Slitherine

The question has arisen in our PBEM game as to whether manpower is balanced or not.

Borsook feels that France may not have enough. He said he has the production points, but here it is summer of 1806 and he is down to 180 manpower. Russia is running at around 350, and UK at around 150.

France is trying to build a unit every turn, and Russia is certainly capable of building a line infantry every turn. UK has been spending its money on its navy so far, but could build an infantry per turn for a few turns.

I think England and Russia are ok, although horses might be a bit low for Russia (around 80 now, after building two cavs and two horse arty)

What do you think, Johan? Should France be a bit higher?

Possible, need more testing results to be sure. By the way, what does he build for France?
Cavalry and Artillery use less manpower than infantry so it makes sense for France to try using the more expensive unit types.

firepowerjohan wrote:Possible, need more testing results to be sure. By the way, what does he build for France?
Cavalry and Artillery use less manpower than infantry so it makes sense for France to try using the more expensive unit types.

I don't know what Borsook is building, but I will make sure that he sees your comment here

Another point to manpower is, a country with small manpower shoudl use leaders extensively since it provide more firepower without using more manpower. Research should also be more beneficial for France since it does not use manpower and will lead to better combat results.

So all in all, France should try to use cavalry, artillery, research and leaders to provide more firepower.

firepowerjohan wrote:Another point to manpower is, a country with small manpower shoudl use leaders extensively since it provide more firepower without using more manpower. Research should also be more beneficial for France since it does not use manpower and will lead to better combat results.

So all in all, France should try to use cavalry, artillery, research and leaders to provide more firepower.

OK, Borsook is aware of this now.

Up to this point of June 1806, he has built a couple of extra line infantry and another horse artillery. That is not a lot of units, so I would think his manpower should not have much of a dent in it at all.

What is the MAXIMUM level for manpower? (or is there one?)

Not to make Happycat my permanent spokesman, here is my few points about manpower and France:

a) At the moments I am unable to provide detailed figures for this but manpower for France seems too low, not because of demographics (it may be right in this respect) but because of a very high percentage of population willing to fight in the army, which made conscription much easier when compared to other countries of the era.
b)While some "vassals" (Prussia, Austria) proved to be a highly unreliable source of troops, others (the non-present in the game Duchy of Warsaw alone fielded 100 000 troops in 1812, surely a noticible number!) did provide a lot of manpower of quality on par with the French. This is not reflected in the game.
c) There seems to be a cap for manpower, this is highly illogical (people wouldn't stop to breed because of reaching some high number).

While one can go around this problem with proper tactics, it certainly does not give a good Napoleonic feel. IMO the balance was great in CEAW where manpower was a problem but not from day one, here it becomes a concern too early.

Borsook wrote:Not to make Happycat my permanent spokesman, here is my few points about manpower and France:

a) At the moments I am unable to provide detailed figures for this but manpower for France seems too low, not because of demographics (it may be right in this respect) but because of a very high percentage of population willing to fight in the army, which made conscription much easier when compared to other countries of the era.
b)While some "vassals" (Prussia, Austria) proved to be a highly unreliable source of troops, others (the non-present in the game Duchy of Warsaw alone fielded 100 000 troops in 1812, surely a noticible number!) did provide a lot of manpower of quality on par with the French. This is not reflected in the game.
c) There seems to be a cap for manpower, this is highly illogical (people wouldn't stop to breed because of reaching some high number).

While one can go around this problem with proper tactics, it certainly does not give a good Napoleonic feel. IMO the balance was great in CEAW where manpower was a problem but not from day one, here it becomes a concern too early.

And to add to my friend's problems with manpower, it is August 17, 1806, and Prussia and Saxony have just joined the Coalition

just to add to already said on the topic, research in some research fields "off-set" quality and survivavility penalties, so, spending in the right research with the extra production can offset for france the quality or survavility penalties taken by recruiting troops, and another thing, it depends all on how well the allied performs the defense on austria but for my point of view, for the french player must attack and surrender saxony and then deploy to destroy the prussian army on berlin, if you take austria on some around turn 11 you will be able to attack saxony and then prussia, prussia once his army on berlin is destroyed not more is a menace for france, russian troops on koenigsberg can be a menace but is a hard deccision for the russian to deploy on koenigsberg and risk an early battle with the french, i like to play with some extra manpower but find the default scenario value right with realism and history, keeping as france enough manpower is the hard deccision that france and napoleon face in the war, that is, to choose between quality or quantity, the -warfare-merit research starting advantage at level 1 for france too offset to some point or somewhat the starting manpower problems on quality and the good french high leadership generals can do the rest for make a well balanced army, napoleon in most of the war fight deccisive campaigns, each of these campaigns can have make the surrender of france if lost and the game portraits it perfectly, on my oppinion,

just my point of view on a good-outstanding game,

with best regards,

alarick.