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C.O.R.E. HOI - Manpower increasing level

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Just to fill everyone in:

I was scanning the nations who have MP reductions, and by July 1939 am seeing some smashing stuff!

The USA AI is devoting 450 IC to research.

Italy has a Basic Light Tank 20mm in 1939.

The UK has two types of Basic Fighters, a Basic Tactical and Heavy Bomber.

Poland has more tech, but does not have the same large numbers of troops. Germany advances through Poland a bit faster without worrying about dozens and dozens of Polish divisions (usually just around 30).

Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark all have 'better' militaries, but not larger ones. Their tech is higher, but German quality is still higher, making for longer single fights, but less troops to slow Germany down.

My next step is to rework AI tech priorities and tech paths. They currently skip a few critical areas, and over-prioritize certain regions. Since the AI is devoting about 100% more IC to research from 1936-1940 than it did before, it is getting substantially more techs. Before we needed a high focus on Infantry techs, just to keep these nations remotely close to the majors like Germany. Now I am finding that these nations are sometimes surpassing Germany in specialized techs (as Germany has a more balanced military). Each of these modified nations require total revisions not only in building que's (since we can focus more on historic construction), but also tech paths and priorities, as the AI is researching at the same rate as human players, but is researching an unbalanced program.
 
I was thinking about reducing the MP to some of the other Balkan states.

Romania
Bulgaria
Yugoslavia
Hungary

They tend to mobilize fairly powerful armies before the war, well above what they were politically and economically able to do at the time.

The other nations that will require modification are Central and South American states, especially since we are probably going to implement some changes in regards to them having agrarian industry which increases their production as they no longer face material shortages.
 
AI files

I created some peacetime AI files for the following nations.

France
Italy
UK
USA

Since their research and production should be different during peacetime, I figure that adding these AI's will, and in testing, have improved their peacetime production and research.

Other nations, like Norway, Denmark, Belgium, etc., don't really need peacetime AI's, as their wartime AI's are similar enough.
 
The peacetime AI's are a success.

I have tested many games up to 1940 (the outbreak of war), and they are substantially better off than they ever were in any other version of HoI.

France, for example, has modern basic aircraft, and have produced about 10 air groups of modern bombers and fighters for the battle.

Italy was slightly lagging France, but was still able to field a modern Basic Medium Tank, and Basic Tactical/Naval Bombers and Interceptor fighters.

The Commonwealth are also researching a way more balanced system. They are pretty advanced, yet do not rely on specialized nations researching just one aspect. Since only gold techs are shared, this always resulted in Commonwealth nations like South Africa and New Zealand having pathetic militaries, and Australia and Canada never fielding Basic Weaponry (like bombers and tanks). Now I have got the AI to produce contemporary modern bombers, fighters and tanks by the time war erupts.

The MP decreases have really benefitted these nations and their AI's.
 
I am just about done MP reductions and events for every nation that I plan to, except for central and south america. I just have Turkey and Yuogslavia to do for Europe.

I also created an event that eliminates all Slovakian armed forces (those former Czechoslovakian units transferred to Slovakia) since Slovakia had a fairly limited army and shouldn't get all of the former Czechoslovakian forces, especially since most of the tanks were taken by Germany. Without this event, Slovakia has one of the largest militaries in Central Europe (larger than Poland).

I have just about every nation in Europe done except for Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Russia. I don't plan to do them because they all appeared to be at full mobilization in 1936 (possibly Switzerland will face MP reductions). I might also tweak MP starting pools and peacetime growth rates for slight increases. The main problem that I am having is that many nations don't have the industry in 1939 that they did in 1936 anymore (due to resource shortages) and don't build up the same levels of forces that they used to.

I think that Central/South America can wait, because for one it is very exhausting and a dull job to search out provinces with MP, determine their MP number, plus find their province number in the Provinces.csv file. I would be happy if anyone wants to take up the mantle and do South/Central America, as it will be a while before I can find the time/strength to get them done.
 
excellent work!

I am very interested in this entire process as, before I discovered the thread, I had been experimenting along a similar line.

McNaughton, would it be possible for you to email me the full set of modified province.csv and event files so that I could work from where you are?

I am also willing to pick up slack on either South America, event writing, or playtesting...
 
Re: excellent work!

Originally posted by cbo6oda
I am very interested in this entire process as, before I discovered the thread, I had been experimenting along a similar line.

McNaughton, would it be possible for you to email me the full set of modified province.csv and event files so that I could work from where you are?

I am also willing to pick up slack on either South America, event writing, or playtesting...
Click to expand...

I am still doing some finishing touches, and when they are done, I will let you know. Thanks for your help!
 
Intercontinental Logistics

This is great work. If we move to deployments in the war itself, the USA had an enormous amount of manpower just carrying the beans and bullets to the troops on the front. There was a similar situation in Australia, UK, Canada, NZ, and Japan. I have some ideas on how to do that, but I'm not completely satisfied since they seem "forced."

1) Create an Intercontinental Logistics Doctrine (ILD) in the Tech Tree.
2) Restrict it's availability to a handful of countries with plausible intercontinental conflicts.
3) Ideally, it would absorb a percentage of the manpower but you'd probably have to implement the manpower hit with an event.

Now in the real world that would probably be it since these logistics organizations are necessary to wage war 8,000 miles from home, but in HOI no player would ever do this without a carrot or stick to make it happen. This where I am afraid I only have choices from among the least bad options and some of those might not even be codable.

1) Reduce the attack and defence values of divisions in expeditionary forces by 2 point unless the lending player has the ILD.
2) If a supply path crosses saltwater in the absence of the ILD reduce ORG or attack/defense strength by 10% to 20%.

(I doubt that either of the above are codable)

3) Code an effect of the ILD to increase soft attack and defense values by 1 or 2 (reflecting lots of artillery ammunition available) (this still wouldn't pay for the lost manpower in divisions, but it's something).
4) Code an event that if the ILD is not available by a certain date or interval after the war starts, then there is a dissent hit for increased casualities due to scandalous military administration. This would be big for the democracies and low for dictatorships

These are codable, but I'm dissatisfied with them.

Maybe the solution is simply to do nothing overtly and squeeze the MP down for at least the English speaking countries so to simulate the logistics organizations invisibly. Then maybe you could have an invasion insurance event for them. (If there was a landing, the victim country would get a big slug of manpower, representing arming these logistics troops).

I still think, however, that they might be room for a logistics tech (maybe with some of the big industrial mass production precursors) that simulates increasing ammunition basic loads with the effect being driven not by caliber, tactical skill in putting ammo on target, or reaction time to call fire, but simply the nearly inexhaustible supply of ammunition that lets you fire until there are no more targets.

Ideas?
 
Maritime Logistics

The problem would be partially solved by eliminating the 'automatic' merchant marine growth from all of the countries. If you have to build replacement hulls for convoy losses, then that would provide the manpower drain of having to ship supplies and such overseas. Unfortunately, I believe that the replacement is something that is hardcoded and can't be changed by modders (guidence Skyo?). MDow
 
Merchant marine growth is based on number of ports owned AFAIK, the rate is not moddable and removing ports is questionable. It would also compound the AI problems in dealing with over-powered subs.
 
Your comments sparked a possible idea.

Is there an event trigger that is sensitive to the Transport Value (like there are for VP)?

If so, at least for the USA, you force the US player to build up to a monster TP fleet (historical) - else he would lose combat effectiveness (lower attack/defense) for ground units. This trigger would be high enough that if you wait just for natural increase you're looking at mid-late 1945 for full strength overseas units so you almost have to divert IC for convoy conversions. It would make the troops in North America unrealistically weak, but you could keep that invasion insurance event around to cancel the logistics effect if ground combat in North America was actually happening.

A side benefit of this is that it would make a Fortress Pacific Strategy (lots of troops and fortifications in PHI, Guam, Wake, etc.) much riskier for the USA since if the Japanese attacked in 1940-1942 the US forces would probably still be under a penalty.

A further side benefit is that it gives an incentive for the German U-boat campaign since interdicting merchant ships not only may starve Britain, but keeps the US army from being as effective a force once it is transported overseas.
 
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Originally posted by Engineer
Your comments sparked a possible idea.

Is there an event trigger that is sensitive to the Transport Value (like there are for VP)?

Click to expand...

Nope. No such trigger :( MDow
 
mobilisation

Historically, there were at least 2 types of mobilisations.

One would be very well simulated by MP modifications.

The other was based on large "reserves". There was already in peacetime huge stores of artillery pieces, uniforms... and in case of war -even crisis like Munich- the number of INFANTRY divisions could be almost increased by 3 in just one week.

The big drawbacks of this system were peacetime modernization of stored weapons and training of reservists, considering in addtion that once mobilisation done, it was very difficult, for demographical and economical reasons, to "build" other units than planned.

I have given there
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111937&perpage=25&pagenumber=2
the accurate list of French active/reserve divisions. After september 39 mobilisation, the capacity of "building" new formations was low and the "Série B" divisions ("militia" for me) were never improved in equipement or training, because of logistic questions.
 
Still unpleasant manpower/ month cause breaks my nerves...

Well, I've review the mp increase/ month and I'm still voting for increase the polish manpower to about 12 per month, reduce the Republican Spain mp/ month ( over 20 in comparision to Imperial Japan ( 19.9 ) is a bit strange, isn't it :rolleyes: ???, increase the Soviet Union mp/ month ( to about 50 ), and reduce the swedish manpower ( currently it's higher than Poland or Netherlands... what a rubbish !! )
Arguments in style of " it's nonsense, cause Poland will be annexed by Germany" are nonsense.. - from that, what I know HoI C.O.R.E. mod was based on the idea of perfect historical correctness - so why not give the Poland this mp/ month and after the fall of Poland, doesn't give Germany 2 or 3 events reducing the surplus of polish mp ( Poland was only occupied country, which never send it's troops of volunteers to fight on german side )

Copper Nicus - I'm counting on you, man !!! ;)
 
Faello said:
Well, I've review the mp increase/ month and I'm still voting for increase the polish manpower to about 12 per month, reduce the Republican Spain mp/ month ( over 20 in comparision to Imperial Japan ( 19.9 ) is a bit strange, isn't it :rolleyes: ???, increase the Soviet Union mp/ month ( to about 50 ), and reduce the swedish manpower ( currently it's higher than Poland or Netherlands... what a rubbish !! )
Arguments in style of " it's nonsense, cause Poland will be annexed by Germany" are nonsense.. - from that, what I know HoI C.O.R.E. mod was based on the idea of perfect historical correctness - so why not give the Poland this mp/ month and after the fall of Poland, doesn't give Germany 2 or 3 events reducing the surplus of polish mp ( Poland was only occupied country, which never send it's troops of volunteers to fight on german side )

Copper Nicus - I'm counting on you, man !!! ;)
Click to expand...

One of the major reasons for the minimal Polish MP gain is to keep Polish builds to a semi-historical level. It was a bit too much to have 50+ Polish divisions by 1939, with several armored divisions, and an ahistorically large AF (5-6 fighters, plus 2-3 bombers). We can only go so far in maintaining historical accuracy, in that at some point the AI and the engine itself will do ahistorical things because it can, and not because it should.
 
I know I've mentioned this before in the Far-East Thread but I really believe Siam should have more than 0.2 manpower per year (unless this changed in 0.64 because, even though I installed it, am playing a game started on 0.63), so unless it was increased, here are the numbers:

Thailand was divided into 18 provinces ("Montons") which were each responsible for raising troops. Therefore there may have been "provincial" regiments (in fact, Songgram raised about 50,000 troops for the FTW - which gives a figure of around 2,500 men per province, i.e. about a regiment). The 1917 conscription system (which appears to have still been in use in 1940-41) required every male Thai of age 21-22 years, and fit for service, to serve 2 years in the armed forces, with reserve service (in three age classes) after this (for 11 years?). King Rama VI had attempted to instill a "national service" ethic into the Thais, and Songgram also issued edicts aimed at encouraging nationalism. In addition to the army, a paramilitary gendarmerie was present in the 17 provinces outside Bangkok. These numbered approximately 7,000 well-disciplined men, but may well not have seen service in the FTW. Similarly, there were 2 battalions of Marines under naval control.
 
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