have no desire for an air force manpower pool.

As for the navy, I don't see it being useful as a mechanic.

 

[Riekopo]

Ground forces have to be trained. Which is what we do now in the Recruitment screen. Sailors and Pilots are no different. They also should have to be trained for their specialized jobs. The way it is now where we build physical ships and aircraft and they are apparently magically crewed by trained personnel is just nonsense.

Depletion of trained pilots became a very serious problem for both Germany and Japan from the middle to the end of the war. The Japanese ended up losing most of their naval aviators and it hurt them a lot.

 

[grommile]

I mean EU4 has sailors, and depending on how many sailors you have, that's how big your navy can get.

EU4 is set in an era when most of the skills you needed to be a military sailor were readily acquired through a civilian seafaring life. (Remember, even merchantmen were known to carry cannon.)

HOI4... is not.

 

[bitmode]

Ground forces have to be trained. Which is what we do now in the Recruitment screen. Sailors and Pilots are no different.

I'll agree that sailors and pilots are no different. But for me the conclusion is the opposite: that division training does not fit the design and should arguably be removed. Changing templates like Secret Master's system and early deploying at an arbitrary location is already a thing. You can have any division, in any province in a matter of days. With template swaps you can exhaust your available manpower in a matter of weeks.
Mobilization speed already limits how fast a country can escalate their manpower usage on a strategic scale.

Having to balance equipment and personell training, while realistic, does not really add anything gameplay wise. It is just a chore, there is nothing to master or strategize about it.

 

[Timmysoboy]

It may be more realistic to not have different manpools. Prior to the 20th century, militaries were reliant on the skills people brought to the table (salors sailed). After the late 19th century, militaries adopted an assembly-line training/military.

 

[Black_Shade]

If not separate manpower pools, perhaps the impact of experience on combat could be even stronger. This might adequately simulate the struggles of Japan with pilots, for example.

 

[Secret Master]

they are apparently magically crewed by trained personnel is just nonsense.

If by "trained personnel" you mean "wings and ships with no XP fight significantly worse than wings and ships that have been trained via on map exercises, which cost fuel by the way."

You might argue that it's too easy or too cheap to train wings and ships (I don't think it is in most cases), but let's not pretend that ship and wing XP means nothing.

I will concede that certain kinds of aircraft wings do not get the right kinds of bonuses and penalties for their particular mission, but that's not the same thing as wings and ships being crewed by magically experienced crews. It's simply not true.

 

[dasaard200]

Before I was shipped off to Viet-Nam, I spent MONTHS learning how to be a COMPETENT helicopter mechanic; not only which type of hydrolic fluid goes into which 'plumbing', or how to fix a Lycoming L-55 jet engine {Chinooks have 2}, but overall knowlage of how ALL systems work to keep the ship in the air .

Pilots need training too; to how the ship flies, to get the feel of it, to know what the ship CAN do, and what it CANNOT do, and avoid cumulo-granite !!

 

[Xenrek]

It may be more realistic to not have different manpools. Prior to the 20th century, militaries were reliant on the skills people brought to the table (salors sailed). After the late 19th century, militaries adopted an assembly-line training/military.

beyond this, some nations had drastically different criteria and organization for different branches; like how america really didnt have an equivalent of the RAF or other dedicated airforce, air was either under the command of an admiral or an army general depending on who the personnel belonged to (though to be fair, with how critical air-power is in modern american doctrine, it can still be considered a little clusterfucky)

 

[Hoi Neuling]

Nope. The Countries without Ships have then Sailors they can´t use. And Countrys which have no Airforce has Flyers they can´t use. That´s illogical and make no sense.

Mr. Spock would say about that: "Use your Brain and analyse the Facts first before you make such a suggestion."

 

[ecpgieicg]

No I don't see a single benefit to the suggestion. But see a lot of problems as a result.

The real problem is production cost not representing reality as well as production and factory placements not representing reality. The result is tens of thousands of planes per major. It's more of a game balance thing. HOI4 often chooses simple numbers in the balancing and sometimes it works out to be something strange. Planes is one of them.

As for Japan's struggle with pilots, Germany's various covet training initiatives for pilots, etc. Sure you can have a separate pilot pool and a mechanics to replenish it that can accept modifiers. Sure disbanded veterans should not lose their xp when the purpose is to re-organize. And the reserve pool can better reflect all that. The problem is complexity.

I think HOI5 can do better by allowing certain features to be turned off -- have a simple streamlined game as base or have a realistic and complex game as base game but have a convenient option to be modded into the other quickly. Otherwise, there is no way to have good balance, good history while accommodating the need for streamlining for newer, less hardcore players.