Why hasn't starting manpower be buffed? (ROTW issues)

[klingonadmiral]

From the August 6th, 2019 DD on Mercenaries:

With Mercenaries no longer being a bottomless source of manpower, base manpower is likely to increase for all nations, likely by increasing the base amount development gives and/or boosting the value of manpower buildings.

However, from today's feature stream we can see that manpower levels in 1444 have not been increased:

Bohemia starting manpower v1.29 : 9,786

Bohemia starting manpower v1.30: 8,887

And while this might work in low-attrition Europe, I fear greatly for pre-artillery warfare in large swathes of ROTW - Mesoamerica and the Andes, parts of India, Sub-Saharan Africa and SEA.
Because provinces like these exist:

I weep for generations lost at the walls of Khamammet
​

Atrocious supply limit? Check!
Monsoon region? Check!
Level 3 fort? Check!

Armies will simply melt in provinces such as these, especially in cases were the enemy is not completely beaten yet and you have to park a larger force on there to not have your siege contested. And since you have to occupy at least on fort to start demanding land, you have to eat that attrition in many cases.

Of course on the flipside, the simple fact of having a well defended fort will become an even greater boon than it is now.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Monsoon attrition should probably be fixed too. It's comically out of line with how the game handles other environments, and paints a questionable picture of what the word "monsoon" means.

 

[Vaximillian]

Monsoon attrition should probably be fixed too. It's comically out of line with how the game handles other environments, and paints a questionable picture of what the word "monsoon" means.

They should stop designing “features” serving only to bloat feature lists with bullet points.

 

[Xetfield]

Actually the nerf to monsoons was mentioned in the patch notes. However, I didn’t saw anything about manpower buff too.

 

[Oldpara]

Looking at the wars they're running during Dev Clash something is done to the attrition mechanic as majority of the casualties are from battles, despite running 100k doomstacks. In 1.29 it would be otherwise.

Manpower numbers didn't changed too much from I've seen.

 

[Astalic]

IIRC they said they will improve all suply limit (i cant remember where i read it, maybe in a dev diary) to ballance it.

There was also a changement to monsoon in the patch note.

 

[klingonadmiral]

IIRC they said they will improve all suply limit (i cant remember where i read it, maybe in a dev diary) to ballance it.

This is the only mention of supply limit I could find in the patch notes:

- Made attrition modifers apply after supply limit checks, and supply limit attrition is a bit more forgiving.

Which will help, no doubt, but I can't imagine having to play in tropical regions (which gives +2 attrition to enemies) will be much fun at all.

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

I guess its something you need to pay more attention now, drilling your army becomes more important as that gives now more meaty defensive bonuses and can actually be maintained for a longer time so you can reduce your losses.

With the reduction to attrition you have actually more manpower available now, the only change is that if you actually hit 0 it means something as it is possible that you run out of mercenaries (but they are still available). From my experience the lack of manpower is a rare issue currently, and even if it happens it doesn't matter as you just take a few loans and are done with it. I think know you might think a bit earlier to support yourself with mercenaries to conserve manpower instead of waiting until you run out.

Obviously we can't really know until we tried out how this plays out, but in the Dev-Clash there was a number of players in Africa and Asia doing quite sucessfull campaigns

 

[Jarvin]

Slightly improving the supply limits does absolutely nothing as long as the combat system practically forces players to move around with stacks of 2-3 times the current supply limit in order to make sure that they don't get randomly stackwiped. Dev clash might not be the greatest example of that because most players there play EU4 extremely casually, if at all(and nothing wrong with that).

Yes, the dynamics of how manpower capacities change throughout time and regions will be probably one of the most problematic parts of 1.30 and something that I really pray will be adressed in future patches.

 

[Ixalmaris]

Slightly improving the supply limits does absolutely nothing as long as the combat system practically forces players to move around with stacks of 2-3 times the current supply limit in order to make sure that they don't get randomly stackwiped. Dev clash might not be the greatest example of that because most players there play EU4 extremely casually, if at all(and nothing wrong with that).

Yes, the dynamics of how manpower capacities change throughout time and regions will be probably one of the most problematic parts of 1.30 and something that I really pray will be adressed in future patches.

Haven't they changed stackwipes so that you can't be wiped when you fill the full combat with, no matter the numbers?

 

[Oldpara]

Haven't they changed stackwipes so that you can't be wiped when you fill the full combat with, no matter the numbers?

It changes nothing regarding manpower issue. It's just closing exploit when you have 1mln army killing everything day1 of combat. You still can be stackwiped by having morale depleted before battle ends.

 

[klingonadmiral]

I guess its something you need to pay more attention now, drilling your army becomes more important as that gives now more meaty defensive bonuses and can actually be maintained for a longer time so you can reduce your losses.

Drilling takes ages though. Ideally I want to be at war at Dec. 11 1444, and if failing that go to war during 1446 the latest.

With the reduction to attrition you have actually more manpower available now, the only change is that if you actually hit 0 it means something as it is possible that you run out of mercenaries (but they are still available).

Tropical provinces give a flat +2 attrition to enemies, meaning that even a 9 unit stack will drink at least 180 casualties every month. Vijayanagar, the highest development country in southern Asia, regains manpower at 179 men/month, meaning even they will slowly lose manpower. Add one or two disease outbreaks into it and you look at thousands of mean lost to that 1 fort. Considering the Vijayanagar example in particular however, as stackwipes between equal numbered armies are rare in the early game, you have to put like a 12 unit stack on Khamammet to fend off Bahmanis contesting your siege. That brings attrition to 240 men/month and every disease outbreak costs 600 manpower.

Obviously we can't really know until we tried out how this plays out, but in the Dev-Clash there was a number of players in Africa and Asia doing quite sucessfull campaigns

Africa mostly lacks these hell-forts, and D9l started with one of them. The Indians got placed in after artillery had been unlocked.

 

[Kravt]

Haven't they changed stackwipes so that you can't be wiped when you fill the full combat with, no matter the numbers?

They only changed so called 'overrun' mechanic when 10:1 leads to instant stackwipe. 'Normal' stackwipe of troops that are out of morale before retreat is allowed and being outnumbered 2:1 is still there.

 

[Jarvin]

Haven't they changed stackwipes so that you can't be wiped when you fill the full combat with, no matter the numbers?

Absolutely irrelevant in terms of what I was referring to.

Given even a small quality disadvantage + some disfavorable rolls its absolutely not impossible for your, say, 40/0/40 stack to get stackwiped in a normal combat vs other 40/0/40 stack. It's weird but it happens. AI in this game is usually too incompetent to take advantage of it.

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

Manpower is supposed to be a limitation. You cannot expect to recover manpower during a war, it should be a drain on your manpower at least if its a real war (if you fight an OPM as Ottomans its a different story obviously). You recover the manpower after the war.

Regarding your example: you start with 11.147 manpower and 26/30 troops, so you can take quite a lot of attrition for a long while.

You can keep reinforcements in the neighboring occupied province without attrition to protect yourself against attack, also you could go for all the other forts of Bahmanis first of which only Daulatabad has Tropical as well. Finally you can get Mercenaries cheaper under the new system and use them for those lengthy sieges.

A war between two powers of even strength like Bahmanis and Vijayangar should be damn costly. It was always the case that in the ROTW manpower is more of an issue, with the Mercenary change it that is actually the case again.

 

[Trizoo]

Mercenaries are cheaper early game right? Couldn't you siege with those and have your regulars in an already taken province?

 

[Álvaro Núñez de Lara]

Easy. Theyve gone down a better more fun path. Instead of just increasing manpower to making it easier for everybody, theyeve introduced new buildings which at the same time act as money sinkers. That way you are forced to rely more on mercs early on which is realiatic, and go toward a more manpower relying professional army as time moves on

 

[love sweden]

I cant wait for those WC conquest runs wich are 30% waiting thanks to manpower constantly running out

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They should stop designing “features” serving only to bloat feature lists with bullet points.

I saw that only after I posted. It makes things closer to some other areas, but we're talking 4.5% attrition for *any army size* in such provinces. That is still only .5% less than sticking 200 regiments on a single province to strain supply. It's a good illustration of just how outlandish monsoons were previously, and it's still silly. A monsoon is causing barely less attrition rate than leaving full combat width of troops in the Sahara for half a year, even *after* the nerf to its attrition...

I cant wait for those WC conquest runs wich are 30% waiting thanks to manpower constantly running out

Probably not, there will still be some mercs plus there are buildings that give a chunk of base manpower in addition to % manpower. Nations with good income are going to be able to spam those out and stack them with quantity. I bet the 10% admin efficiency nerf at 100 absolutism matters more unless you're doing horde razing WC (horde razing in mid-late game was nerfed too though).

 

[EarlKonrad]

Easy. Theyve gone down a better more fun path. Instead of just increasing manpower to making it easier for everybody, theyeve introduced new buildings which at the same time act as money sinkers. That way you are forced to rely more on mercs early on which is realiatic, and go toward a more manpower relying professional army as time moves on

What I'm interested in knowing is how this will play out in the first 100 years of the game, the period when I find manpower to be the most scarce and important. I doubt that buildings will make any difference early on and you will still have to either merc up or slack recruitment if you want to be at constant war.