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A thought re: Manpower

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Slargos

Slargos

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I believe I've discussed this with HoG before, but I don't think it's ever been widely discussed in the forum.

What if all national manpower (save perhaps 1 or 0.5 per province) was gathered in the capital of all player nations.

The effect we would get is that it would be extremely important to hold on to the capital and wars could actually be decided relatively quickly by battle instead of being long drawn out affairs.

Another version would be to put the manpower in several "key" provinces rather than all in the capital. This way, controlling ground could also be a way to defeat the enemy more than it is today.

Discuss.
 
Slargos said:
I believe I've discussed this with HoG before, but I don't think it's ever been widely discussed in the forum.

What if all national manpower (save perhaps 1 or 0.5 per province) was gathered in the capital of all player nations.

The effect we would get is that it would be extremely important to hold on to the capital and wars could actually be decided relatively quickly by battle instead of being long drawn out affairs.

Another version would be to put the manpower in several "key" provinces rather than all in the capital. This way, controlling ground could also be a way to defeat the enemy more than it is today.

Discuss.
Click to expand...

This could work. However how deal with the fact that there are capitals that are more exposed to enemies than others? This could cause seriously damage to game balance.
 
I did consider it which is why I added option #2.

It's not possible to just move the manpower in its entirety to another province since if that province is lost, manpower is shattered.

It IS possible to move the capital. People have to get over the notion that we have to go 100% historicity at the cost of gameplay.

London could be moved a province inland, as could Constantinople.

Moscow could stay instead of moving to St Petersburg.

Venice is hard to fix this way but has so little defensive depth as is so doesn't really need its manpower centralized, same goes for Holland and Portugal.

Sweden and Denmark would also be a bit of trouble to arrange which essentially means that to centralize manpower to one single province is not an option.
 
However, if every country got its manpower moved to 3 or 4 "key" or "victory point" provinces, with the capital getting more than its share, the idea could still work.
 
Slargos said:
However, if every country got its manpower moved to 3 or 4 "key" or "victory point" provinces, with the capital getting more than its share, the idea could still work.
Click to expand...

That doesn't work. Only small manpower countries would be affected. 200-300 mp countries like Russia and the OE laugh if you take some 3 or 4 manpower provincies. The warscore is worth more :)

And I assume you still want the effect that countries like Russia *do* have a large manpower? Then you need to take in account that their mp pool won't be emptied for a long time, giving them time to take back their mp provinces.
 
Slargos said:
However, if every country got its manpower moved to 3 or 4 "key" or "victory point" provinces, with the capital getting more than its share, the idea could still work.
Click to expand...

Sort of like in HoI, where certain provinces equal a certain amount of VPs? Interesting. You could even go as far as removing manpower from all other provinces (or at least some areas, like Siberia) - thus making FAL's argument against this void.
 
Yes, the point is to remove manpower from all other provinces (possibly leaving 0.5 or 1 in order to get the bonus from CCs) and gather them in a few "VP" provinces.

I don't think it's good to do the same with basetax due to attrition issues.
 
FAL said:
That doesn't work. Only small manpower countries would be affected. 200-300 mp countries like Russia and the OE laugh if you take some 3 or 4 manpower provincies. The warscore is worth more :)
Click to expand...

No. Since their manpower would be largely in these provinces, their regeneration would dry up just like everyone elses.

And I assume you still want the effect that countries like Russia *do* have a large manpower? Then you need to take in account that their mp pool won't be emptied for a long time, giving them time to take back their mp provinces.
Click to expand...

This will apply to any country. Taking the VP provinces shouldn't mean automatic victory, but it should make victory more likely.

Currently wars can and are drawn out longer than they should but if the means to recruit are removed wars can be effectively ended by the winning power.
 
I think it's a good way to illustrate the importance of certain cities. If eg. Copenhagen falls to enemy hands, the rest of Denmark wouldn't keep fighting on for years... as is now possible. And that's just one example, it could be applied to most nations I'd say.
 
Hive said:
I think it's a good way to illustrate the importance of certain cities. If eg. Copenhagen falls to enemy hands, the rest of Denmark wouldn't keep fighting on for years... as is now possible. And that's just one example, it could be applied to most nations I'd say.
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Yes, it indeed does reflect that. It also reflect that Russia will keep on fighting longer than a rag tag nation like Denmark. I like it ;)

All manpower in the capital does work, eventually. But in various multiple provinces not, (at least for large manpower nations), since the warscore will be worth more (as I already said).
 
Fal had a point with manpower pools, a nation with 300k MP would be able to resist this sort of offensive very well. Furthermore, the effect of leaders on the game would be again increased, stat 5+ leaders would now be able to finish whole enemy coalitions in a matter of months* by just moving from one MP hvy district to another. This would have to be taken into account.
 
The model has a few problems.

It would create weird situations where a nation can annex three quarters of another nation without noticeable changes in the manpower of those countries.

For countries like Russia it would make colonizing Siberia a much less profitable exercise.

In some areas of Europe, say, HRE, the manpower would still be split between a huge lot of capitals.

However I agree that losing ones capital could have harsher consequences. Is it possible to write for example country-specific random events that check if capital is occupied?
 
smn said:
However I agree that losing ones capital could have harsher consequences. Is it possible to write for example country-specific random events that check if capital is occupied?
Click to expand...

Yes. But random events are hard to control, you'd end up *not* receiving the event most of the time.
 
Provinces changing hands could be done by manpower edits between sessions.

Same goes of course for annexations in HRE.

A compromise could be substantial lowering of manpower in order to either put it all in the capital or to create regional "manpower senters" while leaving some for the annexing party.
 
Well,

We do want to make a MP mod with the new map, do we? This would give the possibility to make random events specifically checking for capital ownership and removing manpower from your pool if you lose it.

I would propose to excluse Portugal and the Dutch from this, however :D
 
FAL said:
Well,

We do want to make a MP mod with the new map, do we? This would give the possibility to make random events specifically checking for capital ownership and removing manpower from your pool if you lose it.

I would propose to excluse Portugal and the Dutch from this, however :D
Click to expand...

Like I said; those random events would very very rarely trigger. Such events would be close to useless.
 
Wow guys! I really like your ideas.
These discussed gameinovations here, while they COULD backfire, should definetly be tried out. If balanced properly these concepts could radically increase the already addictive groovyness of EU II MP.

Keep up the good work, all of you! :)
 
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