Yet more hard questions I need help with.

[unmerged(4253)]

Hi all,

If I put my defense spending on high, just before mobilization, I get tons of Manpower. However, if I put it at low, I lose manpower. What's happening here? Does that mean if I mobilize with defense spending on low, it takes some men from my soldier pops that already are soldiers, or does it make the soldiers into labourers or something? If defense spending is on high, does this mean that more of my pops are converted to soldiers than I need? Or are both numbers purely artificial and I might as well put it on high and get free manpower? In case you can't see where I'm going with this, I don't want to ruin my economy any more than I have to when I mobilize my nation. I'd rather keep the craftsmen working than becoming soldiers.

Also, I can only see four cultures ingame while playing Austria. What is the fifth culture?

 

[Ringelnatz]

Manpower is an artificial number, it does not affect your working pops.
However, you need manpower to raise an army.

I understand it as a potential or mentally prepared people who are ready to become soldiers or in case of the reserve to join a war if wanted by the state.

 

[Memnon]

Ok, CE you've asked some great questions.

Manpower is, in effect, the numerical representation of how many more soldiers your population can support at a particular time. This is why it will slowly rise over time as your soldier POPs grow--becuase that means your population can support more soldiers. Defense spending is essentially the way to set the efficiency of the soldier POPs you have--the higher the defense spending, the closer the ratio of 1:1 becomes the size of the POP and the manpower you get from converting it to a soldier.

So, for example, if you have a 100,000 person Laborer with defense spending at 50%, and you convert it to a soldier, you'll get 50 manpower, whereas if the same POP is converted at a defense spending of 100%, you'll get 100 manpower.

Similarly, when you mobilize, your sucking POPs that weren't soldiers into the service thrugh conscription. Naturally, this means that, if your defense spending is slow, that your population won't be able to support any more soldiers (it will, in fact, be "in debt" as it will have to return those soldiers to the general population once they demobilize).

If, on the other hand, your defense spending is high when you mobilize, it indicates that you're gearing up for a massive war. I'm not sure if doing so means that more POPs are conscripted, but it wouldn't be too much a stretch to assume so. What is more likely, though, is that when you mobilize on high defens spending, many extra POPs are "marked" for use, but remain as their original type until they are "tapped", meaning when they are actually used a reinforcements. That, though, is just a guess of mine.

If you really want to fight a successfu war without ruining your economy by hiking up the defense spending, then I have an exploit you'll love to hear:

Set defense spending to minimum at the outset of the war. (The size of your mobilzed force, by the way, depends on the Army maintenence slider, so make sure that it is on the highest possible setting when you mobilize.) When you mobilize, you'll get the tremendous drop in manpower. That's OK, we'll fix that soon.

Send your troops as far into your enemy's country as possible without need of reinforcements. Once you do need to, though, here's what you do:

1) pause the game
2) set defense spending as high as possible
3) select some big POPs and convert them to soldiers (since your defense spending is on the highest level when you convert them, you'll get the most manpower possible out of them)
4) make sure you've overcome the manpower debt you have, and then build up the amount you need to reinforce (try to be exact, because once the process is over, you'll lose any extra you might have)
5) reinforce as needed
6) before you unpause, set defense spending back as low as possible (this is where you lose whatever extra manpower you may have created)

Voila! You've just achieved maximum reinforcement with the most efficient manpower rations withot having to spend any extra money. Repeat as needed.

But it is an exploit.

Good luck,
Memnon

 

[Memnon]

Also, I can only see four cultures ingame while playing Austria. What is the fifth culture?

I just checked the save file from my current Austria game.

culture = {
type = "south_german"
type = "hungarian"
type = "slovene"
type = "czech"
}

So they do only have four cultures. I with I'd found a fifth, though.

 

[Darkrenown]

Bah, play VIP and only have Austrian!