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Jan 8, 2003
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i was playing as germany and it was April 1916 and i went to see how many divisions i had, i looked to the top expecting to see Germany with the most divisions but that wasnt to be. Instead i saw USA with 310 divisions. I dont think that the USA should be able to build up like that when there at peace. Is there any way you can fix that?
 
Wasn't there a plan to reduce the manpower of all US provinces by about 90% (round down), and give it back to them by event after war is declared?

Because it doesn't really matter what the AI's priorities are, if it has 50+ manpower a month to spend and all the ICs it could ever want...
 
That is the CORE approach, at least. Limited manpower to democracies at peace, as public opinion would be opposed to great increases in military spending. It also helps the AI keep up in tech research, as it isn't spending half it's IC on creating units that will further limit available IC by requiring supplies.
 
I think even for HoI, thats way too much.
 
StephenT said:
Wasn't there a plan to reduce the manpower of all US provinces by about 90% (round down), and give it back to them by event after war is declared?
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good idea. It will be a pain editing the province file though. :wacko:
 
You could just fire off an event that does it. Then have another that reinstates it.
 
Still one

after i defeated all of the major europe powers and had annexed Japan in 1917, i decided that America would be my next target. so in 1919 i moved almost all of my infantry (310 divisions) to Cuba and landed in Miami and worked my way up from there. On November 23rd 1923 i annexed the United States. even though there had almost 500 divisions the quality of mine were way better. by the end of the American campagine FM Von Hindenburg was Skill level 7 with Experiance at 54.
 
Well, the US Army wasn't that mean of a fighting machine to begin with, AFAIK. Their air was pretty basic when compared to what was going on in Europe, and their knowlegde of the most modern tactics might not be the best if they don't have the other Entente powers to feed them information. IIRC, the AEF used a good deal of french equipment.

That might be a problem, though. If the US AI is denied the manpower to build those 500 divisions, it will get a lot of IC available for research. The doughboys might be superteched by the time the US joins.
 
Tis true that the US used a lot of French equipment. This was for various reasons, however it should be noted that the US did have a superior light machine gun (If I recall it was a Browning of some sort), but the Army chose not to use it because they didn't want the Europeans to know they had such a good weapon....Hmm that could maybe make a good event.
 
Shadow Knight said:
Tis true that the US used a lot of French equipment. This was for various reasons, however it should be noted that the US did have a superior light machine gun (If I recall it was a Browning of some sort), but the Army chose not to use it because they didn't want the Europeans to know they had such a good weapon....Hmm that could maybe make a good event.
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The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)... definetly would make for a good event and maybe even the possiblity of their fears coming true with a "stolen tech" event as a result of the ahistorical choice being made.
 
The United States did use the Browning Automatic Rifle during World War One, but it was not widely used.
 
Just one note.

If the US can build 310 divisions in WWI at any time something must be wrong with the manpower. The problem could stem from the fact that real US divisions were much larger then contemporary European ones (4-7 regiments per division iirc, vs. 3-5 in Europe, not to speak of non combat troops) (except theoretical Belgian and Bulgarian strength iirc). I don't think you have given the US a separate unit model (unique techs) to reflect their huge divisions.

If the US division sizes are indeed the reason, there are two relatively simple fixes I can think of. Consider each historical US division as 2 TGW divisions (a great abstraction) and reflect that in the at start forces as well as the unit name file. Alternatively reduce US provincial manpower by a percentage to be determined (I believe an average TGW division uses some 18 manpower, a historic US would probably be 24-30 manpower, so reduce provincial manpower by a bit more then 1/4th).

In WWII the US had serious trouble to raise the planned ammount of divisions and ended up scrapping the last half or so of them. Iirc something similar happened in WWI (canibalizing late forming divisions to bring those on the front up to strength). So even the historic divisions should be hard to achieve.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: For the rest I agree with peacetime limitations to manpower to avoid huge build ups. Possibly giving a few pre-war increases to simulate growing readiness for war.
 
Caranorn said:
Just one note.

If the US can build 310 divisions in WWI at any time something must be wrong with the manpower. The problem could stem from the fact that real US divisions were much larger then contemporary European ones (4-7 regiments per division iirc, vs. 3-5 in Europe, not to speak of non combat troops) (except theoretical Belgian and Bulgarian strength iirc). I don't think you have given the US a separate unit model (unique techs) to reflect their huge divisions.

If the US division sizes are indeed the reason, there are two relatively simple fixes I can think of. Consider each historical US division as 2 TGW divisions (a great abstraction) and reflect that in the at start forces as well as the unit name file. Alternatively reduce US provincial manpower by a percentage to be determined (I believe an average TGW division uses some 18 manpower, a historic US would probably be 24-30 manpower, so reduce provincial manpower by a bit more then 1/4th).

In WWII the US had serious trouble to raise the planned ammount of divisions and ended up scrapping the last half or so of them. Iirc something similar happened in WWI (canibalizing late forming divisions to bring those on the front up to strength). So even the historic divisions should be hard to achieve.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: For the rest I agree with peacetime limitations to manpower to avoid huge build ups. Possibly giving a few pre-war increases to simulate growing readiness for war.
Click to expand...
The US manpower was calculated using the same formula as everyone else (see manpower thread for details). The provincial manpower of the US states are also calculated as a certain percentage of the total they should receive over ten years (the length of the Jan. 1914~1924 scenario.).

The size of US divisions (in fact the size of all countries) was planned to be tailored through two tech's. One being centered around firepower (i.e. higher IC cost, lower manpower cost, and slightly different stats to the other tech. This is to represent more artillery to compensate for the smaller amount of men in the division. Germany for example would have this tech.) The other is centered around manpower, not that those divisions didn't have artillery, but they had a lot more men for that artillery to support. (This tech was to give infantry slightly different stats, cost less IC, more MP, and take slightly longer to build [maybe 10 to 15 days to represent having to train those extra men]. For exmaple the US and Russia would have this tech.)

Note that not every country would have either one of these doctrines and would start with just the standard infantry division. And to please the StephenT's out there a player could change their doctrine at anytime they so choose to reflect their war plans or resources.

However due to some non-functioning commands in the tech field (IIRC the IC and MP changes to a unit type don't work correctly when modified by a tech.) this has not happened yet. The solution is to have each tech (which would be mutually exclusive of course) create a new infantry unit type (like CORE's late war German arny types). But this just has not been done yet, as far as I know it is still planned, but this is really up to Allenby if this is how he think it is best carried out.
 
Shadow Knight said:
But this just has not been done yet, as far as I know it is still planned, but this is really up to Allenby if this is how he think it is best carried out.
Click to expand...

Your call, Shady - manpower is your bitch :)
 
Allenby said:
Your call, Shady - manpower is your bitch :)
Click to expand...
And what a hoe she is. :)

Seriously though what I would like to see is there be basically three techs.

The first tech would be accesible to everyone (it would be the default for all nations), this tech activates the standard infantry. (Division size/cost is what it is now.)

The second tech is the old Firepower vs. Manpower where divisions have more artillery to compensate for less men in each division. This would activate infantry type II. it would cost extra IC to build (no more than 2, 1 extra would be best I believe), would require less manpower per division (whatever the difference in MP that our standard infantry has versus the typical German/French/British division had), and would have say a +1 to hard attack, and perhaps a +1% to Org.

The third tech would activate infantry type III, nomially called Manpower vs. Firepower, it would be the opposite of the second one in that it would cost the same IC as a standard infantry division, but cost more MP (What the US/Russian divisions size were...28K? So add the difference between type I and type III to the MP cost). This infantry type would also have a slightly longer build time (say 5 to 10 days longer), and have a +2 to soft attack.

Also if one has been researched (or you start with one), the others can be reaserched, but you lose the benefits of the one you have. This allows changes in strategies whether from loss of resources, or to gain in them.

So what do you think?
 
Oh one other thing, after looking at the current tech tree where MP vs. FP & FP vs. MP also alters the Guard divisions, should these techs only affect 'regular infantry divisions' or should they affect others like the Guard divisions also?
 
Seeing as Guard Divisions are composed of elite troops, then I think it would be suitable to ensure that these formations aren't enlarged in the way that US army divisions were, and that the feature is restricted to standard infantry.
 
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