Will CORE address England's excessive manpower?

[unmerged(37194)]

I am playing a MP game as the English. My opponet is playing as the Germans. France fell very early 1940. It is mid-40 and the English manpower is close to 900 and their IC is about 160. England will be able to flood the western front by mid-41 with 150+ divisions once the Germans attack Russia. Rather ridiculous.

Will CORE address this issue or any other type of excessive manpower/IC issues? Russia and Germany seem about right (at least in this game) but, England seems way off.

 

[JRaup]

Wait and see what the official 1.3 enhancement brings. Any and all future changes made by CORE will be based off of that...

 

[unmerged(29123)]

I am playing a MP game as the English. My opponet is playing as the Germans. France fell very early 1940. It is mid-40 and the English manpower is close to 900 and their IC is about 160. England will be able to flood the western front by mid-41 with 150+ divisions once the Germans attack Russia. Rather ridiculous.

Will CORE address this issue or any other type of excessive manpower/IC issues? Russia and Germany seem about right (at least in this game) but, England seems way off.

one thing that can be done to adress the exessive manpower of some nations is to make maintaining a vast army more costly. one thing that hoi does not realistically adress is that army supplies are VERY easy to maintain and you DONT have to pay soldiers! imagine how drastic of a change it would be once you have to actually pay your soldiers. all nations in the war had to realy think of how to adress the payment of thier soldiers. hell, germany even went so far as to counterfit british curency to not only ruin the british economy but to gather money to help fund thier war machine.

an example in hoi2 is nationalist china. you can quite litterally bully ANY nation in the game if you spend some time to prepair. by 44 i had conquered the whole of europe, asia, and africa with china. in fact it was so easy it was ludicrus. why? because armies are CHEEP. thats the exact reverse of the real world. real world armies are very very very expencive and that should be reflected in c.o.r.e.2.

what should be done is that nations should receave more for consumer goods produced BUT each division, flotilla and unit in the field requires a continual payment of money to maintain. no money is basically the same as an army without supplies. it starts breaking apart and just disbands completely. this system needs some tweaking but what it will do is prevent medium or low industrial capacity nations from flooding divisions. no longer can they have a ludicrus army size for thier maximum industrial capacity. most of the time in history standing army size has been limited by not manpower but the maximum army size that can be maintained by the government.

 

[unmerged(48389)]

About Paying soldiers...

You are at war. With enemies who want who will literally rip your society to shreds if they are given the chance to do it.

This is just a 12 year thing.

In a situation this dire, arguably the gravest emergency in all human existance, I would have no problem pulling out my Mastercard and putting all bills ON CREDIT!! 8)

Many nations went very heavily into debt as a result of WW2. But should push come to shove, I'd have no remorse about buying munitions on credit to save the lives of my countrymen. Bankruptcy is far preferable to millitary occupation, and I think that while maybe "surplus money" might be out of line, I urge against this restriction on soliders. Its also a concern that WOULD NOT APPLY TO PLANNED ECONOMIES, giving them a huge advantage over free market nations.

I think that total war justifies the unlimited use of credit. why not?

 

[unmerged(29123)]

About Paying soldiers...

You are at war. With enemies who want who will literally rip your society to shreds if they are given the chance to do it.

This is just a 12 year thing.

In a situation this dire, arguably the gravest emergency in all human existance, I would have no problem pulling out my Mastercard and putting all bills ON CREDIT!! 8)

Many nations went very heavily into debt as a result of WW2. But should push come to shove, I'd have no remorse about buying munitions on credit to save the lives of my countrymen. Bankruptcy is far preferable to millitary occupation, and I think that while maybe "surplus money" might be out of line, I urge against this restriction on soliders. Its also a concern that WOULD NOT APPLY TO PLANNED ECONOMIES, giving them a huge advantage over free market nations.

I think that total war justifies the unlimited use of credit. why not?

you are correct that most armies went into credit. hell the credit that germany went on in ww1 was one of the reasons why the whole nation's economy collasped completely. however, soldiers do need to be more expencive to maintain. currently hoi2 is incredibly easy to beat. why? because in the end soldiers are cheep for MOST nations. the only nation ive played as that the loss of every soldier was felt was with poland. every other nation has the power to just plain flood divisions. in ww2 did you see britian with 150 divisions? no, they had drastic problems. they could NOT support much more than they had. in the end britian didnt display huge force in terms of numbers at all. why? there were ALOT of people left in thier empire that they could call apon. hell its been a technique of ancient conquerer's to use manpower from conquered lands. let us not forget that despite popular belief india has MORE people than china. no, britian had the manpower it needed. it didnt have the just plain capacity to maintain a much larger force than they had. they couldnt get the food, guns, bullets, and pay for anything much larger.

nationalist china was another example. they had ALOT of manpower at thier disposal. however historically china didnt have a very large industrial capacity. they had just begun to industrialise. ALOT of chinese resistance was possible because they receaved arms, food and ammunition from all over the world. many chinese citizens found that they wanted to fight back but there simply were no arms around to use. japan on the other hand had a MUCH larger industrial capacity but not the manpower to keep a sustained war on the scale that china was going to give. although china could not field the ammount of firepower at one point that japan could china's manpower proved a dangerious thing in what started to evolve into a war of atrition. part of japan's failure was due to the fact that they didnt use thier industrial capacity to do enough preperations for the war. had japan built up better trained, equiped and just plain more divisions they could have done a better job in china. they had the capacity to support more troops and in the beginning they had the manpower to make more divisions for more firepower at one time.

some way we need to adress that soldiers in hoi2 are too easy to maintain. its ludicrus to see a britian invade germany with an army the size of something russia would field. its just plain fact that britian did NOT have hte capacity to support that much.

 

[unmerged(11202)]

With regards to maintaining excessive amounts of divisions. It is actually far from cheap in the game, you all seem to forget that every unit uses transport capacity of which the size is determined by your industry and technology. IMHO it does a good job of showing the difficulties of keeping your armies running. As soon as you go over the TC limit the effectiveness of your divisions will start to drop. I played Nationalist China and went the usual route of fielding 100s of infantry divisions, however my transport capacity got severely overloaded thus reducing the effective power of my divisions. At one point I had only an ESE of 50% left. The same is true for all other powers especially once you start to occupy enemy territory.

 

[unmerged(37194)]

With regards to maintaining excessive amounts of divisions. It is actually far from cheap in the game, you all seem to forget that every unit uses transport capacity of which the size is determined by your industry and technology. IMHO it does a good job of showing the difficulties of keeping your armies running. As soon as you go over the TC limit the effectiveness of your divisions will start to drop. I played Nationalist China and went the usual route of fielding 100s of infantry divisions, however my transport capacity got severely overloaded thus reducing the effective power of my divisions. At one point I had only an ESE of 50% left. The same is true for all other powers especially once you start to occupy enemy territory.

A valid point but, even with the effects of an overburdened transport system the English strength by early 1941 is way too excessive and makes MP play pretty much pointless unless a houserule is implemented. I prefer to just fix the inherent problem and not get around by using some kind of confuluted houserule.

 

[unmerged(13931)]

Keep this in perspective......

The UK is supposed to be serious challenge to Germany. Also, the UK has (READ HAS) to field armies in 3 theaters. So she wont be able to devote all her MP towards defeating Germany anyway.

Also play a 6 player MP game, and then tell me that the UK needs less MP. Srry for the rant, but I just believe many people (Germany players in particular) either dont understand how hard it is to play with the UK in MP, or they just want to downsize the threat that the UK is, so that they can focus on defeating the USSR.

In a 6 player MP game, You have Italy and Japan to help tie down some if not most British Manpower (as well as American, and Soviet).

Although in the end a modest reduction in British Manpower can be warranted as they in real life were unable to field 200 divs. Just dont destroy game balance for the facet of realism plz.

 

[unmerged(13931)]

Oh yeh, and keep up the good work CORE team.

 

[unmerged(37194)]

Keep this in perspective......

The UK is supposed to be serious challenge to Germany. Also, the UK has (READ HAS) to field armies in 3 theaters. So she wont be able to devote all her MP towards defeating Germany anyway.

Also play a 6 player MP game, and then tell me that the UK needs less MP. Srry for the rant, but I just believe many people (Germany players in particular) either dont understand how hard it is to play with the UK in MP, or they just want to downsize the threat that the UK is, so that they can focus on defeating the USSR.

In a 6 player MP game, You have Italy and Japan to help tie down some if not most British Manpower (as well as American, and Soviet).

Although in the end a modest reduction in British Manpower can be warranted as they in real life were unable to field 200 divs. Just dont destroy game balance for the facet of realism plz.

Good point in regard to 6 player MP and game balance, however, things are still too excessive. Also, I do not care about forcing things into historical outcomes I just do not want pure fantasy ethier.

 

[Fiestacat]

Good point in regard to 6 player MP and game balance, however, things are still too excessive. Also, I do not care about forcing things into historical outcomes I just do not want pure fantasy ethier.

I have one word for you.
India.
British India was a source of manpower just like French Africa was. Unless British India is taken away there's absolutely no reason to adjust the manpower pool, because counting colonial manpower, britain was certainly able to construct the vast amounts of divisions the game lets you.

If you play a game with Italy and Japan doing their jobs properly it will be exceedingly hard to maintain a steady line with Britain alone.
If Italy actually pours divisions into Africa and Japan knocks on Burma's door Britain will find it most challenging to defend against Italy, Japan and Germany at the same time. The advent of strategic bombing becoming viable for germany makes it so you need to be bombing Englands major industrial centres and slashing off their connections with the colonies. England IS vulnerable and CAN be prevented from building as much divisions as they can sustain, but it requires the entire Axis to be on the job. If that's not the case in your games that's no reason to be nerfing the UK.

 

[Chaplain]

Just dont destroy game balance for the facet of realism plz.

Ack! How can you say this? The way to address this problem is not to artificially enlarge the British Army, but to adjust VICTORY CONDITIONS (in the case of HOI2, modify VP values of provinces).

Any way you slice it, the British Army is grossly ahistoric in most games of HOI2, and I am counting on CORE to redress this problem.

Yes, definitely shrink UK manpower, but also change victory conditions to keep proper balance.

 

[Chaplain]

I have one word for you.
India.
British India was a source of manpower just like French Africa was. Unless British India is taken away there's absolutely no reason to adjust the manpower pool, because counting colonial manpower, britain was certainly able to construct the vast amounts of divisions the game lets you.

If you play a game with Italy and Japan doing their jobs properly it will be exceedingly hard to maintain a steady line with Britain alone.
If Italy actually pours divisions into Africa and Japan knocks on Burma's door Britain will find it most challenging to defend against Italy, Japan and Germany at the same time. The advent of strategic bombing becoming viable for germany makes it so you need to be bombing Englands major industrial centres and slashing off their connections with the colonies. England IS vulnerable and CAN be prevented from building as much divisions as they can sustain, but it requires the entire Axis to be on the job. If that's not the case in your games that's no reason to be nerfing the UK.

I can live with your line of reasoning here provided the divisions are built in India, rather than UK. The problem now is that they all pop up in Southampton and promptly descend on the Continent like a horde of locusts, which is a bit silly.

 

[MateDow]

One of the tools that we are using to make the British more historical is the creation of several puppet states.

The largest of these is India. One of the goals is the make an Indian AI send units to the British as was historical. This will also reduce the load of British units which are necessary in the Far East.

We have also added in Egypt, Newfoundland and the Malay States. The Malay States are very weak militarily, but are vital to the survival through trade with Britain. Egypt is going to be an evolving creature so we can get her to act historically. MDow

 

[Chaplain]

One of the tools that we are using to make the British more historical is the creation of several puppet states.

The largest of these is India. One of the goals is the make an Indian AI send units to the British as was historical. This will also reduce the load of British units which are necessary in the Far East.

We have also added in Egypt, Newfoundland and the Malay States. The Malay States are very weak militarily, but are vital to the survival through trade with Britain. Egypt is going to be an evolving creature so we can get her to act historically. MDow

Sounds great! Thanks, CORE team!

 

[unmerged(50643)]

England never has got excesive manpower.

Carolus

 

[MateDow]

England never has got excesive manpower.

Carolus

maybe not manpower per se, but I usually see them with an ahistorically large army...

which is usually in the wrong place MDow

 

[unmerged(14249)]

The British and Indian armies at their peak totalled 5 million men. The comparable figure for Germany is 7 million. So, the issue is not manpower. Nor is it IC - the UK generally matched Germany in arms production.

The real issue is logistics - the game has it much easier to support troops overseas than was the case historically. But that cuts both ways and so the Axis finds it much easier to do things like invading Britain, India, Egypt, Australia, etc than was the case historically. So if the Axis are allowed ahistorical forces overseas, then Britain must be allowed to match them to preserve some semblance of historical balance.

Andrew

 

[unmerged(36027)]

Commonwealth Manpower

This is absolutely correct, the British in fact had a 'back-up' plan from the 20s/30s where in the event of a continental war they would recruit from the infinite supply of manpower in India. Though for obvious reasons this wasn't a very popular plan, if push came to shove the Brits would do it. And besides being potentially MUCH larger the Indian army was shown to be as effective in the field as any other commonwealth force.

The British and Indian armies at their peak totalled 5 million men. The comparable figure for Germany is 7 million. So, the issue is not manpower. Nor is it IC - the UK generally matched Germany in arms production.

The real issue is logistics - the game has it much easier to support troops overseas than was the case historically. But that cuts both ways and so the Axis finds it much easier to do things like invading Britain, India, Egypt, Australia, etc than was the case historically. So if the Axis are allowed ahistorical forces overseas, then Britain must be allowed to match them to preserve some semblance of historical balance.

Andrew

 

[unmerged(37194)]

The British and Indian armies at their peak totalled 5 million men. The comparable figure for Germany is 7 million. So, the issue is not manpower. Nor is it IC - the UK generally matched Germany in arms production.

The real issue is logistics - the game has it much easier to support troops overseas than was the case historically. But that cuts both ways and so the Axis finds it much easier to do things like invading Britain, India, Egypt, Australia, etc than was the case historically. So if the Axis are allowed ahistorical forces overseas, then Britain must be allowed to match them to preserve some semblance of historical balance.

Andrew

Are you saying that the British fielded 500 divisions? I do not think they were even half of that. Probably more like a third (135 divisions).

I do think you hit the nail on the head with your logistics comment and how easy it is to ship units around the globe. I have also found that other games get this wrong too and it is unfortunate because it really does screw up the realism of a WWII strategy game. When asked what 1 person was most responsible for victory in WWII Eisenhower responded by naming the man who invented and produced the landing craft - Higgins. Overseas TC is not sexy but, something that these games inevitably get wrong. Transports cost almost nothing and historically key islands/areas such as Malta do not have much signifigance. Is there anything that can be done via a mod.