WiF3 Development Diary #6 – Mobilization system
Though I may have previously mentioned it in passing, the mobilization system has not been thoroughly discussed yet. This Dev’Diary will cover this gap.
Overall, the mod’s mobilization system is very similar to Darkest Hour’s, which is not much surprising since I was involved in its design. However, even if the principle is the same (a decision driven slider with related events giving manpower), there are a few changes.
First, the various levels of mobilization (figuring recruitment laws) are slightly different. Here they are, step by step:
1- Professional Army (as the name suggests, the army accepts only volunteers in its ranks);
2- Limited Conscription (either a fraction of all conscripts serves in the military for a long term, or all conscripts follow a short training, often a few months possibly completed by refresher training periods later);
3- Conscription - One year term (all conscripts follow one year of military training);
4- Conscription - Two years term (all conscripts follow two years of military training);
5- Conscription - Three years term (all conscripts follow three years of military training);
These steps correspond to a normal functioning in peacetime. Each level provides additional manpower, proportional to the population of your country. Of course, the more you extend the military service term, the more dissent you get, because your anti-militarist and pacifist citizens complain.
Let’s continue.
6- Partial Mobilization
This is a specific action which I wanted to improve after realizing that few players in vanilla made a difference between a partial mobilization (recalling the younger classes and preparing the army for a potential conflict) and general mobilization (recalling all men still subject to military duty). Some players use it to gradually mobilize their forces early in the war, others simply to have more manpower in peacetime. Few use it for what it really was: a preparatory measure for war.
Its effect, besides the gain in manpower, is to unlock some units of your army (different for each nation) in anticipation of a conflict. This can be useful, for example, if you plan to surprise your neighbor with a declaration of war, as in the screenshot above where I sneakingly plan to attack Belgium. Therefore, it is possible to use this in peacetime.
However, it cannot be abused just to gain more manpower. If you decree partial mobilization, then happen to still be at peace 30 days later, you will get a nasty event adding a pretty good load of dissent. And this will happen again every 30 days, as long as you did not not demobilize or declare war on someone.
7- General Mobilization
This is a key decision for a country at war. It not only provides you with large amounts of manpower and strengthens existing land units for free (as in vanilla DH), but it also unlocks them, something specific to the mod.
Historically, as its etymology suggests, mobilization not only made armies bigger by getting the existing units at full strength and (depending on each country’s peculiar organization) creating additional ones from a reserve cadre, but also made them mobile. In peacetime, military units are usually scattered around the whole country and have no reason to move, except for brief periods during annual major military exercises. Therefore, general mobilization is less about reinforcing units than sending them to the front – usually by train. This explains the differences observed in 1914 for each country, for example between Germany, which mobilization plan, drawn up to the minute, enjoyed an excellent and closely monitored rail network, and Russia, which mobilization was hampered by its insufficient transportation system.
Vanilla DH does not allow to figure this accurately, as both player and AI are free to position their troops on the border well before any conflict. To give this crucial phase its historical importance, I decided to lock land units in place. While at peace, you cannot move them. Naturally, this will not apply to units produced after scenario start. In the screenshot below, the Dutch army went with partial mobilization. The active components of each army divisions (divisions were more akin to army corps in the Dutch army) are already unlocked and at full strength. However, the reserve components remain locked because they have not yet been mobilized.
Partial and general mobilization will allow you to unlock your forces and to send them wherever you want, either on foot or by train. In the latter case, be careful with your transport capacity! This, as you know it, adversely affects redeployment time and supply efficiency, the latter also affecting your units in combat. Please note that AI will not be much affected by this problem, since it has an advantage in this area (in the mod, redeployment of AI units will not take more than 21 days; as a result, Russian AI will have a specially designed, progressive mobilization to figure it more accurately).
By default, general mobilization can be enacted only after war has been declared. Historical accuracy enthusiasts need not to worry, though, since for most countries, partial and total mobilization will be scripted so as to be enacted before actual declarations of war, as it happened historically.
Furthermore, having land units locked implies, as you may have guessed, that each country has its own “customized” mobilization. This big work is already implemented, and in my humble opinion brings a lot of flavor to the mod (and a particular incentive to play games with different countries).
As usual, once general mobilization has been enacted, further options are available.
8- Advance call of one class (conscripts are mobilized one year before the normal date).
9- Advance call of two classes (conscripts are mobilized two years before the normal date).
10- Total Mobilization (teenagers and very mature men are mobilized in a "last ditch mobilization" which also makes militia units available).
Of course, these last three steps are available only in wartime. They might be much needed, because unlike in vanilla DH, there will be no daily increase of manpower
at all. Therefore, these decisions will be the only way to get more men (and you will need as many men as you can get).
Instead of a daily influx of manpower, you will get an annual event about mobilizing a new class of age – that is, all young men born in the same year and reaching military age: typically 20, possibly younger if you chose to lower this through the abovementioned decisions. You can choose between either mobilizing them, which will give you the corresponding manpower but will affect the economy negatively (IC and resource output will decrease), or sending them to the factories, which will increase productivity (IC and resource output will rise). This is a strategic choice: should I have more soldiers to make up for military losses or more workers for the war effort?
Of course, as it has been hinted at in previous Dev’Diaries, each mobilization step will reduce your IC and resource output in proportion to the number of men mobilized: the more soldiers you get, the less workers you have. For ways to offset these negative effects, I refer you to previous Development Diaries, especially #3.
Please note that in order to better balance their manpower, some countries receive a special event a few days after general mobilization which gives them a number of volunteers, usually men who were previously spared from military service for various reasons (too young, exempted but still physically fit, students, foreigners, etc.). This was done to prevent the said countries to have excessive amounts of manpower in peacetime.