Manpower system v 1.02 is broken at set ups

[Belissarius]

While the sytem is working by design its a failure for the Great War. Germany shouldn't start the war with -1500 plus manpower. Now this is a huge mistake in terms of country set up. Nations should not be that low in manpower. As early in the war you could reinforce divisions easy.

Now while I know the system is WAD, its gimped because the set up for the great war is such that not enough pops are soldiers. The idea that a nation has a standing army greater than their soldier population can maintain is impossible. if I dont have bodies i dont have divisions. These pops should be converted BEFORE the game starts. Its lazy scenerio creation that doesnt take the time to convert these POPs already.

What do these division use for men? manicans? Puppets? Robots? Now its possible to create a army that you can't afford to maintain in terms of money or supply but you can't be short MEN and actualy form the unit unless its under strength and therefore you cant be into negative man power.

Also its just stupid and foolish game design (scenerio wise) that you have to spend a 1/2 hour setting up the game to play. This is a COMPUTER game not a board game. Converting enough POPs to soldiers at the start in something that SHOULD have been done by paradox not me. While this problem is present in the GC its realtively a quick process to fix the problem but in the 1914 game its a chore. Its no fun. Shouldnt a game be fun and not a chore?

Please fix the game set up to remove ALL negative manpower values.

NOTE: Its not a problem with manpower and how the mechanics work its a problem with game set up. Changes have been made to the game that have made the game set up screwy. An example is alcohol factories that are given to unindustrialized nations to provide a source of income are now a source of a money drain because glass is worth almost as much as the booze thus the prise of the materials to make the items is not reflected in the sale price of the alcohol.

All this being said I think 1.02 patch stratagy was the best method. fix CTD. And lets work on game balance tweaking in the following patches, I only say this because paradox actualy supports their games for years after release. This kind of support is unheard of and I thank you. So i dont think you "failed" with the set ups currently but I do think they have to be worked on. I stopped playing board games because of the 1/2 hour or longer set ups (world in flames anyone) I dont want to have to do this in a computer game.

 

[Derek Pullem]

Well this isn't a bug - its an enhancement request. But thats ok too.

If it were fixed, we would decide which POPs would be converted. On what basis should we convert POPs. Farmers only? Evenly across all provinces and cultures? I have sympathy with the sentiment but I wonder if these setups will annoy more experienced players as well.

Whats your opinion?

 

[Schnee0]

Maybe give the soldier pops a full pop of 100k, so there wouldn't be any need to convert the existing pops.
Just my idea.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

Maybe give the soldier pops a full pop of 100k, so there wouldn't be any need to convert the existing pops.
Just my idea.

That would give a HUGE tax bonus and be expolitable by the player - change 100, 000 POPs back to clerls, crafts and Farm / Labour, and watch the production sky-rocket!!! Plus these POPs will divide and give you 2x the POPs to work with, so you can change half of them back to soldiers.

Then use your smaller Pops to make up the difference.

 

[unmerged(24565)]

Why are my clerks fleeing?

I like most of the changes that the 1.02 patch made. It is a little bit strange that Dutch army units can be reinforced with Javans, but I am more concerned with the way that immigration works in the latest patch. I played Prussia in the grand camapaign, and all across my empire clerks were migrating to Korbach. I also found that craftsmen were emigrating to my african colonies where they became useless, since I couldn't build factories in a colony. Is this an error, or am I making life miserable for these workers causing their migration?

 

[unmerged(23356)]

Whats your opinion?

I think he's completely right. My suggestion is: Convert only farmers and start with the largest pops, so that a small base will remain after the mass conversion.

 

[Darkrenown]

I think he's completely right. My suggestion is: Convert only farmers and start with the largest pops, so that a small base will remain after the mass conversion.

I haven't played WWI, but won't that leave countries critically short on farmers?

 

[Derek Pullem]

I think he's completely right. My suggestion is: Convert only farmers and start with the largest pops, so that a small base will remain after the mass conversion.

Thats the way I'd do it too. But the question remains - should Paradox do it for every player or should we leave the choice of conversion to the player. Why is it good that Paradox do it for you? Its a one off job at the start of the scenario after all?

 

[unmerged(23356)]

I haven't played WWI, but won't that leave countries critically short on farmers?

Actually you don't need your farmers because they don't supply your own troops with food. Food goes to the world market and somehow the soldiers get it from there (not sure if they buy it).
Getting a positive budget for Germany in WW1 Scenario is impossible since 1.02 so you don't have to care about the lost taxes from the poor ppl.

Its a one off job at the start of the scenario after all?

Well, to be honest: WW1 Scenario currently needs a lot of tweaking - for example with Germany WW1 is won in 3 hours. (tested it several times).
It doesn't make sense to convert pops for half an hour, when the true game will only last 3 hours

You should do it for all players, because I think there is no sense in giving negative MP. I think your original intention was to limit the reserves a country has. No matter whether I'm right or wrong, everybody will convert hundreds of farmer pops in the beginning to get a positive MP.
The stupid mass conversion the player is faced with doesn't make the WW1 scenario more attractive to try other countries or new strategies with new patches, because you always have to do the stupid *convert*click*convert*click*.

I usually convert till I have 300-500 with Germany. England is a drama - I can convert half of India and have 5000+ MP at the beginning (I stop when I reach 3000, though).

 

[Belissarius]

Well this isn't a bug - its an enhancement request. But thats ok too.

If it were fixed, we would decide which POPs would be converted. On what basis should we convert POPs. Farmers only? Evenly across all provinces and cultures? I have sympathy with the sentiment but I wonder if these setups will annoy more experienced players as well.

Whats your opinion?

Coverting farmers is a more logical approach to this problem. As it would take less time to convert a few soldiers here and there then to make a mass converstion of farmers to soldiers in the begining. of each game. Almost no one is going to convert non farmer/labourers into soldiers. So coverting the largest pops of Farmers in to soldiers spread over your empire is more reasonable than to have to do it every single game. Minor tweaks are easier than to have to do it all yourself from scratch.

THis is a computer game not a counter game i dont want to spend hours and hours setting up the game over the "shelf life" of the game when the means to eliminate this work load is both readily available and easy to do.

This is a pain for both novice and more experienced players and we shouldnt have to do it.

 

[unmerged(21992)]

Well this isn't a bug - its an enhancement request. But thats ok too.

If it were fixed, we would decide which POPs would be converted. On what basis should we convert POPs. Farmers only? Evenly across all provinces and cultures? I have sympathy with the sentiment but I wonder if these setups will annoy more experienced players as well.

Whats your opinion?

Just convert farmers and laborers from the largest down.

You say that, potentially, the choice should be left to more experienced players. But whatever pops are already converted at the beginning of a scenario are chosen by the scenario designer, not the player. I don't see anything unreasonable in doing this for the player; in fact, a little bit of code could probably do it automatically whenever a scenario is first started - wasteful if the situation doesn't change, but we already see that 1.02 changed the manpower calculation so that suddenly Germany, which was down by about 150-300 manpower in 1.01, is now down by 1500.

When certain choices cannot normally be made by the player and lead to nonsensical situations, I don't see anything wrong with changing the scenario to prevent them. The design of the game is such that negative manpower is never legal within the model of the design - so why not enforce that in the scenarios?

 

[unmerged(18330)]

Besides, if a player wants to, say, make all the czech farmers fight and leave the good Germans at home, it will only take him a couple of minutes to do so.

 

[unmerged(18036)]

First, I thought too, that it is an error. I am surprised, that Prussia have a big minus in 1861. In real play, beginning in 1836, it shouldn't be possible to reach this strength, or not? Manpower is the part of the population who is be able to be a soldier, or not? Why not an indicator of "100 of possible 155 in arms" (100/155)?

You count the %-parts of all populations-groups and the indicator is the sum of all of them. This pool is need to build up armies and naval forces. Like in real warfare.